Leaderboard

I remember last year when McNeely didn’t come because he heard IU fans boo. Wait…it was actually because he didn’t like what he saw on the court from the coaching staff, wasn’t it? Weird how that works. I’d be less worried about what the recruits heard in the stands today and much more about what they saw on the floor.

You need roster retention. Can’t go out and buy 11-12 new players and rely on freshman every single season. Dorn and Sisley are absolutely pieces you need to keep. How much they play and what kind of role they take on largely depends on their development, especially in Sisley’s case, but you don’t want to get in the habit of throwing 12-13 new faces together every single year. You need some level of continuity.

Nick Marsh will be the first #11 since ARE.

So people who make more money don't deserve sympathy? Booing may soothe upset fans and be warranted at times, but it's generally unhelpful, no matter how people may try to spin it. It's not going to make a kid play better.

For sure however most recruits think they are the reason stuff can get turned around. If you are the coach you make that connection and point out to him the big hole in the middle a show tape of that whole all year and show him where he can be plugged in and help turn this thing around.

^^I can't like this post enough.^^ It is a reality-based description of 'normal' behavior when fans pay big money to show up and it goes badly for the team they care about. No one was booing IU football when there were 18,000 people scattered to watch them barely beat Akron or get pummeled by Wisconsin. The bit of booing is as normal as it gets when a player is basically a professional and doesn't perform. If you think it is misplaced? You are correct; Bailey seems like a very nice guy who took a massive payday to come to IU and try his damndest. If it's something you'd never do? I am with you - I will never boo an IU player in any sport. But to think that it's a big deal? It is not. If you boo the bad player on your local high school team when he just isn't up to the task that's pretty shameful. But this is as anticipated as it can possible get.

Great discussion! I was on the road yesterday and only heard Fish - haven't watched the recorded game yet, but some initial thoughts: This IU team has some guys that are really easy to root for; Enright, Alexis, Tucker, Lamar. But guys like Enright and Alexis are the kind of players that are truly beloved as eight or ninth options in a rotation, and we're needing to play them 30 minutes per game. As many have said, there are some serious roster deficiencies and that is on the staff. With this roster? "Expectations" are about where we are; a 17-20 win team when it's all said and done. Bailey and Conerway were epic high-cost misses. I think that Conerway is probably a bigger miss; he's played better than Bailey, but there is very likely an issue between him and the staff. He's significantly more talented than Enright, but the staff trusts Enright to play hard and with a great attitude, and Conerway has responded by severely pissing off the staff. When there are multiple extended losing streaks, things can mentally slide into the abyss in a hurry with 18-23 year olds. I'm guessing that has happened with Conerway. BTW, if you think it's an unusual problem at IU; just look at Purdump basketball. Their body language and attitude is super-sucky right now, and that is with a still-highly ranked team. Would not be the least bit surprised if an excellent attitude Northwestern team picks them off in Evanston this week. And that would be with 3* freshman guard Jake West matched up with Amish Boy. In summary? Things need to get better, but after 28 games I haven't made up my mind about whether they will. Anyone that is doing a self-congratulatory dance on Devries' grave is being premature, and anyone (not sure there is right now) thinking this is a likely success waiting to happen is also premature.

Anybody in a public facing role gets subjected to abuse from time to time, regardless of salary. It’s a matter of personal decorum whether you do it individually, but you can’t stop other people. How is booing any different than some of the comments here calling him awful? You don’t think Reed Bailey and his family read the internet? What about bigger accounts on X? I saw Ant Wright was killing him in a couple posts yesterday. What about these podcasters and radio hosts? I’m sure recruits read and listen to most of this stuff. Those questions aren’t directly at you @spe317, but just in general. In general, I find our fanbase’s conduct pretty average (for comparison, several schools have been fined this year for their student sections conduct) all things considered, even though we have our share screwballs that go overboard occasionally.

DeVries is light years better than Archie at this stage and doing it with a much less talented roster. DeVries needs dudes, not hard to see. We’ll see where he stands next year without having to build a brand new roster on the fly.

Well, I think that’s a pretty obvious statement. The booing is not helpful in any way, I can agree with you there. But no, I don’t think he deserves sympathy. Single moms making $25k a year with real problems deserve sympathy. Reed Bailey making $1.5M a year to play poor basketball does not.

You’re not going to get 7/8 elite players in the portal. No team is. You recruit your future and supplement your needs in the portal. Next years team needs 2 stud guards, 2 athletic bigs who can defend B10 caliber players, and a depth piece or two.

You can make an argument both ways here. But the fact of the matter is if that big time recruit hasn't already realized playing in a big time program lends a solid chance of being criticized for not performing, then I'm not sure that lack of awareness bodes well for him.

With the raging dumpster fire this program has been atleast the fans still show up. The coaches and players should try giving the fans something to cheer for for a change.

I would expect this staff believes they need continuity also. So the 3 frosh and the retention of 3-4 players of this yrs team will make up 6-7 guys and to be competitive the staff will need 6-7 portal players. Those portal players will absolutely have to be difference makers to be able to contend in the BIG. Coach & Carr know what they'll need going forward. I'm hoping they can find a combination of seniors, juniors and sophomores in order to develop more continuity into years 3 & 4.

If a "good recruit" is so soft he'll be chased off by a few boos for a sub standard performance of a player, then he's not the type of player we want. We need killers, not snowflakes.

Because he assembled a portal haul the year before at his only year at West Virginia that was able to beat Arizona and Zags in the non conference and conference wins at Kansas and a home win against Iowa St. just got to hope th fact his staff not being all assembled played a part in the misses this year. Won’t know for sure until we see how his second portal cycle shakes out

Let’s have some real talk about the year. I think most of the people on this board saw once the roster was assembled that there was some flags on how it would stack up in the big. Some were more vocal then others while others were more wait and see approach however still having some concerns. It was apparent once they got into the B1G regular season that they were no where near the top of the B1G. There was still a path to being a tourney team even with a flawed roster but the margin or error was small. Unbalanced schedules play into the luck of bubble teams when they get into conference play and IUs turned out not be in their favor. B1G ended up having 5 teams that are all fighting for 2 seeds or better in the ncaa tourney. IU is 1-7 against those teams and had to play 4 of them on the road. Again for a team with a flawed roster that’s tough. The games that defined ius season was @Minny, Iowa, @Usc, @ucla, Wisky, northwestern. All these teams were in the 30-75 range and IU went 2-4. For a flawed team this is the stretch that has put them in this situation and where other B1G bubble teams has taken care of business. Personally I think DeVries underestimated the grind of the B1G and the importance of a low post player in this league. In an early interview he talked about the difference from Big 12 Bigs compared to what’s in B1G. He was wrong and that’s on him for thinking he could get by with the likes of a Bailey. You just got to hope he learns from his mistake and corrects it next year. I have a feeling after the season he will be the first to admit his mistakes. This flawed roster just isn’t good enough for the SOS they eventually ended up playing and it didn’t take advantage of the games they needed to take care of to get in the tourney 1-7 against NET top 17 teams 3-5 against NET 29-75 teams (you can’t lose to Northwestern at home) B1G has a way of humbling coaches when they first get into the league (except for a few) So you just got to hope moving forward he learns from this first year and does his best to correct the roster moving forward still a path for this year but now it involves Phase 3 Who knows maybe since this roster is full of players who’s only hope in years past to make the ncaa tourney was a hot conference tourney run in March maybe they play their best ball in the B1G tourney.

B1G only got 4 teams in the tourney that year and Miller didn’t beat 1 tourney quality team and was never in conversation for a tourney bid. As you pointed out he lost to ISU at home by 20 +. DeVries first year they have beaten 3 tournament quality teams with 1 of those on the road and the B1G is expected to get 9 or 10 teams in the field. This year isn’t what people wanted but it has gone way better then Archie’s first year

I actually felt more comfort with Miles in versus Dorn. Miles was more active on D and somewhat on the boards. But everyone sucks on the boards.

Dorn provides a lot more 3 than D unfortunately. It's not all on him, but our defensive efficiency has absolutely cratered as Dorn's role has expanded.

No. Unlike football if you play a second in a game then that burns the redshirt for the year. Football if you play 4 or fewer games I believe then you can still redshirt

I’ll be honest… I’ve been spoiled so much the past two years that I’d be disappointed by a 8-4, 9-3 finish and solid bowl game. I 100% understand now why OSU, Alabama, etc. fans are the way that they are. With that said, I love college football so much that I’d still be fully on board if we regress to being good but not great. I think most fans are starving so much for a winner that they would be too. We’re certainly not looking like we’ll to get a winner in basketball anytime soon, and a “just good” IUFB would benefit in that scenario.

Win the first two and we could have a puncher's chance at making the NCAA tournament. For real.

I find it curious that with three or four games left, Drake and Harris are still listed as "out" for each game but not "out for the season," whereas a perma-injured Rayford is "out for the season."

Me looking at Drew Adams: And yea it's ultimately on the head coach, but just sayin'...

I have no love lost for Beck, but Pavia is a special kind of punk.

This is what it has looked like when Dan Hurley and Todd Golden succeeded greatly at P5 schools. This is what it has looked like when Archie Miller and others failed miserably at P5 schools. If anyone claims to know how this will turn out after 28 games with an under-equipped roster, they are very mistaken.

Yeah, the staffs grave misevaluation of Bailey cost them this season. Bailey is essentially a 6'10 guard who was terrible defensively in the A10. Not sure what the staff saw in him? This is a 22-23 win team had the staff been able to retain a guy like Reneau who was ran out of town here.

I don’t love it and wish it wasn’t happening, but it’s hard for me to feel much sympathy. He is making close to 40x the median salary in the US for one season of basketball. And objectively, he has not contributed to this being a winning basketball team.

The idea that Dusty May's family didn't want him coaching at IU because they feared our fanbase is classic Internet fan-fiction at best and hardcore copium at worst.

Enright, Alexis, etc bust their @$$ and play with emotion every time out. They’re very limited as players though.

I think DeVries is our best coach since Kelvin. With Ryan Carr and a year with the staff, he’s been able to build relationships and target players he wants. See our high school recruits. Those are high major players. I suspect we’re going have a better portal season.

I think DD tried to stitch this team together quickly. It didn’t work. With more time recruiting and a full staff, I expect this portal season to be much better. I don’t think this team lost today because they weren’t trying, we just don’t have high major players outside Lamar and Tucker…it’s a mid major team

I think DDV can coach, I think this year was a punch in the face for him. How will he respond this off-season? That is what i need to see. Maybe he shakes it off and comes back swinging...maybe he wilts like all the last coaches here?!?!

Hope so. I can’t say I see it in his pressers — he comes off uncomfortable and uncertain. Man, this was the exact type of first season you don’t want to have. Red flags everywhere. Ugh.

We're screwed!

I think you make a good observation on how IU fans can be sometimes. Not always, but sometimes. I'm a little more hopeful this time around with football. I agree fans have been a bit finicky after decent stretches like Mallory or Allen. But, I do think it's fair to say when you're more or less the worst D1 program, it requires something pretty convincing both in results and duration to recondition the fanbase. After decade long cold-streaks, blips of decent play over a few years aren't always enough. We've had the convincing moments in '24 and '25. I'm guessing Cig will have some non-CFP seasons here (duh). But I don't think fans are going to give up hope when that happens. They believe in Cig (not hard to do lol), and football is the primary sport in this country, which helps. I'm not going to worry about this now, but I think the big moment will be when Cig retires. All "football schools" had stretches of success that created their fanbase and culture of attending games. No fanbase grows when the program stinks. For most football schools that happened many decades ago. I think that can happen for us now, it would be the Cig Era from the mid-2020's to hopefully the mid-2030's. 8-10 years of exciting football should have our FB fanbase built up with momentum. Whoever follows Cig won't be as good, but they need to be decent, or else everyone will think Cig was a one-off aberration and we could backslide. I think the key will be building up IUFB over the next 5-10 years so our brand, stadium, facilities, and sustainable resources are all quite good for the next coach. We're off to a good start. IU has certainly figured out how to invest in football, and if Scott and the leaders of IU keep prioritizing football, we can maintain momentum post-Cig. One way to really improve our chances of continued to success is when Cig retires, get him into some sort of part-time advisory role with football where he helps with hires and strategic decisions. Heck -- he can advise on the whole athletic dept if he wants! I am pretty convinced this would be one of the best things imaginable for IU athletics. Keeping Cig's skills and influence around even off the field will lead to more good results, he's one of a kind.

It took a 2 BTT games where were down big and really to come back just to become second to last team in the field in his first year. 1 time in 10 years where they were solidly in the field. I would argue the Covid year they were solidly in the field but it got cancelled

Yeah. Adams should not be evaluating or scouting for us. My opinion, he's our weakest link on The Staff.

After thinking it over, my guess is we’re closer to completely starting over next year than we are to adding just 5 players. Even if we add 4 quality starters to Dorn we still need a backup big, so that’s 5 right there. That leaves us with essentially the same bench as this year minus Bailey but plus the freshman. The truth is our starters haven’t been that bad this year. But our bench has been one of the worst in the league, maybe the worst. We got 0 points from them again yesterday and we routinely play starters 37-40 min trying to avoid our bench guys. So if we only add 5 starters next year, we’re returning one of the worst benches in the league hoping that 1) the freshman can meaningfully contribute, or 2) the guys we have can develop. Either way that’s a gamble. Adding 7-8 guys plus the 3 freshman means that we lose some out of the Sisley/Miles/Dorn group or we basically clear out all the redshirt guys who were supposedly being developed this year. And if we’re not adding that many guys we seriously risk derailing next years team with an awful bench like we did to this years team. Portal season can’t get here soon enough.

Most of the players with eligibility left were tied to Chester Frazier. Frazier brought Sencire Harris and Amani Hansberry with him from Illinois. Hansberry followed Frazier to Virginia Tech and Harris ultimately ended up at Cincinnati where he's largely been a non-factor in a 7th-8th man role. Jonathan Powell is the one guy I fear we missed out on. He ended up at UNC. Wondering if Powell is regretting his decision as he has taken a major role reduction after being primed for a big sophomore jump.

Anywhere from 5-7 in portal seems apt. Need to find an all-conference caliber player like Wilkerson and then two other high level starters, preferably a PG and C.

Rooting for OT. I got over 144.5

Ya!!! During majority of season I watch big ten and big east…and any top 25 games of course….but I always try to watch the mid major conference tournaments as time allows…I’m just not as keen on players/teams as you are. also last year I dug myself into a 1,500 dollar hole on fan duel during champ week haha @johnsoniu would be proud

This Charleston vs UNCW is a barn burner….also Chris Mack is Charlestons coach…in his second year. Had no idea

Imagine telling somebody in 2005 we would win a national championship in football before we won a sweet sixteen game again. And they the team would have kids who weren’t even born yet on it