From an overall wins and losses/program standards standpoint being a bubble team again should not be acceptable for Indiana basketball.
From the perspective of where our program sits versus our conference peers. I don’t see Archie passing any of the established good coaches like Izzo, Painter, or Gard. One of the reasons I stayed on the Archie train until recently is I thought he and his programs were solid enough to get up on Izzo and Gard’s heels. And to compete well enough with the newer guys to be a top 4-5 conference program year in and year out. That would be good enough I think. But with Howard, Underwood, Paikal, and Holtmans success...I don’t see how Archie lifts us to even top 6-7 anytime soon. And anytime THAT is Indiana’s realistic ceiling forecast for a few years...the coach should be fired. We are still Indiana, if the admin wants to be that is.
From the perspective of basketball philosophies and gameplay issues. His offense is now painfully proven to be mediocre. And worse, now likely turning away the types of recruits any coach will need to compete at the top of the B10. Blue chip perimeter guys saw, or will be told, how his offense largely wasted the talents of Romeo Langford. We have a specific case this past recruiting cycle on how we lost Trey Kaufman, a kid we had very good chances of landing, because of how Archie envisioned using him in his offense. Many blamed it on a comparison with TJD. And I’m sure that’s part of it, but more to the point, it was likely about how TJD is being used at IU, and how that isn’t really appealing to many of today’s top players. And isn’t really helping TJD, or our team, get anywhere nearer their respective goals.
So you have inadequate results versus what should be the expectation...your underperforming many of your direct peers...theirs little prospect for improved performance...and there are fundamental aspects of your program that are broken and don’t appear to being fixed.
Where does that ever equal anything other than termination?
From the perspective of where our program sits versus our conference peers. I don’t see Archie passing any of the established good coaches like Izzo, Painter, or Gard. One of the reasons I stayed on the Archie train until recently is I thought he and his programs were solid enough to get up on Izzo and Gard’s heels. And to compete well enough with the newer guys to be a top 4-5 conference program year in and year out. That would be good enough I think. But with Howard, Underwood, Paikal, and Holtmans success...I don’t see how Archie lifts us to even top 6-7 anytime soon. And anytime THAT is Indiana’s realistic ceiling forecast for a few years...the coach should be fired. We are still Indiana, if the admin wants to be that is.
From the perspective of basketball philosophies and gameplay issues. His offense is now painfully proven to be mediocre. And worse, now likely turning away the types of recruits any coach will need to compete at the top of the B10. Blue chip perimeter guys saw, or will be told, how his offense largely wasted the talents of Romeo Langford. We have a specific case this past recruiting cycle on how we lost Trey Kaufman, a kid we had very good chances of landing, because of how Archie envisioned using him in his offense. Many blamed it on a comparison with TJD. And I’m sure that’s part of it, but more to the point, it was likely about how TJD is being used at IU, and how that isn’t really appealing to many of today’s top players. And isn’t really helping TJD, or our team, get anywhere nearer their respective goals.
So you have inadequate results versus what should be the expectation...your underperforming many of your direct peers...theirs little prospect for improved performance...and there are fundamental aspects of your program that are broken and don’t appear to being fixed.
Where does that ever equal anything other than termination?