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Spot on imo. It's an extreme example, but Keaton Wagler as a #200+ ranked HS kid isn't getting paid much this season, he's got to be 3% to 4% of their roster cost, but he's delivering huge production. And retained players cost something like 10-20% less than their portal replacements. What makes Cig's player retention so damn great is it saves IUFB something like $3-5M/yr, which he can turnaround and spend on very productive and impactful guys. Good scouting and player dev is still as vital as it ever was. And lastly, Kenny and Rod need to earn need to earn their $ in the portal this year. Our staff budget is top-10 and needs to produce.

There is some logic to next year looking better given the job is not has hard as it was a year ago: March 18, 2025: We effectively had no staff and no team. Basically had six weeks to assemble a whole program. Pain in the @$$ until the last moment Woody had not moved out of his office yet and CDD had a makeshift office in the lounge. March 18, 2026: We will have a whole staff in place and, while still thin, a small core of a team. That's a big difference. We should be more prepared for the portal. We don't need as many players. We should be able to do more advanced scouting in terms of who's available (via agents) and their fit. And we should be more prepared to sell them on IU. And IU looks reasonably appealing right now with our style of play. Will this matter? Logically I think it will, but who knows, I can only guess and there are so many variables. I don't know what our roster budget will be next year (I'd think at least similar to '25). We could have repeat errors like Reed and miss on top targets. We also need our returning guys and freshman to work out. We'll just have to wait and see...

I think it is the greatest accomplishment. At worst when this conversation comes up we're always going to get mentioned. I think some people will conflate coaching careers vs. a specific accomplishment, but they're wrong and it is what it is. There just aren't many sports leagues where this sort of rags to riches story could happen. The NFL and NBA have too much parity via the league rules, notably the salary cap. MLB has more variance, but it's still not CFB, and no one talks about the '03 Marlins or '15 Royals for a reason. The only instance I think is close is Leicester winning the Premier League in 2016. They're a small club (~1/4 salary spend of the big teams) that usually yo-yo'd between the Prem and the Championship, yet somehow over the course of a long 38 game season won the league. It was literally unbelievable. But, I'm putting them #2 to '25 IUFB because we did it with so much domination (16-0 and +479 point diff)... and I'm an IU fan.

Lamar is moving up the record books in terms of 3's made. Also, it's crazy how many Steve made in the first year of the 3 pt line. And yea I know the line as closer back then, but shooting the three was a totally different thing in '86-87 and Steve did shoot 53% from deep. Amazing how RMK and Steve figured it out so quickly.

I really like that thinking with this statue. This should help get everyone back to remembering RMK as a great coach, who also did a lot of good. As we know, after 2000, at IU the discourse with him was mostly about the rift with the university and his flaws (he was human). That doesn't need to be dwelled upon anymore. His return to IU really helped and this should keep helping. For me, I think he was the greatest college basketball coach of all time. Importantly, he played by the rules, which eliminates several other coaches from taking that honor. He won consistently and he won big. His players loved him. He was often unselfish and would help people. He was genuinely funny. May as well remember all the positives, there are plenty.

RMK statue is coming. Pretty cool imo, it had to be done.

A satisfying read from the judge:

In that interview, Cig talked about how he turns down a lot of speaking and appearance requests since it takes away from doing his job. He did say he was more open to stuff in Indiana. He'd be a great ‘26 Indy 500 Pace Car driver or Green Flag waver. Whatever he prefers. Fernando would be a good fit for these honors too. IUFB has cross-promo’d with IndyCar and we took the time to wrap our prop car in IUFB colors and logos. So, there is a connection and maybe this happens…

30 min Cig interview with Yonkman. Good stuff as usual.

Another ‘27 4* we’re involved with. 5* hair.

They had one day in between games and their players were out? Good. I wouldn’t be happy to hear that as an Oregon fan, especially with their nine game losing streak.

FWIW, I think that's the very start of the game. NW won the tip and it looks like a live game on the court/jumbotron. In fairness, it may have filled in some after the tip, that's pretty common. I'm a little surprised. I thought Carver-Hawkeye fills in pretty good when they have a decent team.

Yea, that seems to be true -- one really rich person could seriously fund FB/MBBs programs. Though if a school doesn't currently have big boosters, it seems like it's pretty tough to find/convert them. If a school's handful of super rich alumni aren't interested in donating to NIL, it appears tough to get them involved. And very few billionaires even if they're boosters will act as aggressively as Cody Campbell or Phil Knight. An example is how long it took us to get Cuban on board, though my understanding is our athletic dept shot themselves in the foot several times with him. Hard to believe, huh? A place like Miss St... they could, but man it would be hard. They're 20% of our alumni base and generate small levels of athletic dept revenue. They would need their one big donor to go wild. It would be tough for a place like Purdue too, who just doesn't have a big boosters, which has been evident as they've struggled to get Matt much money despite his pretty darn good results. If a MBB coach was winning B1G titles and making FF's at IU, they would have $5M more than what Matt gets, easily. Fortunately, IU has a lot of fundraising potential. Our large alumni base is cited often, and they help a lot, but the real key in my opinion is the Cook family. We're fortunate to have a very active billionaire booster like them, and they've been going wild with their efforts since Cig got here. Then we have another active billionaire booster in Simon, and now Cubes. Three billionaires. Plus another tier of very rich and active boosters like Pfau. And Scott with his Varsity club background was the perfect guy to get them all as engaged as possible in this new NIL world. I'd agree a lot of schools could level up athletics support pretty quickly, I just think IU was a place that was pretty uniquely positioned to do it. And honestly there are schools we'll never match, but we're close enough now. Now, if a school actually wants to do what IU did, you need a Cig. To my knowledge, there is only one (1) Cig. No Cig, no natty. Vanderbilt-like results is probably a more realistic goal. I guess to tie this back to this thread, if CDD can finish strong this season hopefully he can get our boosters believing and get more money for his roster.

I’d guess that’s right, though I am a square that’s for sure. Even if we screw up one of our three easier home games an MSU or OSU win can cover that up. Or even a BTT run I suppose. Several combos can work and that probably pushes up the odds to get in.

FWIW prediction (betting) markets have us at a ~85% chance to make it. Feels high, but that’s what it is. That sort of signals 10-10 is probably enough. Though of course getting in with ease should be the goal. Long way to go.

I get your point, but I’d argue the program controls the vibes (and the revenue) via the results. A fanbase can “want it” badly and have high expectations, but it just doesn’t matter much, because the actions of the program (hiring, recruiting, coaching) are going to vastly outweigh whatever the fans do or want. And not all fans are equal, we’ve got probably about 10 to 20 donors who materially impact our athletic dept revenue. But, I’m still happy doing my part of going to games and donating what I know is a de minimis amount. That’s all I can do and I enjoy it, so it’s all good.

I’ve got some pro teams I cheer for, but I only really care about IU sports. Plus I prefer college sports with the tribalism/passion and varying cultures and traditions across the programs. I don’t feel the connection as much to pro sports, which I find much more homogenous and less interesting. Anyways: 1. IUFB ‘25 -- A gap the size of 1,000 Grand Canyons -- 2. Colts ‘07 SB

Reading this thread, it's worth noting no one on this board has any influence over IUBB. Perhaps this will come off as harsh, but posters' expectations/standards (high or low) and feelings (good or bad) do not have any real world impact on IUBB. Unless someone is a serious booster, IUBB and IU athletics is basically take or leave it. There are only two options: (1) watch, and enjoy or be frustrated, or (2) don't watch. There is no option (3) where a message board poster sets the standard. This place is purely for fan entertainment. Discussing and debating is fun, as sharing in the experience of success and failure. But this place has zilch real world influence. So, it makes sense to debate CDD, that's very interesting. But if someone is enjoying IU athletics because we dominated the college sport that by far matters the most (CFB is 4-5x larger than CBB) while our bball program is just "okay," I don't see why it's worth getting upset over that, because again, no one here has any influence over anything in real world IU athletics.

One thing I get a kick out of is how bad Illinois wants a rival and they can’t quite find one. NW? Kinda, but they’re not as into sports. The Mizzou bball one seems to have fizzled out. They poke at PU and IU a lot, but mostly get ignored. They want B1G attention and no one will give them what they want. Here is a poll from their fans:

Regardless of who inherited a worse situation and the realistic turnaround time for the era, there is something about that UConn program that produces serious results, even with several different coaches. Basically the opposite of IUBB since the late 90’s.

What tweaks would you make? Just curious.

I dunno, I think there is some value to making the tourney. It helps with the improvement narrative and removes something that needs explaining (we missed it because of XYZ excuses). That should make things easier with fans/donors in terms of NIL, and also selling recruits. I’m not saying making the tourney is a must and our future depends on it, just that it materially helps with the whole program building thing.

What about Mega SuperBet in Puerto Rico? An 81-80 barnburner! Perhaps the experience was more valuable than we could have imagined. (just kidding)

Yea. We live to fight another day, which is good. And double good we beat Wiscy, we owe them one and it's still not close to even. I don't feel much better about this team, but is what it is. On the sunshine pump side, is D-Rock an OT specialist? He had a good OT record prior to IU. Also, a nice crowd today. Our "toxic" fans were very good.