2026-27 Roster/Portal/how to fix the roster?

[CSP]

On 3/27/2026 at 8:20 PM, str8baller said:

Couldn’t disagree more. Beat NW at home and beat Iowa or Nebraska at home and you’re above .500. Maybe not likely but definitely not “the absolute ceiling” for a good coach. The roster wasn’t great but neither was the coaching. 

Weren't we underdogs to Iowa and Nebraska? 

NW at home, Minny on the road. 

Not beating a Sw16 team, not beating an E8 team isn't a very good barometer for our coaching. 

[Jeff Flabjohns]

18 minutes ago, CSP said:

Weren't we underdogs to Iowa and Nebraska? 

NW at home, Minny on the road. 

Not beating a Sw16 team, not beating an E8 team isn't a very good barometer for our coaching. 

Wrong. We were favored against both Iowa and Nebraska. 

Fair to think we were underdogs given how the games went and how far apart these teams looked by end of year. And that’s the point, isn’t it?

[CSP]

2 minutes ago, Jeff Flabjohns said:

Wrong. We were favored against both Iowa and Nebraska. 

Fair to think we were underdogs given how the games went and how far apart these teams looked by end of year. And that’s the point, isn’t it?

I have no idea of the point. 

[Jeff Flabjohns]

8 minutes ago, CSP said:

I have no idea of the point. 

That much is clear. 

We melted down both within games and to end the year. A fair portion of that has to fall at the feet of the staff.

Repeated home losses as favorites is a fair barometer of the coaching acumen. 

Our roster was athletically similar to Iowa, NW, and Nebraska and roughly equal in size. Those were four winnable games, none on the road. Favored in all 4. 

Iowa being an E8 team while we watched the tournament from home is an early indictment on the staff. Them going to an E8 doesn’t absolve the staff from blame from that @$$-kicking at home. 

[CSP]

1 minute ago, Jeff Flabjohns said:

That much is clear. 

We melted down both within games and to end the year. A fair portion of that has to fall at the feet of the staff.

Repeated home losses as favorites is a fair barometer of the coaching acumen. 

Our roster was athletically similar to Iowa, NW, and Nebraska and roughly equal in size. Those were four winnable games, none on the road.
Iowa being an E8 team while we watched the tournament from home is an early indictment on the staff. Them going to an E8 doesn’t absolve the staff from blame from that @$$-kicking at home. 

 

[Jeff Flabjohns]

2 minutes ago, CSP said:

 

Hey, if you want to live in a reality where we were actually underdogs in ALL conference games then you do you.

Amazing we were even on the bubble! 

[Uspshoosier]

33 minutes ago, Jeff Flabjohns said:

Amazing we were even on the bubble! 

As I tell the board every year the margin between teams 9-11 seed and the first 4 out isn’t the wide.   Iowa was a 9 seed after losing 7 or their last 9.  0 roads wins against tourney quality teams(IU was their best win from their 3-8 road record) and finished 10-10 in conference.  IU was first 4 out losing 5 of their last 6 had 1 road win against tourney quality team in their 3-8 road record and finished 9-11 in conference.   Flip the home game IU lost to them and IU is probably the 10 seed while Iowa is in the last 4 in or first 4 out.   However for most college basketball is on what you do in the ncaa tourney and Iowa is the good example of just find a way in to the tourney and you can make noise.   Before the tourney they were 0-6 against kenpom top 40 away from home.   Their first 3 tourney games resulted in top 40 kenpom wins 

[str8baller]

4 hours ago, Jeff Flabjohns said:

Wrong. We were favored against both Iowa and Nebraska. 

Fair to think we were underdogs given how the games went and how far apart these teams looked by end of year. And that’s the point, isn’t it?

Yea, we were favored in all those games and fairly handily in a few. Even at the end of the season we went off as a 8.5 pt favorite versus NW at home. After we blew that one, we still went into the last game on a neutral court as 6.5 pt favorites.  
 

In other words, nobody besides Devries mom and a few posters on this board thought we had less, or even equal, talent to teams like NW and Minny or even Iowa. And I had forgotten how big of a favorite we were versus Nebraska given their winning streak, but it’s not all that surprising since that’s the type of game decent teams often win at home. 

[Uspshoosier]

18 minutes ago, str8baller said:

And I had forgotten how big of a favorite we were versus Nebraska

-3.5 for both Iowa and Nebraska at home.    +4.5 against Purdue and @UCLA 

you win some you shouldn’t and lose some you should win.  

[str8baller]

23 minutes ago, Uspshoosier said:

-3.5 for both Iowa and Nebraska at home.    +4.5 against Purdue and @UCLA 

you win some you shouldn’t and lose some you should win.  

Foxsports had us at 4.5 when I looked it up.  Which means we likely would’ve been a neutral court slight favorite against an undefeated team. 
 

Either way, we lost too many we should’ve won and didn’t win enough of the ones we shouldn’t have. Thus, the reason we didn’t make the NCAA tourney. 

[Uspshoosier]

3 minutes ago, str8baller said:

Foxsports had us at 4.5 when I looked it up.  Which means we likely would’ve been a neutral court slight favorite against an undefeated team. 
 

Either way, we lost too many we should’ve won and didn’t win enough of the ones we shouldn’t have. Thus, the reason we didn’t make the NCAA tourney. 

https://bracketologists.com/team/indiana-hoosiers

[HoosierHoopster]

8 hours ago, Uspshoosier said:

As I tell the board every year the margin between teams 9-11 seed and the first 4 out isn’t the wide.   Iowa was a 9 seed after losing 7 or their last 9.  0 roads wins against tourney quality teams(IU was their best win from their 3-8 road record) and finished 10-10 in conference.  IU was first 4 out losing 5 of their last 6 had 1 road win against tourney quality team in their 3-8 road record and finished 9-11 in conference.   Flip the home game IU lost to them and IU is probably the 10 seed while Iowa is in the last 4 in or first 4 out.   However for most college basketball is on what you do in the ncaa tourney and Iowa is the good example of just find a way in to the tourney and you can make noise.   Before the tourney they were 0-6 against kenpom top 40 away from home.   Their first 3 tourney games resulted in top 40 kenpom wins 

It’s so funny to read posts lauding Iowa’s coach / staff while completely ignoring the season. 
our guys blew it down the stretch. Fair to put some of that on coaching, ridiculous to ignore all of Iowa’s coaching failures. 

[Kentuckysucks]

15 minutes ago, HoosierHoopster said:

It’s so funny to read posts lauding Iowa’s coach / staff while completely ignoring the season. 
our guys blew it down the stretch. Fair to put some of that on coaching, ridiculous to ignore all of Iowa’s coaching failures. 

Iowa's coach performed when it mattered.  Ours crapped the bed.

[Home Jersey]

8 minutes ago, HoosierHoopster said:

It’s so funny to read posts lauding Iowa’s coach / staff while completely ignoring the season. 
our guys blew it down the stretch. Fair to put some of that on coaching, ridiculous to ignore all of Iowa’s coaching failures. 

I mean, we all agree teams win some they shouldn't and lose some they shouldn't, right? On paper, it's hard to argue that the Iowa's staff did not significantly outperform Indiana's staff this year.

They also have only one player who was rated in the top 100 out of HS as far as I can find. The core of their elite 8 team came from D2, Wyoming, Robert Morris and some HS kids that McCollum identified and secured with far fewer resources than Indiana's.

The tournament is single elimination so it's fair to not weight it super heavily when assessing a season, but that doesn't mean you can't draw meaningful insight from it. Single elimination tournament amplifies the importance of coaching (see Dan Hurley vs Duke this past weekend).

McCollum is 4-2 in March Madness two years into being a D1 coach. Including knocking off #1 seed Florida, defending champions. DDV is 0-3 in 8 years as a D1 HC. Iowa also has much more straightforward roster construction than we do. Way more returners.

He had a much better year 1 than we did, it's okay to admit that. 

[HoosierHoopster]

Just now, Home Jersey said:

I mean, we all agree teams win some they shouldn't and lose some they shouldn't, right? On paper, it's hard to argue that the Iowa's staff did not significantly outperform Indiana's staff this year.

They also have only one player who was rated in the top 100 out of HS as far as I can find. The core of their elite 8 team came from D2, Wyoming, Robert Morris and some HS kids that McCollum identified and secured with far fewer resources than Indiana's.

The tournament is single elimination so it's fair to not weight it super heavily when assessing a season, but that doesn't mean you can't draw meaningful insight from it. Single elimination tournament amplifies the importance of coaching (see Dan Hurley vs Duke this past weekend).

McCollum is 4-2 in March Madness two years into being a D1 coach. Including knocking off #1 seed Florida, defending champions. DDV is 0-3 in 8 years as a D1 HC. Iowa also has much more straightforward roster construction than we do. Way more returners.

He had a much better year 1 than we did, it's okay to admit that. 

 

1 minute ago, Home Jersey said:

I mean, we all agree teams win some they shouldn't and lose some they shouldn't, right? On paper, it's hard to argue that the Iowa's staff did not significantly outperform Indiana's staff this year.

They also have only one player who was rated in the top 100 out of HS as far as I can find. The core of their elite 8 team came from D2, Wyoming, Robert Morris and some HS kids that McCollum identified and secured with far fewer resources than Indiana's.

The tournament is single elimination so it's fair to not weight it super heavily when assessing a season, but that doesn't mean you can't draw meaningful insight from it. Single elimination tournament amplifies the importance of coaching (see Dan Hurley vs Duke this past weekend).

McCollum is 4-2 in March Madness two years into being a D1 coach. Including knocking off #1 seed Florida, defending champions. DDV is 0-3 in 8 years as a D1 HC. Iowa also has much more straightforward roster construction than we do. Way more returners.

He had a much better year 1 than we did, it's okay to admit that. 

He had a better year bc he made the tourney. My post was to echo what USPS pointed out, all of which points are clear. McCollum was doing pretty bad by any fair non-biased account , failing in multiple games, but he / Iowa squeezed into the tourney and then got them to EE. Wonder what DeVries would’ve done if the team hadn’t fallen out of the tournament. We won’t know until next season - and yes, absolutely has to make the tourney next year.

[Mopladysman]

1 minute ago, HoosierHoopster said:

 

He had a better year bc he made the tourney. My post was to echo what USPS pointed out, all of which points are clear. McCollum was doing pretty bad by any fair non-biased account , failing in multiple games, but he / Iowa squeezed into the tourney and then got them to EE. Wonder what DeVries would’ve done if the team hadn’t fallen out of the tournament. We won’t know until next season - and yes, absolutely has to make the tourney next year.

We would’ve gotten smoked.

[HoosierHoopster]

A laugh emoji? Wow that’s pretty lame Hj

[HoosierHoopster]

Just now, Mopladysman said:

We would’ve gotten smoked.

 

Just now, Mopladysman said:

We would’ve gotten smoked.

The way they were playing end of season, probably, but no way to know. Iowa flat out sucked but then found a way

[str8baller]

2 minutes ago, HoosierHoopster said:

McCollum was doing pretty bad by any fair non-biased account , failing in multiple games,

If McCollum was doing bad what was Devries doing? 
 

9 seed isn’t great but it’s comfortably in the tourney. Iowa just had one of their best seasons in 25 years. I’m curious as to what your specific criticisms are?

[Home Jersey]

6 minutes ago, HoosierHoopster said:

 

He had a better year bc he made the tourney. My post was to echo what USPS pointed out, all of which points are clear. McCollum was doing pretty bad by any fair non-biased account , failing in multiple games, but he / Iowa squeezed into the tourney and then got them to EE. Wonder what DeVries would’ve done if the team hadn’t fallen out of the tournament. We won’t know until next season - and yes, absolutely has to make the tourney next year.

A 9 seed is squeezing into the tournament now? I thought that was the metric for "safely off the bubble" based on posts here. Maybe that's inaccurate.

But yes, he had a better season because he made the tournament... then he made the elite 8. Just saying, tough to point to many "coaching failures" by them this year... DDV will hopefully get his 4th chance to win a March Madness game. I am rooting for him and think it's totally doable. I don't think there's much of an argument that McCollum is not head and shoulders above him as it stands today in terms of coaching ability.