str8baller

Would it look any different if we did?

Drake is small time basketball. Sorry. Medved, Devries, and McCollum are all in the big ten and coached at Drake. They’re all struggling, none so much as Devries though. Literally every big ten coach could win in the Missouri valley. Archie won in the A10. Crean in conf USA. Davis in the Southern. May in whatever conference he was in. Same with pikel. Izzo is Izzo. Gary is somewhat proven. Etc, etc…. The big ten is a different animal. On top of that the big ten isn’t even a championship conference. So it isn’t enough to compete in the big ten. You literally have to be a top 2 or 3 coach in this conference to have a chance at a title. Probably the top coach since nobody from the B1G has won a title in 25 yrs. You wanna grind from the bottom of the Big Ten? Ok. But as the poet-philosopher Bon Scott once said, “it’s a long way to the top, if you wanna rock n roll”

Iowa doesn’t have an athletic talent advantage on us and they dominated us. Minny is 10-8 and put it on us. Hell once the scout was out, incarnate world dang near took us to the wire. I remember you telling us Enright and Devries weren’t gonna give up anything defensively because of their fight and Wilkerson was a top 5 player at IU in the last decade. Wilkerson went for 9 pts, 2rbs, 0 assts, 3 turnovers vs Iowa. If you think that entirely explains the problem it’s a reversal in attitude from a few days ago.

He’s either crazy or crazy like a fox. He’s been pretty good so far.

Nope. But he’s responsible for this year. I “embraced the grind,” as told to by IU fans, for the Crean rebuild he had to have. Remember??? Just tear it all down, bro. Just start at the beginning, bro. Sacrifice 3 years of awful basketball, bro…it’ll be worth it. Crean sucked. I “embraced the grind” as lil’ Archie fumbled his way through big boy basketball like a HS freshman trying to unclasp a bra for the first time. “He just needs time and the support of the fans,” they claimed. Archie sucked. I am like you. I have zero clue if he can turn it around. We’ll just have to wait until next year, won’t we? If he’s awesome and makes the Final Four, guess what: they’ll still take my money and welcome me down to cheer on the Hoosiers. But for now, I don’t feel any solidarity to make excuses for a coach who is wasting his first year falling on his face. The only people that need to “embrace the grind” is this coaching staff. Hell, between you and me, I wish they would’ve embraced it last year…lol

Nothing can be that hard. German refugee physicists alerted the US to the Nazi nuclear program in the 30’s. We started the Manhattan project in ‘41 and bombed Hiroshima with a functional atom bomb in ‘45. Four years to split the atom. The soviets launched a satellite in ‘57 starting the space race. We successfully landed on the moon, ending said “race”, in ‘69. Twelve years start to finish to put a man on an extraterrestrial planet. IU basketball returning to competence (never mind glory): an inconceivably complex riddle wrapped in an enigma that requires so much PATIENCE we’re now entering something like our third full decade. IU BASKETBALL: More complex than nuclear physics and space travel. Feel the excitement!!!

I’m with you, especially on the “lightly disagree.” When things are going well, I certainly think our defensive and offensive Xs and Os look sound (as opposed to Woody and Crean who were just lost). That’s probably what made Devries a great assistant. But big boy coaching is more than Xs and Os. And the other factors can make your Xs and Os look foolish. A good example is the end of the half play. You want to let Conerway go 1 on 1 because he’s had some success there. Except the team looks completely disoriented. Iowa looks completely prepared for it. The result is some haphazard dribbling around into one of the worst shots imaginable—a contested off balance 18footer going left launched off one foot fading away. THAT is why the crowd was booing. Just a complete unmitigated disaster of a possession going into half that reflects how poorly this staff thinks and coaches and these players think and play. Iowa stinks this year. They have many of the roster problems we have. They were physically dominated by Illinois and MSU. But at least in their losses, they played hard and made them mostly competitive. They came back against Illinois with Stirtz on the bench. But they walked into Assembly Hall and handed IU their lunch. That is a problem that extends beyond roster construction. Hate to say it but if you told me Archie was on the sideline Saturday instead of Devries, I wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference. Good news for all the Patience Bro’s: we’re on to next year! Time to find our inner Zen and embrace the 40 year rebuild. Lafayette native Axel Rose said it best: “the [teams] don’t change, but maybe the names….alls it takes is a little Patience…oh yeah, Patience “

Will do. If you ever find a shred of evidence for your theory, please post it and I’ll reconsider.

Texas Techs jerseys are straight out of the 1996 Eastbay catalogues bargain section. Sheesh…

Sure. Show me the program that fired coaches too fast and I’ll believe you. There’s some secret coaches club where all the top coaches gather round the camp fire and tell horror stories about programs that pay a lot of money and fire coaches fast. At least that’s what gullible IU fans believe. Except nobody can ever name them. Otoh, the UNC alums including their most famous alum didn’t think Doherty should be fired after 3 years. But they did it anyways and the result was 3 national titles. Kentucky fired Gillespie after two years and the result….again, a national title. So please explain to me how two of the biggest names in coaching, Calipari and Williams, were lured away by big ol’ meanie schools with the reputation of firing coaches too quickly? Nevermind…I already know the answer. Nobody in the world cares when you dump an underperforming coach. Nobody. Literally nobody.

You said no coach would want to come here if we fire coaches too early. Problem is that sounds good to fans but the reality is we hang on to coaches too long and no coaches want to come here. Preaching patience is for losers, even if the situation demands a little patience because of a lack of options.

Again, what part of your brain were you using when you wanted Davis signed to an extension? Wanted Creans last extension? All that patience resulted in the mighty Archie being hired. Then you patiently gave him 4 years so we could get Woody who was patiently given 4 years. Your patience with Woody likely cost us a chance at Dusty May, btw. So please show us where your patience has resulted in anything positive for IU basketball.

I don’t think anyone thinks it’s happening for the reasons you state. Pretty sure even the OP believes that. Nor should it happen before year 2. But this is a good enough thread to discuss the failures of the year instead rehashing it in every other thread. Today was bad. Iowa is bad and they whipped us on our home floor in a desperation game. Coaches only get so many of those. It’s not just this board. The crowd was audibly booing at halftime. We’re so bad this year they can probably miss the tournament next year if we “show improvement “ because of the contract situation. Unless next year is 180 degree turn around, things are going to be ugly for the next 18 mos.

Then he can keep his chubby little face at St Louis making 1/10th the salary with 1/10th the NIL budget. And he’ll never win a title and nobody will ever care. The thing all the weak kneed fans don’t understand is it is a self sorting mechanism. Coaches afraid of a big time job will never have a big time job. Also the thought of IU as a “guillotine” is so hilariously misinformed that I don’t even know what to say. No major program has kept crappy coaches around longer than IU. It’s actually the opposite. No good coaches come to IU because we don’t fire bad coaches fast enough. We’re seen as unserious losers.

Dusty Mays 79 Devries 62

You’re the one that blamed the fan base. You’re a fan, no? Surely you must accept some culpability under “the fans are the problem” theory. People that preach patience and building from within are just as much to blame for Davis/Crean/Woody staying too long as the impatient fans are for IU not being able to hire a big name coach.

That’s fair. But I blame you and all the patience folks that extended Mike Davis. Extending Crean. Giving Woody an extra year. Seriously though, what the heck were you thinking keeping Davis around that long?

Some people don’t believe that. Had this argument this week with several people. They think a guy has to come in here and slowly work his way up from the bottom over 3-4 yrs. I don’t believe it. With that said, I think Devries is capable of pulling himself out of this nose dive with a good offseason. Crean did. But it’s hard to envision him having ultimate success here. He’s going nowhere with that buyout so I hope for our sake he makes something off next season.

Guy is a small time, big fish in a small pond chump who wilts at the slightest hint of pressure or expectations. I couldn’t think of a worse hire for IU. If he got this job he’d make Shooter from Hoosiers look like a benedictine Monk.

Michigan kind of wilted at the end of the half

Cause Woody and Buckner were IU legends around their age whom they likely consider friends. And once burned they seem to have pulled the purse strings. I haven’t done it in the sense of NIL, but I’ve been part of a group and in the room asking billionaires for a paltry few million. That’s nothing to them. Literally nothing. The decision can be made on a whim (and often are in mind-blowing ways to us mere mortals) but they usually don’t like waste and certainly don’t like public embarrassment. You can’t go in and say “give us a couple mil so we’re not embarrassed. We won’t be good but our idiot brigade will get to 17 wins instead of 12.” It’s easier to just not give. Watch how the next couple seasons play out and see for yourself. (Btw, Cig is the opposite of this. Everyone loves to bandwagon a winner. Ask yourself why Cuban is giving tons to a football program that doesn’t even need it but little to a basketball program that obviously does.)

That’s not really how rich people work. They know better than to throw good money after bad

Woodson wouldn’t have recruited these guys. He’d have laughed and lit another cigar if you showed him baileys tape. Devries had deep pockets and this is what his eye for talent got us. He’s somehow better than Woody who saw Ware as an NBA talent and was right? Woody can’t coach but c’mon…

Woodys starting PG that everyone raved about all offseason can’t get off the bench at Maryland. The kid from Cal probably doesn’t play D1 basketball anymore Mbako is a bust. I largely agree but Woody wasn’t working with NBA talent. In any event, talent acquisition is >50% of a coach’s job.

I do. Woody made the tourney twice, one team was just barely out, and the other wasn’t out until the homestretch in Feb. This team is pretty much dead in the water. I’m not saying woody was a better coach per se, but he never put out a product this bad.