ISP

https://x.com/AuburnMBB/status/1732860043425444048?s=20

Pearl's last 4 recruiting classes average out to #33 in team rankings. Definitely seems like one of those coaches whose system is rock solid. 22 top 3 finishes in conference 22 tourney appearances 3 Final 4 (2 of those in D2) 1 D2 championship 1 D2 runner up 5 Elite 8s (3 in D2) 11 Sweet 16s 8s Been to the tourney 22x but only lost game 1 3x

FAU wins by 12. Moves to 20-5 (10-2) and will play for 1st place spot in conference on Sunday.

Just now from a friend

So Dusty’s first 4 years were a 25% increase from the previous 4 while breaking numerous offensive records. Meanwhile Dusty was a finalist for the Joe B Hall award in his first season. Woodson improved IU by 06% from Archie’s record while having the worst KenPom since Crean’s 2nd season.

FAU on ESPN2 right now.

Anyone with ESPN+ want to copy/paste the part about Woody from this article? Apparently it says Woody is on the hot seat.. https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/insider/story/_/id/39525430/men-college-basketball-coaching-candidates-replace-chris-holtmann-ohio-state

My biggest fear at this point is that Woody wants to stay so Woody can prove to people that Woody is a good coach. Not that Woody wants to stay because he thinks he is the best option to get the program back to the top. If he stays, he is staying for all the wrong reasons. PS, 100 pages!!

For the past few weeks, I've thought that there is maybe a 1% chance that Woody is let go and a 5% chance that he is talked into moving into the head of basketball operations / GM role. Primary reason I had it so low was that he got us to the tourney the last 2 seasons. Granted in some ways I think we overrate how good those 2 seasons actually were. Regardless, I just didn't feel there was a precedent to fire him after the last 2 years. However, there really is a precedent. Crean took IU to the tourney the 2 years prior to his firing. He went to the sweet 16 and won conference the year prior. He had 3 Sweet 16s in the prior 5 years. And this season we are twice as bad (100 in KenPom compared to 50 in Crean's last year) to the tipping point for Crean. If all that was not good enough for a 52 year old coach then why would it be good enough for a 66 year old coach? Maybe I am just willing it into existence at this point, but I'm going to move that % up. I'd say, there is maybe a 25-30% chance that Dolson tactfully probes or is already probing with Woody his likeliness of moving into the GM role that Matta had.

100 pages today. Anyone got the champagne ready? FWIW, I think OSU will get Lamont Paris. I am pretty impressed with what he has done.

Ohio State owes Holtmann $12.8 million. One of the benefits if they were to get Dusty May is that his buyout is only $1 million.

Alright buddy...

Totally agree and his minutes dropped from 24 to 8 this season because of his defense. With that said, we left a scholarship wide open this season so it would have only been beneficial to add another guard. Not a big deal, but given its our weakest spot, would have been nice to have depth from a guy who shot 35% from 3 last year as a freshman.

This was last off-season. I used to coach some of Conor's teammates and friends in AAU. It was well known amongst all of us that IU was Essegian's dream school. He was never offered out of HS but continued to be his dream to play for them even after his freshman year of college where he made the All-Freshman team. If he would have entered the portal, it would have been because someone related to IU's staff would have reached out to him to gauge his interest. Same thing is happening right now with a couple of IU's players during the season no less..

If you can find any post or tweet where I said Connor Essegian is 100% transferring to IU, then I will Venmo you $10,000 as soon as you make that post. That is a promise.

For the record, what I said regarding Essigian was that he would 100% transfer to IU if he were offered a scholarship from our staff. There was nothing off about that statement.

Ok guys, I wasted 2 hours of my life charting out the top 50 KenPom teams and how their rank compares to their expected rank (average of last 4 recruiting classes). Remember, @Ngw7183 tells us that FAU is just barely holding on by a thread this year *wink*wink Turns out that Indiana State and FAU are the #1 and #3 teams in terms of where they are ranked compared to their talent level / recruiting classes. I ran IU's numbers as well just for comparison rank. Indiana State is ranked 131 spots higher than "they should be" FAU is ranked 113 spots higher than "they should be". IU is ranked 78 spots lower than "they should be".

This is all very on point and even keeled. The issue is that the primary reason Woody was brought on was so that you didn't have to deal with these question in year 3 and 4. He was supposed to be a short term program stabilizer or at least that is how it was pitched. But yet here we are, going to be entering year 4 and with even more question than when he started.

x

Mid-majors that have made the Final 4 in the past 40 years. I would argue that of all these programs and their prior success, May's may be the most worthy. San Diego State (Brian Dutcher ) FAU (Dusty May) Gonzaga (Mark Few) Butler (Brad Stevens) VCU (Shaka Smart) George Mason (Jim Larranaga) Loyola-Chicago (Porter Moser) Wichita State (Gregg Marshall) Utah (Rick Majeris) UMass (John Calipari) UNLV (Jerry Tarkanian) Memphis State (Dana Kirk) (happened to have Penny Hardaway)

In one of the games I was watching earlier this season, the analyst said that every player on FAU's roster could return next season.

I am not overly concerned about Woody missing the show. I am overly concerned that Kenya referenced getting them over the hump.

Not to mention that (1) he is an Indiana kid from a region (the region) where IU has historically lost recruits to Purdue, Michigan, and MSU (2) If we hired May this off-season, Johnell would be IU's starting guard next season. Dolson would be open to it. Woody probably wouldn't. You'd be more likely to get Woody to accept the head of basketball operations gig. If you add Drew, Beard, and Pearl to this year - I think it's the deepest pool we've had to choose from. 2006 - JB had a verbal agreement and staff picked out to coach IU. Then the president stepped in and said they wanted a minority instead which led to Sampson. We haven't landed a commit from a guard in 27 months. Woody yells at players for taking 3's at times, but then doesn't care how many long 2's they take. The reason they are hesitant to take them is because they are afraid of making Woody mad. When you are hesitant to shoot, it makes you a worse shooter.

They will both likely be nabbed up this off season.