Puerto Rico Trip 8/5 - 8/12

[jermhoosierfan]

10 minutes ago, OGIUAndy said:

People complained about his recruiting tactics for sure.

I didn't have a problem with Crean outside of his defense schemes and his in-game coaching wasn't exactly the best, but he was wearing thin with a lot of people.  Compared to who they got to replace him, the administration probably should've stayed with him for another year or so.  With that said, when there are a couple of top recruits in the state, you have to at least go after them or appear to go after them. Romeo not looking at IU probably didn't help his cause although Romeo would've probably done great in his system.

[OGIUAndy]

1 hour ago, jermhoosierfan said:

I didn't have a problem with Crean outside of his defense schemes and his in-game coaching wasn't exactly the best, but he was wearing thin with a lot of people.  Compared to who they got to replace him, the administration probably should've stayed with him for another year or so.  With that said, when there are a couple of top recruits in the state, you have to at least go after them or appear to go after them. Romeo not looking at IU probably didn't help his cause although Romeo would've probably done great in his system.

I don't disagree with this at all. There were many reasons why he got fired, including some in state recruiting gaffes, but DD doesn't seem like he's going to myopically focus on Indiana. That doesn't mean he shouldn't be finding and offering guys that both Archie and Woody didn't or wouldn't recruit, it also doesn't mean it won't be his main focus (which it should be), but he seems more inclined to find guys from anywhere and everywhere. 

[jermhoosierfan]

4 hours ago, OGIUAndy said:

I don't disagree with this at all. There were many reasons why he got fired, including some in state recruiting gaffes, but DD doesn't seem like he's going to myopically focus on Indiana. That doesn't mean he shouldn't be finding and offering guys that both Archie and Woody didn't or wouldn't recruit, it also doesn't mean it won't be his main focus (which it should be), but he seems more inclined to find guys from anywhere and everywhere. 

Which is big boy basketball recruiting, getting players that fit your system where you can find them.  Sisley looks to fit what he does perfectly, and he happens to be down the road from me in Santa Claus.  If CDD can just try to get the home grown guys, he will be fine as long as he wins.  There were people that wanted Crean out for a while, and they gave him the boot at the first chance they got.  Anyway, I am so ready to start the season, but I don't want the cold weather that goes along with it.

[68Hoosier]

3 hours ago, jermhoosierfan said:

Which is big boy basketball recruiting, getting players that fit your system where you can find them.  Sisley looks to fit what he does perfectly, and he happens to be down the road from me in Santa Claus.  If CDD can just try to get the home grown guys, he will be fine as long as he wins.  There were people that wanted Crean out for a while, and they gave him the boot at the first chance they got.  Anyway, I am so ready to start the season, but I don't want to the cold weather that goes along with it.

I'm with you on the cold weather thing.  I hate it, LOL

[str8baller]

16 hours ago, HoosierHoopster said:

I don’t take much out of exhibition games as to stats plus or minus, but schemes and style show.

Maybe if you were there. Wasn’t televised so almost nobody saw it. 

[HoosierHoopster]

3 hours ago, str8baller said:

Maybe if you were there. Wasn’t televised so almost nobody saw it. 

There was video including what i posted along with reporting of the ganes, also posted. You’re getting a little heavy into the disbelief 

[HoosierDevils]

On 8/13/2025 at 9:44 AM, OGIUAndy said:

People complained about his recruiting tactics for sure.

Curry Hicks Sage’s Burning Sage podcast had a two hour interview with Crean. He was pretty open about his side. He also said he was not told how bad the situation was when he signed the contract and that had he known everything he’s not sure he would’ve done it. He talked about the 30 failed drug tests and 18 failing grades. But he said the IU fan base was and is incredible and kept him in it. He also suggested that the Syracuse NCAAT game left some insiders looking for ways to get him out. He feels he lost administrative support pretty quickly and most obviously when after winning the Big 10 outright in 2016–second time in four years—and IU was not willing to engage in contract extension discussions. He said he should’ve started looking for other jobs and it was clear his time at IU was up but he felt attached to the OG and TB team. It was a fascinating chat and pretty clear how Crean sees his time went down. Obviously it’s his perspective and I’m sure many on the board have countering opinions or rumors.

Edited August 14, 2025 by HoosierDevils

[str8baller]

11 hours ago, HoosierHoopster said:

There was video including what i posted along with reporting of the ganes, also posted. You’re getting a little heavy into the disbelief 

lol..what?  What do you suppose I’m not believing? I simply posted how the 3 game statistical profile would have stacked up for fun. 
 

I have no idea how you would judge schemes and style without having watched them. I thought maybe you went. A couple mins of highlights aren’t going to tell you much more than the box scores in that regard. 

[str8baller]

9 hours ago, HoosierDevils said:

He also said he was not told how bad the situation was when he signed the contract and that had he known everything he’s not sure he would’ve done it. He talked about the 30 failed drug tests and 18 failing grades.

Seems hard to believe. 90% of it was public knowledge. The rest would’ve been known from simple due diligence on his end. All he had to do was ask about Crawford and Bassett. Because once he couldn’t keep that backcourt together it was a complete rebuild anyways. 

[Pagoda]

10 hours ago, HoosierDevils said:

Curry Sage Hicks podcast had a two hour interview with Crean. He was pretty open about his side. He also said he was not told how bad the situation was when he signed the contract and that had he known everything he’s not sure he would’ve done it. He talked about the 30 failed drug tests and 18 failing grades. But he said the IU fan base was and is incredible and kept him in it. He also suggested that the Syracuse NCAAT game left some insiders looking for ways to get him out. He feels he lost administrative support pretty quickly and most obviously when after winning the Big 10 outright in 2016–second time in four years—and IU was not willing to engage in contract extension discussions, he should’ve started looking for other jobs and it was clear his time at IU was up but he felt attached to the OG and TB team. It was a fascinating chat and pretty clear how Crean sees his time went down. Obviously it’s his perspective and I’m sure many on the board have countering opinions or rumors.

Thanks.  There has been so much drama with MBB over the years that the behind the scenes viewpoints are very interesting I've got to say.  

The above bolded lines sure sound like old IU -- an organizational disaster with political infighting that isn't aligned and produces crap results.  Fortunately, it appears our AD is now in control with outside influences (who are almost never helpful) much more minimized.  Plus he has the President's support, and very likely the BoT as well.  We saw this with the last MBB coach search where basically only Scott knew who he was going to hire, along with the significant and unprecedented investment in football.  IU athletics is looking functional for the first time in decades -- thank goodness. 

And yes, we do have to hope Scott got the hire right, but the key takeaway is he made the decision.  So if things go wrong, we know who is to blame and who may need to be changed out.  Though to be clear, I think Scott is doing a good to very good job.

I'm also really hoping we don't have a MBB or FB coaching search for 10+ years.  I've had enough of those for a lifetime already.

[Demo]

11 hours ago, HoosierDevils said:

Curry Sage Hicks podcast had a two hour interview with Crean. He was pretty open about his side. He also said he was not told how bad the situation was when he signed the contract and that had he known everything he’s not sure he would’ve done it. He talked about the 30 failed drug tests and 18 failing grades. But he said the IU fan base was and is incredible and kept him in it. He also suggested that the Syracuse NCAAT game left some insiders looking for ways to get him out. He feels he lost administrative support pretty quickly and most obviously when after winning the Big 10 outright in 2016–second time in four years—and IU was not willing to engage in contract extension discussions, he should’ve started looking for other jobs and it was clear his time at IU was up but he felt attached to the OG and TB team. It was a fascinating chat and pretty clear how Crean sees his time went down. Obviously it’s his perspective and I’m sure many on the board have countering opinions or rumors.

I’ve heard Crean say the “it was worse than I thought” stuff more than once and if you remember back there were times in real time both on and off court when he had this “what the hell am I doing” look, so I’m sure he genuinely believes it. But I doubt that’s really true. I just think if you were one of those guys with the ego and ambition to really want one of the heritage jobs, and Crean was definitely that guy, IU was probably the only 1 of those gigs that looked like it was gonna come open any time soon. So I imagine he let the opportunity cloud the situation in a way he probably wouldn’t have if it was, ya know, say, the Wisconsin job. 

[Stuhoo]

1 minute ago, Demo said:

I’ve heard Crean say the “it was worse than I thought” stuff more than once and if you remember back there were times in real time both on and off court when he had this “what the hell am I doing” look, so I’m sure he genuinely believes it. But I doubt that’s really true. I just think if you were one of those guys with the ego and ambition to really want one of the heritage jobs, and Crean was definitely that guy, IU was probably the only 1 of those gigs that looked like it was gonna come open any time soon. So I imagine he let the opportunity cloud the situation in a way he probably wouldn’t have if it was, ya know, say, the Wisconsin job. 

CTC?

• Really good guy to his very core
• Extremely hard worker
• Loves people with all of his heart
• 'Quirky' personality
• Strong mind for college basketball offense

But?

• Just a bit dramatic; both with irrational exuberance and at times with melodrama.

[iu eyedoc]

Back to what little can be parsed out from these exhibition games through twitter posts and 10 second clips.

My biggest and maybe only takeaway is that mid-game/halftime adjustments just became legal again in Bloomington.

[HoosierHoopster]

2 hours ago, str8baller said:

lol..what?  What do you suppose I’m not believing? I simply posted how the 3 game statistical profile would have stacked up for fun. 
 

I have no idea how you would judge schemes and style without having watched them. I thought maybe you went. A couple mins of highlights aren’t going to tell you much more than the box scores in that regard. 

Why do you ignore the writeups, from the people who “went?” Lol what’s the problem with their accounts of the team’s pace, and the volume of threes, and the spreading of number of shots between the players in 3 games tells you nothing?? Come on man, of course you can start to get a feel for the style of DeVries’ offense it’s not rocket science

[str8baller]

4 hours ago, HoosierHoopster said:

Lol what’s the problem with their accounts of the team’s pace, and the volume of threes, and the spreading of number of shots between the players in 3 games tells you nothing??

All of that is in the box score posted— Pace, 3s, and Shot distribution are all quantifiable stats.  

[bigrod]

16 hours ago, HoosierDevils said:

Curry Hicks Sage’s Burning Sage podcast had a two hour interview with Crean. He was pretty open about his side. He also said he was not told how bad the situation was when he signed the contract and that had he known everything he’s not sure he would’ve done it. He talked about the 30 failed drug tests and 18 failing grades. But he said the IU fan base was and is incredible and kept him in it. He also suggested that the Syracuse NCAAT game left some insiders looking for ways to get him out. He feels he lost administrative support pretty quickly and most obviously when after winning the Big 10 outright in 2016–second time in four years—and IU was not willing to engage in contract extension discussions. He said he should’ve started looking for other jobs and it was clear his time at IU was up but he felt attached to the OG and TB team. It was a fascinating chat and pretty clear how Crean sees his time went down. Obviously it’s his perspective and I’m sure many on the board have countering opinions or rumors.

Did he say what happened at Georgia?

[HoosierHoopster]

1 hour ago, str8baller said:

All of that is in the box score posted— Pace, 3s, and Shot distribution are all quantifiable stats.  

Yes agree, maybe we're just talking past each other. The style of play that DeVries is running -- and which the players and he talked about pre-Puerto Rico -- was reflected in the writeups, in the limited clips we did get to see ourselves, and in the box score -- high volume 3-point shooting, spread between several players with ball movement, and a fairly fast pace. I take very little from individual stats / player stats, and total points scored, or rebounding, I'm just talking about the system / style of play, and that's pretty clear imo.

[Stuhoo]

Mega Superbet Head Coach Coach Vule Avdalović bellies up to a Golden Corral-sized buffet of excuses with his post-game quotes:

"We played better in the second game than in the first. Once again, we had the lead, but this time we were ahead for almost 40 minutes—up until Indiana’s final basket. I believe the outcome came down to the short preparation period. We only had ten days to prepare for games against a more experienced team, and that showed on the court. We played well while we had the energy, but once that faded, the tempo dropped—and the more experienced team took advantage. We did lose both games, but we left a much better impression in the second one than in the first. Now we’ll take a short break and then continue our preparations for the competitive season. I think this phase of preparations was successful—we avoided major injuries, which was our top priority. These games will be very useful for analysis, and we’ll know what to work on throughout the season." 

[Class of '66 Old Fart]

"...more experienced team...."    LMFAO

[Stuhoo]

12 minutes ago, Class of '66 Old Fart said:

"...more experienced team...."    LMFAO

The age ranges of the two teams was pretty much an exact match.

We have a completely new roster - they have many new players but more than a few returnees. 

Our guys played with more edge when adversity hit, and it always does.