I, for one, didn't want either of them.
I get what you're saying ... but we have a 10m payroll team. Top 5 ... that should translate in more than just a hope to make the tourney.
@jj_mcclure cocky weirdos that acted like IU owed them something DD is t like that
@hoosiers94 I'm not sure I believe the top 5 NIL after seeing what some of these guys are commanding. It was a bad year to have to restock your entire roster, because I'll bet the NIL payout for a Power 4/5 starter jumped about 50% over last year, so if you were trying to round up $10 mill in funds let's say, based on last year's NIL, it went about as far as 6-7million last year. I think it's one of the reasons we didn't end up with any of the biggest names, aside from Wilkerson and I doubt he's top 10 in NIL deals. It's also why I'm cutting CDD some slack in not signing top tier guys, because I think he knew he needed a complete roster and needed to spread funds over a wider flock.
@kkott I’d guess our $10M spend was more #10 range, maybe #10-15 per some CBB analysts. Schools upped their commitments this season and the Big East really popped because they can put more revenue share to bball since they don’t have P4 football.
Also, the portal is more expensive than retaining existing players. So needing to get a whole new roster was not ideal — our money didn’t go as far. Thanks Woody… he was the worst.
Still, we have a class ranked around #10. Last year the two total rebuild schools had classes ranked #5 or 6 (UK) and around #25 (UL), and they had good seasons.
For as much as we spend on players and staff, we should make the tourney without much drama. If we don’t expect that, then why spend all this money? Make the tourney, get a nice 3 or 4 player HS class, do well in the spring portal, and year 2 of CDD expect to be ranked top-20 all year and start thinking about competing for the conference and making tourney runs. That’s just how I see it expectation wise. This is what UK, UL, and UM are doing in year 2 of their coaches.
Hopefully CDD can do it.
@kkott I’d guess our $10M spend was more #10 range, maybe #10-15 per some CBB analysts. Schools upped their commitments this season and the Big East really popped because they can put more revenue share to bball since they don’t have P4 football.
Also, the portal is more expensive than retaining existing players. So needing to get a whole new roster was not ideal — our money didn’t go as far. Thanks Woody… he was the worst.
Still, we have a class ranked around #10. Last year the two total rebuild schools had classes ranked #5 or 6 (UK) and around #25 (UL), and they had good seasons.
For as much as we spend on players and staff, we should make the tourney without much drama. If we don’t expect that, then why spend all this money? Make the tourney, get a nice 3 or 4 player HS class, do well in the spring portal, and year 2 of CDD expect to be ranked top-20 all year and start thinking about competing for the conference and making tourney runs. That’s just how I see it expectation wise. This is what UK, UL, and UM are doing in year 2 of their coaches.
Hopefully CDD can do it.
yeah, when you rely on the portal, and bring in almost entirely one year players, the expectations have to be higher. This isn’t a roster construction that is built for patience.
with that being said, there are other objectives I presume other than just W-L record. This wasn’t a splash hire. Football is now drawing some interest from fans. Imho generating excitement has to be an objective. (From the fan base and from recruits)
@kkott My educated guess on this particular topic is ranking programs in terms of specific NIL dollar amounts is nearly impossible. I think a better way to look at it is IU has "very high NIL capacity". I use Florida as an example for this...they won the natty last year, with what I'd guess was a pretty reasonable NIL budget. I'd strongly guess that winning the natty didn't immediately bump their NIL number up to what they ended up spending for this upcoming roster, which was A FRICKING LOT of money. In fact, I know it didn't because a couple of the guys they spent a lot of money on, didn't make their NBA decisions until late in the process. If Condon and Haugh had decided to stay in the draft, would they have just arbitrarily spent that 4-5 million + dollars they likely had to spend to keep them at Florida? Maybe, maybe not... So at least with Florida, there isn't a set amount of money, its a capacity.
If that's even close to true, then how did that impact CDD and how he approached building his team? I suspect Dolson, and whoever the key NIL people are in the IU basketball world, sat down and talked about very rough capacity numbers. Actually, I would assume this was discussed during the interview process. Maybe that 10 million number was a rough number discussed, maybe not? But I think its safe to assume CDD had a good idea of the general capacity when he started the process of building the roster.
At that point, I would guess he realized that he couldn't go get the most sought after guys for every roster spot, or even more than a couple of them. The market skyrocketed very early in the process when teams like BYU started getting silly with how much they were paying players. So to your point, that likely did shape the caliber of players he went after, since he knew he had to fill an entire roster.
I suspect though, no matter the dollar amounts available to him, CDD was always going to try to fill his roster with the types of players he ultimately landed and composed his team with. Shooters, skilled ball handlers, willing and able passers, proven contributors... Josh Harris is really the only guy he got, that didn't check all those boxes.
So I think he was operating with a very high capacity to start with, but definitely not on par with a handful of programs like Kentucky.
CDD has a lot of high level guys visiting in the next couple months... each of them will be promised competitive NIL packages, I'm sure. Maybe the most, maybe not, but certainly competitive. And then we have 6-7 guys that will play for our team this year, that have eligibility left, and could return to Bloomington next year. CDD is going to try to sign a couple of these high level frosh, on top of Moody. And then say 4-5 of the returning guys all break through, and are main rotation guys on a good IU team this year. Those guys NIL packages will get quite a lot more expensive. IU would try to keep all of them, and that would be very expensive. And if they were able to keep 5 returning guys, sign 3 high level freshmen, that still leaves 5 roster spots to fill. If 2 top 5 level portal guys are interested, and they fit CDD's program, Dolson/NIL people will find the money. All of a sudden a 10 million dollar NIL budget gets blown out of the water.
This past offseason, I think CDD had a pretty defined budget to work with initially, and he probably stuck pretty close to that. Big men are WAY over priced, CDD is smart so he knows that, so he focused the bulk of his budget on really good guards/wings. And decided building the style, brand, identity, would pay bigger dividends long term than blowing the budget on a couple bigs like Oumar Ballo.
bottom line is we have to recruit high school players much better than we have. Woody as discussed was abysmal at this. Combined with some portal pieces each year ... that's to me the definition of a program.
@hoosiers94 agree with that, for sure. Gotta get high level HS kids every year. Gotta get some high level portal guys every year. Gotta be active, and become a viable destination for high level foreign kids. And have to have a program that can retain non early NBA entry kids, regularly.
Return around 6-7 guys most years, get 2-3 high level high school kids, and 2-3 portal guys, and a top level foreign kid. That is the way.
@hoosiers94 CDD, it appears, has already set this situation up, fairly well. We have, I believe, 7 guys that will have eligibility at the end of this season, and could come back. Drake, Dorn, Miles, Harris, Sisley, Ritsic, Amicovic. He has a frosh already committed, and 5-6 visits setup with top 50 level kids. And he made the final list for the top foreign player in the 26 class (unlikely he'll get him, but he's "in on him", which is nice).
Main questions yet to be answered would be how good are the 7 guys that will be returning? How many of them end up getting main rotation level roles and minutes? How many will come back? Will CDD land any more of the top 50 kids that are visiting? And then how good will this year's team be? I think the last one, obviously, is pretty important for the overall trajectory of the program. He needs to exceed national perceptions and expectations. Forget our fan base expectations for a minute, nationally, we're often picked in the bottom half of the B10, and being a bubble team. Its not the end of the world, if that's what happens...especially if CDD does well with the above factors of building next years roster. But finishing top half, comfortably making the NCAA's, would put so much momentum behind him. Somehow, he needs to pull that off.
agreed. He doesn't make the tourney with some comfort, I might add, not a last four in type of thing , unless they make a run ..
the recruiting and roster building although in motion and untested as of yet seems positive and healthy... but as always there big IF'S until they commit. I believe he can do it ... but again I'm at the point where I have to see it to get all warm and fuzzy inside before I truly buy in. I wish him all the luck in the world. It's my team my school etc but we've all been duped many times now
agreed. He doesn't make the tourney with some comfort, I might add, not a last four in type of thing , unless they make a run ..
the recruiting and roster building although in motion and untested as of yet seems positive and healthy... but as always there big IF'S until they commit. I believe he can do it ... but again I'm at the point where I have to see it to get all warm and fuzzy inside before I truly buy in. I wish him all the luck in the world. It's my team my school etc but we've all been duped many times now
yeah, naturally we will compare him to Davis, Crean, miller and Woodson. But, those comps aren’t being made in a vacuum as those coaches were here for a few years (at least) each. None of those coaches went out on a high note. Take Woodson and Miller as examples. It would be interesting to see how the posts about each of them changed from hiring to firing.
most coaches don't go out on a high note. Those guys never got to a high note. Maybe Crean... for a blink
most coaches don't go out on a high note. Those guys never got to a high note. Maybe Crean... for a blink
right, but when a coach is brought in and replaces someone that was fired, they always bring with them a breath of fresh air. I’m not taking results, I’m talking more the change in personality or demeanor.
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