Norm Peterson

Soooo @basketballjones you mentioned the other day about how much you like this team. Interesting turns of events here, though. Ulis possibly gone changes some things. But it appears Rice and certainly Cale Jacobsen are way better prospects than we had any reason to hope they'd be. And, now, some interesting potential news about Paul Mulcahy needing another landing spot. Let's say we land him. Now what are your thoughts? Let's say we don't land him. What are your thoughts?

My bad for bumping a recruiting thread instead of one on the main board. I should pay closer attention.

He was smart to bet against Iowa in those games they lost. Should the guy really be punished for making good picks? (kidding. sort of.)

1. Thought we did pretty well in the transfer portal overall but, honestly, was never blown away by Ulis. Check my post history. 2. Holy crap, the Ulis news. 3. Wait, that walk-on guard from Ashland is starting at center and closing the game out at point? And scoring in double figures in two straight games? Da fuq? 4. Aw shi are you seeing what true freshman Eli Rice is doing? Holy smokes. 5. Paul Mulcahy possibly back on the market, hmm? You don't say. 6. Just so happens, as of about today, we might have an open spot at just his position. 7. Might not be a bad idea for Fred to fly home from Spain a little early. Y'know, just in case someone who used to play for Rutgers wants to reach out.

Just throwing this little more out there on Mulcahy:

Trying to make sure this is on the correct forum. Not only was he apparently gambling. A LOT. But he also bet on Iowa? And now it's he's being charged with tampering with evidence. Soooooo not good.

OMG, the news keeps getting worse. First it was he gambled. And gambled a LOT. Then it was he gambled on Iowa. Now it's being charged with tampering with evidence. Oh shoooooooot.

CJ, Brice, Eli and Cale with back-to-back double figure games. Haven't seen anything about Jamarques Lawrence, and Ramel Lloyd evidently dished 4 assists the first game, but haven't seen any scoring totals attributed to him. I mean, if you're just going by what we know from the first two games, it sure seems like Cale is a kid who is gonna be in the rotation and possibly start. And Eli is showing himself well, too.

OK, so we don't get to see the full team with some guys hurt and other guys playing for their national programs or ... other reasons. But what we do get a peak at is Eli Rice might have been a real under-the-radar steal. CJ Wilcher is taking advantage of the opportunity. Williams appears to be a guy who can score. And maybe this walk-on actually can play point for us. He might have to, so this is good to see.

To clear this up for once and for all, I was told of this Ulis situation last Saturday morning by someone who didn't have specifics but wanted to know if I'd heard anything. Indicated it sounded like it could be a big deal. We could surmise it clearly wasn't weed. I'm not going to steal that guy's thunder. If he wants to say something on the board, he can, but he hadn't, and it wasn't up to me to say anything, so I stayed quiet. I would have remained quiet except @kldm64 speculated (or maybe had information) about weed. I knew that wasn't the answer, but a) it wasn't my story to tell; and b) I knew enough to refute weed but not supply any other specifics. Again, I wouldn't have brought it up at all. I'm clearly not trying to gain some board cred by saying "haha, I know stuff you guys don't know." For the third time: I hadn't said anything about it and wouldn't have said anything about it except someone else brought it up and posted information I knew was incorrect. That's all. If someone wants to get his knickers in a twist over that, I'm sorry I don't know what to tell you.

I heard it was gambling while at Iowa.

So apparently it wasn't the weed, then?

He's 6'5, mid-30s from deep, about 3.8 assists to go along with 4.9 rebounds and 14.3 points per game. Jarron Coleman - Ball State Cardinals guard - ESPN Ball St was Kenpom #171 FWIW.

I'd kill for Mulcahy. I mean literally I'd kill for Mulcahy. Of course I don't mean kill a person, but if you could deliver Mulcahy, I'd gladly come clear your property of large rodents.

To condense the answer somewhat ... C -- 10. Top priority. An absolute must. Clearly nobody on the roster who could remotely fill in here. PG -- 8-9. Griesel left big shoes to fill and we had nobody proven who could fill them. PF -- 6-7. With the injury to Gary and off-season surgery, was also an area of concern. SG/wing -- 3-4. This was our most solid returning spot, but I felt we could use a dynamic scoring wing if we could find one. Now, @basketballjones go flip to the other thread and answer how well you think we addressed each of these needs, because I'm curious to see what people think. Ironically, I think the best add was in the area of LEAST need. Fortunately, I think the second-best add was in the area of MOST need. But, IMO, at least on paper, the area of second-most need was where we hit a dribbler down the first base line and just barely beat the throw.

That's about where I am.

Reminder: Players we gained in the off-season: PG Ulis -- started 27/35 games for Iowa last season; role diminished to 16 min/game the last 5 games; averaged 6.1 ppg, 2.1 apg SG Williams -- averaged 13.8 ppg, 5.3 rpg last year at UNC-Charlotte; hovered around 40% beyond the arc last 2 seasons PF Allick -- started all 34 games for Kenpom #66 UNM last year averaging 8.4 ppg, 7.3 rpg; career 28.7% 3-pt shooter C Mast -- averaged 13.8 and 8.0 for Kenpom #90 Bradley last year while shooting 35.3% from beyond the arc C Diop -- under-the-radar, athletic big man who chose us over Az State, Ol Miss and Pitt.

After you've rated the degree of urgency we faced to find someone this off-season at each position, I'm curious how you would rate our success on a zero-to-ten scale where zero means complete and utter failure and ten means we knocked it out of the park and scored a commit from a potential star. Base this on what you know or feel confident of at this moment, mid-summer, when we really haven't seen these guys in action yet. We can revisit this question when the season starts.

Ulis, Williams and Mast weren't on the roster when we dove into the portal. I would rank it like this: PG 8-9. We lost Griesel who left big shoes to fill, but we did have a couple of guys who, in a pinch, could maybe switch from off-ball guard to on-ball. SG 3-4. We lost a graduating senior, Bandoumel, but he went down mid-season with an injury, and we had a couple of kids in Keisei and Jamarques who stepped in and would return as presumptive starters, so pretty good there. But I felt like it would be good if we could find a dynamic, scoring wing. PF 6-7. We lost Wilhelm to the portal basically as soon as it opened (?) and Juwan still had an iffy shoulder issue at the time. I think we needed to find someone here. Post 10. Derrick's shoes were huge. And we had zero guys in the pipeline who could even potentially jump into his spot. This was the most significant and urgent need to address this off-season.

nm

Towards the end of last season, I made a statement that some agreed with and others vehemently did not. I said that, for the first time in the Hoiberg era, we're approaching an off-season where the list of recruiting/portal needs is short and manageable. By that, I basically meant we didn't need to trash the entire roster and start over, we just needed to add a few, specific pieces, and that we'd put ourselves in a position to convince potential transfers to believe they could succeed here. So, here's the first question: Take all five floor positions -- PG, SG/Wing x 2, stretch 4 and post -- and, in terms of where we were with each as of basically the opening of the portal (basically after our departures), rate them on a zero-to-ten scale where zero means we're good, we've got a returning player at the spot who could step right in and not miss a beat, and ten means this is an important spot and we've got nobody on the current roster who could really do the job right now. To avoid confusion on ratings, the second question, which will also deal with ratings, will follow in a separate thread.

Yeah. Better to remain silent and let a kid's character get dragged than to chime in and say "actually, I heard it wasn't weed."

That it wasn't anything to do with drugs.

Not what I heard.