AH1971

I could have told you. Who in their right mind is taking just another job with delusional expectations?

How many mediocre coaches win the B10 outright twice and make the second week three times in a 5 year span? I’d love to have a mediocre coach right now, wouldn’t you?

I certainly can tell you, look at where IU is today post-Crean.

Who cares what he did at Georgia? That's irrelevant to what he did at IU. Mike Woodson won the Eastern Conference regular season in New York, how did that translate here? It doesn't mean anything. You can't say out of one side of your mouth that making the tournament is the only thing we ask out of IU coaches while saying Crean should have been fired because it was clear he was never going to win a championship here. It's hypocrisy at its finest.

Except for the people that thought we were hiring Billy Donovan... I understand Archie's accolades at the time. Firing a coach with multiple conference championships for an up and comer isn't a home run hire or a solid plan. I'm sorry.

Crean got a raw deal with Anunoby's injury, or else they absolutely would have made the tournament his final year. That would have been 5 in 6 years. There's a good chance James Blackmon Jr doesn't forego his senior year if Crean is retained and along with him you bring back senior Robert Johnson and Juwan Morgan as an upperclassmen to go with some nice young pieces in Justin Smith, DeRon Davis, and Devonte Green. Won't pretend to know what happens that year as it doesn't matter now, but have to think it's better than anything we got from Archie Miller. Had he survived, would have been interesting to see how a team full of guards and shooters would have fared with TJD commanding the middle. Add in the portal a few year later and who knows where Indiana is with Crean today, can't be worse than where we are now. As far as a plan goes after firing Crean? Who did Glass realistically think he was going to get after firing a coach who had just previously won multiple conference championships?

How is it wild? Crean basically had two tenures at IU: the first 3 years rebuilding from absolutely nothing without the help of the portal, immediate eligibility, etc and then the 6 year period in which he won the B10 twice and reached the S16 on three different occasions. He missed the tourney after losing 4 starters that won the B10 outright the year prior and in his final year after losing a lottery pick to an ACL injury in early January. And the fanbases/administration said that wasn't good enough. And here we are a decade later where making the tournament is simply a chore.

It wasn't just the "calls". It was the habitual pattern of repeating said behavior while being punished for said behavior. And without any regard. It was the constant lying to IU officials and NCAA investigators. Habitual offenders are the most likely to repeat. He wasn't here even two full years.

He's one player. He's also 6'10, skilled as hell, and a nightmare for opposing bigs on the perimeter. They have a 6'2 shooting guard who leads the nation in 3 point percentage, but other than that, every other guy on their team is 6'4-6'8, rangy and athletic as hell with 2-3 of those guys built like defensive ends.

He's a weird prospect for me. I'm not sure his athleticism translates to the NBA, but he's highly skilled and not afraid to bang. He'll be highly coveted this offseason as will the two guards who play for Hofstra today.

I think it was stupid to hire him in the first place. I don't think we had a choice in firing him as the NCAA made that clear. But agree, he's one of the best in the business.

According to @Golfman25 that type of length and athleticism doesn't exist at the mid-major level. It was a treat to watch VCU and SLU play back to back last night. Wait till you watch Santa Clara at noon today. Really good team built very similarly to SLU.

So it isn't about just simply making the tournament like others have stated? Got it. We deserve everything we get it.

You don't think there was internal as well as external pressure to get rid of Crean? Nonsense. I knew he was toast after the Syracuse game and yet he somehow rebounded and won another conference title. What he did at Georgia really doesn't phase me because it's irrelevant to Indiana. But the idea that IU was going to get rid of coach who won two B10 titles in a 4 year span and replace him with someone like Billy Donovan or Brad Stevens just never made sense to me.

We had to overpay to get an unproven coach in DeVries. You're nuts if you think a top flight coach is coming here, money be damned. Another post that shows how out of touch with reality this fan base can be at times.

It becomes increasingly harder to consistently make the tournament when you're constantly shuffling coaches and turning over rosters all while starting from scratch. If you haven't paid attention to that the last 20 years I beg to ask what you've been doing? Excusing Crean's first 3 years as he started from ground zero without a roster or the transfer portal, he won two B10 titles and made the second weekend on three different occasions in essentially a 6 year period. The fan base and administration determined that wasn't enough. He was fired because he didn't win a national title. You're right, making the field of 68 isn't a monumental task, but appeasing a delusional fan base if it doesn't happen in years 1 or 2 becomes redundant.

IU hasn't won a national title in 40 years. What happened 40,50, 60 years ago should have little to no bearing on today's climate. Current IU recruits parents were barely alive the last time IU won a national title.

Going .500 is going .500. It's accepted for one program but not the other. The expectations for both programs are night and day. It's ok to admit that.

Huh? If both coaches have the same record over the same duration of time, both have shown the same level of improvement, or lack thereof . The only difference is that basketball program has a completely different set of expectations, much of which are insane.

My point was this...had Cignetti gone .500 for 4 straight year while DeVries simultaneously went .500 for 4 straight years, who stays and who goes? Cignetti gets a contract extension and is on the fast path to becoming the best coach in program history while DeVries is shown the door. The expectations for football and basketball are night and day, despite the basketball program being largely irrelevant for the last 30 years. You get 1, maybe 2 years as the basketball coach before the fanbase turns on you.

“Hire a top coach”. I’m all for it, what top coach is coming to coach IU basketball? It’s not that simple, really.

Winning vs meeting expectations. Agreed, historically IU football is one of the hardest places to win at. It’s also one of the easiest places to succeed at because the bar is set so low.

Going to the coaching carousel every 3-4 years is how you stay on the merry-go-round for an infinite amount of time. There are so many external factors working against IU, fan base included, that make the hiring process next to impossible. And it gets harder every cycle.

Ding ding ding Had Cig gone 6-6 year 1 no one is talking about firing him.

For me, the realization came after we Fired Crean and the subsequent coaching search that followed. I think that was the first time I realized how big the disconnect between fanbase/administration and reality really was. The national media/audience laughed at IU for firing a coach who essentially won two B10 outright titles in a 6 year span with multiple second weekend appearances after bringing the program back from the dead. Meanwhile, we told ourselves we were poaching Billy Donovan from the NBA lol. Every coaching search that has followed has been equally entertaining and just brings out the worst in a section of the fan base. There’s no easy fix to this, if a fix at all depending on your expectations. We’ve been searching for our next “General” for almost 30 years…10 years ago in finally came to the conclusion that he doesn’t exist.