AKHoosier

Now this is certainly a good way to start a Saturday morning. I hope Donovan left Phoenix after OKC's loss last night and said, "Screw this, I'm going to Indiana."

Amidst all the posts and threads about rumors of upcoming coaching changes and all, I decided to take a look at the biggest recruiting misses of the Tom Crean era at IU. These are guys we missed out on, or ended up at IU whose career here never panned out. Hindsight is always 20/20 and this post is not meant to criticize any coach or player, but if things had turned out differently with these 5 players, I believe Crean would have had much, much different results here. 5. Kyrie Irving The first big name recruit Crean was in on and had a legit chance at landing, if I recall correctly. In the class of 2010, he would have signaled IU as being "back" a year before we got Cody Zeller. He wouldn't have led us to the success that Zeller did once he got here, but you can't help but wonder how that 2010-2011 team would have been with him as the PG. The team finished 12-20, so it could be argued we could have at least had a .500 season with him. We made his top 3 and he spoke very highly with us following his visit, but we all should know by now how that went down. 4. Hanner Perea To me, he was the biggest disappointment of all the players Crean signed at Indiana. I remember salivating watching his highlight videos dunking everything in sight, and ignoring several people's warnings that he was more raw than most of us thought. Once he got on campus, his career never seemed to take off due to his suspension (not his fault whatsoever) and lack of commitment to improve. He showed signs of improving as he got older, but his off-court issues derailed any chance at realizing his full potential. Crean invested 3 years into him, and never saw much payoff at all. Since he was a "big" on our team, he would have been instrumental in post-Zeller success, but that clearly was not the case. 3. Jeremy Hollowell Similar to Hanner, Jeremy's time here was a pretty big disappointment. I was excited to see him as part of our 2012 class, but he was a case-study on why "The Movement" largely failed. If he turned into a player that would have had better than 5.7 PPG his sophomore year, we would have gotten much more production out of our frontcourt his sophomore year. His freshman season he was usually the second guy off the bench, but he never seemed to develop while he had guys like Cody Zeller and Christian Watford to practice against. 2. Kellen Dunham A few years ago I remember Crean was on Dakich's show, and when asked one of his biggest regrets while at IU, it was not offering Kellen Dunham a scholarship. We all know why. He was a scoring machine at Pendleton Heights, leading the state with nearly 30 ppg. His freshman season he averaged 9.5 ppg, and was instrumental in beating UNC, Gonzaga, and #1 IU. If he had been included in our 2012 class, we would have had an extra shooter when Jordan Hulls got hurt in the tournament in 2013, and for the next few seasons when the 2013 and 2014 teams could have used an elite outside shooter outside Yogi. Speaking of that 2012 class, the #1 biggest miss during Crean's era in my opinion was: 1. Gary Harris No doubt in my mind he was the 1 player that could have been more instrumental in a deeper 2012-2013 NCAA tournament run. The potential of that 2012-2013 team with a starting lineup of Yogi Ferrell, Gary Harris, Oladipo, Watford, and Zeller with Jordy and Sheehey coming off the bench would have been sky high. At 6'5", he and Oladipo would have been a nightmare on the perimeter for opposing offenses. The B1G Freshman of the Year in 2012-2013 averaged 12.9 pts and 1.2 steals per game. As a sophomore, he was on the All B1G Defensive Team and averaged nearly 17 ppg. The thought of our 2012 class featuring Yogi Ferrell, Kellen Dunham, and Gary Harris still kind of stings to think about, especially considering how much time Crean put in to recruiting Harris. He and Dunham probably would have made us a tournament team in 2013-2014 as well with Noah Vonleh, Sheehey, and Yogi. Any thoughts to this list? Feel free to rip it apart, add to it, subtract from it, or point out any errors.

I had a feeling this was going to happen with Wisconsin. Once other B1G coaches had some more game tape available to scout against Greg Gard, he lost his element of surprise he enjoyed a bit last year. As soon as Bo Ryan's guys start to cycle out of there, he's going to have an even rougher time. They should have had an outright title this year.

I find it hard to believe any insider who calls himself "Crean my pants" or "BTownInsider"

He also broke the news that Sampson had been cheating before it was made public.

I can't get past the timing of Billy Donovan's Florida house going up for sale. Why do this now? Why do this 2 months before your offseason is going to start? If this had been done in October, that's one thing. But the end of February is entirely different.

They did found and open the very first Catholic high school in Gainesville, and I believe his kids went there. Not sure how old his kids are now though.

To be fair, Purdue was terrible during most of Davis' tenure. The Gene Keady days were winding down, and the past few years' Purdue teams have been much better than anything Davis had to deal with. And also, we do not measure success by beating Purdue. That's how Purdue measures their success (beating IU).

Now this is my favorite rumor I've heard yet, I don't even care if it's true or made up or whatever.

I feel like, at this point, pissing in the wind would be more productive than reaching out to Brad Stevens.

Swanigan, Dawson, Bluiett, and Lyles were never coming here. Great players from the state who everyone would love to have, but they were not coming to Indiana. It's tough to call them "misses".

So then Donovan simply isn't interested?

Pretty glad we missed out on Jaquan Lyle as well. Crean seemed to put in quite a bit of time with him too. Talented player, but I'm glad we missed.

Sounds like there's dissent among the insiders over there regarding our chances with Donovan. Hickory says dream on, 0708 says there's a real chance. I doubt he'll be our next coach ultimately, but I'll keep hope alive until he files a restraining order against Fred Glass.

I guess he has done well, averaging 11 ppg this year, 12 last year, and 11 the year before. I do know earlier in the year he wasn't even starting, and Marquette wasn't even very good, so I was basing it off that. He certainly would have helped us the past few years, that's for sure.

I honestly debated putting him on this list too, but I don't think he panned out too well at Marquette. Certainly an honorable mention at the least, he would have started in place of Hanner and played alongside Vonleh which would have changed the dynamic of the post-Zeller years dramatically.

This is what I'm prone to believing as well. Why make the decision to part ways now, after a win against Northwestern and an upcoming game against Purdue, to part ways, unless you already know (or have had extremely positive feedback from potential candidates) who the next coach is? For all intents and purposes, we are out of the tournament race. But it's plausible we could beat Purdue, OSU, go on a run in the BTT, and sneak in late. No inside info obviously, but I'm incredibly encouraged by the odd timing of this. I think Glass knows he has an obvious upgrade more likely than not to be the next coach.

Would be the difference between a "rebuilding" year and being a competitive contender in the B1G. Davis is the most skilled player on our roster.

What your made-up story failed to take into account was Glass would fully be aware that Louisville, North Carolina, or possibly Kentucky could all be available at the end of next season. What happens if Donovan's mentor decides to hang it up after next year? You think other blue-blood programs are going to just sit idly by if they catch wind that Billy Donovan is going to be available? I'm sorry but get this weak sh1t out of here.

Exactly. It's not like Donovan or any other coach holds all the cards. We have leverage too. If we have a vacancy, a lot of good coaches would want to come here. The IU job is only going to be open so many times in your coaching career. Sh1t or get off the pot if you want it.

Yeah, I think he'll call your bluff.

That was actually pretty cool. I'm glad she said yes, for his sake.

I think the empty balcony speaks louder than a 1 point win over an unranked Northwestern team.

Well 0708 just said he was "kidding sort of." What that could possibly mean, I haven't the faintest idea.

I agree with this. Based on reading this and a few other boards, it kind of sounds like IU is wanting to put out conflicting information for fear of things catching on in the national media. The mere mention of "IU hasn't reached out to anyone" is completely ridiculous and goes against everything that has been accepted as common knowledge for the last few weeks.