Iup basketball

[IUPbigINDIANS]

The Twitter world thinks Maceo Austin and Ike Herster are going to sign with Slippery Rock as a package.

[IUPbigINDIANS]

I'd prefer neither of those guys leave. I think Bethea has good upside. And I like what Polce can bring.

Bethea's season was very strange. He came out of camp on the active roster (rare for a Joe true freshman). He was playing, on average, I'd guess 10-14 mpg in NOV and most of DEC. Then ... poof. Gone. They activated Jaylen Stewart and Bethea was never seen again (minus some occasional mop-up time). He's a nice-size PG and very quick. I thought he was a very good defender for a true freshman. He wasn't allowed to do anything on offense (like most of the team) so it's not fair to even comment on his offensive potential.

Polce went from playing decent minutes to essentially nothing for most of February. So, I don't know what the story is there other than something obviously changed.

[IUP24]

Correct. So, the recruiting will give us something to talk about but as far as next year goes it's real simple. He needs 3 players to round out his 7-8 man rotation.

Ethan, Dallis and Stewart will be starters (3 of the 8)

Brooks and Waldo will certainly be in the rotation (5 of the 8)

Polce and Bethea are candidates to be in the rotation (if they are still here). KJ will still be on the team but I assume he'll go back to the '9th man' super utility role. I'd assume his two walk-ons remain on the team.

Bottom line, he needs to sign two transfer guards (one needs to be a pure PG) and one post player. He'll also sign at least one high school player so I suspect this class to have 4-5 guys (and bigger if Polce or Bethea leave).

I'd prefer neither of those guys leave. I think Bethea has good upside. And I like what Polce can bring.

[IUPbigINDIANS]

Former Kennedy Catholic star (and Duquesne player) Maceo Austin is announcing his transfer destination this afternoon. Sounds like he has one year of eligibility.

[IUPbigINDIANS]

Not sure "the quality depth route" matters when he puts his "quality depth" in Siberia.

Correct. So, the recruiting will give us something to talk about but as far as next year goes it's real simple. He needs 3 players to round out his 7-8 man rotation.

Ethan, Dallis and Stewart will be starters (3 of the 8)

Brooks and Waldo will certainly be in the rotation (5 of the 8)

Polce and Bethea are candidates to be in the rotation (if they are still here). KJ will still be on the team but I assume he'll go back to the '9th man' super utility role. I'd assume his two walk-ons remain on the team.

Bottom line, he needs to sign two transfer guards (one needs to be a pure PG) and one post player. He'll also sign at least one high school player so I suspect this class to have 4-5 guys (and bigger if Polce or Bethea leave).

[IUP24]

Word is Tomiwa was contacted by 40+ programs last week. So, unless he has some major change of heart, that ship has probably sailed.

One name I really like as a replacement is former Cal and Walsh forward Tim Smith Jr. He's a one-year guy (grad transfer) but is a big-time scorer and can shoot from outside. He averaged about 17 and 8 this past season. He had a big game against IUP this year, going for 24 and 8 (he scored nearly half of Walsh's points in that game). Smith also has some ties to IUP. He's in the range of 6'8" and 220 lbs.

I've heard some other names floating but Smith seems to be one that has interest from both sides. He's also probably going to get some low-major looks so we'll see.

With Shawndale, David and Tomiwa off the books, Joe has a lot of money to spend here. We'll see if he goes (as usual) for more 'full ticket' types or instead spreads it out and goes the quality depth route.

Not sure "the quality depth route" matters when he puts his "quality depth" in Siberia.

[IUPbigINDIANS]

Word is Tomiwa was contacted by 40+ programs last week. So, unless he has some major change of heart, that ship has probably sailed.

One name I really like as a replacement is former Cal and Walsh forward Tim Smith Jr. He's a one-year guy (grad transfer) but is a big-time scorer and can shoot from outside. He averaged about 17 and 8 this past season. He had a big game against IUP this year, going for 24 and 8 (he scored nearly half of Walsh's points in that game). Smith also has some ties to IUP. He's in the range of 6'8" and 220 lbs.

I've heard some other names floating but Smith seems to be one that has interest from both sides. He's also probably going to get some low-major looks so we'll see.

With Shawndale, David and Tomiwa off the books, Joe has a lot of money to spend here. We'll see if he goes (as usual) for more 'full ticket' types or instead spreads it out and goes the quality depth route.

[Chuck Norris]

Add Kevin Capers to your list. Lol

Yeah the Kevin Capers ‘flu game’. Can’t do much when a guy is banking in 30 footers.

Butler, in addition to scoring nearly half of WL’s points only had two assists, but he probably had a half dozen “hockey assists” where his pass out of a double started a sequence that led to a wide open look. It was a brilliant performance.

[Ship69]

Sleva would have been long gone in today's climate. His senior year he was good enough to likely catch on with a P5 program -- certainly a high-end mid-major. Starter in the P5? Hard to say, but certainly a rotation piece. He's (his level player) the exception, though.

I just hope many of these guys realize what they are leaving -- and where they are going.

Tomiwa, for instance, is likely going to get some serious looks from high mid-major programs. But, most of these guys end up in the bush leagues of D1 -- or, eventually, back in D2.

Those first four schools to contact Tomiwa yesterday ... if he signs with any of them he'd be nuts. IUP has better fans, support and facilities than all of them. Going to some dumpster fire like Cleveland State just to say you play D1 ... each his own, I suppose. Tomiwa is also a showman. He was a celebrity in Indiana and the crowd loved him. He may not find that in the places that come calling for him.

There's no doubt a much bigger market for athletic post players. There aren't nearly as many of them. D2 guards trying to go up ... good luck. There are exceptions, obviously. I don't know how Tomiwa's size will translate to the D1 game. He'd be way undersized for the P5 level (and it's highly unlikely any P5 comes calling for him). I'd imagine if he does decide to leave he'll follow a similar path as Phillip Alston and end up at a Loyola-type program. Keep in mind Alston was much bigger (height and bulk) than Tomiwa (and just as fast). I wish him well and hope he lands at a high-level program. I'd just hate to see him leave here and end up at some NEC school (or worse).

Ship caught lightning in a bottle with Sleva. Fite and his staff have a good eye for potential talent, and I believe Sleva grew about four inches in college. Nobody envisioned him becoming the stud he developed into.

Fite has been a guy who'll take a transfer or two (Kiyon Hardy and Rashon Johnson recently), but has made his mark developing high school players. I think that might have to change some in the future. He's already recruited a promising high school kid this year, but he'll almost certainly have to get a couple of transfers in if Ship is to be competitive at all next season. Replacing a group that included all-PSAC East and all-region players with four freshmen will not cut it. The current roster has several guards and a couple of swing players with nobody much over 6-3. A couple of big guys with decent skills should be able to step right in and play.

Yeah, Alston was considerably more polished offensive player than Sulaiman when he transferred.

It's really upheaval in the entire college basketball world right now. You could probably attribute some of the upsets in the NCAA tourney to that. I certainly didn't expect Purdue to lose to Fairly Ridiculous, but their freshmen guards had been bottoming out toward the end of the season, and freshmen guards aren't a good thing to have in the tournament. What we're also finding out is that some of these guys making the big bucks coaching at major conferences can be outcoached by guys making far less at the small schools.

It's interesting, if sometimes distressing.

[IUPbigINDIANS]

With the nice facility IUP has, proven coaching and the emphasis on basketball, I believe you'll be be a top program in the PSAC now and in the near future. What might change is the ability to build the type of dominant teams IUP has built the past couple of years. With Sulaiman possibly leaving and Foster leaving last year, IUP fans are starting to get a taste (in a different manner) of what programs such as Clarion and Mansfield go through most years. The difference of course, is that a strong player at one of those schools might transfer to another PSAC school or other D2 or D3 destination. With a program such as IUP, the destination might be a low- or mid-level D1 program. Either way, you become sort of a farm system for the teams above you, which is not a great thing. IUP probably has the resources to continue to field a strong program even if they lose guys here and there. Obviously that is not the case for most other PSAC programs. I wonder if Ship would have been able to hang on to Dustin Sleva for four years these days. Glad we didn't have to find out. Even though this year's season didn't turn out as well as we'd hoped, I thought it was a tremendous display of loyalty to Chris Fite that Carter, Dom Sleva, Johnson, and Nedrow all returned for their final year. Carter, Johnson, and Sleva would have had multiple suitors if they'd opted out, and Nedrow could have helped some programs.

It's a new world. I hope the teams we follow and like will be able to live in it.

Sleva would have been long gone in today's climate. His senior year he was good enough to likely catch on with a P5 program -- certainly a high-end mid-major. Starter in the P5? Hard to say, but certainly a rotation piece. He's (his level player) the exception, though.

I just hope many of these guys realize what they are leaving -- and where they are going.

Tomiwa, for instance, is likely going to get some serious looks from high mid-major programs. But, most of these guys end up in the bush leagues of D1 -- or, eventually, back in D2.

Those first four schools to contact Tomiwa yesterday ... if he signs with any of them he'd be nuts. IUP has better fans, support and facilities than all of them. Going to some dumpster fire like Cleveland State just to say you play D1 ... each his own, I suppose. Tomiwa is also a showman. He was a celebrity in Indiana and the crowd loved him. He may not find that in the places that come calling for him.

There's no doubt a much bigger market for athletic post players. There aren't nearly as many of them. D2 guards trying to go up ... good luck. There are exceptions, obviously. I don't know how Tomiwa's size will translate to the D1 game. He'd be way undersized for the P5 level (and it's highly unlikely any P5 comes calling for him). I'd imagine if he does decide to leave he'll follow a similar path as Phillip Alston and end up at a Loyola-type program. Keep in mind Alston was much bigger (height and bulk) than Tomiwa (and just as fast). I wish him well and hope he lands at a high-level program. I'd just hate to see him leave here and end up at some NEC school (or worse).

[Ship69]

Yeah, they aren't going anywhere. Joe will have a strong team again next year with or without Tomiwa. He recruits well and has money to spend (a lot of cap space now).

I think it's a good time, however, to reboot some things. As of this moment, he's certainly not the favorite in the West next year (for the first time in forever). He could be by August. We'll see how his shopping goes.

As of today, he has three starters for next year: Ethan, Dallis and Jaylen.

Now, if we see Ethan hit the portal in the coming days, now we're talking total rebuild.

With the nice facility IUP has, proven coaching and the emphasis on basketball, I believe you'll be be a top program in the PSAC now and in the near future. What might change is the ability to build the type of dominant teams IUP has built the past couple of years. With Sulaiman possibly leaving and Foster leaving last year, IUP fans are starting to get a taste (in a different manner) of what programs such as Clarion and Mansfield go through most years. The difference of course, is that a strong player at one of those schools might transfer to another PSAC school or other D2 or D3 destination. With a program such as IUP, the destination might be a low- or mid-level D1 program. Either way, you become sort of a farm system for the teams above you, which is not a great thing. IUP probably has the resources to continue to field a strong program even if they lose guys here and there. Obviously that is not the case for most other PSAC programs. I wonder if Ship would have been able to hang on to Dustin Sleva for four years these days. Glad we didn't have to find out. Even though this year's season didn't turn out as well as we'd hoped, I thought it was a tremendous display of loyalty to Chris Fite that Carter, Dom Sleva, Johnson, and Nedrow all returned for their final year. Carter, Johnson, and Sleva would have had multiple suitors if they'd opted out, and Nedrow could have helped some programs.

It's a new world. I hope the teams we follow and like will be able to live in it.

[IUP24]

It was a bad, bad night. The offensive game plan was puzzling. To play that slow, never attack in transition and beat a team like West Lib, you need to shoot well over 50% from the floor. No one who saw IUP play the 2nd half of the season could have ever imagined that was possible. That game plan put so much pressure on every possession and those guys needed some easy buckets to ease the pressure.

The defense wasn’t good either. The pace of the game held WL well below their averages, but IUP got shredded on defense. Bryce Butler tore them apart in a way I don’t ever remember a single player ever doing to a Joe team (yeah the center from Augusta, but he was just freakishly massive, that was different). Butler toyed with them, whether scoring himself or making the exact right pass out of the double team. That, I don’t think Joe saw coming. I sure didn’t. I knew the kid was good, but I didn’t anticipate him being that good.

But I agree, this will be a season, as good as it was, that will leave us scratching our heads for a long time.

Add Kevin Capers to your list. Lol

[Chuck Norris]

This discussion is the the classic double-edged sword. Most will argue Joe went 32-2, won a 4th straight PSAC Title, won the West for the 300th time in a row and made the Sweet 16.

However, you can point to some glaring flaws in Lombardi's season this year. Was simply making the Sweet 16 really the end goal for a team of this alleged pedigree? I don't think so.

* The whole building, town and opposing teams knew they couldn't hit the side of a barn from outside since early January. It was night after night of box scores reading 5 for 28 from outside or 6 for 33. Yet, he had them just keep chucking. His long belief is outside shooting is the law of averages. Sooner or later things will click. After 8-9 weeks of watching shot after shot clang off the bucket, they needed to change their attack. They never did.

* It's hard to argue the final record standing by itself. But, there's no question a lot of luck went in to that -- especially in late Jan and most of February. Remember, this is the same team that was in severe dog fights -- late in games -- against Clarion, Edinboro and Gannon. They got bailed out at Clarion. Interpret that as you may. They survived at California after blowing a massive halftime lead. They easily could have lost to both ESU and Mercyhurst out at Shippensburg -- and probably should have lost to Winston-Salem. UPJ almost swept them instead of getting swept. They kept winning. No doubt. But should the then-No. 1 team in the country really be scraping by Edinboro, Clarion and Gannon?

* IUP went from lighting up scoreboards in the first half the season to struggling to reach 68 points. The highest IUP scored in its final 5 games was just 67 points.

* The night they lost at Mercyhurst and the lineup he elected to play that evening? Good Lord.

* Some claim his team was physically worn out down the stretch. Perhaps. But ... why was it physically worn out? In the past, Joe's teams never had depth. He had depth this year -- lots of it -- and chose not to use it. Kyle Polce was put in to witness protection in late January. Jaheim Bethea went from the deep rotation to hanging with the local tokens at the end of the bench. Ousmane Diop might as well have quit in November.

* The offense morphed in to some mix of AAU meets playground meets NBA hybrid. There was no flow to it nor any continuity. It was 'good enough' (mostly because their defense was so good) until they finally met a team they really had to score a lot against to beat. West Liberty was the one team all year that could line up with them and was also much deeper than them (again, see above on IUP's perceived lack of depth). IUP had a lot of bad nights in the second half of the season that were simply masked because they had superior talent than nearly every team they played. They won some real ugly basketball games down the stretch.

* Joe refused to let his team attack the basket in transition in the WL loss -- rather electing to force a team in a prolonged, severe shooting slump to set up its offense. That formula worked in 2014-15 but that team had snipers and scorers everywhere. This team, largely due to its 'version' of an offense, did not. This team would have been far better off playing in transition every time the opportunity existed. The end result was getting blown out and embarrassed, at home, in the regional final.

* Why did IUP's offense -- known for the past 10-15 years for being so fluid and structured -- turn in to playground ball? Why was Tomiwa's role just be a garbage man rather than having actual sets run for him?


It was a fun season. No denying. The ending, unfortunately, will always leave a sour taste when remembering this team. It wasn't the loss. Every team but one loses its last game of the season. How they lost ... why they lost ... is what will leave the sour taste.

It was a bad, bad night. The offensive game plan was puzzling. To play that slow, never attack in transition and beat a team like West Lib, you need to shoot well over 50% from the floor. No one who saw IUP play the 2nd half of the season could have ever imagined that was possible. That game plan put so much pressure on every possession and those guys needed some easy buckets to ease the pressure.

The defense wasn’t good either. The pace of the game held WL well below their averages, but IUP got shredded on defense. Bryce Butler tore them apart in a way I don’t ever remember a single player ever doing to a Joe team (yeah the center from Augusta, but he was just freakishly massive, that was different). Butler toyed with them, whether scoring himself or making the exact right pass out of the double team. That, I don’t think Joe saw coming. I sure didn’t. I knew the kid was good, but I didn’t anticipate him being that good.

But I agree, this will be a season, as good as it was, that will leave us scratching our heads for a long time.

[IUPbigINDIANS]

Against wlu i was also surprised by:
1) not attacking the rim when they broke the press. I thought they had the outstanding guards to be successful in transition.
2) ball sticking, over dribbling and difficult shots.

We watched the bolded item all of January and February. That wasn't new to that game.

[IUPbigINDIANS]

I can't complain about Joe - results speak for themselves - but I agree regarding the bench usage. I often times feel he gets too attached to certain players, and wants to let only those horses run. He seems to eager to not want to play someone, whether it performance, a mistake, or attitude/behavior. They could have gone a strong 8-9 deep, but they never really did.

In my opinion, he was too enamored with the Shawndale Jones comeback story. Jones' performance in that Regional Final was putrid, but he kept throwing up ridiculous running layups and trying to back guys down in the low post. I said to myself with the game in hand and 6 minutes to play that he needed to get Jones off the court.

Yeah, they aren't going anywhere. Joe will have a strong team again next year with or without Tomiwa. He recruits well and has money to spend (a lot of cap space now).

I think it's a good time, however, to reboot some things. As of this moment, he's certainly not the favorite in the West next year (for the first time in forever). He could be by August. We'll see how his shopping goes.

As of today, he has three starters for next year: Ethan, Dallis and Jaylen.

Now, if we see Ethan hit the portal in the coming days, now we're talking total rebuild.