lillurk

Nature abhors a vacuum, and so does a coaching search.

Well 2 weeks ago Thursday there was some chatter from Trilly that Brad had a couple weeks to get back to IU. Obviously lots has happened since then but tomorrow, I believe, is the two weeks “deadline.” Now of course if he wants more time you make it work. But I wonder if tomorrow there could be some heat or some docusigning.

McCollum and/or DeVries fans will likely get one or the other at Iowa, BTW

He’s posted but hasn’t changed his tune, right?

By the way, if we end up with TJ Otzelberger — and increasingly I wonder if he’s the odds-on favorite — we are going to have a GREAT coach.

Good question — genuinely don’t think there’s a good reason, especially now that football’s good. Like the real reason is that IU… 1. Should’ve handled the Knight departure differently, then 2. Was genuinely put in a bad place by a good thing (‘02 runner-up finish) and did what they probably had to do; stuck with Davis. 3. Then the President overruled the AD to hire Sampson, a great coach who should’ve known better. 4. The Sampson mess meant IU did probably as well as they could to get Crean, and he ran his course for reasons both outside and inside his control. 5. Archie was a defensible pick in a bad cycle but turned out about as bad as we could’ve imagined. 6. And of course Woodson hasn’t worked out, though the extent to which that’s the case is somewhat overstated. But if IU handles #1 better, or doesn’t get to the ‘02 final, or picks Beilein instead of Sampson, or Hulls isn’t hurt and can thus shoot in the ‘13 S16 and Crean proceeds differently thereafter, or any number of other things go differently, the last 25 years are better, more consistent, and nobody calls it a “fishbowl”

Fine enough candidates in a vacuum, to me; Murray and Kimani Young are both interesting at UConn. None of those guys meet the Thamel criteria of HM HC experience

This comes up a bunch but I don’t know the context. Who can share?

Not if it was in 2011, the new arena is like a year old

Was thinking the same

Stevens, if he returns to coaching, is immediately a top five or ten working coach in the English-speaking world. He’s been excellent in a front office role but in college that’s a much simpler job than in the NBA. If you can here BS and he’s willing to coach, he’s the coach. It seems strange to me that he’d want to be a GM or similar at the college level.

Really happy for CMW and the seniors. Please ignore anyone who compares Woody to Archie. That said, in both cases I think rivalry performance is revealing. Archie obviously knew on some intellectual level of the rivalry. His teams never played PU like the game mattered to him or them much, aside from the Haarms tip-in loss, maybe. Conversley Woody’s record against Purdue shows he gets it — but it’s damning about how he failed to capitalize on his team’s talent in too many other games.

Margin’s gonna do wonders for the efficiency metrics

I think Goodman is clearly right that Otz is a good choice, the issue with Goodman (and other access journalism) is when he ventures his opinion it’s impossible to tell if he’s 1. Giving a straightforward, sincerely held opinion, or 2. Performing an explicit or implicit favor to a source he maintains. His reporting is fine, but lots of college bball media is driven by reporters’ access to coaches.

Listen if someone posts a picture of a plane, I’m gonna call it like I see it. I live less than two miles from a municipal airport totally irrelevant to the search, so I’ve seen many small airplanes in my day. Very very good at spotting them.

We can all agree that’s a plane

https://iuovpgc-fireform.eas.iu.edu/online/form/index/apra

To me he’s a dark horse if IU gets down the list a bit. NW has been to the tournament 3x IN ITS HISTORY and he was the coach each time. And they’ve won a game each time, always in a toss-up game (7/10 or 8/9). There was a time I would’ve worried he’d leave for Duke but Scheyer seems in no danger of leaving (unless the nba comes calling eventually?). Not my favorite option but if it were him I absolutely think it could work.

Two of the folks in the know casually mentioned that the info spigot has turned back on for the candidate #1 but because Rabby needs to sell subs we are discussing “Brad Brownell”

If in fact Otz‘S buyout is much more modest — $4M as someone posted Goodman said, or similar — then 1) he wants to keep his options open more than has often been speculated, and 2) he’ll be a realistic candidate for any job he wants.

Pretty interesting how some folks here will dismiss a police report, the due diligence of multiple large athletic departments, a firing for cause that cost someone millions and his dream job, etc. for a coach who’s on-court results are obviously good but also not miles clear of the B-tier of the list

Yes, exactly, I was unclear but that’s what I meant. 1. Team’s season ends, either senior day if they miss the BTT, at the BTT, or in the NCAAT 2. National hoops reporter breaks the news at the time IU and new coach want that to happen (Twitter and/or live tv break-in) 3. Local reporter (Osterman) confirms it almost immediately 4. IU sends out a release, schedules an introductory press conference for the next week or whatever

Yeah too many of you missed the “business” days detail. Not sure it’s true but AP lined it up nicely here. Note also that Osterman and Niziolek, actual reporters, are confident that IU wants to avoid naming a new coach while the current team is playing.

I saw the tweets but haven’t read the reporting. It may be that it wasn’t public knowledge until a records request came back.

Yeah, I think he’s good but he could certainly wear out his welcome, will probably continue to have NBA options, his wife allegedly doesn’t want to leave the NE corridor — combine those two and what if the Knicks run off Thibs? — and what if his well-regarded assistants don’t join him? Or get head jobs themselves? I think it’s all moot