Good article: recap and future
- Thread starter TR32
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As is usually the case when a program has chronic struggles, there is a lot of chatter about "Fire Coach and hire ________!!" at the end of most seasons. And right now is no exception.
It's about all that fans can do -- short of accepting that the program you have loved is now a middling one, isn't likely to get beyond that in your lifetime, and it's now on you to temper whatever expectations you've ever had and embrace the mediocrity....or else find a different team to support (which is harder to do if you're an alum and not just a fan).
But -- and I've said this before back when I was calling for Archie's head -- changing coaching staffs isn't enough to bend the arc.
That is, when you're mired in a feedback loop of constant disappointment spanning across numerous coaching staffs -- watching other programs without our tradition and support levels finding greater lasting success -- it can be very befuddling. What exactly have they done that we haven't done? Are we just cursed?
To me, the solution begins with recognizing the importance of culture. And I've been convinced for quite some time that our program's culture is not an asset in today's game, it's a liability. Culture is a broad and vague term that encompasses a lot of things. And a lot of people roll their eyes when it's brought up...like it's something out of an overpaid corporate HR consultant's magical bag of bullshit.
It's not a simple thing. But it helps to view it in simpler terms. And I'd summarize our cultural quandary with this one question:
Would Indiana ever hire Bruce Pearl?
Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that Bruce Pearl is the savior-in-waiting. This isn't an endorsement of hiring him as our coach (although I have long promoted him as a good option). It's just a rhetorical question I'm using to illustrate a point.
I think most people who have any familiarity with our program and its culture would answer "No chance Indiana would ever hire Bruce Pearl. Too much baggage. We tried that with Kelvin Sampson and it blew up in our face. Indiana takes deep pride in not being "one of those programs", in doing things the right way."
Again, I'm not saying that Bruce Pearl is the answer to our prayers. This is not really about him -- it's about us. But I am saying that, until we can answer "Yes" to that question, we should expect to continue having mediocre results.
I’m waiting to see if we get any portal miracles for next season. Or we have to settle for disgruntled & cast off players. Relying on the portal to rebuild the team every year is a horrible model for lots of reasons. I’d like to be proven wrong, but the decades have eroded my confidence.
I profoundly disagree with that.
In my experience (which isn't in sports, but in running and growing a business), it almost always works the other way around. The people you hire will assimilate to the culture. It takes a deliberate and concerted effort to change the culture of any organization or institution. And doing so will necessarily involve all kinds of struggles and setbacks. Because people are resistant to change -- and changing culture involves changing attitudes, beliefs, expectations, etc. of people.
Now, sometimes that's what you want. If your culture is an asset, then you want to protect it from being changed. But if your culture is a liability, then leaders have to set out to force that change. And it goes way beyond simply a hiring decision.
Indiana basketball's culture was once among its greatest strengths. It is now among its greatest obstacles. But there are many who will do whatever they can to protect it. And this IMO is why we seem stuck in neutral.
Yes, but the problem over all this malaise period is that they may give lip service to those values, they don't follow through with playing basketball the right way while doing things the right way. And their doing things the right way is dubious at best compared with say UK since Cal vs IU since MD.
Not to mention the very un-doing things the right way that is being proposed by these rumors that the Simon's are going to buy his team every year. That is wholesale BS if they care anything about culture or doing things the right way, that's nonsense.
As always, you make great points. (You should return, btw, to a place you renounced several years ago.) Correct me if I’m wrong, or slightly off here, but I think your point is that we no longer have a culture. We had a culture; now we don’t. And if someone tries to argue we do have a culture the best they can do is claim it starts and ends with mediocrity.
We need to move on from Bob Knight. I absolutely hate writing that.
And, for part two, we need to move on from Assembly Hall. I hate writing that as well.
We’re the once-great restaurant that needs to be demolished and rebuilt. New building; new decor; new menu; new chef; new commitment.
Quinn Buckner needs to step back. The BOT needs to step back. Mike Woodson needs to step away. The president of the university needs to step in and give Scott Dolson (or, Mister X?) the charter and the money to break it all down and build it back.
I don’t know who the best coach in basketball is now. But it has to be somebody who has been around the block and been at a major program (or programs) for a few years. Someone who doesn’t come from the NBA, having never coached a college program, or as a “hot-shot” mid-major youngster, or as a smoke-and-mirrors huckster, or as an ethically-challenged charlatan. Maybe that’s Bruce Pearl. Maybe it’s Rick Barnes. Maybe it’s Bill Self. I don’t know. I just throw those names out there without endorsing or preferring any of them. But spend the bucks - whatever it takes - and give him the reins to do what needs to be done, to spend what needs to be spent, to recruit the players who will and can be successful in today’s game. We’re weak and we’re soft. We think we’re talented, but anybody can see we’re incomplete.
If we don’t want to continue to be Ohio University in Athens or Miami University in Oxford, then let’s just keep on with the same shit we’ve been subjected to now for several decades. The Big Ten can just relegate us to the Mid-American Conference.
A lot of factors come into play but research suggests the contrary and it's often why a new CEO is brought in. GE was very different when Welch arrived and left, Ford was different with Nasser vs. Bill Ford. Harder in larger orgs than small orgs and a coach absolutely has the ability to set that culture.
While as a fan I enjoyed the outcomes of Knight's culture but his culture isn't going to work today. The program needs a leader with a competent system for coaching and selecting/managing personnel (from coaches to players). Certainly easy to critique from the couch but from watching the outcomes, it doesn't appear as though this is a competent system from a coaching or personnel management perspective. Not sure it was the prior two years despite some winning outcomes and NCAA tourney entry.
Indiana's basketball program was once the "hurryin' Hoosiers", and then they hired Bob Knight and he changed the culture. And he changed college basketball.
Izzo changed MSU culture. Not necessarily for the better either.
Jim Calhoun at UConn. Huggie bear at Cincinatti. Monson and Mark Few at Gonzaga. K at Duke. Even Beilein at Michigan.
So many times the right coaching hire can and does change everything about the expectations and aspirations for a program.
And I profoundly disagree with your assessment.
You even say that your background is not in sports and I think that distinction is critical. In business, you hire for the needs of the company. In sports, the coach sets the culture of his program.
You need to go farther that looking at IU's past. When RMK showed up at IU the culture was the Hurrying Hoosiers. In short order, RMK changed that and then the culture became accountability on and off the court. On the court, the play change to defense and the motion offense.
I have seen it suggested that IU needs to define their program and then hire a coach that fits. What a MISTAKE that would be. IU would be shrinking the potential pool of candidates. Once again, would RMK have been hired if IU would have done that in 1970?
Hire the right guy and all else falls into place.
Assembly hall is not to blame. Why throw out the baby with the bathwater?
A string of terrible hires is the reason IU is where it is. Plain and simple!
I pray they get the next one right and the RIGHT coach would re-energize the program, the state and SSAH.
I don’t disagree that a coaching hire *can* change the culture of a program (or at least be an integral part of such a change). But it’s something that has to be purposeful and deliberate - and will probably have a lot of people up in arms.
But I don’t think that the succession of coaches we’ve had since September 10, 2000 have changed it.
IMO, too many people don’t want our program’s culture changed - and don’t see it as having anything to do with our continuing struggles.
Not a fan of his articles. I find them to be a bit too shallow. To each his own.
This has been the prevailing view for a long time - and is IMO why, despite believing that several times that we had “hired the right guy”, we keep getting similar disappointing results.
If it’s any consolation, I fully expect that your view will continue to be the prevailing view. But I also think that we will continue getting similar disappointing results…because we stubbornly refuse to see this as the core problem that some of us believe it is.
Assembly Hall is definitely not the problem. It's still the best atmosphere for any basketball game I've ever attended, and I've been to many places. We don't need to spend any time at all on even thinking about replacing Assembly Hall.
Yeah, I’d say this is a people problem…not a building problem.
AH may have some symbolic and sentimental relevance. But we don’t need a new stadium to fix this problem. We need a wholesale attitude adjustment - a team identity that is designed to thrive in 2024, not 1974.
AH may have some symbolic and sentimental relevance. But we don’t need a new stadium to fix this problem. We need a wholesale attitude adjustment - a team identity that is designed to thrive in 2024, not 1974.
Ok, let's say your viewpoint is correct, then it shouldn't be hard to point to examples that back it up. Please do.
I and TR32 has pointed out an example of the coach driving the culture right in Bton.
Sure. The NFL has just experienced a deliberate change in culture — one that has been widely (and correctly) recognized as such.
It happened in Detroit. And here’s a pretty good piece highlighting just how much they realized that this was a central theme in turning around a perennial loser of a franchise.
You can say “Well, they hired the right guy.” Yeah, but that guy and everybody else in leadership recognized that it would take more than just getting the right people. They had to change who they were.
A Lions Culture Led by Dan Campbell Paved the Way…
So they defined they want a winner and basically listed the characteristics that virtually every winner has.
It STILL boils down to getting the RIGHT guy. Occam's razor, the simplest explanation is usually right.
Look no farther than IU's football hire. I think CCC will be successful and Dolson hired him because he had been successful at every stop and had a great staff that he brought with him. He has changed the narrative at IU in regards to football. Dolson had his list of qualifications, found his candidate that checked those boxes and hired him. Now CCC is installing the culture he wants and demands. Coach = Culture
Again, it all began with a recognition that they needed to change their identity. And that this had to consistently and completely permeate throughout the organization.
What the Lions did was more than just hire the right guy. And the best evidence of this is that the guy in question speaks to this fundamental change every chance he gets. He gets it.
This is what Hoosier basketball needs if we want to get out of this cycle of mediocrity. A paradigm shift.
That’s why I think that being able to answer that question I posed earlier affirmatively would signify that we’ve finally turned the page on our past chapters of success and began writing new ones.
As things stand today, I’m pretty sure that the honest answer to the question would still be “No.”
Well, we are never going to agree on this because I believe what you state about the term "culture" and how people think about it, in your original post in this thread.
"it's something out of an overpaid corporate HR consultant's magical bag of bullshit."
I have a science educational background and through that lens, something that is so nebulous and hard to define is a non-factor to me.
I do think it is interesting that I gave you two examples of how a coach changed and defined the culture at IU and you didn't respond or failed to address either example I gave you but instead you chose to continue to use a professional example. As we have painfully seen with Howard and Woodson, the way things work in the professional world and college world can be worlds apart. In college the game is coach driven and in the pros it is player driven especially in the NBA.
For my last words on the subject, I will reiterate - get the right coach and all else will fall in place just like it has in the past and just like it has for other programs.
Crazed…. I agree with the Culture thought process, but we will never have Culture anymore with the likes of the Portal and NIL money.
With the NIL and Portal, those players CULTURE is… “WHAT’S IN IT FOR ME”?
Not the Culture of Old, aka Uniforms with Indiana on them, playing here four years For Pride of playing for Indiana.
College ball CULTURE is now NBA CULTURE…. Which to me is what has ruined College Basketball as a whole.
That’s just it!!
Every organization has a culture, whether they realize it or not and whether or not it’s one they’ve instituted on purpose.
The fact that NIL/Portal are realities of life in college athletics now doesn’t change that. But it sure as hell impacts what those cultures are going to look like…if you’re interested in winning, anyway.
But I would argue that these things are just formal manifestations of undercurrents that have been changing college athletics for a long time…while we’ve been trying to cling to something bygone - because that had produced positive results for us in bygone days.
FTR, I would much prefer the game be what it was in the 70s and 80s. But those days are gone and aren’t coming back. It’s not that I *like* the idea of having to adapt to the new paradigm. I just recognize that we’re going to have to if we ever want to get out of the doldrums we’ve been in.
The inbreds to the north of us have developed a culture that looks a lot like ours used to, with team building focused on finding players that fit into a system.
They aren’t building it with rent a players and truckloads of NIL money, so it can still be done.
Picking a coach with a philosophy based on what was prevailing in the nba 20 years ago is the problem. Not the stadium and not having standards on player behavior.
If it’s inevitable that the rent a player culture is the future I’ll lose interest quickly.
They aren’t building it with rent a players and truckloads of NIL money, so it can still be done.
Picking a coach with a philosophy based on what was prevailing in the nba 20 years ago is the problem. Not the stadium and not having standards on player behavior.
If it’s inevitable that the rent a player culture is the future I’ll lose interest quickly.
Hire the “right” guy as HC, support them with a ton of cash for players, and IU will win big again. Easy to say, impossible to do if you have the wrong HC ( Arch, Woody).
Coach or CEO, they drive the culture with business acumen and an ability to drive culture with good leadership and personnel.
You can argue Belichick is a good coach but question whether his approach to culture is still effective in today's player friendly league‐--I think it's not, it still needs to fit the broader evolving socio-technological-economic culture. Knight was a great coach but in no way would change his concept of culture and be effective today..it barely was before he retired.
Just because it's hard to measure doesn't mean it doesn't exist. There's plenty of garbage HR leadership stuff around this but there's also decent science around it as well..no different than the plethora of weak research methodology in medicine and education I experienced reviewing journal submissions.
