The offseason begins.

by John M (The Crimson Quarry) on Mar 14, 2009 10:20 PM EDT

Midnight Madness is more than seven months away, so here is a quick look at the early stages of the offseason.

Tom Crean was in Seymour this morning to watch IU-bound Jordan Hulls and #1 Bloomington South defeat #2 New Albany, led by IU target Donnie Hale, in the 4A regional.
The media post-mortems have begun: here's one from Pete DiPrimio, now of the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel but formerly of Inside Indiana. Pete also engages in some half-hearted rumormongering about transfers.
Rumors aside, something has to give. IU has eight returning scholarship players (Devan Dumes, Tijan Jobe, Verdell Jones, Tom Pritchard, Jeremiah Rivers, Matt Roth, Malik Story, and Nick Williams) and six players signed to letters of intent (Bobby Capobianco, Maurice Creek, Derek Elston, Jordan Hulls, Bawa Muniru, and Christian Watford). It's unclear how things will work. There has been speculation that one of IU's current scholarship players will remain on the team but will pay his own way as a walk-on (I haven't heard of a specific player, just of the general rumor). With a class as large as IU's freshman class, it's always possible that a player or two will decide to chase playing time elsewhere. It shouldn't be an uneventful spring in Bloomington.

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As far as paying to play

The most likely candidate has been Jeremiah Rivers, since, you know, his father probably has some spare cash lying around…

*For those of you that don’t know, Rivers father is Doc Rivers, coach of the Boston Celtics.

My avatar is 3 years into the future for sure...

by Taskmaster on Mar 15, 2009 4:49 PM EDT reply actions

Isn't this where you ask an alum

to make an under the table donation to pay for the kid? Maybe we can get T. Boone Pickens on our side. You mean IU wouldn’t do anything at this point in time that might even be confused even for the smallest infraction? Oh, almost forgot about that.

by D.M.J. on Mar 15, 2009 11:04 PM EDT up reply actions

2009 Offseason

As of now we are fully booked for ’09 and that is WITH the Oversign rule being used.

Darius Smith and Alex Guana appear to still be mentioned, but who knows. If I had to guess ’09 is complete and ’10 and ’11 are the hot spots. I can see a few major names being added in those classes. Already snagged Carlino and working on a few others.

While Tijan Jobe probably doesn’t have the coin to pay his own way, he would be a prime suspect to jump over to Academic, Grant, and Foreign Scholarships so he could come off the Athletic Scholly roles. Only has 1 year left, but with size and especially Bawa, that makes Tijan all the more expendable.

If a player opted to free up a scholarship by paying their own way it would likely only be temporary, but would be an amazing help to the rebuilding effort. We have interested players. It is my understanding that Beas Hamga was ready to transfer from UNLV, but IU didn’t have space for him (umm, but he ended up at Valpo, okay?)

A transfer isn’t out of the question, but I can pretty much assume this: It’s not going to be Roth, Pritchard, Williams, or Jones. Roth/Pritchard appeared hooked on the Program hence they rode out the storm and had promising Frosh seasons. Story has great potential, but things get a little deep at the PG and SG spots. A redshirt is also not out of the question and not necessarily an incoming Freshmen.

The names all IU fans should be focusing on are Marquis Teague and Kyrie Irving. Irving is a likely NO, but Crean has been working on Teague as a top priority from all reports.

We are beyond set at PG. We’ve got depth everywhere starting next year. We are likely going to be in the market for an Elite SG to add to the next couple classes.

PG: Rivers, Jones, Hulls
SG: Dumes, Creek, Roth
SF: Williams, Story
PF: Watford, Elston, Capobianco
C: Pritchard, Muniru, Jobe

by XLI on Mar 17, 2009 2:10 PM EDT reply actions

story transferring???

I just read it here in another blog, but it looks like Story will be transferring, so that takes care of one of the scholarships. I just wonder about down the road with that

by just a college basketball fan on Mar 28, 2009 2:15 AM EDT reply actions