LamarCheeks

Bennett's past 8 seasons: 30-7 30-4 29-8 23-11 31-3 35-3 23-7 16-6 (this season) Yep, pretty boring stuff ... But those results are the opposite of IU basketball recently.

As much love as is heaped on Stevens on these pages, I still think I'd rather have Tony Bennett. I know I'm in the minority on this -- hell, I'm probably a man of one on this. But that's my take. And I do live in Virginia, so maybe that's just my bias showing. That said, if the basketball gods somehow were to dictate that Brad Stevens abandons the leprechauns for the candy stripes, I'm not gonna complain.

Toiletmakers 83 Hoosiers 65

I wondered about that. Archie is a competitive sonofagun, so I would imagine walking away from something would eat at him. But at the same time, he cannot be enjoying this and I would hope is smart enough to see that for whatever reason, it's not working. And it's not gonna get any better. Still bums me out, though -- because for all the vitriol spewed toward him on these pages, I like him. When he was hired, I thought we had our coach for the next 10-15 years.

And if memory serves, Archie did give money back to the school.

If interested, a couple other transfers had media chats today ... Ole Miss DL Ryder Anderson: https://youtu.be/Icd2TOB6CBs Michigan OL Zach Carpenter: https://youtu.be/rj088fGQXIQ

A chat w/ D.J. Matthews, a receiver who transferred from Florida State. Hopefully, he'll be a nice complement to Fryfogle.

Maybe still a somewhat relevant basketball school ... In a Zoom chat w/reporters, IU receiver D.J. Matthews (a new transfer from Florida State) said: “I really do know Indiana University for basketball. I called it Oladipo’s School. That’s really all I knew about Indiana.”

I saw somewhere in this thread a story that Brey might be on his last legs in South Bend. So, how 'bout this ... Fife as lead, with Brey as his wingman -- ala Howard and Martelli? Not necessarily advocating for it; just throwing it out there as a possibility. If Brey is cut loose, he will be 62 later this month -- might not have the energy or desire to start up again somewhere else.

Hmmm ...

I'd rather have Bill Murray

Forde said in this podcast and wrote in that Drew column the other day that we went after Bennett when we hired Archie. I think he's off by one coach. Everything I've read indicates we went after him when we hired Crean ... Also, one of the guys throws Bobby Hurley's name out there. I haven't been impressed by him at all.

Private plane? Are you joking? The athletic department is $40M in the hole. Dolson loaded up the car and left B-town for Beantown this afternoon.

Very accomplished high school coach in Michigan. Has a couple boys (Dugan, Michigan and Dane, IU) who played Big Ten ball. Dan is in the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame. A fine resume, but I don't think we'd want to hire him as our next basketball coach!

Who is Calbert Cheyney?

OK. Time to get away from the Fire Archie and who's gonna replace him threads for a while and get to some real news. We are, after all, a football school. Looks as if we're losing an OL. Never started in four years and is leaving as a grad transfer. Probably figured with the Michigan kid (Zach Carpenter) transferring in, PT was gonna be even more limited.

Pretty much had the same thought. And it was on a kick-out from TJD, who had been taking some really bad shots. He makes the smart move and rather than force something, he punches it out to a wide-open Al -- and the rest was (sadly) history ... I just don't understand how you can airball a 3-pointer when you're wide open. Especially a senior.

Sorry, long post ahead ... Seems as if I remember @Chris007 writing that people around the athletic department liked Archie well enough. They though he was good guy for the most part -- as opposed to Crean, who apparently could be an arrogant pr--k. So why is there this huge disconnect with the players? In four seasons, he just never seemed to be on the same page with them. I also read from a poster here who wrote that they knew someone who worked with Rob and Armaan. The guy said they were good kids and worked hard, but they didn't care for Archie. I have a hard time believing he went through six seasons at Dayton with a contentious relationship with his players. So what was the problem at IU? Justin Smith seemed to be a cancer, but on the surface, he's working out OK at Arkansas. We've had some pretty big recruiting misses over the past couple years, too. I can't help but feel like the recruits maybe got a bad vibe from the current players on the current atmosphere. There obviously is something wrong with TJD -- even prior to last night's hissy fit, he just seemed very disengaged at times. I don't recall that happening last year. And when we were struggling two years ago, he posted on Twitter that he had no plans to alter his commitment to IU. After last season, he said he was 100 percent on board with coming back for his sophomore year. So ... what went wrong? I honestly thought four years ago, we hired the right guy. He played the game -- unlike CTC -- was a coach's son, was a basketball junkie and had a good record at Dayton (yes, I realize that's a mid-major -- but I didn't see any reason that wouldn't translate to a P5 school). Plus, had we not hired him, Ohio State probably would have. He's obviously not the right fit at IU, but I don't buy that it has anything to do with him having to press the flesh or speaking to alumni or those outside things that he might not have had to do at an Ohio State. What does the product on the floor have to do with any of that? And the product on the floor -- well, it hasn't been good. At times, it's been brilliant -- but when you have one brilliant game followed by four bad games, that doesn't cut it. And that's pretty much been the story of his tenure. My pop passed away four years ago in May. He was a Purdue guy, but was a former high school coach and AD, so there was never a lack of opportunity to talk hoops at family gatherings -- though most of my family is Toiletmakers, too -- or with my dad's friends. I was home for a week for the funeral, etc., and talked some hoops with the aforementioned groups. This was a couple months after we hired Archie. Not one person thought it was a bad move. In fact, some of my Purdue relatives were even worried about what we'd accomplish with Archie at the helm ... Man, I never in a million years would've expected these past four years to have turned out to be so absolutely mediocre.

I just saw a highlight in which the announcer proclaimed that a team said it was going into a game with a real chip on its shoulder. When's the last time we played with a chip on our shoulder?

If, in fact, TJD's hissy fit was directed at Archie, should he have sent him to the locker room and opened his presser ... ???

The thing is, if the powers that be want to make a change, Dolson and his cohorts are gonna have to go beat the bushes (alumni) to come up with $10 mil. Because I'm guessing the school doesn't have that kind of money to spend that way.

I was surprised the B1G Network showed the replay of TJD being a fusspot. Was fairly obvious what he said. During that sequence were two words -- on ended in "k" and the other was "you." And the first word wasn't "thank."

I just still can't over that Al airball. We needed a bucket -- real bad. TJD passed up a shot and made a sweet kick out to him. He was wide open. He's a senior. And he didn't even hit the rim.

GD, Al -- you had a wide-open 3 with the season on the line ... and you airball it. Good grief. So effin typical of this team.

Did I really just see that from Al?