jimsorgi

Yeah, this. In the last year there's easily available data for (2018-2019), Arkansas and IU were very similar in terms of athletic department revenues. Any money they have is based on boosters and alumni throwing money at the basketball program. Pretty sure IU has some of that, too.

Nonymouse is right. No coach has ever denied interest in a job and then later took the same job. And it’s clearly destructive that a fan base with no control over a coaching search have a little fun with it and engage in some wild speculation/mildly informed guessing.

True. Also, being right and being delusional are not mutually exclusive!

There’s been a consistent plan on this from the beginning. Maybe it doesn’t end up happening... but don’t think it has changed.

Some conspiracies turn out to have a bit of truth in them! This one probably doesn't.

Right, if...... Or is when more appropriate?

Who knows? We may come out (metaphorically) reborn on the other side.

Gotta keep his administrative assistant busy.

Yep. Convenient timing.

His last four seasons are the top four seasons Texas Tech has ever had in the KenPom era.

The people want rumors, so the people get rumors! But yes.

Let's go with.... Brad told IU he owed it to the team to make it through the trade deadline, both to see what moves were made and to position the Celtics well (they're not going to get good value for any trades if other teams sense desperation from a struggling team whose coach quit). Meanwhile, IU has to have some evidence of a coaching search, so they've interviewed people connected to the program (e.g., Woodson and Cheaney) who they do not plan to hire. But it's a show of good faith for former players that they are listening to them. Thus, a situation in which IU has not hired a coach, and the only interview rumors are for people they easily could have hired. There's no indication that they've even spoken with anyone else - meaning not only would Dolson be keeping things quiet, but the coaches he is talking to and their agents would be keeping quiet. That's a tough ask. Or, Dolson is just going through the motions and appeasing the fanbase while waiting for the appropriate time.

I know. But I wouldn't take that restriction literally.

That or DePaul maybe?

This is nothing against 0708 - he just shares what he hears - but he doesn't always have the best source, so I wouldn't take his comments as absolute truth.

Writer for Sports Illustrated Indiana is not substantively different than message board poster.

It sounds like there were two distinct schemes the FBI investigated. The first one - that led to the indictment of the four assistant coaches - was a bribery scheme. Managers/agents bribed assistant coaches to push players into signing with those managers upon graduation. Not good at all, but not nearly as bad for the head coach/program, in my opinion. This is the Book Richardson/AZ situation. The second one was about funneling high school recruits into programs via payments from shoe company execs to recruits, apparently often with knowledge of or requested by college coaches. That's the Louisville situation. This one is brutally bad for head coach/school/program.

Because right now the MAC is a mess of a conference that looks at a guy who has coached MAC teams to multiple top-100 Kenpom ratings and went to two tournaments in 4 years as a potential long-term option. Especially when Groce also had a ton of success as an assistant in that same state. Schools overvalue tournament success, which means Groce's resume is overvalued. I think schools are wrong to do that. But I'm not surprised when they do...

I don't disagree. But it's pretty easy to see why MAC schools are interested in him.

Groce took Ohio to two NCAA tournaments, one of which was a Sweet 16. Outside of Groce's stint, Ohio has been to 1 NCAA tournament since 1994.

The whole "Indiana fans have outrageous expectations and coaches should be wary because they'll be fired if they don't win a championship right away blah blah blah" is absurd. Certainly, a championship is the goal. And Final Fours are the goal. But everyone understands they are difficult. Crean wasn't fired because he failed to win a national championship. He was fired because he finished better than 7th in the Big 10 once in the last four years, and had a single digit NCAA tournament seed once in the last four years - and missed the tournament altogether twice. You have to have consistent success to have opportunities to make tournament runs. Crean failed to do that, and there was no indication he would ever do that.

Yeah he seems exactly what a place like LSU needs.

It's still there right now

Westbrook is gone after next year anyway, so that's hardly reason to stay with OKC. If he wants to stay through a rebuild and feels good about that (which is certainly possible), he might want to stay at OKC. But given that he took over a title-contending team with Durant, Westbrook, ( (and a nice other piece with Serge Ibaka), and that likely all those guys will be gone soon, I can understand why he might want to leave...

Dayton is the little brother to Xavier. Xavier went to the Big East, and Dayton fans (who are generally obnoxious) had their feelings hurt.