Maedhros

Love this team. Love this season. Thought they would be contenders on Opening Day. Gave them up for dead in July when Acuna went down. Everything changed at the trade deadline. They've been the best team in baseball ever since. What an incredible ride. So happy for Freddie, Dansby, Ozzie, Maximum Fried and everyone else who has contributed to this organization. What a ride.

Bates, Hood-Schifino and Newton are why I'm excited for the Woodson era. We need those guys ranked 20-80, high end recruits that will stick around for more than a year. Trayce was that dude. Romeo was not, gone after one season. Khristian might have been and could still be, but was brought to campus too soon in an effort to save Archie's job. We relied too much on fringe four stars the last four years. I couldn't be happier to see Woodson upping that to fringe five stars.

One more.

Go Braves. Great result in Game 1. Hate losing Charlie Morton like that, but I feel much better needing just three more wins instead of four.

Using his platform to punch down at a high school kid? Stay classy, Dan.

No more than inexplicably beating Michigan St in East Lansing changed my mind about losing 12 of 13.

Thanks so much!

Got a source? I'm trying and failing to find confirmation online. I've been to Westfield the last two years, it'll be neat if that falls during an evaluation period again.

Zach McRoberts was a DI scholarship caliber player, holding down 20 minutes per game as a freshman for a Vermont team that finished 123 on KenPom that year. Archie's first team opened that season getting run at home by the team ranked 199, got run at home again a month later by the team ranked 153, and closed the season with a loss to the team ranked 135. They were never going to be world beaters, but it's okay to think Archie's first team had enough talent to be better than they were.

This is getting silly. De'Ron isn't the reason we're struggling this season. I don't care what his attitude might be, he's played the fewest minutes of anyone with a scholarship. It's the players on the court who aren't producing. De'Ron played just three minutes against Northwestern. He only played one minute in that Notre Dame game where we gave up a big lead. He only played two minutes in our loss to Arkansas. Against Maryland he played a season high 17 minutes and not the minutes when we completely fell apart. He actually finished +3 on the night, one of only three players to have a positive +/-. This amateur detective work taking place in several places across the internet is just looking for a scapegoat.

Tom Crean dealt with the same Indiana administration for nine years. I don't believe he was allowed to operate in ways that are now forbidden to Archie. Nothing would surprise me in college recruiting anymore, but I don't believe Tom was out there offering impermissible benefits. If he were, Tremont Waters is almost certainly a member of the 2017 class. If anything, Archie is in a better spot with the benefit of the many facility upgrades completed by the Glass administration. Yet we're not seeing Tom Crean results from Archie, either on the court or on the recruiting trail. Claims that the administration is what's holding Archie back ring false to me, when just making the tournament has become our goal three years in, and looks to be the stretch goal next season as well. We brought in five straight McDonald's All-Americans under Crean. We immediately started recruiting the state again under Archie. I need something specific before I believe it's the administration keeping any coach from accomplishing both.

FWIW, Jalen Washington is out for the season with a knee injury. I was thinking of getting there for all of the last four games, but now think I'll catch the last three.

From context, you appear to be thinking of recruits ranked top 25 in their class. I believe what Honkyman had in mind, based on the previous discussion, was top 25 players in the conference. A different measure to be sure, one entirely compatible with the mantra of "get old, stay old". There's project Alex Bozich and Dylan Burkhardt do every year, ranking the top 25 players for the upcoming season of the Big Ten. If we reach our goal of reloading instead of rebuilding, this is the type of list we should be able to populate with multiple guys every season. This year, Indiana had only one player listed: Trayce Jackson-Davis squeaked in at 24.

With only four scholarship guards on the roster, Armaan is going to have a role, whether ready for it or not. Last season Romeo, Al, Rob and Devonte were all over 25 minutes per game. Those numbers may come down some depending on what happens on the wing - if Jerome can hold up for heavy minutes, if Justin has developed a perimeter game, if Damezi has made a significant jump - but regardless I think we're going to need far more minutes from Armaan than we ever asked of Damezi.

Dropped the Adidas schools. Smart.

I'm completely on board with this timeline. It's weird to hear the Glass era referred to as an embarrassing time for the basketball program. I think we saw Crean's ceiling and it was time for him to go, but we experienced a lot of exciting successes and recruiting wins that provided hope for the future during his time here as well. Outside of Davis's outlier run to the Final Four, Crean provided the only Big Ten titles and Sweet Sixteens I've experienced in my memory as a fan. It takes a narrow sort of hindsight to believe Glass should have fired Crean any earlier than he did.

Obviously that's improvement from point A to point B. But if those seasons are your points B and C, then it's hard to see improvement from point A. Speaking personally, Archie built up a deficit of trust from me in that first season, and last year's collapse wasn't enough to yet dig him out of it. I need to see more in the seasons to come to buy Old Friend's claim that we're on a dramatic upswing. As for the preceding discussion of the basketball team missing the tournament in 7 of the past 11 seasons (EDIT: not your discussion USPS, just using this post for my response), that's a silly use of arbitrary end points. It encompasses the seasons directly after the basketball program was burned to the ground, a process completed before Fred Glass was ever hired. It also includes the two seasons directly after Fred Glass already decided the performance of the program wasn't good enough and took action to make a change. Setting those seasons aside, making the tournament four out of six years (or seven, depending on how you feel about Crean's third season) and three times advancing to the Sweet Sixteen doesn't sound so bad. The Archie era hasn't yet worked out the way we'd all hoped, but if it continues that way I don't doubt Glass will fairly receive his share of the blame.

Damn, this sounds word for word like something I would write. I've shared similar sentiments on other sites. I'm sure he'll be a fine player, but Cross was never a prospect that excited me.

It's easy to win a point when you tailor the rules narrowly to suit your purpose. I asked for examples of difference makers that fit your criteria so we could continue the discussion on the same page, but if you're not interested supporting the claim right there in your post, then I'll consider the point ceded and we can move on. As you note, Indiana had Dakich on staff in 2008. By all accounts arguably the worst year for the culture of this program in a generation. What exactly did having a Knight guy on staff accomplish? What did Dan do as an assistant to build the culture or the brand? I'm not talking about who he booted after he was named interim, but while he was still an assistant, the position we're trying to fill. I want to hear what you think our new assistant will do for us that Bruiser Flint isn't, that you think requires a Knight guy.

How many difference makers would you say IU has had over the past fifteen years (which includes some of the worst in program history), excluding one and dones, even from the state of Indiana? Eric Gordon is out. Romeo Langford is out. If Bryant doesn't count then neither does Zeller; both were in town for two seasons. Do you have anyone other than Yogi? Maybe James Blackmon? I'll add DJ White (Tuscaloosa AL) to Victor Oladipo and have you matched. Depending on what you consider a difference maker, I could name Christian Watford and Juwan Morgan. Troy Williams and Robert Johnson were key parts of our last Big Ten title team. If you want to expand to the last 20 years, our last Final Four team doesn't get there without Jeff Newton, Kyle Hornsby and AJ Moye. That team maybe wins it all if Kirk Haston stays for his senior year. It's self-defeating and unnecessary to limit yourself to recruiting only the state and immediately surrounding areas. None of those kids were Indiana guys before they arrived. Tough to claim any weren't Indiana kids after they left. In that regard they're not unlike Bob Knight. Every time I read about needing an Indiana guy, it always seems to be code for someone with ties to the Knight era. But Knight was born in Ohio, played for Ohio State, and started his coaching career at Army. There was nothing tying him to the culture of Indiana Basketball until he arrived on campus. Archie was born in Pennsylvania, played at NC State, coached in Ohio, but in his introductory presser he spoke in his prepared remarks of being a Hoosier at heart. There's no reason to think he isn't capable of following in Knight's path and instilling exactly the culture you desire. If he's not, I'm not sure his choice of assist is going to do much to change that.

Speaking for myself, I want players ranked in the 25-80 range. The low-end five stars that will be around more than one year. The high-end four stars that can hold a spot in the rotation in year one, and will be around for three or four. This is the range that programs like recent champions Villanova, Virginia and North Carolina have built their rosters. I think we have that with Trayce. I think we'll have that with Jerome, health permitting. I wouldn't yet place anyone Archie has brought in within that grouping. Romeo was a great get and I'd love to add him to a roster of such players, ready to contend, but we weren't and he's gone now. Rob showed flashes last season, but whether due to experience or injury, flashes are all we saw. Race, Jake, and Damezi weren't ready to contribute at this level. What makes our 2020 targets underwhelming for me is they seem more the caliber of Jake and Damezi, players at the fringes of that fourth star. They will likely be around for three or four years but probably won't contribute until then, either. That felt fine when Archie was a new coach, recruiting kids to Indiana for the very first time. It doesn't feel great to be still trying to build a foundation three recruiting classes in, with several seasons to go after that before the talent develops. Some of this is undoubtedly due to the weakness of the 2020 class within the state. The 2021 class is loaded, and I'm sure we'll see our targets shift accordingly. But we also saw Archie target those top 50, top 80 kids in the 2019 class. It didn't go well. The only visits we received in the summer and fall, even before our season went sideways, were from the in-state kids. Lester Quinones and Anthony Harris visited in the spring, but committed elsewhere. We haven't landed an out of state target since Race and Jerome were Archie's first two commits, two years ago this week. We're going to need to step outside the state to fill our diet of the kids I want to see us land. I just don't have a lot of confidence right now in this staff's ability to do so. That's why I also feel underwhelmed by the new offers I saw go out this week to five-stars in the 2021 class. I have my fingers crossed for Lander. I don't have any expectation of landing Franck Kepnang from PA, a player right in my preferred range that should have me excited, but I'm just not.

I'm not sure what you're trying to defend against here. There is no one to blame for my poor opinion of Dan Dakich other than Dan himself. It's not as though there's some ulterior motive at play to tarnish his legacy; he's earned it all through the way he carries himself and treats others. Maybe he truly is a terrific person in private, but that's not how he's chosen to use his public platform. If you want to tell me it's all shtick, an act he only does to get ratings, I'm not sure how that's supposed to be any better. I'll never get to know the real Dan, the person he is in his private life. All I'll ever see is the side of himself he chooses to put out in the world. And that side is obnoxious as hell. If he wanted me to think well of him the choice would be clear: don't be a dick. But that's not how he's chosen to get his ratings.

We weren't expected to make the tournament? What fresh nonsense is this? We were picked third in the Big Ten preseason media poll. Both the AP preason poll and the preseason KenPom rankings had us at 28 nationally. National writers like Rob Dauster, Gary Parrish and Andy Katz all had us ranked in the 20's of their preseason rankings. Those are all the marks of a tournament worthy team, and one that would be favored to win a game. We finished the year at 52 in KenPom, and stopped receiving AP votes in January.

It's the second time in as many pages that I've seen the media previews mentioned. The media had this team picked top five or better in the conference. Brendan Quinn at the Athletic ran the unofficial Big Ten media poll, and Indiana was picked third. That's where Alex Bozich and Zach Ostermann picked Indiana, as well. Gary Parrish at CBS had Indiana 4th in the Big Ten, 25th in the country. Rob Dauster at NBC had Indiana 28th in the country, but 3rd in the Big Ten. Andy Katz at NCAA had Indiana 5th in the Big Ten, but 22nd in the country. Even the preseason AP Poll and KenPom ratings both had us 28th in the country, 4th and 5th in the Big Ten respectively. Anyone talking about banner number 6 was being objectively foolish, but I don't think those picks translate to "middle of the pack" either. We certainly weren't picked to place around where we finished, as claimed by a poster on the previous page. As for taking the level of success of Purdue, we've already decided that's not good enough. Matt Painter is in his 14th season at Purdue, and only just now got past the Sweet Sixteen. It took him 12 seasons to achieve his second Big Ten title and third Sweet Sixteen appearance. We fired a coach with those accomplishments nine seasons after we had asked that coach to start from scratch. In his ninth season, Matt Painter finished dead last in the conference That's my bar. I don't need Archie to be Bob Knight, and hang multiple banners. I just want him to be better than the guy he replaced. I'm 36, and for as much as they get talked down on these boards, those five years from when Cody arrived to when Yogi left were the most consistent success Indiana has achieved within memory. Those are the years I want Archie to meet and exceed.

By both KenPom and Bart Torvik, we actually rated out worse on offense this season than we did the year prior. Our rank may have climbed ten spots on KenPom, but our actual Adjusted Offensive Efficiency dropped a few ticks.