Hoosierfan2017

The “IU guy” crowd is ridiculous and should be completely ignored, imho. The insistence on an IU guy got us Mike Woodson. There are no qualified IU guys. Fife, Alford, Lewis. None of them are guys the fanbase would want if they didn’t go to IU. Steve Alford is the most qualified of the bunch, and he’s bounced around from school to school delivering mediocre results for the past 20+ years. “IU guy,” if ever considered, should only be considered when judging between two equally qualified candidates. It should never take someone from non-candidate to candidate like it did for Mike Woodson, and like people are trying to do for Dusty May.

The “we need an IU guy” obsession got us the Mike Woodson disaster. Instead of realizing that the college a basketball coach went to decades in the past shouldn’t be a “double check plus” in the job search, some people are doubling down and demanding the mid-major flavor of the month. It’s Archie Miller and Mike Woodson combined into one.

Are we really back to the Bob Knight comparisons? In what world is Archie Miller a bad comparison to Dusty May but Bob Knight comparisons make sense?

I don’t particularly care about how much a coach did or didn’t “build a program.” Sure, a guy can go to a school and slowly build a successful program with little to no success. We’re not asking him to come build a program for the Little Sisters of the Poor. We’d be asking him to come jump into the lion’s den and compete with the very best of the best on the court and in the recruiting world. He’s never done that or anything close to that as a head coach. Archie was better prepared to come do that coming from a school like Dayton than May would be coming from a school like FAU.

The Dusty May fascination is 90% because he has an IU connection, imo. If he was Dusty May, former manager at Central Michigan University, people wouldn’t want him nearly as much. He’s had one great season as a head coach. We just hired and fired a mid-major coach who had more success in a better conference. May’s supporters say “there’s no comparison to Archie,” but there’s no way to know that. Archie was more proven at the time. I’d rather hire a proven P5 guy. I can’t do the whole “sure we stink in year 3 but we need to give him time” thing again. IU needs someone who can win right away because the fan base’s patience is completely gone.

Woodson acts like a guy who loves the title but hates the job. He’s not a guy who is going to roll up his sleeves and grind. Hes not going to go pound the pavement on the recruiting trail. The dude can’t be bothered to even learn the names of the 5 star players he’s recruiting. He’s a guy who is going to pour a glass of wine, light a cigar, and sit back and relax. Teams take after their coach, and IU basketball is no different.

It’s indicative of a guy who doesn’t care all that much about winning or losing. Same way an NBA player gets blasted when he’s seen partying at the club after an embarrassing loss. Disconnected play, unmotivated players, and bad roster construction are all things you’d expect from a team when you find out the head coach is knee deep in cigars and wine moments after another embarrassing home loss to a mediocre team. He behaves like a semi-retired man.

We need some donors with the SEC-donor mentality. Does anyone think an Alabama donor would sit through a football season like our current basketball season, watch from the sidelines as Alabama gets embarrassed at home by Vanderbilt, and be content? Not a chance. Our donors apparently aren’t built like that.

No, I wouldn’t. And Archie did happen. And then Mike Woodson happened. Hiring a third guy in a row with no P5 experience doesn’t exactly reassure me. If he hadn’t been an IU manager 25 years ago people wouldn’t be pushing him nearly as hard as they are. He’s had one great seasons in six years.

Bringing Mike Woodson back for a fourth season is almost unthinkable to me. It’s as close to an official “we don’t give a s*** about basketball” announcement that the administration could make without coming out and actually saying it (hiring Woodson in the first place is a close second). This is why they never should’ve hired an IU guy in the first place.

There are things a coach can do to entice a coach like Drew or Pearl to come. IU just won’t do those things, so we’ll be stuck picking from the B list of candidates and hoping they work out.

And for the under-40 crowd, our only memories of Mike Woodson will be Mike Woodson the coach. He won’t be “Mike Woodson the great player,” he’ll be “Mike Woodson the awful coach.”

Wade and Reneau are good players, though Reneau’s defense can be pretty bad. Galloway would be a good bench player averaging 20 mpg as your 3rd or 4th best guard. He’s nowhere near good enough to be a34 mpg guy like he is on this team. Mgbako is a bad defender, bad athlete, and is shooting 38% from the field. Had he stayed at Duke, he probably wouldn’t even be in their rotation. I don’t think any of Cupps, Gunn, or Banks have demonstrated anything to suggest they’d be contributors this year under a better coach. This team would be a bubble team even with a good coach. They just don’t have the horses.

Yeah I don’t get the people saying it’s not a talent issue. We have probably one of the worst backcourt rotations among power conference teams. It’s horrible. And that, just like in-game coaching, falls on Mike Woodson.

Watching the St. John's game... Rick Pitino is 5 years older than Mike Woodson but seems a decade younger.

Why?

It’s simple. IU is either serious about basketball or it isn’t. We’ll get our answer soon with the decision whether to bring Mike Woodson back.

I think the vast majority of the fanbase had a “WTF” reaction to the hire. You had some sunshine pumpers trying to convince us that it was a good move, but most saw it for what it was - an atrocious, unserious hire.

I was just going off the guys on the court at the time, but yeah he’s not good either. I don’t think he’s played today, though.

Cupps/Galloway/Leal backcourt is just atrocious. Year 3 and that’s where Mike Woodson is. Lead balloons to 14.

Even Woodson’s supporters (if they still exist) have to admit that watching this team is a miserable experience. Just brutal basketball.

JHS committed in August 2021, so 30 months ago.

One of the better portal recruiters according to who? He swung and missed on every portal guard he went after last offseason. He hasn’t landed a guard at all in 27 months. But I’m not even talking about his end results on the recruiting trail when I say Woodson is lazy. We’ve heard comments from people ‘in the know’ about his efforts recruiting high school players. He half***es it and doesn’t show up to games like other head coaches. That’s lazy. You land some recruits, you miss on others. But you better be busting your *** on the recruiting trail. Nothing about Mike Woodson suggests that Mike Woodson grinds it out in recruiting. And that’s why he’s struggling to get high school recruits. It’s not a coincidence that must of his high school success has been in short-term spring recruitments of players who decommit from their original schools.

How would you describe Woodson’s recruiting efforts if not lazy?

I disagree. Pearl is much more of a sure thing, imo. May is risky. He won’t be a long-term solution but the job would be much more attractive after 7-8 year of Pearl success. Then IU would be on strong ground when making an hire. Almost like the idea when Woodson was hired if Woodson was actually a good coach.