The curse of mediocrity.
- Thread starter Rotonda Jim
- Start date
Thank you for posting something logical. There's a lot of revisionist stupidity, moronic speculation, and a fair amount of outright lies in this thread.
People had ridiculously optimistic expectations this year. Those were exacerbated by a soft pre-conference schedule, and whipped to a frenzy by a conference schedule front-loaded with the weakest conference teams. The past three weeks we have played a schedule loaded with those teams in the conference that have more talent than we have. Note that they are all above us in the conference standings, while the teams we beat are almost all below us. We managed to steal a couple of home wins from teams that are better (OSU and PUke).
Woodson is and will be just fine if/when he gets better offensive players. Until then, we are not good enough to beat the upper half of the teams in this conference. The "chicken salad out of chicken sh!+" theory is on full display here.
It doesn’t have a thing to do with the portal, I was replying to your post #40 in this thread.
Yes, the old saying “you don’t want to follow a legend, you want to be the guy who replaces the guy who followed a legend.” IU had a golden opportunity to get it right way back in 2006 and blew it. Davis left talent, including DJ White, and they could’ve hired the right guy at that time and brought IU back up to prominence to stay.
Davis was a great guy thrown into an unfair situation. Sampscum was the pivotal error. I still remember where I was when I got a call. I was so disappointed.
I’ve heard that John Beilein was a candidate to replace Davis. He would’ve given IU their 6th and we’d be looking for his replacement around about now.
Brad Davidson is better than any guard on IU and isn’t a role player. The issue is IU’s guards and wings are not talented and struggle to score. We start two guys who have efficiency ratings below 10 (2 of the guys backing them up also are below 10). Our best guard is Xavier, but he highly erratic and has stretch’s where he is terrible. How many teams has a point guard who turns it over 5 times in the first 5 minutes of the game?
Woodson is good coach and we’ll be fine in the future. It took him less then a year to make them an elite defensive team. The guard and wing play will improve over the years. It literally can’t get any worse.
Lol. The sky fell long ago buddy. Where have you been hiding?
He is certaily smarter and a better shooter but just pure basketball athletic talent I disagree. He is just smarter and knows how to play in his system. However, I disagree we do not have talent and eve as much as Wisconsin. We jus are not very smart in the IQ deparment and make very poor decisions.
There are obviously alot of people who were not around when we had success so to them a five game losing streake is not big deal. The program has not won in so long there really are no expectations for some so a five game losing streak is really no big deal to them.
The list of coaches that wanted the IU job at different times makes me sick to my stomach.
there's an equally incredible number who weren't interested that was depressing considering where we think we should be nationally
That "list" is always thrown out there, but mostly by rival fan bases and the negative IU fans.
IIRC we had a four game conference win streak a few years ago. It may have been the year we lost 12 of 13????
Yes I think we could of had Beilein instead of Sampson. And the fact Freddy only looked at Archie and did not even interview anyone else is just mind boggling to me. But then again with Fred Glass in charge of hiring a coach you just knew he would mess it up. Freddy did a tremendous amount of damage to the IU bbal program starting with the ridiculous extension he gave Crean which probably bought him two extra years at IU. And of course Freddy bolted before Archie had to be fired. People talk about damage done to the program but Fred did as much damage as anyone. He probably cost us six years we need to recover from.
I ask the Board, where would IU be had we NOT hired Mike Davis. Davis had ZERO head coaching experience, at any level. IU was still regarded as an Elite Blue Blood at the time. Pitino, Matta, Cal, Majerus and many others would have taken the job at that point. Wisconsin had a similar situation that very year, with an interim head coach. Wiscy did a formal search and hired Bo Ryan. IU did no search, and caved in to The Star, Kent Benson and a few players (Dane Fife was one) and hired the incredibly unqualified and ill prepared Mike Davis. Iu is where we are now, primarily due to the imbeciles of the BOT and the AD thinking that anyone can win at IU. As RMKFAN prophetically wrote at that time, "there is nothing special about the water in Bloomington".
Race has greatly improved his jumper and his rebounding.
TJD has improved his help defense and his right hand on offense, though he still as no jumper.
Geronimo has improved his defense and his rebounding.
Galloway has improved just about every aspect of his game other than adding the 3-point shot.
The whole team has improved their defensive intensity.
At times, they show an ability to avoid the disastrous turnover numbers that they had last year and even last Fall.
Certain skills are improved, but the players really don't have the ability ceiling and (seemingly) the mental toughness to contend for a top 5 finish in the league.
If this continues when he has a roster of players of his choosing, I will be more concerned.
And XJ for a time had improved to the point where he was likely playing the best at the point of anyone in the B10. Sadly though, he's fallen back into his old ways. As with most college teams, your PG is playing good and you thrive, but IU lost their backup PG and their starter fell off the wagon and started playing like he was in the first part of the season.
A one game losing is a problem for me, we should never expect to lose
Because he really does know the culture as taught by the BOSS and tried. He was doing well, but for injuries, he was producing same thing and just needed time. I admit, I was terribly wrong to think we could do better then, he was recruiting, but just getting us 6 seeds, but you know, he was basically reliable to get us there regularly and when he said "help is on the way" ... it was. Hindsight is 20/20, but I think it was a horrible thing for us to fire him for his results at less than 1M, then go out and hire three guys at three times as much that didn't produce the same results ... that's acceptable, I think not, I think it's called racism. That guy is a good coach and man and let loose a lot of talent that RMK didn't even knew he had, and came damn near close to winning #6.
I think a lot of better off than we are now had we given him time like f'n Crean got for going to a S16 and not minutes away from a title. He did recruit and did coach to what he had, I think that's about all you can ask for and he was doing that on RMK expectations, but 20-22 win seasons were not enough and he took a lot of racist crap and wanted out. I can't blame him for the ridiculous salary he was being paid after taking us to almost the title. Yeah, maybe, the administration should have looked for something better, earlier, but damn, the man worked his way up in every way he's done and was a good face of the program. Sure, we were not winning at RMK standards after the title run, but close, and if you're going to throw in the towel after 4 years ... he didn't really get that after a NC appearance and Crean, f-face, getting a huge bonus and extension for failing to meet expectations. Crean got an extension at 5X what they thought Davis would be happy with after a NC appearance, that's racism right there
Not to mention, this is a guy that RMK hired and taught, in many ways he is way more qualified after almost giving us another NC off a miraculous run, and BTW, JJ and a lot of those guys never really played for RMK. To compare his record at those places is ridiculous, he deserves a second look as a top assistant or something. Good guy, no rule breaking, can coach and recruit as demonstrated, he just wasn't given the time we wasted in what 15 years of Tan Man and Archie to figure it out, "help is on the way" was true, and he got some. just needed more time. For that we got Sampson, Crean, Archie, Woodson .. and there is no help on the way. At least MD knew what he needed to do recruiting wise, and delivered what he promised usually and was completely clean
Last edited:
Timing had a lot to do with things. He did a decent job but remember that IU went to the NCAA tourney 17 years in a row back then and had only missed the tourney 4X in the prior 30 years.
It was a different time, different administration and expectations were WAY higher. Having zero hc experience, 2X out of the tourney and finishing 4th or worse 5/6 years had people in a panic based on what they were accustomed to. Anyone following Knight without the success and flair was doomed. Davis was fired from UAB with a better record than when he left IU.
Texas Southern's SWAC is/was arguably the weakest conference in the nation then and now. He is not faring well at Detroit Mercy. Based on his record, he's a pretty average NCAA coach, made a good living and I wish his son played for IU now (he's really good) -- kudos to MD.
Sampson, Crean, AM were hired were hired under a desperate context to resurrect a university brand that was quickly heading south. Incompetent BOTs, ADs, ambition ex President, ex Presidents who didn't care about BB (until they probably figured out what they were losing/had lost), etc. Our BB brand is now way lower as we struggle to get big name hires. AM was a hopeful hire, MW not a big name (I love the hire) but you didn't see established college level coaches jumping at the chance for the job.
Like it or not, athletics can build the university brand and its academic brand. Not saying IU is a bad school but in the height of our winning BB, nearly every academic program was Top 20. Winning obviously brings MONEY and competitive demand for students and faculty. Nobody from the north was going to Bama for academics before Nick Saban got there but students flock from all over because it's "cool" to be at a winning U).
The salary travesty was what RMK was paid. MD was a bad hire for any amount. He could hardly talk. His communication skills minimal. Remember the presser when he stated 'I can't get the boys to practice hard'? What a public statement from a HC. 1st sign of self destruction, grab hand grenade, pull pin, hold tight. He lost me 1000% after that. 2002 was player driven, they were tough mentally and didn't need much from a HC and they didn't get it from 1 so deficient. He was terrible and it was all on him. His track record since then, the SAME.
Mike had a stuttering problem for his entire life and did become a great communicator. Yes, you sound like a very harsh person. No, our team was not mentally tough in Knight's final year. Davis got them to the final game with a lead with less than ten minutes left. I think they were very tough. Since 2005, Davis has also been to the NCAA five times. That is not a bad track record at all.
Understood, that's exactly why MD was a very poor communicator. Proved by his inability to stay at any program long even though each was a step down from the previous. Harsh or snowflake doesn't change the truth. 'I can't get the boys to practice hard', the perfect example of deficient leadership.
He made the final of the NCAA and that is more than Archie, Crean, Sampson, etc have ever did at IU . I get some people just hated Davis with a passion I remember the posts but the fact is he had some success. I laugh when people think some of us are being harsh on Woodson or were being harsh on Archie before his mandatory IU three year honeymoon was over. The hate that was on these forums toward Mike Davis was like nothing I have ever seen towards any other coach since him. Even after he made the final game people continued to trash him day in and out. Archie got off very mild compared to how Davis was treated.
Sampson, Crean, AM were hired were hired under a desperate context to resurrect a university brand that was quickly heading south.
Archie is about the last person you would want to try an resurrect anything. He is as dull and boring as any coach in the NCAA and he seemed disconnected from IU the second he arrived. But that is the genius of Fred Glass or you!
There's this thing that all the kids are doing called paragraphs....
Get you some..
No argument from me. MD was the initiation of a string of incompetent HC's at IU. None were run off soon enough.
Glass could almost be moved to #1 imo. He did not even have to guts to stick around and fire the trainwreck he hired.
Similar threads
