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This makes more sense. Otherwise I would have made a lot more visits. I remember the time Crean got the big time visitors when he was on the hot seat. Not sure often we played that game but I believe we did then

Well, we got the first part accomplished. Seems a pretty favorable draw in the BTT. Does a good run in that help keep him? Is the off court stuff something you can share more on?

For those of us that missed them, what are these rumors and how do you know they are true?

Chatting with you is like trying to solve a puzzle. But I appreciate your perspective here and enjoy the puzzle. If a change is made, do you think it would be easier to build consensus for an established/qualified P5 coach or a promising up and comer who built a strong program from scratch.

Interesting since you mentioned that he and QB were on the same page. It would seem SD, if viewed as unqualified, has an impossible task. If he has to get consensus from a group who questions his qualifications then even if the consensus hire has success the group would feel they vs he chose this person.

So since SD is not viewed as qualified he in essence has training wheels on where he needs to get consensus before making a decision. If he were qualified then the "others" would defer to him?

So the process is a success when we fire a coach chosen by the same process?

C’mon of course the record matters. The trajectory is measured largely by results - the record. Certainly there are reasons to consider making a change but IF the team ends the year with several wins his seat becomes less hot. I would likely still want to make a change but down the road we are going to want a new arena or an upgrade practice facility and those donors that want to keep Woody will be the ones paying for that.

You mentioned that the decision making at IU is a time honored tradition. Do those decision makers think that process has been successful? I know at one point post RMK they wanted de-emphasize basketball or at least avoid having a larger than life coach. Wondering if trading wins for that has been considered ok by them.

If he doesn’t have an agent I assume he cannot or should not take calls for openings during the season. But I have noticed FAU is an Adidas school. Would that be a route to ask if he has interest?

I can’t imagine 65% unless maybe that is just players who play considerably. This article outlines how impactful the portal has been and there were some teams with no transfers and some with a ton. https://www.on3.com/transfer-portal/news/how-each-team-has-used-the-transfer-portal-to-get-to-the-sweet-16-alabama-houston-kansas-state/

I may not be remembering well but didn’t Beard have success bringing in a lot of portal players? Admittedly Beard is seemingly a very good coach though. There is a path here for success next year but that seems more like a 6-9 seed level vs a championship level squad. The path doesn’t have to all be portal guys as Woody has been able to pull in decommitts every year too. If MR, MM and Gallo are back then he needs 4-5 starter quality pick ups. I could see where it is an easy sell to a center to come here using TJD and Ware as examples. So now we need 3-4 others in an area where he has struggled (guards/wings). If we assume Gallo, MR, MM and new center start we need another guard who can do it all. If the #1 do it all pg is where we throw a lot of this new NIL $ perhaps he can be lured. Maybe as an extra incentive we bring on his coach/advisor as other teams have done. Remember, this is the dream scenario so I get some liberties here. Now you have your starters set and then you need to get 2-3 others who can give us very productive minutes. Going to be a hard sell if these guys can start elsewhere but these guys can be your younger portal guys who would have 2 more years to play. The key is keeping guys like MR, MM and Gallo. Lose 2 of them and the chance to succeed is hard to envision.

This is what I cannot understand. It seemed that your info, KathyC and Yeagleys was sort of aligned until the star story about him coming back. Now as more of her info comes out it does not at all match up with what you had heard. We haven’t heard from @JerryYeagley23 yet to see what he thinks happened. Not sure what to believe but hoping that somehow the BP news got out too early and this was a way to distract from that for a week or so. Hoping.

Plus Woody made claims that he was going to run a 4 out offense and even stated he changed that to utilize TJD. So going into this year we expected to see him build that offense. Instead he reverts back to feed the post and now says that is how the college game should be played. He also said he was going to build through HS and supplement with the portal. That hasn’t been the case and I think he tactically made a mistake thinking he could do this without putting in the time to go to HS kids games. Add these to his comments about competing for BT and national titles but finding ourselves pretty far from both most of his time here. Last year showed some hope and he seemed to have a bit of recruiting momentum but he seems to have misjudged his ability to build through HS recruiting. So as we sit here now, 0 HS recruits, the one we had just left and we will have at a minimum 4 portal needs but in reality we will need a minimum of 6 and perhaps several more. Given Woodys age, the chance to rebuild for sustainable success is gone with him as HC. He could get mercenaries to come in and might just they lucky enough to have some success but building through HS is unfathomable until we make a HC change.

In a way you guys are saying the same thing. I remember you saying Liam wanted to be on a winning team for a long time. NGW includes that too. Sure there might be a lot of other issues but as you said, we did not fulfill the vision we promoted (recruits and winning) and as you have been saying, he would always be a flight risk if we did not win

@KathywithaCWould you call this time honored approach successful? I don’t really care how something gets done as long as success is achieved.

I hopefully suggested something similar.

Along these lines, surely all the donors are not on board with keeping him. Are deferring to Cook/Simon or equally frustrated and at risk in pulling $

I think the term Pre-toxic is a better description of Indiana fans. We have not had a legitimate coaching search to hire a proven coach since RMK was fired. The attempt at Stevens was great but with no alternatives after him it cannot be counted as a search. You could argue Kelvin perhaps but back then he was a terrible fit for Indiana and was forced by the president. We are impatient because the searches have been weak and the results have also been weak. Then the next guy comes in and gets a crazy contract/buyout because he needs to fix this big problem. And the problem keeps getting worse. We see the problem before the admin is able to easily make a change because of the bad contracts and an administration that has been hesitant to let the basketball program become too prominent again (at least Myles Brand said this). Like an old car that overheats quickly we start to get pretoxic not only because of the current situation but because of years of poor attempts to build a great program. Pre-toxic can turn toxic if the coach is kept too long. We have been here often over the last few years. Outside of a miracle haul of talented portal players who will instantly gel and excel (despite dozens of examples where this has not happened with other schools) the chance to build a top 4 BT team for next year is next to impossible. Toxic is coming next if the admin stays with Woody. Then when we do make a change, the candidate pool is less because the program is a mess, fans became toxic and we get another mediocre coach with a terrible contract.

People have organized white out, red out and stripe out, I think for MSU folks who have tickets should consider staying out. An empty arena sends a strong response

To be honest, I am not sure I want a guy who would commit to us right now. Ok, other than big men, who are we as a program? I want kids who want to play against the best teams and expects to win those games. I know kids want to get to the NBA and we have done well with bigs but what is there for Liam to look at and say, I can’t wait to be part of that. If we are just going to attract guys because we have a lot of playing time open or have a lot of $ to give out is this likely to attract winners? Not critical of Liam at all. I would have probably agreed with his decision today.

This would be terrible if true

I wondered about this too.

What is the story on calling out MR

With Liam gone, if we have 2 starters transfer there will be a ton of pressure to reverse course and make a change. I thought it odd timing to announce he was staying when they did. Glad to know Liam’s plans now vs in a few weeks.