IU Prof

+1

I meant in terms of "winning the press conference." Obviously if whoever they hire ultimately wins, then Stevens will be forgotten.

I think the bigger concern is that short of hiring a reincarnated, in-his-prime Bobby Knight, anyone other than Stevens will inevitably be a let down.

Sorry to quote myself, but I will also say that I'm inclined to think he was legitimately interested. The timing with him taking over for Ainge relatively shortly after the IU rumors suggests to me that the Celtics did cut a deal with him to keep him in the fold. If he was just using IU to get a better deal from Boston, they would have just upped his pay and given hima couple extra years on his coaching contract. But that may just be the optimist in me...

In my mind, the question with Stevens is how seriously he actually considered taking the job last time. I know that folks on the IU side of things believe he was very serious. But we really can't know if Brad felt the same, genuinely, or if he was just playing us. If he was sincere, then I think he takes the job this time given the uncertainty with the Celtics, the fact he won a title, getting to coach his son, etc. But if his contract is expiring, then there is a very real chance he's playing us again for leverage to negotiate a better deal with Boston. I hope that's not the case, but I don't think anyone can really know what he's thinking unless they are in his inner circle. Edit: To be clear, that in no way was intended to suggest we shouldn't speculate about Stevens anyway. So please keep the rumors coming!

This is certainly possible. But I don't believe the sale is likely to have advanced to a point that new ownership would have been identified and be in a position to match an IU offer in the next 6 weeks or so. So the timing may work in our favor this time.

No, it'll be his son on the search list at that point...

I'm totally lost, then. What did you mean?

I thought so too, but now I'm not so sure. If Woodson is intent to hold on to the bitter end, he wouldn't want to retire while there was still a chance that he could go on a run in March. Regardless of how badly the next six weeks go, I'm sure he'll think he can win the B1G tournament and then make a final four run. Meanwhile, if I'm Woodson, I'd be skeptical that the department wouldn't let me "retire" once the season is over in order to avoid having to fire a program legend. And he's probably right. So I'm not sure what motivation he'd have to preemptively announce his retirement before he absolutely has to.

If so, I'd think that either now (with 4 days for the staff to regroup before the next game) or after UCLA (with a 9 day layoff) would make the most sense, logistically. Benefit of now is you still have more runway to salvage something. Benefit of waiting is decreasing the chances of a turnaround that results in pressure to make a Diebler type hire.

If I donated millions of dollars to pay for this team, I think I'd want to see a change to try to salvage my investment before it's too late.

One other atmospheric factor is the difference in how electric the Hall was today when Cignetti and the FB team came out, versus the vibe for the first 35 minutes of the game. It really highlighted in my mind just how much Woodson has lost the fan base.

Could be....hadn't paid attention until today. Thanks.

I may have missed it, but I think they skipped the typical video board shot of coach walking out of the tunnel and onto the court with a couple minutes left before tip. If so, that suggests the administration knows the reception wouldn't have been friendly.

I don't get why a mid-season firing would jump start portal recruiting. You are still waiting for the next coach to be in place before any recruit is going to think about jumping to your school. Sure, you might have a handshake agreement in place with your next coach, and he might start quietly working back channels. But that could be true even if you haven't officially fired the current coach yet. So I'm not sure what the mid-season firing accomplishes, portal wise.

Also, while I understand why some want Woodson fired ASAP, IU is currently tied for 5th in the B1G, and just a half game out of 4th. Plus the overall record is 14-5. I totally get why the record doesn't tell the full story, but it would be VERY out of character to fire a HC (especially one who is a program legend) under those circumstances. And I also don't think the prospect of fans merely chanting to fire him is really as big a deal as some here believe. My best guess is that Dolson was getting a contingency in place, but at this point it would take a 3 or 4 game losing streak, with a couple more blowouts, to make a move.

Winning the following games would get IU to 11 conference wins, but I don't think they'd be in the Dance: @ NW, vs. MD, vs. UCLA, vs. PSU, @ Wash, vs. OSU. I know some of those will technically be Quad 1, but by the end of the year the only plausible NCAA teams we'll have defeated would be UCLA and Maryland. I really don't think that's anywhere close to good enough, absent a run to the B1G tourney finals.

This guy really lives rent free in the heads of a number of people here. I recommend stop giving him attention, as that's obviously all he wants.

User name no longer checks out...

That's just not true. Seth Davis raised it as a possibility just last spring: https://x.com/SethDavisHoops/status/1778858724360433687

Right. If there was some huge academic scandal or something, I could see that. Or even a Knight type scenario. But just a run of the mill, early termination for under performance probably wouldn't require faculty approval. I'm sure Dolson would eventually discuss it with the committee after the fact, though.

Yeah, I could be wrong, but I'd be surprised if that committee was charged with advising on the termination of an athletic coach as a general matter.

Apropos of nothing, in my experience high-level administrative players typically have better things to do than spend all day arguing with fans on a message board.

Good point. It's a totally selective argument. I mentioned Dabo above. Ryan Day was also interim as well in 2018. Some interims work out, many don't. But that would be expected, since most teams that fire a coach mid-season are operating at a talent deficiency. The question is what's best for the long term trajectory of the program. I do think that emotions can run high after back-to-back losses like that. But the only compelling argument I've heard for maintaining the status quo is to avoid a Diebler scenario, which isn't exactly a ringing endorsement of the current staff.

Are you talking about interim coaches who were appointed full time, or just those who turned a team's fortunes around the same season that the HC was fired? If the former, then Dabo Swinney. If the latter, then Diebler at OSU just last year. There's plenty of examples of the latter. But I don't think anyone is proposing that an interim be given the job beyond the rest of this season, so I'm not clear what point you are trying to make.