Magnanimous

Glad to see you’re finally coming around.

Congrats to Coach McCollum on punching his ticket to the NCAAT after winning the MVC tournament today. 30-3 so far on the season.

You have it backwards. Cig is McCollum Jr.

Watch McCollum go further in this year’s tournament than any IU coach has in >20 years, with four D2 transfers in his starting lineup.

Drake on to the MVC championship.

I’m having a hard time deciding which IUBB team was more undeserving of a tourney bid, this one or the 2014-15 team?

Their causes of death were unveiled today with some unsettling details… https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/gene-hackman-died-of-heart-disease-betsy-arakawa-died-of-hantavirus-medical-examiner-214220628.html

Random thought, if McCollum retired from coaching this season would he make the Basketball Hall of Fame (as a coach)? There are several D2 coaches who have been inducted, Herb Magee and Clarence Gaines, for example. McCollum’s D2 success surpasses both of theirs.

Stranger (dumber?) things have happened in this universe. It would be quintessential IU to fire a championship winning coach the season he won the championship because we didn’t think he’d ever win a championship. Go Hoosiers.

I mean, those who stayed were champions…

He was told to leave while the season was still going on. Woodson also wasn’t technically “fired.”

Mike Woodson about to join Steve Fisher as the only coaches to win a national championship in a season where the team’s head coach was fired. “What a time to be alive!”

Random thought, if McCollum retired from coaching this season would he make the Basketball Hall of Fame (as a coach)? There are several D2 coaches who have been inducted, Herb Magee and Clarence Gaines, for example. McCollum’s D2 success surpasses both of theirs.

I agree that our roster is a mess. We still may win a NC with them this year, but we’re probably looking at a big turnover this offseason.

(Close enough)

I was about to respond to this sarcastically with “But has he ever beaten Henry Iba?” Then I looked up Henry Iba’s biography, and coincidentally he too coached at NW Missouri State, coached one year at D1 (Colorado) before going to Oklahoma State. Interesting…

Gene Hackman, and unfortunately his wife and dog, were just found deceased in their New Mexico home. The circumstances of that obviously raise some eyebrows, possibly carbon monoxide poisoning, but he also was 95 years old. One of the best actors from the late 60s through the 90s, we all know him as coach Norman Dale in Hoosiers. A movie made by one of our own, Angelo Pizzo, Hoosiers was the perfect complement to Bobby Knight’s glory days and was a national treasure among sports enthusiasts at the time. It’s an annual tradition of mine to watch this movie the night before our season begins, gets me excited more than any Hoosier Hysteria ever could. Thanks for the great career of movies, Gene, and for your personal contribution to the Indiana basketball mythos.

But which in my top 10 should they replace?

Open Range is borderline “and others.” Ox Bow Incident was mentioned, and that’s a great one. Have not seen The Great Silence yet but it’s been on my list for some time.

Let’s debate something we can actually resolve before the NCAAT, since no one on this board, the interwebs, or the outer sphere has a “con-flabbin” clue who the next coach will be or has an actual say in any of this. So…top 10 Westerns: 1) The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly 2) The Searchers 3) Once Upon a Time in the West 4) Stagecoach 5) Django Unchained 6) Shane 7) The Outlaw Josey Wales 8) Rio Bravo 9) The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance 10) The Magnificent Seven Now tell me why Unforgiven, either True Grit, the rest of the Dollars trilogy, Tombstone, The Wild Bunch, Ben McCollum and the Sundance Kid, High Noon, Blazing Saddles (or others) should replace anything on this list.

Because they locked the Ben McCollum thread I created four years ago. That could’ve lived on as a Ben McCollum watch party, fan club, and central clearing house for custom Ben McCollum t-shirts and coffee mugs, awareness for when he is in town for book signings and starting his own tequila brand, etc.

How far would McCollum have to go in the NCAAT this year to assuage the concerns of those who think he can’t hack it?

Pitino stunk in the Big Ten? IU shouldn’t be hiring guys that washed out at Minnesota just a few years ago? I get you don’t like the idea of hiring McCollum right now, and logically there are other guys with D2 and/or MVC success you could both make an argument for and against, but continuing to throw Pitino Jr’s name out there really hurts your argument in these discussions. The guy wouldn’t be a candidate at most Big Ten schools right now, so why should he be for IU?

All the great (“big name”) coaches have left college basketball or are about to croak.