OKHOOSIER

Wish Hova could provide the eyeballs emoji to that piece of news…

I dunno, depends a lot on if Brownell can recruit at the level necessary here, I expect NIL to assist there. While I would absolutely hate making that hire versus taking a swing on Huss or McCollum I can confidently say Brownell would have won more games and not been blown out by anyone with this roster. Without NIL Woody would have been Kenny Payne. He’s a terrible basketball coach. Brownell is not. That’s the only thing keeping me off the ledge if that’s where this goes.

Yea I have an incredibly hard time believing BS has been contemplating this job for four weeks to just now decide he’s out. My completely uninformed guess is we made an offer, he said no within a week or less and we’ve been working others since. It’s been fun though to get through the work day imagining it’s Stevens lol.

The LaLu piece is interesting when compared to McCollum. Huss would know seriously high level recruiting intimately. Although I think the “all the other stuff” arguments are way overblown. Ultimately it’s about coaching and winning basketball games. The other stuff is secondary to that imo and will work itself out no matter who gets hired.

There is a flight to Iowa. Not Des Moines but Iowa nonetheless.

I’ll be so disappointed if we hire Collins. Maybe he’d be great, but there’s just no getting excited about someone who has lost 70% of their conference games for me. I dgaf where they are coaching. Yea, he’s got three tourneys which is all of them for NW. Two of those are Boo Buie. Before Boo walked through the door his seat was warm if not hot. Give me Brownell if we are making the scared money hire.

Saw all the pages and got excited, pretty lackluster catch up. And for the record, it’s pronounced, gif.

Moving on from McCollum already??!! We are DOOMED

To be fair hiring Scott Frost and hiring Mike Woodson are not remotely similar. Nebraska is yearning for a level of dominance that simply isn’t possible. We just wanna be mostly in the top-25 and not suck lol

Appreciate you filling our hyperbole doomsday void until Hornsby turns the internet on in his fallout shelter.

Again it depends on your definition of “better.” Is Collins or Brownell “better” because they’ve been mediocre to bad at the P5 level? I don’t doubt we could have either of them tomorrow. Beard isn’t coming. Stevens, Pearl, Drew, TJO et. al. Have never probably been more than pipe dreams. Mark Pope was like the fifth guy on the UK list. I don’t even know about Kelsey, and both of those schools have won a natty this millennium. Our NIL is attractive, but the fact is coaches jumping P5 jobs is rare now. That’s just the reality of the market, it isn’t unique to IU.

He also set the Drake wins record by 2 in year one at a school he had to win 29+ to do it. I was skeptical, but all you have to do is actually watch them play. The guy can flat coach basketball.

Pretty much no coach making their first jump to P5 does. Woodson landed three decent recruits in four years (and calling Tucker ‘decent’ might be a stretch). McNeeley wasn’t committed to IU because Woody puts shooters in the NBA. Not sure this argument works for Woody specifically, but it’s valid when talking about coaches who are actually good. That said money talks now. No high level kids are taking less money to transfer to Self or Oats or commit to Cal. Dickinson didn’t go to Kansas to play for a legend. He went for 2 million dollars, maybe TJD and Ware had an impact on Ballos decision. I’d wager it was more about we were willing to pay more than UNC or anyone else on the market. It’s a completely different landscape now.

Great point. Also if he makes a run to the Sweet Sixteen or better, he’s going to be the hottest name on the market at the mid major level.

Agree 100%, that’s where Dolson comes to play I think. Surround him with experience, particularly with high major recruiting and roster building. I will say I’m not as concerned about it as I would have been 5-6 years ago. We can pay, I expect us to exploit it. If Woody can get 5 million to roster build and not recruit. I can’t imagine the funds that would flow in for someone averaging 25 wins a year. “Why should I play for you coach?” McCollum-“Well I win 80% of my games, but also IU will pay you an extra 100k over your best offer.”

I’ve really warmed to McCollum after watching their last 6 games or so, I think slow offense has us all getting flashbacks of Archie and pounding it inside over and over with MW. The Drake offensive movement is very pleasing and almost always leads to a good look. I also would expect Dolson to surround him with the people needed to make a transition like this. Hell, he tried for Woody who ran them off. I’m sure McCollum knows where he needs help adjusting and I would trust Dolson to make it happen. I’d be pretty excited to see who the assistants/GM would be with that hire.

It’s Mark Few.

The Manhattan Hoosier Project.

This is what I keep coming back to. This isn’t firing little Archie after four seasons and no tournament appearances. This is firing a program legend, and RMK favorite with what looks like 3/4 tourney seasons (fools gold of course, but on paper it is what it is). Dolson isn’t firing Mike Woodson to turn around and hire Brad Brownell. I’m firmly in the camp he takes a shot on a mid major with an unknown ceiling before retreading an average at best P5 guy.

I think a lot of people myself included just believe that if we get to a point where Collins or Brownell are serious contenders, why not just take the chance on lightning in a bottle with McCollum. Worst case either way we do this again in four years. It's why I would prefer Cronin, just proven stability. Brownell or Collins do not provide that kind of guarantee. If we cannot hire someone who is, why not take a shot on someone winning 80% of their games. For Dolson, a gamble on Brownell or Collins being exactly what they have been at the high major level and him getting fired seem just as good as McCollum being crazy good and Dolson getting a lifetime contract. JMO

There's also a metric ****-ton of plausible deniability if any of those three actually got hired. It's a zero risk assumption, he doesn't look like an idiot for that if he ends up incorrect. It is simply "I am as shocked as everyone else across the landscape that IU landed X,Y, or Z" because it would be massive earth shaking news in CBB, and across the NBA too if it was BS. He can just fall in with all the other media types who all thought none of those were ever realistic. I am in no way saying I think any of that actually happens, but this is not some crazy sourced leak of information saying BS, SD and TJO are out lol

Brownell is not out of the running in the same way Beard is not out of the running. They want the job and haven't said no. Means nothing at this point in the search. Could it be either of them? Sure. Likely is not, we are going to hear a bunch more agent driven nonsense before this over. It really has not even started yet since we are obviously targeting sitting head coaches who are still playing basketball. I don't expect anything concrete until after conference tourneys at the absolute earliest, and only if we are gonna hire a cat not in the NCAAs.

Care to elaborate on your confidence? Or is this just based on vibes in the great beyond?

Let that hot taek fly homie.