Aaron

At home it wont be. Road game will be close and could go either way but PU is a dumpster fire. We have had close games at Mackey even with some of the good teams.

Purdue shouldn't be a problem to beat for IU this yr. Their situation makes IU look like awesome. People just need patience and not make grand program declarations when a bad hire was made that has since been corrected in your lead recruiter. It just takes a minute to dig out of a hole that was self created. Hole never should have been created, but since it has, it takes time to see if it works and I think it well could. People don't realize how bad the five teams at the league are compared to IU and team has six games against them. That should be 4-5 wins minimum and then 1-2 more they steal. While 6-12 and 16-14 is not ideal, its not a death to the program and very similar to Moren's first yr before taking off. Reinforcements are coming and I think the body of work will lead to decent portal additions. Recruits look at the whole picture. Not one bad year that has been created and is on way to being corrected. These stadiums being less full after a 20-13 tourney season and a couple bad losses, proves my point that we have one of the most fair weather fan bases in the country. Its not everyone and some are very loyal. However, a higher percentage than most (including a few on this board), are much more willing to run away at first sign of trouble than is typical in a normal fan base. I am amongst the first to be critical when things are clearly an issue. If Coach Sy was still employed I would be at front of line of criticism. However, I also have the capacity to see the whole situation and not make declarations at first sign of trouble and try to identify the issue as a whole.

I would say Over Under 5 given MSU's propensity to play to its competition against even worst squads.

Here's the thing. The Spartans play to the level of their competition. They have some top wins, but losses at Wisconsin and were taken to the wire at home by Rutgers and both are arguably worse than IU. This will likely be the last close game for a while simply because MSU plays to their opposition regardless of if they are struggling or elite. While this is the game that should be written off in theory based on talent and performance, MSU's mercurial nature could well give IU a better chance in this one until any opposition before Purdue. If we get top-level Sparty this one will be really ugly against the Hoosiers. However, based on recent results, this is far from a guarantee

Its simple. Recruiting is as strong as your coaches. Glenn Box was a great recruiter who got us all those top players like Holmes and Berger. Sayavongchanh was awful and was fired for not doing her job recruiting and now they brought in the right guy who can do the role well again, hence the top recruits again. This is not program instability. This is losing an elite employee to a promotion in Box who got a head coaching job and then making a bad hire to replace him which had to be corrected a couple years later. This is a normal thing that happens in successful programs across the board. If Tom Allen had been willing to fire Darren Hiller he may still be here and having 6-8 win success he did when DeBoer was here. People can make bad hires, but its whether you get rid of them at clear signs of failure and move past personal affection (as Moren did with coach Sy and Jeff Mercer did with Dustin Glant) that defines if you are a good coach. Allen made a problematic hire that he doubled down on and killed program and got himself fired as a result. Mercer and Moren made problematic assistant hires that hurt program and then made them move on when it clearly wasn't working. That's the strength of a good leader Allen lacked in same scenario.

We were not 'outbid' for Yarden. She wanted to be on a winning team in her final year, and it looks to be a sound decision given the rebuild IU is undertaking. See above. Moren absolutely deserves blame for program being where it is at. However, NIL is much better now and you can't change the past. We are temporarily paying for her being to slow to adjust but has now. Things should dramatically improve now, but it will take patience and an understanding that this is going to be rough this season. Moren dug us into this hole and deserves to be ridiculed for getting us here, but is on way to digging us back out now.

Geesh. Society is impatient. Let's just throw the best coach in program history overboard after she has made the necessary adjustments and a few bad games. It's true, this program was headed into the dumpster if things had continued how they were. However, Moren had a come-to-Jesus moment last year and has adjusted with better NIL and recruiting much better now. She just replaced her failing recruiting coach with a top-notch one, and it shows. Caffey and Makalusky are future studs, but being asked to do way too much as frosh. For the first time since Yarden, you can clearly envision this pair as high-end starters down the road. Next year's recruits are even higher in the rankings. Oh, and they just had their first top-20 player visit recently. The new recruiting coach is doing exactly what he was supposed to do, and if everyone is patient, things will improve drastically over the next couple of seasons. This season is going to be rough, much like Moren's first one with 4-5 conference wins. However, as reboot part 2 goes on, things should get back to winning quickly, just as happened after her first season with the program. We are temporarily paying for Moren's lack of adjustment to the modern game and recruiting. We can absolutely blame her for being slow on the uptake that temporarily has the team in this position, but to her credit, she realized she was driving the program off the tracks. Now that things appear headed in the right direction again, let's give this a yr and I think everyone will be happy with the product. Outside of Shay, everyone is an underclassman with tons of potential but raw. As they mature and even better recruits come in, this will look much better. Just going to have to be patient and accept this is going to be a really rough year, and the program is paying for the recent past, which can't be changed. However, a brighter tomorrow should be ahead down the road with the changes made.

This thread is a microcosm of our massive issue as a fan base. Any other fan base would not even utter such a thought when they get elite football and understand that is the driver of athletics. We have far to many fans who have decided IU basketball is only team they can support and all others IU teams are irrelevant while others refuse to support any IU squad that is outside top-5. We will never sustain success anywhere with this attitude and will continue to have 3-5 yr up cycles across every sport followed by not sustaining winning. Its awful early to be down on DeVries already (although I get the frustration here). However, until our so-called fans decide IU sports is more than just men's basketball and it is OK to support good non-elite teams in other sports we will not sustain healthy success an an athletic department. Supporting the other 23 sports is a necessity (especially football) or no sport will succeed including men's basketball as everyone seems to want. To not sell out volleyball for NCAA Tournament in tiny stadium and have no interest in sport by many, losing thousands of season ticket holders over a 20-13 NCAA year in women's basketball, amongst other things will never lead to success here. Everyone is entitled to support what they want, but just realize that 'basketball is only important sport' attitude will never lead to success anywhere consistently at IU including in basketball. Just wait till we have our first 8 win football season next year and lose thousands of season ticket holders. If attitude doesn't change this will happen.

If anyone thought Kadlecova was in the future plans, they were sorely mistaken. Maya has already been better than Kadlecova ever was since moving into lineup. Wonder if losing her playing time to Maya caused her to be a locker room problem (just speculating and have no inside info) and Moren wanted it rooted out very quickly after last yr. The fact that she is going to play 'professional basketball' tells me she probably thought she was better than she is and deserved more playing time and told Moren to 'play her more or I want off team' if I read between lines. Totally speculating though.

Im also high on Phoenix and think she has future as borderline starter or energy person off bench. The other portal players are unlikely to crack lineup at any point and there is a reason they were late adds with little fanfare rather than early adds and fighting off other teams as happened with Z and Phoenix.

Clearly you are not up on program and its 'Ciezki'. You are correct Moren was slow to adapt to NIL and her recruiting coach Linda Sayavongchanh was totally ineffective recruiting hence the talent fall off you are seeing IU is paying for at moment. However, losing Garzon opened an eye up to Moren that she needed NIL and was not recruiting well. Moren brought in a new recruiting coach Colsten Thompson who recruited top players at Alabama and has already made his mark at IU. Already the two freshman this year in Maya Makalusky and Nevaeh Caffey are showing much more promise then any newcomers since Mackenzie Holmes (but still raw) and are the highest ranked recruits in program history. Next years class has two higher ranked recruits then this yr even and is no. 6 nationally. It could well be rough this year due to past failures, but help is on the way and the future should be bright with correct adjustments made now.

An FYI: Southwest just launched two special non-stops from Indy to LAX for Rose Bowl going out on 12/31 and returning on 1/2. They are not cheap at $1300 dollars a ticket and only premium pricing fares offered but it brings the number of nonstops for those days to 5. It generally is only two per day total on a normal day with one on American and one on Delta. However, American added an extra flight to their regular one and Southwest launched two specials for the game on the route they don't normally fly (and note it is $400 less than the $1700 the other carriers are charging).

The comment was for two years down the road. I would hope the portal class for 2026 and 2027 has not been finished, nor has the 2027 recruiting class. The 2026 recruiting class is indeed finished, but it is the best in program history and sixth nationally, with the two highest-ranked recruits in program history. It is indeed very early for the 2026 and 2027 seasons, with a lot of great pieces, but still roster spots to fill, just as I said.

You are assuming this is the end of the recruiting, and they won't get more elite players in the portal and recruiting. I would agree if those are the only players IU was getting and this was the end of the roster, but let's see what else they have. This is a great start. Declaring them a national title contender with just this is indeed a bit much but a great start.

The fact that he jumped at the first opportunity to get out of town tells me he knew his status in his current job was tenuous.