AKHoosier

  Yeah I get that but I don't know man, he knows basketball and he gets IU.  He was a heck of a defensive player at IU, as was Fife.   He'd be a very good assistant at IU, and let's not forget although he can be brash, he does things honorably and the right way.  He's disciplined, definitely a Knight guy.

My dream staff would be   Head coach - Brad Stevens Assistant - Dan Dakich Assistant - Dane Fife Assistant - Tim Buckley Strength and conditioning coordinator - Lyonel Anderson   A sleeper candidate for assistant coach would be Greg Tonagel of Indiana Wesleyan.   I can dream, right?  Someone make this happen.

  Exactly, and the wheels have already started to come off.  All it's going to take is a loss to Notre Dame in Indy for everything to just completely fall apart before the conference season even starts.

There's just something wrong with the team.  Captain Obvious I know, but we don't have any excuse to look this inept.   This is not good.

Well, it may be bed time.

We just need to start jumping on people's back, then we'll get a foul call.   I mean hey, Duke has been getting those, why can't we?

Referees making it painfully obvious why Duke hasn't lost a nonconference home game since 2000.

  It's not as great as they'd lead you to believe though.   My brother graduated from Purdue in 2011 with a degree in Mechanical Engineering.  He said Purdue's engineering program is behind Illinois, Penn State, and Wisconsin in the Big 10 alone.   Heck, he went to an engineering conference a few years in Skokie, Illinois (right outside of Chicago) full of engineers from all over the United States and Canada.  Whenever he met people and told them what college he went to, he frequently had to explain what Purdue was.  And this was at an ENGINEERING CONFERENCE.  2 hours away from Purdue's campus.

Sean Miller is obviously impressive and I would take him at first glance, but if you dig deeper, his lack of deep tournament success is going to cause some to be less than enthusiastic about him.   He has a very good Arizona team this year as well, but if they get bounced in the Sweet 16 again this year, do we really want to put him in the top tier of candidates?   He's been to the Elite 8 four times, but never to a Final 4.  Fwiw I still say he would be a resounding YES, but I could see some people having reservations about someone who has never taken a team further than an Elite 8 despite having loads of talent.

  Yep, plus most of his roster could theoretically be filled with kids within a 4 hour driving radius of Bloomington.

  That won't matter at all to a new coach.  Half of those kids aren't even on the team anymore, and all but 1 or 2 will be gone after this year.  I was only describing the state of the program in the eyes of a new coach, and how it's a lot different (better) than when the job was last available in 2008.

  I think you'd be pleasantly surprised.  Sure we are suffering on the court, but the state of the program itself is excellent, and we'd be able to attract way more high quality candidates than 2008. No NCAA sanctions Perfect APR score Ample recruiting with amazing 2017 in-state class Great fan support Cook Hall and upgraded Assembly Hall ready for 2016 The only negative is that our current product on the court is subpar, but we'll be very attractive to a coach who sees the peak and not the valley and wants the challenge.

Our new jerseys are going to say this across the chest:   IN_IANA.

Just awful.  About as bad as it can get to start a season.   Wheels are starting to come off.  The team's emotional state is terrible now.

I'm just so scared we'd do something stupid like immediately go after Steve Alford or Brad Brownell.

We'll win this game by 30 points then hopefully it will give us some momentum and confidence back.   Still early in the season.  Way too early to panic.

  It's so upsetting how true this is.  Even the 2012-2013 team played in that tournament in NYC, we barely beat a crappy Georgia team that didn't even make the NCAA Tournament, then barely beat Georgetown in double overtime.   Whether it's the B1G tournament, Maui or some other nonconference tournament, or the NCAA tournament, I just have no confidence whatsoever that we'll have a good game plan going in.   I never felt confident about Maui at any point either, even when analysts were picking us to win.    And that's the thing that sucks, because I do like Crean, I want him to be the guy and to be successful here, but I just don't know anymore.

When the shots aren't falling, we're just going to get exposed because we can't play defense.   That's really all there is to it.

So after 2 timeouts, the best we can draw up is a 3/4 length of the court heave to a mass of bodies?   Unreal.  I honestly thought a win of anything 10 or less would have been a letdown, but I can't believe we freaking got beat.   Completely unreal.

Holy fvcking sh!t

HAHAHA oh man Walton just killed me.   "Everybody under 6'10" looks exactly the same."

We are the same exact team as last year.  We'll blow teams out at home then lose on the road to crappy teams when the shots aren't falling.   I'll be happy to get out of here with a one point win.

Somewhat related, but does anyone think Illinois should go after Cuonzo Martin for their next head coach?   He's obviously a Big 10 guy and an Illinois native, and I don't think him being a Boiler would matter.  If I were their next AD, I'd throw the bank at him unless there's some bad history between Martin and UI that I don't know about.

Man it's November 21st, not even Thanksgiving, and Illinois' season is pretty much over already.   2 bad losses this early are going to be awfully tough to overcome.

Theo Pinson stats today:   Started, played 25 minutes 2 pts 4 rebounds 3 TOs 4 fouls   He hasn't lived up to 5* rating at all so far, granted he's only a sophomore.  He's only shooting about 35% for his career.  I really wanted this kid when he came out of high school too.