You're listening to the Back Home Network presented by Home
Field Apparel. Welcome back to Crimson Cast,
Neil and Clavio joining you here along with Scott Caulfield.
As we're kind of not having a great technical day to say the
least. I am on air pods.
Scott has barely been able to get his audio connected to me,
and so this could be maybe the worst sounding podcast we've
done since the Egyptian Hackers. Scott like it.
I mean, we're we're talking about that era at this point.
There's also the world where this just never gets released
and you and I are talking for 30 minutes, so we can just go ahead
and let's go all conspiracy theories out, like what are your
thoughts on? I don't even know what to say.
I. Don't want to piss?
Anybody off? I'm not even going to take a fun
example. Yeah, no, we could talk about
the the dolphins and Showalter Fountain or something that not
really but no we're we we're hitting Part 2 of what is
rapidly turning into a multi part Q&A with you folks in the
audience. So we had some other questions.
If you listen to part one, you know what I'm talking about.
If not you should go back and listen to part one.
We're going to do Part 2 here. Hit some of the the more fun or
more interesting questions that we saw in that mix.
So we're gonna get to that right away.
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So Scott, without further ado, first of all, how are you?
Is it? Is it as rainy up there as it is
down here in Bloomington right now?
Not really. It's misting, although I feel
bad. I'm watching my kids get off the
bus. My youngest son get off the bus
without an umbrella, so he's a little unhappy, so he might have
a different take on it. But no, it's not.
It's not too bad here. A little cloudy it would be.
By the way, I I watch part of your Instagram video.
Instagram is great. You driving around like I wanted
to see you get to the stadium but it's like I had to do
something else. It's like then I I couldn't go
back. I didn't want to watch like
another 10 minutes like to get there.
It's like I wish there was a a scroll back and forth.
Anyway, the eclipse, I know you lived through it.
Like I lived through it. It was that was awesome.
Like that was AI wasn't quite sure what to expect.
We had done the partial in 2017. No joke for the audience.
I hung out with my neighbors. We did an eclipse party in the
in the middle of the cul-de-sac, but it was that was unbelievable
and like, I get why ancient cultures thought that was a big
deal. That was it was really cool.
So for everybody who was able to enjoy it, I hope you did and it
literally afterwards was like being on Space Mountain.
Like I want to do it again like when when could we go to like
Portugal in 20242048? Like it was it was awesome.
Curious how your your take on it was?
It had a similar take. And yes, you just became one of
those Eclipse people that drives around or flies around the
country and and just goes to eclipse.
You can see why that's an allure.
And I was the same way that you were.
I I think I put this on Instagram like I I'm a I'm a bit
of a cynic at heart. And you know, whenever you see
this amount of of ballyhoo around an event, you're always a
little bit skeptical if you're a cynical person.
But I was really blown away. It was a really special
experience. And again, I mean, I I likely
will not be around for the next one here, but I might not be
here when the next one happens where I'm at, and so maybe it'll
all even out. But it was definitely a cool.
Experience, my only take away from it is like in history
before there were, you know, glasses and people who knew and
you just didn't know it was happening.
People had to just lose their vision, 'cause if you don't know
what's going on, you're just gonna look at it like, oh,
that's cool. And it's like it's like there
had to be a swap of blind people or people with jacked up vision
across solar eclipse paths in the in the in previous history.
I had a similar thought while it was happening.
I was like, well, how did you know?
At what point was it established that looking directly at the sun
was a bad idea. I'm always I'm I'm interested
where in in the development of human history.
They were like, we should probably not be staring directly
at this incredibly bright object.
Yeah, so anyway. We had a group.
We had like, you know, 20 kids in our neighborhood.
And I knew it was going to happen.
It's like we're watching like, you know, totality.
It's like, oh, this is awesome. It's Austin.
All of a sudden. It's like kids, glasses, like
kids right now. Glasses, glasses.
Like once it starts coming out, it's like, no, right now, right
now. Glasses now like stop.
I think the biggest thing that we noticed was the dogs.
There were several dogs at the place that I was watching it at
and they all got real like eerily quiet during the eclipse
itself like during the totality part.
So I don't know that that means anything.
They were probably just like why is it dark all of the sudden but
I thought that was a fascinating thing.
Anyway, we didn't come to talk about the eclipse, but I'm glad
that we are. We came to talk about your folks
questions. First of all.
Well OK, I was Scott is is somebody's trying to invade his
office and so he's he's going and taking care of that right
now. I hope.
I hope he's OK. He's back.
Everything. Everything all right?
Was like the UPS guy got a little too friendly getting in
the house or what happened. Sorry.
No, no, The kids just got home, so I had to tell them to go
downstairs. So I apologize.
That was just bad. Timing.
No, it's great. This is this is this is
parenting. When you have a podcast it's
please leave me alone. I, I I don't care if you've been
gone all day but I love you, Grace.
Well, Scott. Scott we have a yeah we have a
we have a beef from one of our folks on Twitter with you, Howie
says. Can you get Scott to stop
referring to last year's portal class as a home run.
I feel like we got halfway there last time when after saying we
got where so this year we need two top five guys to be better
off. Woodson finally seemed to
acknowledge that fit matters. So I'll I'll support Scott in
this. Howie, I think it's fair to say
that the where signing was a home run, but we we didn't win
the portal last year. So I I think there's a
differentiation there between saying that the where signing
was a home run and the overall portal experience for IU last
year was a home run. Is that what you meant to say,
or do you really mean? Do you think that the whole
Portal experience was a home run?
Last year I I I think so. I I think it's a home run.
And what I mean is, like, to me, Imbaco is part of the Portal
experience, like in the offseason.
He's not part of the That's a recruit, though.
That's not the portal. No, I know.
But that's OK. All right, then.
Then I should. All right.
The offseason overall was a home run in that you get that I don't
think you're ever going to see us or most schools get, you
know, two of the top five people in a Portal class.
It just seems very unlikely to happen to me.
What I was saying is that you get one of the top five Portal
guys, you get two other guys, you know, Anthony Walker, a kid
coming off a Final four team. You have Peyton Sparks a you
know, local you know, regional solid you know, mid level player
pieces put together. And then I I do include Imbacco
in that as like a five star transfer.
So maybe I should rephrase it as like a home run offseason.
To me that's as good as you can do in an offseason.
I I kind of view the five star you know, re recruitment people
at this point as Portal adjacent we'll call it.
But that that's my overall feeling is that for an offseason
that's about as good as you're going to get.
Maybe it's not like an absolute Grand Slam but to me that's a
really good offseason. My point is we haven't hit that
yet, and it's just like we did that and it wasn't good enough.
The idea of this goes to what you and I always talk about, the
idea of like, we just got to do better.
It's like that's you know when you take the totality good word
for this week of of the offseason.
To me it's like you can't say last season what you got was
like AC minus, like you got really a lot of good pieces.
My I guess my greater point is the idea of us just we have to
do better than that seems really unlikely to me.
It's like we got to do better with the pieces we get.
But I guess that that's clarification around it and I am
including Imbaco in that. So I should say Offseason and
not Portal. And I I hear that.
That's AI think that's a fair clarification, and I think your
larger point is a good one, that it's like you're going to be
hard pressed to do as well in the overall offseason and you
could say, well, Bryson Tucker, there's your Mackenzie Imbacco
analog. I don't know if that's really,
I'm not sure if Bryson Tucker will provide the same kind of
thing that Imbaco did. But certainly getting someone of
where's caliber, you're you're kind of having to live up to
that expectation plus having to sign a starting point guard,
that's a that is going to be a really fascinating task to see
how Indiana handles that. It actually dovetails with
another question that we got from Indibama or Indibama.
What's the magic formula to getting.
I'm sorry, yeah make make you up.
Yeah the the what's the magic formula for getting completely
unrelated portal transfers, expecting starter playing time
and close knit, returning IU starters to gel together in a
scheme that hasn't produced and resulting in wins and setting up
the program for the future. And and yes, that was a run on
sentence. So I think there's stages, you
know, don't ask. Don't ask this for Rick Pitino.
He doesn't know. The worst, worst experience of
my wife Scott. No, the OK.
So I think there's a couple of different stages there.
You this was brought up I think by Jared from assembly call or
it was maybe Coach Tonsoni on a show they did like last week or
two weeks ago where it's like you know you can kind of broadly
say well we're just going to get the best players figure out who
the best players are then figure out what system we want to
utilize and then try to you know and and I guess hope that the
culture gels or you can try to go the culture route and say
well we need to get complimentary pieces from
personnel perspective and see if we can grow them into roles that
operate within the structure that we want to utilize.
I I think it's really, I think you got to kind of got you got
to kind of do one or the other. I don't know that you can do
both you you might be able to pull off both, but that would be
tremendously lucky I think in the eyes of of you know college
basketball. Because as we've seen and one of
the things that we talked about on the Q&A yesterday and a
little bit on when we talked on Sunday, Scott, is this idea that
culture is so important. And even though IU players have
clearly closed ranks and have kind of put whatever differences
there appeared to be on the court beside or behind them,
realistically, culture was a bit of an issue last year.
Culture was certainly an issue, I think, in the Archie Miller
era. Like it never felt like those
teams properly gelled. And I think you saw that last
year quite a bit. Now you got a little bit of
jelling at the end, but you're also losing the point guard that
you said was the linchpin of everything and you're losing the
center that was, you know, your primary force on on offense and
defense by the end of the year. I don't know that there's a, you
know, is there a secret sauce for making that happen or a
magic formula? I I don't think there is.
I think you've got to get good players, 'cause if you've got
average players who blend together well, I don't think
that the remaining pieces that are on this team are necessarily
good enough to get you in the top half of the Big 10 by
themselves. But I think that the other
aspect is you you're going to have to take some things on
faith with some of the the higher rated players because
you're not going to be able to necessarily filter for culture
and that's that's the way the open market works.
When it comes to this transfer portal, you don't have the
luxury of just picking and choosing.
If you're Indiana, you've really got to be purposeful in what you
think is most important and hope that the other stuff falls into
place. I mean, where I think Indiana
has a problem is, and I'm just going to assume this is the
case, you know, Mike Woodson seems to have a system that he
wants to play basketball under. That's fine.
You can have that and that's great.
The the trouble is that also that that limits the number of
people you can get in the portal.
Because we're saying there was a culture problem.
There was kind of like a fit of you're asking players to do
things they really can't do because you you need them to fit
into your system and you can have a system.
It's fine, but it's it's if you're going to do a lot in the
portal, which we're going to have to do, you know you're
going to get only half The kids in the portal are probably guys
who can play in the Mike Woodson system.
It's not a knock on the system. It's just in any system like if
if Purdue needed six guys in the system, it's like Matt Painter
has a very specific system that he needs players now.
He recruits for it, he builds for it in in programs that kind
of have a self defined system. The portal is great when you're
getting a piece here, a piece there, and you can kind of plug
them in. The idea that we need to get
this many pieces into the portal is tough because the other
option is, you know, well then then you might need a, you know,
a a a system that's much more flexible.
Like a coach is just going to, we're going to, we're going to
see the pieces we have and I'm going to build my system around
the pieces I have. We don't seem to have that.
And so that that's where I get concerned is you need to get six
people like we've talked about. Two of them need to be high
level, but they also need to be guys who will be able to do
exactly what you need them to do.
And there's some players who just are not going to be fits
based on the system that you're running.
And it's like I just wonder if you're kind of self, you're
making the selection process so small, they only have a couple
guys you can go after. And that's where I get concerned
with what we're doing. But I I think that's part of the
problem is we have a pretty inflexible system that we're
playing basketball under, which in and of itself, again isn't
bad, but it is very tough when you need to get half your team
in a three-week period of guys who also fit the system you want
to play. Let's move on to the next
question. We had a question.
I know there's one you in particular want to get to.
We will get to that in a in a second.
So this is one I was going to say for like a solo pod, but I
I'll go ahead and ask it while you're here.
Robbie Malcolm? Yeah, Robbie Malcolmson asks.
There are many justifiable criticisms to the transfer
portal. However, as a challenge, can you
defend the current portal and what it has to offer the average
coach, athlete and university? So I'll say this, and people
have listened to the show for a while, have heard me say this
before you can. You can be critical of the way
the transfer portal operates and how it fits within the confines
of college basketball. I think that that's fair in as
much as it is a sea change of epic proportions from how we
used to do business. You know, transfers were very
rare. Certainly multiple time
transfers were non existent, essentially, except in
incredibly special cases. It's led to a lot of uncertainty
year to year about rosters. The the key thing that is the
defense of the transfer portal is that colleges and
universities engaged in high level collegiate athletics have
forever argued that athletes are just students, that they're not
like a special class, that they're not employees.
None of that. Well, there's not really any
justifiable argument for having students, which is what the
colleges and universities have argued, that the athletes are
not being able to move from school to school like any other
student can. As, as I'll say like if I'm if I
have a student in my class right now, who's going here?
But they really, after thinking about it, really think that
they'd be happier at, you know, back home at Illinois, you know,
University of Illinois. They can just leave IU and go to
Illinois. And as long as they get accepted
by Illinois and can transfer classes and they can go play
there or go start, go go start classes there, Why should that
be any different? If you're going to classify
athletes as students at the collegiate level, why should the
rules be any different for them? The other thing I'll say is that
the reason the transfer portal exists is because colleges and
universities know that if they try to restrict movement of of
athletes now, they'll get sued and they'll lose because there's
no real justification for it. Do coaches like that?
No. Do athletic directors like that?
No. But guess who has the ability,
the ability to change it right now?
Colleges and universities, The NCAA.
That is the membership of the NCAA.
This isn't just some random judgement or some random
decision that was handed down. This is specifically what the
membership is allowing to happen.
They could change the rules. They could make the movement of
players a lot more professional in nature.
There's a ton of things they could be doing.
Do they do those things? No.
And so I have a hard time, like really?
I understand why fans don't like it, but this is the system that
colleges and universities have claimed that they've been using
for a long time. So if you're mad about it, you
need to get on your local, like, board of trustees or athletic
director or what have you and say why don't we change the
rules and why don't we make it a little bit more equitable for
the players And you sign them to contracts, employment contracts.
Well, now they can't move that. I mean, did you ever wonder why
there's not like a transfer portal in the NFL?
It's because they have a collective bargaining agreement.
It's because there are rules about here's how much we're
going to pay you and here's how long the contract is and if we
cut, here's how much money you get, if any.
Like that's how sports is supposed to work.
And so that would be what I would say to people who don't
like the portal. I don't like some of the things
it's done, especially to football and basketball.
But this is what you said you were doing for years as a as an
entity, the NCAA. And so, welcome to reality.
I look at it kind of like a stock bubble where you have all
this pent up energy of P and we for so long people haven't been
able to move or transfer like you mentioned.
And now it's like it it kind of is being blown out and I think
it's good. You know the the thing that I
think is funny and these are single cases, but you know I
look at the transfer portal as a real benefit for coaches and
programs that have their S together.
And so you look at a, you know the two teams who just played
for the national championship, Purdue and Connecticut.
Connecticut had some turnover. A lot of those guys went to the
NBA, but you had a lot of, you know, some of the pieces from
last year's team and this year's team, Purdue.
It's almost the entire team back and it's a very unique
circumstance. But it's like this talk of like,
Oh my gosh, all you're going to get.
You know, it's funny when people are like, I hate the men's game.
None of the same players are there.
And it's like all the all this change and difference, like,
well, Purdue's been here for two years.
They look pretty the same. Next year, I think they're going
to look pretty like There's a lot of teams that do have a lot
of consistency and it does feel like if you're a coach who
builds a good program and has things kind of loaded in
correctly, the portal is a great spot to get a couple pieces here
and there and keep growing. I do think where it's tough is
where you, if you have programs that are not well maintained or
not well, you know, put together in the past, it's like what you
could just kind of keep the pieces you had and kind of have
this fifed them. Now everybody can leave and you
can you get a little more free market in here.
And it makes the job a lot tougher for coaches who are not
doing a good job. And personally, I don't feel bad
for any of them. Like you just don't get to get
somebody for four years because you signed them early.
So I I like it and I think you're seeing, you know, we just
had back-to-back national champions.
It's not like this is going to be a crap shoot every year and
you re roll the dice. It's like you're starting like
people are like, man, Connecticut's going to go
forever. It's like, well, I thought the
the big thing of the Portal was like you're never, teams are
never going to stay together, you're never going to get
consistency. It's like we almost seem to have
more of it now in the Portal era.
So I think it's it's it makes it harder for the mediocre coaches
and that's why they don't like it.
But I think for the coaches who were good, it actually makes it
better. And you might see even more
dynasty building in the Portal era than we saw in the last 1520
years. Yeah, I mean and and look,
sometimes it's not that, you know, I mean some of it is
players don't want to sit around, They want to get playing
time. This is, this is how it works.
I think a lot of people that don't like the portal in
football or basketball, you know, look, so many players got
stashed for two or three years until the coach was ready to
play them. And now there's movement,
there's freedom of movement. Of course people are going to
utilize that. If you don't like it, I
understand. But that's why you have to make
them employees like you that you have to pay them like the idea
that well we're going to give you this scholarship but and
you're but you're really here to play sports and you know it and
we know it, but we're not going to play you until we're ready to
play you. I mean it's just not I know that
that's what most of college sports was based on.
But it's also very different from how the rest of the
sporting world operates. You know when, and again, I'll
use like European soccer as an example, like you can sign
players but you're going to loan them out and have them play at
other places so they continue to get better, not just so they you
you don't get significantly better unless you're playing
regularly against other competition.
And that is I think an important aspect to all of this.
There are many other models that could be utilized that would
make a lot more sense than the Transfer Portal model, but it
would require a different financial model to go.
Along with the NBA, as example, like the Pacers have Jairus
Walker, who they signed. Like they're not playing him a
ton, which I have concerns about, but it's like they're
playing him in the G League and they're playing him in other
areas. They're not stashing him as
much, but they're also paying him.
You know, the league and the NBA Players Association agreed on a
salary structure for, you know, for first year players.
He's making like 6.7 million this year and it's like that's
that is his job and they either likes it or he doesn't.
But it's like he's going to make you know, 7 million next year
whether they stash him or they don't and it's OK.
And to your point, you make them employees and it's like then you
decide whether you want to be stashed on an Alabama or not,
but you're going to get compensated for it.
Right now it's just this is complete free market.
You had a question you wanted us to hit, so why don't we go to
that one? Do you have the text of it up
there or do I need to find? It if I can have it here in a
SEC. I think let's do, we'll do some
Scott searching for the the question music.
How about that, let's see if we can get some.
There we go, here we go. This was from loop.
There we go, I. Let's just keep this on,
actually. Yeah, go ahead.
This is great. Can you explain to the younger
audience that Bob Hite was Dan Hurley before Dan Hurley was Dan
Hurley? I thought different eras,
different rules, but same results.
So you know what? I think where this comes from is
what you saw. My version of where I think
where this comes from is what you saw with UConn the other
night playing Purdue was their offense was just terrific.
I mean, to the point that almost looks like, you know, you're
running a new style of offense. And I I I do think there are
some pieces there where Uconn's offense is so crisp, so clean
compared to every other buddy. Everybody else seeing college
basketball, there are some Knight corollaries there.
The thing that I'll say with Knight, as I thought about this
a little bit more, I'm going to take it a bit of a different
angle. But the thing with Knight is
that, you know, basketball was so different before Bob Knight
came in. It's almost Stone Age to not.
It's like, you know, they were playing North Carolina was
playing four corners. They'd get up, you know, 24 to
20 and then just have four dudes go to every corner of the of the
the court and just hold the ball and pass it around.
You know, Knight came in and revolutionized defense,
revolutionized offense, where I took this though and started
thinking and I remember us talking about this a bit during
the, you know, when when Knight passed away last October.
But I really pulled it out here. You know, people looked at Dan
Hurley. It's like, my God, he just won
back-to-back titles and they're, they're on pace to kill it at
UConn. The thing with Hurley is he's 51
years old and he's won two titles.
This is the thing with Knight that, like you talk about a
savant like Knight in 1976, when he won a title with an
undefeated team, was 36 years old. 3535.
But I was doing 1976 -, 40 so. 35 He was.
He was born like November 1st, I think.
Or they're very. 35 When he was 30, he left Army.
I got a couple things here with a record of 102 and 50 when he's
35. Before the season he won a
title. He's 3435.
Here's his record 195 and 70. That's good for 70 through 3%
winning percentage. Kids with the Final Four ACCAT
championship and an elite 8. So if you look at coaches who
have won, you know, a title that young, it doesn't exist.
You know, Wooden was 54 years old.
Coach K was 44 years old. Coach K was 45.
When he won, his second Knight was 40.
When he won 81. When he won two, he was 45 when
he won his third. The only person in his universe
is honestly Billy Donovan. Billy Donovan won his first at
41 and then back-to-back won his second at 42.
But at 42, Knight was basically on the path to getting two like.
So to me, no knock on Dan Hurley.
What Dan Hurley is doing with that team.
There are pieces of that offense that are great to see.
But to me, that's the thing with Knight, that I think it's
forgotten because Knight turned old very quickly.
Like by 8485 he suddenly had a sweater and the Gray hair.
Like he just he looked old. And you and I grew up when it's
just like night was that older figure, like he's so damn young.
When he won his first title, it's.
Unbelievable. It's funny because, and I I may
be wrong, there might be an individual who is younger, but
the other coach who had that ridiculous amount of success
that young is Branch McCracken, who won a title at age 32, went
to war, served in the military for three years, came back
Heather. No, he was.
He was born in 19 O 8. OK, sorry, sorry.
So he was born June 9th, 19 O 8. So.
So he was actually 31. I'm sorry he wasn't 32 when he
won the title so but then what left for the Army had to rebuild
the program essentially from scratch.
Won another title in 1953 when he's only 444 years old.
It is. It is interesting to think about
how unique IU has been placed and having young coaches like
that but and Hurley's a great example, like he's he's younger
than Painter but just barely. You know, I think Brad Stevens
is younger than him, but what's fascinating to me and and where
I think the comps with Hurley tonight are more direct.
A. Hurley is, like, clearly a
maniac and he he talks shit in press conferences.
He yells at officials. He kind of acts in a way that
most coaches don't and like. He gets away with it.
Play during the game, yeah. I mean that was, I just, I mean
you know, an average even Ignite had done that I think especially
in his later year 90. 8 Weedy front page.
Of SI but, but, but the fact that Hurley does it.
I even, I was like, that's actually really endearing that's
that was that was great to see Hurley's ability.
I think, you know the the the the talking and the way he uses
the press and the way that he battles officials, the way he
backed those officials down from from calling a Zach Edie game
named the way they normally call a Zach Edie game.
I mean all of that is very reminiscent of night.
And I'm not the only one who feels that way.
There's a there's some really prominent people who I text back
and forth with who say the same thing.
But the thing that gets me about Hurley is, I mean, it's hard to
lead a basketball revolution at the college level right now.
But his preparation for other teams and his the way that he
gets his staff to work on things, his ability to pick
exactly the right players to fill the spots in his system and
this run that they've been on now for the last two years, it
is all of those things in combination are incredibly
reminiscent to me of what Bob Knight did here from like 1973
to 1976, which should have culminated in two back-to-back
national titles, but obviously didn't because of what happened
in 75 S Yes. I think if you're out there and
you have any sense of IU history or Bob Knight history and you're
like, you know what, that that Dan Hurley really is reminiscent
of Bob Knight. You're you're not off base by
any means. You're you are exactly right.
And I think it's a really fascinating thing to watch.
And it's just a shame that he's at UConn.
I mean, I'm really happy for UConn that they've got him.
But man, it's what What's annoying is that Dan Hurley was
there for the taking for a bunch of programs sitting there at
Rhode Island, and it's like everybody dawdled.
I don't know if he would have gone a whole lot of other
places. He seems to really like the
Northeast. His wife seems to really like
the Northeast. But it it makes you wonder.
You really do scratch your head. And I'm not just talking about
Indiana. I'm talking about a bunch of
other programs. It's like, man, that you're
talking about, you know, much like Indiana hiring night after
Wisconsin missed on him, Notre Dame could have had him.
He wanted night wanted to go to Notre Dame and they they didn't
have a coaching vacancy and Indiana jumped on it.
I mean it. It's one of those sliding doors
moments that doesn't just affect that program, but affects the
entirety of college basketball. And not to get to night, but
where Where we could see the difference is the age thing.
I think affected night in that he had so much success so early
and I still say he had he had Larry Bird on campus after the
76 title team. So there's a world where like if
he gets. That right before it was before
bird. Bird left in 74.
Yeah, so. Yeah, but I mean he he able to
identify that and keep that as a war where he keeps it.
But Knight had so much success. I don't want to go down this
road, but like so much success so early that that, you know, he
gets to a point where he's kind of like, all right, I did it.
What else is there to do? And he kind of gets in this mode
of like I want a title. Like I'm going to go hunt for a
year and I'm being very, very broad.
But it's like Hurley feels like he might be maniac enough to go
like I'm a try and win 5-6 seventies.
Not that Knight wasn't trying, but Knight kind of would do it
and then like put his feet up and it's like can I autopilot to
one more than he couldn't And it't like I'm going to go get
Isaiah Thomas Hall win. He's like, all right let's I'm,
I'm screw this. I'm getting back into it like.
And I think that's part of the savant piece of night where it's
like he knew he was so good he could just activate Voltron and
just do it. But he he there was a part of
night where he would just kind of go fishing for a year.
It felt like. And I'm not sure Hurley's going
to do that. Night.
Two things about that. And then we'll wrap up this
episode a night. But for those who know the
story, Knight famously almost walked away from coaching
entirely in 1981 after that 81 title and went and he almost
became the lead studio analyst for CBS for basketball and CBS.
To the point, the CBS. Checks to the family.
It's like Bill Raffey stole the job thanks to that.
You know, I mean, but. But CBS thought they had him and
the only reason that Knight really came back was because
Landon Turner gets in the accident that summer after the
the the title. And you know.
So that's important to keep in mind is that that mentality.
I mean at that point Knight was was 40, you know about to turn
41. And I think he's looking for AI
know it's just wild. But he's looking at looking for
a second act at that point. His second act ends up being
back here in Indiana. But I've always felt you know
with with the not just the way that Knight like really held
forward. We're going to we're going to
follow the NCAA rules here in Indiana.
Like, yes, some of that was principal, but a lot of that was
Knight to some degree. I think tying one hand behind
his back to see if he could succeed under those guidelines,
you know, and and so many things he refused to do and then
eventually had to kind of go back on like we're not going to
recruit junior college players. Well, hey, he goes and recruits
2 junior college players and they end up winning the title in
87. Yeah.
But a lot of it was also like what you said and you saw this
phase with him in the early 80s after the the 81 title, you saw
this phase in the 90s, which is really what led to his downfall
in terms of on court success. He leave the recruiting to the
assistants and the assistants weren't picking players that fit
his system and his mentality, and he's to blame for that.
I'm not making excuses. I'm just saying like a lot of
that ends up coming back to this idea.
That night was much like Hurley, one of those guys who clearly
like, has made the game easy for himself and can make it easy for
others. You do run the risk with those
types of coaches. After a while it's like, what is
the challenge here? Like what am I really measuring
myself up against, and what else could I be doing the?
Connection to UConn. You saw it the other night where
it's just like, I watch that game.
It's like, how? And I don't.
I don't watch a ton of Big East. I'm like, how the hell did Nukon
lose this year? You're just watching him play.
It's like just watching him through the tournament and again
that keys. Hurley's doing a great job of
getting this team focused at the right time.
But you look at this team and it's like, Jesus, I don't, I
don't know how you beat this team.
Like if you have Edie, who who has his own unique talent, it's
like they just they had a game plan.
They they figure it out and we're watching the game.
And I love my wife. She's like, God, they have a
great game plan for Edie. It's like you're watching this
and it just jumps off the page. How good they are.
Just how crisp and efficient they are.
And you know, I can't believe they ever lose.
Anyway, that'll wrap it up for Part 2 of the Q&A.
We really appreciate you folks joining us.
We'll be back I think with the Part 3 might just be me, but
we'll see how that goes. Anyway, thanks, Scott.
It's always a pleasure to talk to you during the middle of the
day. Thanks to all you folks out
there. Thanks to our friends at the
Back Home Network and Home Field Apparel, our presenting sponsor
back with more podcasting coming up soon for Scott.
I'm Galen. This is Crimson Cast.
We'll catch you folks. On the flip side, bring back the
Bison. That's all everybody.