Most likely transfer portal targets according to Gopherhole

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We all speculate on what our needs are. No one here really knows how Fox and Ihnen are doing coming off injuries or their current strengths or weakness's after a year off. At least with Cooper and Garcia we have video of their play this past season and can make some assumptions. The same can be said but to a lesser degree about our incoming FR. Most everyone seems to focus on the newbies offensive skills and not so much with their ability, desire to play good D, box out and rebound.

At this point, I expect that we will be improved on offense and especially on the boards as we will be taller and longer. IMO, we have tons of work to do on defense. We had some glaring weakness's last season on D. Our lack of defense in the paint was obvious as well as not being able to guard against the dribble/drive.

My take on our D.

Cooper: I have a concern that he will struggle guarding quick, strong PG's who can really take it to the hoop. He did not have that responsibility, at least what I saw watching 2-3 games on tape, and mostly guarded wing players. He seemed to be OK but not a great defender and probably no improvement over Willis.

Garcia: He is best suited to guard a 4. I watched the UNC/PU game and, in spite of his effort, Garcia was no match and physically dominated by both Edney and Williams. He really worked hard at boxing out but did not seem to be a strong rebounder. He needs to get stronger and add solid weight. I so, he will help our D.

Carrington: I did watch him during State and he didn't appear to have strong D skills. But he is still developing. He and Cooper have the same lanky type frame versus a typical shorter, quicker PG.

Payne: He seems athletic enough to become a good defender and they will need to bulk him up. He will initially take his lumps guarding a big, strong BIG #5.

Battle: He gave solid effort on D and on the glass but we all know his strength is scoring. Will probably defend a 3.

Fox/Ihnen: Who knows what they will look like this Fall. Fox could be our best bet at defending #5. Ihnen should be able to fill in against a 4.

TT: A project. Maybe he will bulk up and surprise as he seems to have a great attitude.

Thiam: Another project who could be our best PG defender.

JOJ/Henley: Both probably defend 3/4???

I defer this back to Ben as he wants players who can and will defend. I assume he is comfortable with the ability of the newbies to put in the work to be good on the D side. Ben favors M/M but did go zone at times out of need rather than strategy.

Will our D improve after a year of BIG experience for our veterans and staff along with the addition of the newbies? I think our 3 & 4 D will improve but we will continue to struggle against the dribble/drive. Paint D potentially better.

Your turn!!!
 

cjbfbp said:
He didn't start at the beginning of the season. Another player who started was hurt earlier in the season and that's why he became a starter. I checked into a Missouri State basketball board and that's what one of them said. I think they liked him as a player but felt his inability to shoot the 3 limited him and allowed defenders to sag off him. One poster said that he did develop a good ability to get to the rim. Sounds a bit like Sutherlin. They did praise his work ethic in improving himself over his freshman year.
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At 6'1 230 how does he get to the rim. Something seems off here.
 

Allshade said:
At 6'1 230 how does he get to the rim. Something seems off here.
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Actually, I think he may have slimmed down a bit. I saw his weight as 205 somewhere else.

I don't know. How did Charles Barkley move so well or that kid from Louisiana Tech who just hit the portal within the last month?
 



cjbfbp said:
This guy just dropped: Malachi Smith

Leading scorer (19.9 pts/gm) for Chattanooga, a 27-8 team. He's from Belleville, IL so he hails from Big Ten territory. I'm sure Illinois will go hard after him if they have spots. .597 True Shooting Percentage, Player Efficiency Rating of 27.9, and Win Shares per 40 minutes of .241 last year. Let's at least offer.
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Would be pretty much the perfect add, but he’s gonna have his choice of any school in the country. Would be shocked if it wasn’t a blue blood. He’s a very very good player.
 


Bayfieldgopher said:
We all speculate on what our needs are. No one here really knows how Fox and Ihnen are doing coming off injuries or their current strengths or weakness's after a year off. At least with Cooper and Garcia we have video of their play this past season and can make some assumptions. The same can be said but to a lesser degree about our incoming FR. Most everyone seems to focus on the newbies offensive skills and not so much with their ability, desire to play good D, box out and rebound.

At this point, I expect that we will be improved on offense and especially on the boards as we will be taller and longer. IMO, we have tons of work to do on defense. We had some glaring weakness's last season on D. Our lack of defense in the paint was obvious as well as not being able to guard against the dribble/drive.

My take on our D.

Cooper: I have a concern that he will struggle guarding quick, strong PG's who can really take it to the hoop. He did not have that responsibility, at least what I saw watching 2-3 games on tape, and mostly guarded wing players. He seemed to be OK but not a great defender and probably no improvement over Willis.

Garcia: He is best suited to guard a 4. I watched the UNC/PU game and, in spite of his effort, Garcia was no match and physically dominated by both Edney and Williams. He really worked hard at boxing out but did not seem to be a strong rebounder. He needs to get stronger and add solid weight. I so, he will help our D.

Carrington: I did watch him during State and he didn't appear to have strong D skills. But he is still developing. He and Cooper have the same lanky type frame versus a typical shorter, quicker PG.

Payne: He seems athletic enough to become a good defender and they will need to bulk him up. He will initially take his lumps guarding a big, strong BIG #5.

Battle: He gave solid effort on D and on the glass but we all know his strength is scoring. Will probably defend a 3.

Fox/Ihnen: Who knows what they will look like this Fall. Fox could be our best bet at defending #5. Ihnen should be able to fill in against a 4.

TT: A project. Maybe he will bulk up and surprise as he seems to have a great attitude.

Thiam: Another project who could be our best PG defender.

JOJ/Henley: Both probably defend 3/4???

I defer this back to Ben as he wants players who can and will defend. I assume he is comfortable with the ability of the newbies to put in the work to be good on the D side. Ben favors M/M but did go zone at times out of need rather than strategy.

Will our D improve after a year of BIG experience for our veterans and staff along with the addition of the newbies? I think our 3 & 4 D will improve but we will continue to struggle against the dribble/drive. Paint D potentially better.

Your turn!!!
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Nice post.
Thanks for taking the time to write this.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
I hope not. Even if you have to give the 1 year scholarship to a Daniels-type depth guard, I think it would be worth it.

Maybe he slotted one scholarship for Ramberg but I think that might be a little soon for Ramberg as well.
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IMO it's inexcusable for a team that finished in last place this year to bank scholarships.

Take a swing at a Thiam/Alonzo Dodd. It's fine to miss, they can transfer after 1-2 years if things don't work out. Hell I'd even take this 230 lb PG with a helicopter parent instead of banking a scholarship, even though they would be my last choice.

I can understand giving Ramberg a scholarship last year when we had to fill an entire roster. Not this year.
 



eker0016 said:
IMO it's inexcusable for a team that finished in last place this year to bank scholarships.

Take a swing at a Thiam/Alonzo Dodd. It's fine to miss, they can transfer after 1-2 years if things don't work out. Hell I'd even take this 230 lb PG with a helicopter parent instead of banking a scholarship, even though they would be my last choice.

I can understand giving Ramberg a scholarship last year when we had to fill an entire roster. Not this year.
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Culture fit. Not throwing around scholarship to warm bodies. I’m sympathetic to your take but it certainly doesn’t look like Ben wants to throw mud at the wall and hope it sticks.
 

eker0016 said:
IMO it's inexcusable for a team that finished in last place this year to bank scholarships.

Take a swing at a Thiam/Alonzo Dodd. It's fine to miss, they can transfer after 1-2 years if things don't work out. Hell I'd even take this 230 lb PG with a helicopter parent instead of banking a scholarship, even though they would be my last choice.

I can understand giving Ramberg a scholarship last year when we had to fill an entire roster. Not this year.
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I hear you, that's the camp I'm in as well. At a minimum, find some older player who can dribble the ball a bit or throw a feeler at Dodd or DJ Jefferson.
 

eker0016 said:
IMO it's inexcusable for a team that finished in last place this year to bank scholarships.

Take a swing at a Thiam/Alonzo Dodd. It's fine to miss, they can transfer after 1-2 years if things don't work out. Hell I'd even take this 230 lb PG with a helicopter parent instead of banking a scholarship, even though they would be my last choice.

I can understand giving Ramberg a scholarship last year when we had to fill an entire roster. Not this year.
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It's ok to use it on a one-year depth player. It's the same as banking it because you have it back next year.

What would be inexcusable would be to give one to a multi-year player to be 9th or 10th man and not have it for a good recruit next year.
 

Dakota2 said:
It's ok to use it on a one-year depth player. It's the same as banking it because you have it back next year.

What would be inexcusable would be to give one to a multi-year player to be 9th or 10th man and not have it for a good recruit next year.
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Pretty much agree with both. We have 3 open spots, one to me should be a higher level starter type, the other 2 I would use on 1 year guys. I understand they aren't going to be 5* guys, but we are a B1G team, there has to be something out there. Either a big C type to bang 10 min a game, maybe a 40%+ 3pt guy who might not do a lot else , or maybe a def G who can be frisky 10 min a game. I think if it's a waste spot plus ramberg that is poor roster mgmt from Ben
 



leib0039 said:
Pretty much agree with both. We have 3 open spots, one to me should be a higher level starter type, the other 2 I would use on 1 year guys. I understand they aren't going to be 5* guys, but we are a B1G team, there has to be something out there. Either a big C type to bang 10 min a game, maybe a 40%+ 3pt guy who might not do a lot else , or maybe a def G who can be frisky 10 min a game. I think if it's a waste spot plus ramberg that is poor roster mgmt from Ben
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We should get a starter and a depth player, but I am fine if Ramberg is the 13th. Ramberg is not that bad and we are never going to play 13 guys. I think that the frosh are going to be better than people think. Carrington and Henley will play, I bet.
 

Dakota2 said:
It's ok to use it on a one-year depth player. It's the same as banking it because you have it back next year.

What would be inexcusable would be to give one to a multi-year player to be 9th or 10th man and not have it for a good recruit next year.
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They gave one to Thiam last year and that quickly worked itself out. Banking scholarships with the current state of the transfer portal is pointless.
 

GopherWeatherGuy said:
They gave one to Thiam last year and that quickly worked itself out. Banking scholarships with the current state of the transfer portal is pointless.
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But it's pointless to bring in freshmen who will transfer anyway. That will damage relationships with coaches and programs.
 

Illinois State transfer Josiah Strong told @336edits that he is considering:

Colorado State
Cal
Illinois State
Oklahoma
Wake Forest
 

GopherPlaya said:
But it's pointless to bring in freshmen who will transfer anyway. That will damage relationships with coaches and programs.
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Why would it damage our relationships with HS coaches if we brought in a player, gave them a shot, and they just weren't capable of competing at that level? I think as long as you have honest conversations and do it with integrity, it doesn't hurt anything.

I doubt Thiam and people close to him hate Ben Johnson right now. He gave him a shot, it didn't work out and I'm sure he's helping him find a landing spot.
 

cjbfbp said:
This guy just dropped: Malachi Smith

Leading scorer (19.9 pts/gm) for Chattanooga, a 27-8 team. He's from Belleville, IL so he hails from Big Ten territory. I'm sure Illinois will go hard after him if they have spots. .597 True Shooting Percentage, Player Efficiency Rating of 27.9, and Win Shares per 40 minutes of .241 last year. Let's at least offer.
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I don’t think Illinois will offer him. He’s a good player, but they evaluate him as a step too slow for the Big Ten to be successful with the style he plays.

Not sure who Illinois will get, but their top targets (after getting Terrance Shannon) are Matthew Mayer and Pete Nance.
 


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