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Thankful I got the chance to watch with mine. He's been battling cancer for over a year now and we also lost my grandpa in that time frame, so I didn't want to miss out on what could potentially be one of the last major shared sports memories.

Theory.... College basketball is bleeding. Not dying, but in need of care. There is more of a personal connection to players- by and large - with basketball than there is with football. I understand there's the occasional Fernando Mendoza, but I'm not talking about him or the anomaly. Basketball players are visible and people know who they are. People knew Anthony Leal even though he never did anything. They wouldn't know Amare Farrell if they were in line behind him at a Starbucks and that guy just won a national title. People knew Luke Jiminez, for the love of God. With 13 kids on each team, many very visible; yearly roster turnover doesn't allow that connection; nor does a roster full of kids who leave trying to get paid and have no loyalty and especially regional loyalty. That was critical to fans' love of teams and now that it's missing..... the sport suffers. Ratings don't, but the sport does. With people having to search for games on various streaming services many don't have, which also means announcers are unfamiliar and don't know the teams or players very well....the sport suffers. Broadcasting has become sterile. More like reporting, less like a column and entertainment or local news. The NCAA Tournament will always be huge because it's an incredible event, people gamble $billions on it; but we have already had a point shaving scandal; college basketball already has a ton of 1 and done players who are the best players IN college basketball....and the sport suffers. Are people tuning in now to watch a Washington vs Rutgers game on Peacock? That would be out-drawn by a shake weight commercial. Blue bloods still draw on TV; mediocre draws only to gamblers. And there are a TON of those. My point? We connect with people...not laundry. We would all have been over the moon had IU won a title with Kevin Wilson or Bill Lynch. But no one will ever convince me it wasn't 10000x better because we did it with Curt Cignetti. Darian DeVries is not a draw. His team is not a draw. I don't think college basketball is much of an emotional draw anymore unless your team is top 10. Purdue is good again, and here in Indianapolis, they're discussed far less than the Indiana Fever...whose season doesn't even start for 3 1/2 months. Indiana is boring, vanilla, and a victim of "the times." Football is a weekly event. A huge production with big games highlighted every Saturday...but only once a week. College basketball is diluted. GameDay Saturday, Big Monday! Power Thursday..etc. You can find 200+ games on TV every week and people watch (and they are definitely watching) for different reasons than they used to. Indiana can BE a huge brand again, but they have to win. If they don't, there are plenty of other things to do and now we have the transfer portal, spring football, etc. I fear the thing that finally DOES kill IU's basketball brand will be Indiana Football. That reality needs to be rectified in a hurry. We don't HAVE 4 years w Darian DeVries.

Hardest I’ve laughed in a minute.

In all fairness, we’re in the “Fire Darian DeVries” thread, which is not grounded in reality to begin with.

West Virginia was very upset when we poached DeVries, I think the right thing to do is to apologize and give him back!

Our flight from FLL yesterday (I’m not exaggerating, there wasn’t a single person on the plane not wearing IU gear) had a flight attendant whose daughter either goes to or graduated from IU. Before we landed, she asked the entire plane to pose for a picture that she could send to her daughter. Naturally every person on the plane held up a 1.

I’ve got something that’ll make you feel much better:

The connecting flight in question

One other point on this game. Some people are saying Miami almost had it or whatever. That's not right. - First off, we never trailed - While Miami got some things working in the second half, it's a 60 min game, and we owned the first half - Sure UM made some mistakes, but so did we - Credit UM for some counterpunches, but our win probability never dipped below 70%, and at the end it was 90%+

I do not often agree with you @Old Friendbut largely agree with your post above. Bball is diluted and the portal — at least as it is now — is bad for the game (while being generally good economically for the players), and it specifically fosters disloyalty, pay me more or say goodbye. The portal needs an overhaul with rules limiting the mass transfers, capping pay, etc. imo. the posts calling out DeVries and saying he can’t coach though are just flat out boneheadedly uninformed and lazy. He’s a very good x’s and o’s coach and program builder with a fairly long track record supporting that. What I think we’re seeing for the most part is most of our players are just not at the B1G level to excel — and at this point I think I was wrong about that. Wilkerson is excellent as I knew he would be having seen him play here in TX, Tucker has the talent bit seems slowed over the past several games and his shot is off. I think he’ll turn it back around soon. i like Dorn’s game and Sisley has potential though he’s not ready yet imo for a major role. Most of the other guys aren’t playing at a high caliber level. I thought more of them would be. DeVries came in and had to restock the entire roster on the fly. You can’t convince the best players to join up when a) you’ve been mediocre to bad for 8 years, and b) they have no idea who their teammates will be because you’re rebuilding the entire team, and c) again, you’re rebuilding the entire team and most elite players want nothing to do with that. of course DeVries needs more time, that’s beyond obvious. Whether he’ll succeed remains a question and will be up to him, but minimum 3 years? Of course. And while I’m really disappointed in the team’s falloff over the past several games, I think he’ll get us back to winning

Not sure we match the football team and get 16 wins this year

IU football has liberated me! Bad basketball just doesn’t bother me anymore. Good basketball would simply be an amazing bonus, but it’s not necessary.

Nick Saban’s takes have been dogs!t this entire season. And if the greatest, smartest, and most accomplished college football mind can’t tell his @$$ from his face when assessing IUFB under Cignetti, then there aren’t any pundits whose opinions are worth two cents (sans College Football with Sam, BuffedinPrime, and maybe Joel Klatt). I’ve already forgotten who won the championship 8 years ago. This team/season will be talked about for decades, maybe longer, because this was bigger than the game (to use a cliche). We just pantsed a billion dollar industry with a ballsier performance than Babe Ruth calling his own shot. They can hate us all they want, make up whatever excuses they want, etc. The fact remains that there isn’t a single coach in this sport’s history who could’ve done what Cignetti did. All these programs that have poured hundreds of millions into their teams, sold out 100k stadiums for decades, and then here comes little old Indiana winning a championship before many of them, and one that was purely settled on the field. We didn’t get a narrative bump to make the playoffs. We didn’t duck anyone on our path. We didn’t have any luck on our side or benefit from an opponent’s injury to a star player. We didn’t cheat. There were no questionable calls that went our way. We weren’t a bubble team that got hot at the end. And the real kicker is we did it with 0-3 star recruits, all while playing a longer season and more arduous schedule than any champion in history. This isn’t supposed to happen, but it also wasn’t a fluke. I think most casual CFB fans were behind us on this one. But the ones that weren’t, and probably for the reasons you stated, they can make all of the excuses they want to. Nothing like this will ever happen again in CFB, even if Cig wins another one here.

Tamar Bates @tbates_11 Nothing but pure joy in my heart for @IndianaFootball!! Congrats to the University, Players, and @CCignetti Wonderful gesture on Tamar's part.

I didn't have high expectations for basketball this year to begin with. Best thing to do is allow the success of the football team to carry us through the basketball season. My grading scale will begin next season after DD has an entire offseason with the program to set it up.

Shouldn't you be busy helping John move his stuff from Baltimore to New Jersey?

One of the enjoyable things about winning a natty is reliving the great moments of the game, forever, on YouTube. One of the annoying things is listening to various pundits providing postmortem assessments that to me sound short sighted and dumb. Since Monday night, I've heard: * IU benefitted greatly from Cuban's backing * Had older, more experienced players * Will never duplicate what they did this year * Gamed the system * Got lucky bounces * Still isn't a destination for most 4 and 5 star recruits * Gives hope to every school in the America that they too, can win a natty. What utter BS. While bits and pieces of the above may be true, we won it all because we have the best coach in college football, aided by an outstanding set of assistants, led by a great AD and President, and forged by putting together precise measures of brains, passion, athleticism, desire, grit, and determination. I don't see anyone else pulling off what we did this year, unless it's us again.

Wow. Just wow ...

This will never, ever, ever, get old.

Osterman late last night - Our flight from Detroit to Indy is being delayed because a flight out of Miami was late and passengers are rushing to connect. Pilot just came back and told us they’re “trying to do a Mendoza.” Shortly after that - Plane is full. Everyone made it. Pilot is back: “It’s absolutely my honor to pilot this national championship crowd.” He is receiving applause.

WE’RE THE FLIPPIN CHAMPS!!!!!!!! Let’s go! Even if someone pinched me, still would feel like a dream. Never thought this was possible, Hoosier freaking football just won the national championship. What a freaking time right now. All those horrible years hoping and praying just to win enough games to make a bowl game…… to this. Couldn’t be more proud and excited for this program.

The most excited I've been for IU basketball over the past 10 years has been during the searches for a new coach. If we had another one, I'd just expect to hear exciting rumors only to be slapped in the face with another WTF hire.

Wait till the one at USC that starts at like midnight ET

Hummel is a dime store Jay Bilas.......

C. Rewatch the game from last night.

lil Wayne all in on the Hoosiers:

Guessing the Alberto to Georgia Tech news breaking today indicates this has been in the works for a while. Wish the young man well. It'll be sad to lose our connection to the Mendozas. Great family!

I am happy Lee Corso got to see this.

This one hit me where I live. Over and over. Love this group of fellow Hoosiers https://www.facebook.com/reel/911185658535366

On3's Adam Gorney predicts Hill to IU. Notre Dame and Texas A&M had also been int the running but Gorney thinks it's IU. https://247sports.com/Player/Jailen-Hill-46141491/ https://www.hudl.com/profile/25595848/Jailen-Hill

Gotta give a ton of credit to the largest alumni base in the country. It was absolutely insane to watch Hoosier fans take over stadiums during this playoff run.

Pretty cool.

You hope that a full staff is the difference during this cycle. At the time it didn’t seem likes big deal he was taking his time with the staff however it turned out to be a bigger deal then I expected. Looking back that put them way behind. Chase Branham has been far from mediocre. That commitment is looking better and better by the day and his ranking is going up. Same with Moody Prince. National scout Finklestien last time he watched said he should move way up and definitely be in 247 top 70 with a chance move up more. Manhertz is looking to announce in February and IU is in a good spot. Louisville wants him and Duke poked around. On court results are crap which for IU fans have became par the course but there are some positives somewhere in there if got want to see them

Good gravy… After watching 3 months of uninspired, undisciplined and soft Indiana basketball I thought to myself, “I’m guessing there’s a ‘Fire DeVries’ thread on Btownbanners”… and here it is. To me, Darian DeVries is a lesser proven basketball version of Kalen DeBoer- he has some good ideas but seems to lack the toughness required to hold a team accountable to clear expectations. Just a few random thoughts on CDD and this team. 1.) This is a new era of college basketball. If a coach fails at roster construction on the fly, they fail. Interestingly enough, many IU fans scoffed at the idea of Brad Brownell coaching their Hoosiers. They are 16-4 and 6-1 in the ACC. Since the portal and NIL era as we know it he has averaged almost 25 games and looks like he’ll come close to that this year while having 10 new guys on this roster. DeVries first roster is atrocious. Giving Tucker the lion’s share of NIL is a sham at this point. How can our number 1 guy be 25 lbs overweight in January. 2.) As evidenced by the laughter on our bench at the end of the game, these guys don’t SEEM to be bothered by losing. I could be wrong, but… 3.) You can’t fool Indiana fans and unfortunately CDD will not have a 2nd chance to make a first impression. 4.) Coaching leashes are going to be much shorter in college sports in the NIL era. Either you have it, or you don’t. I’m not saying he’s gone after this year, but he needs to turn this around fast in the portal. 5.) You only get one chance to make one first impression with recruits. Guys will still come to get a bag of money, but this caliber of basketball isn’t going to bring in team oriented guys that make winning and winning fast happen. It takes way more than NBA talent- just ask Rutgers from last year.

Yeah, lost my pop in 2010. He was a die hard IU fan and always hoped IU would eventually have a good football team. I would have loved to share this moment with him.

Sometimes karma gets it right.

I chose the IU football videos over the game. Looks like I picked wisely.

DeVries has never gotten a technical in his career. That’s concerning

Quinn Buckner is such a bum.

I’m thinking this is the next guy that cracks the code:

Today I heard a lot of CFB media saying IU gives other teams hope that they can do it too. And that we're in some new age of CFB. I don't doubt that it does give other teams hope. And CFB is increasingly more of a level playing field with NIL as we all know. BUT. This is a lot harder than it looks, and our coach is awfully rare. Really rare. Probably only one. So while I could see a lot more new faces in the rankings around #10-25, making the playoff and winning playoff games is a whole other level that will still probably be dominated by the large programs. We'll see...

Dropping my daughter off at track club practice at IU and got to see the team arrive off the buses. Very surreal. The stadium is lit up and both scoreboards displaying 2025 National Champions