Iup basketball

[IUPbigINDIANS]

Per WCCS:

Dallis had knee surgery yesterday.

Denzel is having knee surgery tomorrow (explains that).

Also, redshirt PG Anthony Watson appears shut down for the season with an arm injury.

Obviously Clarke is out.

Callum MacNamara didn't dress last night.


So, that's a third of the roster on the shelf.

[IUPbigINDIANS]

Bryce is a good shooter but not that good. That was his ceiling last night. You can’t expect him to drop bombs inside half court the rest of the year.

Let’s be clear, all the scoring last night came from 3 players. If one is off they could struggle.

Defense travels! They’ll be in ball games with D like that.

I don’t believe Clarke will be back until he is. NCAA is a joke! D1 the players don’t even go to class, collect NIL, etc!

I agree with the above comment that they'll look like that occasionally -- and on other nights get blown out of the building.

Is what it is at this point. Only so many guys left. Redshirts are still in tracksuits.

[IUPalum]

Bryce is a good shooter but not that good. That was his ceiling last night. You can’t expect him to drop bombs inside half court the rest of the year.

Let’s be clear, all the scoring last night came from 3 players. If one is off they could struggle.

Defense travels! They’ll be in ball games with D like that.

I don’t believe Clarke will be back until he is. NCAA is a joke! D1 the players don’t even go to class, collect NIL, etc!

[Chuck Norris]

While I certainly don’t expect to see that type of shooting every night, it’s nice to know the capability is there. I never would’ve believed a performance like that was possible 24 hours ago. Honestly with the possible exception of Gannon, who I admittedly haven’t actually watched yet, there probably isn’t a team in the west that IUP can’t beat, but there’s also, with the possible exception of Edinboro, not a team that can’t beat them. In the end though, I think they still face the same question as when Dallis and Clarke were playing. Can anybody outside the big 3 score when those guys aren’t cooking?

[IUPbigINDIANS]

BTW, rumor is they think Clarke is going to win his appeal and could be cleared to return very quickly (by next game).

[IUPbigINDIANS]

As far as IUP is concerned, I think it was more about it being one of those nights and I thought a favorable matchup. Shepherd looked very slow to me. They have some big bodies but they don’t move well and struggled to defend IUP’s quick guards. IUP defended very well though and I think that’s what can be counted on moving forward more than the offense. Few teams are going to go 16-23 from deep consistently. I was surprised that Joe went to the press so much with a thin bench. Credit to the players for being able to maintain pressure throughout. They never seemed to tire. I also thought Waldo did a nice job defending at mid court in the press. His long wingspan made it difficult on Shepherd getting the ball across.

Cal fighting injury issues again. Interesting.

You could tell early Shepherd had no idea who Bryce was until he lit them up in the first half. Second half they adjusted to him which opened up Stewart and Ethan. Of course, Bryce just started hitting them from deeper.

Needless to say he'll get a lot of attention moving forward.

Shepherd was fresh off a win against Mercyhurst and has played some others pretty tough.

Last night anyway I thought IUP's intensity caught them off guard.

That was a real big game for Stewart, too. Nice to see him finally have a green light.

Obviously they won't shoot like that every night but in a painful season it was nice to see them have a big night. They smothered Shepherd's two top guards. McCain-Corley was visibly frustrated.

[EyeoftheHawk]

Wow. Some really weird results in the league tonight. I'm not shocked that IUP won, but I am surprised by the margin and the amazing shooting percentage. Maybe they've stumbled into something, or maybe it was just one of those nights.

West Chester and Shepherd continue to be two of the most puzzling teams in the PSAC. You have no idea how either of them are going to come out night to night. Missing starters for Cal or not, that was a big win for the Rams.

And I certainly didn't see UPJ getting torrid against the Raiders tonight. Ship is getting killed on the boards and I don't think I ever thought I'd see the day when a Chris Fite team had given up 90 points or more in five games before the halfway mark of the season. Donovan Hill can't get into the lineup soon enough.

As far as IUP is concerned, I think it was more about it being one of those nights and I thought a favorable matchup. Shepherd looked very slow to me. They have some big bodies but they don’t move well and struggled to defend IUP’s quick guards. IUP defended very well though and I think that’s what can be counted on moving forward more than the offense. Few teams are going to go 16-23 from deep consistently. I was surprised that Joe went to the press so much with a thin bench. Credit to the players for being able to maintain pressure throughout. They never seemed to tire. I also thought Waldo did a nice job defending at mid court in the press. His long wingspan made it difficult on Shepherd getting the ball across.

Cal fighting injury issues again. Interesting.

[IUPbigINDIANS]

Wow. Some really weird results in the league tonight. I'm not shocked that IUP won, but I am surprised by the margin and the amazing shooting percentage. Maybe they've stumbled into something, or maybe it was just one of those nights.

West Chester and Shepherd continue to be two of the most puzzling teams in the PSAC. You have no idea how either of them are going to come out night to night. Missing starters for Cal or not, that was a big win for the Rams.

And I certainly didn't see UPJ getting torrid against the Raiders tonight. Ship is getting killed on the boards and I don't think I ever thought I'd see the day when a Chris Fite team had given up 90 points or more in five games before the halfway mark of the season. Donovan Hill can't get into the lineup soon enough.

I watched the second half of Cal vs WCU. The Rams went insane in the second half ... scoring 60-some and hitting everything.

Cal had more bad news. Starting PG Whitehead appeared to roll his ankle pretty badly and missed the final 8-9 minutes. Palek and Polak weren't dressed, nor was reserve big Hannah.

[Ship69]

Radford went 8 for 11 from deep and 7 of those were beyond NBA range.

I think they hit 16 of 23 from deep.

That was also a great defensive performance holding them to 48. They made them work for every single shot.

Wow. Some really weird results in the league tonight. I'm not shocked that IUP won, but I am surprised by the margin and the amazing shooting percentage. Maybe they've stumbled into something, or maybe it was just one of those nights.

West Chester and Shepherd continue to be two of the most puzzling teams in the PSAC. You have no idea how either of them are going to come out night to night. Missing starters for Cal or not, that was a big win for the Rams.

And I certainly didn't see UPJ getting torrid against the Raiders tonight. Ship is getting killed on the boards and I don't think I ever thought I'd see the day when a Chris Fite team had given up 90 points or more in five games before the halfway mark of the season. Donovan Hill can't get into the lineup soon enough.

[IUPalum]

Great defensive effort tonight!

[IUPbigINDIANS]

What in the hell did we just see? Who had IUP +30 tonight? Radford gets off the couch to tie the school record for 3’s with 8. I can’t recall seeing an IUP team in recent history shoot the ball that well. I really don’t have the words.

Radford went 8 for 11 from deep and 7 of those were beyond NBA range.

I think they hit 16 of 23 from deep.

That was also a great defensive performance holding them to 48. They made them work for every single shot.

[EyeoftheHawk]

What in the hell did we just see? Who had IUP +30 tonight? Radford gets off the couch to tie the school record for 3’s with 8. I can’t recall seeing an IUP team in recent history shoot the ball that well. I really don’t have the words.

[IUPbigINDIANS]

Bryce and Stewart went bonkers.

78-48 Final

[Cobra Hawks]

Decent 1st half against Shepherd . Much better than ESU game. Good defensive play and the guards making their shots especially Bryce

[IUPbigINDIANS]

My question at this point is more regarding roster construction and not necessarily with roster management. I think there was a pretty clear understanding that this team was going to be different than the last four. I recognize that at this point there are injuries and other factors, but this team at this stage is just bad. Not sure how else to describe them. And it makes me ask this question... How did it get here?

To be clear, I think the critical domino that put this team in this position was the unexpected transfer of Tomiwa after last year. Even with this roster, they are probably way better with him on the team.

But I do question what Joe is evaluating, or what he thinks he's getting, with many of the guys he's bringing in. We talk about the "Joe Doghouse" and him not playing guys. Jaheim Bathea was hyped as perhaps the best high school PG he ever recruited. He played in like 4 games and Joe tossed him to Siberia. We have Dolan Waldo this year. Those are just two very, very recent examples. But it seems as though he's missing on a ton of high school recruits. He has a higher hit rate on some of the international guys he brings from the prep ranks (Cobo, Tomiwa, Marcel, etc.) and the multi-year D1 transfers (Jones, Morris, etc.). From a foundational perspective, it's going to be much, much harder to both get and keep the multi-year guys transferring down. You simply have to be able to identify high school talent who can play for your program. And I'm not saying that as though he's not gotten great high school players (Ethan Porterfield, Malik Miller, Armoni Foster, etc.). It does seem though that the quality of guy he is brining in seems to be dropping, and he seems to be giving up on those guys way earlier than before.

I guess my ultimate point here is that it seems that there are valid questions regarding multiple things:
1) How did this roster (at this program) have so little high end talent (with the understanding that this was going to be a "down" year)?
2) Why does it seem like so many of the highly hyped high school recruits of late seem to not live up to it?
3) Why do those guys seem to get benched so quickly and not provided game action to figure it out at the college level?

I'm not necessarily saying I am pinning everything on Joe (although I don't think he's done a great job this year). It is just pretty wild to me how bad this entire team is. That just doesn't happen overnight.

Those questions have very long answers.

In short, track the recruiting since Cantens, Woodall and Fudala have left. Also note Joe is only allowed (1) paid assistant now. I think you'll find your answer.