JPCIVOP

It would be an interesting thing to take a stab at guessing at a top-3, non-Stevens division, current college coaches. In no particular order: Mark Few Scott Drew Otz

Good opportunity for this graphic... Mike Lewis as Thaddeus Young, in this case.

*Narrator* That other coach was Steve Alford, not some gangbusters recruiter.

Time for Creighton to get McDermott his extension!

Was not highly favored 10 years ago. That may have mended with time, but I don't know that.

My understanding is that they have a decent level of support for the size of the program. Not elite. Before all this stuff was above board, they had more luck with elite talent. People have speculated about that.

Especially when there's been a change factor (NIL)

Or, if NIL lets everyone get in on the action, it could be harder to get players. His teams haven't been as talented the last few years.

So if you were throw out, say, 10 names, maybe 5 could be ones being actually considered in this scenario?

I actually don't think anyone has flexed for Cronin; folks have been universally lukewarm on him. I've seen people pointing out that Cronin and Drew are closer than people think, and advocating caution around Drew. Scott Drew has a great résumé at a hard place to win. During the years between 2010 and 2017 he had two Sweet 16s and two Elite Eights. He gets all the credit in the world for that. That accomplishment does not end the conversation around him. I regret as much as anyone else that 2017 is eight years ago. From 2018 to present Drew has made it out of the second round of the Tournament once. I’d like to assume he would’ve made it further in 2020, but his 2022 team was just as good and they bowed out in the round of 32. There is legitimate question about how consistently good his teams are on defense, and how far one can expect defensively challenged teams to go in March. As good as he’s been at Baylor, he’s only had three championship level defenses his entire career. Mick Cronin has led 10 such defenses, and is on track for another this year. I tend to favor a defensive-oriented coach. Cronin's not at good on offense, but his offenses are consistently better than Drew's defenses. And then there’s the new NIL reality. Baylor doesn’t have resources like Big Ten schools, that’s true. In my mind, that’s the biggest factor that might make IU appealing to him; because we do have those resources. I hope that’s been the problem for Drew, and not that he’s going to have some difficulty adjusting to the new landscape. All to say; I think both would likely do well. I am not sure who would do a better job. But there's a strong case to be made for both.

Same number of NCAA Tourney wins for both coaches the last four years. Even with Drew's title. And it's true, the COVID rules made that a strange season. Those early exits are the knock against him. I don't think Drew gets to coast on Baylor's lack of history forever; they've been making tournaments for 17 years. UCLA's 2008-2009 team is their last really good one; Cronin's done a good rebuild there, and this is closer than people think.

This is about how I feel; am surprised at how similar they are. UCLA has tons of heritage, but it's well-known that they have had very poor institutional support in making the transition to NIL. I think their styles of play are very different, but that there isn't a huge gap between Drew and Cronin.

I've given a lot of thought to Archie recently. Think his problem was that his teams were superior compared to A10 competition, but their advanced efficiency numbers were never very good. The leap from the A10 to the B1G just proved to be too much for him. Hope he can right the ship at URI.

I appreciate the point, and it's well-taken. It's a Title. It's even a Title that came with none of the games ever being in doubt; incredibly impressive. Drew gets his flowers, period. It was a dead program, and Drew has completely remade it. I think it likely enough that he would perform at the level he did from 2020-2022 if he came here. Just saying that his defensive coaching has not always been a given. That Title is why he's a top-10-15 guy. There are some folks who use Crean comparisons as a weapon; I don't. He didn't get the expected job done, and his teams were too inconsistent. But if someone sees the Crean comparison as an insult to Drew, they might be uncomfortable with how their resumes stack up over an identical period of time. Drew's teams rebounded, where Crean's teams shot the crap out of the ball, but these teams are similar enough.

An interesting hypothetical. We'll find out. IU hasn't made a new hire with these resources available in this landscape. The hire will be telling, IMO

It would be great to have this as a measure of respective AI capacity. Sample headline below: Scientists Proclaim Grok New AI Superpower; top researchers say, "Brad Brownell at 25% is laughable."

This is a completely fair question. Summit League to MWC is a big jump, am sure he took some lumps. The jump to the Big 12 is another jump. He made that one pretty seamlessly, and has gotten ISU to be very good.

Definitely can't dismiss him. A couple friends have ties to Baylor, and I told them at the time that I thought their title run was - start to finish - one of my favorites since beginning to watch college basketball. They were never really in danger that whole run. The record is impressive that way. There are dry spells - there's only one other run to the Sweet Sixteen in the past decade. The Crean years have scarred me toward wanting to have a more reliable defensive team, and so I can foresee periodic frustration if IU went that route.

Think the argument for Otzelberger is that the coaching environment has changed over the last three years. Otz teams have been elite on defense, and have improved on offense during that period. Think there is also reasonable concern about Drew on defense (even excluding rebuild years, half his teams have finished outside the top-75 in defensive efficiency). Think Drew has the higher floor and would be a good hire. Otz is more of a gamble, but certainly a higher defensive floor.

If we look at all the data points in Scott Drew's career, this stands out: he's only had three top-25 defenses his entire career at Baylor. Half of his teams since 2008, once they had been rebuilt, finished outside the top-75. Even his title team was one of the three least efficient defenses to win a title in the last 18 years; the other two teams were the generational UNC offense from 2008 and the Kemba Walker UConn run from 2011. Think Drew coming to IU is basically a Tom Crean redux without the baggage of the first three years, and the oddities. Think people would generally be happy about the offense, and think teams would generally end up with protected seeds in the tournament.

This makes sense if the idea is that the last three years is consistent with Baylor's old ceiling; I can see that. The only comparison that comes to mind is Kelvin Sampson at Houston, a program that was middling to bad in CUSA before he got there. He got them to be elite in the American and now elite in the Big 12. Thought Drew might have turned that corner a few years ago, but Baylor's fallen back to the pack. Drew could be elite at IU. But there's also a chance that he runs a top-15ish program, with mediocre to bad defense showing up more often than people would like. That was my reason for the Crean comparison a few pages back.

Yeah; he was elite before everyone could pay players! For my money, he would likely enough be elite at IU, where he would have the resources to get whoever he wants. Just think we do have to acknowledge that Baylor has really slipped over the last three years, and there were some pretty significant changes to the college basketball recruiting structure during that time...

He also hasn't had a top-75 defense in three years. This is his best of the three; Indiana is currently 17 spots above Baylor on defensive efficiency according to Torvik. Think we can be honest about there being a legitimate defensive fall-off over the last three years, and still entertain the idea that IU would give the support to turn that around.