Channel those sorts of thoughts and teachings from Cig.
And I think Cig is channeling RMK to some extent. A recent quote from Cig was very much like this old one from Coach Knight: "People want national championship banners. People want to talk about Indiana being competitive. How do we get there? We don't get there with milk and cookies."
@hoosiers94 MY current concerns with CDD... This team being so inconsistent with things like focus, and at times even effort. He brought in a lot of older players, might have been a little difficult to change their habits, than it would have been younger guys? And he didn't really have a ton of time to sniff those sorts of things out while recruiting them... but in today's age, he had the resources to see if focus and effort were issues. If they weren't at their last stops, why are they now at IU? And then will he be willing and able to recruit, and/or develop, NBA level players to IU?
I have no concerns, really at all, about whether or not CDD will be as successful or more successful than Archie and Woodson were. He'll build IU in to a perennial NCAA tournament program, I'm sure. But will he bring in guys that can help us get to FF's and compete for banners? If not, and maybe this is actually worse long run, we might have an 8-10 year "Greg Gard like run", on our hands. His mentor is largely reported as Greg McDermott. McDermott had some success for a bit with his son, has always had solid teams... but really hasn't ever challenged for anything nationally... Ummmm, I hope that's not where CDD's IU tenure is heading.
Some would say McCollum is from similar stock. But I see him as a completely different animal. I think IU missed out in successive years on two guys that would have, almost assuredly, brought IU back to peak RMK levels of success. May and McCollum will take different approaches, but I think both are going to be monsters in the B10, and nationally, going forward.
I think DeVries CAN become that, as well. But he's going to have to be willing, and able, to get better athletes and players.
Does anybody else think for an offense with a lot of motion around screens, we don't screen really well? It's been frustrating to me watching so many screens where the defender easily fits through.
But, keeping with the theme that Coach DeVries does seem to always improve something that sucked previous game... Seems like at USC our cutter getting or moving for the ball didn't leave enough room for the defender to come with him over the top, we cut closer. But our guys didn't seem happy accepting those collisions, lol, as if it was a new experience... But as I'm not familiar with this style of offense maybe it can't be the 'hands over the nuts' screen style if you have to roll right away?
So... get them to play more consistently, and make the NCAA tournament. That's what he can do to finish this season.
Then, after the season... he needs to convince Dorn, Sisley, Miles, Harris, and Ristic to come back. Those 5, plus the current incoming freshman, form a solid core starting point for the roster next year. With the remaining 5 scholarships... go get a top 25 starting level PG, 2 top 25 main rotation level bigs, an elite 3 and D wing/guard, and then some sort of dawg, athletic, competitor. Convince Dolson, and others, that you need the flexibility in your NIL budget to make that happen. Make sure a couple of those 5 guys have more than 1 year of eligibility left, too, like you did well with your first portal class.
Then... when they're all together... continue to teach and coach your open, cutting, screening style offense, and high pressure defense. And next year, take a step forward, and compete better towards the top of the B10, get a top 4/5 seed in NCAA, and push for a S16.
This is fairly close to how I view how things could turn out. I think its also important to avoid strawman counters to this. You aren't saying just making the dance is the new standard/goal for the program. its just a starting block.
You aren't over-hyping the incoming recruits, just stating that their the building blocks of a foundation. One that compounds and leads to not having to get 13 guys every year from the portal.
I wouldn't expect much out of the frosh next year, but they're solid additions. Once Sisley is a senior, those guys are juniors, Branam, etc are sophomore you can see a deeper squad where we augment from the portal and target top guys.
Nobody is guaranteeing that it'll happen or that we'll have better NIL next year and/or land more top-level talent. Its the goal and a NCAAT berth may be enough to ease some donor concerns. We also know from the other site that DDV has been working the trails hard afa donor/alumni interactions to build up more support. Will it be fruitful? We'll see this off-season.
AFA Woodson/Archie. There's no comparison to Woodson and he shouldn't be included in any serious discussions. It was an absurd hire that no other program in the country would have made, let alone retained. It was pure cronyism and grifting. When they guy spends almost no time on recruiting or doing anything except drinking wine and partying with friends and showing up on game day there's little reason to believe anything would change. Nothing did. He kept his 1980s NBA offense and the team never improved or showed anything that would lead anybody to believe it ever would.
Archie is a reasonable comparison as many programs would have hired him when we did. He started out a dud that first year, but landed Romeo and had a strong class coming in. That 2nd year also started out pretty good with solid early wins. They then fell off a cliff and he never recovered. I don't know what happened chemistry wise that second year (we have a few rumours about it) but it was clearly not just Xs and Os. Regardless, he was incapable of overcoming it.
We need to see how year 2 goes here with DDV.
@openwheel He runs quite a lot more "rub" screens, and then stuff off the pinch post, than what some of us remember as bone crushing Brian Sloan type screens off the ball. Even when we're not working hard to truly rub defenders into those screeners, as long as we're running the actions, it has been pretty darn effective at creating good, open shots. DeVries and Dorn have been inconsistent making those open looks. It also has created quite a lot more dump downs and lob opportunities, for guys like Bailey and Alexis, than I think most would think it has. Unfortunately, neither of them are particularly high level at finishing against physical size, with consistency.
I think he's running good stuff, really good stuff actually. We just are inconsistent making the open looks we're getting... and, we don't really have many guys capable of creating more space for themselves, beyond the actions that the offense creates for them. So the windows are much shorter for our guys. And then we don't have much of any ability to finish at the rim. Which is pushing us to rely too heavily on 3 point shooting.
I'm not clamoring to land a player like Alijah Arenas. I don't like high usage, inefficient players, no matter how talented. But visually watching, that's the type of length and overall talent, DeVries needs to work to add in with some of his more "system" related guys, going forward.
I think its also important to avoid strawman counters to this. You aren't saying just making the dance is the new standard/goal for the program. its just a starting block.
And at this point, while getting into the tournament should remain the goal, if it doesn't happen that doesn't change the rest if it. IU will not fire him after one year and all the rest of the goals for next season would still be there.
1. If the IU admin was willing to sell its soul a bit, they could have landed a much bigger fish. I'm not--and wasn't--advocating for it, but I think it's a fair statement.
2. We won't ever really know what went down, but it seems like Dolson had a bit of tunnel vision ... and that this deal was in the works for a while.
@hoosiers94 MY current concerns with CDD... This team being so inconsistent with things like focus, and at times even effort. He brought in a lot of older players, might have been a little difficult to change their habits, than it would have been younger guys? And he didn't really have a ton of time to sniff those sorts of things out while recruiting them... but in today's age, he had the resources to see if focus and effort were issues. If they weren't at their last stops, why are they now at IU? And then will he be willing and able to recruit, and/or develop, NBA level players to IU?
I have no concerns, really at all, about whether or not CDD will be as successful or more successful than Archie and Woodson were. He'll build IU in to a perennial NCAA tournament program, I'm sure. But will he bring in guys that can help us get to FF's and compete for banners? If not, and maybe this is actually worse long run, we might have an 8-10 year "Greg Gard like run", on our hands. His mentor is largely reported as Greg McDermott. McDermott had some success for a bit with his son, has always had solid teams... but really hasn't ever challenged for anything nationally... Ummmm, I hope that's not where CDD's IU tenure is heading.
Some would say McCollum is from similar stock. But I see him as a completely different animal. I think IU missed out in successive years on two guys that would have, almost assuredly, brought IU back to peak RMK levels of success. May and McCollum will take different approaches, but I think both are going to be monsters in the B10, and nationally, going forward.
I think DeVries CAN become that, as well. But he's going to have to be willing, and able, to get better athletes and players.
but if your underlying fear is a Greg Gard type of run or Crean type of run then why not cut bait and run ..: that's been my point. Now if you're thinking that's a small possibility and his upside is much better than that ... I don't see it being any better than Greg Gard at this point. They aren't going to fire him after one year unless some sort of come to Jesus moment or some candidate appears like Lazurus
Everyone knows the proper thing to do, was to fire Woodson after year 3, hire May, and use that war chest of money to help May get his program rolling... Like Michigan did. But that didn't happen. May was a unique opportunity for IU. Hot young name, had made a Final Four, Indiana ties... And IU, in what has become true IU bball management form, blew it.
BINGO! As I've said in other posts, I cannot get over this fact. And I won't get over it for a long time unless CDD starts winning trophies.
@jhoban19 As of yet May hasn't gotten any closer to a Natty than Mike Davis. So while that might change, so far all we know is that he's a decent coach that we could have hired.
@ams66 He's in his 2nd year, is leading the Big 10, and has the #2 team in the country. In year 2.
I feel confident in saying that he would have had similar results at IU had we hired him 2 years ago. And we'd all be ecstatic about it.
We blew that one big time. He was the perfect hire and we blew it.
@jhoban19 You're probably right, and I'm not denying that he's a good, possibly even great, coach. Just hard to say for sure that he'd be having the same success here, especially if it's true that NIL was cut back after Woodson's supporters closed their wallets. But I would much rather have had him than a 4th year of Woodson, regardless.
@ams66 He's in his 2nd year, is leading the Big 10, and has the #2 team in the country. In year 2.
I feel confident in saying that he would have had similar results at IU had we hired him 2 years ago. And we'd all be ecstatic about it.
We blew that one big time. He was the perfect hire and we blew it.
Everyone forgets the team after his lucky final four run, the one ranked as high as 7th, which returned a majority of their starters but ended up finishing 2nd to South Florida in a trash conference and lost in the first round to Northwestern. They also forget the teams before than run because it doesn't fit the basketball jesus narrative..
The guy is more Tom Crean than anything close to an RMK. Maybe not as weird but as overrated and reliant on the talent of his players. Haven't seen anything coaching wise from him that says any different. He doesn't build teams, he collects talent, just like Crean.
@hoosiers94 it’s just a fear, and at this point an unfounded one. We’ll see how this portal season goes. If he doesn’t land any potential NBA level kids…but goes after a few…not good, but not yet fire able. If he doesn’t even go after any… I would consider firing him after year 2. He already tried recruiting some HS kids though, that will likely end up as NBA kids. So maybe it’s already a completely off base fear??
I often forget Kenny Johnson and Rod Clark are on the staff. If CDD is willing, and we have the budget, IU will start landing elite level players, I’m sure. And I think CDD with elite players, could be really, really good.
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