IUBB at Kentucky - Saturday, 12.13.25 @ 7:30 on ESPN

[Kentuckysucks]

19 minutes ago, Hoosier987 said:

Honestly…probably right here. Bailey is simply outclassed. All we really needed was a rim protector and rebounder, both of which Bailey is not…and to date, he’s hardly an offensive threat playing legit high major teams. I’m a DeVries believer, but not getting a legit rim protector / big in the portal was and is a head scratcher. 

I'm willing to forgive this season.  DeVries proved he is a good coach at Drake and did as well as anyone could have with what he had at WVU.  He had to put together an entire roster in a month or so with no staff.  It was also the first time in his career he had ever had to do such a thing. But next season must be much much better.  No excuses or he likely doesn't survive.

[Stuhoo]

41 minutes ago, Hoosierfan2017 said:

Take IUBB’s NIL budget and bring Heismandoza back for another year (and save him from the Jets)? Very bueno. 

Sadly my friend, we can’t afford him.

Cam Ward got four years at about $12 million per.

[OliviaPope40]

4 minutes ago, Stuhoo said:

Sadly my friend, we can’t afford him.

Cam Ward got four years at about $12 million per.

[str8baller]

58 minutes ago, Home Jersey said:

It took Hurley four years to get UConn to 20 wins and in the fifth year he won a title. You can say that was pre-NIL and pre-portal or whatever and I will say what's that honestly matter?

And Cig got the lowly Hoosier football team to the playoffs in year 1 and a regular season #1 ranking and Heisman winner in year 2. Cig is not only bad for other college football coaches’ health but maybe some of his colleagues too.  
 

Between Cig and Dusty May, it’s going to be hard to convince this fan base it takes 4 years to build a winner. 

[Home Jersey]

Just now, str8baller said:

And Cig got the lowly Hoosier football team to the playoffs in year 1 and a regular season #1 ranking and Heisman winner in year 2. Cig is not only bad for other college football coaches’ health but maybe some of his colleagues too.  
 

Between Cig and Dusty May, it’s going to be hard to convince this fan base it takes 4 years to build a winner. 

Sure, but those guys are the outliers, not the rule IMO. We will see if DDV is worth his salt enough to get results on a normal timeline. I'd think since we had the benefit of hiring him relatively early in the carousel, he should've been on better footing to get the staff he wanted in place and that would've meant better positioning for the portal. We will see how he does in Y2. IMO we just have to be okay with a coach living and learning on the job, as long as he shows improvement year to year. 

[Golfman25]

1 hour ago, Kentuckysucks said:

I'm willing to forgive this season.  DeVries proved he is a good coach at Drake and did as well as anyone could have with what he had at WVU.  He had to put together an entire roster in a month or so with no staff.  It was also the first time in his career he had ever had to do such a thing. But next season must be much much better.  No excuses or he likely doesn't survive.

Unfortunately it doesn’t appear he’s coaching this team up right now.  He needs to start and adjust.  

[LIHoosier]

45 minutes ago, OliviaPope40 said:

Powerball is $1.1 Biiiiilllllion dollars on Monday. All the best.

[str8baller]

31 minutes ago, Home Jersey said:

Sure, but those guys are the outliers, not the rule IMO.

Outliers are what you want. All championship coaches are outliers to some extent. If winning were easy, everybody would do it :)  

Maybe Golden is the best example of someone who fell flat his first year and rebounded in the portal era. But even he had some key freshman on that first team. Maybe that’ll be Ristic and Sisley. 

[WayneFleekHoosier]

57 minutes ago, str8baller said:

Outliers are what you want. All championship coaches are outliers to some extent. If winning were easy, everybody would do it :)  

Maybe Golden is the best example of someone who fell flat his first year and rebounded in the portal era. But even he had some key freshman on that first team. Maybe that’ll be Ristic and Sisley. 

That’s the next research numbers to come out of the NIL era.  
 

The build vs instantly good vs you are what you are.  
 

I haven’t done a deep dig on this but I’d say we have about only 3 years of data since NIL exploded.  Golden is a good example of it.  Will he be able to maintain that top 25 type benchmark? 

[HoosierHoopster]

2 hours ago, str8baller said:

And Cig got the lowly Hoosier football team to the playoffs in year 1 and a regular season #1 ranking and Heisman winner in year 2. Cig is not only bad for other college football coaches’ health but maybe some of his colleagues too.  
 

Between Cig and Dusty May, it’s going to be hard to convince this fan base it takes 4 years to build a winner. 

Cig brought a whole bunch of his players with him. DeVries brought Tucker. We just came off a complete shellacking of PSU. We lost at Rupp. It’s going to be an up and down season but the team’s net etc is in pretty good shape and we have a ton of conf games coming for DeVries to get the team into March. It’s not going to be an overnight thing and any fan expecting it to be was in la la land.

[Stuhoo]

34 minutes ago, WayneFleekHoosier said:

That’s the next research numbers to come out of the NIL era.  
 

The build vs instantly good vs you are what you are.  
 

I haven’t done a deep dig on this but I’d say we have about only 3 years of data since NIL exploded.  Golden is a good example of it.  Will he be able to maintain that top 25 type benchmark? 

The prototype is to initially win beyond expectations, and leverage that plus solid financial support into better and better recruits.

[Class of '66 Old Fart]

Next week is finals week so next game not until next Saturday at 1:00 hosting Chicago State (1-9).

 

And a PSA for everyone.  There's a parody X account floating around from a Scott Hughes saying Tucker was hurt and out for the season.  ITS A FAKE PEOPLE.

[LIHoosier]

To parrot '66, that Hughes account is a complete parody/troll account. 

https://awfulannouncing.com/gambling/kalshi-polymarket-partnering-fake-sports-insiders-promote-prediction-betting.html

[Kentuckysucks]

56 minutes ago, HoosierHoopster said:

Cig brought a whole bunch of his players with him. DeVries brought Tucker. We just came off a complete shellacking of PSU. We lost at Rupp. It’s going to be an up and down season but the team’s net etc is in pretty good shape and we have a ton of conf games coming for DeVries to get the team into March. It’s not going to be an overnight thing and any fan expecting it to be was in la la land.

I think most people just wanted him to do what Kelsey, Pope, and Dusty did in their first season.  Somehow it's always very doable at other schools but at IU it's always a multi year rebuild.

[IUHoosierJoe]

6 minutes ago, Kentuckysucks said:

I think most people just wanted him to do what Kelsey, Pope, and Dusty did in their first season.  Somehow it's always very doable at other schools but at IU it's always a multi year rebuild.

I'm certainly not here to tell everyone how they should feel, but here are some facts that y'all might find interesting:

As of December 14, 2025, we are currently #26 in the NET rankings with a record of 8-3.  On December 14, 2024, Michigan, in Dusty May's first year, was #27 in the NET rankings with a record of 8-2, and Louisville, in Pat Kelsey's first year, was #58 in the NET rankings with a record of 6-5.

I don't have any statistics on what percentage of those two fan bases thought their respective seasons were over. 

[Shooter]

4 hours ago, Old Friend said:

A wretched game....however I have but one main takeaway :

Scott Dolson cannot tolerate a lack of effort from this team or this coach; or be patient with him because of it.

I watched Connor Enright (who I cannot stand as a basketball player) actually get out of the way when he had an opportunity to take a charge.  I have watched Tucker make lazy play after lazy play, going half speed.  I watch garbage shot selection.  I watch an entire team fail to block out and give up offensive rebound after offensive rebound.  I see lazy passes.  I see no significant movement on offense.  I see no connectivity.  I see no leadership.  I see a consistent tolerance for mistakes and turnovers.  And I see a roster with no chance to compete in the Big Ten unless they make 12+ three point shots every night.   

Any team can move.  Any team can give effort.  Win or lose, I expect effort.  I expect to play hard.  I expect to NOT look like an intramural team firing up the first open 28 foot shot they find.   (I am very sure this will be unpopular to some and I couldn't care less)  If this is Darian DeVries' "look?"  His leash should be VERY short.  This has been several games in a row, now.  The brand of basketball against Penn State was awful.   Shots went it that night.  That was the only difference.  A quick, bad shot is a quick bad shot, even if it goes in.

Indiana was up 58-26 at halftime vs Penn State. If you think that brand of basketball was awful, you just don't enjoy modern basketball. Which is fine, your choice. There are probably some videos of 1970s basketball on YouTube that would be more your speed.

[TheWatShot]

20 minutes ago, IUHoosierJoe said:

I'm certainly not here to tell everyone how they should feel, but here are some facts that y'all might find interesting:

As of December 14, 2025, we are currently #26 in the NET rankings with a record of 8-3.  On December 14, 2024, Michigan, in Dusty May's first year, was #27 in the NET rankings with a record of 8-2, and Louisville, in Pat Kelsey's first year, was #58 in the NET rankings with a record of 6-5.

I don't have any statistics on what percentage of those two fan bases thought their respective seasons were over. 

Not disagreeing with any of this. But I'd like to point out that Dusty May won both of his "early" conference games, one of which was an unexpected win at Wisconsin (where we haven't won this century). Our new guy's first road game, we got punked by a bottom-feeder who also had a first-year coach. 

 

A good way for a coach to calm the masses is to over-perform, or at the very least, not under-perform. DeVries doesn't appear to be doing either. 

[str8baller]

14 minutes ago, IUHoosierJoe said:

As of December 14, 2025, we are currently #26 in the NET rankings with a record of 8-3.  On December 14, 2024, Michigan, in Dusty May's first year, was #27 in the NET rankings with a record of 8-2, and Louisville, in Pat Kelsey's first year, was #58 in the NET rankings with a record of 6-5.

NET isn’t a predictor model, although since the selection committee uses it is nice to be high there. 

And we’re there mostly on the strength of our efficiency metrics. I.e. we’re beating the snot out of lesser teams. It’s not nothing; we complained, rightly so, that Woodys teams couldn’t do that. But as I mentioned way back, something is wrong in that it isn’t translating over against better opponents and almost in exactly the same way each time. And if you look at a predictor/efficiency model like Kenpoms you can see that in his “luck” rating where we are 302. Essentially what that says is “this system really likes IU statistically but this system isn’t very good at predicting wins for them.”  
 

As for UM and Lville if you look at their schedules you’ll understand those records. Anyways it’s academic because we know how they finished. Lville wasn’t great but they were squarely off the bubble and in the tournament. You won’t see too many complaints here if that’s where we end up. 

 

[IUHoosierJoe]

3 minutes ago, str8baller said:

NET isn’t a predictor model, although since the selection committee uses it is nice to be high there. 

And we’re there mostly on the strength of our efficiency metrics. I.e. we’re beating the snot out of lesser teams. It’s not nothing; we complained, rightly so, that Woodys teams couldn’t do that. But as I mentioned way back, something is wrong in that it isn’t translating over against better opponents and almost in exactly the same way each time. And if you look at a predictor/efficiency model like Kenpoms you can see that in his “luck” rating where we are 302. Essentially what that says is “this system really likes IU statistically but this system isn’t very good at predicting wins for them.”  
 

As for UM and Lville if you look at their schedules you’ll understand those records. Anyways it’s academic because we know how they finished. Lville wasn’t great but they were squarely off the bubble and in the tournament. You won’t see too many complaints here if that’s where we end up. 

 

Just FYI, the NET is mostly a predictive model. There is a small percentage of result-based metric in it, but it is probably 90% predictive. It will closely match KenPom, especially as KenPom gets rid of its pre-season data. 

[str8baller]

1 hour ago, HoosierHoopster said:

Cig brought a whole bunch of his players with him. DeVries brought Tucker.

There’s 22 starters in football and 5 in basketball. Devries brought 20% of his starters over, a number probably close to Cig. Where Cig has made his bones is identifying talent in the portal especially at the one position that really matters. He can coach ‘em up and so can his assistants.   
 

It’s probably just better not to compare them for a variety of reasons, not the least of which a whole bunch of college football coaches across the country are getting axed via that comparison. He’s in a league of his own right now.