• a.j. moye

    i beg to differ, i think i was pretty dapper, maybe not preppy, but certainly spiffy

  • GFDave

    Would we be violating NCAA rules if we bought him a cream and crimson tie? I guess we would be.

  • Kelin Blab

    if this keeps up I may be headed to a Kelin Bawa name…..gotta love this kid….now if he can rebound and block shots

  • GFDave

    How about BlaBawa?

  • Mo

    He might want to pledge that one fraternity with the pretty boys- Kappa Alpha Psi. I believe a few other IU players were members of that Frat. Alan Henderson, Chris Reynolds and Bill Garrett to name a few.

  • aerialM

    so…is he eligible? man I hope so. the idea that he is a player akin to Jobe, with no disrespect, is crazy. he's a top 125/150 player, a ranked center, who has only been playing for a few years & cut his teeth at a prep academy. Jobe was a junior college 7th man nobody had ever heard of…
    if Bawa is eligible, and can give us 10 min/game, I'm happy. Even if he's only George Lynch, at this point, we need him…

  • That tie needs more Cream and less yellow.

  • pbrowning

    Are we missing something here? Has the NCAA made any ruling on his eligibility yet? If not then he is not the best dress “player”!

  • JerryCT

    Could be the beginning of our “brand”…………except for the Minnesota colors

  • JerryCT

    Personally the discussions about recruiting and measuring TC abilities is getting tiresome;

    1) recruit “stars” are over rated and significant numbers of fans “voted” that stars are more for entertainment not predictive measures of college success

    2) stars donot measure attitude, which TC has said he wants most. With attitude he can make a player significantly better

    3) it is way too early to measure the X's/O's, W/L's and recruiting success of TC. The only thing we can measure is whether we are competing for talent and we are compettitve on the floor

    4) Perhaps the best measure right now is whether we fans go to games and support the program

    UCONN just landed a guard who did not start on his HS team in GA. I guess Calhoun sucks all of a sudden ?………………..or is he noticing something the “stars” donot show. Calhoun like TC knows alot about what he is doing and therefore 2 years from now we will know what to think about BAWA, TC recruiting, X's/O's , W/L's

    I am going on record to say we will be at least .500 this year with only one undercalssman leaving the stable

  • JerryCT

    Anybody know the feedback from Morgan ? Was he not in Btwn last weekend ?

  • Name

    Ricky Calloway was too.

  • GFDave

    He was there. There are reports on Peegs premium site, but I haven't seen anything on the free intertubes.

    I agree with your post above. I do think the stars carry some weight when talking about the higher ranked players; you can expect most of them to pan out as good to excellent college players. But just as you are saying, not being rated highly doesn't mean you won't be good in college.

  • tberry

    I want to see him in SI not GQ!!!

  • Kelin Blab

    IF I had time Jerry I would research of the last 4 or 5 NCAA national champions, how many of them had the #1 player in the country on that team, or a top 5 player….

    Stars mean very little…..

  • CraiginOR

    We are like no other fans, just show us a picture of one our players in a shirt and tie, goin to class and we are all beaming like new dad's seeing our son for the first time. AND I love it that our coach “gets it” and posts such a picture! it's Indiana….

  • BGleas

    I gotta disagree with you to a point Jerry and Kelin. More than any other major sport, basketball is about stars (I mean as in talent, not Rivals or Scout stars). I'm not suggesting we should blindly base our recruiting on every kid that has 5 stars next to his name, but you do need stars in basketball to win. To me, it looks like the teams that win NCAA titles have 3-5 5-star players and most of their role players are 4-star recruits with some 3-star guys sprinkled in.

    UNC '09 – 4 5-star players and 6 4-star guys
    Kansas '08 – 6 5-star players and 3 4-stars guys
    Florida '06-'07 – This seems to be the anomaly; no 5-star guys 5 4-star guys
    UNC '05 – 3 5-stars and 3 4-stars
    UConn '04 – Can't find their HS ratings, but Okafor, Gordon, Villanueva, Anderson, Boone and were all highly rated. So was Marcus Williams but I can't remember if he was on that team.

    Again, my point isn't that we should blindly recruit based on # of stars, but if we want to find a model, Roy Williams, Bill Self and Jim Calhoun (aside from the recent scandal) have seemed to find the “right” highly recruited guys. What all those teams have in common is high rated/talented players, that could have gone pro early, but for whatever reason stayed 3-4 years.

    As opposed to guys like Cal, Boeheim and Howland, who seem to get the 1 and done. We can get studs while for the most part avoiding the one and done. That seems to be the formula to win NCAA titles in the current basketball climate, and I think this seems to be the type of player Crean is going after.

  • chicohoosier

    long time reader, first time commenter.

    while it is true that you can win by developing players that weren't highly recruited (Florida '06 & '07), it is undeniable that highly ranked players are going to add to a school's chances to win or get to a title game, ohio state oden and conley, memphis rose, north carolina lawson and hansborough, kansas chalmers rush collins, syracuse carmelo

    talent matters in college sports

  • hoostheman

    From what I read Morgan and his father came away impressed with the Indiana visit. While he didn't play with them due to a sore back, Morgan sees a lot of talent on the team and thinks we're headed in the right direction. He singled out Hulls in particular as a strong player and the future leader of the squad. Additionally, his pops was extremely impressed with Coach and said he sees him as the type of guy that will expect the best from his son, hold him accountable, and help him maximize his potential. The two of them will definitely be taking an official to DePaul (might be next weekend) and said they'll reassess after that. If he feels comfortable with us or the demons he'll commit soon, otherwise they may bring a third official into the mix.

  • BGleas

    p.s. can you tell I was bored 🙂

  • hoostheman

    Ha, just noticed how short the back (skinny) part of Bawa's tie is… Don't get me wrong, the dude's still stylin' and I love to see it, but we gotta get this guy to a Big and Tall store!

  • Going to try to catch up with Morgan soon. Possibly tonight. I caught him on Sunday night as he was leaving town but unfortunately he couldn't talk as he was boarding a plane to go back to Las Vegas.

  • BGleas

    Hey Craig,

    Agree with you on Crean. He is providing content to us that we can't get anywhere else. The video last week was awesome, I hope he keeps that up. As you said, he really gets it.

    Also, I'm really looking forward to seeing how Bawa develops. To me, he's the guy that can take this class, and really the program right now, to a different level.

  • GFDave

    I've never seen Bawa play, but you've got to hope for a high ceiling with this kid. If he develops into a shot blocker and rebounder we can be very good. If he becomes an offensive threat along with that, wow, the team could really go places. His inexperience, coupled with the general slow development of most big men, will keep him, imo, from being a factor until his junior year. But we should be seeing glimmers all along the way.

  • JerryCT

    Thanks

    I am not arguing against 5 star players however or that you cannot tell the difference as a senior in HS between a top 25 kid and a 100 to 200 kid or that NCAA champs have not had such players. I urge readers to consider however :

    A) that alot of teams with 5 star HS players donot win the championship ( ie Duke, UL, UCONN, Arizona, UNC, UCLA, Texas ….) no player comes with a guarantee and

    B) that alot of teams w/o 5 star players often succeed ( ie Fla, West Va, Xavier , MSU, Wisc, ILL, Pitt,BC,Villanova in the past ) into the final 4 and

    C) That it is too early to evaluate TC 's career in general let alone his success at IU on recruiting, W's, X's, graduation rates

    For skeptics that want to wait and see……….I am fine w that

    We are building evidence however that he is succeeding in:

    1) fan rapport
    2) recruiting in Indiana ( gosh we even have HS kids from other states trying to go to HS in Btwn )
    3) recruiting in NYC, BALT and in general we are competitive
    4) bringing in kids that donot embarass us as fans ( like Jim Calhoun, Sampson )

    I for one would rather lose a competitive Championship than be chronically embarrassed by our players like the direction we seemed to be headed with the previous regime

  • BGleas

    Jerry, I agree for the most part, I'm loving Crean so far. I think we got the right guy at the right time, and agree that anyone criticizing his recruiting so far has not given him enough time. I also agree that Sampson was terrible for the program and am glad he's gone.

    I've had this discussion many times on ITH, but I would like to see this program in the UNC, Duke, Kansas etc. discussion, so basically competing for Final Fours every year. Doesn't mean you're in it every year, but you're in the discussion. The schools you listed in your point B are not consistent year-in and year-out Final Four contenders, and I think that's difference in recruiting the 5-star guys.

    IMO, the key is to recruit and select the “right” stud players. They're out there, as we've seen with Hansbrough, Ty Lawson, Mario Chalmers, Brandon Rush, Ben Gordon and Okafor. Crean's job now is to try and get those guys to IU. I think he can do it.

  • Outoftheloop

    Is Bawa Muniru NCAA approved to play basketball at IU or not? I sure hope so- this young man is a guy we can love!

  • Taskmaster75

    I agree, Indiana is certainly capable of that, and we know it, It's just that all those teams you mentioned have great stability. Even with the Roy Williams/Bill Self coaching changes, the coaches succeed and do well. The Universities know what coaches to hire, and it shows. UCLA is probably the best example, 3 final fours in a row is nothing to sneeze at, especially with all the talent that left the respective teams.

  • Taskmaster75

    A quality defensive big man that can score….at Indiana no less…. A man can dream

    If he turns into Thabeet (With an actual basketball background), he could be nasty.

  • BGleas

    I agree, and one thing Jerry definitely nailed is that we need to give Crean time to create that stability before we get on his case about recruiting. He's definitely working hard at it, I think he can get us there!

  • Jack Sikma

    So are they going to let this kid wear shoulder pads during the Big Ten season? He looks fashionable but let's bulk him up.

  • DTFree

    Hopefully a lot better hands than the former Blab…

  • DTFree

    Hopefully a lot better hands than the former Blab…