If there were to be a coaching change ...
- Thread starter DCGeneral
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IU goes out and recruits these AAU darlings that are 4 and 5 star, yet there’s no culture and no system. Offense is out of control and defense non-existent. All about individuals and not the program. Message boards get fired up when IU lands a 4 or 5 star. The problem, Northwestern and Penn State are taking their O-3 star players and kicking our butt. Doesn’t need to be homegrown or based on geography; instead, the players need to fit a system. A culture. What did Woodson bring to IU? Nothing but his past as a player. He had no system or culture established that Dolson could have evaluated. Nothing but marginal NBA experience. A guy like Shrewsberry worked under Stevens at Butler and Boston. Painter at Purdue. He’s been around winners and was instrumental in developing players. Been part of fantastic cultures. Same could be said of a guy like Jerome Tang of Kansas State, who helped Drew build Baylor over 19 years.
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Agree 100% and that is why Purdue is doing so well starting two freshman who were not ranked high at all. Given the NIL money now I think IU would be best to hire a coach who approaches things more like Purdue or Wisconsin. Woodson is an NBA guy and these four and five star guys getting paid big bucks will likely never buy into a system like Purdue or Wisconsin have. This is doomed to fail at IU right now.
Oh I hear you. I just don't agree with it. This isn't 1987 anymore. I also didn't say get "all" Indiana kids. My point is, with the right coach/system, we can win with players from anywhere. If we win, the locals will want to be a part of it. Just my opinion.
Don’t think the genie can be put back in the bottle.
Painter seems to have a good thing going and he does seem to have threaded that needle - having a program built on coaching, team play, and sort of shunning the NIL model. I don’t believe that could happen at IU.
For better or worse, we have embraced every fiber of NIL and this program is now in the hands of boosters.
The money cannot be reigned in here. I have no doubt we have guys at the end of the bench making $100k, and others like TJD at ten times that. It complicates a lot. You have conflicts of interest all over the place.
Coming into this season I thought NIL was the death of parity. How could a team with a roster making combined less than an Anthony Leal ever beat a team like IU? The answer, I am finding out, is much more complicated. Kentucky has a guy supposedly making more than TJD. And they may be NIT bound.
1987 team only had 4 indiana kids.(only 1 played lots of minutes)Knight didn’t win with mostly Indiana kids. He recruited Illinois as much as any state. It’s always been a false narrative.
As an outsider with a bunch of IU friends, I think the common denominator for the last decade is these teams are always less than the sum of their parts. Kids don't often grow and improve year over year. Recruiting and 'tradition' seem to be more important than the team's actual basketball identity. The coaching turnstile means classes of recruits are lost or forgotten. IU needs a solid x's and o's guy who knows what he wants his team to be on the floor. Not just the usual bogus "we want to win" drivel. I think, contrary to what I often read here, IU needs a guy who doesn't give a crap about the tradition and makes his own tradition. Maybe not these two guys exactly, but guys like McDermott or Shrews. Somebody who wins because the team looks good, not because the stars had a big night.
Honest question. Was Alford ever considered? I realize he’s never had top level success but I have always thought he would be a natural fit and Would have owned recruiting in the state. Always seemed to me that Steve never reached his full potential due to the coaching choices he made and IU missed on a potential home run hire. It seems the time has passed for that but was curious if there was a back story. FYI- Boiler here from the 84-88 years. Fun times during the rivalry.
You can't rebuild it and recruit players that fit when a three game losing streak in the middle of year 2 causes the fanbase to give up and start making new unrealistic lists of coaches that we can't wait to foist our unrealistic expectations on.
This place is stupid.
VanPastorMan
Hall of Famer
If Jay Wright could be lured out of retirement, he or Belien would be the guy. Second tier-Pearl or Few.
Agreed on Stevens and surprised no one has brought him up. We should go after him next time around.
That 3 game stretch was brutal and extremely familiar. Still concerned about player development. Unrealistic expectations? IU was picked to win the Big ten this year. The coaches and players came to IU to have these expectations. As a fan base we have seen legitimately very bad basketball these last few seasons, and we’ve seen it this season too.
NIL has its own issues, but it takes away the recruiting advantages of those who have been willing to play the cheating game in the past. And it will keep guys from jumping so soon to the NBA (imagine Hood-Schifino back next year). That's all good for the college game.
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