8bucks

We lived on the west side of Elletsville near the HS when I was finishing school and working for the HT. We left in 1995 but drove through recently and it seems the roads through town are completely different now. Great little town.

Good coaches have all the power so for BP to have a lower buyout if he chose to leave vs if the schoold decided he should leave recognizes this. As to why he would want a lower buyout if he were to leave based on the idea that he intended for this to be a lifetime contract and or his last gig, well, things change. If a new president came in or a new AD and they did not share the same vision he may decide it is better to move on. If rumors are true, he seems to want to change apparel sponsorship, get a new basketball only facility and possibly get a guarantee his son will be his successor then maybe these are things he did not initially consider but feels is needed for him to continue to compete at Auburn (not so much his son as successor). Regarding the son as successor, I wonder if that would be the draw to keep him at Auburn vs leaving for IU. I doubt we will guarantee that but they might and I could see it being the tiebreaker.

If I remember correctly Buckner was one of the conduits to Brad Stevens. NBA connections. @Chris007 would probably know if true or not. But if he was, maybe he has doubts we can land one of the big fish.

Are you assuming the same people who bent over backwards are still here?

Pearl had a 3 year show cause i believe which limited him from college coaching.

Not as scary as that but I had guy walking in front of me that could not decide where to walk so as approaching i a trying to find a side to pass him on. Last second he again pivots right into my path so i tried to go a little wide of him but ended up losing my traction and wiped out. No time to catch myself as I left the bike, fell into a big puddle, lost shoes, ear buds and was a bit livid at this fella. Ended up with no broken bones but damage to lower legs and my palms and still have a little blood on my earbud. Miss running. Anyone ever run in the intramural relays at IU? We had a team win that one year when I thought i was fast lol

Do we have limits for visits to things like sectional games? If so, saving those for the next staff is a great conspiracy theory - which i am a sucker for.

waiting for the announcement about Brian Wash being fired from Woodson's staff

Sounds interesting but sure hope he isn’t using Mrs Stevens as an attorney

Can you summarize

I almost did this as well. Personally I think Woody made a tactical recruiting mistake going after a select few highly ranked kids and over valuing our current guards. But he was closer to landing a stud class and I believe I read where he had more top 20 Kids visit than any recent coach. Had he hit on boogie and DQ with Liam things may look a lot differently. Unfortunately he missed and did not have a good back up plan besides the portal and then this year really raised a lot of concerns. But I bet we could find many of the posters in this thread enjoying where we thought we were when Trilly was posting hints about us landing the trio. Not only did he miss now it looks like he will have a lot of roster turnover and he will have a big rebuild. At his age, this does not seem plausible and I would agree with a change.

Let's look at Pearl or Drew vs May. Same number of FFs i believe so from that criteria, a good one, there is little difference. Except, Crean got to a FF too. As did Mike Davis, hmm. Ok well some would argue that Dusty built FAU from nothing. This is true and certainly noteworthy and helps build the case for him. But how do you know he did not just get lucky with a few recruits that elevated the team? The fact that none were top 100 kids is good but there have been examples of non top 100 kids outplaying their ranking. Can he build class after class to compete like the one he has now? Can he recruit at a P5 school? Top 25/50 player are different and can he excel with them? Sure thing candidates to me are able to have sustained success at the P5 level. Dusty has had a good record playing P5 teams but having to play in a P5 conference game after game is just different. His record against P5 gets him consideration for sure but not doing it on a regular basis leaves doubts. Pearl, and Drew have had some down years but generally once they get rolling they keep rolling. Class after class always in the top 20. Dusty is not in this category yet. Can we get a sure thing guy to come in here and leave where they have become the sure thing? Maybe not. If not, then that is how you get to the next tier. Would Dusty be better than a guy like Greg McDermott? Greg has had some sustained success but has not made the FF run and has not been in a P5. But he does show he can repeat year after year which is more than Dusty has. I would be fine with Dusty but he comes with some questions. A sure fire guy like Pearl has a lot less questions about the results he could produce on the court.

Back to the "locked up" idea. Let's say SD gets approvals needed to go after Pearl. What can he do to "lock him up"? Pearl cannot sign anything before his season is done and we have an official opening right? So would it just be a verbal commitment? If so, based on what happened with BS, then I wonder how to resolve the idea that we need to lock up the big fish guy (like Pearl) given we kind of got burned on this path last time.

I think you could be right. And to be fair, he had the biggest fish nearly hooked last time. Was the fish merely toying with him or genuinely interested, we may never fully know but most of us wanted the admin to go after a proven winner and SD did that in a big way last time. The problem IU has with searches is you often have different groups promoting different candidates. There has often been an Alford group for example. Perhaps it was because SD was new to his role last time but when he missed on BS it seems the next in line was another groups guy (Woody) instead of letting SD go find another candidate. I hope this time around, SD has full run of this process and can develop his own list of candidates (others can offer inputs) but in the end if he is able to choose the next coach, whether it is his #1 or his #4 I am optimistic he will find someone to put his stamp on the program.

Glad you mentioned it as I will try to watch later too. Not what you asked, but after listening to the BP podcast i posted yesterday, he was asked how long he would continue coaching and he said he did not see himself coaching in his 70s. So, since he turns 64 in March and would not coach into his 70s then we would have 5, maybe 6 years with him.

I think there were at least a couple reasons. 1) they shot well all around and that kept them in the game. Close game at home should always help. Making shots, especially 3s really help. 2) woody was far more energetic while coaching last night. Several times while the ball was in play he was a few steps out on the floor instructing. Teams feed off a coaches energy. At least once he was about 5’ out on the floor which I have not seen before.

Could have been this but unconfirmed

He will be great in Indiana. He might not be so well received in the Chicago Public League.

Tier 1 has to be guys that have won consistently (regular top 20) and have made deep NCCAT runs.

Could it be that he ratted them out, saw that it had little impact and said "well when in Rome..."

What cheating did he do? I know he lied to the NCAA about having a recruit at a cookout (seems minor, even the lying part). What were the others?

Found this podcast from last year with BP. Wins & Losses with Clay Travis: Clay Talks With Bruce Pearl on Apple Podcasts I am only about halfway through but first half has been great. He mentions how he was poor until the TN job and still shops the clearance racks because that is what he always did. Talks about moving from each of his programs and how he is always all in when at a school but when he feels it is time to move on, it is hard but he does what he thinks is best. Good listen.

Hey, this is what we do best. We used to be a great basketball program and we as fans loved knowing we were always going to be a contendor. Now, we excel in coaching search rumors and are probably one of the best programs in the county at this (the rumor talk not the actual hiring sadly). So don't get in the way of our calling, our passion to dream big. If we cannot hire well, doggonit we should still be able to dream the impossible dream without people trying to bring us down.

Hopefully BP is not this cycles, Billy Donovan or Brad Stevens. Be real BP.

Seriously? That is awesome!