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Yea. They get a break with the Final Four in San Antonio.

Over (knock on wood). Getting NIL deals done before the House Settlement potentially being finalized April 7th probably accelerates commits.

Cignetti looking at that unused NIL. Jk, I don’t know what happens with unused NIL, probably carries over to next year?

It seems like CDD has a reasonable amount of leeway with this portal/initial roster build. In the end, next season is what matters and how many wins he can stack up. It is true though, he can't miss on every or close to every "big time" recruit. A big part of this job is recruiting (duh), and he's got to show some recruiting chops this month, or else I would have to say it's a concern. What I don't want is a roster where it's hard to see how they can be any good and no one is excited. CDD would have a chance to prove everyone wrong, but I'd rather not go into a season where the coach has to prove his roster is actually good. Now, I don't think this will happen. And I'm ready to give CDD the benefit of the doubt as much as possible. But... and I'm stating the obvious... these next few weeks are really important. Hopefully we can land a few guys this week and get some momentum going.

I think it's pretty fair with +/- $11M player payroll we should make the tournament. I mean it's hard to miss the field of 68 with top-5 or 10 payroll, Woody had to do so many things wrong this past season for us to actually not make it. There will be lumps and bumps, but it's important we see a team identity developing, the team shows overall improvement throughout the year, we get in the tourney, and we are competitive. I don't expect to win the conference or go deep in the tourney, but we all know what competitive, well run program looks like. To keep this on topic, we may have some misses like Conwell, but we should have a tourney squad.

Once the season ended I calmed myself down with respect to Woodson and forget about him. After seeing our entire $6M roster gone (mostly via portal) and the new coach likely not seeing anyone on staff worth retaining... it reminded how awful he was and how much damage he did. Once we get a new roster in place, assuming it is decent to good on paper, then I can probably forget about Woody again. So frustrating...

Yea, Woody left a tire fire behind for CDD and we're going to be heavy in the portal. The one year eligibility portal guys are effective players, and they can help win games which the program needs to get back on the CBB map, but they aren't around long enough to help build program culture/identity, which is vital. Hopefully we can get a few portal guys with multiple years of eligibility, I really like that sweet spot of experience and potential to be around a few years. After a few years we can get high school recruiting and high school player development up and running -- then we can get that balance of high school and portal where most players are in the program for multiple years and we've got a strong culture/identity going. Cig said same thing -- he doesn't prefer to be so portal heavy like he has been and he would like more high school recruits developed in the program. This is the key in CFB -- the best teams develop high school talent in their program a fill a few areas of need with portal guys. But, Cig is dealing with the same issue in that high school recruiting and player development takes time. We'll see how it goes, again Woodson left CDD with just a mess of a roster.

Quiet search. Low key hire announcement with no fans. Now quiet on staff hires and recruiting targets. Seems to be a theme. I kinda like it vs the hype approach. As far as I can tell they’re hard at work and we just have to wait and see what happens. Fingers crossed.

Keep in mind the rev share is basically a 66% to 100% increase for player payroll this season. So a lot of the numbers quoted are going to be about double what players got last year.

Wow. I guess they really value the exposure he brings the school. That is insane though, he isn’t a good coach (he is mid tier at best) and his schtick will keep getting less interesting and likely attract less attention each year unless he can really win big (doubtful). Good luck Colorado.

Chester Frazier taking something too personally? No way. /s

https://www.al.com/alabamabasketball/2025/03/73-phone-calls-and-counting-how-an-alabama-coach-handles-wild-transfer-portal-during-march-madness.html Imo, he is just going his job and that will pay off for Alabama or IU if he comes here. If he were coming to IU for sure, he wouldn’t just stop working. So, this doesn't indicate much to me if he is coming here or not. Now, the raise probably reduces the chances he moves -- to what extent who knows.

Ha. Good for him. Rare instance of NIL that is actually NIL.

When Tucker committed I thought he seemed like the type of kid who would go to Duke in the '90's or 00's -- good player and smart/academically inclined (I know that's not all Duke players...). I didn't know why he was coming here to play for Woody, or why he was looking so hard at G-League Ignite before that. Both didn't seem like the right fit. I know there were some rumors he and his family may have been difficult this year. If true, not great, but I can't discount how bad things could have got in Woody's program as you said. Maybe his sit down with CDD went well and there is a chance here. It would be great if CDD/Bryson could make it work.

Jennifer's calendar is almost done. https://x.com/jennifer40iu/status/1905243485990428807

I can only guess, but probably not a lot, at least the good players — these programs are obviously doing well and most of them have healthy resources to keep their key guys.

Yes, there are very few portal commits right now. Just having Tucker DeVries (I get he may not be official, but he is 100% IU) puts us ahead of most schools right now.

Calbert is my all-time favorite player. I even bought his Bullets jersey when he went pro. I could not respect Hulls more. He came to IU when we were at rock bottom, he got his @$$ completely kicked for two years, but he stuck with it and won a B1G title. You can't be more of a Hoosier than Hulls. While I love these guys as players, I don't know if they are good assistants and/or if they fit with CDD's system. It appears they aren't a fit, and while it hurts, I'm glad we are seemingly not providing any favoritism towards former players with respect to coaching positions... as we know that can be slightly detrimental (or if it's the head coach, devastating). Of course though, with former players like this we should always be welcoming them back, trying to keep them involved where we can, and keeping them in mind for any jobs they can get on their merits.

I'm fine if they bring it back, some random thoughts and opinions: - It's a great trophy and it's too bad they had to stop using it due to that alcohol-related death of a UK player. It's nice we kept the trophy in Bloomington. Also it's kinda funny how IUFB gets involved with so many random rivalry trophies. - I love playing UK in basketball, I find that game more interesting than Purdue. But personally, interacting with UK fans one time per year is enough for me. - With as tough as the B1G is, I'm fine with non-con cupcakes for a few more years, especially as we are still program building, notably with getting high school recruiting going, which takes a few years. - If we are going to play a tougher non-con, I'd rather schedule bigger programs like we did with ND. UK may not help our SOS as much (could be a bad loss early). - Looking back, attendance increases were modest when UK came to town, indicating IU fans generally don't find UK to be that interesting of a football opponent. - We'll either get some sort of B1G-SEC challenge to spice up our non-con, or I would try to schedule home/homes with bigger programs where a loss doesn't hurt us too much and a win has more upside. That's just one person's opinion, and I'm far from an expert in CFB, so I could be missing something. I definitely agree it would be fun to have a big non-con game most years. I can't wait for this IUFB season. Spring game is coming up!

Kevin Willard is being a bit sensationalist. The money is exploding mostly because the rev share is starting this year. This will add $2-6M to player payroll depending on the school, which is about 66% to 100% increase in player payroll over last year depending on the school. Therefore, players are asking for a lot more this year. NIL has basically no guardrails or rules, fair enough. Though pre-NIL was to some extent too if you think about all the under the table payments. However, the rev share does have guardrails and rules. It's capped. Players will sign real contracts with universities to play sports for the first time ever (keep in mind NIL contracts could not include anything about playing, which is dumb but true). What's happening seems pretty understandable. I don't think players or agents are any more wild than they were last year. It's just the rev share starting.

On the topic of portal rankings -- just an observation: These portal kids are much easier to rank -- they have completed actual seasons of D1 and/or D2 ball. High school kids are much more of a mystery and tougher to rank -- less tape, competition can vary a lot, and they have the uncertainty of translating to college ball. Personally, when it comes to portal players, while I like high rankings (I can't help it), it's very easy to just watch the player playing college games and reach a conclusion on your own. It's a good point program fit is important and rankings don't really capture that. I'm glad CDD understands this.

I like Rice. He seems like a pretty good kid and he has overcome a lot. Unfortunately, he got caught up in Woody's system -- I guess his NIL takes some of the sting off of that. He may not be a fit for CDD, but hopefully he can find a place where he can start improving again.

Ha, classic IU. A few times a year IU will always get me to feel like this:

I've got no issue with CDD, I just wanted Pete to ask some more follow-up questions and dig deeper. Same thing with his Mendoza interview. It doesn't really matter just a preference from random anon fan.