Pagoda

This article is Niziolek and Osterman.

IndyStar poo poo’d the rumors in their article this morning (Niziolek and Osterman), they wrote, “The overwhelming majority of noise and fury filtering through the IU basketball ecosystem right now is, to use an industry term, crap.” That said, I am hoping the BTB posters claiming to be in the know are right…

Whoever our new coach is should look into these kids… notably the top one…

Haralson should check out whoever our new coach is and see if he likes him…

I can’t help but really enjoy following these Brad predictions. I don’t think we get him, but seeing if these predictions come true is pretty interesting. In would love for the people who cover IU to get a whiff of these rumors. They wouldn’t write about it, but I’d like them to just hear it.

It’s a discussion on who is making this hire, not exactly about firing Mike. Seems close enough for this thread.

I love to hear that as much as possible. I have confidence in him too.

I get what you’re saying. You may be right and it’s fair to have concerns the meddling won’t stop. I can’t look at the last 25 years and be super confident lol. The Woody firing was a bit alarming for sure. Scott and Pam need to step up, hopefully with some self aware trustees/donors. So far it sounds like Scott is in charge, but it’s possible the meddlers may try to step in again (cringe). If that happens we are in deep sh1t. Of course there is also risk Scott hires the wrong person on his own. Perilous times!

I’m not sure on the specifics. I only know Quinn was pushing for Mike as far back as 2017. Exactly what was agreed to I don’t know.

I really hope our org chart is fixed with Quinn on the way out and he and his pals also discredited. No more meddling. Scott makes the athletics calls, of course Pam works with Scott, but she also has to provide cover for him when trustees and donors can’t helped themselves and start yapping. She has to tell them to F off. Hopefully the next BoT Chair understands how this should work and contributes to everything running like a proper organization. We really want to Scott in charge of the whole athletic dept. That way if results are good or bad, it’s clear who is responsible and we can change out Scott if he doesn’t meet the goals he agrees to with Pam and the Board. Management 101. We had serious upper level meddling with the AD’s job in 2001, 2006, 2021, and 2024. It has killed our bball program, the meddlers are either clueless on how to hire/fire coaches or they’re outrageously conflicted.

I don't think that's quite how this is playing out. - First off, I don't get the frustration with Scott. Last year he was the only person at IU that wanted to move on from Woody. The BoT, the key donors, and Pam didn't want to move on. Scott was the one guy at IU on our side, he would have fit in well in the Fire Mike Woodson thread. - If we miss on Dusty, it's going to be blamed on Quinn and Ferguson. There is a whole IndyStar article, among other reports, detailing how those two protected Woody last year. That will be referenced. And everyone knows Quinn effectively hired Woody to begin with. - The BoT controls approvals for big hires like a new coach. In reality, Scott can't just do whatever he wants because he is Woody's boss. And it sucks, but Scott also has to factor in when our biggest donor likes Woody, we need those many millions of dollars for the athletic dept and to be a bball NIL powerhouse into the future. - Maybe there is room for criticism on how Woody is being let go. I don't know. While the letter is annoying, Woody still has a lot of powerful friends at IU, and Scott still managed to shitcan him midseason. Things behind the scenes are very political and Scott will need people onside for the next hire, so maybe consider Scott has to work that bigger picture angle. Plus of course Woody is a total @$$ to deal with which makes this separation 100x harder. - I doubt this next bball hire makes or breaks Scott's job. His job rides on football, which is 3x+ bigger than bball and drives basically the entire athletic dept. If football does well, Scott probably survives a bad bball hire. The tens of millions of extra dollars Scott is bringing in from football is what IU really notices and cares about. If football declines, a good bball hire may not save Scott. But let's hope it doesn't come down to this... - The next bball hire is all Scott as far as I'm concerned. Scott is the guy to blame good or bad. He seems to be leading this process thanks to the political capital and influence from building up football, plus it helps Quinn and the donors were proven to be 100% wrong on Woody and clearly incompetent. Scott isn't perfect, but I defend him on here because big picture he has done some very good things while having to work with a lot of difficult people at IU. And when I look around IU and the athletic dept, when it comes to making hires, he is quite literally all we've got. Hopefully he gets this bball hire right. And of course, it is a free country, so if anyone wants to dislike Scott, that's up to you. This is just how I look at it.

True. And the mismanagement, negligence, and poor decisions really go back to 2000. I will spare the forum a list of those transgressions. After a quarter century of this nonsense from IU, it's amazing we have any fans left.

I feel the same. If this hire is a flop I’m happy to just focus on football like I have for over a year now. We have real coaches and leaders there worth supporting, plus it’s by far the biggest college sport as we know. Soccer, baseball, WBB are cool too.

Do we need him to start losing to give ourselves a better chance to get him? I’m sort of kidding… It’s soul crushing knowing he was ours for the taking last year.

As many know UK made a huge run at Drew before they went to Hurley and then Pope. IIRC Mitch Barnhart had a good, long-term relationship with Scott, so UK had an angle to get him. Drew’s family even flew to Lexington to check it out. As we know they passed. The reason is likely what OKHOOSIER stated — Drew and his family are extremely tied into the religious aspects of Baylor. We aren’t UK, but zoom out and IU is pretty similar, we just happen to be in a college town and have our teeth. I doubt he leaves Baylor for us for the same reasons he didn’t leave for UK. I don’t see a unique angle for us to get him.

Dolson has initiated the Cronin PSYOP.

100%. And not only are the fans not the problem, they are our biggest asset and one of the only "elite" or "blueblood" things we have left. We are still a top-5 or 10 program in revenue and valuation, which is all down the fans somehow spending money on our crap teams. And then there is NIL, which is very important, and that comes from... fans. With NIL we have two notable fans that give a lot, but there is an exceptional amount of giving from a lot of people. And you're also right that the admin and who they hire are responsible for the bad results.

Message board rumors and conjecture don't have anything to do with the success of the program. We get it, you don't like IU fans and believe the fans are the problem narrative. This is a pretty common view for the burners and the current staff.

Same. I think his Year 1 success gets the attention of the big money folks at UM and he gets a contract/staff budget/NIL boost and he elects to keep building there. UM is a good school and lower pressure gig. All we can offer is perhaps a little more money and easier transfers, but we are also a tire fire. Not hiring him after last season was likely a huge mistake and just classic IUBB mismanagement. If we did hire him we would be in fantastic shape right now on the court and recruiting. On the other hand, maybe he loves IU and is confident Scott and Pam have cleared out the old guard so he feels good enough to jump into the tire fire and fix it. Fingers crossed.

If Cronin gets up there at the intro presser and does the “It’s Indiana” routine, he will get people on side pretty fast. But he has to win…

I agree the language is vague and it sounds like it could be a Saban situation. I can’t shake that feeling either. I’m just sharing what they think, I don’t know exactly what they did to investigate the statement. They are pros and while I don’t want to believe them, I am forcing myself to.

I’ll post this again. I happen to know a few legit CBB journalists and none of them are hearing this stuff. They have dug into the Brad statement and it’s a legit “no” in their view. Maybe they’re wrong, I hope they are, but I really doubt it.

I get your point, and I would agree our on court results over the last 20-25 years have been horrible. We are crappy on the court. Ole Miss has a better team than we do. So do a ton of programs. I think our on court results have been so bad we aren't a blue blood anymore. We're not really relevant in the world of college basketball at this point. I don't think I have an elitist view of our program's results. I disagree on the program's value and not having anything to lose. Despite our struggles, we are somehow, and I don't know how, top-10 in attendance and revenue, and therefore top-10 in program value. The last Forbes list had us as the #3 most valuable program and the last Wall St. Journal list had us #5. Basically, we still have a lot of fans/donors who spend money. Yes, fans are losing interest, but we still have a ton of fans, more than most schools who are better than us on the court. Ole Miss is a tiny program, probably #50+ in program value with very little fan interest when they hired Beard. Therefore, they had quite a bit less to lose than someone like IU, or our "peers" that didn't look at Beard in their hiring processes like UK and UL. A school with some prestige on their brand like UM didn't consider him either. That's why I don't think one can say he worked for Ole Miss therefore he works for us. As for Chris Beard himself, I've never met him. If I was running this process I would dig into everything that happened -- call Texas, check with PIs and police, talk with Chris... get the whole story. Maybe he has changed and is hirable, I don't know. From what I hear that's not the case, but I would find out, maybe he's fine. If Scott and Pam did this and got comfortable with him, I would support him. But I don't find this part of it to be particularly relevant to our coaching search. What I do find relevant, regardless of who Beard is today, is how difficult he is to hire. The media coverage of the hire will talk about the DV issues and how IU got comfortable with it, and fair or unfair IU's morals/ethics will get questioned -- that's hard for the university to stomach. As mentioned above, we still have a very valuable program due to the size of our fanbase/donors. Hire him and there will be some immediate and material division with the valuable fanbase/donors. And if he does something at IU, that would do very serious damage to our program, completely embarrass the entire university, and the people who hired him are getting fired. Yes there is upside if he wins, but I think it's important to recognize that IUBB, despite how bad we are on the court, still has a lot to lose, and he brings some big downside risks that no other candidate does. He's a good to very good coach, but I doubt he is so much better than other candidates, even our down the list options, that IUBB becomes hard to support if we don't hire him. We'll see. A good coach plugged into our top-5 NIL should be able to do well. Unfortunately, we have like the worst coach possible right now. For the folks who like Chris Beard and want to hire him, okay fine I don't want to get into that, I'm just presenting some big picture considerations. I am still optimistic Scott gets us a coach that restores IUBB. Maybe I am wrong on Beard and he is the right risk/reward for IUBB, it's possible. In the end, this is just an entertaining discussion about an interesting aspect of our search for a coach and the above is one anon's prediction for people to take or leave.

We don’t know what Ole Miss did. We do know they didn’t have much to lose with their crappy bball program, so it’s easier for them to take risks.