Good afternoon, folks, and welcome to an emergency podcast on the Back Home Network. I'm Galen Clavio from Crimson Cast and joined by Tony Adrani from the IU Film Room. And we are here. We couldn't launch last night because it was too late by the time we got the news. But two new IU basketball commits in the stable for the Indiana men's basketball team. Tony, exciting times all around as the roster slowly starting to take shape. Thank you for jumping in in the middle of the day.
How you doing today? I'm doing well. Always a pleasure coming here on Crimson Cast. I don't know if I've ever been on a Crimson Cast Emergency podcast so this is new for me. Just checking off stuff on the bingo card right now, right? It's amazing. If you would like to chime in, we do have our YouTube comments section open and TJ already in there noting finally got a point guard. We're going to talk about that. We got some video clips we're going to play here shortly as we
talk through. Tony's been doing an amazing job of going through looking at these players. We've had some advance notice, Tony, on some of these guys, and it's been nice because it's giving you plenty of time to gather footage and do some analysis. This is where kind of the underground world of college portal recruiting is coming in handy, right? Certainly. So, yeah. The only thing that stinks is when I get a little Intel, I do all this film dive on somebody and then they don't commit.
That one's no fun. It's one of those things where you you can't control it, but it's just it's a deal. You got to deal with the deal or whatever. The main thing has to be the main thing, as Kurt Signetti would say on all of this. And let's go ahead and dive in though and talk through the we're going to talk through both of the commits from yesterday and then talk in general about what's going on in in IU basketball from a roster
perspective. But first, just a reminder were brought to you by home field apparel, your place to go for the finest in college fashions, the softest fabrics, the coolest designs. Folks, if you did not go get an order in yet for the baseball collection that they just dropped, go check it out right now. They they may be out of stock already, but they've got a great IU baseball collection and I don't. Did you get a chance to look at this yet, Tony? Yeah, it's magnificent. It's wild.
It's wildly good. The the the Diamond series, I believe is what they're calling this one. And it's just a little bit of everything. You've got a a wonderful pullover. You've got a great IU hat. I know a lot of people like myself are, are always on the look for for good IU hats because they're not always the easiest to find. And then you've got a bag as well.
And actually I'm going to just pull the ballpark bundle up here real quick so everybody can take a look at it as it is definitely worth checking out over on home field apparel.com. You can see it right here. Look at that. That is that is just a kind of stellar looking pullover. You get a bag with that, you get the hat 156 bucks. If you use the code home 23, you can get 15% off your first order
with home field. So head on over to home field apparel.com and check out their full selection of IU gear. You'll be glad you did tell them we sent you. We're not brought to you by the pop Tarts bowl, but I am wearing my pop Tarts bowl quarter zip that I ordered four months ago and then it just appeared out of the blue. I'm not sure where that man maybe tariffs a couple podcasts. In a row now you've mentioned these tariffs. It's a it's tariff month. What can I say?
No tariffs on IU portal recruiting though, as a Indiana importing players from all over the country. And we wanted to go ahead and dive in and talk about both of those guys. First of all, let's talk about the player that we heard about first. And this is a guy whose name has been floating around quite a bit and that's taking Conner way point guard, kind of a a non traditional stats line to some degree. Tony, I'm going to try to play some video here.
I want to see if it'll so that we're we're I'm going to have to do a little bit of surgery on this real quick, but I've got some highlights that I'll play. But I wanted you to talk first about Conner way first and and what he brings to the table for IU as a point guard or as a guy that you could see is potentially a starter. Yeah, I mean, he's he's exactly
the mold. I think that fits Darren debris system and you know, maybe not as good of a shooter, but has a nice big strong frame, very, very good defensively. I think he had the third highest steel rate in the country last season and then just distributes the ball, you know, assist rate very high, I believe somewhere around 35.6 or something like that. I mean, great assist rate, great steal rate, doesn't shoot the ball particularly well from the
outside. Now when I was looking at some of the film too on Connor way, you know, as you can see pulled up here, he was 37 of 134 last year from the three-point line. And, you know, you might see that and go, you know, that that reminds me of yesteryear. Well, the next thing I would say is look at everybody else's percentages as you go down that list. But also, you know, he took a lot of tough shots. Troy didn't have a great offense and he still was able to get to the rim quite a bit.
I think he averaged like 15 points per game or somewhere in that realm. And like I said, just gets to the hole very, very well, uses that big strong frame that he's got. But then when he gets to there, you know, he really has a good IQ about him. Gets the ball to the right people in the right spots, which obviously translates to him having a high assist rate, but, you know, just a good decision maker.
And that's who you want at your point guard, a guy that that, you know, leads the charge on both ends of the floor. And that's really, I think what attracted Darren Devries to Connor way is that he plays both sides and he plays extremely hard. And that's like, you know, in the press conferences and everything that you heard about Devries and his teams, it like fits that mold of of dudes that
are going to play hard. They're gritty, they grind or whatever you want to, you know, whatever buzzword want to use. That's Connor way. And so you know, he was Sunbelt Player of the year, which which was fantastic. And, you know, I'm excited to see him kind of lead the charge for IU on both ends of the floor. Yeah, I mean, what sticks out it's it's wild to have a assist to turnover rate of almost 2 to one, but still have a 20%
turnover rate. Like, like his assists were off the charts for for Troy this last year. And you know, really, you know, the the other thing that you noted like the steals percentage and this idea of this is a player who's clearly taking on ball defense very, very seriously, not necessarily something that has been a hallmark of IU over the course of the last couple of years. They've been kind of low on the turnover percentage market.
Wasn't a key part of what what Mike Woodson wanted to do defensively, but especially at the point of attack, You, you want somebody who can really disrupt the opposing teams ball handlers. You want someone that can get in
the passing lanes quickly. This guy just looks like a dog, you know, with, with an AW. This guy looks like someone who works hard, athletic all over the place, and really can cover a lot of ground the way that maybe some of the IU point guards of the recent past haven't quite been able to. Yeah, I mean, he got pretty good length from point guard 2 at six three, you know, and I was looking back even at some of his JUCO stats, his his yeah, he's moving.
He shot around like 35% from the three-point line. So he does have that in him to to shoot at a little bit of a higher percentage. And he's just not going to be asked to carry the load like he was at Troy either. You know, when you you think of who else will be on the offensive end with him, he's going to have driving lanes opened up because he's going to have shooters all over the
floor. So he's going to have straight line driving opportunities and then be able to knock down an open shot right when when the ball swung to you. And so, yeah, so I'm excited to see kind of how that plays out. But yeah, you noted like just just very much a guy that Indiana hasn't necessarily seen leading the charge at the point guard position in quite some time. Kenneth noted in the comments, Conway's film reminds me of
Hepburn's gameplay. Miles highlights of his driving lane reminding me of Milos Uzon. There was another comment, it was a question, it was a couple of questions. So Greg asked if there was a Boo booey comp potentially with Conway. There was another question which is a little more pertinent to Darren Devries. How does Conway compared to Javon Smalls, who of course was the the lead guard for debris at West Virginia last year? Do you see any comparisons between either of those guys?
I think defensively certainly, you know, guy that's going to get after it and be that point of attack, you know, head of the snake if you will. But you know, offensively Javon Small was a little bit more finesse and athletic and could shoot the ball a little bit better, whereas Conner Way, he really has like an old man game to him. You know, he's he's not going to wow you with his athleticism or
his quickness. It's just like he understands how to get the spots, understands change of pace, change of direction. So, you know, there's a little bit of a comparison there. But you know, ultimately, like there's not a lot of dudes like Conner way because you know, shootings at such a high premium these days.
I think it's probably why you saw, you know, some of the big dogs maybe not going after Connerway as much as Indiana really wanted them, but a lot of these other teams don't have multiple high volume, high percentage 3 point shooters on the floor either. That's going to open things up where Connerway can kind of soar with the strength. Yeah, that it's one of the things that I've been trying to counsel people on on the show. It's like this is not what I I
think I use the whole food. Like you're shopping in the Whole Foods produce section or the meat section. You got to know what you're making for dinner if you're a coach. Like you can't just go out and grab the most expensive stuff off the shelves to go. Because if you end up with like 3 lbs of Wagyu beef and 6 lbs of lobster, you got a lot of meat, but you don't have anything to like flesh the meal out. Like Indiana's got shooters. They've got Tucker debris, they've got Lamar Wilkerson.
They needed a distributor. And I think everybody knew Connor Enright was going to be an important piece, but not the starting piece. He he probably could do that in a pinch. He might rise to the occasion, but you want to have a guy with more minutes. And this is this is that part of the ingredient list? Like you need someone who can go out, who can distribute the basketball effectively, who can, you know, get after it on defense, can shoot when they drive.
And I think that's the other thing with him. It's like you. The whole idea of spacing, as you've talked about many times, isn't just spacing for the sake of getting shooters out there. It's to open up the lane. And you, if you're opening up the lane, you need someone who can take advantage of the fact that they're one-on-one with a defender that can't handle them. That seems like exactly what this particular player can provide to IU, given the rest of
the offense. Absolutely, and and that's what's exciting about it, right, because Indiana just hasn't had that really since, you know, the Tom Crean era and guys that are just able to space the floor and you just see a fun dynamic offense that the ball's moving, it's popping, guys are attacking close outs, those types of things. Like that's obviously what Connerway is going to be tasked with doing is getting Indiana into that offense.
You know, they debris talked about that 12 seconds or less. So he's going to be pushing the pace. But then you mentioned in right too, like Conner, Wayne Enright can share the floor together too. If you want to play a little bit of a different style, you want to have multiple ball handlers on the floor with some shooters, you want to go a little bit more small balls.
So like that's what's nice too. As you see this roster start to build out, as you see guys that are kind of multi positional or could play a couple different spots, you know, if you get in foul trouble or injuries or whatever may happen is like there's guys on this team now that they can kind of fill
multiple roles. And Conway is one of those like you, you primarily want him on the ball probably, but you can move him off the ball if you want to get, you know, if you want to have an in right run the offense or you want Wilkerson to kind of initiate actions or run debris is kind of a point
forward type of action. Like Conorway can still play off the ball and he's a threat, not necessarily from deep, but he's a threat that he's once he has the ball, he's going to make good decisions with it and defenses still have to respect that. Yeah, absolutely. So you know, you think about that combination like if Indiana's actually got their one, their two and their three now set between Conner Way, Wilkerson and Debris, that's a
great starting point. And and you're talking about, what, two of the top 10 three-point shooters in the Portal? Maybe two of the top five? You know, it's hard to say. Totally. Depends on how you look at it. And then you've now got a guy who who does a lot of the things you need. One of the things I'm struck with, and we're going to go back and look at this here in a minute, but I'm curious your
thoughts on this. If you go and look at that, that that sheet that I put up earlier on, I'll call this back up. I'm going to come back to this a couple of times, folks. One of the things I'm noticing with almost everybody that's being brought in, they're all incredibly high minutes, people at their old institutions. Like you look at Tatan Connerway, 300 and 85th in the country in minutes played last year, Wilkerson was 47th in the country in minutes played.
Reed Bailey was 116th. Josiah Miles was 200 and 92nd. Luke Goody was 89th, obviously. Sorry, that was his offensive rating. My mistake. But even someone like Tucker Devries, he didn't play that much last year, but the year before it, Drake, he was 146 in the country in minutes. What do you take from that? I mean, these are a lot of high usage guys, high minutes guys. You don't normally see all of those players coming together on a team. What is the thought process here
if you're Darren Devries? Well, I think what it showcases more than anything, first and foremost is that Debris has a plan and he's good at selling it because it's not easy to sell. I mean, granted, it's a little bit easier now because you there's money involved, right? So selling a less role for more amount of money does make that blow a little bit easier to
withstand. But still you have to you have to sell a vision and a plan for guys that are like you said, have been high usage, high minutes. And what does that mean for them? And how do you do that in your recruiting pitch to say, Hey, we've got XY and Z coming in? Because those are the questions the agents and the players are asking, right? Like, hey, you've got so and so coming in and so and so coming in, like, how do I fit into this?
And so for me, I think it's, it's awesome that that the breeze is selling this and it's, it's resonating, right? Because obviously all these guys aren't going to be able to play all those minutes. And so to me, that's the first thing that that gives me some confidence as an IU fan is like, look, there's there's a lot of guys that have played a lot of college basketball too, Like, and it's not like this is the first time they played a lot of minutes.
Like a lot of these are three and four year guys that have played high minutes the duration of their college basketball careers. And so now you're selling. Yeah, a little bit of a lesser role, but sometimes that's a good thing. Like, you know, when you're selling that you're like, remember how you felt in February and your legs felt like they had LED in them? Like, you know, we can we can mitigate that by having you play 6 less minutes a game. And we're going to be fresh for
that March run. We're going to go on because or we're going to be playing into April and we need you fresh. So there's a lot of good things involved with that. But then when your debris, yeah, when you're trying to figure out, all right, how do all these pieces fit together? I think it it goes back to what I said earlier. And like there's guys that are multifaceted, can play multiple positions and really that allows you to adapt to the opponent
game to game. Like, you know, you could say like this guy's going to play 20 minutes per game, but that might mean 30 against one opponent and 10 against another, right? And so to me, that's the nice thing is that you've got a lot of versatility in your lineups and you can kind of adapt them to to who your opponent is or just who's playing well that night. I know that's somewhat of a foreign concept as well around here of like, hey, ride the hot
hand a little bit, right? And so you you have the opportunities to do things like that. And so as an IU fan, I think that's exciting. Yeah, it it certainly is. Let's jump to the other player that signed yesterday. This was actually the first of the two players that signed or announced, I guess that he was going to be coming to IU, had the graphic and everything.
And that is Josiah Miles, who, if you look at this chart that I've got up, is IS6662O5, an unusual player in that he's a sophomore according to eligibility and numbers that don't jump off the page quite as much in terms of shooting except for volume. Shot 224 threes last year, hit 33%, shot 162 two pointers, hit 56%. Was in the top 300 in defensive rebounding percentage and that was with a ton of minutes played. You did a deep dive video wise into Josiah Miles.
What do you see out of this player and how does he fit into this tapestry? Yeah, again, just a lot of length, young in, you know, relatively speaking for this roster especially, but young but also has a lot of experience, you know, played, has played a lot of college basketball. I think he played in, what, almost 60 games now as a college basketball player. So yeah, it has a lot of length to them, can get shots up, and you're certainly going to see
that volume go down for him. And with volume going down, typically you're going to see percentages going up, and that's what Indiana's going to need him to be. He's a good straight line driver, really does. He favors his right hand a lot, but he still figures out a way to get to the hoop. What I really like about him is when he gets to the hoop, he plays off 2 feet, and that's a big J right thing that he talks about is playing off 2 feet.
You have more control. You still have both pivot feet that you can use things like that and and Miles is very good at that. And then, you know, defensively he's got some length to him, you know, can guard multiple positions, which is nice, which is Indiana's going to need, you
know, and you can just adapt. So for him, yeah, like you said, not not like a hyper efficient player, not somebody that's just going to jump off the page at you when you're looking at him and like transfer port, transfer portal rankings and stuff. But to me, that gives me a little bit of comfort too, because it's like Debris isn't just going after the big fish. He's going after guys that he thinks fit whatever he's trying
to accomplish, right? And so that's what I like about this pickup in particular is like, look, Indiana identified him. I don't think he was on anybody's radar. That's like a fan until Monday. It was announced like, hey, this guy's visiting tomorrow and by Wednesday he's got a recruitment locked up. So that's kind of a cool thing too with with this regime is like they really seem to be kind of operating stealthily.
And, and you know, like I said, nobody really knew this was coming until it basically happened. And so I like it. I think it's a good pick up. You got a guy with with multiple years to to kind of grow and, and have some continuity, hopefully moving forward in the years following this. So, you know, and at the end of the day, like a dude that averaged 15 points per game as a college basketball player, nothing to shake a leaf at.
No. And you know, I was a little bit like, OK, how does this player fit? Like where you know, 'cause you look at the the efficiency numbers by themselves and they don't, like I said, they don't exactly jump off the page. And North Florida was not that great of a team last year, but I was really struck with Miles in particular by how important he was to their offense down the stretch of this season. I mean, if you go back to last year, starting on December 1st, he only had one game.
The entire rest of the season where he scored in single figures, you know, every other game was he was a double figure scorer and and you know, he had he had a 22 point game, he had a another 22 point game, a 20 point game, a bunch of games he scored 18. So you know the the idea you've got this guy who can come in. He can he's certainly not afraid to shoot the three, but he can also drive.
He can also rebound. This strikes me as one of those almost like that's kind of like Will Sheehy's role on that 20/12/2013 team. Like a Swiss army knife. A guy you're not expecting to start, but if you can get 18 to 24 minutes out of him, maybe more on certain nights, less on others. You absolutely need that type of a player, especially one that could potentially play 3
different positions for you. Yeah, You know, what's cool about him too is you dive into the numbers a little bit deeper and from a spot up perspective where he's just catching and shooting, you know, an effective field goal percentage of 58.3%. And that's more the role that Indiana will need him to play is be a spot up shooter, knock him down when you're open and then, you know, in in ball screens. He was in the 80th percentile when he had the ball on his hands and receiving ball screen.
So again, you let when you put these pieces together, it allows them to sort their strengths a bit more. You know, you're not relying on a guy like Miles to go ISO somebody every time down the floor where he may have had to do it North Florida as well. And then what we haven't even touched on yet is that he's a really good rebounder, you know, and and that's something that's going to be integral for Darren
Devries program. And especially, let's say Reed Bailey does end up being their center and, and the guy that they utilize moving forward kind of as their their number 15. You're going to need help rebounding the basketball from your your wings and your guards. And so when you accumulate guys like Miles who go rebound the basketball well from kind of a wing spot, you know that that certainly aids the fact of, you know, if you've got a little bit more of an undersized team.
I'd like to thank we have 21188 people watching us right now between YouTube and and Twitter. So salute to all you folks for skipping work and coming out and watching what's going on. And we've actually got Ryan Phillips who it looks like is, has joined us here from the West Coast. Ryan, I guess the request for some time off work. Actually it worked this time, right?
Yeah, just a little bit a couple minutes to celebrate Commitment Day. Yeah, I've been I've been listening a long guys and and Tony, you do such a great job of of breaking these guys down in their fits and everything. But the one thing that has stood out to me is this seems going to shoot a lot like whether or not, you know, the guys have high percentage or not, they're not afraid to shoot it. And the other thing that I've noticed is if they don't shoot
threes, they shoot at the rim. And I think this program has banished the long 2 from its from its playbook, which thank you God, but but you know, you can kind of see the philosophy coming together with the people they're getting in. And I think that one thing that's, you know, the type of player you get in the portal in your first year may not be representative of what you're going to search for in recruiting and stuff going forward.
It's you're getting you're you're picking from what you've got. And so he may not be the perfect player, but what they're going after guys who a have had success at the college level, they're not banking on talent, they're banking on production. And and you know, and obviously you're picking guys, you think you can translate that production. Wait, production over potential? Where have I heard that before? But it's, you know, it's it's
very obvious. And the guys they've picked, I mean, they have gone after and I'm sure that they're guys they haven't, you know, they've wanted or, or, or and and haven't gotten. But the the guys they're taking have produced at the college level. And it's, you know, that's kind of what everyone was begging for in a head coach, as well as somebody who had produced at the college level. And and you got that with the reason now you're starting to see that come together with the
roster so far. For those who are watching live on video, we're playing some highlights. I finally figured out the audio issues. So we're we're watching some Josiah Miles move into the rim right now. And Tony, this kind of opens up the larger question now that you know, let's talk about the fit with Wilkerson, with Bailey, with Enright, with some of these other players possibilities still of Luke Goody coming back and you've obviously got Trent Sizzly coming in.
There will be other signings. So I guess maybe first with what we know that IU has, like where do you see the synergy working out the best? Ryan kind of pointed out like the shooting locations, you know, but what else about this particular combination of players from the film you've seen? We're we're watching some some Conner way stuff now from Troy and and you can see just he's got an interesting body. Like I'm just noticing this now
that I'm watching this. He reminds me of this will sound weird, but like the archetype of the guard that plays for Arkansas, whatever era, like kind of slightly stocky in that like you can't blow him over with a strong breeze. There's a lot of physicality there. A guy you don't want to get in front as you see of as they drive to the rim because you're probably going to end up on your
butt. This is not an A physical archetype of a player that I think I've seen in Indiana in a long time and that I find exciting, especially in light of there was a comment we had earlier on in the chat that I thought was worth bringing up from Tony. You know, the other thought I have with these players that remind me of any player you see when you watch an SEC game. A player that's athletic, can score, can shoot and play modern basketball. What, what are your thoughts on
that, Tony? Yeah, I think that's the exciting part, right? Is like these look like guys you see playing deep into March or team, you know, those teams you see playing deep into March, dynamic guard play can can shoot the basketball, distribute the basketball. You know, all of the things that we we just watched. You know, I'm not trying to say that this team that Debris's assembling is a final 4 caliber team or anything of that sort.
But what I'm saying is that he's he understands that, you know, the the way that Indiana's played basketball the past eight seasons, really, I mean, really even 9 in Crean's last year isn't how modern basketball and teams win these days. And, you know, we're watching Wilkerson right now just
absolutely fire 3 after three. I posted a video on Twitter an hour or two ago that was all seven of the players that we know are playing next season hitting 3, some of them very deep threes and just said, you know, projecting some rain at Assembly Hall next next season. Don't, don't show this video to Jared Morris, by the way. He'll need a moment. He'll have to step. Down I'm I'm guessing there's a few in the 2000 here Harborough. 'S in a hot towel. I mean, yeah. Yeah, seriously.
No, give the man. Ryan I think the thing that strikes me about Wilkerson and and it's the same thing with Debris's footage, how quick the release is on these shots, which again, it's felt like even the best IU shooters have had a a somewhat laborious delivery system to get the ball to the basket. You know what it is, honestly, Galen, is confidence. It's you're not thinking about it. You're open, you catch the ball, you shoot it and and that's something that Indiana has not
had since the green era. Really. I mean, they haven't had, I mean, you know, one or two here or there, but not consistently guys who just don't have a conscience. And if they're open, they're confident they can shoot it and they just they go. And you would see that from time to time. Like early this season, you saw with Mackenzie and Baca, if he got a ball in the three-point, you know, and at the three-point line, he was open, he would just fire.
But that didn't last all season, you know, and and I think that just the confidence of being able to take those shots and it's contagious. You know, if everybody else is shooting threes, you're going to also, if you're open, take it and not question it. And I think that those kind of things build like a momentum within the team to build that confidence for shooting. And it's just been somebody that's been absent the program for a long time and almost a
decade now. And that's that's scary when that's the way basketball is moving and has it's not moving. It has moved. Yeah. And and and Indiana was just lagging behind. And it's really is that simple. It's just knowing that if you take a three, you are you are at the advantage because it's three points versus 2. And if you can make them and you have the confidence in making them, you're actually do it. Even a miss, if you're confident in shooting it, that you're
going to come back and make one. I mean, how many times do we see an IU guy miss the first in a game and then not take any more the rest of the game? It happened all the time. And these guys, again, This is why proving it previously is so important. These guys have done this in college, you know, and, and the numbers barred out, it's not just they aren't just high percentages, they're making a solid number per game and shooting a solid number per game. So it's not just in theory, they
can make a lot. They have made a lot. And the three-point line is the same distance in every gym, every college gym in America, you can do it. And so now obviously they got to figure out the big man situation and what they're doing there. But the perimeter archetype they're building right now, I say let me one thing that's have
limited time. There's one thing I want to say about this too, is what you are proving here is you're taking guys and showing the next group that may come in what you are doing. So you get a guy who shoots a lot of threes. You run plays for him. That way when you're recruiting a shooter, you can put on the film and say, we're putting you there, but we're going to make you better. You're going to be better than
that. You're going to take a point guard who distributes a lot and you're going to say, look, there's our guy. There's, you know, Enright or Connerway, like distributing, playing defense. That's what we're going to do with you. But we're going to make you better than that. And, you know, you know, enhancing those skills going to get you to the NBA. That's what you're doing here is not just building your team for next year.
We're building the archetype for the future that you can then show to people you want to bring in. And that's something I think that the Woodson era was really bad at doing. And there's a reason why certain guys who are really interested in coming to Indiana did not wind up in Indiana because they couldn't show them this is how you fit. This is what we want.
This is what we need already. Darren Devries is doing that and building a very building a very specific brand and type of basketball he wants to play that he can then sell on top of that. Yeah. Not only that, too, the other programs recruiting those players could actually show how they wouldn't be used effectively. And that was the negative recruiting aspect that that was really, really haunting Indiana under the, you know, the last
two regimes. I'm not just giving it to Mike Woodson. Artie Miller was the same way. Yeah. Yeah, it's, it's been so hard for IU coaches to overcome the lack of effective offensive tape to show players because look, you, you need players who are going to buy in on defense. But this era, you have to have guys that can either shoot or score or distribute. Like if you can't do any of those.
And I feel like Indiana's had their fair share of guys who had to have other people help them get their offense to be able. I think this is where that the Darren Debris is higher. It's why I think all of us were as optimistic as we were about it because this is not a guy who has to go in with no film of his prior coaching stops. Like he can just point them to what he did at Drake. He can point them to what they did at the beginning of the year at West Virginia.
And that's going to go a long way for guys. And as we were talking about on Crimson Cast last night, I love the strategy that that is being employed right now where it's mostly older players. I know we've had some folks that have said, hey, shouldn't we be getting some players for the future? Like I'm, I'm, I'm uncomfortable with how old this team is looking.
I would argue at this point, Ryan, like you're foolish if you're not and expecting 70 percent, 60% of your roster to turn over every year and have to go back into the portal, at least until you can get your recruiting up and running. And that's going to take a couple of years. And I think a lot more success like the Indiana brand. It's not toxic right now, but it's just another program in the
eyes of a lot of players. You look at the successes that some of the top teams have had in pulling in your high level high school recruits. They're doing that because of the successes they've built off the course of the last few years. Yeah, you've got to build those pipelines that's not there yet. This is a really smart way of assembling a roster that really needs some success early on, not just for recruiting, but for establishing the connection with
the fans that everybody needs. Yeah. And I think, look, do you need to add some younger players to this roster? Yes, absolutely, because you need continuity from year to year somewhere. It doesn't have to be the whole roster. It doesn't have to be 80% of the roster, but there needs to be some kind of carry over continuity so that you can get guys, you know, the coach can. He shows up for this show, but
not ours. It's. But we've got we've got a Crimson cast emergency pod with Tony who's never been on one and two assembly call guys after I just hosted an assembly call emergency pod with no assembly call guys. This is we're in like back home. True network. We're an amoeba. Guys and also Galens wearing a pop Tarts bullshit. So that's somehow factors in. Factors in. Yeah, but what I was going to say is, you know, there's one thing like coaching continuity is great because you're teaching
the same system. You're teaching all that stuff, but player having guys on the court who know the system, teaching it to their teammates is just is almost as important because there's some level of comfort. So I do think there needs to be some level of carryover from year to year. But yes, in your first year, you should expect him because also the pressure to win year to year in the NIL era is so high, you're going to need veterans.
Does that mean that I think they shouldn't go after some high school guys that have shaken loose from the tree? No, I absolutely think they should. Or if there are transfers that are, you know, just finished their freshman year, sophomore year and maybe can be backups to start, you know, at at Indiana, yes, I think they should do that. But at the same time, your main chunk of roster in a first year of a new coach, if you've got the money to do it, are going to be veterans.
Jared Morris, our our founding father and host of Assembly call joining us here in the middle of the day. Good to have you on Jared. I, I said earlier after the montage that we showed from the, the various sightings, you were going to need a, a cigarette and a hot towel after viewing it.
I, I mean, what are your, what's your, what's your overall feeling right now with the two commits yesterday, the Wilkerson commit before and just the assemblage of talent that is coming together right now in Bloomington? You know, you posted in the discord the screenshots of the Kenpom pages for these players and just looking at the amount of three-point attempts. There we go. Yeah, from, from some of these guys.
Like I wasn't aware that people could take that many 3 pointers and I'm I'm not sure that I, I, I am still, I'm not sure I'll believe it until I see it. Well.
You know, but there was that great stat that Jared Kelly from pigs.com tweeted out yesterday, which I'll, I'm finding here real quick that said the, the, and that this was I believe before the, the Conner Way signing, but Indiana never made more than 211 three pointers in a single season under either Archie Miller or Mike Woodson. Indiana's 5 transfer commits at that point had made 256 total last year. And that was with Tucker Devries only playing eight games.
It's insane. It is apparently possible, Jared. Who knew, right? Well, I'm. Yeah, it's, it's amazing. It's true. Here, here's here's what I think is, you know, the obvious caveats are this, right? There's a lot of guys that are going to be transferring up a level and you never quite know how that's going to work out. You know what I think you look at the roster how it is right now, there's pretty, you know, clear glaring need for some rim
protection, some rebounding. So like it's not like everything is is perfect, right? But I think at the at an absolute minimum, you can say with the pieces that they're bringing in, this offense is going to look totally different and in ways that we've been wanting. So whether you're optimistic or not, you should absolutely be interested and intrigued. Like at the bare minimum of what the offense is going to look like.
What I am really encouraged by is what appears to be the vision for how Darren Devries wants to build a team and how he wants to run an offense. You know, with just the the guys that they have in terms of their skill level, how some of the pieces fit together. I mean, to me, a guy like Conner Way is just a perfect compliment when you have Wilkerson and
Devries as your other wings. And especially then like if you get a guy like Goody or someone else, you can make threes, play in the four again, you're probably going to give up something defensively and from a rebounding perspective, but I don't know how you guard that. And and I mean, we haven't really seen it. So I'm actually not sure how you run it as an offense and I'm very intrigued to see so. So that's what I would say is there's still work to be done.
There's still questions about how all these guys are going to come up to the next level. Like, I get all that, yadda, yadda. But man, I am just really intrigued, more so than I have felt in a long time about what this is going to look like when those guys are on the court. And that to me is just a great feeling to have rather than, OK, it's going to be the same thing, but maybe it'll be better.
It's like this is a paradigm shift for how we're running the program that we've really, really needed. And you can see it clearly by the kind of guys they're targeting and how they're going to fit together. Tony, we've heard in the chat and Jared mentioned it as well that the need for a, a some size. How does this play? I mean, you got to Reed Bailey. I mean, are you, where, where do you anticipate Bailey starting?
Because I'm anticipating if they're going to play the four out style that we've seen the you're not going to have a traditional big all the time necessarily on the floor and maybe not even starting. But how do you see all of this fitting together? And and where do you think they need to look in terms of the type of, of physicality and size
that they might try to pick up? Yeah, I think what's important to know is that, you know, last year Debris used Imani Hansbury 6-8 at Center for a large portion of the season. And so he's not, I guess he's not just going to play a big because they're a big like he's going to. He's got a style that he wants to play, a system he wants to play. Now, will he take A7 footer that can step out and knock down some shots and is a good rebounder, rim protector? Absolutely.
Of course he wouldn't. But with that said, they obviously need another big because you're going to need some depth there, especially when you're playing the big 10. I anticipate them trying to get somebody that's got some more athleticism to them, can protect the rim and can rebound pretty well too, because you're in the big 10.
Like I don't think you should build your roster to win the big 10 necessarily, but you still have to be able to compete there to get yourself into the tournament, right. So I'd anticipate some some rim protection, you know, maybe somebody with a little weight on them as well, just to to be able to guard some of these, you know, 7 footers and and bigger teams that that play in the big 10.
But I personally, I think obviously as it stands right now, Reid Bailey's the starting 5, but I wouldn't be shocked if that is how this plays out where that's kind of your guy that that starts and you know, maybe he's 20 minutes per game or so and you've got another five that plays 20 minutes per game. But it's really funny even having this conversation now, like where's Indiana going to get bigs? Like, you know, that's, that's been Our Calling card for for
several years now. So the fact that you know, Indiana's kind of guard heavy right now, it's a nice change of pace, but it has people a little on edge. Now they're like, wait, where's where's the big guys like it? It's going to be a completely new style place. There's. Like a 12 step program. Ryan. Wean ourselves off of big man,
correct? Yeah. And and I think that also you have to wean yourself off of transfer rankings because as you as you guys mentioned before I came on, they're not building talent, they're building a team. And, and I think that like you, it's, it's not about their star ranking, although, you know, over time, you see high school recruiting rankings, the teams that get the best players wind up in the Final four. I mean, typically.
And then there's teams that defy that, you know, occasionally, but in general, teams that are consistently in the Final four are do get the best players. But in the transfer portal, you're playing for next year a lot of the time in the transfer portal. And So what you're trying to do is put the pieces together that work. And it's more important to get a lower tier guy who fits with the other four guys on the court than it is to get a higher tier guy that the puzzle piece doesn't fit.
You've got to cut some edges off it and jam it in in the into place. I mean, that is what's important is the team, not the player. And so getting guys who work together is what matters, not where they rank on 24/7, you know, transfer rankings. And yet, Jared, they're putting together a team that looks on paper like it fits really well together and is pretty highly ranked in the Transfer Porto rank. So it's like they're getting through with Worlds to some degree.
No, absolutely, absolutely. And and the other thing I will say, you know, I do have some questions about how this is going to work defensively, but I would rather come out of an offseason having questions defensively than offensively because I think we've spent eight years for the most part, it feels like kind of recruiting to a defensive system and then trying to fit those pieces in offensively.
And so it appears that that is kind of going in the opposite direction now, which is fine for me. You know, I, I, I, I would rather us build that way. And, you know, if you're going to, you know, maybe have a little bit of a hole in rim protection, then, you know, Tony, what do you need to combat that?
You've got to have a great point of attack defender, which I think Conner way is. You want to have size on the perimeter, which we do. And I, I don't know how good Wilkerson and, and those guys are defensively, but they're at least they at least have size. They're at least long and they used to have at least have moderate steel rates. So at least if you're going to be disruptive on the perimeter, that can kind of help you compensate for some of that
other stuff. And we'll have to see, you know who else they bring in. But I am absolutely fine if the pieces seem to fit together more offensively than defensively. Let's figure out the other stuff because I feel like it's easier for a coach to fit that in and develop that than if you're trying to just like mask severe offensive deficiencies all season long. Well, I mean, it, it, it takes
out having to play slow. You might still play slow, but it takes out having to play slow because of the, the way that you can spread the floor offensively and get guys into position and, and come down the floor. And now you've got a guy who can handle the ball and get into the right position. But it's also exciting, Tony, you know, on the offensive side, you've got multiple distributors.
Reed Bailey, when he's out there is almost like a point forward to some degree defensively, I, I also wonder how does this fit together? But I'll, I'll note that in the last three years of Darren Devries's time as a head coach, his teams have finished 40th, 73rd and 15th in Kenpom defensive efficiency. That really bodes well, given that he clearly has kind of unlocked something in his own coaching that makes them more defensively efficient.
If they can figure out how to harness this group and get them to play both ways. I think, you know, especially with the steals, like it's going to be a different type of defense than we're used to, one that isn't necessarily predicated just on lowering the opponent's shooting.
This may be a team that's really focused on generating turnovers, may be really focused on trying to grab offensive rebounds and then push the ball down the floor or I guess defensive rebounds, keep them off the offensive boards. That's going to be really intriguing. And we have some great transition 3 point shooters too, which helps you maximize if you're going to do that. Sorry, I think I interrupted you. Tony, you can shoot the reason transition that's.
You're allowed to. That's a rule apparently, is that you are allowed to. You have to wait for the rest of the team to get to the defensive team to get down the court. You can just go. Yeah, I mean on the defensive front, like what are you, what are you seeing here? Yeah, I mean, it's, I've said this on a few different shows and podcasts, but you know, it's kind of a cuss word cuz they do use pack line defense, but it's it's very well drilled and obviously debris has something there.
You know, you noted West Virginia defense is what carried them last year after Tucker went down. And then I believe that another injury as well to one of their top guys and they really had to just hone in on the defensive end, which to that point hadn't necessarily really been Devries calling card, right? Yeah, everything had kind of been about his offense and his system and that four out one in stuff. But you know, when I looked at West Virginia's defense last year, you noted it.
They had a lot of guys that could play a lot or guard a lot of different positions and they just played hard, like they just got after it. And that's not something you can necessarily quantify. And I know that it like it's it's hard to really describe like what playing hard means, but you watch his teams and you just see that. And to me it always starts to the point of attack. And that was Javon small last year. Connor way is very, very disruptive in how he guards the
ball. And you know, when you can just disrupt the other teams point guard that disrupts their flow, obviously just takes them out of what they want to do in their initial point of attack. And then everything from there, you can kind of blow up. And and obviously, like you noted, he's got a good system that he feels comfortable with. He's going to drill that, he's going to coach that.
It's not like he had all these holdovers from West Virginia that that understood his system that he brought with him there like last year for West Virginia was a brand new team. He built that defense from the ground up. That's the part that's most encouraging to me is that it was a new thing with new players and he made it work. He didn't, he didn't import his entire roster like some guys do
or whatever. He had some but it was a brand new thing and they were able to be that good, especially without 2, with two players, you know, the key players missing a lot of the season. Absolutely. A lot of it ends up being adaptational and, and it's who you're playing against and what's really going to be fascinating. You're going to have a a pretty veteran team. Obviously you're going to have
some new pieces. Trent Sisley coming in as a freshman, you know, I think has a a chance to play and contribute, you know, given what happens, we obviously still need to to hear what happens on the Luke Goody front. Someone asked if Luke Goody would fit into this mix.
Yes, absolutely. Like this, This does a far better job of unlocking Luke Goody's potential and abilities from a system perspective, I often times felt like Goody was almost creating spacing by himself last year as opposed to being able to insert himself into space that the system was
creating for him. But you know, I, I'll say in terms of like the, the overall structure, they're going to have to hit the ground running, Jared, because you've got the Marquette game early on, you've got the Louisville game, you've got the Kentucky game. Those are already on the on the
docket and this is great. Like this is really going to be a proof of concept right off the bat of of how these offensive and defensive systems set up, how they're able to get flow going and and how they measure up against teams that have a high level of talent. You're going to need that going into Big 10 season because it is going to be a very different kind of setup and a different type of roster composition than most of the rest of the conference is engaging in.
And I'm very curious to see how that plays out. Yeah, You know, and there was a a point made in the discord. I don't I don't remember who made it, you know, in terms of, you know, what else Coach Debris should look for as he's recruiting. And the point was made like, I'd like to get some kind of younger developmental guys now, you know, are we, you know, a little bit too old with some of these guys. And my point on that is get as much experience as you can to make this year as good as
possible. Because given what the last eight years have been and kind of given some of the skepticism people have right now, I think what Indiana needs is a season like what Michigan had and a season like what Louisville had, where you come out, you hit the ground running, it's successful,
you make the tournament. And now everybody relaxes and is like, OK, we got our goal for five years, now we can settle in. And now I think if either one of those schools takes a little bit of a step back this year, you know, they've built some trust in a little bit of runway. Like I think that's the difference in college basketball now. I actually don't think a coach gets immediate runway. I think you've got to show some immediate results and then the patience comes.
And so I think do whatever you can, get as much experience so you can hit the ground running with guys who just know how to play, who have proven production. And then you might be able to, you know, as you maybe do a little bit more high school recruiting, which makes some sense because now he can recruit a different caliber of player in Indiana. But it's going to take a while for those relationships to build. Because to your point, Galen Indians, I mean, you got to come
out. Maybe you don't have to win all of those games, but you probably need to win one or two of them. You certainly need to play well in them and build some momentum going into Big 10 play because that's what's going to get people on your side now and get everybody going in the right direction. And I I don't think that's always been the case, but in the new era of college basketball, I really think it is. We're going to wrap in about 8
minutes. Ryan, I know you got to go first, So what else you got for us? Just I, I think it's, it's a good day, you know, I mean, it's, it's when you start, I think that it's a good day and they've started to put the pieces together, but it's not done yet. So, you know, there is, there needs to be remaining patients from people because you don't even know. I mean, it's seven guys.
I think now for next year, pending Luke Goody and you still need a front court, you know, so I mean, it's not done yet, but but this is if you know from where we were last week when people were like, there's like two players on this team. What are we doing? It's like, well, now there's there's a team, it's starting to come together. You can no longer use the John Calipari.
There is no team quote. And and so I think that people have patience, but you're starting to see what is being put together and what is being put together is going to be a dynamic offense that is modern in its ability. And and Jared, I mentioned this before, and this is got to be the thing that makes you happiest is none of these guys shoot long twos. And so that is gone. Like the shot that was the most common in Indiana's offense other than a layup in the last decade is gone.
These guys shoot at the rim or they shoot threes. And that is modern college basketball. So not only has he got the system that does that, he has the players to do that now, too. And it's just it's a good day to be a Hoosier. I think that, you know, you're starting to see it come together. You're starting to see the optimism. Jared Morris hopped on an afternoon podcast. You can just tell there is optimism and hope here. And, and everybody's, everybody's on board.
It's, it's I, you know, but I haven't seen this kind of optimism in the Indiana fan base in a long time. And, and I, I think it's great to see. And I'm, I'm, it makes me happy to see everybody kind of excited for a new day, like a real new day building the right way. It's it's exactly what you need, I think a fan base that's desperate for something to latch onto. And it's a long offseason, Ryan, as we know.
So you know, the, the, if you can feel, I know people were a bit optimistic last year with the portal. So there's still some arm's lengthness about it all, but it's this feels like more of a, we've got a system, let's build to that rather than let's go get the best available players, which kind of felt like the MO from last year A. 100%. I know, Ryan, you got to get out of here. So great to see you. Thank you for having on.
Enjoy the rest of the day. Tony, let me go to you next as we kind of go through our last wrap around here. Any other outstanding items or just general overview thoughts that you've got right now given what we're seeing with this roster as it's shaping up? Excited, I mean, that's that's really what it comes down to is I'm excited to see all these things together. You know, as you mentioned, like expectations are, are should be tempered a bit.
I think just based on what we've seen in kind of winning the offseason, whatever. But like it's OK to be excited. You know too as well. This is a new era, new regime, new style system players like everything involved is new, like the whole staff is new. So it's it's exciting to me that it's just something fresh. Obviously I'm also excited that there might be an overseas trip this summer.
We'll we'll be able to see these guys play earlier than than October, which is exciting as long as the, you know, there's some sort of video involved with that. But yeah, overall I think it's clear there in the breeze has a process and a plan. And those are, you know, it's very much a sig esque kind of offseason. Like, you know, just the buzzwords out there kind of moving stealthily, like all of that.
To me, it's things we saw in a program that was successful, obviously this just this past fall and SIG building from the ground up. So yeah, just super excited about what's happening with Indiana basketball and as the pieces start coming together and you know, what's fun is there's still 567 more guys to go. Tony, if if they end up doing an overseas trip to Italy, I expect you to follow them from venue to venue, Grateful Dead style, making bootleg video of each game. I'm in.
I assume the back home network will fund that, so sure, let's go. We'll be, we'll be donating plasma to try to fund your travel. I think that's the only way we're going to get to that. Yeah, no, but Jared, I mean, the optimistic tones, obviously this is something I think people have been waiting on and it, it real, obviously, if you want to ask questions, there's a ton of questions you can ask. But I, as I said on the last emergency pod, it really is important, I think to give the
process a chance to play out. And we said this like 3 weeks ago when people were freaking out about a lack of portal commitments and this idea where are we going to have enough guys to have a roster. We always said like, there's a process to this. It's and and you've got to be deliberate with it because this foundation may be the most important foundation that Darren Devries has delay in his whole time here at IU, this first team, because it's not just
about the on court success. It's about the cultural establishment of a different set of values and a different work ethic approach. And it's one of the things that really it was a it was a problem for IU under Archie Miller, was a problem for IU under Mike Woodson. It just, it never really felt like the work ethic and the approach that we've expected out of IU basketball historically when it's been at its best was really there all the time.
You've got to have that, you got to have the right guys to do that and we won't know until they actually start playing, but it feels like they're off to a really good start with that mix. 100% And that's why I feel like trying to classify your feelings as optimistic or pessimistic, positive or negative, is just the complete wrong way to look at it. I don't think any of those classifications matter.
I think the bottom line is that for eight years, Indiana basketball has been mediocre and uninteresting, and it's been a lot of the same thing over and over again. So I don't think we need to worry about if you're optimistic or negative. Are you interested? And that's what this is to me is it's interesting, it's compelling. It's no guarantee of wins and losses, but I think it should get everybody leaning in again, paying attention, seeing something new.
This is going to be novel, you know, and and that's what I think is is is more important. And so, you know, the I just think that's a that's a good way to look at it. Also, can I just point out how in Tony's previous statement, he just like casually dropped this term sig esque that we all just like, we all just know is like shorthand for a coach coming in and like doing great work and building a good culture.
Like there's so much involved in that term and it's just beautiful that we can just say that in casual conversation. And we all know what it means. And it relates to smashing Indiana football success. So it's it's a it's a good time. Like things are interesting again. And, and and that is just something that I think we used to take for granted with Indiana basketball. Like Tom Crean seems were interesting, even if you know, the the results weren't always there.
And for the last eight years we've been boring and mediocre. And so I don't know how good we'll be, but I know we're going to be interesting this year. And that, to me, is a big important change. The other one, the one overarching thing that does related to the Signetti higher and what he was attacking and and debris is doing it much differently. Signetti noted a real low level of self esteem and excitement among the fans and and and
around the program as a whole. So that's why he goes out and and does the statement at the half time of I think it was the Maryland game. And then that's why he does all the bravado stuff because he's like, we got to believe in ourselves. Devries is going about it differently. We've heard very little from Darren Devries after that first initial wave of interviews. And the what's fascinating, and this was noted on Crimson cast
yesterday. There's the leaks are gone like we're finding out a little bit about guys if you're subscribing to the Trilly Discord or or if you're Tony and you have like a listening post where you're tapping into everybody's communications across the country, but. You're not supposed to tell them that. Well, you know, just want them to be nervous, Tony, that's all
you know. But there there's a, there was a certain very low level of investment in the program, a lot of arm's length stuff from fans of all ages for various reasons. Just it had gotten very toxic around IU basketball. And that's a two way street. But you've got to build back slowly. And I think IU fans are done with IU basketball fans are done with, oh, you know, we're a top program and talking that way without anything to back it up.
And so again, a lot to go and a lot of transitional stuff with these players getting up to the high major level and how it all fits together. But a lot of a lot of wins to celebrate here in the early going over the course of this last couple of weeks. And that is really exciting and a nice change of pace from what passed off seasons have looked like without you. So on that note, we'll go ahead and wrap up. We went an hour.
I like to keep these things a little on the shorter side, but keep the horses fresh because there's going to be more portal commitments. Horses. Are you talking Wilkerson horses? Yeah, maybe apparently, apparently they they tried to take him to the Preakness, according to Scott, and that didn't work out full well. But anyway, my thanks to Ryan Phillips. Jared, thank you so much for coming on and joining us. Tony, thank you for being here
for the whole hour. And my thanks to all of you folks who watched or listened throughout the course of the work day. We're going to try to do these like this whenever else something comes up. And so just keep it on the back home network YouTube channel or subscribe on Spotify or Apple to either Crimson Cast or Assembly Call. We'll have you covered. For all of the folks involved, I'm Galen Clavio saying thanks for joining us here on the show. We'll catch you folks.
On the flip side, stay never daunted. Bring back the Bison. So long, everybody.