IU Prof

Happy to be wrong, but I don't see why Bennett would take the job at this point. Not only the sister issue, but he's now fully established as a national championship coach in Charlottesville. Don't see the motivation for him to start over at this point.

I'm a big believer in geographic fits. Enfield has never coached or recruited in the Midwest (at the collegiate level). His current roster is almost all from Cali, with the only three kids from east of the Mississippi all being transfers. That's a major negative for me. He hasn't been successful enough to overcome that, IMO. Realize the same could be said of Beard, but his success has been at a level where I'd be comfortable taking him on. And his recruiting at Texas Tech has been more national.

My only concern with Drew is whether he burned any bridges with the Indiana HS/AAU circuit with the whole threatening to deport the recruit business. If not, he and Beard are neck-and-neck at the top of my board.

If folks were worried about the pace of Tony Bennett's or Chris Beard's offenses, Moser isn't much better. Loyola ranked #324 in tempo this year. The advanced metrics did like them, though, with KenPom ranking them 7th in the country currently.

Didn't TTU finish behind UT this year? The optics of paying $20 million in buyouts in that scenario isn't great. I get it was only one year, but that would still be a very aggressive move.

I'd give this game 20 more minutes before giving him the job.

I guess Texas could move on from Shaka, but he had then in the top 20 all year, and given the buyouts, spending $20 million to switch to Beard seems awfully agressive after getting upset. And who knows how Beard would view the two jobs in that scenario. I agree he'd likely prefer UT, but it's also possible he thinks IU has a higher ceiling as a program (it does).

I love 0708, but his connections have been all over the place on this one. On HSN, on Monday before the crash, he said he'd heard it wasn't Stevens but someone was a lock that everyone would be happy with. Then his connection went all in on Stevens, and now (apparently) is leaking Woodson. My guess is that Beard has already expressed serious interest behind the scenes, and him as a backup to Stevens is what made the donors comfortable with picking up the buyout. I still think the worst case scenario here is Beilein. He'd be about my sixth choice, and I do worry about the thug comment when it comes to recruiting (society has shifted quite a bit on stuff like that over the last 12 months), but if he's the floor we're still in pretty good shape. He did win 30+ games two years ago in the B1G, and call me crazy, but with a few key upgrades (a stretch 4, and PG...if he doesn't think Lander is ready), our roster is actually set up ok for his style.

One thing that doesn't make sense to me is how it flipped from IU's perspective from being a "done deal" to dead SO quickly. I personally believe that the insiders here were accurately relaying what the IU side believed. But in that case, how did it fall apart so fast? Did Stevens say 100% definitively that he was staying, after apparently agreeing to come to IU 24-36 hours before? If so, why didn't we ask him to wait for us to come back with another offer? The buyout thing doesn't make sense because there's no way Dolson let's a deal fall apart over that. The subsequent silence does make it seem plausible that we're regrouping to take one more run at Stevens. More likely, we are just regrouping before going after our next choice. I realize why the insiders aren't eager to share any more info right now, but I'd love to know how the last conversation with Stevens went down.

He was landing 4 stars at Buffalo, which is atypical for a MAC level program.

I wonder if Beard would be open to modernizing his offense a bit if he came?

Would our well-heeled donors be willing to pay Oats' buyout if he were interested in the job? He's a Midwestern guy, and has won big at every stop. The fact he knew IU could very well come open, but still agreed to a new contract with Alabama makes me think he's not interested. But if he were willing to come, he'd check most of the boxes Dolson said he was looking for.

If Beard ends up being the guy, we'd better put a similarly massive buyout in the contract should he ever leave for Texas.

Yes and no. I'd still hire him because he's the best candidate for the job. But I lost a lot of respect for the guy with that performance at the press conference. So I'd be much less enthused about it today than I would have been yesterday. If he views himself as a ma$$hole, I have no reason to root for his success anywhere other than IU.

I get the recruit deportation thing, not a great look. But aside from that, what has he done? There haven't been any major sanctions against the program under his watch.

This board is really sleeping on Scott Drew. The rebuild he undertook at Baylor was beyond anything anyone has ever taken on before. And he built it into a national power. I get people think he's sleezy, but the NCAA has been all over that program and never found anything meaningful that he's done wrong. Plus he's an Indiana guy to boot.

I immediately thought the same thing re Beard when I saw that. If anything, Drew fits that description much better. That having been said, I do think some are understating how good Beard is. This team is very young, only one senior on the roster. His recruiting is also much more national than I would have expected, with only a few Texas kids on the roster. And he's also proven adept at identifying impact transfers that fit his system, which is likely to prove to be an important skill moving forward.

After sleeping on it, I believe two things. First, anyone holding out hope that this is all part of some elaborate ruse will ultimately be sorely disappointed. Second, like others, I lost a lot of respect for Stevens due to his performance at the press conference today. Frankly, he came off as a bit pathetic. The pandering to a fan base that wants your head on a stick isn't some kind of Machiavellian, next-level genius thing. It was just an awkward dude trying to fit in. That having been said, he's still a great coach and would have been the ideal fit had he wanted to come. But he doesn't. So on to the next one.

The problem with inside info is that it's only as good as the source. Just like recruiting info that comes from the program, it is likely true that IU felt really good about where it stood. But unless you are hearing similar things from the other side, outcomes like this are always possible.

If you think this stings now, just wait until the Celtics fire him in two years and he agrees to replace Coach K at Duke...

Yeah, if Stevens is as upstanding as everyone says, it's hard to imagine him being that definitive if he thinks he's going to take the job.

Yes and no. A deal like this is usually agreed to verbally with a term sheet outlining the parameters of the deal. You then negotiate the final contract after the deal is announced. So one of two things is happening: 1) IU has agreed to everything Stevens has asked for, and now he is deciding whether to go or not. 2) Stevens has agreed to the terms, and is negotiating his exit with the Celtics (which could be more involved in terms of agreeing to the final written contract before the deal is official). Hopefully we're waiting for #2, not #1.

Agreed. My concern all along has been that the IU side of this is overly confident, and thus the leaks aren't completely representative of where things stand. Not doubting the insiders at all, and appreciate all they bring, just tempering my enthusiasm until we see some smoke from a non-IU source.

Was thinking back to the discussion yesterday about why Stevens is such a desirable candidate, and it hit me. He's basically Bobby Knight minus the temper issues. Not trying to stir up an RMK debate, but the next level coaching mind, focus on academics, etc. While no coach is perfect, Stevens is basically the perfect coach.

I was wondering if Stevens would want to avoid playing Butler...