Demo

Yup. People get immersed in X’s & O’s because they’re sexier, but jobs like this are about wiring and temperament.

Might be an interesting story to follow from the perspective of gauging how long a program icon can maintain major influence. He was Roy’s guy and he goes to every game clearly as a show of support.

Totally respect that. Kelvin Sampson was to me what Pitino is to you and it was a freaking misery having that guy on that bench. But the difference is there is no universe where Pitino gets this job.

Would think it would be tough to fire a guy who won the conference and was COY just last year. And he has a good class coming in. But it still feels like it’s declining. I was reading about his contract at 1 point and he needs to punch his agent in the throat. The school owes his full base salary through I think 27-28, but despite him making almost 4 mil a year, only something like 400k is base salary. So if they fire him his buyout is only about 1.25 mil. That’s insane.

LCS bringing up what other jobs might open up got me thinking about Butler. What’s going on there? Is Matta in trouble? Do they have the resources to compete in a high major? Have they decided they’re overmatched in the Big East and could they take a step down in conference affiliation? Thoughts?

I think Neptune is stone dead at Nova. Imagine Autry and Hubert get another year. Terry’s an interesting deal. He’s got the Mike Davis thing going on where he never gets that job under normal circumstances and it’s clearly deteriorating. But surely he gets 1 more year.

Funny you mentioned that one. Was talking with a friend about the Ben McCollum love around here and the theoretical he brought up was, “If the IU AD had a choice of McCollum and someone like, say, Chris Jans who’s he hiring?” Thought about that a fair bit and I’m pretty confident the answer is Jans.

His sister got fired, what, maybe 20 years ago? Doesn’t matter, dude’s not coming back yet.

Of the potentially infinite number of parallel universes that could theoretically exist, in not 1 of them was Crean fired after 2011, Zeller or no Zeller.

It’s nuanced, but your tone could lead one to believe that the timing of Brad’s announcement feels off to you somehow?

https://x.com/TheHoopHerald/status/1891686325092225324 Actually this is probably a 30 year old action. But, man, the execution on the screen side is teaching material.

Why’s Coach wearing his golf shoes?

You’re not old yet. Eventually you stop being surprised that you forgot anything. On Crean, I hope the guy keeps doing what he’s doing. He’s ok doing games, but I think he’s great doing studio analysis. Much better than Greenberg.

Makes him every bit as likely to come here as Pearl is to go to Iowa.

I think the chances that it’s Ben McCollum are slim and none and slim’s gone home. But this thread is kind of interesting as sort of a Rorschach test of risk tolerance. Though in fairness, none of us are actually risking anything, but we’re asking Dolson to risk his job and I see no chance he’s doing that on a guy who 10 months ago was coaching in a pretty innocuous gym by Indiana High School standards. I’m with you, if they go there I’m down and it would be a great story and a fun watch. But they’re not. If the dude ends up at someplace like Iowa and turns into Dean Smith, so be it. I’m willing to be against that result and on a track record at a high major.

Off the top of my head: 1) Would love the 1st digit of their age to be a 4. Ok with a 5. A 6 needs to be a pretty special guy. 2) Bullet-proof self-belief. 3) The ability to articulate to both fans and recruits what their core values are. “This is what you WILL see from a _________. _________ team.” 4) The ability to convey why this job at this moment. Crean’s “It’s Indiana” meant something. 5) Places great value in training and moving coaches along. I want a guy who develops a tree. 7) Sure, I want a basketball junkie, but I want someone who becomes ingrained in the school and community in some other fashion. 8) Don’t care about their specific philosophy, there are a million ways to win, but I care about constantly assessing what they’re doing. Underwood changed everything he was doing his 2nd year at Illinois. Gard did that this year. Enormous respect for that.

Forgot all about Gatens. They’ve been talking about him as the next guy basically from the day they hired him, right?

Yeah, I’m sure Pearl is dying to get to that much $hittier job than the 1 he has now because Iowa City made quite an indelible mark on him when he was an Asst there 30 yrs ago. Fandom is quite the drug.

And Brad Stevens (ducks)

Chris Beard thinks that dude’s got problems.

Honest to God, of the dozens of guys we’ve thrown who it’s not gonna be, he might be the most not gonna be. Except for John Wooden.

Honestly, I didn’t know the staff had watched a single kid since summer.

Yup. There are a bunch of really good coaches for whom this ain’t the job. Your self-belief and vision for your program better be utterly bullet-proof.

The New Mexico(Pitino)-Utah St(Calhoun) game yesterday was a pleasure to watch. Those are very well-coached teams.

https://x.com/NYPost_Brazille/status/1891596302917443718 I guess you can coach kids hard if they’re the right kids. Maybe the next guy can take a swing at it.