Anymore, there are hordes of IU hoops fans that root for Notre Dame football and pay no attention to IU football, which is kinda lame. There seem to be fewer and fewer ND die-hards that are passionate about both ND football and ND hoops than when we were growing up in Indiana.Originally Posted by Assembly Hall
Whatever you do, do your best to not allow the struggles of life to interfere with the pleasures of living.
Agree with this, and can add Brad Underwood at ILL to the pile (even though he may have started a year earlier?)
I agree with this. The reason tMSU is considered such a great program and not a relic leaning on it's glory from the 70's is pretty much 100% due to Tom Izzo. The reason Duke is a power program is because of what Coach K has built.
There's not a lot of evidence that even given best circumstances, anyone else will be able to just pick up the baton and charge ahead.
I think those who say IU is like Nebraska Football are missing a few points. Indiana(and the surrounding recruiting areas) are still very fertile places to recruit and there is still some regionality to recruiting success. I'd say it's closer to a rich man's Tennessee football.
The bones are still there, but there's a lot of things you have to do really well to build it and there's a lot of ways whatever you're building can go wrong through no one's fault necessarily. And that makes decisions like firing a coach particularly fraught because at this point every coach who comes in isn't starting from where the previous coach left it.
Due to pent up frustration/apathy of the fan base, in a lot of ways every coach starts rolling the boulder up the mountain back on the bottom, and the grade gets steeper every time.
FWIW, Underwood began his Illinois tenure in '17, just as Miller and Holtmann. He caught a huge break thanks to the Pandemic, as his star guard - a virtual 1st round lock - decided to return to school this season. Plus, his 'star' center, despite profiling as a lottery pick were this 20 years or so ago, isn't yet on the radar of NBA scouts, as his game doesn't exactly translate to today's pace-and-space NBA.
As with virtually any Illini basketball coach, his eventual fate will likely be determined by his ability to recruit the talent-laden Chicagoland area, which, of course, includes potions of Northwest Indiana.
[/QUOTE] I agree with this. The reason tMSU is considered such a great program and not a relic leaning on it's glory from the 70's is pretty much 100% due to Tom Izzo. The reason Duke is a power program is because of what Coach K has built.
There's not a lot of evidence that even given best circumstances, anyone else will be able to just pick up the baton and charge ahead.[/QUOTE]
Agreed.
But it should be noted that, unlike Izzo, Coach K inherited a program that was still considered Elite at the time and proceeded - with time and support from his administration - to rebuild the program, resulting in the Elite program of today. Yeah, I'm aware they're not very good this year - my heart's not exactly bleeding for them - but you get the point.
And that's precisely why I was quick to note the major distinction between the two: IU is still considered an Elite job, mostly for the reasons that you mentioned.I think those who say IU is like Nebraska Football are missing a few points. Indiana(and the surrounding recruiting areas) are still very fertile places to recruit and there is still some regionality to recruiting success.
Considering the handcuffing of CAM from the get-go, that comparison is certainly apt. But Tennessee football has never experienced multiple periods of sustained power like IU hoops and Nebraska Football. And limiting this comparison to SEC football, Tennessee, while far, far from the most difficult SEC job, isn't considered an Elite job, such as Florida, Alabama, Auburn and Georgia.I'd say it's closer to a rich man's Tennessee football.
The bones are still there, but there's a lot of things you have to do really well to build it and there's a lot of ways whatever you're building can go wrong through no one's fault necessarily. And that makes decisions like firing a coach particularly fraught because at this point every coach who comes in isn't starting from where the previous coach left it.
Well stated.Due to pent up frustration/apathy of the fan base, in a lot of ways every coach starts rolling the boulder up the mountain back on the bottom, and the grade gets steeper every time.
Last edited by Revering4Blue; 02-18-2021 at 06:23 PM.
Whatever you do, do your best to not allow the struggles of life to interfere with the pleasures of living.
Duke was pretty damn good before K took over. Going off memory the Devils played in the title game in '78. They followed that up with a #1 ranking in '79 with a 2nd round loss. In '80 they once again got to #1 and made it to the EE. Then K came to town with the cupboard bare. Ironically '78 and '79 were the Magic years for Sparty and Heathcote. 1978 would have been Jud's 2nd year with Sparty. Heathcote built MSU.
Just my personal opinions.
Those Joe Montana years were pretty dang good for Digger.
That's fair.
I thinking of both with regards relative to their own leagues though. Michigan State in particular was very strong obviously in the late 70's but never built off that and truly challenged as a dominant B1G team.
Obviously the tournament as a whole was different back then, but after winning the tournament in '79, they didn't go back until 1985(when the field expanded to 64 teams IIRC).
Then while they won the B1G regular season in 1990, they were out of the tournament as often as they were in it, and they never moved past the sweet 16. In short, they were a perfectly cromulent B1G team. Often very good, rarely one of the best, and certainly no sustained periods of greatness.
Contrast that with Izzo who's made the tournament every year since '99 and has been a 1 seed as often as he's seen a seed higher than 8th. If Heathcoate built tMSU into a solid program, Izzo took that solid program and built it into a superpower.
To bring this around to IU though, I think Izzo has skewed what would otherwise be an okay job into one that's perceived as elite once he decides to hang em up. In all honesty, I think whomever takes over after him is going to be set up for failure in a lot of ways.
I think IU still has a number of factors that would attract a lot of quality candidates. It's the name brand university in a talent rich state. Despite less than stellar on-court results, IU's hasn't suffered when it comes to recruiting. So a new coach would know they have a pretty good chance at recruiting competitively.
The Basketball coach and program are paid fairly well in comparison to the rest of the conference.
Assembly Hall's renovations may not have turned it into a cash cow, but it's no longer an eyesore that had to be overcome like in year's past.
The football team's success means there is less pressure on the basketball program to prop up the finances for the whole athletic department.
If the job comes open, they'll be able to pick from a talented field of applicants. And yet, anyone who has a lick of sense will be asking themselves, why didn't this work for Archie? They may be able to answer that question, or they may not care that they don't have an answer for it(sometimes things just don't work out.) But I guarantee you they'll be asking it.
Last edited by Hoosier Red; 02-19-2021 at 01:26 PM.
Assembly Hall (02-19-2021),Revering4Blue (02-19-2021)
Pre Coach K, Duke as a program had spent several weeks in the Top 25, while reaching the Elite 8, the Final Four three times; The NCAA Finals once in the '60's under Indiana native HC Vic Bubas. Plus, the powerful '78-'80 teams under Bill Foster that you mentioned. Their history pre Coach K exceeds MSU per Izzo by a country mile. MSU's tenure under Heathcote consisted of the Magic Johnson-led teams, two very strong teams in '86 and '90 - both, coincidentally and unfortunately, robbed of at least NCAA tourney Elite 8 appearences thanks to clock controversies in Sweet 16 teams - and a bunch of meh.
Regardless, I'm with Hoosier Red regarding the extreme difficulty both programs are likely to eventually experience once Coach K and Izzo retire.
Whatever you do, do your best to not allow the struggles of life to interfere with the pleasures of living.
Hoosier Red (02-19-2021)
Definitely. But my point being that there seems to be fewer and fewer ND fans fervent about both ND Football and ND Hoops anymore.
Whatever you do, do your best to not allow the struggles of life to interfere with the pleasures of living.
I can go back and forth on this. While I think its hard to argue that both MSU and Duke are national powers now, you also take into consideration that both are primarily there because of the coach. I would think the structural advantages of MSU may be greater than that of Duke. When either of the two coaches retire, the program will continue to remain in the limelight for the next few years. But a bad coaching hire could really hurt both programs. I don't think Duke could sustain a bad coaching hire as well as MSU could. Duke is closer to Boston College than it is UNC in terms of enrollment and a poor coaching hire could result in a generation of kids not knowing what Duke once was.
This is more or less where I am. And I'll add Syracuse to the aforementioned MSU and Duke as one of the Old Guard-coached / Elite programs (recently, at least, in the case of 'Cuse) that are most likely to run the major risk of becoming the next Georgetown post the late John Thompson without their coaching legends in charge.
The recent hires of younger, on-the-rise coaches at IU, tOSU and Louisville were completed with the idea of 10 plus years down the line (Post Old Coaching Guard era) in mind. So, should the IU and Louisville brasses whether the current storms (Mack, too, has been ravaged by injuries this season) and Holtmann's programs continues to hum along, approaching/approximating Matta's salad days there, all three will be positioned well for the inevitable aforementioned era. "Bama's Nate Oates also fits this description.
Given, the chances (now, as well as the future) of Stevens, Donovan et all eschewing the NBA life are slimmer than slim, the changing CBB landscape that I mentioned in a previous post, as well as the exorbitant buyout price tags for established Power 5 conference coaches, it's very likely that ANY program (Considered an Elite Job or not) will also be choosing from the pool of 'the next big thing,' just as IU, tOSU, Louisville and, now, Alabama have done.
Last edited by Revering4Blue; 02-19-2021 at 06:49 PM.
Whatever you do, do your best to not allow the struggles of life to interfere with the pleasures of living.
Assembly Hall (02-19-2021)
Another "stellar" performance by my Hoosiers at home. Sigh.
Tonight very well might be the night. Archie better have the troops ready to go tonight. His tenure has taught me two things. 1) Expect the unexpected and 2) don't get your hopes up.
Rumors floating around about Race Thompson breaking his nose in practice. Wouldn’t be surprised given all of ‘our’ rotten luck lately.
Whatever you do, do your best to not allow the struggles of life to interfere with the pleasures of living.
Duke was also in the national semi's in 1966 and lost to Kentucky in a close game. If they had beaten UK they would have been the all white team to play Texas Western. But yes Duke has been a good basketball program for a long time.
Reds Fan Since 1971
Assembly Hall (02-24-2021),Revering4Blue (02-24-2021)
Archie's days in Bloomington are limited...
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