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Latest additions is definition of desperation. Wonder if they got them for free?

Colvin and Battle, Nymechek, Makalusky. Maybe next year we are back ready to compete near the upper 3rd again if, if, if.

100% agree. And on top of that we didn't win much with all those one-year left seniors. Painful. As for who the staff let go and brought in... I get your point. I don't know until the season plays out. I get the concerns.

Yep. Cig & Co are great scouts, player developers, and retainers. That's how they spent ~$22M on the roster and beat all these programs spending $35-40M. Most amazing thing I've ever seen.

The staff has nobody to blame but themselves for points 2 and 3. There was very little to develop because the staff went senior heavy year 1 and with what little underclassmen they brough in, they ran them off after the season. I still want to know what Darren Harris does that Nick Dorn can't do, and for half the cost. Does the staff think someone like Trevor Manhertz is more ready next year than Josh Harris?

I get the roster concerns people have. TBD, but valid. I really think the problem was how expensive the portal is and how much we had to use it again in season two. Below is how programs make their roster budget go far: 1) Scouting: This is an extreme example, but Wagler as a #140+ ranked high school kid was probably ~$500K last year (before he blew up and got other deals Illinois didn't have to pay for). What a steal for Illinois -- his real value was closer to something like $4M. 2) Development: A 5ppg player is on a cheap deal. Turn them into a 10ppg material contributor and they're still on the same cheap deal for the rest of the year (sometimes two years). 3) Retention: A happy player in a great situation won't hit the portal for $1 more. For most, it will take several hundred thousand more to hit the portal and risk a good thing. So, retaining players is quite a bit cheaper than getting them from the portal. In season one, we did very little of the above. Not good and really put us in a bad spot. On top of the portal being expensive, IU's recent struggles mean we don't have much to offer but money. We aren't a title contending NBA factory. So, all that means our $18-20M budget couldn't go very far and we've still got roster questions. Also, there is a chance we could have made some player selection errors on top of that. I'm not sure... hard to tell. TBD. Anyways, we need to get on the track of doing a good job with scouting/dev/retention. Without that we have no chance, even if you give the staff top-10 money for the roster each year.

How many meh programs are spending $20 million on a basketball roster? How many $20 million rosters are there total in college basketball next year? Of the $20 million rosters in college basketball next year, how many share as many weaknesses as this IU roster? For $20 million, I would have expected a much better constructed roster.

Three point shooting is not minimal. Harris, Sherrell, Lindsay are all expected to be reasonably accomplished three point shooters, and Burton, Mustaf, and Sisley all have three point capability. And all six of them are in our likely top eight projected minutes players. Lack of depth for true bigs? Yes. For the 1-3 spots? No. The constant griping about the roster, which was assembled for a school with a staff with no NBA success stories and a program with a multi-decade record of mediocrity is, for me, a real detachment from reality. So let me ask you this: Can you name a P4 program As 'meh' as IU and With as many holes to fill That assembled a better roster? Put your money where your mouth is - show me an example of a school in a similar situation with a roster that does not offend you.

I think it's more than fair to say there's a lot of question marks with the roster and program heading into Y2. Even so, we should have more P5 talent and size on this roster, so I'm content to wait and see how they do. Plenty of good reasons to be skeptical which have been covered at length already. For me, as long as Cig is here, it will be more enjoyable to focus on and enjoy IUFB in the offseasons.

Doesn't UGA have to win once in a while to consider it a rivalry?

IF that is the case, it wasn't spent very wisely. A $20M roster shouldn't have this many glaring holes and weaknesses. 3 point shooting is minimal and the lack of depth is a complete mystery. I don't understand the approach if we truly had that much money.

Monshun Sales isn't a take then? LSU has a lot of pull, regardless of who the coach is. Especially for kids from the South.

That's a great pic -- lots of good vibes

Come on. We're borderline top-10 roster spend in CFB and something like #7-10 in MBB. BY FAR the main driver of revenue for an athletic dept is the football stadium. And ours is about half the size of the big boys, a HUGE disadvantage. Yet our roster spend in FB and MBB is right there with the biggest athletic depts. That's thanks to our donors. We are giving basketball plenty of money, especially for how much they've stunk. Sometimes I worry we're giving MBB too much money... send it to Cig? We need the damn staff to use it wisely. Depth is only going to come from scouting/development/retention -- IU along with almost every other school cannot buy it. We'll see if this staff can do it. I'm worried, but it's possible they figure it out.

I would think Michigan would be more of a rivalry chance than anyone. The history on the BBall side from the last 50 to 70 years would be a big factor.

Just got back from NY………. Ladies and Gentlemen the New York Knicks are NBA champiiiiiiiiiiiiooooooooooooooons. what a team.

I saw that one. Tennessee/Florida would be above that, and it isn't even ranked.

I totally get the gripes with the roster but this is just not the case. By all reports our basketball spend is close to $20M this year and our national champion football team also has a player payroll that's among the highest in the nation. There's plenty of money available, the coaches just need to use it effectively. Dolson and the AD seem to have done a good job of monetizing the football success and investing in the fledgling flagship program that is IUBB. We play in Peru in about a month. And IUFB will be here before we know it. Super excited for that.

On a related note, I was listening to some podcast where some IU people mentioned Indiana being open to new "rivals" now that we're good at football. That got me thinking... I don't think a new rivalry will happen. It's not a bad thing, but here is the reasoning: What makes for a strong rivalry in college sports? 1) The game matters even if both teams are bad 2) The rivalry permeates all sports, not just one 3) Both schools generally agree it's a rivalry Schools only have bandwidth for a main rival, a secondary rival, and somewhat rarely a tertiary rival. IU obviously has Purdue. We care about games vs. them even when the teams stink, and we care about whatever we play them in. UK is our secondary rival. It's been weakened with the hiatus, but I think factors #1 and #2 are there, though far less than PU. Sorry Illinois, you're not a rival, see factor #3. If we stay good at football, things are going to keep heating up with the football schools in conference. While I think the familiarity of being in the same conference as those schools for 100+ years will drive significant interest, great crowds, and plenty of jabbing... we've seen it happen already, it would take a lot for an actual new rivalry to be born. The reason being if we stunk again people would quicky not care (factor #1). And IU being good at football will likely not make, say, IU vs OSU in soccer, any more meaningful (factor #2). I suppose if we stay good at football for another 10-15 years (Cig's tenure and we keep it up post-Cig), maybe we become a tertiary rival for OSU or UM or whoever. I just think it's hard to form a new legitimate rivalry. It takes a lot of friction to start a long-burning rivalry fire. Anyways, this is a pointless analysis of the definition of "rivalry," but that's what message boards are for.

I agree, but Elder Sokolov would have many more suitors if he turned out any good vs Jr. Sokolov, so we roll the dice on Jr. and pray since IU donors are a bunch of misers.

Somebody at IU had to have looked at Anderson, and decided: "This player has potential, and might be able to contribute to our team". Colsten, or CTM, or someone made that assessment.

I’m pretty sure it’s a joke list. Look at #25.

Putting Utah/BYU in front of Army/Navy? Bold move, Cotton.

Last year we went with a true money ball approach and none of us were happy with the result. This time around they've kind of done a 180 and decided to spend heavy at the top. Seems like a staff still figuring things out. I appreciate the willingness to pivot when it's needed. We will see how the execution plays out this time around. Hopefully the net result of this year is we have a good core of returners next year and can use the portal to add a couple big time difference makers.