American HoosierX

We bought 3rd row tickets right at the goal line. I was a little bummed we weren't closer to midfield then that happened right in front of us on the first play. Glorious insanity.

How much would we have to pay Cignetti to coach both teams?

Encouraging because the first step to fixing a problem is recognizing there is a problem.

Agreed, it's refreshing after dealing with Woodson, a total narcissist who never did a single thing wrong in his own mind.

Well, I think that’s a pretty obvious statement. The booing is not helpful in any way, I can agree with you there. But no, I don’t think he deserves sympathy. Single moms making $25k a year with real problems deserve sympathy. Reed Bailey making $1.5M a year to play poor basketball does not.

I don’t love it and wish it wasn’t happening, but it’s hard for me to feel much sympathy. He is making close to 40x the median salary in the US for one season of basketball. And objectively, he has not contributed to this being a winning basketball team.

There’s always at least one “blame the fans” guy.

Honestly, this team is just not good at all. Not a tourney team.

I think we have different baselines in how we think about this, and that’s OK. it was a fun discussion, thanks for your perspectives.

Yes, kids want to play in the NCAA tournament, but the reality is that is not close to the most important thing. If Lamar Wilkerson's main goal was winning the NCAA tournament, he would not have gone to IU. The order of operations, probably looks something like this: 1) How much am I getting paid? (by far most important) 2) How much can the coach develop me so I can get paid at the next level? 3) Am I going to win? Schools having appeal at 1, 2, and 3 are generally going to be highly correlated, but that doesn't mean #3, or even #2, are truly driving decision-making for most kids. But in most instances kids are going to come if we pay them more than other schools, that is just how this works. So again, if we are top 25 in roster spend, we should be able to field a top 25 team in terms of talent. I have no idea if we have an ongoing talent evaluation problem or if circumstances last year were just really difficult (I would lean towards the latter). But if Reed Bailey is making $1.5M and Tucker is making $2M+, which I imagine he is, our ROI is on those players is not very high. Ultimately, I do agree with you that making the tournament is going to be very important to establishing momentum and will help our recruiting.

You said DDV's lack of clout is the barrier to building a top 25 roster. I don't agree. 1) There aren't that many truly elite coches, certainly not 25 of them. So I don't think naming a few top 5 examples really supports your point that much. 2) The coaching "clout" matters a lot more when the money is equal. When it's not equal, it's going to matter a lot less (and yes, I fully realize some kids will take less money to play an elite coach/program). Objectively, coaching "clout" is much less important in the NIL age than it used to be. 3) If you're in the top 25 in spending, by definition you're going to be able to outspend those outside of the top 25. IMO, our main barrier to having a top 25 roster isn't money or clout, it's talent evaluation/roster construction and prioritizing our spend on the right guys. I think DDV having a full offseason with a full staff and GM will have majors benefits there.

Money greatly decreases the need for “clout” to build a roster. If you’re top 25 in spending, I don’t think it’s at all unreasonable to expect to have a top 25 roster.

I feel like we have a sneaky good class coming in next year. The type of class Villanova would stack year after year back in the day with players that weren't good enough to go pro right away but ended up being great college players.

I didn’t think this was a foul live but look at Blackwell’s right foot. IMG_0543.mov

The number of defensive rebounds that IU couldn’t secure that turned into Wisconsin 3s on their 3rd or 4th try was maddening. But man, we gutted out a win.