Hi folks, welcome back to Crimson cast or possibly you
haven't left. Like, you could probably go an
entire day just doing straight podcast with gaalan and myself.
I'm joined by the host and the founder of assembly called Jared
Morris Jared. It is an honor to have you on my
friend and it is good to be here.
It's good to be a we were just talking Going about how, you
know, like everybody in the IU podcasting space, we all have
our roles to fill, you know, it's like us over the assembly
call like during the season, you know, games end.
All right. You know, even if it's a bad
game, you guys got to step up. You got to put some content out
there. That's your role.
When there's a coaching change, we turn to you guys.
And you do not disappoint because this is an amazing
amount of content in a very short period of time.
I mean, unfortunately we do this too often, like we're getting
too good at this, my hope is true.
This is the last time you hear from Crimson cast for 20 years
No, it's I want to start off. Like I have always so impressed
with what you guys do especially in Seasons.
Like this a Gala, my joke, like the end of the creamy are, we're
just like, alright, we're done podcasting for a year.
Like, let's take a break, you guys bang it out.
I mean, none of us are doing this full-time, obviously, like
this is a passion project but I'm like goddamn like these
tight games against Northwestern and losses to Rutgers like the
last thing I would want to do is podcast for an hour and a half.
And yet you guys do it you're always positive which I She ate.
So my hats off to you guys. Thank you.
It is. It's certainly harder than
others. And I actually, you know, I
can't take a whole lot of credit for this season because I was
out a lot this season just had some well, I know.
Yeah we moved and, you know, had a baby and had some work thing
so my availability at nights just wasn't as much.
And so, I certainly tip my cap to Ryan and coach, and Andy, and
all the folks that we had step in and fill in, I mean, you and
Galen filled in and so, it was huge because it's that schedule
can get a little bit daunting and And frankly, as we all know
in a season like this, there's just there's a little bit less
enthusiasm to talk about the team.
It's not as much fun. But, you know, this for this is
what we do is I you fans, as you said, you know, it's a passion
thing. And, you know, we kind of made a
commitment to ourselves and to the audience that we're going to
do it and it's going to sound weird and hokey I know.
But I also kind of feel like we have a commitment to the team to
do it because it's like if we were just like our not going to
do a show that's like a just the tacit complete disapprove.
I won't abandon of the team, at least, that's kind of how we
look at it. You know in our thing is always
been, you know, no matter how bad it is, we still want to
support the guys, and that's how we support as we come up there
and have a show and have a place for people to gather after the
games. So, you know, it's one of those
things out, but I think that that kind of stuff and the way
that we all kind of view our roles in it and and I you
podcasting community and all that it's part of what makes
Indiana basketball special, you know.
So I I'm glad we all do it. I love you, man.
It's so positive. I love your outlook, like you
answer my question is like how do you kind of go through it?
Not that anybody cares, how we do the thing?
But you know what? It's I'll ask you anyway.
Like what is it like these last couple of months as you've been
doing it? Like how do you stay positive?
Like I know Alex bows. It's from one of his podcasts
was talking about, you know, It's just tough doing his five
takeaways because it's like the same five things every single
time, you know, how do you do it?
Because Gail and I definitely don't like we kind of plug in
and out. We come in we kind of Garber is
going to pitch for a while. Like you're you're doing
something structured and your base having to say the same
thing over and over again, and you stay positive.
Well, it's a very conscious effort.
I will say, and I actually there were times I thought this
season, just speaking for myself, personally that I felt
like I lost some of that and got really focused on the negativity
of the play, and look in the play warranted it.
So it's a delicate balance. You can't just go on there and
say, everything's great. When it's, not because no one
wants to listen to that. That, but you also have to be
fair. And remember the humanity of the
people? So I've always thought my
background with my dad being a coach helps with that, you know,
because you you recognize that, even if a performance is
absolutely terrible, there was a lot of effort that actually went
into making that performance good.
It just didn't work out, you know, but that doesn't.
That doesn't make that effort meaningless.
It just makes it unsuccessful. And so, why are we here?
Are we here just to accumulate wins and losses as a fan base or
we here to go through ups and downs?
It's together with a team that we support, you know, and so,
and I always that word support, I think is important and I think
as we've done this, I've tried to make a conscious effort, also
to develop some relationships with some parents of players on
the team because I think it helps me remember, just stay
grounded with like, these are real people.
You know, these are these are guys, with, with moms and dads
and, you know, and and and, and struggles that they're going
through on and off the court. And let's remember that.
That because it's not I guess I just always look at it.
Look, if you're only here for the wins and losses, go cheer
for a protein it's about more. I really think I feel like it's
about more than that. Now the wins and losses matter,
it's probably the most important thing, but it's also the fact
that like, you know, we all went to IU and these guys are we
didn't play basketball at IU, but their students, like, we
were in there's a certain part of it, where you're kind of
watching them, go through some of the similar things that you
did at least in terms of maturing and that kind of stuff,
and let's be in this together and help each other work through
it. So I know it's hokey and it's
Us. But that's just the mindset that
I've always taken with it. And I think it's it helps us
maintain perspective. I think when perspective is
difficult to maintain. No I think it's very Zen.
I like it. But it is I mean it's it is kind
of you know, I'm much more, the Ranter getting pissed but I feel
like I'm always grounded in. I'm not, you know, I know your
your dad was a coach with my thing is always been like, you
know, in college the coaches, the adult, the coaches, the one
getting paid like to me, they're the ones that take the
accountability. Not the nineteen eighteen year
old kids, who Aren't getting, and I think this year was a
really good example. I've talked about him a lot of
hate picking on him but like it was it's tough seeing like the
season Rob fennessy had because you see this kid who?
Again, he's a kid. We've all been there in college
and it's a weird time and like he's struggling from confidence.
Like, I don't think he understands kind of why is it
working? It's not working.
But I've always been like, I don't want to sit here and just
rail on a 20, year old kid who's obviously, having a rough go of
it. Like it's the coach's job to see
that and find create a system that's going Make it more
successful but I'm with you like that is why you know watching
like Victor Oladipo blossom into who he became at IU was was
awesome. He was seeing guys come through
who you love? Like I still remember my wife.
Loved. Oh gosh.
I'm thinking Daniel Jones. It's not, it was the little
little point guard. Daniel more Daniel Moore.
Thank you. Thank you.
I'm getting old, I'm over 40 my wife anymore, but just see guys
like that. Who you you feel like you get to
know them and I guess it brings us to this.
This is something as we look back at the Archie, are I want
to give you time to kind of reflect on it for our audience
but one thing that's been brought up in a lot of the
podcasts I've been listening to obviously wins and losses
mattered and there's you know, a sub 500 Big, Ten record like so
what I'm kind of starting with the fluff, not the the meat of
it and he got fired because he wasn't winning enough games.
Yeah, that said this, what's kind of been going through all
of these podcasts is There was a real lack of connection between
Archie and the fan base and a lot of these players in the
fanbase, it didn't Archie never handled himself in a bad manner
but it was very cool. And I remember early on, with
cream like he did, like the dance parties, like he did a
thing after homecoming one time. Where like, you wash a practice,
everyone go on the court, and just go meet Korean, like, get
on the court, and it felt very approachable there at the
beginning. Again, I don't think this is why
he got fired, but I do think it's an interesting time as we
look back at this Archie era, it felt very Disconnected.
I would say like it felt like almost like watching a pro team
and that it was just like a bunch of guys playing basketball
not very well and I never felt like we got a connection to any
of these guys like the Romeo experience was kind of like and
I guess those are five star, guys.
I get it there in and out. But you know, at least felt like
I had some kind of connection to Eric Gordon when he was here,
like Romeo's, kind of in and out, I don't know.
What do you, what do you think about that?
Well, I do think it's easy to kind of look at that as being
fluff, but I'm not really. That it is, I think it was
actually a really important reason why it didn't work for
Archie Millard. Indiana.
Not, you know, not that the that the coach has to have like this
specific relationship with Indiana fans, but you got to
have a relationship with Indiana fans, you know.
And I think this is probably the lesson to be learned from this
higher which is that Archie Miller checked every or most
basketball boxes you would want. He had had a deep tournament
run, he had one Conference titles.
He had a good basketball. Pedigree Degree he had played
like, that's why most of us were excited about the higher because
you had all that stuff up and it's like this makes a lot of
sense. But yeah, I remember back to his
first press conference and a lot of us have spent time harkening
back to that first press conference and reflecting on it
because everything sounded good. And then as you look back on it
for years later you realize and you know, I know Tony drawing.
You talked about this with you and wrote about it on his site.
You look back on it and so many of those promises are
unfulfilled and I One of those was Archie's discussion of
really being comfortable in the neighborhood and I think by that
he was referencing kind of the expectations.
But part of that, part of those expectations is Galen has used
the phrase. You're almost like a religious
leader. It's ridiculous.
It's also kind of true and that's never a role that Archie
really felt comfortable in, you know, opening himself up to
build that relationship with fans but I don't think.
And the reason why I think that actually mattered for on-court
Success because look at, He had one, he could have kept his
distance. He could have had a cool
relationship with Indiana fans and we would have filled in the
gaps in a positive way. With Crimson colored glasses and
it all would have been fine. But we know that we can say it
was different that would be different.
It wouldn't have been where, I think it was actually an issue
is that I think his inability to build relationships with fans,
was actually indicative of one of the Fatal flaws of his
program at Indiana was an inability to develop good
relationships with players. And I think, you know, part of
what we saw with, you know, a lack of Development with, you
know, sometimes guys playing hard in a game but still kind of
missing that next level where it's like, wow, these guys just
don't feel like they're totally bought into.
They don't feel like they're really enjoying what they're
doing. They don't feel like they really
understand what their roles are. They they seem disconnected.
Part of that I think is being disconnected from the coach, you
know. And I think and and you know
that's something that I've heard from from a lot of people I was
I'm not there in the locker room and you know, that kind of
stuff. We don't know that but when you
hear, It enough, you know, that there was a lack of relationship
building between head coach and player, that's a red flag.
And I think that makes it hard for the head coach to really
understand his players and get the most out of them.
And then it makes it hard for the coach to coach you hard.
You know, what a big deal was made about when Tom Izzo like
yelled at, Aaron Henry, you know?
And then screamed at him in a game, that's like, oh my God,
what is Tom Izzo doing, it's like anybody who really knew
what was going on. It's like, all right, you know,
Tom Izzo has a great relationship with that kid and
he's probably going to respond to it.
He knows the guy can Take that. So let's just let some time play
out, what's happened, Aaron? Henry has become awesome.
You know? And that's that to me is the
difference. Like, I don't think we were ever
ever able to see that and the only thing that really makes
sense to me for why that didn't happen is.
I'm just not sure that the relationships were there.
And so the relationship with fan base, that's one thing, it
matters, but it doesn't contribute to wins and losses.
But I think some of those, some of those relationships with
players as we start to just wonder like man, why didn't guys
develop, why did we see some of the things that we do?
Do I think that's one of the things that you look at?
And the irony of it is, I remember when Archie was hired,
he did an interview with somebody, you know, because he
actually made the rounds and doing podcast when he was hired
not a lot of local podcast. But National podcast, I was
always a pet peeve of mine for obvious reasons but you know,
someone asked him. What, what was what did you
really take from Thad Matta? You know coaching under Thad
Matta and he talked about how the biggest thing he learned
from Thad. Matta was the importance of
relationships and sometimes you got to take it off the
basketball court and build close relationships with players.
Thinking, then this guy gets it out, you know, I was so excited
to hear him say that but it doesn't, you know, it doesn't
seem like that's actually what happened in in the Indiana, you
know, in his four years in Indiana, and that's
disappointing. But also, I think it helps to
fill in the gaps for why the guy checked all the boxes seem to
have all the basketball Acumen and some of those things, Why
didn't it? Work so much of coaching comes
down to relationships in Psychology and I'm just not sure
that he was able to get that part of it, right?
No, I agree and it's something. Thing that we've talked about
kind of ad nauseam this year, but this, it's just been odd.
Watching a team have such little confidence and you could see it
like the Rutgers games are perfect examples.
Where, you know, we went on a little, the game in the Big Ten
Tournament, you know, we went on a run, we get up.
I like I don't know, six or seven points and we're like, all
right the whole team's like all right.
Sweet. And kind of like, alright, we're
done. And you saw Rutgers like they
just kind of called timeout, like the brought them back
together. It's like, they come back out to
the car. We took a punch.
We're going to take it back and then Rucker.
Goes on a run and then it's like we're done.
It's like we just every time a team would go on a run against
us. We would just crumble and it
just felt like this team, had a confidence crisis and it never
felt like Archie. Could just have that moment
where he could either yell at him or he just couldn't push the
right buttons and maybe he didn't find the buttons.
But you'd see it both in micro and macro like in games it would
just you kind of see them just crumble and like I don't know
what to do and kind of looks so timid and unsure of what to do
and, you know, make odd Mistakes like you know a minute and a
half to go or down by for their walking, the ball up and
Archie's like bring, you know yelling to bring it up faster.
It's like again I these guys know how to play basketball like
they understand the time on the clock but they're making all the
wrong decisions that you see in the macro where, you know, once
they got on a losing streak, they would just get on a losing
streak and they lose four or five in a row and it's like they
would just be rolling downhill the wrong way.
And yeah, I mean it's hard and you you look at the shooting
numbers like, Who could shoot in high school.
Then come here and they can't shoot, and they can't shoot free
throws. And that is that is just all
mental. Like I quoted all the time.
I love my dad always being like, why don't they just practice
free throws? Like I I'm sure hard.
She's doing that and I'm sure the kids are doing it.
Like I'm sure they want to shoot and they want to shoot better,
but there's something missing there.
And yeah, it kind of has to come down to mental because it's
either that or the other explanation is like, they're
just not trying or Archie's not doing anything, which I don't
think, is the case I think, Yeah, I think we've all said,
like, our chinos basketball. I think we all kind of agree.
We're we're, I'm expecting Archie to get another job and be
successful somewhere else. Like it just I think he'll take
the lessons here but maybe it was just like these connections
and confidence is kind of what just was never able to get
anybody going and look, you know, Dustin to P Rach laid out
in the podcast that he did some of the, some of the bad luck
that Archie dealt with. And there was some of that there
were untimely injuries and you know, there were some different
things that happen there. That's not that doesn't explain
everything. Nor does it change the calculus
of why? He needed to go.
But it does explain some of it. I think.
Also some of it was just poor evaluations on the recruiting
Trail, you know? I mean I mean to cut you off but
that's my job. But on the bad luck, on the bad
luck piece know, I've said this before, like it's very much on
the margins. If you just look through his
years, you know, 2018, they had a four-game losing streak in the
end of the season, a three-game losing streak like you win one
game in each of those streaks. It's your you're above 500, the
conference, you're probably in the tournament, your first year,
you know, 20 and the bad luck and the bad luck.
Doesn't just come from the losing.
It comes from, they had to play some of those games without key
players, you know? And, and that, that's kind of
where that where the bad luck comes in.
You know, you recruit a guy like Jerome Hunter, who was a really
highly rated recruit and his, you know, his entire career has
kind of been this up-and-down thing and dealt with a big
health issue. So you know, should you've been
able to suss that out and recruiting?
I don't know probably not but you know, there were There
instances of you, take the DU musée Anderson recruitment.
For example, look, I was excited about that when it happened, the
guy score 2,000 points in South Bend he was known as a good
shooter. We needed that seemed like the
kind of, you know, tall guy who could be, you know, six seven,
you know, long seemed like he could be taught how to play in
the pack line defense, it just didn't work and so on the one
hand, you can look back at that and say, well, this guy had
offers from other people. He was a top 100 recruit.
You can't really fault Archie for recruiting him.
But yeah, you kind of can because you don't just get cover
because a guy is ranked a certain place as a recruit, you
know, Wisconsin got dmytryk Trice, as an example.
He was like the 300 or 400 rated recruit, right?
Well, they saw something in him developed him, he fit the
system. He was a good recruit, you know,
just because you take a guy in the top 100, if it doesn't work
out, you do have to allow for some of it you know, not all
guys are going to work but you can't just make a blanket
statement like well the guy was a top 100 in state recruit so
you had to take him. No you had to take.
Him if he's the right fit and you had a vision for his
development and it works out, you know, if you don't that is
kind of the coach's job to evaluate independent of rankings
and all the other stuff. Is this guy going to fit is the
if it with me from a personality standpoint, does he fit our
culture? Is he going to be able to
develop? And again you give some
allowance for mrs. Here there.
But I think there were too many of those in the Archie Miller
are aware whether it was a misidentification of the talent
on the front end or an inability to develop it on the back end
there was too much Much disconnect there and again, X's
and O's are important. All the other stuff is
important. There is maybe no more important
job for a college basketball, coach than the players that you
hand-select to come into your program and then being able to
develop them to maximize what they can do, which again, kind
of comes back to the relationship part of it.
And so, you know, that's the stuff that look and look, you
know, part of that may have been that, you know, some of the
assistance on Archie's first staff weren't helping them out
very much and we're giving them some bad evaluations, you know?
But you're the head coach and you hired those guys And the
buck ultimately stops with you. So it is I think it is
interesting parsing some of this stuff and trying to figure out
what happened. Ultimately it all ends up coming
to Archie's doorstep and you end up with a certain record after
four years and however, whatever the explanation is the record
wasn't good. The trajectory moving forward,
wasn't good. You know, so Scott Dawson's
hand. I mean they're basically tied at
that point assuming that you have a good alternative in mind,
you know, he did what he had to do.
Ya know. And, you know, it's all on the
margins like one or two wins during any of these losing
streaks in his four years. They probably, it's good enough
to get going. I would say the other piece of
not bad luck but just tough luck is you know, the the year you
know, Archie gets three in a row.
Indiana mr. Basketballs and they you know
Jackson Davis has been fantastic.
Romeo was I was really good at what he did but you didn't have
one of those transformational you like, Zach Randolph, or Greg
Oden, or are Gordon like just an absolute superstud that comes
around. Like Archie, just kind of missed
the window of of having like one of those guys be in Indiana.
Mr. Basketball while he was getting Indiana.
Mr. Bass was kind of like getting the number one pick in
the NBA like the sixth 76ers. The process may have worked
better. If Tim Duncan was a first-round
pick because I posed like Nerlens Noel.
So I think there's some of that but I also like when you take A
big step out. I think that mean obviously the
right move was made. I was calling for it.
But you know, you look at like when it works it works.
And like what do you see? What Brad Underwood is doing it?
Illinois. It's kind of like, you know,
when you see it, you know, it it's like you don't even have to
dig into the numbers like, alright that's working like he's
got something Hamid over there, you know, Holtman at Ohio State
and I truly believe the wheels were in motion, but I think that
having those two teams play in the Big Ten championship game
and being like, hey those two coaches were hired the exact
same time as Archie. E and look where these two
programs are on page to be single-digit, seeds in the
tournament. They're both playing in the Big
Ten Tournament final and Rutgers to because pikul was hired
around that time to you know it's a great one workers house
just three times. I think that that's hard to look
at that and be like, all right well you know but we're good
enough to you know we got to keep our coach because of echo
because of 18 different reasons. Why it's like in the end is kind
of like hey man stuff shit. You make a lot of money and
there are everyone's got injuries.
Everyone's got recruiting this as a Your job is to how do you
smooth the edges and get things moving in the right direction.
So yeah one last thing that I want to that I want to add on
this on you know in the Archie era is it look personally I was
out after the first Purdue game this year that was like that was
like my personal breaking point. You know you lose the Purdue
again at home kind of non-competitive that was like my
point of no return I've been questioning it up to than that
was my point of no return but you know as I reflect on it you
know Oh, I think I'm always going to have, it'll be
interesting to see what Archie does from here.
And I'll never like wonder if Archie was the right fit long
term in Indiana, we saw four years.
He wasn't there's always going to be this little small part of
me. You know, the small part of me
that that supported our chief for several years and was
interested in how his system would adapt to the Big Ten and,
and work, it Indiana that wonders.
I wonder what this would have looked like if we actually got
to see Archie Miller basketball, because when you look back on
his four years at it, Anna the frustration and I think
especially the frustration for people who really supported him
in the beginning is you know those first couple years things
aren't going well, but it's like okay but you look back at his
team's at Dayton once he builds that this is going to work
because they played with Pace, they shot the 3-pointer.
Well, they were guard driven teams.
Like they played a more modern style of basketball.
It was tough, it was gritty but it was combined with good
defense, which all right, I don't know if this system is
really up for modern basketball, but it's working over at
Virginia and maybe if we rallied at it, it can really work here
and we just never saw it and I'm especially disappointed by how
we didn't see it on the offensive end.
And, you know, you look at those date and teams, they played a
lot of outside in and here at Indiana.
He had these for rosters where you looked at it and his most
the player on his roster that had the best combination of
skill and experience. Every single year was a big guy
and so he made this choice to kind of invert his offense play,
inside-out, and To like this really extreme degree, where it
always felt like, the guards felt hamstrung, like they had to
get the ball inside and could never get into their own Rhythm.
You know, I think part of the shooting issues that we saw was
guards who were almost like playing the old Hoosier style
where it's like four passes before shot.
You've got to get the ball inside before shot and we became
the kings of passing up a good shot early in the shot clock to
get a worse. One near the end of it because
especially once team started doubling down and we never were
able to adjust. And I just, I wonder You know,
it always felt like a program that was out of its comfort zone
and disconnected. And I wonder if that just
trickled down from the top where Archie is, suddenly coaching
this, this system where he's going inside out and he'd been a
coach at Dayton, that was so much more guard oriented.
And it just, it just always felt disconnected.
And it's almost like he didn't necessarily know, or at least,
he didn't show the ability to really adjust, or to get the
guards playing in a comfortable way in the system, you know, and
so, and I think back to McKinley, right, Who wanted to
come with Archie when he had him committed to Dayton, wanted to
come with Archie. You know, we had all the roster
issues the beginning, so he wasn't able to he goes to
Colorado, becomes one of the best for your point, guards in
the country. How does that change it?
You know, again, it doesn't mean that it would have changed
everything. I just kind of remain curious,
the part of me the first two years.
That was excited about Archie. Remains curious about what that
might have looked like, I don't know, but it'll always just kind
of be a little, kind of, be a lingering wonder.
And I'm sure that that lingering wonder will.
Well, immediately dissipate very much once we have a new coach,
but as we kind of sit here in the fog of the end of his era,
that's the one thing that I wonder because there was a real
reason to be excited about him and it's disappointing that we
never saw that on the court. No, I agree.
And I you know, the way that I look at it too that I think is
an interesting. Just a cautionary tale as well.
Is, you know, I've often wondered this.
I've not said this out loud before.
I wonder if Archie, didn't want to get Romeo.
And what I mean by that is, You know, that was very early in his
spot that was a high-profile like that was Romeo like the
Indiana guy, but it's like a five-star.
It's like we pinned all of our hopes on that and it was so
early in his career. You know, an Archie had been
used to building kind of with guys off the periphery or guys
who were two or three stars guys, with something to prove,
we all know a five-star like Romeo is a different kind of guy
to coach. And it always felt like, from
that point on Archie, didn't quite know how and again, he
knows more than I do, but the way the offense ran was kind of
like All right. Well, I have to run everything
through Romeo and Romeo is getting 30% of possessions and
it became Romeo and Juliet on Morgan and then same thing with
Tres Jackson Davis. Like all right, well I got this
guy and so now I got to run everything through him and I do
wonder if you know the the thing that crean kind of got lucky
with his, he got a lot of those kind of great building block
pieces, like he got Jordan holes.
He got Christian Wofford, he got Maurice Creek for while he was
here and healthy. We kind of built the team and
then it's like, now, I'm going to Zeller into this and now you
got all these extra pieces and everyone who their Partners like
I'm gonna throw and then Oladipo turns into him, but it's like
that team was built as a complete team you know?
And Archie never really got that chance because a year or two.
And again I'm not trying to defend them or say it's his
fault but you're too. It's like you got Romeo and that
you can't run an offense. That Romeo is not getting the
ball. That's almost it looked like
Archie didn't quite know how to how do I run my offense and how
do I make a five-star guy? Happy?
I'm just going to make him super happy and what the irony of all
of it. As I've said, Many times is by
pumping the ball into Jackson, Davis this year and just turning
him into a post guy with no outside moves, you've diminished
his draft stock. You've done the worst thing you
made your offense stale. You've you've used you given him
great usage rate but you've diminish his draft stock like I
hate to say it Jackson Davis look.
So this is probably like well shit.
I should've just gone to like Kentucky caught lap lobs for a
year. None of these things of my game
would be noticed and I'd be in the NBA right now to be a
first-round pick. It's like that's the weird irony
of Archie, as I'm, not sure, he knew had a coach five stars, but
he ended up creating an offense that featured them so much, that
it kind of diminished both Romeo and Trace Jackson Davis has NBA
stock. Yeah.
I mean, that's interesting. You know, I think him
force-feeding Trace to the extent that he did is what made
trace an All-American. You know, like like Trace
Jackson Davis is a good talented player.
I like Tres a lot. He did a lot as a freshman and a
sophomore, you can tell that there's going to be a but coming
here. Here.
But, you know, I think it's fair to say that on a really good
Indiana team. Trace Jackson.
Davis is a third option, you know, he's just he's a limited
player so on a really good team. He's probably your third option
on a really mediocre Indiana team.
He was the best player that you ran everything through and he
was able to accumulate numbers, but not at a real efficient rate
because he just doesn't have the breadth of skills.
Now if he stayed for a couple of years and continued to develop
his skills, maybe he becomes that guy.
But this just goes back to our conversation of you know, the
roster because The best player on this roster, you know, so I
don't think you need to force-feed him quite as much as
we did and that might have been a problem with getting the
guards going. And I think that's why things
really took a downturn when Armand Franklin left, because he
was the other guy that could really handle a higher usage
rate. And once he got hurt, now, you
really didn't have any other place to turn, but to your point
about Romeo and we can probably make this.
The last point on Archie is I do agree?
Like, I think in hindsight, it does, you know what you said?
Is kind of true like it. It does kind of feel like he
didn't quite know how to handle that situation.
And that's just further proof that it's not, right?
Because if you can't at any point in your tenure, you know,
assimilate one of the best high school basketball players in
Indiana into what you're doing and make it successful.
You shouldn't be the coach at Indiana, you know?
Because like there's going to be Romeo's that come around and you
need to be able to land them as recruits and you need to be able
to incorporate them into a winning system of basketball.
And if you can't do that, You know with maybe one exception
here, there you just you're not the right guy and so I think our
cheese going to succeed much better at a lower level school
where the spotlight isn't as bright and where you're right,
he's recruiting more hunger. Not that our guys aren't hungry
but there is you know, the guys that kind of have a chip on
their shoulder their overlooked and the he might be at that just
might might relate better because I think he's got a
pretty narrow subset of players that he relates with, because he
doesn't seem like a great relationship.
A ship Builder. But he was kind of a overlooked
chip on your shoulder, kind of guy, and he probably relates
really, well, with that. Type of guy, does he relate
really well with the guy who's, you know, his, remember, his
brother. Sean was like, this highly rated
recruit. It was like doing dribbling
drills on late night, TV shows and stuff, you know, so he kind
of had more attention. Maybe it doesn't.
Maybe it makes more sense that he is related better with higher
rated recruits and done. Better at Arizona that are
cheated here. We're getting into too much pop
psychology here. Yeah, but it, but that kind of
stuff is interesting because whether Right, or wrong on that
and I have no idea that stuff does actually matter, you know?
And so, and that just seems like part of it, that, that Archie
was never quite able to get. And I hope he's able to get it
at the next spot because he's a good coach.
And I think he'll succeed. He just wasn't the right coach
for Indiana. Yeah, I agree.
The last thing I'll say I'm Tres Jackson.
Davis is just I agree. He's limited but I do wonder if
he's limited because of the scheme.
I mean the fact that he was here two years and never took a
three-point shot, some of that's on him, but some of that is
obviously the way they're playing.
Dude, I've seen the way kids play basketball the way NBA
players play basketball, everyone loves jacking up,
threes. So I have a really hard time
believing that race doesn't want to jack a couple up.
So I think it's possibly scheme as well, but let's I think we
can put that to bed. You know, farewell Archie.
It's been fun. You know, now we're moving
forward. Hasn't been fun.
Scott. Not really no.
I mean, because you mentioned, you mentioned your, your moment
this year, I will say and if you go back and listen Of the
podcast, you know, 2019 during that Romeo Season where we lost
like 11 of 12 games. That's where I first.
Got the not like, we got to fire him, but the first twinge of
like, something's not right here.
Like this, is this a massive disappointment this year?
Like, the lights are bright. Everyone's fired up about Romeo.
You get just boat raced by Duke. It's like, okay, Duke is good,
but then you just, you just fall apart in the middle of the Big
Ten season. Like this is not good.
And I never, I never gained my confidence back.
And that was always, my problem is, I kept on coming back to
that year. There was injuries Romeo's for I
guess there's a lot of stuff but it's like you underperform so
much that year that I was never able to get back.
And then just the idea of like well hey we're going to make an
11 seed this year. I was always like, well, but
your it's math. Like if you're -5 you don't just
get to add 3 and be like, all right, we're good.
Like you need to add 10, like you got to do way above and now
we're at even and now we're going to go up from there.
That was always my problem. So no, it wasn't fun.
It was You know, we're going to and what's interesting?
We're gonna look back and this is going to be kind of a weird
blip in history like where we go from here.
Hopefully it's going to be gentle so maybe it's not but
this is going to be kind of a as I've said many times like I
don't know what the highlight of this era is but at least with
the Creed are, it's like all right like that was that was
like doing speed like that was fun.
Like we I like I got track marks.
I got a really good time. Like I woke up a couple couple
Seasons. I Woke up had no idea what
happened the year before. Like nothing happened.
Like it was, it was crazy manic, you know.
Yeah. The the time Green Arrow was a
meth in the arch area was NyQuil.
Yeah, I know exactly. And you Davis at least you had a
couple highs. It's like you're coming off.
The like every every other area has like something.
You can talk about the our chair is like yeah.
Like I don't know. So Dolson makes this move and
the breaking news here on Crimson cast, you haven't heard
Dolson bought out Archie. Miller got the money that the
sequence of events is interesting, but we kind of hash
That out. I'm very happy with what Dolson
is doing. I'm curious to get your take,
but I will also say that I've said this a bunch of times, the
way that things are happening in the way that Dolson is doing
this. That's what I continue to come
back to it. To me, it Narrows the number of
candidates to a very small number of people because you
just don't if your dolphin in my mind, you don't act this way,
unless you feel like you're got somebody great in the hopper,
which we'll talk about. And you also, Don't just act
this confident. If you're going to do this, to
get another mid-major coach kind of like Archie.
Like you would definitely slow play your hand a little bit
more. Dolson is playing this like he's
got pocket aces I mean he's just like dude I got pocket aces, I'm
all-in. Bring it.
I'm so excited about the Scott Dolson era.
I think, you know, I think Fred glass did a wonderful job of
rebuilding the foundation and you know, love his focus on, you
know, student athletes and Mental health and, you know,
kind of putting them first in a sense, the, the facilities
upgrades, like all the things that happened, right?
Like it really felt like things were decaying in a lot of ways
and it felt like Fred glass, like didn't just put Band-Aids
on it, but kind of rebuilt, a lot of things during his era.
You know, that's why we're seeing so much success and some
of the other sports, you know, but it's still kind of felt
like, all right, you know, we kind of rebuilt things, but this
is still kind of like the old Indiana, you know, and we've
rebuilt thing. Cause we're back to like being,
you know. Okay.
But now it's like Scott Dolson is taken over and and basically
said, boys, we're stepping up to the plate.
Like we are. It's like he's left, kind of
the, the green room and is like he's going into the big boy room
right now, you know? And the Tom Allen extension was
the first step in that. I mean that is a that's a that's
a that's the move that a big-time program makes you know
where it's like. We believe in this guy for glass
made a great decision to hire him as the coach from people
disagreed with it. Scott, Dolson comes in and is
like I'm doubling down. This is our guy.
We're going to commit to him and we're going to let everybody
know that we're committing to him.
That's what a big-time program does.
It's not what Indiana has done and I think it's the same thing
here with this higher, or we don't know the higher yet, but
at least with this move with Archie, right?
Which is look, I could Keep him. There's an argument to keep him,
right? It's a pandemic.
There's lots of different issues you had more cover this issue.
A block ever had. Like what would have been the?
You had so much cover to do what I you normally does.
Yes, he could have. And instead, he said, you know
what, like Penn State would have kept our Chi, you know, like
that's that's the move that a program with Penn State's
basketball expectations would have done, you know, but this is
Indiana. So we've got to make a move and
I think you're right. Part of that is having the plan
in place beforehand and, you know, kind of having a very
short list of people that you are going to do everything to
get. Like I don't know how this hires
going to go. I really don't or who you know
or who we're going to end up with.
But I'm going to be shocked, surprised I'm going to be
surprised, if it's not someone that we are really, really
excited about. And if it's not someone that
were really, really excited about.
I'm not going to be wondering. You know, did we lowball them?
Like, is it this that of the other?
Like I'm going to feel pretty good that we took our best shot
and if the guys that we're going after saying, no, I'm not going
to be like, you know what the hell Dolson I'm going to be
like. Alright.
Well let's figure out why they said.
No, but man, we gave it our best shot.
Apparently, there was something about it.
That didn't work. Let's figure it out like a.
I'm not going to feel like a sense of regret like we did it
wrong. I have a lot of faith in the
process that he's going through here and I think it's going to
turn out in a really, really positive.
Of way. Yeah so is a guy who you know
there's an NBA coach that we haven't talked about yet so
we'll bring it up now. Like I think you know Erik
Spoelstra is on everyone's mind. He coaches the heat.
I think you could come here now. I'm totally kidding.
I know, dr. Rivers is the one that you
meant. Yes, yes, I want Nate McMillan.
This listen spring McMillan up, not me Brad Stevens.
Like let's, let's go to. I've been joking.
Like, we're, I made a podcast to have fun like I'm not a real
journalist. Let's let's talk about it.
Thanks it took us 39 minutes to get here.
No one's still listening. They're just waiting for the
ground, Stephen stuff. And we gate, we make sure we put
a timestamp in the descriptions of people know.
They can skip ahead to the Brad Stevens stuff.
That's right. I'm ready, buddy.
Wants to listen to you right now.
I'm writing that down right now but I will say this, you know, I
don't have sources, but I've a lot of people I talk to and it's
always been doing never happening.
Like, Steve is never come, that's always been the line is.
Like it's just the timing wasn't going to line up.
It's never going to work once Dolson made this move.
I started hearing like the it was different this time.
It's like, well there's a 5% chance like I don't know, it's
one in a million or 1 1 in 1,000 that's already hearing.
And it's like that, you know, 5% 10% like it's not, it's not
illogical, probably not going to happen.
Which is way different than just know.
And then as this has gone on things are just there's just
there's smoke everywhere now. I'm seeing it from a brad
Stevens that you always talk about, you know, crimson color
glass. I'm seeing this from Brad
Stevens colored glasses, like I'm viewing it in here and by
the way, I hate the national thing of like you guys just
think you're going to get sick, who cares?
Like this is why it's fun to be a fan.
Like this is why it's good times, but if you view
everything under the guise of Brad, Stevens has some Interest
in this, it all makes sense. Like this is the way.
Dolson would play it. If you, if I'm Dolson, I feel
like I have a shot to get Brad Stevens.
Like, I'm gonna go be able to talk people, get money like
this. I'm going to get the money to
buy him out. I firmly believe you fire Archie
right away because the old IU way of doing things would have
been like well let's keep our Chi to keep things going and
then we'll try and go back channel to Brad.
But you know this is where if you want phone call, sorry.
This is where you want. It might be a source of info.
If you have to take it. No, no, it's not a source of
info. It's like my headphones.
Start picking up the phone, and I'm not going to cut it.
We're just going to keep it going.
This is this is live. Pod bad podcasting, but me,
you've got to put the heat on Brad Stevens.
A little bit. You can't just say, well, you
know, you know, come here and because your Brands like look
man, get rid of your coach and then maybe I'll talk to you.
You got to show your aggressive. I like this and then I'll end on
this point. Talk to Ryan about this on my
last pod you guys on the assembly.
Call kind of your Oil. Oh my God.
The you know, we fired our cheap odd, you brought up something.
I thought was a great point that you never want to be publicly
turned down. But in this case I do think that
whether it's back channels. At some point I you needs to let
their offer kind of get leaked and then if Brad Stevens turns
us down if it comes out and I've heard a year and a number of go
around and what we're offering which is pretty pretty, pretty
high if that is the case, I think you do need to leak it if
your Dolson and let that out because If Brad says no, that's
like, okay, we gave our best shot and then, you know, in two
years, lets say he leaves, the Celtics who gets fired and then
goes to coach North Carolina or Duke or wherever or go somewhere
else? I know.
But like, let's just say at some point, maybe he does go back to
college. At least we, as fans can say,
hey, we put our best foot forward like, you know, hey the
girl doesn't want to date me. Like what can I do?
I think in this case, we need to know like hey we put our best
foot forward, he said no we're going to move on with our lives.
Versus always kind of hanging. This over our head.
So I love the way that Dolson is doing this and I do believe that
we are in the midst of putting our best foot forward to Brad
Stevens right now. I agree. 100% agree, you know
this Brad. Stevens thing is fascinating, it
really is. And I think there are there are
two cognitive biases at play right now, for Indiana fans.
And for the national media, you know, we always is humans.
You know, we have these cognitive biases that operate,
the color, the way that we perceive things, and so
important to kind of First and how they're operating, right?
One of them is confirmation bias, right?
So, you know, this idea that you kind of look at things, you look
at information and you view it through this prism of kind of
confirming your, maybe, your desired, or even your existing
beliefs, right? And so I think very guilty of
that. We all are, we all are made.
It's just human nature. So, you know, as Indiana fans,
right? It's like okay.
We look at stuff who the Celtics aren't playing very well.
You know, Brad Stevens spent two minutes at a press conference,
you know, talking about his history, you know.
With Indiana basketball, you know?
He grew up in Indiana, right? You start like adding up all of
these things and in your own mind, it starts to confirm.
Hey, there could be a real chance here, you know, like
maybe this could really happen, you know?
And so, you know, so National media people or other people who
don't kind of have the same pre-existing beliefs, right?
They look at it and they're just like, you guys are crazy, you
know, but here's the other thing, the other one that's
operating and I think it's operating in an even more
Insidious A is anchoring and you know, anchoring is where, you
know, the way that we think about something is kind of
anchored to this initial belief that we have about it.
And the thing with the Brad Stevens to Indiana stuff ever
since he was at Butler is every time the conversation has come
up. It's it's been presented as a
non-starter because it has been a non-starter you know you
couldn't move on from crane after 2013 as mad as you were
about Syracuse, not a bit insane know what a Big Ten title.
Please number one, you know, a number one seed, all those
things like that would have been crazy, you know, then Brad
Stevens goes to Boston and he's excited about this opportunity.
He clearly enjoyed. You know the what the lifestyle
and coaching that NBA presented over college.
So it's never really been a possibility.
And so our thinking about Brad, Stevens has always been anchored
to this idea that it's not possible.
If you even mention it, you're going to get called out.
You're probably going to feel like a fool yourself if you even
talk about it. So we just never really talked
about it. But what's happening right now
is there is a real legitimate possibility of this and this
anchoring in our minds for a lot of people hasn't caught up to
it, you know. So we look at these things that
we view as confirmation bias running wild in our mind, but
just because it's confirmation bias, doesn't mean that there is
an actual reality there. You know, all of those things.
The Celtics are playing poorly and that does open up an
opportunity to wear this marriage between Brad Stevens,
and Danny Ainge. My Not work.
It is weird that he spent an entire two minutes at a of a
question, you know, reflecting about this time in Indiana, you
know, Mark Titus talked about this on his podcast and
basically, at the end it's like he remembered the script and was
like, oh, but I'm, you know, the coach of the Boston Celtics,
like it's a pull like, you know, and he might not have wanted to
go home three or four years ago, you know, because he's in
Boston, you know, his kids are still young.
He's enjoying being in the NBA, it's four years later.
The pull to go home. Can hit you at a different
season of life and maybe Maybe that's what's happening now.
So there are legitimate circumstances that are coming
together that if you were to just remove the anchoring and
remove the way that we thought about this for a long time, you
would say, of course he's the number one candidate for this
job. Of course, he's one of the more
likely candidates for this job because of his connection, how
much Indiana is going to offer the way that things are lining
up with the Celtics all of this stuff.
Now, none of that is to say that it's going to happen for sure.
But what I do think seems Pretty likely.
At this point, is we're putting together an amazing offer.
He's Option. 1 2, and 3, we are going to do everything in our
power to get him. And it's just going to come down
to the simple fact of does he want to be the coach at Indiana
or not and if he does he will be, he'll be rewarded handsomely
for it. And all the DAR was like well
what's going to happen with the Celtics?
And how all those details will be figured out if we have to
wait until June. We'll wait until June like
whatever. It's it's Brad Stevens, you
know, so that stuff will happen. But so I think like, I guess my
message And Indiana fans is like it's okay to like think about
this and hope about it. I mean don't get crazy about it
like it may not happen. So don't allow it to like just
devastate your life if it doesn't happen.
But we don't have to be anchored to this thought that it's not
possible. There is a window right now
we're Brad. Stevens could become the coach
of Indiana and we're just waiting to see if it's going to
happen and that's okay you know like that is okay and it'll be
great if it happens and then we can move onto.
You know what it will be like when fantasy meets reality of
Brad Stevens in Indiana because that would be fascinating.
Eating, or we move on to the next candidate but you know,
don't don't let people tell you that you shouldn't think about
it or hope about it like there's legitimate reason to and doesn't
make you crazy to think that. And and I would, I would venture
to say, just don't listen the national people.
Like they just don't know. Like I was, I love PTI but I'm
watching wilbon who by the way, is like a Northwestern grad.
So he's got a bias, but he's like on PTI and he's been saying
we shouldn't have hired Archie. It's like, okay, great, like
we'll just keep not making the tournament but he's like, you
know, Today he just said on the last PTI yesterday was like, you
know, the Celtics can pay more than I you.
It's like, no, like college coaches.
Make more like, you know, Gail has been spouting.
This it's like just a fact Tom Allen makes more than than Brad,
Stevens does now. And by the way, like, if we're
putting together a package and, you know, somewhere on the list,
Chris beard is on our list somewhere.
You know, Chris beard makes four and a half million at Texas Tech
or five million. Like we can't just tell Chris
beard. Hey, man.
Like, you know, once you come to IU and take a two million dollar
pay cut that we're putting together a package.
Him. That's the range we're looking
at. That's double what Steve is is
making in the NBA right now. Like it's no I'm with you and
you know you can't do what I want to.
Hey I want to say something real quick though because and I just
want to throw this out there because I don't like Brad
Stevens contract. Number has been thrown around at
three point. Six, seven million.
That was his initial contract. I do think he signed an
extension, so I think he's making more, I'm just not sure
that they disclosed it. So they, it's important to know.
I just want to like, make sure that's good because I made that
same mistake. Like I think he's making a lot
more. So like we may not double his
salary or whatever, but to your point it will be more.
Like we will increase his salary by a, by a good amount but it
may not be able. And the other thing too is, you
know, its it feels like a natural breaking point in,
Boston, like I'm I'm going to be as guilty as anybody watching,
you know. I'm now Cavs fan, like I'll be,
I'll be a buck stay with it for the Bucs, like, rooting for
losses of the Celtics. But, you know, in the end, you
look at the history of NBA coaches, Popovich is the
outlier. These guys have a seven to nine
year window. Boston fans are rabid and it is
funny watching National guys on one hand saying I, you, you
know, we're crazy fans for watching our coach gone.
But on the flip side, it's like Stevens.
Who's taken the Celtics to three of the last four Eastern
Conference Finals. They're like, well yeah.
But you know, it makes sense. They want to fire Stevens like
those two things are accurate, like those can't be in the same
category, like we can't be missing the tournament.
Then they can Eastern Conference Finals and it's okay for them.
For both of us, we can't fire our codes but they Can fire.
There's but I want to get into the timing to me, that's the
interesting thing. Like whether Stevens has
interest, if your point who knows?
Like maybe he does, maybe he's okay with recruiting, who knows?
But if he wants to come here, this is the part that again,
there's smoke all over the place.
I'm hearing lots of crazy rumors that all click in, but again, I
don't know if I'm in the bleep. Beautiful Mind moment where I'm
just making connections to stuff, and I'm insane.
But let's just go under the assumption because it's fun.
And this is a podcast. That Stevens wants to come here
and Dolson has the money to pay him.
The part that I cannot figure out is how you how you line
things up timing-wise because it's very unlikely for him to
just resign and say, I'm done coaching the stuff maybe that's
going to happen, more than likely, he would coach the
string out, but if your eye you it's a great.
If Steven says I'm I'm gonna come here.
But if you don't have a signed contract, if you just have his
word, Word. You could be in a spot where you
get to June and it's like everyone assumes you're getting
Stevens. And now Brad could say yeah no I
got you know for whatever reason he could change his mind and now
your eye you and you're like, you're really, you know,
flapping in the wind and you have am again, Ohio State got
Holtman in July as well, so not the end of the world but that
would be that would kind of be a very bad case scenario of your
Dolson to kind of just hang on a promise and a pinky promise.
You almost have to have a signed contract, but if you have that
it's going to get out now. So I just I don't know how the
timing of it could work. That is the interesting part of
it, the really interesting part of it, you know, and I think
it's a risk reward type situation right?
You wouldn't he's got Dolson you wouldn't wait around for any
coach but this is Brad Stevens, who is not, he's not the perfect
candidate like you know, he's not the perfect coach but he's
clearly the best candidate. And so So you know to me I
always try to look at these things through the prism of
okay, what am I going to regret more?
You know if I'm if I'm looking at this from Scott dull since
perspective and even if I'm looking at it from a fan
perspective like if there's a legit shot that this could
happen, right? And you know, Scott Dawson comes
to me as I. Okay, there's no guarantee.
But, you know, there's some interest here and we think we've
got a shot like, you know, what do you want to do?
Do you want me to play it safe? Or do you want me to like, push
all the chips into the table, and do everything that we have
to do to make this a possibility?
I would say? Fortune favors the Bold.
Let's go for this. Like, this is the guy that we
all want. Who knows?
What would actually happen if he becomes coach.
But goodness gracious, we'd all love to see it.
So let's go with it and the like, what really is the
worst-case scenario, okay? So the worst case scenario is
you wait until the end of the season, right?
You go until June July. Things turn around he decides.
You know what I want to be here. I love my guys, Jason Tatum and
and Jalen Brown, you know, I appreciate the interest.
I'm sorry that I dragged this out.
I'll always have a soft spot for Indiana in my Art.
But at the end of the day, I want to be an NBA coach because
I like the lifestyle better. You know.
Sorry. Scott, you know, thanks thanks
for the offer and now Scott Dolson sitting there in the
middle of the summer, like well, okay, yeah like like what do I
do now? Are your second third options
that you have in mind right now? Are they still possibilities?
Who knows? Let's say, worst case scenario,
they're not this is still the Indiana basketball job, you
know? And now at this point, you've
done everything to get your number one, guy it hasn't
worked, but at least you've taken your shot, your fan base
knows that you've taken your Shot there in your corner. 100%.
So we got to step down the ladder.
Some you're still going to get a good coach or somebody good.
So to me the risk reward is the worst case scenario it would
suck, you know, just in comparison to how we're
thinking, but it probably wouldn't be that bad.
But the upside of getting it is what we all want.
And how long has it been? Since is Indiana, basketball
fans. We actually got what we want for
once, you know. So I just, I think the roof
Reward means you do what it takes and if some good options
Fall by the wayside in the meantime, that's a trait.
Me is a fan that's a trade-off. I would be willing to make.
So I would not second-guess, Scott Dolson, if he made it and
I would be willing to live with what the repercussions of that
could be. If the downside comes true,
which it very well could, but I say go for it, I think that's a
great way to look at it because if you assume, you know,
somewhere on all of our list is Dane Fife, and I'm not pick it
on. But he's only had coaching
experience at IPFW, he's an assistant, but there's a lot to
like about Fife and he's on my on my personal like short list.
I'm with you. Like you take the shot at
Stephens and like, I don't want say worst case but it's like
Fife is probably still there. Fife would take.
The job is not, life is gonna be like, oh yeah, I'm going to turn
down a power, five job just because you guys got turned down
by Brad Stevens. You know, he would still be
there, so it's like, you're gonna get you to your point.
You're gonna get somebody on that list, maybe it's not gonna
be, you know, beard or be E line.
But you know what's interesting is, as I look at this, all of
these guys do have do have warts that do need to be looked at
like and I think we can be happy with any of them and I'll
probably watch them all away when we get there.
But when you kind of look down the line, you know, Stevens is
really the one that checks all of those boxes.
So I agree with you, you take your shot because you look at
beard, I'll just do my real quick break down here.
Like you know, beard is a very good coach and shows.
Can turn things around quickly but it's also a, you know, it's
kind of off of one season like which is kind of where we were
with Archie and his ties to Indiana are very minimal and
he's a Texas guy like everything, you know, and it's
going to cost a ton of money to get him.
Like, it is going to cost a ton of money to get him.
You look, Scott drew, he's a good coach, but he comes with
some baggage at this point. I'm kind of in the boat.
Like, I don't care about slimy. I just care about W's, but
there's some baggage with him. You look at Eric, Muslim.
And I think Muslims are very great coach has some great
resume but there's some Creed 2.0 Vibes.
He's kind of a crazy guy that there's some of that too.
And I would say this like you're not if you're Dolson, you're not
acting like this. If you're going after a
muscleman like muscle man is obviously down the list and then
you get to like the Fife Cheney type.
It's like they have no coaching experience or there's there's
issues with all of those guys that's kind of how I see it and
that's kind of my and then be lying early on.
I was kind of interested but You know, as I listen to more people
talk about it, listen to Galen talk about it.
It's like, I think be line is honestly trying to get us
interested, so he could up his offer for Minnesota like be
line. You're going to need somebody
who's young and energetic and just has that ability to kind of
build this program up and I'm not sure be lines.
The right guy. And I also know if Dolson wants
to do all this and then do it again and six years, you know,
you bring up a good point. Like, like a guy like Chris
beard is a great option. Huge option to me like,
personally, he's the number two, Option.
You know, but he's not the perfect candidate.
And all any candidate is going to have words.
Like if you actually like, who were the actual candidates?
Like let's just think pie-in-the-sky take everything
away who are the candidates that don't have question marks like
that? Would have no question marks
Tony Bennett but even he would have question marks as people
don't like his offensive style, right?
But you know, he would win like Jay, right?
But now you're gonna go back to dating Bennett, I know, but hold
on, but let me make the point, you know Jay, right?
But now you're taking J right out of his comfort zone and
Sophia and putting him in the midwest.
So the point is like, everybody's going to have
question marks, you know, like here's a blind resume for you,
right? Take a coach, who is like, was
that at a mid-major, okay, mid-major for six seasons out of
those six seasons. Had to 20-win seasons made the
NIT four times. Like, would you be excited about
that? Coach being named being named
Indiana's? Coach, lots of question marks,
right? Right.
That's Bob Knight's resume from army.
You know what I mean? So, like, you know, And are you
going to stumble into the next bob Knight?
Probably not but that's what I mean.
So it's you have to look at the resume.
But if we've learned anything from the Archie Miller
experience, it's you've got to look at the resume and the
results, you know? But also the fit and the
personality and all of those things.
And so, you know, I think when you add all of that stuff up, I
think beard makes the most sense and look on as recently as that
podcast that we did for the assembly call as Is Archie was
fired. I was talking about how I didn't
think he was a possibility. And for several reasons I really
didn't. Because at that time, you talked
about his salary and, I guess to me, like, I just, I hadn't
gotten out of the IU basketball mindset thinking that we might
try to not lowball a coach but not pay it like the top top
levels. And also, you know, he's there
are real reasons why he might not be interested, his family's
in Texas, he's from Texas. He may just have a comfort zone
there, Texas. Technically do everything to
keep him but I've really changed on that and I really do think it
makes more Or sense as a realistic possibility but you
know all these candidates are going to have even Brad Stevens
has some question marks you know it is this again is going to be
a guy who wants to grind on the recruiting Trail.
Maybe he doesn't need to because he's an NBA coach, you know,
he's a former NBA coach, he's got that credibility and all
that stuff, but like their question marks, you know.
So that's that's just kind of the reality of this situation
but I'm gonna, I don't know. I I continue to say like I'm
going to be pretty surprised if we have to go further down.
Our list in the top couple or, you know, top top three will
see, we met, but I've a lot of faith in Dolson to make this
work, somehow some way whether it's stevens or somebody else.
I think we're going to end up liking who we get well and you
can play that game with with resumes.
It's interesting too. Because you look at like, you
know, hey would you want somebody who just had you know D
to experience a car with Bo Ryan?
What do you want? Somebody who's never had a
coaching experience like that's Tom Izzo like there's you can
play this game and to me I think where I'm happy to get it,
right? You gotta pick the right.
Right guy. No well I honestly don't I mean
yes obviously, yes. But I look at it more.
You've got to identify when things aren't working and make a
decision faster, which is what we did.
And historically is what we don't do.
We kind of let Davis linger probably an extra year, you
know, when things seem to be not working with creamy, let it
linger, that's what we've done. And to me, that's, you know, I
look at hiring coaches, almost like recruiting or picking high
in the end. A draft.
It's like, I don't know if there's like this is the exact
formula works because the mid-major moving to Major guy
like Archie, had the perfect resume for that.
It didn't work, you know, you could hire fight, that's like
that's taken the, you know, Tom Izzo, Michigan State Route, like
maybe that works like in the end, you just got to get the
right coach, but I think you just it's hard to say.
These are the five things that make a great coach, it can come
from anywhere to me. It's like you have to be willing
to just say, all right, we're going to give this two or three
years and then we're Gonna make a final decision of whether it's
working because you can that was in the end, the Archie thing,
that drove me nuts. This last year is when, when
it's working, you can see it. I mean, you see it with Brad
Underwood at Illinois. You see, it with hultman at Ohio
State. He had a different starting
point, maybe, but you saw it with Creed, I mean year for
their there humming, you know, they're going, they're on their
way by year 5 or number one in the country.
Like, it, it doesn't take this long and when you're Indiana it,
sure. As shit should not take that
long. Along with the resources we
have. So that that would be my
pitches, no matter who you hire even as excited as we are with
Stevens by year three, we should all be at the point where it's
like, all right, are we pointed and going in the right
trajectory? And to me your three is kind of
that I think you're too honestly.
But you look at Illinois and Brad Underwood like your to it's
like there was nothing going on there but by year 3 it's like
they're Off to the Races and so yeah I think that's kind of
where I'm at. Yeah, the last thing I would say
About that is is anything for Town evaluation or hiring.
Like, you've got to have a vision in your head for what
you're looking for, you know what.
And what are the? There's a lots of different
criteria that you could pick. But what's the most important
criteria? I want to credit?
Whoever said this, I don't remember who it was.
It's on one of the many episodes of crimson cast that I've
listened to. I think, I think it might have
been, this might have been the one that Galen did with the guy
from who's a Yukon fan. I forget his name.
I apologize. He's not, he's not like an IU.
Family brought him on to get kind of that objective
perspective. But I think what's really
important for this hire is having a guy who has enough
skins on the wall and a strong enough personality, and a strong
enough vision for what his program is going to look like
that. He doesn't have to come in and
kowtow to the Indiana tradition or kowtow to Fan expectations,
but he sets the fan expectations and he can pay homage to the
tradition and respect it while building a new one and
modernizing. It, you know?
And and the point that was made on the other podcast was that's
what Nick Saban. Did it Alabama, Nick Saban came
in and said, you know, he took the Alabama tradition and it was
this Amazing Canvas for him to paint his own Masterpiece on,
and he has done it, but it has been Nick Saban's, Alabama
football and it's a new era of Alabama, football and it's
changed things. It's not done like things were
done and in the time of Bear Bryant.
But you know what? The most important part of
tradition continuity is winning because that's the only
tradition we really care about. About like not the only like we
care about the candy stripes and we care about all that, and no
coach is going to be dumb, enough to just come in and like,
poopoo all that stuff and get rid of stuff unnecessarily, you
know. But if a coach wants to, if a
Coach comes in and is like, look, this name image or
likeness thing is going to be one of the most important things
over the next 10 years. I have a real plan for how I'm
gonna do this. And part of it is putting names
on the back of the jerseys and we're going to do it.
That would cause that would ruffle some feathers.
But I think you need a guy who if he believes that's the right
thing to do comes in says it can sell you on it and succeeds in
doing it. You know, we probably need that
as a fan base, a little bit to be shaken out of some of the
things that we hold, dear. Let's just agree that there are
no sacred cows except for winning.
And we need a guy who is going to be able to be strong enough
to do that. Now, I'm not saying we're going
to hire Nick, Saban that, I mean, Nick, Saban and Alabama is
like The perfect marriage of program and Coach, but it's not
ridiculous to think that we could do something close, the
situations are relatively analogous.
If we get the right guy in, but I think you got to have, you
know, and like Brad Stevens would represent that not that.
He's, this overly strong personality, but his stature
what he did. It Butler, what he did at Boston
and the stature he has in the fan base, you know, we would go
along with anything that he said in the first couple years if he
thinks that's what he needs to do to build a program.
You know, even Chris beard to a certain extent.
He doesn't have all those skins on the wall.
I mean, he's been to a national title game.
He's competed well in the Big 12, but he's got the force of
personality to do it, you know? So I think you've got to have
someone who could come in and do that and kind of take control of
this. Sometimes, unwieldy ship of the
IU fan base and get us all going in One Direction because this is
a fan base, that is thirsting for strong competent leadership.
So we just need to get it and I think the Vast vast, majority of
folks would fall in line and make what the spent be able to
accentuate. The positives at the fan base
brings while minimizing some of the obvious and unfortunate, but
still in the minority negatives. That it can occasionally bring.
No, I'm so happy. You brought this up.
This is the last point I wanted to talk about.
This is where I think it is for the next coach.
It's a fine line. You got a really thread this
needle, because you see what coach Allen has done.
It has done with the football program with the Elio.
And, you know, he's built a, he's built a foundation there
and he's built a culture, but it happened in, you know, football
was a black hole void, like there is no tradition and
there's almost like a random mix of like we played a shark song
on third down and like we, there's all kinds of stuff we're
just as mishmash of little starts and stops of tradition,
which maybe it's harder or easier, but he just kind of came
in and was like Elio like Ellie. Oh, that's what we're doing.
And it's hokey. But then you're like to your
point. It was hokey and to assure
winning and now it's like, all right now, now there's a call.
When he had the belief and he had the force of personality to
get people onto his side and look at where basketballs
tougher. Yes, what were you saying?
Tom Allen is a special guy, you know.
And look if you can identify someone with that's that genuine
and has that strong of a personality, I mean you got to
get nothing. You have to get lucky.
I mean, I think you just have to, you know, Fred glass,
clearly knew what he was getting in Tom Allen.
But I mean a guy like that doesn't come along very well.
But I think, you know, basketball is a lot different
than Bob but you're going to have to have somebody who has
some of those same traits of Tom Allen where it's like I believe
in this and we're going to do this this way and the results
are going to play out or they're not and I'll be judged on those.
But this is what I believe is the right way to do it.
And, you know, you're not going to, you know, some milk toast
guy who, you know, doesn't really want to kind of put
himself front-and-center like Archie.
The fan base is probably into precarious, if a position to
follow that you know, we're going to need someone.
That's strong enough to be able to guide this in the direction
that it needs to go. Well, that's where basketball is
tough, because there are some traditions there that, you know,
I don't see her sacred cows, but you're going to, you're going to
ruffle feathers if you touch. But I also do think has been
brought up on many of these pods that it feels stale like it's
just Indiana brand. Feels stale.
We're selling on tradition. We're selling on, you know, all
these things. And it wouldn't feel stale if we
were winning. I mean, if we were winning, this
would all be awesome Traditions that were all into We're not
winning and so it is time for us to look in ourselves.
And I do think we need a coach to kind of come in and say,
okay, I know what younger recruits are looking for and
we're going to keep a b and c, but we're going to change, X, Y,
and Z, and we're going to change it because of this.
And I do think, you know, I'm going to go back to Archie.
But that was where Archie kind of just came in was like, all
right well, Indiana basketball is what it is?
I'm just going to coach basketball.
It's like no I I think we need we need a bit of a culture
shock. I think, the Nick Saban analogy
is perfect that they kept, you know, the Hound Each tooth and
some of those things but they changed it.
What they change was their winning like now they're winning
and but I think this is where the next coach and that should
be something that Dolson is looking for.
Is somebody who comes in. And I think Galen said this one
of the other pods looks this like an entrepreneur.
And to me this is a great opportunity because football was
really tough. There's nothing there.
Like, at least it would with his basketball team.
This is a store that used to make a ton of money, the still
on a really good street corner to use the analogy but it's like
it's not making money now. It's like, can you figure out
the things that work and then shake up the things that don't
update it and if you do, you're going to have a power.
Because, you know, when you look at this, from a Rosy
perspective, I think I was doing this last night with some
friends. If you just, let's end on a very
positive note because you're one of the most positive guys in the
in the podcast here. But let's just assume for a
moment that we do get Stevens. You know, let's just say they
throw out a crazy number and he's making, you know, 6 million
a year. The question is even talking to
my wife last night? Like if you're Dolson, you can
almost kind of just throw out whatever number you want because
let's just say you get Stevens to agree is he good is Dolson
going to have any problems, finding donors to pay six
million a year for Brad Stevens. The answer is no, you know, and
you now have Alan and I've kind of joke that we're going to have
a hundred percent approval rating over all of our coaches.
But we're really at a point. Now we're coming out of this
pandemic. You could be one of the more
secure Financial situations for School in the Big Ten outside of
maybe Ohio State or Michigan based on their football Revenue,
but you're going to start getting football Revenue that
that's uphill. Imagine we hire Stevens the next
two months. Okay, Stevens is our Coach
Stevens comes in and this fan base is fired up.
People are giving money at a ridiculous Clips.
Dolson could literally be like, hey we're going to do a 30
million dollar fundraising campaign for IU Varsity Club.
Oh we already got 30 but we're going to 40 and they just go
back right shit. We're gonna do 60 of them.
Yeah. Well you're going to talk about
a sellout for football for the first First game back, Hoosier
hysteria is going to be nuts, like it and if this train gets
rolling and now you have football going to a bowl games,
you have a program like this like this, you could have a
Powerhouse back in Bloomington, making a ton of money and really
be in a great position. So that is what I think is at
stake and I think that's what the opportunity there and to
your point that's the opportunity cost.
Like you've got to shoot for that Moon because you could be
in a position where it's like, all right, we are We're set to
really become a power of the Big Ten like we've never been
because we've never had basketball and football humming
like this. We did it once in the mid-80s,
but even then it's like you had bob Knight running his own
fiefdom, his money was his own, he had crappy shoe deals, like
it was kind of running in this parallel universe.
Like this is we're one united front.
That could really be a force to reckon with and we are were one
step away. Away from having it all working,
right, footballs got the right guy in place and it's hummin
women's basketball has the right woman in place and it's humming
baseball's humming, you know, swimming and Diving,
unbelievable. You know, soccer unbelievable.
But the crown jewel is always been basketball and we just have
to find the right guy. And if you do, the upside is
through the roof and I clearly Scott Olson is Savvy enough to
see that, and that's why he's doing, whatever it takes to get
the guy who's most likely to blow the roof off the For what
IU basketball, could be if you surveyed. 1,000 people write a
basketball observers and just said, okay, who's the coach out
there? Give Indiana every possible
coach that's available. Who's the one out there?
That is most likely to, you know, have it reach its
potential 99.9% of people would say Brad.
Stevens doesn't mean you're going to get him, but it does
mean the risk-reward kind of calculus is there that it makes
sense to do everything you can to get them and I firmly believe
Indiana will. And, and then Then as we said,
it's just up to his decision. And personally, I personally I'm
at whatever the decision is I'm going to move on.
And I think this is why I'm indulging it so much and
allowing myself to be hopeful. And number one, it's because we
haven't felt this in a while and it's good to feel enthusiasm and
to kind of feel alive as a fan. But I've made peace with it.
So that whatever the decision is after that fine, and I'm ready
to move on from it. I'm not going to feel
disappointed. It might feel a little bit
disappointed, you know, in the moment that it doesn't happen
but I'm going to feel proud that we took our shot, you know.
That we did everything because if you mean if you play your
best but you know if you lose but you play your best.
Now it's like when you know Pete Bell and in Blue Chips they lose
and he's like those kids gave me everything.
They gave me their hearts you know as long as you do that then
you can be happy with the result you know and so you know why
does Nick Saban work it out a Bama because he's all about
process over result but if you have the right process the
results will come Scott. Dolson seems to have the right
process. So whether the result is Brad
stevens or a different one, I believe we're going.
To start getting the results we want.
Because the process makes a lot of sense.
Yeah, I love indulging. It, it's fun.
This is fun. I want to have it.
I did. The only problem is like if it's
timeline really is June, this is going to be just so hard to wait
for morning. Like I-15 podcast a week, until
then Scott, I know, it's like, we can start doing a Celtics
podcast, like, yeah, Tate of looks like he's just like Celtic
assembly call. Postgame shows for Celtics
games. Just get on there.
Just get on there boy. I really questioned these
coaching decisions, not sure not sure why.
He? Why he benched sound so there, I
don't know. Maybe that maybe the pro game is
past this coach by Yeah. Well, yeah.
Or just like looking at it through the prism of like man,
Jim Brown like you know, a brown shook him off like I want to get
out of there like I think I'm like, I love the assembly call.
Celtics addition this. Oh my gosh, that's great.
Well no, it's just Been fun Jared, thank you for coming on.
Let's have you back when we have a coach and we have do it, have
some idea of Direction. It's funny on all of these
podcasts. Nobody is talking anything about
roster management, nor should we, because we just don't know
how any of this is going to play.
But yeah, I think at this point, it's, we've got to get the Right
leader in place. And then those chips will kind
of fall where they may, but get the right guy even if you get
the right. If you get the coach, you
believe in and every single player decides to transfer.
And happen. But if they do, whatever we got
to get the right guy, the right coach is going to be the one
that you want long-term. Now you get the right guy,
you're probably going to keep most of the players because
they're smart enough. And we have I think we've
recruited good enough families that they're smart enough to
know. A I want to be with this coach
because it's in the best interest of my son.
So let's get the right guy will set ourselves up for next year,
for the future. Let's just do it, man.
Let's do it. I know it's fun to indulge but I
think you hit on this. You hit a great Point.
Like, even if Steven says no, I don't think we need to be
disappointed. It's not like it's not an
indictment on. I you like I do think we need to
deep dig deep into our self. It's like, look, everyone has
their own ideas of things, as long as we threw our best offer
out there, you know, as long as we have a real money offer,
which I think Dawson is shown with football, we're going to do
like he paid Alan, he didn't, we didn't do this thing where we're
going to raise you about 200,000 and get like, no, we paid our
like, real. We all eat.
Yes. So I have no doubt that Dolson
is going to offer real money to Stevens and then it's Ben says,
no, and even a couple years of, he goes to Duke or somewhere
else like all right, but that's all we can do.
Like we are who we are. That's the money we have.
And at that point, I shouldn't we shouldn't have ill will and
we shouldn't be unhappy with who we get.
Because there's, as you said, great coaches can come from
everywhere. And I think, you know, a couple
of years ago, none of us if we would have hired, you know, Brad
Underwood. We'd be like, man.
That's a weird resume like, you know, Underwood when Archie is
out there and that would have worked out, so who knows?
What I would say he's a better fit at Illinois than he is at
Indiana for for various reasons. So you need to have the right
fit coach School fit is very important.
I think Underwood fits better there than he did.
Congrats to him on all of his success.
I don't want to take anything away K Sampson's, having a lot
of sex as a Houston. Yeah, but that was all, I don't
know what comes to answer is doing his personal life, but
he's having a lot of success in Houston but but he's a better
fit there. Is it Indiana, right?
So that's the thing. We got to get the right fit for
Indiana fair. And I think Jared, hey, this is
Ben. I love having you on.
I love kind of the Zen positivity, you provide.
Thank you for joining us and again, listen to the assembly
call, they put out great stuff every Thursday night every post
game show every firing. They have a show so they are on
all the time. Great.
And now after every Celtics game and that would be right.
There we go, you're it. Have you ever seen talking about
player? Yeah.
How quiet. Is reacting to the coaching,
it's going to be awesome. Celtics postgame show how's
coach to signing to do it because he can't talk about
coaches being fired. So he's going to be like, well,
he'll just have nothing to say. All right, there's more curves
and cast content coming. I'm sure I'm sure galen's
providing 75 other podcast this week so had more.
This wasn't the last one. No there's more.
We got a fun one. Coming this afternoon.
Yeah. So until next time, thank you
all for joining. Thank you all for the support.
It's been fun. This has been a fun ride.
I'd for Scott for Crimson, cast signing off.