Truthhurts

The dysfunction of this university’s leadership is truly astounding, and it’s how you end up with your highest paid employee being a schmuck like MW.

The fact that he refused to deliver the news via phone was juvenile but it’s like the 9th most childish thing he did that was revealed in that podcast. Whether they flew in specifically for this or not, who cares? The fact is he’s an egomaniac moron with the self awareness of a child. He has way more important things to do than to seek revenge against a podcaster for calling him stubborn. And setting all that aside, strategically it makes no sense for him to do this. Yet he did it any way because he’s both too stupid and too self absorbed to resist. Mike Woodson is a loser. Period.

If this meeting doesn’t tell you the program has no chance of winning big with MW at the helm, nothing will.

If the admin brings Woodson back, this school just isn’t serious about being a basketball power anymore. 3 straight years without a team better than 30 in KenPom and year 3 is the worst non-sanction-years team in like 60 years. These results wouldnt be good enough at f*cking Arkansas.

Unfortunately, this is merely wishful thinking. There’s no way to “hide” a retirement that’s actually a termination. He’s a public employee with a public contract. And Woodson has 15 million reasons not to actually retire. He’d be a fool not to force the university to fire him without cause and get that insane buyout. Would he accept a lower buyout to go away? Maybe. But probably not by much. Would you leave millions on the table that you’re entitled to by contract? I wouldn’t. Dolson made an absurdly dumb hire and agreed to an absurdly stupid contract. University will pay for it.

Apologies. Wasn’t meaning to direct any of that towards you specifically. It’s just repeated by everyone and it has no basis in reality. Not your fault some dumbass reporters started that rumor.

This is repeated ad nauseum but Thad has no intent or desire to be Butler’s AD. It’s a 500k a year job for a guy worth well into 8 figures and who’s currently making 2M. He’s never gonna be the AD there. The new guy starting in April is 36, a basketball alum, and will likely be the AD for decades.

I’m not trying to disparage Dusty. The reality is, though, his *BEST* team in the four years before he nabbed this current group of players was 129th in KenPom. That’s just flat out not very good, winning record or not. And again - that was the best team he had. Schertz was able to muster a top 100 team at Indiana State in just year 2 at Indiana State. And this year they’re playing like a sweet 16 team with far less talent than FAU. Dusty seems to be a capable coach. But I’m not convinced he’s special. People are falling for him here more than they should because he has a tie to IU and happened to go on a deep run last season. Those aren’t sufficient bases to favor him over a guy who’s been elite for like 15 straight seasons as a head coach and who plays mathematically perfect modern basketball. I feel pretty confident IU would ultimately regret hiring Dusty over Schertz.

Record is an imperfect measure of performance if we’re trying to identify the best coach. I’m not trying to disparage Dusty. The reality is, though, his *BEST* team in the four years before he nabbed this current group of players was 129th in KenPom. That’s just flat out not very good, winning record or not. And again - that was the best team he had. Schertz was able to muster a top 100 team at Indiana State in just year 2 at Indiana State. Dusty seems to be a capable coach. But I’m not convinced he’s special. People are falling for him here more than they should because he has a tie to IU and happened to go on a deep run last season. Those aren’t sufficient bases to favor him over a guy who’s been elite for like 15 straight seasons as a head coach and who plays mathematically perfect modern basketball. We have a chance to get someone special. I have no faith we will. But the chance is out there.

Dusty May has been a head coach for six years and for four of them his teams were not any good. Can’t be sure FAU’s 1.5 seasons of success is really him being a great coach or him stumbling into a good couple of players for a flash in the pan success. Schertz on the other hand absolutely dominated for a decade+ at LMU and now has freaking Indiana State playing like a S16 team in just his third season there. Not to mention, again, he’s playing mathematically perfect basketball from a shot quality stand point. He’s the real deal. You absolutely want him over Dusty May, whose main qualification for the IU job is one deep march run and ties to Bloomington.

Schertz should be the guy. He’s an Xs and Os savant a la Stevens. And in the NIL era, at IU, you don’t have to be a great recruiter to get great recruits. If IU retains Woodson (and my guess is we will), someone else is going to pick up Schertz this offseason and IU will be miserable watching him take a lesser program to the final four within 4-6 years. Watch. This is the chance to finally get things right. Don’t hire to win the press conference (Cream, Archie, Woodson); hire to win games. Schertz wins, period. And his scheme is mathematically/ analytically aligned with modern basketball.

I’ve posted this before around these parts, but it’s worth posting again. Thad’s health was fine by 2021. There was no physical or any thing like that Bs report. (He took the butler job just 11 months later.) The idea was floated to him. He didn’t want the job. Thus there was never a formal offer. Why might someone turn down the job? Two reasons. First, as any honest Indiana fan will admit, the culture of the program is in a bad spot. It has been for a long time. In light of the resources and fan support, given the (lack of) success over the last 25 years, one can make a compelling case it’s the worst program culture in college hoops. According, any bright candidate who already has a pile of money and doesn’t have the desire to completely overhaul a program may want to steer clear of the head job. Second, and more simply, Thad loves living in Indy and loves Butler. He was never taking the Indiana job and he’s never going to take the Indiana job. We need Josh Schertz, and we need to clear out the whole program and anyone in the AD’s office who touches the program.