lillurk

Best feeling as a fan this time of year is having a good team prepping for the postseason. Second best might be anticipating a coaching change

Thanks for the updates. The kneejerk anti-Fife reaction is confusing to me. If he wants the job, he’s a good recruiter, he’s learned from a great coach...I get wanting a “proven” guy but that’s not realistic right now. As I’ve said, you hire a coach for his future. Fife’s might not be as obviously excellent as, oh, Stevens, but a high level of success is one possibility with Fife. Also...almost anything would be better than a lame duck year next year.

Think it’s probably Beilein, Matta, or Fife if $ is an issue after you pay a huge buyout. Fife might check more boxes, thought he doesn’t check some significant ones. Fife pros: youth, recruiting, IU/Knight connection (that doesn’t matter to me but it might to some), probably relatively cheap, no buyout, long service under a successful coach, prior HC experience. cons: only low-major HC experience, lower name recognition. He could be a huge success, but there’s some risk. As we’ve discussed, Matta and Beilein seem less risky but I think they have their own risks too. Fife with an older hand in the next chair (like Martelli at UM) would be a fine start.

The funniest is when he says they “played well enough to win” on defense in a game where they give up ~1 point/possession to some average offense...yeah, that’s enough to win for a team with a different offense than IU has

I should be clear that Franklin is A Dude. Not a fringe guy at all

I think you’re both right — Henry would help AND IU has more than enough talent to win

Gotta appreciate that, if these are the last weeks of the Miller era, we’re going to get a vintage finish. Inexcusable losing streak, embarrassing shooting, sclerotic offense, 1996 middle school offense, the defensive “calling card” collapses, injuries to fringe players that supporters will hold up as evidence he needs more time, obviously dejected players, a recruiting mistake biting you, obscenely long scoring drought...gonna cap it off by being crushed by Purdue and tucking our tail in the conference tournament. Just playing all the hits

This seems like it might be about something I posted. I’m not bitter and there’s nothing personal — I think it’s even possible Archie could be successful elsewhere. Maybe he’ll be luckier, maybe he’ll learn from this, maybe it’s just a bad context. I don’t think it’s unfair to critique the process that led to the hire AND the idea around CBB at the time that he was an obvious great coach. If we don’t recognize the error — which in my opinion overvalued connections and especially the 2014 tournament run — then we might make the same mistake again.

Big East, which is > A10 > the old Horizon

I would say: -put up with Knight’s antics for too long, then -went with Davis, the guy who’d keep the program from splintering players a thousand directions, who -overperformed and got an extension, but -never lived up to the promise some saw. -then, hired a good coach with known NCAA issues and suffered the inevitable consequences (Sampson), so -reacted strongly against that and set the program back again, so -had a limited hiring pool and chose a good coach who did alright but was inconsistent. -went back to the hiring pool and grabbed a guy who was well-regarded but (IMHO) had a reputation built on less than other candidates (e.g. Holtmann had never been as far in the tourney but had succeeded in a tougher conference with better overall results based on every metric except tournament win streaks — perhaps I was too flippant, as @Chris007 pointed out, but my point that the hire was based on mostly potential, I stand by). (I know the “Holtmann wouldn’t have come” talking post, which may be true, I’m just saying I think it’s 1) correct that at the time Archie was the flashier name in the hiring market based on media/rep, but also 2) one of the hiring market flaws is overemphasis on tournament success. Sometimes that pays off, but both now and at the time I’d take a coach who consistently builds strong teams over a coach with one nice tournament run.)

Well currently they have a coach who wants the program identity to be defense but they’re bad at defense. He’s also the last coach in America to realize that shooting and making lots of threes is good, and conversely preventing the opponent from hitting them is bad. This is at least partially because he was hired on the strength of a three game March winning streak and nice connections.

Even if there’s a change and some related attrition, I think, say, Franklin + the frosh + whatever a new coach might find via transfer and late commits is enough to be a pretty good squad (with a good coach).

Not a head coaching candidate, but you know who should get a look as an assistant (GA first?) as soon as he retires from playing? Yogi Ferrell. He’d be a great recruiter because both parents and players will like him. NBA experience. Megawatt smile. Young enough players will remember him. Knows the game. Got better every year, made his teammates better. Two conference title rings. Played hard whether he was the freshman earning his keep or the senior leader. Vocal. Seems to connect well with everyone.

This is true if you value NCAA tournament success over everything else. But Oats has won three conference tournaments to zero for Archie, this is going to be his third year winning his conference regular season vs. one plus a split for Archie, and team ranks in computer numbers heavily favor Oats.

This was my point with Cooley. Howard was always UM’s top target, as he should’ve been: if you’ve got a well-regarded former player who’s a rising star on Erik Spoelstra’s staff, he should rank much higher than a guy with a perennial bubble team in the Big East with no tournament resume to speak of. The fact that Cooley told Goodman he turned down UM just means he kept up the ruse after he signed the extension

Ok. It’s reporting what Cooley said to a national writer, Goodman. We don’t know. But the people most plugged in at UM didn’t report a Cooley offer, were on Howard the whole time, and laughed at the Cooley suggestion openly on their podcasts. Just something to keep in mind if we have a coaching search starting in two weeks: high profile, high paying jobs are genuinely desirable to lots of candidates and ALSO a good way for folks to stay where they’re at and get paid

Right...Cooley says he got the offer. Local media (mgoblog, Brendan Quinn of the Athletic, UMhoops) would differ. I’ll let you sort out who has a vested (literally, $, vested) interest in that claim.

Cooley didn’t get offered the UM job and I’m pretty sure they weren’t very interested; they got their guy. The Cooley/UM chatter succeeded at his intended goal: getting him a raise

I would imagine he’d like to prove he’s capable ASAP given age, health, etc.

Yeah, a good coach with Armaan, the freshmen, and a couple impact transfers could be a tournament team.

Yeah if Oats is available/interested then he’d be my preference

Among the realistic options here, I like Shrewsberry and Beilein. (I’d include Oats but his recent extension makes me think he’s unlikely.) Just a hunch but I would bet high-major experience might be on the “must” list based on how the Archie experiment went — it’s one of the reasons I thought Holtmann was a better get in ‘17. Anyway, that would eliminate Shrewsberry, unfortunately. Beilein turned the defense over to assistants (first Billy Donlon then Luke Yaklich) and generally seemed to empower assistants. It makes me think he could bridge well to a succession plan/head-coach-in-waiting at the end of his career. You’d have to gauge his rep after the Cavs debacle among the team and maybe current high schoolers, but I think HM experience, no buyout, clean as can be w/NCAAs...it’s easy to imagine. Anyway, if high major or head coaching experience is a must this cycle, I get it. We could do much worse than Beilein. But Shrewsberry could be great.

A note on rebuild speed: 4 of UM’s top 6 contributors have arrived in Juwan Howard’s two years. Wagner committed to him (though the relationship began earlier), Dickinson is a frosh, Smith and Brown are immediately eligible transfers. They get almost nothing from the sophomore and junior classes he inherited. The defense is at least as complicated as the packline and they’re a top team in defensive efficiency. Don’t make excuses the next coach doesn’t need.

This is more than fair, and I also worry I undersold how bad I think the Hanner threat was.

Yeah I could absolutely get behind this. The recruiting issues have been minor. The Hanner/Jurkin thing was in poor taste but doesn’t seem to be a pattern. He’s hopefully learned. Baylor has dudes but he’s done great with transfers who aren’t necessarily headline guys. That bodes well for him as a talent evaluator. They’re good on both sides of the ball. He’s adapted over time. I would not worry about postseason success in hiring: the trick is getting there with a good seed regularly. If you do that, you’ll have some years where you underperform but also some years where you hit it big.