IUCrazy2

No

Getting cold outside. Just poking the embers here....

I am telling you guys, I would completely get out of the whole HS recruit thing while Woodson is here. He isn't good at it and he has a cheat code in the portal so it doesn't feel as life or death to him (IMO). Despite everything we have seen to this point, we have to hope the old dude finally figures something out this year. With the team he has he should do really well. And I don't mean 23-11. He is going to have to show something besides his payroll. Losing these Indiana kids to f%#^@ UConn when they grew up Indiana fans and have all sorts of Indiana fans in their family and are being offered a ton of money is a bad look. (If it happens) And people can spare me recent history. I think it takes a whole lot for IU families to look away from the school.

https://x.com/Tyme1299218/status/1844407171511091475 He doesn't seem so confident today.

They are getting shredded in the comments under that....

Kids know people are looking at their social media. Anyone really wanting things to be a surprise isn't letting the cat out of the bag that way.

This is the least invested I think I have been in a long time. I would love to get all these really good Indiana kids (Haralson in particular, he was in our school district before transferring to La Lumiere) but this doesn't feel as sports "life or death" as it has in the past. We are a program that can underperform in recruiting and still have the resources to go buy a Ware, Ballo, Rice, and Carlyle. The portal and our deep pockets makes this a nice thing to be somewhat interested in but everything is win focused for me now. Being able to get players should be an autopilot type of thing for this program in this era.

I don't know how they are but we need to beat them in that first game since the strength of our schedule (as it appears now) relies almost entirely on seeing Gonzaga and Arizona in that tournament.

Now you are moving goal posts. Hopefully for Villanova's sake they figure it out quicker than Indiana. This idea that we are more tough on our coaches than other historically high performing programs is just a fallacy. I am here to tell you that if Villanova hires 5 coaches in a row that either get caught in a cheating scandal or fail to produce results, they will be right there. The guy that replaced Wright is entering Year 3 and the fans are already chanting for him to be fired and not showing up to games. Crean and Miller both failed spectacularly at their next stops. Mike Davis took progressively worse jobs after he left Indiana. The lack of results wasn't because fans or the school were too quick to pull the trigger. All of those guys had fundamental flaws in their programs.

https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/39780451/villanova-ad-says-kyle-neptune-return-coach Somebody forgot to inform the Villanova fanbase of these rules apparently....

Chicken or egg. Consistently winning programs don't need to fire coaches because they are consistently winning.

I think other things than just on court results have made people be a bit more judgemental of Woodson. I am one of those and it hasn't all been on court for me.

Jay Wright was in the Sweet 16 in year 4, Elite 8 in Year 5, tournament appearance in year 6, Sweet 16 again in year 7, and Final Four in year 8. Yeah he might have been on the hot seat a bit heading into year 4 but he took off from there. And that was in an era where you couldn't openly buy your team. Coach K went to 2nd round in year 4 and 5 and was runner up in year 6. He followed that with Sweet 16, Final Four, Final Four, Runner Up, Champion, Champion. Scott Drew may make your point but he took over a program where players were literally killing each other. So not exactly a top flight program and a crappy situation to boot. In the past when you were recruiting high school seniors to build a team, you expected to see things take off around year 4. That is when your recruiting and your system dominate the team. Coaches that do well tend to hit their stride on or before year 4 and then have a period where they go on a run. Woodson has his team, we should expect big things this year. And yes, those other guys would have been on the hot seat in year 4. The difference between them and Miller was that they made hay in year 4 and answered critics and he laid an egg.

I expect a 25+ win Sweet 16 caliber team, so you should have an opportunity. I have heard he is awesome but just needed a roster. He has arguably the best roster in the conference. We are going to be great.

If this schedule ends up being tough, nothing else we are talking about will matter. Kind of like last year, the fact we couldn't pound the crap teams in the preconference was an indicator that made their NET ranking inconsequential. Last I will say about Atlantis and all of this, the fact there is 1-4 possible tournament teams in the field doesn't matter much unless you play them. They aren't guaranteed. You can't count those chickens until they hatch. We can definitively look at the rest though and we are saying the same thing. Someone went out and scheduled for the computers. By doing that, they have made sure that the schedule that they could choose has no real tests in it. And if those games do end up being tests, this year is likely to look similar to last year because only 1 of those teams is likely to be on par with the majority of our BIG competition. That wasn't the case most past years.