HoosierTrav

I still say we change the title of the thread to “Retire Coach Woodson”. It’s the best possible outcome for the program’s future.

This is true. And if he insists on having that clause, no one will take a chance on him. As they shouldn’t.

Nate Oats style is probably my favorite in all of college basketball and I think he would recruit to that style very well at Indiana. 1. Fast paced: high tempo offense that emphasizes quick shots. Attack early in the shot clock and put pressure on defenses. 2. Space and Spread: they rely heavily on spacing the floor and opening up driving lanes and open three point shots. 3. Analytical approach: discussed here a bunch. He doesn’t just talk about it. He lives it. He emphasizes the value of 3 point shots and shots at the rim, over mid range shots. 4. aggressive defense: he mixes it up between man to man and zone pretty regularly. Preaches defensive rebounding to get the break going. But all of this is moot bc we are going to will Brad a Stevens to IU. Remember?

my list is ever changing, like my emotional state. 1. Brad Stevens: The perfect fit for IU from every conceivable perspective. Whatever it takes…. Seriously….Kidnap his entire family and bring them to Bloomington. They’ll all get Stockholm Syndrome eventually * I’ve decided that I’m personally going to drive myself nuts again by attempting to will this into existence. Anyone is welcome to join. 2. Nate Oats: Guy is a stud and belongs at a basketball school. He will win natty’s. 3. Josh Shertz: he’s a budding star in my mind. I think he’s going to win wherever he goes. He’s not a one dimensional coach. Love how other coaches talk about him. 4. Dusty May: Really like him but I’m having a hard time convincing myself he’s a winner at IU. Not sure I’ve ever been so 50/50 on a potential coach. Part of me thinks he comes in and struggles to find footing. Another part thinks he comes in and becomes an all timer for us. Then the larger part of me feels like he comes in and his ceiling is similar to Tom Crean (which I’m not sure anyone would be upset with at the moment).

I agree with this. If we can get football rolling, it opens things up for the entire athletic department as far as revenue. 100%

That would do me no good! Haha. I just can’t get into football anymore. At any level.

He looked like he had an awfully good time at Purdue last night. Gut feeling doesn’t feel great here. Hope we get him. Hes a dude.

A Purdue buddy of mine messaged me and said “IU coaches look like they’re done….like they don’t give a **** anymore.” sure looked that way.

Chuck Norris once thought he was stuck between a rock and a hard place. He quickly realized he was standing between two mirrors.

No drive out west but I’m not ruling a short drive up north. I think he’s back as well. If that’s the case, we should all be hoping for best case scenarios with that in mind. Just bc Ive changed my opinion on forcing him out this season, doesn’t mean I’m happy or content with the results. we are going to find out really quickly whether Woody and staff are capable of filling needs. I’m very interested to see how IU’s NIL stacks up when there is playing time available at key positions.

I’d love to have Oats at IU. He would kill it here. His style of play is fun to watch.

Purdue: 75 Indiana: 63

Trilly did allude to this. Guy seems to be pretty plugged in to these sorts of things.

I’ve had some time to medicate myself and see things more clearly, I feel. I think we would be making a mistake if we were to fire Woody after this year, or patently coerce him into retirement. I know I’ve had my pitchfork out recently, but I’ve changed my mind. Here’s why… Everyone other than IU fans are noticing the revolving door we have at the Head Coach position. Regardless of whether it was a poor hire to begin with (for a myriad of reasons), we cannot publicly fire one of our past legendary players after year 3. Not after making two tournaments in a row after a 5-year drought. Trust me. I’m ******* pissed about the fact we aren’t going to be seeing Indiana on any tournament brackets. But that doesn’t change the fact that firing or forcing out would be a mistake at this juncture. The optics would likely be as bad as they’ve ever been at IU (regarding the issue of turnover at the HC position). That’s saying a mountain’s worth because the optics around the program have been really awful at times not so far removed from right now. Is Woody the answer to a B1G title and a Final Four? I don’t see that happening. Woody has quite a few obvious warts, but he does some things well. I’d say better than our last two coaches. When he’s engaged, he absolutely can be a force in recruiting. He obviously is struggling to understand the nuances of building a winning college program, but that goes back to why the hire was poorly conceived and executed. Again…doesn’t change the fact that it would be a mess to fire or push out. A growing part of me wants to see him recruit with his back against the wall. I just watched some full games of Montverde’s, and Derik Queen and Liam McNeeley are absolute game-changers for any program, by themselves. If someone were to get both of them, that SIGNIFICANTLY raises the bar for any team that has some solid pieces (e.g., Reneau is a B1G POY kind of guy in years 3-4 IMHO), and solid prospects of upgrading the two guard positions from the portal. I feel like I’m lying to myself if I don’t admit that it’s completely conceivable for this to happen. Likely? I’d say it’s 50/50 for me. I think myself and others are overlooking how elite the Montverde guys really are. They come in and win. JHS wasn’t the best player on his national championship teams. He was a great game manager and leader. Reneau was not even close to being a primary option. Both of those guys elevated our team like crazy. As freshmen. These guys aren’t coming in with a missing understanding of how to play elite team defense. They understand how to win extremely high-level matchups. They are elite at sharing the ball, defending, and most importantly, winning. They dominate nearly every single team they play, and they regularly play elite teams full of other difference-makers. Watching these guys play reminded me of the scene in Blue Chips, where the team’s shoe company agent is telling the coaching staff that “if you get these two guys, you’re in the Final Four next year.” Like I said, we have to upgrade the guards in the portal, but in my mind this is conceivable. The absolute best scenario for the program, long term, is for • Woody and the team to finish the season with a pulse. • Then go into portal season with all-out effort from the staff and NIL collectives (Not saying we need to go full-on Ohio State football, but the comp packages need to be as close to competitive as anyone else’s suitors). Make a statement that we are planning to win next season. • Have a bounce-back season. • With Woody’s understanding, start to begin searching, identifying, and hiring a guy that can come here and get as close to the program’s ceiling as possible. I want a guy that has the same exact attitude and confidence that Kelvin Sampson had when he took the job. They asked him why he left Oklahoma. He stated, “I came to Indiana for one reason: I think you can win championships at Indiana.” We need a guy like this with supreme confidence. That guy will likely have an idea of why he believes that Indiana can win multiple championships. • Then finally RETIRE Woodson. Keep the family intact. It’s been broken for so long. Woody has definitely bridged the gap between the past and the present more than anyone after Knight. I feel like this thread should be changed to “RETIRE Coach Woodson.” The only way I think this change could happen this season is if we had our guy lined up and it’s a huge splash hire. Brad Stevens is the only guy I can think of, and I’m fully convinced that will never manifest. So again: we need to stop making bad decisions for the sake of cleaning up a previous mistake. Get it right. Handle it like a winning organization for once and get a dude. Hell…. At some point we are going to accidentally hire the right guy. Right?

I agree and honestly, that’s where it felt like he should be at the time he came in as a frosh. I understand why he was retained. The staff needed a roster to work with late in the game.

Riding that roller coaster would likely be enough to finally kill me of stress. I’ll gladly buy a ticket anyway.

If he hits the portal, lots of the big dogs are going to want him.

I watched the Bob Knight Interview, with Joe Buck, again. Really enjoyed that interview. He was asked what the most important part of coaching was. His response was “I think that the most important thing in coaching, is the will to win. It’s absolutely the most important thing there is. And if winning is that important to you, then you’re going to figure out how to win. There are a lot of coaches that are happy to have a good salary but I would have played for nothing.” Such a simple quote. But I think it’s what we’ve been missing. Wanting to win and a strong will to win, I think, are different things. Most people at the top of their profession have that will to win and it manifests itself the most when they lose, imho. Locking themselves into a room and working tirelessly to figure it out bc losing is literally driving them insane. I do like Mike Woodson the player and the man. I don’t doubt he WANTS to win here but I don’t see the most important trait that Coach Knight highlighted. This is my biggest frustration. We are starving for results and it hurts to see the leader of the program not giving it everything he has to “figure out how to win”.

Sealed the outright B1G championship with that dagger

Yikes!

If that’s what it will take, then by all means, let the stinkers at Purdue hoist one.

I don’t pretend to know what’s best for him personally but looking at all things basketball, Houston seems like a no brainer for a guy like him. He will compete for a championship at those places. No chance to contend at IU or Maryland.

He can correct me if I’m wrong I think trying to get across here, is that Walsh primarily the reason for any of our recruiting success we’ve had recently. Personally, I agree with this. If the new staff comes in, I think one of the most important first steps, they would need to take, would be retaining Walsh somehow..

Honestly, I think we’re going to have to.

Sure there are examples of other programs doing this but not this staff. We are likely going to need to replace at least 6 players. These are going to have to be home runs from a scout and understanding what fire our system. I’m not sure our coach or staff even knows what the system/identity is. Bc Woody says one thing and his actions say otherwise. i believe it’s an insurmountable challenge for this staff, based off of what they’ve shown us thus far. None of this even covers the fact that every other program we are going toe to toe with is going to have extremely compelling negative recruiting material to use against us. Dead last in 3pt attempts…. Ranked 100 in the nation in KenPom and have a 100+ ranking in both offense and defense. I’m not saying we can’t have a better season than this year but that’s not going to be easy enough. I don’t see any way we are competing for a B1G title next year. There is more of a chance that next season is an epic disaster than next year we contend. So many things have to change drastically and I don’t think it’s unreasonable for fans to not have faith in that happening.