The Updated roster shot 723 three pointers last year and only made 240 for a rate of 33.2% and improvement of up from 32.4%. Ware was IU's top 3 point shooter! IU has not one player that shot over 40% from three. 3 point shooting was not addressed!
Woodson: I've learned you win with good guard play and I'm trying to build IU to play like my Knicks teams
- Thread starter BradStevens
- Start date
that would be relevant if you had Edey back this year!
Lost in first round, hammered by Pacers in conference semis in six, didn’t make playoffs. Three momentous seasons with the Knicks. At least his roster was second highest salaries in NBA so players came out well.
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Let me know what happened after they fired Woody the next 7-8 seasons with Mills/Jackson calling the shots. Maybe, just maybe, it wasn't Coach Woodson. Poor leadership at the top can really kill a good a thing.
This is ridiculous. Is Archie Woodson’s peer group now for determining success. If IU makes another bad hire after Woodson and has worse results does that mean Woodson won the equivalent of a national championship. For IU basketball a coach distinguishes himself by winning a national championship not being slightly better than a bad peer group of coaches.
Maybe, but honest question, why didn’t Woody didn’t get another HC job in the NBA? NBA teams would be able to understand a bad situation at the top.
It's not really important at this point. IUBB/donors have made changes to fix IUBB, so we'll see if this roster works for Woody.
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If he wins a national championship next season I will gladly admit I was wrong and apologize for posts expressing an expectation of less.
What are you talking about? You can't compare success in the NBA to success in college because NBA head coaches don't have anywhere near the say in roster construction, management, etc that college coaches do.
Woodson was 72-33 with Grunwald at GM calling the shots. Steve Mills comes in and the rest is history. It's not hard to see. The Knicks eventually parted wyas Steve Mills 7 years later and the new GM came in and immediately hired Thibs and the Knicks once again became good. The Knicks record with Steve Mills as the executive is the worst stretch in franchise history.
Right, and this past year in college basketball with 100% of the reigns and resources at his disposal, he flopped. Right? Or was last year a success or is there other excuses we need to account for?
He quite obviously coached his first 2 seasons at IU, heavily from his NBA experiences. Open to interpretation whether that worked or not, I'd say. But its also obvious that Woodson himself realized last year that it wasn't fully working, because he ended up changing quite a lot of basic parts of his program. His substitution patterns changed last year, away from the NBA "2nd Unit" philosophy, to more of a core 7-8 guys. There were quite a lot more "modern" offensive sets last season, as the year wore on (not enough in my opinion, but it was more than first 2 seasons). And then his approach to rebuilding his roster, focusing on guards, etc... shows he's recognizing shortcomings from his old experiences and style, and is open to changing things.
My 2 remaining concerns are the obvious lack of consistency his first 3 teams showed, and even though there were some more modern offensive sets implemented and utilized, at times, I still don't think there was nearly enough ball and player movement. Its very possible some of the new main rotation guys we have, will help to improve the offensive questions. But the consistency issue could continue to really hold us back. Woodson had future pros on each of his first 3 teams. All of them had upperclassmen. They should have shown A LOT more consistency from game to game...even within games, than they did. I don't know what Woodson does on a daily basis, but whatever it is, when it comes to developing consistent execution and effort, it hasn't worked at all.
My 2 remaining concerns are the obvious lack of consistency his first 3 teams showed, and even though there were some more modern offensive sets implemented and utilized, at times, I still don't think there was nearly enough ball and player movement. Its very possible some of the new main rotation guys we have, will help to improve the offensive questions. But the consistency issue could continue to really hold us back. Woodson had future pros on each of his first 3 teams. All of them had upperclassmen. They should have shown A LOT more consistency from game to game...even within games, than they did. I don't know what Woodson does on a daily basis, but whatever it is, when it comes to developing consistent execution and effort, it hasn't worked at all.
So do you fire a coach every year he "flops"? Stupid argument.
Mike Woodson absolutely addressed the backcourt issues from last season, and did it rather quickly with some serious talent.
The big donors and Mike addressed the roster issues that occurred under this staff. Credit to them.
I have not heard a good reason why other NBA teams did not hire Woody for an HC gig after the Knicks let him go — if he was good they would have, NBA teams are smart. Maybe there is a good reason. And he has been mediocre (that may be generous) in three years of NIL era college ball.
I think he will succeed to some extent with this roster, and maybe do very well, but concerns with Woody’s track record have some validity.
I have no clue why he wasn't rehired. But it's disingenuous to infer that Mike Woodson is a "bad" NBA coach. Literally rebuilt the Hawks after inheriting a complete train wreck. Increased their win total every single season and was a legit Eastern conference contender in his last three seasons. He was fine in New York until management got in the way. Each and every one is a lazy take if you've actually paid attention rather than looking at wikipedia stats.
Well, no NBA teams agreed with that to the extent they would hire him as HC. Fair to say was not bad, but no NBA team thought he was good enough for another HC job.
Did he interview for HC jobs after? Did he still want to be an NBA head coach? I know he strongly coveted the IU job when Archie got it the first go around. You nor I have any understanding of what happened. What I do know is that Mike Woodson is almost unanimously loved by his former players and both NBA head coaching jobs he took, he left in a better place than when he inherited them.
He took an assistant job with the Clippers after the Knicks fired him. Don’t be so obtuse.
“Woodson was 72-33 with Grunwald at GM calling the shots.”
Okay then eliminate the third season disaster and still so what. He is 63-40 right now at IU so close to the same but in my opinion his performance has been unacceptably poor. The tournament separates the wheat from the chaff for the NCAA and playoffs do it for the NBA. In both cases abysmal results.
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I'm not sure 37-45 qualifies as a "disaster" considering the Knicks won 17 games the year immediately following Woodson's departure and didn't sniff the playoffs until the Mills/Jackson era ended 6 years later. Again, you have no clue as to what the hell you're talking about.
Bottom line, Woodson went 66-177 in his first 3 years as a head coach (which clearly tanks his overall career record) with the Hawks while navigating a rebuild with a young an inexperienced roster. From the point on he went 237-188 in his next 6 seasons between the Hawks/Knicks and made the playoffs in five of those seasons. That's anything but "abysmal". If you weren't an absolute buffoon with an agenda, you'd understand that. Not every NBA head coach can be Steve Kerr who gets hired on 3rd base with 3 eventual HoF players entering the prime of their careers. That NBA has and still to this day is a superstar league.
Yes, for HC jobs he interviewed with the Kings in 2016 and with the Knicks in 2018 and 2020. He may have looked at other HC jobs I'm not going to bother looking. I guess we do understand that he still wanted to be an NBA HC. No takers though.
So he was still clearly thought in high enough regard to command interviews on multiple occasions. Makes sense too me.
Same issue with what you write. It was a disaster in that they didn’t even make the playoffs.
On another Knicks matter-
I haven’t checked into it but if the headlines are correct Brunson deserves two shitloads of respect for being that flexible to help the team with cap issues.
A disaster that they missed the playoffs by a single game? Jesus dude just tell me you don't know anything about the Knicks. The Knicks literally made the playoffs one time in the six years prior to Woodson being hired mid-year and they were dead to rights on missing it again until Woodson went 18-6 over the last month and a half of the season. He won 54 games and the Eastern Conference in his first full season. The Knicks hadn't won 54 games since the 96-97 season and haven't eclipsed that number since.
Not exactly a high bar to get an interview. In the end, over several years the NBA looked at him and his body of work and passed. Is what it is. He could still do well at IU.
Whatever dude. He has basically the same record at IU and I consider it unacceptably poor.
Do you man. Simply correcting your gross mischaracterization of Woodson as an NBA head coach. You missed the mark by a mile.
Yes to be absolutely explicit I characterize his time with the Knicks as unacceptably poor in addition to his results as head coach at IU.
I didn't say that but in today's game, it's certainly more viable. What I will say is you can't apply the same logic in today's environment that you did in the many decades prior to Woodson. There are have's and have not's, when it comes to the programs in college sports. When it comes to basketball, Indiana is one of the programs who has no excuses being left out of the tournament in any one year anymore. That is a thing of the past. Almost every program will be resetting their roster every year and you can easily start to realize which teams/coaches have been able to do that successfully and which ones haven't.
Now, applying that obvious logic to IU and recognizing that last year was a clear failure based on the resources and talent coach had at his disposal, one can easily assume this year needs to be a really good year. Not just a "get into the tourney" year. Replacing coaches isn't a sign for a long rebuild like it has been in prior coaching changes because a new coach can come into Bloomington with these resources and reset the program to high level success in his first year.
As for what Woodson did this offseason, he definitely acquired good talent. That has never been the question for CMW though as last year he had serious talent as well. My fear with CMW is based on a lack of team fundamentals and cohesiveness the team possessed last year. So talent be darned, you need a good coach with a good scheme or that talent can still end up with no results. That or you need one of the top 2 players in the nation, TJD.
I will assure you that firing a coach every time he doesn't make the tournament will do far more harm in the long run than good, regardless of the program. Sustainability and continuity is still the key to success in college basketball. Yes the portal allows teams to avoid complete rebuilds, but you don't want to be rebuilding your roster with 8-10 new faces every year. As "talented" (individually) as IU's roster was last year, it was:
a) Young--top 3 players all underclassmen
b) Poorly constructed---guard play was horrific
c) Completely void of depth
There's a reason why IU was picked anywhere from 7th to 9th in the B10. A lot of that was to be expected losing so many integral and experienced pieces from the year prior. Missing the tournament was surely inexcusable, but if you thought last years roster was a legitimate contender, you weren't paying attention. That doesn't absolve Woodson, but he's put together his most complete roster (by far) since being hired.
I know you did, it's why I called you out. You, admittedly, have no clue what you're talking about. Reminding you...again.
Lots of people get interviews, especially former HCs that are as popular with players as Woodson was.
Kerr also completely changed how the Warriors played, and revolutionized NBA basketball. Curry and Thompson likely don't elevate as quickly as they did without Kerr's foresight to change things up and fully utilize their talents. I assume you've read the stories, or seen the reports on Kerr and some key assistant coaches sketching out the more open cutting and pinch post passing offensive philosophies that he brought with him to GS. Obviously he benefitted from having Steph, Klay, and Draymond...but he ABSOLUTELY maximized them, and he has deserved all the praise and credit he's gotten since then, including the Olympics coaching job this year.
When you claim other people don't know what the hell they're talking about...try not to make statements that come across as incredibly uneducated, like the Kerr one.
And to ALL of this...he was a decent NBA coach back when Carmelo played..??? Who cares? He's been a mediocre college coach, now.
He is showing a willingness and ability to adapt though, so hopefully that continues this next year. He absolutely has his best, and most versatile roster to make some big strides this year, and he deserves the credit for realizing what he needs, and then going and getting.
He also needs to coach more consistent effort and execution...I hope he realizes that and goes and does it. His teams have been awful at it thus far... For some, that's pretty much the essence of coaching.
Kerr was still hired to a franchise that won 51 games the year prior and had 3 future HoF players with two of them coming into their prime years along with a borderline all-star in Andre Iguodala. Look how the Warriors fared this year with a rapidly deteriorating Klay Thompson and aging Draymond Green. I won’t doubt his ability to coach but he’s not a miracle worker. It’s a superstar league where the players dictate the results. Had Kerr gotten hired by the Pistons instead he would have been back in the broadcast booth years ago.
You could say the same thing about Pop who is widely regarded as one of the best coaches of all-time. His record without Duncan is absolute shit. Hasn’t won a playoff series since and the Spurs have produced some of the worst teams the last 4-5 seasons.
Facts are that Woodson is the 4th winningest coach by percentage in Knicks history and 7th in wins despite coaching 2.5 seasons. He’s one of 5 Knicks coaches to win more than 50 games in a season, three of them being in the basketball Hall of Fame. Calling Woodson’s tenure with the Knicks a “disaster”, “abysmal”, or “unacceptably poor” is bullshit and deserves to be called out.
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So who do you think is responsible for those 3 things you outlined? Why is it the other programs with equal resources don't have an issue having reconstructed rosters each year? Just Woodson, we must give him a pass!? Wild take.
Who do I think is responsible? Bud, I literally stated below that responsibility fell on Woodson. But if you fired every coach who went a year with a poorly constructed roster, we’d have run out of college basketball coaches a long time ago. I think the overreaction to one season is just that, an overreaction.
The Spurs made the Western Conference Finals without Duncan.
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It’s playoff performance that separates the wheat from the chaff. His playoff results are abysmal. There aren’t many (you excluded) that give a shit about a 50 win season with an early exit from the playoffs. Same at IU, 20 win season and early exit from the tourny is not acceptable. If not making progress toward an NBA championship, or NCAA championship at IU, then just a placeholder coach.
Hawks, Knicks, and IU-all first or second round losses or didn’t make post-season.
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