IUCrazy2

Make then sign contracts. Honestly the money thing dies down a little if it isn't guaranteed free agency every year.

To be clear, I still support. Even if I am underwhelmed by the end of the offseason I am still going to give him a chance to do his thing. I just think that he has to get off to a solid start and that isn't all his fault. Frankly this has been a compounding problem that started with Myles Brand. Each new guy is dealing with mistakes that have been compounding over 25 years. The shadow of Dusty May along with Purdue being on a historic run (for their program) doesn't help either. Hopefully some stuff starts shaking out soon so we can stop worrying about hypotheticals.

I am not saying win big. I am saying win now. He cannot miss the tournament. We ran off a Hoosier legend (who admittedly soiled his own legacy) for winning 19 games every year with talent. Michigan and Louisville overhauled their entire rosters last year and ended up in the tournament. Michigan won the BTT and made it to the Sweet 16. Kentucky, Sweet 16. If we have to "build from the bottom" then why would we reward the basketball program with a bigger budget than our competitors instead of rewarding the guy who took the worst football program in D1 to the CFP last year? Reward the guy who already did it if we are going to have to be patient. I will answer that, it is because the expectation is win now. We have gutted our women's team and are continuing to put our football program at a competitive disadvantage to win now in men's basketball. The resources being expended do not indicate patience.

He isn't going to get delayed gratification. If we miss the tournament again next year his seat is warm. Everybody knows that. There are 3 local examples, 1 with an IU alum that a big portion of the fanbase thinks we should have had if the administration knew what the heck it was doing, that showed you shouldn't have to wait to "build it the right way." If we are going to build over time, just give the money to football so we have something to enjoy. You spend $11 million to win NOW.

You realize there is a middle ground between that and "everything's fine" right? Isn't a dead period quickly approaching? We have a ton of positions to fill and he has to make a splash this year. The real annoying thing is that I think the school once again ****ed itself by not making a move on Woodson last year knowing that was the likely outcome anyway and it appears to have been a massive mistake as 3 close by schools all reloaded and are now going to be competition for local guys. Hope things start shaking out here soon and, no offense to him, but I hope the caliber of players is higher than Enright. A team full of that talent level is going to be hard to get where I think most of us expect to be next year.

That is the most important thing. He is going to have to win out of the gate. I get the whole "We want guys that want to be here" thing but in order to have the type of program I think we all want, there is a certain ability level that is going to be required too.

Yeah, like I said, 11 spots to fill.

I don't think Rabjohns knows much of anything to be honest.

I think the angst is because we have like 11 spots to fill and a **** ton of money and so far have (maybe) landed a back up guard. It is early, but this has been a slooooow start.

Dakich had a post earlier asking the new commits not to pose in front of the state with goofy poses and the candy stripes on. Probably has to do with that.

I don't know, in a perfect world you could have Dix, Goode, and Conwell rotating around for each other. Bring in a dynamic PG and use Goode to play the 2/3 as a reserve and maybe sell Conwell on starting 2 with backup 1 duties. Then have Devries as your 4 with Sisley as his backup and then go get a couple of 5's and you have a nice rotation IMO.

We will let it play out. He has a bunch of money to play with, I would think he can put together a roster to at least make the tournament. Based off what I have seen he is a better college coach than Woodson and even he could buy his way to 19 wins. I am expecting around 22 wins and an NCAA invite and I think Devries should be able to do that.

I wish you would have pulled that full quote because I am too lazy to try and go find where you snipped that from. So if it wasn't clear already, that should have been discussing a hypothetical. We don't know what things look like yet. To make this more succinct, Woodson always "won" the offseason and usually underperformed in the actual season. I don't think that Devries can have a perceived lackluster off season (when the dust settles) and follow that up with an actual season that ends with another tournament miss. If people go in thinking the roster is shaky and he gets them in the tournament, good vibes. If he goes in with a roster the fanbase perceives as shaky and it performs to that level of expectations, then he has problems. Nothing I posted was supposed to indicate that we have any clear indication of how the roster is currently. We only have 2 players at the moment. You can't draw a final conclusion from that.

Yeah and I want to get out there and say I am cautiously optimistic. I think he has the X's and O's chops. The thing that I need to see is recruiting. I will be up front and say that I don't want to just be a well coached team of B and C tier guys who overperforms every year but really isn't a threat to go on many tournament runs. I want to be a well coached team of dudes who is competing for titles, both Big Ten and beyond.

Mostly agree but I still think that tournament should be the baseline with our resources. Even Mike Woodson was able to limp into the tournament his first year.

You care about IU social media if you are the coach because that drives perception of your program. If after one year you already have people saying, "We got the wrong hire who then brought in the wrong guys..." that is the beginning of a bad narrative. In one year. We don't want that. Devries doesn't want that. The school doesn't want that. As you said, we should be livid if we miss the tournament. If that were to happen and guys like Tucker, Rice, and Reneau go to other schools and put up numbers, they will become part of that conversation. "We won 18 games but really had a weakness scoring in the paint. Looks like Reneau put up 16 and 8, imagine if we had him instead of this or that guy we pulled out of the portal." "We won 18 games but really had an athleticism problem at the guard position. We couldn't defend quicker players and we couldn't get out in transition. Would Rice have been worth 2 or 3 more wins? He could have brought what we were missing." When things go wrong, everything matters. If Conwell goes to Texas and Bidunga goes to Auburn and both perform well and we end up with two mid major guys instead who just do okay but look outmatched against P5 teams, people will be upset. The NIL money is a blessing and a curse.

You think IU Twitter is going to be cool if we have a bunch of portal misses and end up missing the tournament next year? You are of course entitled to your opinion but I don't see that ending well. Hopefully we actually get some good basketball and it doesn't matter.

Yes, that is all I am saying. We can "lose" the offseason or we can "win" the offseason, what we cannot do is have another "miss" season.

My bad. I kind of shut it down a little at the end of the year, for some reason I thought they got to 20. Main point still stands though. He will dig himself a little bit of a hole if we miss the tournament yet again next year and anything and everything that happens or doesn't happen right now will be what gets dissected and gone through with a microscope to figure out why. Now he could miss and then completely hit the gas and never look back and be fine, but there will be grumbling if we miss next year. We all know that. There is no patience for new hires anymore when you can buy a team and that is even more pronounced with this fanbase when so many local teams and rivals just did that and had quite a bit of success. With reportedly $10 million to spend, he can get whomever he wants and thinks is best for his program but they almost have to make the tournament. He does himself and his program a disservice if they miss.

They aren't unless things go bad. Let's be real, Archie Miller was irrelevant to the Woodson conversation but his shadow was still felt. If we don't make the tournament next year after what appears to be a lackluster offseason, people are going to question whether letting go of a Rice or a Tucker was a good idea. Not everyone, but there is a percentage of the fanbase that wasn't happy with this hire already. Dusty and Pope made the Sweet 16 in year one. Louisville completely overhauled their roster and made the tournament. You all are kidding yourselves about how some of this fanbase is going to react if we miss the tournament next year.

All well and good but the bar has been set on this already by some of our rivals and the "one that got away". He can miss a few wins to build a culture but I don't think he can miss the tournament. Not after basically dismissing all that was left over from a 20 win team. If we win 18 games and miss the tournament again next year, with our payroll, there will be grumbling.

Conwell, Devries, Bidunga.....that would be a nice core to build around.

They aren't regular students now that they are getting a piece of the financial pie. An accounting student at Kelley doesn't have IU handing them a million dollars+ to be there. If the kids are going to get paid like that, then they need to slap contract requirements on them.

I am not going to sweat it yet. We literally lost every single player off last year's team. I expect several names that pop upd to be underwhelming on paper because it is going to be a little difficult to convince more exciting names to come and be role players. I am going to put on my tinfoil hat and say that they may have a couple guys on the hook already but they are waiting to release names until some big fish are on the line so all of us psychopaths don't spend a week dogging new recruits that have been brought on as bench depth and role players thinking they are the core group.

I guess I am just getting a little curmudgeonly about all this. The NIL world kind of sucks.