triple

Can't disagree more with the player comment. These are high quality kids. The change of leadership is what was needed and I'm fairly optimistic that by season opening these guys will be a hard working, fully functional Miller-time unit.

Per FlightAware the inbound could have been EJA996...left OKC yesterday at 5:05pm, stopped at O'Hare briefly and arrived in Btown at 9:56 last night.

Better in this case is relative. Bennett has 11 years of power conference coaching. One elite eight. Two sweet 16s. Two conference championships. His style is every bit as lopsided as Crean. He focuses on defense instead of offense, but like with Crean his teams crumble when the opponent succeeds in setting the pace because they lack balance...they can't adjust on the opposite side of the ball. It's ugly to watch and I cringe at the thought of the blowouts we'll face in postseasons going forward if we make this hire.

Absolutely NOT! His record is on par with Crean's. Eleven years of power conference play. Two conference championships. One tourney run to the Elite Eight. an 8-16 record against his biggest foes (UNC, Duke combined). This is not a home run hire. Patience will serve us better here. We need to get it absolutely right this time around.

If Alford has a deep run this year it will be because Lonzo Ball is playing the one hit wonder role that Dwayne Wade once played for Crean.

Yes, and with that context it's time for an "Urban Meyer hire" with the likes of Stevens or Donovan. We need to propel ourselves instantly back into the discussion with Duke, UNC, Kansas and UK. Period! Easy to say, hard to do...hopefully Glass is rolling up his sleeves.

I've always liked Fred Glass. From afar he seems like a class act to me. For that reason I want to believe that he's going to make the right call here and that it's simply a matter of patience while he orchestrates things behind the scenes. That said, I've gone from measuring my patience in weeks to days to hours. I've gone from saying I would stop watching my beloved Hoosiers to actually doing it. And now for the first time the thought has hit me that maybe, just maybe, I'm going to do the unthinkable and put IU basketball behind me. GLASS, MAKE THE F*ING MOVE ALREADY!

It's more complicated than that. I too have been a fan for decades...closer to 40 years. I stopped watching this year for the first time. Does that make me a fair weather fan (40 years in the making)? I think not. I'm not a traitor. I'm just taking a breather for my own good...watching such poor quality coaching annoys me to no end and that's not doing anybody any good whatsoever. I won't wait for glory before I reengage. I'll do so the moment we have a new coach regardless of how well the team performs in the first games/season.

And apparently his last/only shirt.

Dear National Writers, My currently unmet expectations for the coach at IU are (1) a focus on fundamental skills like passing, (2) a structured approach to teaching and deploying team defense, (3) a level of preparedness to adjust when 'run-n-gun' or 'dribble-drive' or 'perimeter passing' fails offensively, (4) substitution patterns that increase the odds of success and (5) a recruiting strategy that includes more middle ground between 'a gazillion offers to top talent in hopes some will bite' and 'one in five gambles might be a diamond in the rough'. For the record, IU fans are less concerned about the win counts under Tom Crean than about the lost-opportunity-to-win counts. Our moans and groans happen throughout each and every game, ot just when the buzzer sounds after a losing effort (these days most of us have tuned out or walked out by then). Perhaps the next time you decide to lecture us, you could do us a favor first and actually watch some of our games with an eye towards spacing, movement off the ball, help defense, etc.. Sincerely, An IU Fan

I'm not a Bennett fan. There is a certain mold of defense first coaches/programs that produce really good in-season results, but flop in the post season. Purdue, Wisconsin, Bennett (by way of his father at Wisky) at WSU and now Virginia. I realize that we crave D at IU, but in my humble opinion Bennett might swing us to far in that direction. I don't want IU to settle for being the conference spoiler/boiler/badger, where success is measured by denying more talented teams of championships, versus winning them ourselves.

I stopped recording IU games a few weeks ago. I still check the schedule and if I'm not doing anything else I watch, but increasingly I'm finding better uses of my time. Living in Evanston I've loosely followed NU for years and I just set up a series recording for their games going forward. It's refreshing to watch them play well coached basketball even if they clearly lack the talent to go all the way. I won't abandon IU nor switching sides. The Hoosiers will forever be my team. I just refuse to let IU hoops continue to be a negative experience. i thank Tom Crean for everything he did to restore IU. He was definitely the right guy at the right time. But times change. I wish him the absolute best at the next stop in his career.

Not a home run in my opinion. And honestly not really an upgrade from a record/results perspective.

I don't see a firing scenario. I think it comes down to a very quiet search and verbal agreement being handled behind the scenes. Once that happens, I think Glass will give Crean unofficial notice and 1-3 months to 'pursue other options'. That's a win-win in that it will avoid a buy-out and allow Crean to leave voluntarily, versus being fired. Once he announces he's leaving, it will come to light that we have a target candidate and the official agreement/negotiations will go quickly.

78-61 Wisky. I expect Wisconsin to play incredibly simple, predictable, and fundamental hoops. I expect that we will push the pace for a few minutes to open the game, only to then concede that pace, fall behind, and lose all sense of focus until the game is out of hand. I suspect our only real adjustment once we fall behind will be switching to zone defense, for which Wisconsin will have foreseen and prepared thoroughly. In short, I predict a replay of the vast majority of prior Crean.vs. Wisconsin match-ups.

IU down 13 in the first 7 minutes, then up 72-58 with 2:30 remaining, eventually winning 76-74.

I haven't missed an IU game at Northwestern in the past 12 years, until now (not going tomorrow). Watching the broken record of Tom Crean coaching mistakes has finally sapped my passion. The Illinois comparison is scary. But yes, we're heading there and I hope Glass will come around to that fact sooner rather than later.

You missed something. Louisville, up double digits with under 5 minutes to go, runs the clock. IU, down double digits with under 5 minutes to go, runs the clock.

I think a polite and contained standing ovation would be appropriate. Yes, he earned a lot of love and respect for three decades of coaching brilliance. But then we need to also weigh his sixteen years of spite and bitterness towards the entire Hoosier nation, an ugliness that has long outlasted the individuals with whom he had issues.

This! I love the fact that we played an in-state team on the road in November. I love the fact that our opponent was incredibly pumped up to play us, and gave it everything they had. I'd risk a loss like this every year rather than settling for a whole bunch of meaningless practice-like games that do very little to prepare us for conference play, and beyond. Yes, we should have won. But this was one hell of a wake-up call and will provide a lot of motivation.

I don't think this is an Indiana thing at all. It's just a difference in the experiences across generations. In the past talented kids were discovered/targeted much later and had fewer media outlets to watch games outside of their state or region. Thus their "fan" experience was more focused. Times have changed. Whereas I always had one team on my mind (go Hoosiers), my son has 3-4 favorite teams...some of which change from season to season.

Way better for KD perhaps? I'm too much of a basketball fan to want to watch an all-star team (which the Warriors just became) play a regular season schedule. What's the point in that?

IU 79 Hammons-Swanigan-Haas 60 Rest of Purdue's roster 13

I like Bryce Drew as a coach, but based on his current team (e.g. 6 guys from Illinois and 5 from abroad, versus 2 from Indiana with one red-shirted and the other averaging 2.6 points per game as a Junior) I'm not sure he is overly focused on in-state recruiting.

  I concur.  I was certainly encouraged by our D last night within the context of the game. But that was not a typical game in terms of of pace...it's a lot easier to stay in front of a guy when he's intentionally not trying to drive on you.