...we are going to be a top tier of the BIG but I would guess top 4 or 5 in conference.....So you say I am okay with IU being mediocre and that is not true
If your measure of success over 4 years is T6, 9, T10, 4/5, then yeah I'd say you're OK with IU being mediocre. At what point in time did we start settling for these kinds of middling results?
At least it's not 10th (except when it is)!
but I would at least give someone a chance at a coaching job when I have seen improvement each year.
First, he's had a chance. Second, I think somebody has to squint to find "improvement each year." I mean, I'm sure we can point to this or that stat to say there's been improvement. But it can't be all that significant with the finishes we've had in the B1G.
And, yeah, I do agree that we probably would've snuck in the tournament last year as a double-digit seed. But, really, it wasn't all that long ago that such a result was at the low end of our range of expectations. That would've been a down year. Now it's apparently the bar a coach has to clear to continue being one of the 10 or 12 highest paid coaches in the game.
But both you and Blink must think we should have won the NC in his first or second year which is unrealistic view.
Huh? I never implied such a thing, much less said it. All I've been looking for is an unmistakable and undebatable sense that things are moving in the right direction.
I think a fair question would be where I would put the bar after 3 seasons...considering what he inherited (which, BTW, wasn't anywhere near as bad as what Crean inherited). I would think at least one top 4 finish in the conference and a tourney berth at no worse than a 5 or 6 seed.
In Matt Painter's first year in WL, the Boilers finished 11th. In his 3rd year, they finished 2nd and got a 6 seed in the tourney. In his 4th year, they won the conference. That's what improvement looks like.
Archie has gotten the best recruits from Indiana after the prior coach had ruined all relationships in the state.
That does virtually nothing for me. He could get all of his recruits from Hawaii for all I care. It's the results that matter. Recruiting is one of many means feeding into that end.
I'm all for locking down the state (whatever that means) if and when the state is producing top-caliber players that are going to help us reach our goals. But I'm not all for "recruiting inside out" just to be able to say we have. Sometimes the talent level in the state isn't great. And, besides, every kid's situation is unique. It's not like they move in herds.
So Archie has done a decent job of trying build a consistent winner.
No, he hasn't. He's put three mediocre teams on the floor that haven't tangibly improved much over the course of any of those seasons or over the larger arc.
And, as I've said several times, I'd be willing to bet that even he would admit that privately to a trusted friend who wouldn't repeat it. He came pretty close to admitting as much publicly at the Huber event before last season -- a season where we finished T10 in the conference, BTW. The words he used weren't quite as blunt as the words I'm using -- but they conveyed the same basic idea.
But as I said let’s revisit these posts after this year and I bet you will be ready to keep Archie for a long time.
I've never hoped for anything other than that. But the results are what they are. And our standards should be kept high enough such that those results would be deemed unsatisfactory.