JustWinBaby

We're turning into HooAnon at this point with the conspiracies lmao I'm fully willing to believe that the athletic department sent a gag order regarding Brad Stevens. No way they told anyone to go to a message board to tell them to stop talking about Brad lol

We are well past the statute of limitations on that bud, let ‘em fly!

Odds are one (or both) of those coaches will be fired within the next 5-10 years. Not because they’ll fail or that they’re bad coaches. But the expectations are those programs (especially Kentucky) is to be perennial conference and national title contenders. One of the advantages also of being a first-year head coach, with a revamped roster and updated system to match the new personnel, is that there’s not much tape out on you yet. It’s one of the reasons Indiana football was so successful this season (among many other reasons). My point simply being, those hires are still too early to call successful. And personally I’m more inclined to call the Kelsey hire successful, as Kentucky is currently 18-9 (7-7) and on a downward trend. If that was Calipari, fans would be irate, but since it’s Pope they’re still in the honeymoon phase. I don’t see much point getting caught up in comparisons anyways. Those two coaches are very different from the guys we’re (supposedly) pursuing right now, and IU is a much different program than those two.

I've thought about this, and to be honest I just keep coming back to the fact that Brad Stevens is an exceptional coach, still has loads of connections throughout the country (and especially Indiana), has the respect and admiration of HS and AAU coaches everywhere, and will have no trouble assembling a high-caliber staff and pursuing top talent. There's simply no reason he would fail here. Sure, some might have unreasonable expectations. But I think if Stevens has us top-4 in the conference regularly and rarely misses the tourney and makes a reasonably deep run every few years, most folks will be very happy with that. IMO that's about the best you can expect from any potential candidate.

We all tried to talk ourselves into that hire as best we could despite it making no sense on the surface. He was a semi-successful NBA coach, and that's a significant step up from college coaching -- so people hoped that it would translate. Thad Matta was being brought in to help direct the program, so people were hopeful that meant that Woodson's lack of college experience, especially with recruiting, would be negated by a highly successful former college coach. He was a Bob Knight protegé, and people were hopeful that he could bottle that up and find some success via his legacy. There were legitimate reasons to think that he could have worked out here. The issue is that ultimately there were character deficits and a lack of work ethic that prevented him from achieving what is possible here. His coaching performances against Purdue are proof that he can execute an excellent gameplan and get his guys to buy in. He just never could do it consistently. That requires a level of effort, energy, and focus 365 days a year that he just did not have to give to the program.

Based on what I've seen elsewhere, including Peegs and Trilly discord, there really does not seem to be any information about the search coming from the agent side of things. Literally the only info we're getting is from people connected to donors. Which makes sense -- these are people not professionally tied to the situation, but have a personal and financial investment in it. So of course Dolson is communicating with them to some degree about what he is up to. And of course that's the only place from which any info seems to be coming. Everything else at this point seems to be pure speculation. To reiterate, I'm not an insider and I don't know diddly squat. But after years perusing various boards with "insider" sources, I've learned to read the tea leaves a bit. If I were a betting man, I'd be putting money on Brad Stevens right now. That's just where my gut is.

I suppose you could argue that Stevens "officially" ruled himself out as a candidate. And even then we are disinclined to believe it haha I think folks (including myself) will be pining for Stevens up until the news drops that we are officially in talks with or have signed someone else.

man we are a strange bunch

I was making a joke about your sources on Isaac's activity but thanks for the actual insight haha

What do your sources say about it?

That post to me felt like a joke, almost a tongue in cheek reaction to everyone calling him a troll. My best guess is that he was reading all the insider posts here and started creating his own fanfic in his head. Then when folks called him out he jumped off the deep end, never to be seen again. lol

My thoughts exactly. It’s the only way to make sense of the Dusty situation. There’s zero chance IU doesn’t go after Dusty unless they’ve got someone above him on the priority list already lined up. Michigan is under no obligation to do anything to help IU keep its coaching search under wraps. So of course they make the safe (smart) move and extended Dusty just to make sure he doesn’t go anywhere. But the details of his extension reveal that Indiana was never really pursuing him. No way serious IU interest leads to a meager $1m salary bump and $2.5m buyout increase. The only logical way to explain why Indiana did not express serious interest in May is that we’ve already locked in on someone else who was higher on the tier list. And the only person who fits that bill is Brad Stevens. I fully accept that I’m not an insider and I’m grasping at straws here, but just reading the tea leaves and knowing what we know about Dolson and how seriously he’s approaching this situation, and the confidence coming from our donors – this all lends further credence to the likelihood that we’ve already made a home run hire and we’re just waiting for the announcement at the end of the season (which may actually take a while since there seems to be a real chance Indiana goes dancing).

I’ve not been here long but in my short time @Uspshoosier is one of the chillest dudes here so if you’ve got him memeing you, you’ve probably done something to annoy folks.

This is my personal head canon and I cannot be persuaded otherwise. lmao

Not to put the cart before the horse or anything but I bet IF (and that's a big if) Brad Stevens is the hire, we got a shot at flipping Mullins. Dude really wanted to be a Hoosier and from all reports Woodson just failed to recruit him. Barely tried. Didn't show up to hardly any of his games, didn't return his coach's phone calls. Straight up didn't do his job.

Kentucky is a fishbowl. Pope is having no problems handling it. It's a weird (and bad) excuse for mediocre coaches to fall back on when they don't succeed here. The right coach will embrace it. Aside from his recruiting issues, Tom Crean is probably the only coach since Bob Knight to properly handle the fish bowl here. In my opinion he did an incredible job with fan engagement during his time with the program, especially the first three years when we were @$$. He failed here for other reasons.

I've been on Peegs a while and joined here recently as well. The discussion here definitely has a different tone, which is nice.

Pitino and Beard are friends. Doesn't mean anything beyond that. Dick Vitale tweeted that IU should hire Tony Bennett. There's no indication that there's any interest in making that happen from either side.

I'm sure we'll hire a good coach. But being able to hire a good coach and being able to hire THE coach that you want is not the same thing. I've not given up hope. I'm just saying that some of the coaches that we think are within reach are in fact completely uninterested in coming here.

I texted a friend of mine who knows some folks at UM athletics when this news broke. He said Dusty was never even planning on entertaining an offer from IU. I think perhaps the most damaging think that IU did by keeping Woodson for a meaningless 4th year was scare away talented coaches. People see the dumpster fire that is the IU administration and want nothing to do with it. And frankly I can't blame them.

More like Chris Beer'd, amirite chat

Self is an elite coach but with his age and health concerns I don't know. That said the dude wins at an elite level. I don't hate the idea. But I seriously doubt he's someone that's on Dolson's radar at the moment. Seems like Scott has things narrowed down right now and won't deviate unless something significant changes.

The Crean years were marked by high peaks and really low valleys. 2008-2011 can't fairly be blamed on him entirely, but 2011-13 and 2015-16 were great while every other season was a disaster. The inconsistency on the court was a symptom of the recruiting failures that began to plague the program after 2013. Crean burned a lot of bridges in Indiana at the HS level and AAU circuit. Coaches didn't want to send their players to IU while he was there. If he had been able to maintain those relationships and keep Kentucky, Michigan State, etc., from coming into town and taking our best players every year, things might've ended differently (or never ended at all). Crean's a good guy. And I think at this stage of life he's had more time for self-reflection and personal growth, and I think he's in a healthy spot. He definitely took his firing hard and never really recovered while coaching. It made me happy to see him call a game with John Fanta the other day, and I hope they team up to call many more. That was fun. But none of that makes me want him back as the coach. Thanks for linking the vid, definitely gonna watch that back. That was such an incredible game.

I think all the likes on his posts got to his head and he got too far ahead of his skis. Frankly if it's true that there is/was a deal in place with Stevens but they needed to turn the heat down, it makes total sense to release that statement to Goodman. I'm not holding out hope. I believe it's gonna be Dusty and I will be very, very thrilled if/when that happens. However I'm willing to entertain the possibility we're getting Stevens. I just don't want to be fooled again.

I don't think an extension at Michigan would make much difference. Even with an increased buyout. Unless it's an astronomical number, if May is ho Dolson zeroes in on that's who we'll get.