8bucks

1 minute ago, Home Jersey said:

The best political and social commentary always comes from internet message boards about college sports. 

sometimes the cool thing about political commentary on a sports board is that it is not an echo chamber of the political views we gravitate towards.  It can be healthy and yet I understand why folks tend to shy away from it.  

Just now, RaceToTheTop said:

I believe he considered Auburn, but I think IU was the frontrunner from the beginning. 

 

OK. Just expected RC to have a better final 2 (despite NC State have a great tournament run).  I guess you could argue those teams are closer to being in the tournament next year than OSU, Michigan and even IU perhaps. 

6 minutes ago, Chris007 said:

He’s down to NC St and Xavier

Who else did Rice consider before choosing Indiana?  

1 minute ago, Henryville Hoosier said:

 

Where did he visit last?

53 minutes ago, btownqb said:

Hope all is well. 1.2 million is what's being floated. 

I thought that was floated then we heard the $1.2 was what was needed to pull him from IU and that we paid less. 

5 hours ago, HoosierHoopster said:

93% of 948 faculty voted no confidence, there's a lot going on here.

Do we know how many of the 948 voted?

3 hours ago, IndianaSconnie90 said:

Another dominant big who can't shoot 3s. I hate to be a downer here but we've all seen this before. 

 

 

At least 1/3 of these dots are about not being able to shoot 3s. Another 1/3 are I guess being concerned he is dominant?  Strange worry but that gets to the last 1/3 of the dots, being a downer.  
 

If we stop here then I understand some concern but the staff clearly is going after guards and some shooters. That part we have not seen before 

12 minutes ago, Stuhoo said:

True, but a starting role would be at a mid-major, with substantially less NIL.

I think he should think about going mid major so he can start and hopefully return to freshman form or better.  He could work himself into a high level recruit for a bigger payday his senior year. 

1 minute ago, IndianaSconnie90 said:

Whether or not he can shoot 3s really wasn't the main point, simply an observation. I see nothing SO FAR to change my perception that this team is still no better than 2 years ago

Fair point. That was the year we beat Purdue twice, finished 2nd in the BT but fizzled in the tournament. Do you think there is more optimism for next year now than there was when it was thought most of our players would leave (some thought only Newton could return) and it was felt Woody would get a bunch of 1 year mercenaries?  
 

I agree that we are probably not looking better than the 22/23 team but it is hard not to see we are trending quickly away from who most thought we would be for 24/25.  

2 minutes ago, Stuhoo said:

 

And UConn’s opponent in the national championship game featured two bigs, one dominant, and neither of whom could shoot threes.

And our team two years ago that was a 4 seed featured a dominant big that could not shoot threes.

And our disappointing team last season featured a dominant big that could shoot threes.

Hmmmm…. Maybe dominant bigs don’t need to shoot threes!

Hey now, Edy was 50% from 3. 

6 minutes ago, IndianaSconnie90 said:

Another dominant big who can't shoot 3s. I hate to be a downer here but we've all seen this before. 

 

 

Shoot?  I bet he can shoot em

Ballo reminds me of Shaq when he smiles.  No i do not expect him to be that kind of player but what a great add it is

7 minutes ago, Trish said:

Woodson will likely only play eight kids. I think Indiana is at 6 right now. Two more players to make the rotation. 

I suspect he will still play several early in the year and make many frustrated and then shorten the bench if needed.

5 minutes ago, HoosierHuddle said:

I will not pretend to be an expert but I have seen two full games of Malone while he was at Grace College. He's quite skilled. 6'10" and big-bodied. Best comparison I can think of in terms of body-type would be like a 6'10" version of Race Thompson. Doesn't appear to have a plus wingspan (but that's my uneducated eye seeing that). He's not a great athlete and I don't think he'd have much success defending in space. To me, he appears to have pretty high basketball IQ and a good sense of making the right play. He was 37% from three and 81% from the foul line at Grace and is now the school's all-time leader in blocked shots and I think in rebounds. I believe he can help IU and play a role (similar minutes to maybe an Anthony Walker last season...maybe a little more if Ballo is gassed?) but banking on him to play a huge role would be a mistake just in case his game doesn't translate up. There are a lot of examples of good NAIA players carving out really good careers in major college basketball, Malone could be another one. I'd hope his addition does not remove Humrichous from consideration though. 

Yeah that would be where i see him.  My daughter was at Grace this year so we followed a bit.  I know they place Purdue in a preseason game but did not watch that.

2 hours ago, Chris007 said:

Spoke to some people. Their concerns about Woody still not being engaged enough in the whole recruiting, especially in the portal are all still there. He's doing a little more but not still nearly enough as people would like him to. He thinks as long as the money is there, he'll be fine. Take it for what it's worth but that was passed along to me. 

You would think this would lead the staff to leave 1) before the house falls in and 2) to get somewhere where recruiting is balanced differently.  Surprised we have not seen any staff changes for this or because of results.

5 minutes ago, RaceToTheTop said:

Think about the roller coaster Tyme is going through right now from being right to wrong to right to wrong to right...

Not sure we will know how to judge his being right vs wrong until the end.  He has said that the staff will rebuild through the portal with very strong additions.  He has also suggested 3 to 4 guard/wings 1 defensive 4/5, and one stretch big.  So if those come to pass, even if you miss a guy like Hickman but fill with very solid pieces overall, got to give the man his due.  So far we have a very good PG pick up, a surprising late McDs HS addition and seem close to landing the portal's top kid.  Seems like a good start.  

Now landing the remaining pieces will get harder since playing time has to be a factor right.  Personally, I kind of think the NAIA kid could make an interesting addition as a stretch 4/5 bench guy.  If you can land the kid from Evansville, as a bench guy, that would be a very nice add too.  But I can see the bench players being a little less sizzle than the top 3 kids and tucker thus creating more arguing about how we did lol

Still a lot to play out here.

14 minutes ago, ebridges24 said:

Anybody else think this looks like a penis w/ 2 arms and 2 legs?? Oh, and a stick.

Yes I was at the urologist this morning and saw this and had to quickly but awkwardly close it quick. Had a guy sitting right next to me.  I thought maybe it was something I noticed because of where I was 

9 minutes ago, Chris007 said:

We talking crescent or square? There’s a difference to us cutters.

Crescent are btown classics but the square donuts we used to have was excellent 

17 minutes ago, RaceToTheTop said:

Simple question then:  why did the BOT violate Indiana government open information act?  
 

It’s also not like she hadn’t been a college president before — she was in her third year as Kennesaw State’s president for three years prior to coming to Indiana.

I have no idea. I just know from prior experience an overlap is helpful when coming from outside.  That is really all I was able to comment on. 

2 hours ago, RaceToTheTop said:

I think the big thing that is missed is that this is a pretty big Board of Trustees failure...once again.  Kathy with a C can't spin out of this factoid from the article and it shows exactly how the 'group consensus' of the board produces crap.

-------------------

When an 18-person search committee was charged with selecting IU’s next president in 2020, they narrowed the list to four finalists — none of whom included Whitten. According to Steve Sanders, a Maurer School of Law professor who interviewed people involved with the search, the Board of Trustees rejected all four finalists and chose four new finalists externally, this time including Whitten.  

---------------------

So in essence, here are the issues REGARDLESS of politics:

    -- the search committee produces four names and the BOT chose to ignore it completely.  If you want to stay in good graces with the people you are working with, you don't simply wholeheartedly ignore their entire work.  Horrible, horrible PR and sets whoever they do hire up for an immediate adverse relationship.  Better move:  keep one or two names from the original list and add your own to a list of finalists.

    --  the BOT then violated public access law by failing to produce documents in a timely manner that should have been available through the freedom of information act.

    --  Part of the documents they tried to hide indicate that former president McRobbie was paid over $500,000 for 'consulting' work for Whitten in the first six months of her job.....to those involved in the original search committee, this says to them that the BOT chose to ignore candidates they recommended and chose a candidate who wasn't qualified and needed a half a million dollars worth of training.

So to me this says the no confidence vote for Whitten is really a no confidence vote in the procedures that the BOT has adopted.  Sure, there are politics at play but it goes beyond disagreement between the president and staff.

Hard to say if there was anything revealing about having the prior president help with the transition. I have had a few opportunities to be the successor to a retiring president. In many of the opportunities there was an overlap or some consulting type role like this to help ease in the transition especially when I was coming in from the outside. If she was not in the first round then it may have taken more time to get her on board and some of that time may initially have been planned for this consulting help.  

7 minutes ago, IUFAN1976 said:

He hasn’t committed yet!  If Woodson let’s him get out of town without a commitment, there is a very good chance we could lose him.

How do you know he has not committed yet?  May not have but very easily could have and the staff is waiting for him to make if official.

11 minutes ago, Stuhoo said:

 

It's an example.

I work for/with a very no-nonsense leader. If that was proposed to him he'd think it was a clear sign of a leader that doesn't trust or command the respect of his/her team. I think so too.

Just curious, if this is paranoia based, is the argument that she fears they would be recording the conversation?  Can you secretly record a conversation in Indiana?   

32 minutes ago, RaceToTheTop said:

Hickman might have some self awareness -- he's a good college player but not an NBA player.  Some guys chase the dream being G league fodder for years on a $40K to $50K salary not realizing that being a good college player isn't always relevant to what the NBA wants.  Others chase their dreams overseas for years.

The draw for a kid like Hickman of playing in his hometown, getting paid really nicely to do so, and knowing that a backcourt foursome of Rice-Carlyle-Galloway-Hickman is a really solid college backcourt and should lead to wins could be very appealing.  I don't begrudge players getting paid even if they play less minutes.

He would do better playing overseas than the G league but to follow your thought, playing in the Big Ten and at Indiana would be more attractive to overseas teams, I would think, than having played at Cincy.  Now, if he wants to go to Cincy and have a bigger role, I would not fault him for that.

1 hour ago, HoosierHoopster said:

Profs are really angry with her. She has some out there policies. One examp - for any meeting with her the person (prof, etc) has to put their cellphone in a container, some feeling reflects paranoia.

Sounds like she just wants ther attention.  If this is “out there” it seems mild. 

27 minutes ago, Golfman25 said:

How do you know they are multi year players.  One hopeful is on his third team.  And things are fluid.  It could very well have been a dumpster fire.  My only point is it does have to play out. We have a long long way to go. 

Many of the targets could have multiple years left which would have been better than getting all 1 year guys and doing it all over again next summer.  Not all will be multi year but the first two are. Even if we get the #1 class with all our needs met we all know we have to make it work on the court.  But for now, this is turning out better than I expected.