Late to this party on the Katz list. But Indiana has beaten Xavier (#30 on Torvik) by 2 and has a victory over a #250 team and five wins over #300+ teams. Relatively skimpy resume so far.
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Banal observation: this team has been really good at winning games during winning time: a little bit during Baylor (stopping their run), a lot during Illinois (in a neutral yet slightly hostile environment **), and even more last night at Michigan (in a hostile environment). Last year, wee were not good at winning games during winning time.
** tangent ā you didnāt think youād get out of this with some of my quibbling, did you? ā how many middle aged fans traveled to the neutral site game is one of the most overanalyzed yet mostly inconsequential things in college hoops.
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This just shows the amount of middle aged alumni that have disposable income to throw out thereā¦ which transitive property shows how successful your alumni have become after getting the coveted degree from said University 20 - 25 years agoā¦ itās the age bracket the tournaments are targeting I think.
Similar to the sports carā¦ the ones that all the college age students and 20-somethings wantā¦ but only the middle aged consumer can afford it. LOL!
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True, but for Illinois, Iād add in: good direct flights, yuge alumni base, and dire need even by mid-November for some vitamin D. 
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This team feels 2015-16ish. Good offense, good but not elite D. We could get upset on the road in conference a couple times like that team, but our offensive upside means we can beat anyone when we are on. Could give us a high ceiling in the NCAAT if the D can improve some.
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I prefer the years where the offense comes out ahead of the defense to start the season, I think that was mostly the case in 2019 (though to be fair we were incredible on both ends that year) and as you said in 2016. IMO that 2016 squad was the 2nd best team of the TB era by March, apologies in advance for bringing it up but had it not been for the collapse against Cuse I really think we had a good shot at winning it all.
Thereās been seasons where the offense never fully came around under Bennett, but the defense always seems to be around the level he wants it to by the time we hit the home stretch of our games. I expect this year to be no different.
Definitely will get better as we go. Our ceiling will still be limited by a long wing lockdown defender, but no doubt we should improve. Hopefully it wonāt come at the cost of offense (which it weirdly seemed to last year).
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Iām cautiously hoping that Dunn can see enough growth during the season to potentially provide that in March. Itās probably too much to expect from him at this stage of his development but the talent is clearly there. In hindsight I do think we couldāve done with a grad transfer wing on this roster to safely fill that need, but canāt complain too much with the results weāve seen so far.
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If we had a grad transfer wing this board would be melting down over how the grad transfer is stealing Dunnās minutes and now Dunnās gonna transfer lol
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Continuing my point on Dunn from the Michigan game thread, I think CTB is handling Dunnās development perfectly. Dunnās played in every game except the season opener against NCC, maybe not a lot of minutes if its a tight game against a tough opponent (3 minutes vs Illinois, 5 minutes vs Michigan, etc), but he always comes in and he gets more time in the blow-outs.
Its what you do with a young player who isnāt there yet, but you see the potential and donāt want him to get hot feet. Dunn sees that the front-court is crowded but CTB is still making an effort to get him in anyway. That builds trust, and Dunn can see the opportunity waiting next year. Its great, and, to call a spade a spade, kind of the opposite of what CTB did with the 3 Ms last year. Edit - Which, to be clear, I suspect was as much or more about them than CTB.
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Itās not called melting down, itās called quibbling, and damn straight I wouldāve done it!
Seriously though, itās a tradeoff, for sure. We made that risk on BVP (w/ Tradut), and the tradeoff has been great, so far. Best case scenario is that we keep bringing Dunn along to play that role a bit more (for like ~15 minutes rather than ~5), but we shall see.
But letās call a spade a spade here: itās been great to have the three 5th years so far, but itās tough for guys like Dunn and i-Mac to displace those guys, and itās pretty much an unprecedented challenge, unless Iām forgetting a major pandemic in the era of big time college hoops.
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Iām not fretting about this, I think thereās a lot of season for McKneely and Dunn to come into their own and by ACCT, theyāll really be able to contribute.
And look at the ACC thus far, weāre gonna have some big wins where they can get extended minutes.
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Was just going to bring this up. Dunn is still very raw so I expect him to only get better but still be a situational contributor.
McKneely on the other hand was expected to be a big contributor and so far heās been all but invisible against good competition. What does everyone make of his play so far and do we think he will try to be more aggressive as the year goes on?
Heās as advertised as a shooter and I believe that he can still be a really valuable piece for us this year but Iām a little taken aback by his passiveness
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I like Dunn and IMac playing and their minutes give them film to watch and improve on. I hope that if they each have 200-250 minutes by March they could be very valuable in stretches in the tournament. I also think the FSU game and JMU game could be great times for them to get a few more mins.
I also think McKneely needs to get in the gym with one of the bigs, one of the PGs, and Dunn. McKneely needs to practice catching and shooting while running off screens and Dunn needs to practice chasing him. That is basically the only thing either of them are being asked to do this year.
Also how lucky we are that neither of them have been massive for us yet but we still are undefeated? It feels like McKneely hitting a few threes in a game will be a bonus and could be one of those surprises that lets us win a game that we thought me might not.
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Everyone please stop calling a spade a spade. Itās just a shovel, dammit.
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Iām withholding judgment. We have faced three really good OOC opponents, two of which called for us to focus on the interior. ACC play starting saturday should provide opportunity for us to light some teams up from 3
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Agreed - we all know he can shoot lights out but Iād like to see him fight for looks more. Heās not firing off screens and his looks against good competition have been when heās left open in the corner.
The three he had against UMES where he got himself open off the dribble and hit a stepback showed the potential.
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I want McKneely to take 6 or more threes against JMU.
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I think if he were on last yearās squad heād have much more of a green light to hunt his shot, but given that our roster this year is pretty stacked with scoring options he doesnāt really need to come in and put up a bunch of 3ās in a hurry. Do I wish heād be less tentative on the perimeter? Absolutely, and weāre gonna need him to at least provide a threat offensively against quality opponents in the postseason. But as for right now I think he just needs to keep grinding on defense and have the game slow down for him a bit.
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My disappointment with McNeely is that he doesnāt seem to have the swagger of a guy who thinks he belongs. He does not run off the screens very tightly at all. IOW, he doesnāt seem to be hunting the ball, just going through the motions. He mostly just passes it to the closest guy.
A guy who seems hesitant may be so for good reason or because he is a newcomer. Hopefully, it is the latter. But, I am concerned now more that earlier about whether he will be able to contribute much if we get a situation where we need him.
BTW, I had heard he had a good handle, maybe good enough to take minutes at PG if needed. He seems to be playing like a guy who expects bad things to happen if he takes more than a few dribbles.
I know this sounds harsh and I hope itās just a ānew guyā thing.
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