Aaron

Baseball is the one sport we can be very proud of our success recently and is a great example of losing coaches to greener pastures beats the heck out of dead end coaches. I am making this reference to football more in that we worry a great coach will get hired away at the first sign of success but as Butler has shown in basketball and we have shown in baseball stacking good coaches who get hired away by elite programs and establishing a winning culture works quite well and allows year in and year out success even with leadership changes. It certainly beats the heck out of holding onto mediocre coaches for multiple decades who went nowhere as Butler did with George Theofanis and Joe Sexson and what IU did with Bob Morgan.

I think Glass' one big mistake in the meeting was using 'serious rebuild' instead of just 'rebuild' when it came to describing IU basketball. It is a rebuild for Archie and Crean left nothing but to be using 'serious' overstates the problem and sounds like excuses. Crean legitimately had a 'serious rebuild' but Archie has just a rebuild. I know its just nuance and probably changes little but adding that extra word makes it looks so much worse and is going to get him mocked. If all he did was use 'rebuild' people would agree to a point. Everything else he said I don't necessarily agree with but would expect him top say and defend his coaches.

I actually like what Pat Shoulders told him. He concluded with 'we all understand that patience is going to have its limits at some point'. To me this means Glass has time (maybe a couple years) for Allen and Archie to turn this around but if they don't your gone and you've attached you're wagon to these guys. Seems fair to me. Of course Glass is going to defend his hires but for the first time trustees were slightly hard on him which is important. Shoulders comments seemed tough but reasonable. Glad to see.

Same. Its been rough but Colts seem to be back now but last few years have been rough. Pacers should still be easy playoff 50 win team but lowers ceiling for what they can do. Outside of the Colts in the 2000's with Peyton, the 2 Zeller teams and 2 Paul George years it has been rough last decade+.

I was at the game tonight but was to high up to see the fall real well. I was thinking what you said but good news all these guys came back better than ever. First 2 left Indy (either because of team or player decision) but Luck is still here. Either way if Oladipo bounces back like those guys, himself and Pacers will be fine.

Good point. I didn't think about that. Probably saying the fans wishes are granted that he's not playing since the fan base has criticized him so much like you said. Good call.

Maybe tweet means he is tired of playing and wants time off so the suspension grants his wishes. Who knows whats going on. Either way curious what this is all about?

This is now 4 in a row and 7 of 8 loses to PU including 3 of 4 in Assembly Hall. Only two of those are on Archie and most of that blame goes to Crean but this is the beginning of some of our biggest problems.

Romeo it has been accurately pointed out should NOT be a one and done in the ideal world but since NBA drafts on potential he'll be a lottery pick.

Archie deserves plenty of time (like at least this year and one more) but eventually he's gonna have to teach shooting and FT shooting better if this is gonna work out.

Best part so far: Having Gus Johnson on the call and NBA on NBC theme. Feels like old times.

We basically did what every other Big Ten ranked team did and that's lose to a team we should not. With that said its another bad loss and there are not a lot of opportunities for good wins with a weak Big Ten so we cannot afford to many more of these if we want to be in NCAA tourney. We turn the ball over way to much as has been mentioned.

I just noticed Archie said today he is practicing on a limited basis but has not been cleared for full contact. Didn't he say last week he had not even returned to practice? If that is the case it would seem he is moving along and is hopefully full go next week. That sounds like a good step towards clearing IU's (probably overcautious as I said earlier) concussion protocol to maybe play vs PU.

I am not bowing to anything Matt Canada wants. If this was some elite offensive coordinator and Allen would not let him hire his own staff or have more leeway I would have a problem, but given Canada's mediocre stint here previously (which was not totally his fault admittedly) I have no problem with not bowing to his demands and finding someone else.

As I have hinted at before I think IU has a stricter concussion protocol than most (and I have kind of heard this very second so it may not be accurate but it makes sense). Instead of looking at this as a negative I think IU should be commended for being extra careful not to injure someones brain long term. It is aggravating in some ways and Rob probably would be back at other schools (Race is a different deal and I believe that concussion would have kept him out months regardless of where he played) but I like IU being careful. I expect Rob back for either PU or at the latest Michigan but that's a total guess. Note the extra careful only seems to apply with head injuries since they let Romeo play through a bruised nose and wrist (he had a band aid on his nose for a game and still has a wrist wrap) and Juwan played next game after the ankle injury he suffered against Northwestern with a wrap for a couple games. With Deron it is an issue of trying to play through an Achilles injury that is hard to come back from so he is over compensating and injuring other parts of the body as he heals I believe (and a person who is a doctor in my family believes this also although he has no knowledge of team itself). McRoberts back appears to be chronic issue. In other words we have definitely been bitten by injuries more so than others but besides Rob it has been a lot of bad luck and no different than something any other school has or will go through. Rob and other head injuries are a different deal and IU is most likely over compensating but not sure that's a bad thing. This anger and being suspicious among fans would all be solved if IU would just come out and say they are extra careful with concussions compared to other teams and they are protecting athletes well being. This is where IU is making an error PR wise not how they are treating concussions.

Looks like Panchot got a contract with the USL team in North Carolina. Means he'll be back in Indiana to play Indy 11 on May 4.

Looking over other teams for early departures it looks like Dane St Clair Maryland's stud all everything goalie and emotional leader is leaving early for the Pro's. That means the 3 best goalies in the Big Ten are gone with Jimmy Hague graduating MSU and Muse reportedly leaving us. Also UK stud forward JJ Williams is departing who was the reason UK suddenly became elite this year and who Gutman beat out for Hermann trophy so that's big. Other top players I recognize that are leaving but have less impact on IU are Notre Dame mid Tommy McCabe, UNC defender John Nelson and Akron forward Marcel Zajac. The list is extensive but those are the players I am familiar with having played IU or been in College Cup. In other words everyone loses top players early and has to replenish talent.

Finally! Well done.

I think you mean Sidney Crosby who indeed missed a year. Mason Crosby is a kicker in NFL for the Packers. Don't see to many concussions at that position.

I think IU's concussion protocol is overly careful compared to other teams. There is no way NFL players can progress through it in 1-2 weeks and its taking IU players this much longer. I do think with Race its legitimate since he was knocked out cold and those can take months to heal ala Austin Collie with the Colts many years ago. With Rob that hit should be cleared by now. By the way all of this is per a family member who is a doctor and saw the Rob play. I have no problem with IU being overly careful with concussion protocol compared to other teams since many teams speed through it and it can affect players long term and should not be taken lightly. With that said I wish they would come out and just say that's what they are doing and they take concussions more seriously and this is why concussed players are held out longer. This is clearly what is going on.

That looked like a race in futility but IU pulled it out. This Illinois team went winless in Big Ten play last year and is by far the worst team in the conference. IU made this much harder than needed and barely executed down stretch after coming back from an 11 pt deficit missing multiple easy layups. Fortunately Illini were worse turning the ball over and also missing layups. This looked like an Illinois team that didn't know how to win which is what a long losing streak does. IU looked similar but did make 2 huge plays in OT which was barely enough. One was a Royster 3 point play to go up 4 with about a min left. Than leading by 2 with about 10 sec left Yeaney tracked down a long rebound after a miss on a near shot clock violation and made 1 of 2 ft's to go up 3. We fouled Illinois on the next possession trying to get a 3 to tie. Fortunately the toe was on line so Illini got 2 shots instead of 3 and made the first before intentionally missing the second but no one got the ball and the last .6 ran out. This game really was a performance ineptitude all over the place from the teams to the refs who called over 40 fouls to the announcers who didn't know you could take the ball half court after a timeout late in the women's game to calling Yaney 'Yan-e' every time instead of "Yay-ney". I have announced a lot in my life and always make sure to check with each team on the pronunciation of every player before the game but these guys must have forgot and messed up as a result. Playing like this won't get you to many wins but we pulled out a close one tonight which is something we struggled with last year at times so take your W don't apologize, be happy and improve.

This isn't totally related to the offseason but I think I found a good comparison to why I think the soccer team will stay at the top for a while. The comparison is just upstate in Notre Dame Women's Basketball. They had an elite run in the 90's and got a championship. Than for most of the 2000's recruiting fell off somewhat and they always made the tourney but never won the conference and kept ceiling out in the Sweet 16. Than finally recruiting picked back up in the late 2000's with top recruits Skylar Diggins and Devreaux Peters in a breakthrough class. This class never won it all and kept getting knocked off in Final Four by Brittany Griner at Baylor and different UConn teams. However, it permanently picked up recruiting the last 8 years with other elite recruits like Natalie Achonwa, Jewell Lloyd and Kayla McBride among many others. They kept knocking at the door with final fours and conference titles but could not get past UConn. Finally after enough knocking at the door with elite talent they got their title last year. Eventually with top talent if you knock at the door enough you will breakthrough as they did. With IU we were elite but then recruiting fell of somewhat for a decade and we kept ceiling out in the Sweet 16. Enter the Justin Rennicks and Griffin Dorsey class that finally has brought us back the last 2 years. Unfortunately, this first top class in a while never got a title but like Notre Dame a lot more 5* recruits have come since (Jack Griffith for one and another in the fold next year) and as a result I think we can keep knocking at the door. Like ND with hopefully higher seeds and much better talent moving forward we give ourselves a better chance to break through fairly soon (and in soccer there is no UConn juggernaut in our way) and constantly win conference titles and get to Final Fours again as we have last couple years. The only difference in these comparison is Muffet McGraw has been at ND for the elite 90's, Mediocre 2000's and Elite 2010's unlike IU who had to change coaches but I still like the comparison and am hoping/thinking that the second part plays out as well as first part has.

I was about to post that. I am not counting on Rennicks coming back but to have an Ambien player (as Rick Venturi calls it in reference to the Colts) up top at forward with all the changes coming this year would be huge and possibly worth a couple extra wins.

I know this may be unpopular but I actually think Jackson Davis will be more impactful than Morgan (and I love Morgan) in some ways from the beginning. I am going to use an IU soccer comparison that I think fits perfectly. In 2016 IU had Tanner Thompson who like Morgan was a 3* player and one of the best ever to play as a senior but as much as he developed into stardom there were still some physical limitations he had. In 2017 enter 5* Freshman Griffin Dorsey as a replacement. While he was not as polished as Thompson there were things he could do to impact a game even as a freshman with his speed and physical gifts that Thompson could never do. This year as a sophomore Dorsey developed into arguably the second best player on the team behind Andrew Gutman. I think things will be quite similar to what happens with Jackson Davis. He will make more mistakes than Morgan as a freshman but there will be things he can do with his talent and physical gifts Morgan cannot much like Dorsey and Romeo this year (there are just some freakish things 5* players can do that 3* cannot). Than by Jackson Davis' sophomore year if he stays a second year he will be one of the best players on team if not the best.

Former IU player John Michael Hayden (I remember him playing) has taken Lola's spot at Louisville who he worked under as an assistant. Congrats to him but thought they would go higher profile.