IUCrazy2

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.

We can, Just saying that maybe a million to million and a half should be enough for the whole program. Caitlin Clark's salary is $78k for the Fever. Granted she is banking from endorsements but still....and maybe that is what Garzon is asking for, it just seems like at a certain point this is a big ask from fans to kick these kids the money we do. Thankfully (if we accept all this) revenue share is coming along as the University should be the ones kicking in for this. The fans get double charged.

I guess I am kind of saying this is all unsustainable. It sucks it has come to this, the women's game is already top heavy as it is. I just don't see how they can continue to milk the fans to support 3 sports to the tune of millions each, every year. The WNBA league minimum is $62k....

I don't know where they expect all this money to come from....

It wasn't that so there are maybe 3 incidents? Geez.

What was the rumor? (Sorry think I am in the dark on this one). Nevermind, saw Stuhoo's offer up above.

We just need a coach. This program has tried to get by on BS "flash" without substance for the better part of twenty years and that hasn't helped. 18-15, 25-5, 21-10, 19-10, 22-11, 3 NCAA appearances and 1 Sweet 16. That was Wade's first 5 years at a P5. LSU was 10-21 the year before he got there. People fall in love with names. With Beard, all Dolson has to do is go to Pat Knight and say, "Hey what about this guy?" We aren't the only school that sniffed that and saud "No Thanks" and he had 2 really good years in P5 and every other season was between 18 an 22 wins. It isn't like he is winning 25+ games a year and that whole thing with his girlfriend is a MASSIVE red flag. Anybody complaining before the ball has been tipped in the first game is just a professional pessimist.

Aww dammit. Should have read further ahead. Great minds though. All those beers in the Villas must have done us both some good.