Candidate Thread: Thad Matta

[Hoosierfan2017]

2 minutes ago, Treesh said:

Dane Fife and Chris Beard would suffice for me.

You would be okay with Fife but not Matta, Scott Drew, or Musselman? Cmon Treesh. There’s no consistency in these takes. 

[Trish]

Just now, IU Scott said:

The one that keeps arguing against Matta

No one knows if a coach is going to turn out well. I don’t like the chances for Matta at IU given his absence of coaching and recruiting for 4 years. It’s a message board. You laugh, you share your personal thoughts, you do whatever. I am not making my case for knowing everything. I am sharing my opinion on Matta. If you don’t like it, the don’t quote me or move on. 

[Trish]

2 minutes ago, Hoosierfan2017 said:

You would be okay with Fife but not Matta, Scott Drew, or Musselman? Cmon Treesh. There’s no consistency in these takes. 

I like potential. Beard has potential. Fife could have potential and he has Indiana double check plus. 
 

Mussleman reminds me too much of Tom Crean. And honestly, Arkansas isn’t letting him leave. 
 

We all know why Scott Drew doesn’t have 5 pages of discussion. 
 

 

[Feathery]

32 minutes ago, Treesh said:

Building a staff comes from coaching circles and friends. It’s not an open invitation to anyone. I’m suggesting he may or may not have kept up with his coaching circles in his four years off. 

He is still connected in coaching. You don’t coach for as long as he has and lose everything in 4 years. He has relationships that go back to when you were in elementary school. Also IU brings its own cache of coaches who will want to be an assistant here. 

[Trish]

Just now, Feathery said:

He is still connected I. Coaching. You don’t coach for as long as he has and lose everything in 4 years. He has relationships that go back to when you were in elementary school. Also IU brings its own cache of coaches who will want to be an assistant here. 

Maybe he can build an Indiana staff. Maybe he wants his friends who may not have connections. I don’t know his circles. We don’t know his circles. We could assume he could bring Lewis or whoever but it’s all wishful thinking. 

[IUCrazy2]

8 minutes ago, Treesh said:

Some kids may know those names. Great players at OSU, no question. He was pretty good at OSU for a while. But that was a long time ago..

 

Conley and Russell are the names kids know, but they probably don’t care for them.  Not that it should matter but a coach saying. “I coached Anthony Edwards, Zion Williamson, Devin Booker” brings more value to a pitch IMO. 

We will have found a reason not to hire every person on these lists by the time this is over.

The perfect candidate does not exist.  You are not picking to the extreme here.

[Trish]

Just now, IUCrazy2 said:

We will have found a reason not to hire every person on these lists by the time this is over.

The perfect candidate does not exist.  You are not picking to the extreme here.

Without a doubt. The only hire that would unite the fan base was Brad Stevens. That doesn’t appear to be happening. 
 

You hire Matta there will be happy fans here and unhappy fans there. Goes for each candidate. Going to a final four will cure that. We’ve tasted the Sweet 16 several times and fans obviously want more at Indiana. 
 

Winning is nice, but get to the final four. 

[Hoosierfan2017]

4 minutes ago, Treesh said:

I like potential. Beard has potential. Fife could have potential and he has Indiana double check plus. 
 

Mussleman reminds me too much of Tom Crean. And honestly, Arkansas isn’t letting him leave. 
 

We all know why Scott Drew doesn’t have 5 pages of discussion. 
 

 

Why do you prefer potential over proven success? Matta has proven Big 10 success. He has 5 big ten conference championships in 13 seasons. You’re worried that he can’t replicate his success at IU because he hasn’t coached in four years, but you’re ok taking a chance on Fife because he has the potential to have success? He’s been a head coach at one school a decade ago, he won under 50% of his games there, and he hasn’t been a head coach since. Fife has the potential to succeed in the conference. Matta has already done it. 

[IU Scott]

I think some people would be upset if we hired Jesus

[Feathery]

Just now, Treesh said:

Maybe he can build an Indiana staff. Maybe he wants his friends who may not have connections. I don’t know his circles. We don’t know his circles. We could assume he could bring Lewis or whoever but it’s all wishful thinking. 

It’s not wishful thinking when Lewis has stated he hates seeing IU down. He played here and is from southern Indiana. It’s not wishful thinking to say there are capable assistants who will come. It’s just common sense and experience that tells me that relationships don’t go away when someone steps away. Do people change positions sure, but he will build a staff and get after it if he gets back in the game.

Just because you don’t know his circles doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a tree of coaches to get assistants from. You don’t think many of his former assistants wouldn’t give him good advice for some guys they know?

I actually think you are trolling so I’ll bet you $5,000 that if Matta takes a head coaching job he will have a staff of assistant coaches, want that bet? If not, stop with the trolling. 

[Feathery]

5 minutes ago, Treesh said:

Without a doubt. The only hire that would unite the fan base was Brad Stevens. That doesn’t appear to be happening. 
 

You hire Matta there will be happy fans here and unhappy fans there. Goes for each candidate. Going to a final four will cure that. We’ve tasted the Sweet 16 several times and fans obviously want more at Indiana. 
 

Winning is nice, but get to the final four. 

And Stevens isn’t a perfect hire. He wasn’t killing it at Butler when they switched to the A10. He also went to the CBI the year after the second championship game. So his final two years weren’t that good. Hmmm sounds like Matta but it was when you were younger than when Matta had his 1 bad year. 

[str8baller]

20 minutes ago, Treesh said:

He was good 10 years ago. This Indiana, we can’t get a coach who has been good within the calendar year?

You can get whatever you want if you’re willing to chase fads.  Chasing recency bias over proven success is what the IU administration has done for two decades and why we’re currently looking again.  
 

The coach du jour is often available but usually never the best option. 

[Trish]

Just now, Hoosierfan2017 said:

Why do you prefer potential over proven success? Matta has proven Big 10 success. He has 5 big ten conference championships in 13 seasons. You’re worried that he can’t replicate his success at IU because he hasn’t coached in four years, but you’re ok taking a chance on Fife because he has the potential to have success? He’s been a head coach at one school a decade ago, he won under 50% of his games there, and he hasn’t been a head coach since. Fife has the potential to succeed in the conference. Matta has already done it. 

Honestly we’d be in the phase which kills programs and organizations. Recycling head coaches.
 

A lot of schools do it, I’m not a fan of it clearly. I’m just worried if we keep recycling head coaches then we’re circling back to Tom Crean results. We don’t know what each coach can do until they do it. It’s clear that Sweet 16’s don’t cut it here and they shouldn’t. Matta has been there, yes. But again, it was years ago and he’s been out the game for a while. 
 

I don’t like his chances personally. I like Beards potential of taking Indiana to a final four. 

[spe317]

9 minutes ago, IU Scott said:

I think some people would be upset if we hired Jesus

The media never got a straight answer out of him. He was always full of parables. Not to mention his entourage that followed him everywhere. One of those guys was a complete sellout too. 
 

That’s a hard pass. 

[rcbowla]

Which one is ours?

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

Lol

Sent from my Pixel 3a XL using Tapatalk

[Trish]

9 minutes ago, Feathery said:

It’s not wishful thinking when Lewis has stated he hates seeing IU down. He played here and is from southern Indiana. It’s not wishful thinking to say there are capable assistants who will come. It’s just common sense and experience that tells me that relationships don’t go away when someone steps away. Do people change positions sure, but he will build a staff and get after it if he gets back in the game.

Just because you don’t know his circles doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a tree of coaches to get assistants from. You don’t think many of his former assistants wouldn’t give him good advice for some guys they know?

I actually think you are trolling so I’ll bet you $5,000 that if Matta takes a head coaching job he will have a staff of assistant coaches, want that bet? If not, stop with the trolling. 

It is wishful thinking because it's what you wish for. Maybe those guys come, you don't know and I don't know. You're wishing for it though and maybe it would be great for the program. We don't know. 

Every coach has a coaching tree, obviously. But no one here knows what Matta has been doing the last four years. Did he give up on coaching? No one knows. Maybe he deleted all his numbers and quit talking to everyone. We don't know. Assuming he didn't he would probably recruit his friends and they may not have Indiana connections. His friends may have better jobs or are current head coaches. We don't know.

I am not trolling. If you don't like what I say then ignore it. It's not hard LOL 

[Nonymouse]

1 hour ago, Hardwood83 said:

This narrative that IU fans are unusual or driving people away is silly. 

Just do the math. We have a program with great tradition (albeit quite dated at this point), unparalleled administrative and alumni support (i.e., willingness to shell out dollars for success), a top notch venue, a top notch conference, a superb recruiting base, and yet...

We can’t pull coaches from places like Arkansas or Texas Tech? (Let alone Virginia or Gonzaga or the Boston freaking Celtics..) And we’ve got an old NBA journeyman assistant on our short list? 

How else do you explain it? The culture of the program/fan base makes what would otherwise be a perfect job anything but. It’s toxic.

Dolson is trying to sell TM on the job - not the other way around. That tells you what you need to know. Landing TM is the very best possible result. 

[Trish]

4 minutes ago, Nonymouse said:

Just do the math. We have a program with great tradition (albeit quite dated at this point), unparalleled administrative and alumni support (i.e., willingness to shell out dollars for success), a top notch venue, a top notch conference, a superb recruiting base, and yet...

We can’t pull coaches from places like Arkansas or Texas Tech? (Let alone Virginia or Gonzaga or the Boston freaking Celtics..) And we’ve got an old NBA journeyman assistant on our short list? 

How else do you explain it? The culture of the program/fan base makes what would otherwise be a perfect job anything but. It’s toxic.

Dolson is trying to sell TM on the job - not the other way around. That tells you what you need to know. Landing TM is the very best possible result. 

To be fair ---  Arkansas loves their basketball. Plus it's Arkansas, they grow money for a living down there. If they want to keep Mussleman then they will pay him. 

And from the hard-work of others on this board, it appears that Beard and his family really love Texas. He's never lived this far north. I think it's outside factors that makes Beard not the next head coach. 

[Feathery]

10 minutes ago, Treesh said:

It is wishful thinking because it's what you wish for. Maybe those guys come, you don't know and I don't know. You're wishing for it though and maybe it would be great for the program. We don't know. 

Every coach has a coaching tree, obviously. But no one here knows what Matta has been doing the last four years. Did he give up on coaching? No one knows. Maybe he deleted all his numbers and quit talking to everyone. We don't know. Assuming he didn't he would probably recruit his friends and they may not have Indiana connections. His friends may have better jobs or are current head coaches. We don't know.

I am not trolling. If you don't like what I say then ignore it. It's not hard LOL 

Then take my bet. 
 

it’s your fearful thinking that thinks Matta and other candidates can be successful at IU. Or it’s your lack of experience. 

[Nonymouse]

6 minutes ago, Treesh said:

To be fair ---  Arkansas loves their basketball. Plus it's Arkansas, they grow money for a living down there. If they want to keep Mussleman then they will pay him. 

And from the hard-work of others on this board, it appears that Beard and his family really love Texas. He's never lived this far north. I think it's outside factors that makes Beard not the next head coach. 

In any event, those are just two examples. Insert any number of high major coaching options (Altman, Cronin, McDermott, etc). Reality is IU would rather have them than an old NBA assistant, were they available. And if you add up all the factors I referenced above, guys like that *should* be available, and they’re not. 

Edited March 22, 2021 by Nonymouse