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When LeBron hangs it up, and all of the stars I grew up watching in all sports are officially retired, I will probably shed a tear or two lol. Side note, Carter Bryant is a 2024 signed to AZ. He knew May was on the staff at UNC but couldn't recall his name immediately. I'm sure he recognized his face as one of the many trying to recruit him, but goes to show how some recruitments just never get steam and there's no real relationship there, just old guys constantly hitting you up trying to convince you of something you don't want for yourself. Nowadays with the transfer portal and prevailing philosophy for many staffs being to set up pipeline/feeder schools (like MVA) rather than cast a nationwide-net every year, seems like relationships and "politics" are more important than ever in the bball landscape. Sorry for the unrelated tangent just had to distract myself from feeling like a dinosaur for a few mins

I saw this video featuring a bunch of 2026 recruits that made me feel INCREDIBLY old so now you all have to see it too :) On an unrelated note, pretty funny/interesting to see how closely (or not closely) some of these recruits follow the game. A few of those guys like Kemba Walker played super recently. I guess goes to show how differently some kids approach/study/figure out their game... at the end of the day, some kids are just good at the sport! And that's okay... then there are others who really love it and are committed. They are just 16 so I'll stop being a grouchy old man, I'm sure they'll grow into being students of the game Class of 2026 Players Play "Guess Who" with 2000s/2010s CBB players

The next wonder boy candidate: Arch... I mean, Dusty May The recruit the state of Indiana candidate: Shrewsburry The boring hire: Porter Moser The Tom Crean/steal from Marquette candidate: Shaka Smart The win now if we can look past previous sanctions candidate: Bruce Peal (too bad the Sampson bridge is already burnt) The pipe dream candidate: Brad Stevens I thought it would be a funny exercise to put some superlatives against the main names mentioned in this thread. Obviously a few that I did not include. Dusty May seems like the most likely of these options right now, but I'm not 100% sold yet. If anything, this goofy thought experiment makes me really want to see how things play out this season and hope we can work on a timeline for after next year, when we've had more time to evaluate candidates/see if any clear leaders emerge, etc.

Cal's turnaround season at UK looking pretty good... gotta give that guy credit for his 9 lives

Don't expect a win on Friday. Just want to see intensity from guys who look like they actually give a damn.

I love Shaheen. Love watching the way he coaches (it looks like SHU has 6 players on the court half the time). Just don't see ANY way he leaves his alma mater SHU, unless it's for the NBA some day. He just got there. I don't know that he's the kind of guy who would be motivated even by something like $10M/yr necessarily. Don't see the fit personality wise... As you said, he's also not really a proven commodity yet. He has his team playing hard though. Big improvement in year 2.

Not trying to single you/this suggestion out, but it will never happen... Dan Hurley's wife is an extreme NJ Italian (lol), he had a hard enough time convincing her to let them move to Connecticut, where her parents/siblings/cousins, etc. are less than 3 hours away. I think Danny Hurley is at UConn for the long haul. And that's bad news for the rest of CBB!

Wichita State plays at FAU 7pm on ESPN tomorrow. FAU is going to be must-see TV for me the rest of the year, I think.

I f***ing hate this kid

Cig has the textbook Coaching personality from what I've seen of him. Love the attitude/energy he exudes. I'd be ecstatic if we could replicate some of what Stoops has done in Lexington.

UW 79 IU 64

Yeah. But if you don't do anything, you're just going to wallow like we did for probably too long with Crean. On the flip side, you could argue we fired Crean at the wrong time and would've been better off keeping him. Apathy will kill any program. We can save ourselves some of that turbulence by acting decisively when it becomes clear that changes need to happen. The brand of basketball we're seeing has not been good, but the past two years + his playing career definitely buys Woody another year until conversations are forced, I think. Unless we're surprised by the decisiveness of our trustees/speed at which they force those conversations, which I think is doubtful and a political landmine WRT Woody. Maybe Woody is open-minded to calling it a career and having a private, continued conversation with Dolson/May/Buckner, etc. If so, and we're able to lock down a candidate we feel great about (obviously proven easier said than done) that would be great. I feel like Woody is probably a good guy, shown some good stuff as a coach/developer of talent, and absolutely is a program legend. I don't want it to be an ugly divorce and doubt it will be. He should be embraced by the fans and I just see it getting real bad if we go into next year on the same trajectory we're currently on.

Everyone knows your opinion about Xavier Johnson bro. You've been saying it for days at every opportunity you can find. Lmao. You can have your opinion about X. I know sports talk especially on fan forums tends to be repetitive to an extent, but Lordy Lou. Disliking X is one thing (as I've said, not his biggest fan). The way some people love basking in their hatred of him is off-putting.

Since we're in the rant thread... I haven't seen a ton here using this rationale, but I just saw Crimson Quarry make a sarcastic tweet about needing "just one more" coaching hire til we find "The Guy." Some talking about being exhausted of the coaching carousel madness. Uhhhh... we've had 2 coaches in the last 7 years? The guy before them was here for 9 years? It's pretty wild to imagine how different things would be if we never hired Archie and just kept Crean another year or two... or hired Woody when we hired Archie. To be abundantly clear.... I understand not being ready to move on from Woody just quite yet (I personally don't like where I see things headed but willing to let things play out before I am beating down the door calling for his job)... I just don't understand being tired of "all" the coaching hires as reasoning? We've made 2 hires in 7 years lol. Assuming we don't make the tournament, the only way I'm remotely excited for next year is if we return Mgbako, land Queen, and find 3 quality guards in the portal/spring decommits, etc. It's tough though because you'd really like to see some positive momentum heading into the offseason and without the tournament, the best bet of that is an announcement from Mack or Ware they're returning. I personally see little to no chance of Ware coming back and think odds of Mack returning are less than 50/50. So if the season flames out and we've got little to no momentum in terms of building next year's roster, you'd really hope Woody can see things for what they are and ride off into the sunset with a big payday. Not sure how likely or not that is, doubt anyone really does. Of course I will hope that the team turns things around this season and we have a great year. I don't think the odds are particularly high but I can't influence these decisions so I'm just going to root like hell for the best case scenario no matter what. Looking forward to all the rumors toward the end of this year about what someone's neighbor's best friend's dog who goes to the same dog park as Kenya Hunter's wife heard the other day about what Woody wants to do lol

Yeah, the biggest concern/issue I have with the staff at this point is relying on XJ (coming off injury), Trey, Gunn, Cupps, Newton (coming off injury), Leal. There was no world in which that backcourt would get you past the S16 in the absolute best case scenario. Now we see that it likely won't even take us to the tournament at all. Many people here suspected that from the start, I was a bit more optimistic than others. Yes they tried and failed to bring in another guard, so it wasn't for lack of effort. But given all their access/intel/insight, it certainly looks like the better move would have been to mutually part ways with X (not convince him to take a 6th year and scare off starting quality guards). I won't beat up on X, others are already happy to do that, but this team just lacks true leadership and it's brutal to watch. How could the staff be SO wrong in their assessments? The fact they made such an egregious miscalculation, over such a prolonged period where they could have done something to address it, is what makes me feel like something needs to be figured out this offseason, not next. If it's not, recruiting will be super hard and we will be a dumpster fire when the next search is here. Unless this season miraculously turns around (nobody is holding their breath for that), then we're likely going into next year in really bad shape unless a change is made and someone can build momentum. If the season ends poorly and Woody insists on a 4th year, a lot of the love and "good will" from fans will be fully eroded. Subjecting the fan base to more of this basketball will not be good for anyone, Woody included. Taking the payout and leaving while you can still claim "Mission Accomplished" in terms of bridging the gap between the Knight era, recruiting at a high-level, and producing one of our GOAT big men is not a bad legacy for Woody to leave at all. If he makes the call himself and decides to enjoy his family, golfing, etc. then pop over to help the new guy every once in a blue moon... he would rightfully be beloved in Bloomington, I'm sure. As a fan trying to find reason for optimism... our obvious best case scenario would be Woody turning this season around, returning key guys and landing a great portal class then having a great year next year. Absent that happening, the best we can likely hope for is a mutual agreement that Woody retires and gets a cushy role in the admin. If neither of those things happen... it's going to be a very long next two years for IU basketball.

Wouldn't be prohibitively expensive at all to implement something like this. Have the crews travel with the teams. Now that the regional component of conferences is no longer a thing, there is zero rationale to not put a national system in place if we're talking about things from a "purity of the game" perspective. The reffing system is very convoluted with different states, unions, collective groups, etc... Cut through the noise and politics of it all and just find the best of the best, then fit them into the schedule. Problem is the NCAA has shown they've got no ability/competence/vision to do something like this.

Giving Woody a buy out and some sort of emeritus role where he can pop into practice every now and then or help do some developmental work on the side with guys 1 on 1, would be great. Hate to have that tone with so much season left but after last night hard for your mind not to go immediately toward what we're doing in the offseason, where the program goes from here, etc.

Easy... Not willing to trade my head coach drunkenly beating up his wife. Got any other questions? Lol. Bruce Peal, Dusty May, Porter Moser, or Micah Shrewsburry? Much more appealing options right now.

That's basically what I'm saying lol

Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head with your last sentence. Someone else pointed out we've missed 11/22 NCAA appearances the last 22 years. That is awful, but missing the tournament is not a fireable offense at Indiana University right now and hasn't for a while. In other words, we can all - on some level - deal with a 16/17/18 win season where we miss the tournament (it will suck) but we can't deal with two of those years in a row with a coach who's on his way out of the profession soon. Right now looking at the roster, yes we are playing 2 freshmen and 2 sophomores heavy minutes but it feels like you're only likely to get 2 of those guys back (Cupps and Reneau) but nothing is guaranteed. Things look very bleak for next year too if you lose Mack and Ware (Ware almost guaranteed... I think?). When the product on the court is soooo ugly and there's little reason for hope it will change soon, you're gonna get questions about what the right long-term move is. I understand pressers are mandatory and 95% of the time meaningless coach speak, but for Woody to call out Ware specifically yesterday is curious. He's been calling players out in the press (fine in itself), snippy with reporters asking questions about his rotations (I get it but there's better ways of handling those questions than being defensive)... Yesterday he said he "hates coaching that way" where he's looking back at what he should have done differently. He's shown he can put together a decent game plan last year sometimes but way too often it's the same set of problems not getting fixed. I'd like to believe year 3 is a minor set back so we take off in year 4, but there's a lot of blanks to fill in before I can even see a scenario where we are in position to do that. Since we just gave him a raise last offseason (among other factors) seems unlikely he leaves after this offseason. Not saying that's a good or bad thing but I do think at minimum that's time to get new blood on the staff in terms of his assistants at least. Holdovers from Archie's time are going to keep on getting you Archie results.... It just sucks to watch this team right now

Ooof. I know he doesn't mean it how it sounds, but ooof. You may want to look back a little more often Woody and see what you can learn for next time around.

What frustrates me about this team is it feels like the whole is less than the sum of its parts. And that's with the backcourt still lacking real difference makers. Feels like they should be a better team... but they're not. Ware is good, not great, but also good as gone... Mack, I'm really hoping stays here for a sophomore year. The year is not over but I would be shocked if we make the tournament. Feels like a second round or quarter finals of NIT sorta season.

On the one hand, I get Ware not diving for that ball... as a lanky 7' I'd be concerned about injury on a potential collision like that. On the other hand... guy who wanted it more got the ball. ...... On the third hand, game's already decided anyway, so can't really blame Ware.

Why a time out down 21 with 2:27 left? .....

Put the walk ons in