Hoosierfan2017

I’ve been critical of/concerned with DD’s start, so I’m very happy to see this news. A strong first season is critical, and players like Wilkerson will be a big help in making that happen. Hope we have several more following him shortly.

Outstanding news!! Exactly the kind of player we needed.

Virtually no one bought an IU basketball ticket last year because they wanted to watch Ballo or Reneau play basketball. They bought a ticket to watch Indiana University play basketball. This will because even more the case as we get deeper into the transfer portal era and players continue cycling in and out every year. A Bloomington Bears semi-pro game with the same players might get 1,000 fans in the seats. Players are “worth” whatever someone is willing to pay them, but they aren’t being paid for their NIL. I disagree with the “players are making schools so much money and weren’t getting paid anything for it” stance that I see from so many. The schools are the brands. The schools are why people watch the games. Every now and then there are players who buck that trend such as CC at Iowa last year. But the average run of the mill D1 player is an interchangeable cog in the wheel.

Okay I take it back, have a bad one.

I respond “in what world?” to a comment about Hanner Perea being a “great bench big” and you respond with a personal attack. So, rich of you to say I’m the rude one. But I’m not going to get into a personal attack sparring session with you. Like I said, have a good one.

As big a pot calling the kettle black situation as there is. Have a good one mate.

Do you? I don’t think I’ve ever heard stone hands Hanner referred to as a “great bench big” at any point in my life before today.

In what world?

I’m generally impatient with things, but I don’t have an issue being patient if we get something good out of it. It’s just that we’ve sat around trying to be patient with the last two hires and we just kept waiting and waiting. We’ve seen immediate turnarounds in basketball just last year with schools just a few hours away from IU, and across the parking lot from Assembly Hall in football, so it’s just going to be a struggle for me to be patient this upcoming season. I don’t expect a final four appearance or a conference title next season, but I’m definitely expecting a better season than IU’s past two.

He wasn’t my first choice, but I didn’t hate the hire and still don’t. I just expected to be farther along nearly a month into the hire than we are right now. It isn’t any one particular factor but rather the combination of them all that has me concerned. He had a comparable situation going into WVU last year, so I expected a smooth transition this time around given that he’s done it before. One of the positives I felt around the hire was that he had a team with some guys he could bring over to IU with him, but none of them (other than his son) have joined him for whatever reason. I’m not sure how to feel about the assistant coach hires, and it took awhile to get the staff in place. I have questions with his two portal additions because we don’t have a full roster to see how they fit. We need better starting guards than Enright. He should be fine as a backup/role player, but we need some starters. I like Bailey as an offensive player but he isn’t a strong defender, so we’ll need defenders to make up for it. Idk. I know I’m looking at a partially painted picture at this point and we won’t have answers until it’s fully painted. I just expected it to be closer to finished at this point.

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.