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Michael Niziolek @michaelniziolek Source confirms that Indiana football is finalizing a deal with Tino Sunseri to come back as teams quarterbacks coach

Got a feeling Hoover committed to Cig and Shanny and the possibility of Whitmer going back to the pros was firmly out on the table with all the coaching openings there. Would be happy to see Tino back, but Whitmer gets to claim having coached the 2025 Heisman. That’s a big loss.

Gracie Bear’s dad approves.

Lou Moore Benson Baldwin Tino All guys who left and came back in one way or another. Cig doesn’t automatically close the door in these situations and keeps an open mind. That’s a good thing.

Couple post-game thoughts. We drew to within 2 in the closing minute or so but couldn't finish, on the road following the big W against UCLA and despite Dorn not being able to hit (gotta give some credit to USC's perimeter D, it's solid). Regardless of the result, we look like a legit team over the past 4 games. I have some cautious optimism going forward.

Would it change your mind if I noted that black uniforms are slimming for Tucker D? So that's a plus.

Haven't you heard? We just need somebody who "refuses to lose." Should be easy!

Incredible!

To be clear, you advocate firing the coach after one year because his team- built on shooting, winning games because of shooting, with a 3PFG% in the top 3rd of the conference- is shooting early shot clock 3’s (when the defense isn’t usually set) a couple steps away from the line? Can you document how many of these “turnovers” happen each game? I recall Tucker’s at the 8 min mark last night (on the rewatch he was wide open and in rhythm) but don’t recall too many recently. Lamar made one at the 10 min mark, that seemed to help. What an odd hill to die on…

Winnable game. If we can get somewhat hot. Lots of Indiana fans in the stadium.

Painter scouting this game and seeing a 9 ft guy on USC

Getting s***canned a few weeks into your first season as an OC (how at-fault Tino is for Dashaun Foster being a giant Dumb A is debatable) knocks you pretty far down the ladder. I think he’ll be hungry and working for Cig he really doesn’t have a choice.

Maybe 5,000 in attendance. and the announcers don’t realize their mics are already on, which could get spicy!

I can live with this sort of loss. We just didn't have it. I also heard a lot of guys had the flu on this trip. So, that's some rationalization to take or leave...

Instead of Miami getting extraordinarily excellent cornerback play from a guy named Ponds, they got this from a guy named Ponds:

By all accounts Whitmer is close with Zac Robinson (semi-likely to be the Bucs next head coach after 2026, which could easily lead to Whitmer as OC) who is a McVay disciple. How we even ended up with a guy like that as our QB coach is beyond me. We were extremely blessed to get a year of him. I have a feeling in 5 years we're going to be asking ourselves "remember when that dude was our QB coach? How did we manage that?" And again, that's no slight toward Tino.

I really, really wish Tucker could be shooting the ball better. He's down to 38.5 fg and 32.8 3 pt percentage. Yikes. Howver, again last night he stuffed the non-scoring stat sheet: 6 rebounds, 5 assists, and 3 steals. Props to him for continuing to battle really hard even though his scoring is kinda broken.

Hey folks. My rarely random basketball post of the year. I'm not a fan of the black uniforms. We should never wear black. Ever.

IU has a chance tonight to win its 3rd straight Q1 game and 2nd straight road win. Playing in a tough conference can have a double edge sword. There are no nights off so not many get right games and losses can snowball however if you can string together some wins it usually against tourney quality teams so you resume gets a huge boost. Not many teams had a better week than IU. 2 Q1 wins with one being against a top 8 net team and a road win against a top 40 net team. The reason why IU shot up the projections was because there predictive metrics were already great since they took advantage of their non con Q4 games which started them out in a positive. Their SOS is top 35. All they were missing were the results against quality teams so their results based metrics were low. That change last week and now those metrics are trending up. Puzzle is still not complete with 9 or more pieces to go but last week was a big one for IU. Big stretch coming up. Fo me the Wisky game is the most important game left on the schedule. Win that one and they are in very good shape. Losses stink but here are their losses according to the NET 3, 10, 11, 17, 19, 28 and 84 ( 5 of those away from home)

HELLO SWEETIE

Massive game for IU on Saturday. IU got the split on the LA trip. Now they have set themselves up to where if IU wins their remaining home games they will be in great shape and not need phase 3(conference tourney) to build the resume. Tourney quality team (lower seeded as of today)at home for a nice Q2 win. Lose and the path becomes more difficult

"You'd be shocked at the school." Translation: It was Ponds. And it was Miami.

He gets four years. Only way it’s shorter is if he misses tourneys in year 1, 2, AND 3.

And there you have it... Cig welcomes Tino back. I was thinking of Dane Fife as an example this morning. IU hired him away from Whizzo. Then Fife became available again one year later, but Whizzo did not welcome him back. That said plenty to me. This speaks very well for Tino.

Every college basketball team loses games they should win every year except for the elite ones. We are not elite in year 1. We knew this already. A 6 point loss to USC splitting the LA trip doesn't compel me to fire this thread up again. Basically a third of the season left. Kenny Payne got 2 years at Louisville. DDV is nowhere near Kenny Payne bad. The portal and NIL help turn things around quicker these days. That doesn't mean it's an excuse to fire the coach every other year. We could absolutely still make the tournament this season. Some of you guys would've run coach K and Danny Hurley off before they ever did a thing at the high major level. I get it can be more fun to just be mad though.

USC sucks. we have sucked worse. And the refs have sucked even worse.

Kid was special. Hopefully in 25 years he’s coming back as an honorary captain for a National Championship game

Imagine leaving for one year and it just so happened to be the 16-0 Natty Champs one... oooof. Luckily for Tino, we 'bout to run it back.

Collateral benefit: Dramatically raises the staff hair game.

I’d guess little to no impact on Hoover. Hoover still has Cig, Shannahan’s offense, Becker/Marsh, good OL and RB room and prior to Whitmer the braintrust put Rourke in the NFL and the 2 QB’s prior to him were league MVP’s. Lots to make Hoover feel good about his decision.

I've already started pre-gaming for this one.

IU= WR U.

I’d love to see everything shifted up (including even the start of the season) so we get the semis on New Years and the title game the following week.

Alright, it’s finally game time again folks! I know it’s been a long and very special offseason, but now it’s time to run this back in Chapter 3 with a season opening win over the North Texas Mean Green. I’m thinking Hoover airs it out a bit more in this game than Fernando did last year in his first game as a Hoosier. Let’s get to 1-0 today and set the tone for this season. And you know what they say about being the defending champs… IMG_2051.mov

It's a pace and space offense like what the NBA does where everything is designed to be a 3 or come in the paint. The extra deep 3s are not my favorite shots but by being a threat out there, you force the defense to come out and defend which helps create more floor space for actions off ball, ball movement, dribble drive, etc. It also increases the pace of play by creating more possessions. I'd like to see us play with more tempo. Those shots are all about timing. They shouldn't be a staple of the offense but enough of a factor that it keeps the defense honest. Shooting long 3s means long rebounds, which arguably makes our weak rebounding have more of a chance. You cite that we were 10/35 against USC. We were 12/33 (36%) when we beat #12 Purdue and 11/34 (32%) vs UCLA. Again it's all about timing with long 3s. I think the green light from out there needs to be tempered moving forward (some of it is also definitely them "panicking") but stylistically it's not about "looking cool or we can win." It's about efficiency. UConn is shooting less 3s this year than in years past because so many defenses have adapted to the 3 pointer or dunk style of offense. They're taking and making more mid-range 2s than a lot of CBB teams I've watched this year. There's a balance to be struck.

Yeah, it really was that simple.

I'm a traditional unis type of guy and I love that Cig didn't mess with the standard IU football uniforms (with the caveat that the block "I" is truly the tradition in football I suppose). Still, DD messing around with black unis is a distraction from the traditional power that "was" Indiana basketball during the glory years. I see it similar to the IU Oval in football during the Antwaan days. Also, reminds me of Nebraska wearing the black unis and getting it handed to them by Tom Allen's Hoosiers in their own stadium. Stick to tradition and leave the ugly black to the Toiletmakers.

I think right now a lot of fanbases expectations get out of wack because of transfers and NIL and unreasonable comparisons to other programs. Look how Cignetti affected so many programs especially in the SEC. People fired their coaches because we set the world on fire and their mentality is well we are football schools so we should be able to exactly replicate that success and do exactly what they did in the same timeline. That's an insane way to look at things and your setting yourself up for failure if you have that expectation. Cignetti was a once and a lifetime special hire who had the right people around him, players and coaches that came with him at the right place that was the right fit for him. It's not unreasonable for those schools to expect success because of their history and their resources, but even if they make the right hire we can't expect the exact same circumstances or results to happen at same level of immediacy as others. Every program and situation is different and even if you reach the same results as the most successful you can't expect to arrive at the same date. I understand the frustration because we have been mediocre to bad for so long. I went to the Iowa game and it just felt awful. Your tired of losing to teams like this, especially when your losing to one of the guys we could have got. And the fact Michigan has Dusty. We are just tired of rebuilds and just want immediate results. Unfortunately it doesn't work that way all the time. I think Coach DeVries is a good coach. I don't know if he can get us to where we need to be, but it's obvious whether he does or does not we need to stop expecting it to happen under the same time line as other programs like Michigan. If he gets us to the tournament this year with this flawed squad I think that's progress we can build off. It's looks like we are still trending toward that and I have seen improvement in this team. I know patience is a word we hate right now but we need to have some.

If Connerway hits both FTs we foul and have a chance to tie or win with a 3….if Arenas doesn’t have the game of his life we also win! I think this team has turned a corner, Wisconsin is a must win though!

Of course the team that's last in the conference in 3 point makes tosses in a couple after we cut it to 4.

Our guys can get smoking hot in this second half and win this one going away!

Going to bed, someone wake me if the refs decide to fairly distribute their officiating!

DJ doing a review announcement is my sleep paralysis demon

Peacock is so bad. Show the free throw

6’17” ought be illegal.

This is great energy from the guys. So proud. Would love to get a lead on this next possession