IU’s basketball culture is dead (and the case for why our next coach should be given 6+ seasons)

[AH1971]

6 minutes ago, BluegrassHoosier859 said:

If you throw out his first 3 years he was still barely above .500 in the conference. If youre going to be a coach that operates only in Highs and Lows the highs have to be higher than S16 appearances.

Winning B10 titles aren’t enough?

[Home Jersey]

6 minutes ago, AH1971 said:

What does hiring a capable coach look like? Was Hurley a capable coach after completing his 4th year without a single tournament win and two early exits as a higher seed? Would Hurley have seen a 5th season at IU? Maybe? Bet you though that all the ballknowers around here would have deemed him incapable though after two years. Just a guess.

Oh, the diehard fans on our message board would absolutely have Hurley on the hot seat in the same scenario. I just don't think they'd have any influence on whether he stays or goes.

Would Hurley have seen a 5th season at IU? IMO, with almost absolute certainty, yes. His first four years at UConn were almost the exact inverse 4 years of Woody at IU.

Both went 2/4 on making the tournament and neither made it past the first weekend. Difference is, Woody made the first two and Hurley made the last two.

While they hadn't accomplished the desired success with Hurley yet, his program was making obvious progress and had momentum. Woody's program was regressing and had no wind in the sails, so it was getting downright ugly IRL, not just message boards. Momentum is so important. You can build it quicker in this era of CBB. 

Was Hurley capable after year 4? It wasn't beyond a reasonable doubt yet, but there was a preponderance of evidence to support the claim. He earned the right for more time and UConn was repaid handsomely immediately with back to back titles.

What does hiring a capable coach look like? I don't care for platitudes like "refuse to lose" "not just the will to win but the will to prepare to win." There are different flavors of capable coaches and everyone will have a preference.

To me, at the P5 level, this is roughly the profile of a capable coaching hire:

- Been a HC for at least 12 years with an identity for how they play and proven playbook for establishing their culture 

- W/L record improves YoY for the most part at each stop / is sustained at a high %

- Strong network in the coaching fraternity particularly regionally

- Assess the efficiency metrics for their offense and defense from the most recent few seasons

- In this era, ideally they come in with a full staff and a few players.

[Golfman25]

23 minutes ago, AH1971 said:

I disagree. Throw out the first 3 years of a total rebuild and Crean’s tenure was pretty damn impressive once he got his feet under him. 

Tom Crean's Mom enters the chat.  : / 

[HoosierHoopster]

1 hour ago, JSHoosier said:

Letting Crean go was the right call at the time, even if I still contend it was too late. We couldn't have predicted just how fugly the next two hires would be.

Completely fair. But it wasn't just inability to predict how 'fugly' the CAM and Woodson hires would be, it was the lack of an adequate plan and pre-firing coach search before he was fired. 

[WayneFleekHoosier]

This relentless attack that the fanbase is the problem is so delusional.  
 

And that Indiana despite its history, resources, NIL, and everything else being top 10 or top 20 at worst is just an average high major job and its expectations are out of line with reality and that the fanbase deserves “what it gets” is the most maddening narrative existing to me. 

[AH1971]

36 minutes ago, WayneFleekHoosier said:

This relentless attack that the fanbase is the problem is so delusional.  
 

And that Indiana despite its history, resources, NIL, and everything else being top 10 or top 20 at worst is just an average high major job and its expectations are out of line with reality and that the fanbase deserves “what it gets” is the most maddening narrative existing to me. 

Most people can’t handle truth, especially when it’s not something they want to hear. I get it.

[Jeff Flabjohns]

14 minutes ago, AH1971 said:

Most people can’t handle truth, especially when it’s not something they want to hear. I get it.

 

As smug as they come. Thankfully your truth is yet again far from actual reality

[AH1971]

30 minutes ago, Jeff Flabjohns said:

 

As smug as they come. Thankfully your truth is yet again far from actual reality

As the rest of the college basketball world points and laughs, at least we have ourselves.

[WayneFleekHoosier]

46 minutes ago, AH1971 said:

Most people can’t handle truth, especially when it’s not something they want to hear. I get it.

Anyone connected to a failing program plays the blame game externally.  Internalizing the blame and admitting as a group “you” aren’t good enough is hard and painful to swallow.  
 

Love and Hate are ying and yang.  
 

I don’t blame any one group. It’s been the administration for years.  It’s starts there. Coaches  have had difficult jobs, especially before NIL when Indiana wouldn’t cheat on the level that the blue bloods and others would.  
 

The players in many cases get the brunt of the failing above them.  But it’s a group effort.  It’s top down. I think generally the players start off trying their best.  I’m certain many players turnout to dislike the online fanbase. I don’t blame them.  But the online fanbase is just one small factor.  
 

Winning turns that immediately. Or listen to Painters speech about it when the online fanbase turned on this years team. That’s how you handle that.  You be a man, you are intelligent, and you tell the team and players what is what.  Searching out small corners of the fanbase online to tell you what the results of losing all the time already tells you is a sign of an insecure team and coach. 
 

We need a coach that basks in reality and can keep a team together and on the right page. Winning does that automatically. Losing, as always makes it harder.  Truth is the truth. 

Edited 12 hours ago by WayneFleekHoosier

[Home Jersey]

I think a program that spends like ours should, in a decade, bare minimum expect to make the tournament more often than not with at least a couple teams that make the second weekend. We can all agree on that, right? 

That's putting aside all of IU basketball's history, no FF/title expectation, no demand for star recruits or the best players from Indiana, etc.

If we can't agree on that, well okay, but I guess I'd sorta wonder how any fan could enjoy watching a program that had the last 10 years we did. And how anyone could think the way it would've been better was to extend Tom Crean (47-75 [.385], 15-57 [.208] SEC with Anthony Edwards) or Archie or Woody, lol

[AH1971]

9 minutes ago, Home Jersey said:

I think a program that spends like ours should, in a decade, bare minimum expect to make the tournament more often than not with at least a couple teams that make the second weekend. We can all agree on that, right? 

That's putting all of IU basketball's history, no FF/title expectation, no demand for star recruits or the best players from Indiana, etc.

If we can't agree on that, well okay, but I guess I'd sorta wonder how any fan could enjoy watching a program that had the last 10 years we did. And how anyone could think the way it would've been better was to extend Tom Crean (47-75 [.385], 15-57 [.208] SEC with Anthony Edwards) or Archie or Woody, lol

All talk lol. You keep saying “just making the tournament” is the minimal expectation, but you don’t actually mean that. Tom Crean, once he got settled in, made the tournament “more times than not”, and not just made the tournament…but actually advanced in the tournament. And won conference championships to boot.

Tom Crean got fired because he lost the fan base in 2013 when he failed to win a national title with two top 5 draft picks. It’s as simple as that. All this talk about just wanting a coach who consistently makes the tournament is window dressing at its finest, we had that in Crean. We fired him. 

[Home Jersey]

12 minutes ago, AH1971 said:

Tom Crean got fired because he lost the fan base in 2013 when he failed to win a national title with two top 5 draft picks. It’s as simple as that. All this talk about just wanting a coach who consistently makes the tournament is window dressing at its finest, we had that in Crean. We fired him. 

21 minutes ago, Home Jersey said:

how anyone could think the way it would've been better was to extend Tom Crean (47-75 [.385], 15-57 [.208] SEC with Anthony Edwards) or Archie or Woody, lol

 

8 hours ago, str8baller said:

This is completely wrong. And fans that think this was will never get it. 

Crean was fired because he was NEVER going to win a championship. And if you can’t understand that, there’s not any point in having the discussion.

 

[AH1971]

2 minutes ago, Home Jersey said:

 

 

So make up your mind lol. Is it simply wanting a coach who makes the tournament more times than not or does IU need to continue to shuffle coaches for eternity until one wins a national title? You’re talk out of both sides of your mouth right now.

[Home Jersey]

Just now, AH1971 said:

So make up your mind lol. Is it simply wanting a coach who makes the tournament more times than not or does IU need to continue to shuffle coaches for eternity until one wins a national title? You’re talk out of both sides of your mouth right now.

I'm not sure why you seem to have trouble understanding where I stand. It's a pretty linear train of thought, similar to Woody needing to go, that you're bizarrely contesting lol.

I did not say a coach needs to do that. I said the program needs to do that. Which perfectly aligns with the idea that you can a sorry SOB like Archie or Woody who has proven himself to be a bad coach by year 3. Because it's obvious.

Crean consistently underachieved with his talent. He rode D Wade to a final four, showed himself to be incapable of winning a title due to the complexity of beating a 2-3 zone, was given the opportunity to keep going, then flamed out. Also, he made the tournament... 4/9 years. 

[AH1971]

2 minutes ago, Home Jersey said:

I'm not sure why you seem to have trouble understanding where I stand. It's a pretty linear train of thought, similar to Woody needing to go, that you're bizarrely contesting lol.

I did not say a coach needs to do that. I said the program needs to do that. Which perfectly aligns with the idea that you can a sorry SOB like Archie or Woody who has proven himself to be a bad coach by year 3. Because it's obvious.

Crean consistently underachieved with his talent. He rode D Wade to a final four, showed himself to be incapable of winning a title due to the complexity of beating a 2-3 zone, was given the opportunity to keep going, then flamed out. Also, he made the tournament... 4/9 years. 

I thought you were a context guy? You’re going to hold Crean’s first 3 years against him all things considered? He was 4/6 on tournaments once he had himself an established roster and one of those misses came after a dumb luck injury to his best player. 

[JF87]

22 minutes ago, AH1971 said:

All talk lol. You keep saying “just making the tournament” is the minimal expectation, but you don’t actually mean that. Tom Crean, once he got settled in, made the tournament “more times than not”, and not just made the tournament…but actually advanced in the tournament. And won conference championships to boot.

Tom Crean got fired because he lost the fan base in 2013 when he failed to win a national title with two top 5 draft picks. It’s as simple as that. All this talk about just wanting a coach who consistently makes the tournament is window dressing at its finest, we had that in Crean. We fired him. 

The rumor was Crean had hurt his relationships with in-state recruiting.  On top of that he was a quirky person.  Crean was trending downward.  His tenure at Georgia continued that downward trend. I think we want a coach that continues to sustain and build on his success.  Making the tournament consistently is simply the first plateau and then we progress to the next step. In the NIL world of today, it's possible to buy a team to make a Tournament run.  However, many of us would also be happy with building incrementally, which starts with consistently making the Tournament again. 

[Home Jersey]

6 minutes ago, AH1971 said:

I thought you were a context guy? You’re going to hold Crean’s first 3 years against him all things considered? He was 4/6 on tournaments once he had himself an established roster and one of those misses came after a dumb luck injury to his best player. 

I do not care to rehash Tom Crean. We clearly think differently about how his tenure ended and that's perfectly okay. 

The actual point in this conversation is about what the program, who spends at the top of CBB, should expect in a given decade. We have 9 years of Crean, with 4 NCAA appearances, and 9 years of Archie, Woody, DDV for a combined... 2 NCAA appearances. That's 6/18 (33%) by the way.

Neither decade has been up to the standard of a program that spends like we do. That has 0 to do with the Indiana fanbase or brand.

[TheWatShot]

3 minutes ago, AH1971 said:

I thought you were a context guy? You’re going to hold Crean’s first 3 years against him all things considered? 

His third season was embarrassing. There was enough talent on that team to be better than last in the Big Ten. We tried to schedule our way into a tourney bid that year and still came up way short. His first season was forgivable, but there were red flags everywhere after that. 

[AH1971]

1 minute ago, JF87 said:

The rumor was Crean had hurt his relationships with in-state recruiting.  On top of that he was a quirky person.  Crean was trending downward.  His tenure at Georgia continued that downward trend. I think we want a coach that continues to sustain and build on his success.  Making the tournament consistently is simply the first plateau and then we progress to the next step. In the NIL world of today, it's possible to buy a team to make a Tournament run.  However, many of us would also be happy with building incrementally, which starts with consistently making the Tournament again. 

I’m aware of the “rumor”. I don’t believe our relationship with in-state recruits is any different today than it was 10 years ago. We’re a has been program that’s going to struggle to get kids regardless of where they come from.

[WayneFleekHoosier]

5 minutes ago, Home Jersey said:

I do not care to rehash Tom Crean. We clearly think differently about how his tenure ended and that's perfectly okay. 

The actual point in this conversation is about what the program, who spends at the top of CBB, should expect in a given decade. We have 9 years of Crean, with 4 NCAA appearances, and 9 years of Archie, Woody, DDV for a combined... 2 NCAA appearances. That's 6/18 (33%) by the way.

Neither decade has been up to the standard of a program that spends like we do. That has 0 to do with the Indiana fanbase or brand.

He’s just using the Crean Tenure to try to crap on the fanbase.  It’s his MO.  He doesn’t want to look at the full Crean picture or where things ended with Crean or what happened with Crean after he left which is all meaningful context. Or discuss Archie or Woodson because there isn’t much there.  Just trying to find the best angle to justify blaming fans.