AH1971

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.

The same administration that hired Cignetti hired DeVries…what am I missing?

NBA has a minimum age requirement. I think if you added an exemption waiver that included religious purposes (Mormon missions), military service, and severe injury/illness (like recovering from cancer), it would probably pass. Basically make the NCAA a 23U organization where you can’t start your final year of eligibility after you’ve turned 24.

I agree making the tournament year 1 in this climate isn't a monumental task. But I'm much more focused on the long term, than the short term, especially with Indiana. And I haven't seen anyone suggest that DeVries should get 4 years to make the tournament. But that's also a lot different than saying making the tournament in year 1 should be the absolute bare minimum or else you're on the hot seat going forward, which seems to be the trajectory for first year coaches at Indiana. It's not like that anywhere else in the country sans a few programs. Indiana, currently, isn't one of those programs. Haven't been in a long time.

Very true. The "20 win season/make the tournament every year as a bare minimum" crowd is simply out of touch with reality.

You've got two options. 1) Declare student-athletes employees and form a CBA like you would see in a professional league setting. This would establish some kind of hard/soft salary cap and players would be held to the contracts they've previously signed. or 2) Declare an age limit (23 and under would be my preference) and a definitive eligibility standard ie you get 5 years to play 5 years. NCAA continually loses eligibility cases because they don't consistently apply their rules. Judges have sided with the NCAA when a precedent has been set, but you can't let one guy play and then deny eligibility to the next guy with a similar case. Once you start enforcing age and eligibility requirements consistently, the lawsuits will start to hold up.

To add to this, there are currently 4 programs who have won 20+ games for 10 straight years -Kansas -Gonzaga -Belmont -Houston *Oregon's 15 year streak just ended this season. There are 5 programs who have made the tournament every year for 10+ seasons -Michigan St -Gonzaga -Kansas (technically their 2018 appearance was vacated) -Purdue -Houston That's it, that's the list. I don't think people realize just how good Indiana had it under Bob Knight. A lot of people b******* about the state of the program either weren't alive for Bob Knight or were too young to comprehend it.

Couple things. 1. Every team has money these days. IU has a lot of money but I'm not convinced they have top tier money, at least in terms of player compensation. 2. Money is the ONLY thing IU has these days. There's no culture, there's no momentum, there's no nothing. Guys come to IU to collect a check. That's a harsh but true reality. We're spending, and overspending on that, simply to field a team that goes through the motions year after year. We give up on coaches 1-2 years into their tenure and by year 4 we're starting over. It's been a two decade plus cycle. It's a vicious one. 3. Winning 20 games and making the tournament every year should be the goal of every non blueblood program. The really good programs consistently win 20+ games and make the tournament at a high clip. Unfortunately, IU isn't a really good program right now....we aren't even a good program.

Never been easier? Why do you think that? I'd argue its the exact opposite and the last 10 years worth of results parallel that. IU is another program these days. It's irrelevant nationally and at best a middle tier B10 program. We've been passed by so many other programs the last two or three decades, not many meddling programs demand 20+ wins and auto tourney bids. It sucks but it is what it is.