Magnanimous

Read it on the can.

As we embark on yet another NCAAT void of Indiana basketball, one where our team’s and fanbase’s absences will not be noticed, I’ll reiterate what I just said in the title - Indiana University’s basketball culture is dead. Whatever it was, however we used to describe it, the feeling it once gave us…it’s gone. When did it finally disappear? I don’t know, maybe around when we resorted to something as pathetic as putting five stars on our shorts to remind television viewers how great we used to be. I would love for a sixth banner to hang in Assembly Hall. I do not want to see a sixth star on our players’ shorts (or any stars on our uniforms for that matter). After the actual program’s success started to disappear, we began to get by on nostalgia - the nameless uniforms, imagery of heartland Americana fundamentals, the shadow of Bob Knight, the banners hanging in the background of every picture and television angle. It worked for a while, but now we actually need names on the uniforms to know who is even on our team these days, Bob Knight both finally returned to AH and passed away, and today’s student body wasn’t alive for 9/11, let alone would recognize any semblance of 1987 or the lingering pride that lasted for many years after. The nostalgic angle could only go on for so long, and I’m afraid we’ve finally reached IUBB apathy at critical mass. True, some of it is a reflection of the greater college basketball landscape. Between one-and-done/the G-League, the transfer portal, and conference realignment, college basketball as a whole is a shell of its former self. But what made Indiana basketball a selling point to recruits, prospective coaches, students, alumni, and the overall fan base is gone. Here’s why: Two things regarding recruits - (1) there are programs with a foothold on getting top players and it is not us; and (2) there remains a slightly “disturbing sense” (i.e., minor stink) around this program and what it means for a player’s development, the treatment from the fan base, and an inability for players to want to take pride in being an Indiana Hoosier not just as a player but for decades after graduating. How many players from the last 15 years do we expect to show up to IUBB games when they’re 45 years old and wave to receptive fans on the Jumbotron? And if they did, would the fans in attendance even recognize them? If we want to be a local recruiting power with an Indiana/midwestern identity that retains players for 3+ years then we need to become Purdue. If we want to be a national recruiting power then we need to become UNC and Duke. We’re currently neither despite spending more, and it’s not like those other programs are going anywhere anytime soon. We need to pick a lane. So what is it about this program that we can actually sell to players beyond money? It’s not like we’ve been killing it in recruiting recently anyway. We do not recruit anywhere near actual top programs, and of the guys we do get, they barely stick around…Since 2004 we have had 85 commitments come here (not including transfers). Granted, some of these commits were JUCOs with two years of eligibility, but of the 85 players, a total of 30 have stayed 3+ seasons with the program. They are: DJ White, AJ Ratliff, Verdell Jones, Matt Roth, Tom Pritchard, Jordan Hulls, Maurice Creek, Christian Watford, Derek Elston, Victor Oladipo, Will Sheehy, Yogi Ferrell, Hanner Mosquera-Perea, Collin Hartman, Troy Williams, James Blackmon, Robert Johnson, Tim Priller, Juwan Morgan, Devonte Green, De’Ron Davis, Justin Smith, Al Durham, Race Thompson, Rob Phinisee, Trayce Jackson-Davis, Jordan Geronimo, Trey Galloway, Anthony Leal, and Malik Reneau. I don’t know…how many of these names were guys you could really build a nationally competitive program around? Four or five over 20 years? On prospective coaches, our last 4+ coaching cycles have proven where we stand among the coaching ranks. This is not just an IU problem, but if anyone thinks that “coaching at Indiana” is an opportunity that means much these days then you’re kidding yourself. IU is not a top 10 job anymore (and neither is just about any job except Duke, Kansas, and maybe UNC). Everyone else is tied at 4-40, meaning if you’re coaching at a decent school in a P4 conference then you have all you need to win occasionally at your current school and do not need to be at Indiana, or Louisville, or UCLA, or even Kentucky to win big. And most of those other jobs pay very well and have much lower expectations than what comes with coaching here. Now on to the students…For the longest time our basketball team got a pass for its mediocrity because football was even worse. We could sell freshmen on Indiana basketball being part of the student experience, something they will remember after they graduate and a privilege to be a part of while on campus. That’s gone with today’s student body, and it will only get harder to sell the longer we go without winning on the court, especially for out-of-state students who did not grow up with generational IUBB stories and lore. Our student body now has the ultimate bragging rights in the country’s biggest sport. Our football coach is the face of the sport and our university. Indiana students have finally tasted success and they’ve experienced it in something that is more fun to watch, attend, and socialize around than basketball. Why would (or should) they haul their butts to AH on a cold January night to support a mediocre team with a new rotation of faces that will be gone each year? I certainly do not think we’ll become Auburn or Texas where basketball is something cute that is only there to kill time in the winter, but at least as long as Cignetti is here IUBB will also have to compete with IUFB. Finally the fans and alumni…I haven’t been tracking attendance this year, but I can say that I have never been less enthusiastic or interested in following a team than this year. Part of it was definitely football cutting well into basketball season, but the underwhelming hire that was DeVries and the player turnover allowed apathy to settle in quickly once the losses piled in. Myself aside, in general, the buzz around the program on the internet, media, among friends, game watches at bars, it all feels missing right now. We finally played Kentucky in basketball this year. The buildup for that game was nothing compared to how it was 15+ years ago. The fans and alumni are the glue that have held this program together for 25 years. Unlike Nebraska football, which is all their fans have (this basketball season aside), Hoosier Nation is more dispersed and has other teams to follow, even in our own state. The lynchpin for IUBB being our eternally optimistic and loyal fan base is not sustainable if the program is no longer creating new generations of fans at scale. None of this is to say that Indiana basketball is not historic or does not hold a special place in the sport, but nostalgia and fan support have not won us games and an open checkbook in an era where players can be paid is not getting us winning rosters. There has been something fundamentally off with how this program is approaching the sport because it should not be this difficult for this long. The administration is not the problem, which some alluded to as the cause in previous years. We now have a university president who helped support a championship team in football from the ground up in two years. It should not be this hard for Indiana basketball to be good, especially since we’re one of 6-8 resource-rich programs in the country that actually emphasizes basketball…but yet it still is… So what now is Indiana University basketball? To be honest, I really don’t know. We can say we’re a blue blood and point to our banners, tradition, and fans, but that doesn’t win us games and at this point recruits don’t care. No one under 30 has “grown up with Indiana basketball.” We can say we’re always only one coach away, and if we keep trying enough coaches then we’ll finally land the guy who can keep local talent at home and sprinkle in national recruits to finally make us a perennial top 10 team again. To be honest, I think there may be too much cultural inertia and delusional fan expectations to let a coach breathe and build here. To be more succinct, I’m skeptical if we had landed Brad Stephens or Dusty May that they would have been as successful here as they were/are at Butler and Michigan. This football championship and the culture/identity that Cignetti instilled to make it happen has been really sobering when looking at our meddling basketball program. Do we need a basketball coach who has experience, can lead his team, and build a culture? Absolutely. We cannot have someone lazy like Woodson, completely misguided like Archie, or in over his head like Davis. But to do so we either (1) need to keep the coaching carousel moving until we finally hit, or (2) we can be hands off, let this program finally get some stability, and allow a new culture to emerge. I’m firmly in the camp of option #2 at this point. I really like the Carr hire, and I’m hopeful that DeVries will be accepting of Carr/Dolson running the show and DeVries just managing the games. If DeVries can’t accept the new approach next season then I say we get rid of him in March 2027. But if he stays beyond Year 2, or if we bring someone in to replace him for 2027-2028, then DeVries/this other coach should be given a while to let this new Carr approach work and make something of their own in Bloomington. The fans/IU media need to let go of what Indiana was and allow whatever Indiana can be to manifest. I’m talking giving whoever is our 2027-28 coach 6-8 seasons to breathe and let something build organically. Get a new culture in here, even if it takes a few years to emerge. What that looks like or will be is TBD right now, but it needs to be forward thinking and look beyond selling tradition and nostalgia. Keep the candy stripes, keep the simple uniforms, and make sure the players are not scumbags…other than that, I’m indifferent to what this program looks like 3-5 years from now as long as something sustainable is allowed to happen. Because whatever Indiana basketball was or thinks it is….it isn’t.

Siena played all five starters the entire game.

Canton?

This is the best season recap video I’ve come across:

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Last play of the game IMG_2122.mov

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I was fortunate enough to attend the championship game, so here’s some sights and sounds from the “cheap seats,” but a little different perspective than what you saw on TV. IMG_2107.mov

Just don’t use the same sculptor who made D’wyane Wade’s statue…

“A win today will make me happy until a loss tomorrow.”

Agree. Nebraska had a unique setup that led to their success in terms of talent pool and style of play that both no longer exist. Both programs are walking through purgatory for decades with the only hope being delusional, over-compensating fan bases. But to your point, we just need to bring in a better coach and a few better players and we’re right back in it. We also can get them from our backyard, unlike Nebraska. Nebraska’s luck may change some now with NIL and the transfer portal, but until they can execute with it that program is finished as a blue blood. More P4 schools are committed a to football than basketball, which is why it’s been frustrating with us actually trying in basketball and having nothing to show for it in 25 years. This isn’t complicated.

The fact that he was hired 11 months ago and I still can’t pronounce his name is a major red flag.

Not only do I not think this hire will work out, but I think we’ll forget this guy was ever our coach within two years of him leaving. This whole program currently feels like a screensaver, waiting for the next and more serious hire to come along.

If IUFB can win the NC in year 2 then IUBB can make the NCAAT in year 2. This wait and see approach needs to stop with these guys.

This guy feels like an AAU dad coach.

Defending national champion.

In the worst case scenario (vacated wins, which won’t happen because this is a nonsense story anyway), couldn’t we just say “no, we’re keeping them”? What are they going to do?

The bulk of our OL returning is huge. My statement is very much TBD, but Hoover is more of a gunslinger than Mendoza is, and if we have a third receiving option beyond Marsh and Becker, I think we’ll air it out a bit more this year (on the condition that Hoover cuts down his picks…). Mendoza could thread a needle, but he also only had one game over 300 yards (and one 299 yard game). I think Hoover will have 4-5 games over 300 yards, we have a great receiving duo (at minimum a duo), and our running game shouldn’t miss a beat (although Black’s pass blocking will be hard to emulate). More than anything, our coaches now have some “toys” to play with on O this year. My biggest concern for our defense will be the secondary. Our pass rush and run defense should be just as good, if not better. Overall, I expect us to be favored in every game this year.

At least for me, update the box means build an extension to bring back a mega version of The Irish Lion that is open for 10 hours on game days. Soda bread and yard beers.

And I think we’re going to be better next year (at least on offense).

The CFP selection was a beauty pageant until it expanded to 12 teams. Everything before that was mythical. Between us and 2024 Ohio State (who went 14-2…), we are the most legit national champion ever!

That’s fair. Levron’s productivity gets overshadowed by Randel El’s running ability and not playing in the NFL, whereas Howard was second in rushing yards his rookie season. I also forget that Howard only played 9 games for us. He was a workhorse though in the short time he was here.