Pagoda

I’m not insider, but I agree, this is how I see it playing out as well. It will probably be nasty behind the scenes. Scott has to win the political battle — he’s probably got Pam on his side and if he can get our key donors too he’s good to go. Mike just doesn’t have a case to stay with these results after so much money spent, even the Cook crew will have to concede this point.

I wouldn’t be upset with fans that boo. It takes a lot to get our fans to boo a player — show serious effort and fans will be supportive 99.9% of the time. I just don’t feel the urge to boo players like I do with the coach and his pals.

Same. I don’t boo players, especially when they are stuck with Woody. I would boo Woody. My real targets are Quinn and Ferguson but I’ll never get a crack at booing them.

“It’s just not right that fans are doing what they’re doing to him [Trey].” I get his point I’m just tired of it. Ask the fans to support him or just leave fans out of it and say he’s about to play better.

Woodson attacks the fans again.

Or his FB shine may last awhile.

One way to put it, he wasn't for bball. And that's our problem. IU hires an AD, and then meddles with the job the AD should do. Terrible management.

He was a year into the job and the most or second most powerful person at IU and his pals wanted Woodson. What was Scott supposed to do? Quinn could just flat out not approve whatever Scott wanted and Fergie could cut off NIL… they held all the cards.

Yea, agree, just an observation that surprised me about Ole Miss bball.

Deep clean. Look around for any pro-Woody/old guard throughout the athletic dept and get rid of them. They’re toxic.

Yea, though interestingly Ole Miss has pretty darn good NIL.

Too bad, I wanted to see this top-5 NIL roster with Kenya. That would at least give us a chance… but nope, more Woody.

If there are donors complaining now who supported keeping Woody after last season, it would be pretty sweet for Scott to say, "This is what you wanted. I wanted to make a change, but you wanted to keep him. Enjoy it."

He is a smart kid, into academics, family seems great. It’s harsh, but I’m surprised he came here. Most recruits like him sniff out our problems and go elsewhere. I suppose the short recruitment window didn’t help them and they just made a mistake. It what it is, just an interesting topic.

I need an update on the February action items! Is Mike Woodson even on the AD's radar? That picture of Scott behind the bench suggest he may be thinking about Woody. Where are we in the stakeholders' deliberate process?

Yea. If Kenya is the coach do we beat Maryland? Probably.

Yea. He’s got to fill the power void as Quinn steps back and get the trustees/donors to stop meddling. Tough ask. Pam needs to help with this too and get people off his back and provide cover.

It would be fun to have an interim coach that could maybe get a performance out of our $6M roster. This team can be better (duh!). If we stick with Woody we're toast. Interesting the donors that probably backed Woody after last season now want a change. Our donors are idiots, they need to stop meddling because they have no idea what they're doing. Just send the checks and shut up.

My $0.02: Buckner leaving his Chairman/Trustee role does matter. He can lurk, but he has no formal power, and that matters. His last recommendation failed, who wants to listen to him again? Does he even have another crony pal he would want to push really hard for? Once Woody is gone, I doubt he cares enough about another coach candidate to meddle again. Same donors are around, but they look stupid after ignoring Scott's plan to move on last year and instead backing Woody another year with more money. Lesson learned? Hopefully. Everyone saw what Scott and Pam did when left alone with FB. I've got pretty good intel Scott was on an island last year. This year, I don't have much unique insight beyond what we all read in the FMW thread, Doyel's article, etc. -- basically Woody is done and Scott has more power. We'll see. Even if Scott gets autonomy, he has to get this hire right. I'm more concerned about this. I think he can do it, but the whole program is riding on him getting it right. I defend Scott some in this thread because: who else do we have to make a bball coaching change? The trustees and donors are incompetent with respect to the bball program. This isn't Pam's area of expertise. No one else in the athletic dept has hired a coach before. If Scott were replaced, his replacement would be weaker than he is, Pam/trustees won't hire an AD that Day 1 turns around and bulldozes them. It continues to look like Scott is our best shot to get a good coach.

Keep vs fire. AP says no which is good.

Is there a donor tug of war? Woody’s pals vs ones that care about results?

I can’t know for sure. But IUBB has been a political shitstorm for 25 years, and it’s very hard to deal with. It sounded like Scott was one of the few who wanted a new coach last year. If he moved on Woody, there is a good chance he angers our two biggest donors, and that’s risky, they could easily pull back on NIL and donations, and that would have a serious negative impact on IU. I also heard Pam was not on board for a change yet, which doesn’t help, that’s his boss and he needs her for the candidate search. And then there is Quinn, worst Chairman imaginable. Scott seemed to be on an island and it’s hard to do much from there. The whole thing absolutely sucks. In the end, Scott seems to get it and I don’t see anyone else around who has a better chance to get this next hire right. And at this point, it is on Scott to take control and make a change and importantly, get the next hire right. Tough task.

Then you may as well give up. We're screwed.

Getting one "no" isn't a failure. We all just saw UK's coaching search. They went to Scott Drew, spent a few days with him, got a no. They went to Billy Donovan, got a no. They went to Dan Hurley, spent a few days with him, got a no. Then they went to Mark Pope, spent a few days, got a yes. What UK didn't do is freak out after Scott Drew was a no and say you failed Mitch we're hiring our pal from the NBA.