TheWatShot

Results still matter. He wins a lot and some players are still drawn to that.

The idea that a school that just won a natty in football and is filling its stadium every game can't afford to fire its baseball coach with 2 years left is seriously crazy to me. I'd say it's far more likely they just don't care if baseball is any good or not.

I doubt Smith ever plays any meaningful minutes in the NBA. This just seems like some weird attempt by the Pacers to salvage not having a pick in the draft while placating to the Purdue subset of the fanbase.

This, along with the idea that Dusty feared for the safety of his relatives living in Bloomington among IU fans, was always pure copium. We'd better become elite in the next few years or Dusty is going to replace Brad Stevens as our white whale.

I'm willing to give them a pass on this one, since our last two coaches moved on to greener pastures. As opposed to basketball, where we now have an established history of overpaying coaches to protect them from their own failures. Regardless, it's disappointing to see how much we've regressed since 2023. I don't see Mercer fixing it.

This game is Exhibit A for why people now equate the NBA to pro wrestling.

My best guess is that he was either given a silent extension sometime after 2023 or his contract ends later this year (end of June maybe) and they're just waiting for it to expire.

There wasn't a lot of buzz before last year's matchup, and that was on a Saturday night. November 20 is also the night of high school football semi-state games.

Cannot fathom being from New Palestine and wanting to play football at Kansas instead of Indiana right now. Pretty sure the only time Kansas has ever been any good was when they had that coach who looked like somebody on My 600 Pound Life.

If we can't go at least 12-8 with this schedule then we should just leave the conference.

So a team that finishes with the second-worst record has the best chance of picking...fifth? Makes sense, I guess.

It's not about benefitting those teams. It's about punishing a team perceived to be cheating its way into a top 4 pick. In a given year, the bottom 4 NBA teams are epically bad. It takes years of bad drafting, misevaluations, unfortunate breaks and a ton of losing for any team to find itself there. In other words, not teams that are one year removed from a runner-up finish. The Pacers were a pretty extreme case. If the rest of their roster stayed healthy, they're probably just outside the playoffs. The league was so convinced they were tanking, they actually told them to medicate Aaron Nesmith and encourage him to play. To outsiders, I'm sure it looked suspect. The NBA doesn't want teams giving up if their best player goes down. NBA games are already a tough watch during the regular season.

I'm not well-versed in how odds are calculated, but when I saw the Pacers' chances of keeping the pick were only 52%, I knew it was gone. That's basically a coin flip.

This, and minor league baseball.

Totally predictable. Knew it was going to be #5 once they reached the top 10.

I'm fully expecting the Pacers' pick to land outside the top 4 and go to the Clippers. That's how this stuff usually works for this organization. Plus, the league is pissed that they're even in this position a year after playing in the finals. All the new rules about tanking starting next year were made with the Pacers in mind.

I think it was last season, we were up like 13-3 or something against USC and they came all the way back to beat us. Like, what are we even doing with our relief pitchers? You almost have to try to be this bad.

4-0 lead today only to give up 5 runs in the bottom of the 9th. It's like our bullpen is trying to get Mercer fired.

Lost at Purdue tonight after being up 9-2 in the 7th inning. Mercer can't be gone soon enough.

In recent years, I've been in "John, I want a divorce" mode with IU basketball. If Wade uses one of his nine lives and somehow has a better team than us, I think I'll finally pull the trigger.

Mercer is in the last year of his contract. I'm guessing we'll have a new coach next season.

So, does he go back to college for a 7th season now?

Any coaches in particular you think we should look at? I don't expect us to be a powerhouse or anything, but this program badly needs a reset.

Whenever I see comments like "we had to get a GM", it reminds me of all the old heads saying things like "well, Bobby didn't need someone to bring in players for him." I'm actually kind of impressed we got on the GM bandwagon as fast as we did, because for years that's been the kind of thing we have to watch everyone else have success with before we even consider it.

It actually doesn't make sense because we wasted two spots last year hoping Leal and Goode would get an extra year when they didn't, so this would mean we didn't learn from that mistake. Also, no one seems to realize this, but teams get 15 scholarships now instead of 13.