pumpfake

Listening to Mike DeCoursey on Sterling's show. I get the impression he (MD) has absolutely no idea what's going on with the program.

Do you like Eddie Munster?

This was a question I was going to pose - even if he DOES fire Crean, how much confidence do you have that he'll hire one of the top coaches? Now, I don't follow college football closely, but he's had a couple of opportunities with the football team and hasn't come close to that home run hire. This may be because it's just no feasible with our history/tradition of suckage, but that shouldn't be the case in basketball. For the record, I'm very nervous now about what caliber of coach FG might hire.

Here's a little story for you. I have a neighbor who has spent a lot of time around athletics - both professional and college. He was employed by a certain B10 team as a play-by-play guy and did the same for several years in the NBA. First off, he's not an IU fan so his opinion is probably prejudiced, but when we were discussing the upcoming season a year or two ago he flat out said Tom Crean is an idiot and by no means a good coach. His blunt assessment kind of surprised me in how certain and absolute his opinion was. I have to chalk part of it up to rivalry, but no doubt part of it was his honest opinion of CTC's coaching prowess. I want us to have a coach that our rivals dislike because he kicks their butts regularly.

After taking a 13 hour sabatical, this scenario is what I'm going with: There were talks with Donovan's representatives and Billy is definitely interested, but not willing to discuss or make a decision until his season is over. Fred is all about making the home run hire and sending shockwaves across the college basketball landscape, so he plans on doing nothing until OKC is done for the year. He is allowing Crean to stay on or leave of his own accord - until he gets a decision from Billy or the buyout drops. It's his gamble, he'll either make an amazing hire or save some cash, appoint one of the assistants as interim coach and spend the entire season searching for a top coach. Until this happens I'll just be eagerly awaiting April 16th when the Easter Bunny will come to my house.

Yay! More mediocrity - go lose in the NIT or in a third-rate bowl game.

Hopefully Freddy G. learned something: Do your freakin' job and do what's in the best interest of the program - not coddle a failed experiment.

Either that or he's one helluva actor. He said he has things planned for improving the "leadership" of the team (and also said one way to correct that is through "recruiting"). Somebody please give the guy "the hook".

...and had to make a point to mention the (only) two meaningful wins from pre-conference.

I have this nagging fear that even if Glass does the only sane thing and dismisses TC, he'll be caught with his pants down as far as a coaching search goes. It's a sinking feeling that all of the chatter about reaching out and putting feelers out to coaches was complete fiction and we'll end up with somebody like John Groce. I hope to be proven wrong, but won't be placing any wagers on it.

We're number 101-132 !!!!

Well, I have to admit that JBJ & family were the first I thought of when news of internal strife was going around. If for no other reason than the fact that his parents have been at pretty much every game over the last month. Glass's decision to forego the home game probably wasn't real popular with Mr. & Mrs. Blackmon.

LOL. And it probably will be (we won't win the NIT).

Yep, pretty much. Yet I can guarantee you if we were to get the next great coach and get back to achieving Fred's goals, they'd be right there sucking up. Just like they do to any winning team or program.

I just find it so aggravating to hear media types, particularly those on the national stage, talk about us being unreasonable or impatient. As much as I dislike UK, they have a goal to be the best and if their coach isn't up to the task, he's replaced. Rinse and repeat until they got the guy that can deliver up to their expectations. Once they achieved this (this time with Calipari), all you hear from those same media types is effusive praise and constant worshiping of that program. To hell with columnists and talking heads, they aren't the ones supporting the university/athletic department...we are.

I would be 101% in agreement with this if we had absolute proof that there has been a coaching search and some degree of negotiations have occurred. There seemed to be strong evidence that is the case, so I'm probably 80% in agreement with this. That said, even if it is true that we've been conducting a search, there is no certain reason to believe that FG would have acted before the season is concluded (by relieving CTC of his duties or making a statement about the situation).

For all we know this could be the case. No doubt the AD and all involved would prefer everything to be on the QT, and they are under no obligation to be forthcoming with information during a time of "transition". Then again, it may be every bit as FUBAR'ed as some have speculated. And that's the problem: we don't know what is really going on, so it could be either extreme or somewhere in the middle. But yes, we'd be best served to temper our emotions until we (finally) get solid information.

I've seen him sitting behind the bench. I read somewhere that he hasn't been given the OK to travel and has only been attending the home games. Apparently, sitting behind the bench so as to prevent re-injury if a player were to dive for a ball or something.

Is 0708 the same guy as HickoryHoosier? Now I'm even more confused.

Wow. The parts about "a lot of other crap going on with the team" and "not everyone makes the trip (players & staff) point to some real potential turmoil going on. Just a week ago we were wondering if we'd be getting a home run coach hired and now we're left wondering if the whole program is about to go up in flames. smh

Just as a refresher, I went back and re-read the statement about Crean that FG issued two years ago. In it he specifically said CTC should be judged not on past results but going forward (and the ability to "start achieving our program goals"). Here's his expectations and the results two years later: "My goals for this program are to perenially contend for (Nope, not this year) and to win multiple Big Ten championships (1 out of 2, 'incomplete'), regularly go deep in the NCAA tournament (Nope, fail) and win our next national championship (Nope, not close)," Glass said. "Be elite (Nope, not even close), if you will. As a lifelong Hoosier and IU basketball fan, alumnus and current AD, nobody wants that more than me (Nope, that doesn't appear to be true at all)."

I sure hope there's a lot of subterfuge and behind the scenes action going on, so far as seeking a replacement coach, otherwise the way things appear to have been handled these past several days makes me less optimistic about FG being able to land a great coach. This is a two part process (remove the current coach and replace him with a better option), and it feels like the easy part (a no-brainer) is being handled clumsily if at all.

Two things notable from that Doyel article are 1) Glass claims the coaching staff was involved in making the decision to abstain from hosting a game, and 2) he specifically addressed 'booing'. I don't know what to make of it, but it would indicate that all involved are well aware of the dissatisfaction with the state of the program as it stands today.

Yeah, me too. I'm just ready for the season to be over, both because I'm sick of watching sloppy basketball and because it should get us closer to knowing our future. [I do remember with great fondness when we beat Purdue for the NIT title several moons ago. Not as much because it was a great accomplishment, but because it was yet another chance to win something that Giant Drum University failed at.]

I think you may be on the right track. While I remain hopeful the position of head coach will be changing for the better real soon, one thing that does discourage me is that statement Glass made about "contracts meaning something".