Hoosierfan2017

Soul sucking has been the IU basketball fan experience for the past decade. Could I be more positive, absolutely. I would’ve loved nothing more than for DD to hit the ground running. But it’s been a shaky start out the gate. Combine that with the past decade of experiences and alarm bells start going off. Part of the “snowball effect” comes from posters getting attacked whenever they share their concerns with what they’ve seen thus far.

It didn’t end well because Woodson was a crappy coach. The solution to “winning the offseason but losing the actual season” isn’t losing the offseason. A strong start in year one is critical to his long term success. Cheaping out in the portal isn’t the way you accomplish that. Miss the tournament in year one and his seat is warm going into year two.

God forbid some people have concerns and discuss them on a message board.

Maybe. What about the incoming freshman?

Well none of them have joined him at IU. So that’s not a conspiracy theory. The only question is why they haven’t.

That or DD is being stingy with the NIL he has. Money is what he has to sell. He doesn’t have a history of getting guys to the NBA. He doesn’t have a history of tournament success. He has money. Market offers won’t get it done because other schools have more to offer. Gotta overpay more than likely.

I don’t have an issue with Enright. There are contributing roles for guys like him on successful teams. We just can’t fill a roster out with guys at his level if we want to compete for spots toward the top of the conference and advance in the ncaa tournament.

Better to overpay for top portal talent than to whiff because you won’t pony up and end up with a bunch of Conor Enrights.

Thanks Never Been Got Scott. Appreciate the hard hitting analysis as always.

Since folks want to point to Kelsey, Pope, and May as the reasons why our coach’s early struggles aren’t an issue, will you be ok if people call DD’s first season a failure if he doesn’t match their first seasons?

Lmao. Are we supposed to take that tweet as a positive development? It’s ok if some people do not have unbridled faith like you seemingly do.

Not confidence inspiring in the slightest - about either DD or this recruitment.

You’re not selling them on the state, you’re selling them on Bloomington. Selling an 18-22 year old guy on Bloomington isn’t a tough sell at all.

Sure did. The same way teams root for their bad teams to tank for a top draft pick. A few more wins to keep Woodson for a fifth season would’ve been the worst thing for the program, and I absolutely wanted to avoid that. To avoid that you have to lose some games. I have concerns about DD but he at least gives IU a chance. Didn’t you puff your chest the entire past offseason and then go into witness protection for a few months after Woodson belly flopped in the Bahamas?

“The easiest schedule in the country” that included the two teams from the CFP final and Ohio State. If a team had Ohio State and Notre Dame on the 2025 schedule would anyone in April be calling it the “easiest schedule in the country”? Of course not. Whether he could have won 6 games and been extended is irrelevant. He won 11 games and made the college football playoff. Don’t sit here and tell us it takes 3-4 years to turn around a basketball team when we watched a turnaround with our own eyes in a much harder sport to flip by a program with none of the history or resources of IU basketball.

The fanbase has been the thing keeping the program alive. Instead of blaming “Gen Z’ers like myself” you should be happy there are still passionate fans in the younger generations despite IU being abysmal for the vast majority of our lives.

The fanbase turned on Woodson because he was a raging a**hole who delivered mediocre results and refused to do critical parts of his job. You tout two tournament appearances as if that should get him a lifetime contract and a statue.

I don’t think this is what anyone was hoping for/expecting, even the optimists.

IU football was probably the worst P5 program in the country and it changed overnight. Great coaches make immediate impacts. Will DD? We’ll find out.

No, I would like him to land the coaches and players that he targets and for said players/coaches to be top tier.

Follow along with the conversation. The message you’re responding to was about IU being a middle of the pack team in recent history. IU was a middle of the pack conference team the past 8 seasons because Archie and Woody were terrible coaches. You said that’s an “opinion.” So, if it’s not true, why has IU been a middle of the pack team the past 8 or so seasons?

Enlighten us then oh wise one. If not coaching, why has IU been a middle of the pack B1G team?

Nope

You can repeat the “middle of the pack B1G team” line as much as you want, but the sole reason IU has been a middle of the pack team is because of coaching. There’s absolutely nothing from an IU standpoint holding DeVries back. He has better resources than nearly every other team in the conference. Johnson seems like a good hire but Adams is meh.

Alternatively, a new coach with top of the conference resources is struggling to land assistants and players.