Leaderboard

There it is!

The fantastic son I am, I took my mom to Mother Bears on the west side for her 76th birthday last night. Around 7:30 in the evening, I looked up and Coach DDV, Rod Clark, and DDV daughter all walked in. After our dinner, we walked over to say welcome to Bloomington and told coach it was my mom's birthday and that she had spent 42 years working at the University. Super nice people, were so gracious, felt like we could have talked for an hour. My brother, who wasn't sold on the hire, has now met him, plus heard a couple of other stories has changed his tune.

Trilly Gif for Aiden Sherrell

Sherrell following iu walkons

Some of you complain about the Big Ten not being able to compete in the tournament due to antiquated style of play. But as soon as you have a coach that is attempting to run a more modern style of play with a modern roster you begin to complain about the lack of big men. It doesn't make sense. Let Coach worry about who is playing what position. If we see issues next year, we can voice our complaints in the "Fire Coach Devries" thread. :)

Oh? Over the past 20 years, Indiana University men's basketball has a conference record of 182-184. So to be Nostradamus when predicting how IUBB will do, if you simply go with "not great" it's a likely winner, not some outlier revelation. Constantly taking credit for being the primary true realist/pessimist is not accurate; lots of us are there. Having expectations of a top tier roster and accomplishments is the real sunshine pumper/pipe dream, until and unless proven otherwise. It's not that people think Fru is extraordinary; it's that he's an excellent get for IU. Expecting us to swoop in and get top of the top portal recruits is just plain wishful thinking. You want some realistic pessimism? Why in the heck would any top of the top portal recruit want to play for IU right now? We haven't accomplished jack in recent memory; hell, we haven't accomplished jack in distant memory Our current and recent coaching staffs haven't developed any NBA players We have plenty of money? So do the teams that have accomplished something. I can easily name 25 teams that can come calling with a similar financial offer that players would prefer to IU. We have a chance to poach the starting center from the Power Five #23 ranked team. He was relatively productive and is relatively athletic. We have a chance because he has a relationship with our new assistant, not because we're Indiana or have a strong budget. When/if our current staff shows they can develop and succeed under the current conditions, then we can have expectations of getting top tier players. Until then? I am gonna be grateful if a player the caliber of Fru chooses IU, and I'm gonna hope like hell that the coaching staff is talented enough to develop players like Sisley, Prince, Manhetz, and Karvala so that we have more results to show when we recruit the top of the portal.

Ok, so in the last couple of weeks we as a fanbase have witnessed: 1) a Natty in football, 2) beating little brother in AH, and, 3) a double OT road win with half the team fouled out. Hey:

Rancik scheduled on campus starting Thursday according to rabjohns

Raby has confirmed that Trent is staying at IU.

This is coming from an anon poster who generally believes in firing coaches quickly. I'm not in the need to give a coach four to five years camp. To level set: CDD has been here for two (2) months. Not only has IUBB generally been bad for 25 years, CDD inherited Mike Woodson's four alarm tire fire of a program where almost all the staff and players were unusable and had to go. The only useful thing CDD inherited was one (1) 4* high school recruit who committed despite Mike. Even with our resources, no staff and no players is a tough starting point. I think a turnaround can happen pretty quickly and it should be expected, but it will take some time when a coach inherits a four alarm tire fire. There is just no way around it. I don't mind folks being critical when we get some concrete signs of trouble, but it's been two (2) months. Give me a break. We have a whole new staff and roster -- we're going to have to wait and see how this goes because we just don't know right now. The goal in Year 1 is not to be top-10 or whatever -- the goal is put out Woody's four alarm tire fire and establish a culture and foundation we can build from for years to come. Think big picture. In my view, a reasonable Year 1 of culture and foundation building includes playing modern/smart/tough basketball, making the tournament, signing very good high players again, and then doing well in the spring 2026 portal. All of this will set us up for Year 2 when expectations can ramp up. What I cannot see a reasonable case for in Year 1, and especially not two (2) months in, is comparing ourselves to programs that have been healthy and successful for many years or decades. Such as Duke. It's a free country, but if you're expecting this in Year 1 you're going to be miserable. I don't think a turnaround in the portal era should take long, but it's also not going to happen over night either. I might suggest watching this program play some games and compete in high school recruiting battles. If we play bad bball and miss the tourney and recruit poorly, okay hit the panic button. I probably will. But until then, getting worried seems pretty pointless. And hey, CDD has built programs before. His staff looks pretty good -- we've got offensive minds and a coach from a rich top-10 program liked what he saw at IU and joined us. CDD teams defend reasonably well. There is real talent on this team, notably shooting. This could turn out pretty good... we'll have to wait and see.

Branham crystal ball for Sherrell

Aiden Sherrell’s brothers (his agent) last 4 followers on Instagram are Ryan Carr, Markus Burton, Jaeden Mustaf, and Samet Yigitoglu fwiw

Info that just came in: Markus Burton not expected to commit to Houston. Houston visit has concluded. -Rabby

I constantly find myself reading @WayneFleekHoosier's posts and getting mad. I want to reply and go at him for the negativity and expectations that at the moment are too high. It frustrates me. Then I usually take a beat and don't reply. Then I take another beat and wonder why I don't reply and get into a back and forth with him. During that time I realize it's because I know he's probably right. I get it, we haven't even signed a player yet, we have to let things play out before we judge things, and I'm usually way more on the patient side. But, my worry all season was whether DeVries had the cache to swing big on this landscape, as well as the funds, especially after essentially wasting a year and creating no momentum. How come Louisville can get Flory and Shelstad to take a joint visit and IU can't even get in with one of them? How come Michigan can bounce back from the Juwan Howard experience like it never happened, but we're still discussing Mike Davis, Crean, Archie and Woodson? This program has no juice and has been lifeless for so long. Just frustrating. Feels like we're watching the same movie over and over. Ok, rant over. I'll go back to managing my expectations and being more measured now.

If rumors are true, it sounds like Ryan Carr hit the ground running. Was told he was doing some nice work already. Person didn't name names but said Carr had several high-major players interested in IU, with a couple ready to sign. Time will tell if that is true or not.

Best seat in the house.

Sounds like we’re looking to add a backup big man and a sharp shooter.

Indiana is rich as sh** - trilly Buckle up.

Mustaf commits

On3 reported we completed a zoom with Sherrill

Fire Mike Woodson!

BAM!

Well OK Oumar. Oumar Ballo @OumarBallo32 Replying to @dandakich Don’t start your Negativity with this new group @dandakich. If you can’t support them just leave them alone.

IUs roster for next year already has more top 100 ranked kids out of high school than last year‘s roster

Then burn the rest of the tape

Also shows the Indiana high school coaches that the Indiana basketball coach is back to recruiting and making Indiana kids a priority. Optics of that would be nice for a coach starting his second year

Bryant Haines not going anywhere.

Louis wins!!!! He is eligible the rest of the season. Very helpful for our secondary. The NCAA:

He protected it once. That was enough.

I dont know what everyone is so upset about in this thread. Portal season is the 2nd most exciting time to be an IU basketball fan. Only behind coaching search season, which only happens once every 4 years. Enjoy this time everybody.

Becker running it back per his IG. For those who were concerned.

No injury concern for Kamara heading into the game.

Barely posted the past few days because I was in Atlanta. Truly a bucket list experience. When Ponds picky-sixdied it felt like twenty jet planes were revving in 10X10 room. The crowd was insanely pro and all IU. If you take away the Oregon band members? 90-95% IU without a doubt. With an announced attendance of over 75,000, maybe the single largest IU crowd ever; home, road, or neutral. The Oregon people I met were super nice but they kinda didn’t have much of a choice. The IU fans were exceptionally nice to them even when they could have engaged. This semi-old IU fan stayed up past 2:00 am two nights in a row, drove 19 hours over 2.5 days, my voice is still trashed, my eyes ache, and it was one of the best entertainment and IU times of my life. With my 19 year old son and four of my absolutely best college buddies by my side. Never daunted. And sublime.

Of note: all coaches on the sideline are visibly awake and aware of the game being played in front of them

Committed!

I have no idea how this team will do next year. I do know that if you are unimpressed/disappointed with the roster at this point, you’re just the type of person who complains about the taxes when winning the lottery. We have much better shooters, much better guards, more athleticism…but we don’t have traditional big men so how are we going to compete in the mighty Big 10 with all the titles the conference has won since these players have been born? Again, I have no idea what will happen next year. But sitting here today, I feel much better than if Woodson was still coach and trying to get some more ranked players to get us over the hump.

I see now that we can't argue about player quality, we are now arguing about who gets the most credit for the quality players we are getting. At least its a change of pace.

Reminder:

If he commits I expect the same efficiency posts by the national media for Otz to post about DeVries efficiency. That would be 4 on campus and 4 commits

He's still on his visit in Houston, but if the tea leaves are correct, as long as we pay close to his ask, we will get him. Sounds like he prefers us.

Tonight I decided to hate Quinn Bucker a little more.

CTC weighs in. Very classy.

Up to #20 on KenPom, defense is 15th!

He is just a college basketball coach that has been successful where ever he has been. He will either win enough that everyone jumps on board or he doesn’t and people can say see I told you he sucked and IU fans can have another 4 years of clamoring for a coach that isn’t coming. Who knows if he will work out or not however I’m excited as heck to find out. Can’t wait to see how the season unfolds.

I personally can't wait for the third senior night speech from Leal. Might be an NCAA record.

You could argue some are more concerned with the optics of how IU is perceived by the national media and other fan bases then they are actual results on the court. Some would rather lose a close game to a national brand team like Duke then actual win a close game where IU looks bad against a team like Northwestern. Been that way for a while for some people. The reality is doesn’t matter how IU is perceived next year coach DeVries is going to have to win. He could have gotten the top 12 transfer portal guys this year or he could have gotten 200-212 ranked transfer guys in the portal and his expectation is going to be the same. Win. Optics would look better for some with choice 1 however expectations would be no different the door number 2. Unimpressed or impressed with what he has done doesn’t matter just got to sit back and see if this is the year IU claws its way back to where people want it to be