lillurk

Possible to believe Enfield should be wayyy down the list and ALSO that he’s shown enough for us to know he’d be a clear upgrade. I’d rather have Fife and plenty of other choices, but Enfield is better than what we have.

Believe there’s no requirement that it be public, but some publicize it by choice, and others have ownership structures that let it out

I guess my big picture point is if IU’s next coach beats Purdue at least once next year, plays on Saturday in the conference tournament, earns a 4-6 seed and the team looks good in the tournament, we’ll be pretty optimistic even if it wasn’t our first choice hire.

Right. I don’t think I need to remind anyone but IU won the hiring season and so on in 2017. That isn’t working out.

This is not a defense of Enfield at all but: the overwhelming consensus is -we need a change, and -we want to win in an honorable way. Everyone commenting here has opinions on who gives us the best chance to do the latter, but there are LOTS of candidates who might succeed at a high level given the resources at IU. I’ve been critical of the process that led IU to pick Archie. I still think a mid-major coach could make the leap and succeed. Enfield fits something like the Holtmann mold, Fife fits a version of the Scott Drew/Matt Painter mold...the key is getting it right and winning games, not winning the press conference.

It’s important that IU make a good hire. It’s also true that IU has many, many options that will be an improvement over the current situation and/or a lame duck

If anything contacting Enfield might mean someone has a good relationship with his agent and/or IU is casting a wide net. Might be taken as a good sign they’re doing a broad search and gauging interest.

For these reasons I think Enfield is both a good “check in to keep a backup plan in mind” coach AND surprising, given the Tony Bland stuff. In other words, it isn’t exciting and I’d be shocked if it went this way...but you do your due diligence and he’s done more with less.

There’s another site that seems to have a lot of apologists with low expectations. I’m glad I’m a poster here.

It’s a beautiful day for the last regular season game of an era

Lol. The tweet is written pretty neutrally, but if IU had beaten two of NW, MSU, OU, and Rutger at home they’d be 14-11 and probably just need one win to sleep easy on selection Sunday.

Hmmmmmm. On the one hand, it was a rescheduled game, so some might have missed it for that reason. But I would be interested in the trend there, including the numbers for tomorrow and the BTT game if I were a decision-maker here

The other good thing about a big Stevens offer is it shows you’d be serious in the future. Say he leaves Boston this off-season and (God forbid) you don’t hire a new coach this year...he may wait for you next year if he’d like to return to college.

So make an all-star weekend mega-offer to Stevens, give him a week to decide, and if he turns you down you target Fife?

My feeling about next year is that the nucleus likely coming back is not bad, and with some complementary interior pieces could be interesting. But I have no optimism that’s true without a change.

I’m starting to worry about IU getting cold feet even if they lose their next two. No insight, just paranoid, I guess.

Yeah, he would’ve been my preferred Miller at the time based on recruiting. I was wrong and we really dodged one. IU would’ve gone Sampson 2.0

Bennett wins. I think there’s a way of understanding the last four years as IU taking the wrong lessons about what makes that happen, though.

I think Bennett would pass and I wish his teams were more aesthetically enjoyable on offense, but I actually think he’d recruit better at IU.

Absolutely no inside info here, but if he’s back next year it seems like it could be a tough one on the court unless some Hail Marys come out of the transfer market. That hasn’t been the recruiting forte at IU. So then if next year is this bad or worse, you’ve lost recruiting momentum, you have a couple of classes with maybe one real long-term prospect each, presumably there’s some attrition to transfers...yes you save some, but you’d have one bad lame duck year, then a year 1 with a potentially thin roster, and you’ve made the current run of form longer and worse. Anyway, feels like moving on now has some challenges ($) but later is worse.

My previous theory of the case for how Stevens would end up at IU (this year or ever) would be: He’s out in Boston for one reason or another and IU either moved a coach to upgrade OR Stevens takes some time away until the next hiring season. I assume Chris is kidding but this is the other possibility. Make a big offer when things are okay for the Celtics, but worse than expected.

Yeah, one thing we haven’t spent a lot of time on: IU is a great place to win if you like recognition. If Drew feels like his current run (last year, this year, next year) is a peak at Baylor but the sort of thing he could make happen more often at IU — competing for a conference title, protected seed, a shot at the whole thing — then that and recognition could be compelling.

I guess my Drew take, setting aside gray area, Hanner, etc.: he’ll probably flirt and genuinely consider, then get a fat raise at Baylor. Plus if they’re still playing in three or four weeks, the timing is bad.

I think this is a compelling case, but once you’ve built a perennial contender at Baylor, I wonder if the appeal of moving temporarily farther from a championship to build a program lacks the same appeal

I’m not old but I like points, shooting, and wins. So...I like Oats (I know it ain’t happening).