Latest / Podcast on the Brink / POTB 561: Another IU basketball season ends with an NCAA tournament miss

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POTB 561: Another IU basketball season ends with an NCAA tournament miss · Podcast on the Brink

0:16
Speaker 1: Welcome back to a new episode of Podcast on the Brink.
0:20
Speaker 1: It's Tuesday, March seventeenth. I'd hope that this was an
0:25
Speaker 1: episode of breaking down Indiana's NCAA tournament draw. Of course,
0:30
Speaker 1: that's not where things stand as of today. The Hoosiers
0:34
Speaker 1: miss on the NCAA tournament four third consecutive season. Our
0:38
Speaker 1: friend Scott Caulfield of Crimson Cast is back on the
0:43
Speaker 1: show this week. We had him on in the preseason.
0:46
Speaker 1: Obviously a lot has changed since that time. And now
0:51
Speaker 1: before we get to Scott, a quick reminder. If you
0:54
Speaker 1: enjoy the show over on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, please
0:57
Speaker 1: leave us a rating and review, preferably stars. If you
1:00
Speaker 1: enjoy the show on YouTube, like the video, subscribed to
1:03
Speaker 1: the channel, Always appreciate the support there.
1:05
Speaker 2: Scott, welcome back to the show.
1:08
Speaker 1: Always good to see you, Always good to talk to you.
1:13
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna give you a quick open mic here
1:15
Speaker 1: as we as we start, How are you? I know
1:17
Speaker 1: you're a season ticket holder, You're you're at a lot
1:20
Speaker 1: of games. I know you made a trip to California
1:23
Speaker 1: at one point even this season, I think the UCLA game.
1:28
Speaker 1: How are you feeling about just this season? And how
1:31
Speaker 1: things went down, and just where Indiana basketball stands as
1:35
Speaker 1: a whole.
1:35
Speaker 3: Right now, I want to go back to that UCLA moment.
1:38
Speaker 3: That was fun. First off, I'm in you know right now,
1:40
Speaker 3: it's fifteen degrees, it's snowing. It's like March seventeenth. It
1:43
Speaker 3: shouldn't be this cold. That was a great time. I
1:44
Speaker 3: was like two weeks removed from a national championship in football.
1:47
Speaker 3: I'm in La. It's warm. We win in double overtime.
1:51
Speaker 3: Cicily has a couple of free throws, like we have
1:53
Speaker 3: a young stud coming on, like, it's it's great, that's
1:55
Speaker 3: great time. Let's just stop stop everything right there. You know,
1:59
Speaker 3: it's uh, it's been a rough year. I remember coming
2:02
Speaker 3: on beginning of the year, I forget what, uh what
2:04
Speaker 3: what my predictions were, but I'm pretty sure it was,
2:08
Speaker 3: you know, making the tournament was probably going to be
2:10
Speaker 3: at the you know, kind of the minimum or that
2:12
Speaker 3: would be the idea of a really good season, and
2:14
Speaker 3: we didn't quite get there. Uh, you know, I'll just
2:16
Speaker 3: I'll say this, there's a lot of ways we can
2:18
Speaker 3: take it, you know, I was it's a bummer of
2:21
Speaker 3: a year. Again, you have another year, you don't make
2:23
Speaker 3: the tournament. And this is where you know we're in
2:25
Speaker 3: a tough spot because it is everyone knows this Devrees's
2:29
Speaker 3: first year. But like the collective, you know, it is
2:33
Speaker 3: three years not making the tournament. Two of those are
2:35
Speaker 3: not Devrees's fault. And you have what you know, only
2:37
Speaker 3: making the tournament three out of the last eleven or
2:39
Speaker 3: twelve years, and like that, you know, Devirees is only
2:41
Speaker 3: on only has one of those on his resume. But
2:44
Speaker 3: like the rest of those do count because all of
2:45
Speaker 3: us are still fans. You've been doing the podcast on
2:48
Speaker 3: the brink and inside the whole that whole time we've
2:50
Speaker 3: been doing Crimson Cast, all the fans have been going
2:52
Speaker 3: season ticket holders and buying tickets like they all count.
2:55
Speaker 3: And so you know, some people, unfortunately, like Devrees, has
2:58
Speaker 3: to atone for the sins of pre vus coaches and
3:02
Speaker 3: that's unfortunately where we're at. I will say this, you know,
3:06
Speaker 3: the thing that I thought was interesting this year going
3:08
Speaker 3: to a couple of games at assembly halls outside of
3:10
Speaker 3: the Purdue game, in a little bit of the Michigan
3:12
Speaker 3: State game, it was kind of a dead environment. It
3:15
Speaker 3: just didn't feel like Assembly hall. It wasn't you're you're
3:17
Speaker 3: going to a lot of games, you're nodding and get
3:19
Speaker 3: your thoughts on it. But to me that the thing
3:22
Speaker 3: that I was most concerned with was that Northwestern game.
3:24
Speaker 3: Not just that they lost, that was concerning, but you know,
3:29
Speaker 3: last year they lose to Illinois, they get their doors
3:31
Speaker 3: blown off, but people are booing and they're like fans
3:34
Speaker 3: are pissed, and it's like they you can tell they're mad.
3:37
Speaker 3: That Northwestern game was kind of like, well, what are
3:39
Speaker 3: you gonna do. It's like, well, you know, moving on,
3:42
Speaker 3: And it's like, to me, that's that's bad, that's apathy,
3:44
Speaker 3: that's a that's a fan base. It's kind of like,
3:46
Speaker 3: all right, well, I don't know, like I won't say
3:48
Speaker 3: you expect to lose Northwestern, but people weren't like in
3:52
Speaker 3: the glory days of Cream or you know, Bob Knight,
3:55
Speaker 3: like losing the Northwestern at home when you need that
3:57
Speaker 3: win is not something that you do. And like that's
3:59
Speaker 3: a bool offense. I'm not a fan of booing, but
4:01
Speaker 3: that's where fans are coming out, like let's just say
4:04
Speaker 3: not booing, but like really grumbling on the way out.
4:07
Speaker 3: I didn't feel that in the Northwestern game. It just
4:09
Speaker 3: felt like it was kind of a half energy crowd,
4:12
Speaker 3: kind of like, well, you know, what are you gonna do?
4:14
Speaker 3: You know, not here to beat Northwestern in my lifetime.
4:16
Speaker 3: So that's one of the takeaways that I have from
4:19
Speaker 3: this season, is just that memory of like, man, this
4:21
Speaker 3: is i They're they're losing touch with this fan base,
4:26
Speaker 3: and something's got to turn around, and you know it's
4:28
Speaker 3: gonna have to be It's gonna have to be wins
4:30
Speaker 3: it turns this around.
4:32
Speaker 2: Yeah.
4:33
Speaker 1: I was at the Iowa home game in the Nebraska
4:37
Speaker 1: home game, and those were kind of in that period
4:40
Speaker 1: between New Year's and the National Championship game I believe
4:45
Speaker 1: where National Championship game talking about football, where you kind
4:49
Speaker 1: of had that period where all eyes were on football.
4:52
Speaker 1: And but those were two pretty big games for Indiana
4:55
Speaker 1: on the basketball schedule that they needed to win. And
4:58
Speaker 1: I remember going into in the weird thing about those games,
5:03
Speaker 1: I was, I don't go to a ton of home games,
5:05
Speaker 1: you know. I made it to probably six, seven, eight
5:07
Speaker 1: maybe this year, but I was at those specifically because
5:11
Speaker 1: our student reporters were all covering the football run. So
5:15
Speaker 1: I made it a point to go there and It
5:17
Speaker 1: was very small media contingent for those games, as you
5:21
Speaker 1: would expect because everyone was covering the football run. But
5:26
Speaker 1: you spoke to just kind of the atmosphere and something
5:29
Speaker 1: those in particular. I thought, we're critical for Indiana's NCAA
5:35
Speaker 1: tournament hopes. They had the Nebraska games sixteen point lead,
5:38
Speaker 1: I believe in the second half, come up use that game.
5:41
Speaker 2: The Iowa game really a total no shoot show.
5:43
Speaker 1: Lose by seventeen, and I kind of felt the same
5:47
Speaker 1: thing unit in terms of the atmosphere in those games.
5:49
Speaker 1: I was also at the Northwestern home game. You look
5:53
Speaker 1: up at the balconies, it's never I mean really going
5:56
Speaker 1: back to the Cream years where we had really had
5:59
Speaker 1: it rolling. I don't think since then really has the
6:02
Speaker 1: balcony been consistently full at Assembly Hall. But there was
6:05
Speaker 1: lets of people there this year that I can remember.
6:09
Speaker 1: And I think you make an interesting point, and I'm
6:11
Speaker 1: curious to kind of get your thoughts on maybe what
6:14
Speaker 1: can be done moving forward, or if there's something that
6:16
Speaker 1: maybe needs to change. But it almost feels like there's
6:20
Speaker 1: maybe a disconnect between how the fan base is feeling
6:23
Speaker 1: about this program right now and how I don't want
6:27
Speaker 1: to say the athletic department as a whole, but maybe
6:30
Speaker 1: how the program is being presented. I don't necessarily think
6:34
Speaker 1: there's a strong connection. I think there's a couple of
6:37
Speaker 1: reasons for that. One is you've just had so much
6:40
Speaker 1: roster turnover in the last three or four years. Part
6:43
Speaker 1: of that is due to the transfer portal. Part of
6:45
Speaker 1: that's due to the fact that I think from a
6:50
Speaker 1: roster perspective, later in the Woodson years, things were mismanaged
6:54
Speaker 1: pretty heavily just in terms of who was coming and going,
6:58
Speaker 1: and then this year you had a brand new team.
7:00
Speaker 1: There wasn't that connection that the fan base felt with
7:02
Speaker 1: the team, and you kind of just described that that
7:05
Speaker 1: feeling of leaving the Northwestern game, it was like, oh, well,
7:08
Speaker 1: they just lost, Like move on to the next thing.
7:10
Speaker 1: That wasn't always the case with Indiana basketball since I've
7:15
Speaker 1: been covering, which goes back to, you know, the second
7:18
Speaker 1: Kelvin Sampson year. But I've been going to games regularly
7:21
Speaker 1: since early in the creen tenure, and I always felt
7:26
Speaker 1: like there was a pretty strong bond between the fan
7:29
Speaker 1: base and the team, and I haven't really felt that
7:31
Speaker 1: in the last couple of years, and so it just
7:34
Speaker 1: makes me one. Like even with football this year, I think,
7:38
Speaker 1: and a lot of this comes back to the really
7:40
Speaker 1: the main point is winning games. But you felt a
7:43
Speaker 1: connection between the fan base and guys like Aidan Fish
7:47
Speaker 1: or Pat Kugan, these guys that were kind of the centerpieces,
7:50
Speaker 1: the heart and soul for and Anda Mendoza. You felt
7:53
Speaker 1: that with with the players on the football team and
7:57
Speaker 1: the fan base. I just didn't feel that with basketball
7:59
Speaker 1: this year. I think that shows up kind of in
8:01
Speaker 1: the enthusiasm when people show up to cheer for a game.
8:05
Speaker 1: The energy really just never Besides that Purdue game you mentioned,
8:07
Speaker 1: I wasn't at that one, but you could kind of
8:09
Speaker 1: feel it watching it on TV. I just think the
8:11
Speaker 1: energy and the enthusiasm and the building hasn't really matched
8:14
Speaker 1: what it needs to be for Indiana to be successful
8:17
Speaker 1: have a home court advantage. I'm not blaming the fan
8:20
Speaker 1: base in any way. I think in many ways, the
8:22
Speaker 1: fan base is what's kept this program afloat for as
8:25
Speaker 1: long as it has. I mean, can you really think
8:27
Speaker 1: of any other program in the country right now that
8:29
Speaker 1: could have the results that IU basketball has had over
8:32
Speaker 1: such a long period of time and still get the
8:34
Speaker 1: fan support that it does. I don't know that you
8:36
Speaker 1: can name one, so a bit of a long winded
8:39
Speaker 1: kind of response there, but I know you have thoughts
8:42
Speaker 1: on this, and I'm just kind of curious. You know,
8:44
Speaker 1: you're you're actually paying money for season tickets, You're going
8:47
Speaker 1: to football. I want to know how you feel about this.
8:51
Speaker 3: It's funny and I don't want to keep bringing everything
8:53
Speaker 3: back to football, but I do just think is a
8:55
Speaker 3: great correlation to IU football is that you know, I've
8:57
Speaker 3: been going to a football games since I grew up
8:59
Speaker 3: in Bloomington and eighty five, and I've had season tickets
9:02
Speaker 3: with my wife and then my sons later on. Since eight.
9:05
Speaker 3: Gale and I have been podcasting on Crimson Cast about
9:07
Speaker 3: football since about twenty ten. We started Crimson Cast and
9:10
Speaker 3: O nine we started talking about football at that point.
9:13
Speaker 3: This is something we've talked about with football for years,
9:17
Speaker 3: pre Signetti, and it's funny it's happening now. In basketball,
9:20
Speaker 3: this was always like a why are fans leaving early?
9:23
Speaker 3: And then you listen to the broadcast and it's like, man,
9:24
Speaker 3: it's a close game. Everybody left and the students left early,
9:26
Speaker 3: and it's like it was this big fight about the
9:29
Speaker 3: fans and fans support, and you know, you got to
9:31
Speaker 3: be a real fan. You got to go there and like,
9:33
Speaker 3: how do we get fans in And let's do marketing.
9:35
Speaker 3: We'll have fireworks and we'll have a different slogan and
9:37
Speaker 3: we'll have new helmets and we'll do a third quarter thing,
9:39
Speaker 3: and fans wouldn't stay, or they'd maybe stay, and then
9:43
Speaker 3: we get blown out and they wouldn't stay. And it's
9:44
Speaker 3: like the fans of the problem and the fan and
9:47
Speaker 3: you know what solved it, Alex win win win games,
9:50
Speaker 3: like win some games, and and it's funny because you
9:55
Speaker 3: start saying that and then people are like, oh no,
9:57
Speaker 3: but you need to support the team anyway, and it's
9:58
Speaker 3: like look and then it's like now they're It's like
10:00
Speaker 3: now the other argument is why now you're bandwagon fans don't.
10:02
Speaker 3: I don't buy into any of that. Like, in the end,
10:05
Speaker 3: this is an entertainment product, and I buy tickets because
10:07
Speaker 3: I like my university. Everybody has their own decisions. But
10:10
Speaker 3: I don't think the fans aren't owed anything. The team
10:14
Speaker 3: isn't owed anything. And you know, teams that win get
10:17
Speaker 3: more support. And I think sometimes the athletic department doesn't
10:19
Speaker 3: want to hear that because the answer is pretty simple.
10:22
Speaker 3: Go win a bunch of games. Go win games, make
10:25
Speaker 3: a run in the tournament, win a couple of Big
10:26
Speaker 3: ten titles, make a run in the NCAA tournament. If
10:30
Speaker 3: if Indiana in basketball does what IU football just did,
10:34
Speaker 3: if they go the equivalent of eleven into is they go,
10:36
Speaker 3: you know, twenty four and four next year and go
10:39
Speaker 3: to the Elite eight, and then the year after they
10:41
Speaker 3: win the national championship, maybe to undefeated, they get two
10:43
Speaker 3: or three losses. Guess what we're not talking about alex
10:47
Speaker 3: fan support like and I think this is what happens
10:50
Speaker 3: when you don't have wins to talk about, and then
10:52
Speaker 3: you know, people start turning, you know, you start getting
10:55
Speaker 3: this animosity toward the fan base, and it's just it's
10:58
Speaker 3: funny to me enjoying both of sports, loving both having
11:01
Speaker 3: season tickets for both. Seeing now I you basketball getting
11:04
Speaker 3: to this point, it was kind of taken out of context,
11:08
Speaker 3: partially because I said it, I didn't contextualize it correctly.
11:13
Speaker 3: But on our podcast, I was talking about I hate
11:16
Speaker 3: the fact that we turned down the crown and the
11:18
Speaker 3: NIT I understand all the logistics behind it, because we're
11:23
Speaker 3: not going to have players. The fact that the crown
11:24
Speaker 3: is like April first, it's just absurd. All of our
11:27
Speaker 3: players are seniors, which goes to roster management, which doesn't
11:30
Speaker 3: make you know, is also another problem. But my larger
11:34
Speaker 3: point is, and this wouldn't even make a positive experience
11:37
Speaker 3: because I'm not sure that the team would do well
11:39
Speaker 3: in either of those tournaments as it's as they've gone
11:41
Speaker 3: down the stretch and shown us they're not really a
11:43
Speaker 3: team that wants to play competitive basketball here in the
11:46
Speaker 3: last couple of weeks. My thing is, it's just it's
11:50
Speaker 3: really bad. Just end the season with loss to Northwestern
11:54
Speaker 3: by more than ten points in the Big Ten tournament,
11:57
Speaker 3: and then it's just you're done, Like you need to
11:59
Speaker 3: have some more positive press if you're IU athletics, like
12:03
Speaker 3: do something to talk more positively about this team. And
12:07
Speaker 3: you know, this is where I get frustrated. Sorry, this
12:08
Speaker 3: is my long winded answer to you, Alex, But you know,
12:11
Speaker 3: as you go into the portal season, you know last
12:15
Speaker 3: year we had this and it's like, oh we got
12:16
Speaker 3: Tucker de Freeze, oh Lamar Wilkerson, like emergency alert. The
12:19
Speaker 3: year before we got omar Baalo, we got Miles Rise
12:22
Speaker 3: and these the two best players. Like I've kind of
12:24
Speaker 3: joked like wake me up in November, Like I don't.
12:27
Speaker 3: I'm sure we'll get players. I'm sure it'll be a
12:29
Speaker 3: time for an emergency podcast and a post and like,
12:31
Speaker 3: I'm sure everyone's gonna get hyped up. That's great. It's
12:34
Speaker 3: been three years I've gotten hyped up and then had
12:36
Speaker 3: no results. Like I I feel like that this program
12:39
Speaker 3: needs to do really some community building and try and
12:43
Speaker 3: build some of that relationship back, not just when it's
12:47
Speaker 3: time for tickets here it is there's I need the
12:49
Speaker 3: money and then we'll see you in Assembly Hall with
12:51
Speaker 3: a slate of subpar opponents to start the first two
12:55
Speaker 3: months of the season. I don't think IU believes they're
12:57
Speaker 3: at that point where they need to do that, but
13:00
Speaker 3: I personally do think they do to do that because
13:02
Speaker 3: I think I do think I speak for a lot
13:05
Speaker 3: of people that I know in my room who were
13:07
Speaker 3: fans and season ticket holders where it's just like I'm
13:09
Speaker 3: kind of getting tired of the same old, same old,
13:12
Speaker 3: and you know, having this kind of arrogance of a
13:15
Speaker 3: blue blood national championship team that doesn't do things that
13:19
Speaker 3: you know other teams. You know other teams do to
13:21
Speaker 3: try and get fans in, and then you get the
13:24
Speaker 3: results of you know, a non level team like that.
13:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I hear the word apathy thrown around a lot.
13:31
Speaker 1: I don't like obviously. I think there's some of that
13:33
Speaker 1: within the fan base. But I also see a ton
13:35
Speaker 1: of anger and frustration. To me, that's kind of how
13:39
Speaker 1: it should be with based on the previous results. I
13:42
Speaker 1: don't know how much longer you can expect those feelings though,
13:45
Speaker 1: from because you know, I can see all of our
13:50
Speaker 1: analytics for inside the hall, I can see what people
13:52
Speaker 1: are like. Towards the end of the season, people tailed off.
13:55
Speaker 1: But now that the season's over in the portals building,
13:57
Speaker 1: like the last couple of days, we've had as many
13:59
Speaker 1: people if not more, looking at the site than we
14:03
Speaker 1: did actually during the season. So people are obviously looking
14:06
Speaker 1: ahead to what's next that they want. They're curious what's next.
14:10
Speaker 1: But kind of speaking to your point, I don't know
14:13
Speaker 1: how long you can continue to take that support for granted,
14:17
Speaker 1: I think that's the best way I can put it.
14:19
Speaker 1: I agree with you that you have to you have
14:21
Speaker 1: to give people a reason to continue to be invested
14:24
Speaker 1: in care about the team, and I don't know that
14:27
Speaker 1: they've done that very well in the last couple of years.
14:30
Speaker 1: And again I'm not throwing this on degrees totally. I
14:33
Speaker 1: think it was obviously his first season. I think there
14:36
Speaker 1: were some things that he did this season that were
14:38
Speaker 1: very positive. I think there were other things in terms
14:40
Speaker 1: of the roster that weren't managed as well as they
14:43
Speaker 1: need to be moving forward. We'll see if that gets
14:45
Speaker 1: corrected with bringing in Ryan Carr to help manage the roster,
14:48
Speaker 1: having a staff in place, hopefully for the whole portal season,
14:51
Speaker 1: having kind of a chance to rebuild the roster, learn
14:57
Speaker 1: from the mistakes of last year. But again, kind of
15:00
Speaker 1: I'm curious, maybe your your thoughts on does it feel
15:04
Speaker 1: like to you at some at some point that the
15:06
Speaker 1: support is being taken for granted and how long can
15:08
Speaker 1: that continue to hold on? Before you know, people will
15:12
Speaker 1: only support something you mentioned kind of the idea of
15:16
Speaker 1: all wake me up in November. I mean, that's that's
15:18
Speaker 1: probably not a sentiment that you want to be hearing
15:21
Speaker 1: from a large portion of your fan base.
15:24
Speaker 3: No, and I mean this is again I think it
15:26
Speaker 3: you know, you can boil this down to the easy answer,
15:28
Speaker 3: like just you got to win some games and you've
15:31
Speaker 3: got to do what you need to do to win
15:32
Speaker 3: those games. And you win games, the support will be there,
15:35
Speaker 3: that interest will be there, and it's not the fans
15:37
Speaker 3: job to stay there. I mean we did that the
15:41
Speaker 3: first couple of years of Cream. Assembly Hall was rocking,
15:46
Speaker 3: and it didn't correlate to what the what that team
15:48
Speaker 3: was doing. I think it was a pulled up here.
15:50
Speaker 3: It was That's eight. That was you know, that team
15:52
Speaker 3: went six and twenty four and one and seventeen in
15:55
Speaker 3: the Big ten and it probably sold out way more
15:57
Speaker 3: games than it should have, probably maybe better attendant. I'd
15:59
Speaker 3: not look at the attendance numbers, but the tennis numbers
16:02
Speaker 3: are like nowhere correlated to what that team did. Our
16:05
Speaker 3: fan base did that once. You can't expect that every
16:09
Speaker 3: single time. At some point, it's just it it comes
16:11
Speaker 3: down to wins. You need to give people a reason
16:14
Speaker 3: to go, to be excited to stay, and it's the
16:17
Speaker 3: team's job to do it first. And Football showed us that.
16:20
Speaker 3: And if you do that, this fan base will blow
16:23
Speaker 3: your doors off. They will show an unbelievable amount of support.
16:26
Speaker 3: They'll fill up the Georgia Dome at ninety five percent
16:28
Speaker 3: capacity and take over an entire city. They would do
16:32
Speaker 3: that in basketball if this team would give them an
16:35
Speaker 3: opportunity to do it. And this is where you'll take
16:37
Speaker 3: the larger view. It's frustrating this year. I'm frustrated. We
16:41
Speaker 3: talked about some of the things that you know, Darren
16:43
Speaker 3: Devrez did with his team and some of the pieces
16:45
Speaker 3: of this team. But the frustrating part, Alex is, you know,
16:49
Speaker 3: we haven't really had that kind of run for twenty
16:51
Speaker 3: plus years now. We've got a you know, Big Ten,
16:53
Speaker 3: two Big Ten titles, a couple of Sweet sixteen runs.
16:56
Speaker 3: None of those NCLA runs really, none of them ended
16:59
Speaker 3: in a competitive game outside of that first year with
17:01
Speaker 3: Zeller where they lost to Kentucky, where I still stand
17:04
Speaker 3: by that team was the second best team in the tournament.
17:06
Speaker 3: They just played the wrong team at the wrong time.
17:09
Speaker 3: But you know, the year after you lose the Syracuse
17:11
Speaker 3: kind of get your doors blown off. I think the
17:14
Speaker 3: twenty six team lost to North Carolina. I'm doing this
17:16
Speaker 3: by memory. Yeah, Philly, Yeah, it wasn't a terribly close game.
17:21
Speaker 3: And that's about it. And you know, I this is
17:24
Speaker 3: where I don't have an Unlet's we can focus back
17:27
Speaker 3: on this year's team. But it's like, I don't have
17:29
Speaker 3: an answer because if you just go back to the
17:31
Speaker 3: end of Cream, through Archie, through Woodson through now the
17:34
Speaker 3: first year of Debrees, it's like you have different coaches,
17:37
Speaker 3: you have different athletic directors, and I always joke you
17:39
Speaker 3: have different presidents both university and United States. Like everything
17:43
Speaker 3: has changed, all the variables are changing. You've had Assembly
17:45
Speaker 3: Hall renovated, like you've made all the changes, and we're
17:48
Speaker 3: still not able to do this. So I don't know.
17:52
Speaker 3: I don't know what the answer is, but I think
17:55
Speaker 3: we all can tell when the answer what the answer isn't.
17:57
Speaker 3: And the answer isn't, you know, make the tournament. Missing
18:01
Speaker 3: the tournament is not what we want. And this is
18:04
Speaker 3: where college is a tough this is a tough business.
18:06
Speaker 3: That's where I I again look to the university. Where's
18:09
Speaker 3: a press release to show us the positivity going into
18:12
Speaker 3: this off season. Where are the events that we can
18:14
Speaker 3: latch onto, Where's you know, where's the exit interviews that
18:18
Speaker 3: are a positive matter? Where's that? Because this isn't the NBA.
18:21
Speaker 3: You don't get to look forward to a draft pick.
18:23
Speaker 3: You know, we have the portal, but it's like that's
18:25
Speaker 3: a that's a bit of a crap shoot.
18:26
Speaker 2: So is the draft.
18:27
Speaker 3: But you know, you don't have looking forward to a
18:29
Speaker 3: draft pick. And the only thing you can do this
18:31
Speaker 3: is not something we should do. I'm not advocating for this.
18:33
Speaker 3: It's not going to happen. The only thing you can
18:35
Speaker 3: do is make staff changes, and we're not doing that,
18:38
Speaker 3: nor should we. So, like you, someone needs to identify
18:42
Speaker 3: like this is these are always tough positions for fans
18:45
Speaker 3: to be and you just made a staff change. You
18:47
Speaker 3: don't have like we don't know what's coming in the portal.
18:50
Speaker 3: You don't really have any Indiana recruits, which is red
18:53
Speaker 3: meat for you know, I you fans, they need something,
18:57
Speaker 3: and so there's a void here and that's where I again,
18:59
Speaker 3: I look to the university, like let's fill that void
19:01
Speaker 3: with something positive.
19:02
Speaker 2: Yeah.
19:03
Speaker 1: You mentioned those early creen years and I think one
19:05
Speaker 1: reason that people had to be enthusiastic then was because
19:09
Speaker 1: they could see young players on the court building towards something. Now,
19:12
Speaker 1: obviously college basketball has changed completely since that time. You
19:16
Speaker 1: have to reevaluate how you're going to build a team. Now,
19:19
Speaker 1: it's tough to build a team using young players when
19:23
Speaker 1: everyone else's is kind of reloading constantly through the portal.
19:26
Speaker 1: But in some ways, and I'm curious to get your
19:29
Speaker 1: thoughts on this, I feel like a pretty big missed
19:32
Speaker 1: opportunity from this season. I understand the rationale in terms
19:37
Speaker 1: of how this roster was built, trying to get experience
19:40
Speaker 1: in order to make the tournament in year one, to
19:42
Speaker 1: build that foundation, but the fact that that didn't happen,
19:46
Speaker 1: and at the same time, no younger players were really
19:50
Speaker 1: seriously a part of the rotation this season later in
19:55
Speaker 1: the year. I mean, Trent Sisley played some early in
19:57
Speaker 1: the year, but I don't think you can really tell
20:01
Speaker 1: fans right now what they're building towards. Obviously, have a
20:05
Speaker 1: freshman class of three guys coming in for next year.
20:09
Speaker 1: I think Indiana needs to do a good job of
20:11
Speaker 1: trying to familiarize the fan base with those guys and
20:13
Speaker 1: let the fan base get to know those guys. And
20:16
Speaker 1: I was encouraged by kind of what Ryan Carr, the
20:19
Speaker 1: new executive director of basketball, talked about when we had
20:21
Speaker 1: a small group meeting with him after shortly when he
20:23
Speaker 1: was hired talking about having a better blend between young
20:27
Speaker 1: players and the transfer portal moving forward. I do think
20:30
Speaker 1: that's a more sustainable strategy than completely flipping over your roster.
20:34
Speaker 1: But I do think it was a missed opportunity this
20:36
Speaker 1: season to not play some to not have I guess
20:41
Speaker 1: more younger guys on the team that are capable of contributing,
20:43
Speaker 1: and to not better utilize the younger ones they did
20:46
Speaker 1: have to build towards the future in the event that
20:49
Speaker 1: you did miss the tournament, Because now, I mean, really,
20:52
Speaker 1: what is there to sell at this moment in time.
20:57
Speaker 2: If you look at Indiana.
20:58
Speaker 1: Basketball, looks to me, and I wrote about this last week,
21:02
Speaker 1: it looks like a complete roster reset. Again, it looks
21:05
Speaker 1: like there may be two or three guys that you
21:08
Speaker 1: want to keep from this roster. It looks like there's
21:10
Speaker 1: three freshmen coming in after that. Realistically, I think you
21:14
Speaker 1: need five starters from the portal. Nobody knows who those
21:17
Speaker 1: players are right now, and again, it's gonna be a
21:20
Speaker 1: whole new team and a whole new get to know
21:24
Speaker 1: these players, and it's tough. It's just a tough sell
21:29
Speaker 1: when you didn't see something this season that a made
21:33
Speaker 1: the tournament or b had young pieces that you can
21:36
Speaker 1: look forward to and say, that guy is definitely going
21:38
Speaker 1: to be a big contributor in my program moving forward.
21:41
Speaker 1: It's kind of like the NBA, right A team is
21:43
Speaker 1: Maybe it's obviously not exactly the same, but you see
21:47
Speaker 1: teams like they throw their younger guys out there for
21:50
Speaker 1: a year and they say, all right, we're gonna try
21:51
Speaker 1: to get these guys experience, We're gonna try to build
21:53
Speaker 1: some camaraderie.
21:54
Speaker 2: That's kind of the opposite of what this was.
21:56
Speaker 1: This was six seniors and a couple other upper classmen
21:59
Speaker 1: playing all the minutes. They didn't meet the objective and
22:02
Speaker 1: so now it just feels like a reset again. I
22:04
Speaker 1: think that's where some frustration comes in among the fan base.
22:07
Speaker 3: No, I mean, I completely agree, and you know it
22:11
Speaker 3: was it was a calculated gamble by degrees. And the
22:14
Speaker 3: staff is that you get an experienced team, you get
22:17
Speaker 3: players who have experienced in college that should translate as
22:20
Speaker 3: kind of a proof of concept of what my system
22:23
Speaker 3: is the and you know, you hopefully make the tournament
22:26
Speaker 3: or do something with it, and you're able to see like,
22:28
Speaker 3: all right, this is what this is what we're building
22:29
Speaker 3: and the next year we're going to do it with
22:31
Speaker 3: you know, our new group of guys and kind of
22:33
Speaker 3: rebuild it. The trouble with that risk, or that trouble
22:37
Speaker 3: with that gamble is if this happens what we talked
22:39
Speaker 3: about is you have a disappointing season and then you
22:41
Speaker 3: have nothing to latch onto for next year. You know
22:44
Speaker 3: where I get concerned is, you know, this is kind
22:47
Speaker 3: of what Devrees did at Virginia at West Virginia his
22:50
Speaker 3: first year, is he had to rebuild the roster from
22:51
Speaker 3: the studs and they didn't make the tournament that year
22:55
Speaker 3: as well, he did it this year. You know, I
22:58
Speaker 3: have faith and I think you know a better mix
23:00
Speaker 3: coming in next year. But you have to look at
23:03
Speaker 3: this critically and say, all right, you kind of had
23:04
Speaker 3: two years Degrees where you've had to rebuild the entire
23:07
Speaker 3: roster and you haven't been able to make it work.
23:10
Speaker 3: For me as a fan, this is where I get frustrated.
23:12
Speaker 3: It's like, I to me, the argument of well, it's
23:14
Speaker 3: really hard to rebuild an entire roster and run run
23:17
Speaker 3: off season. It's like that no longer, isn't it, Like
23:19
Speaker 3: that's not an excuse. I'm going to take for any
23:21
Speaker 3: problems next season, because you could have solved that this
23:25
Speaker 3: year with a better mix. No, what we don't know.
23:27
Speaker 3: Maybe there, you know, did they turn down offers from
23:29
Speaker 3: sophomores and juniors to take offers from seniors. We'll never
23:33
Speaker 3: know that. Maybe you know, maybe they maybe they knew
23:36
Speaker 3: that up front, and you know, not saying I'm not
23:39
Speaker 3: gonna pick on players, like maybe there's a couple of
23:41
Speaker 3: guys who are seniors on this team that maybe I
23:44
Speaker 3: you would have preferred to have a sophomore or a junior,
23:46
Speaker 3: but they didn't get those commitments and they took another
23:48
Speaker 3: player instead. So we don't know how it's possible they
23:51
Speaker 3: had a perfect constructed roster and they weren't able to
23:54
Speaker 3: put it together. But I do agree, and you look
23:56
Speaker 3: at you know, first year coaches this year. You have
23:59
Speaker 3: you know Lucas in Miami, Miami, Florida. You know that's
24:02
Speaker 3: a team that Jim Laurnaga left him with a seven
24:04
Speaker 3: and twenty four team. I mean, they were just dead
24:06
Speaker 3: in the water. He had to rebuild most of that roster.
24:10
Speaker 3: You know, the two highest usage players are seniors and
24:12
Speaker 3: then true Washington is a junior. But Shelton Henderson as
24:15
Speaker 3: a freshman, and so you have a junior and a freshman.
24:18
Speaker 3: You know that, and they also, you know, just went
24:20
Speaker 3: twenty five and eight and they're what a three seed
24:22
Speaker 3: in the tournament. They're in a pretty good position. And
24:25
Speaker 3: that's where I look at this year's team. You know,
24:29
Speaker 3: just cisly, why is he not playing more? Just to
24:32
Speaker 3: try and build that out, just knowing you have a
24:35
Speaker 3: runway and what you're looking at is, you know, could
24:37
Speaker 3: you not have given him a little bit more minutes?
24:39
Speaker 3: And yeah, maybe he's not producing exactly what you want,
24:42
Speaker 3: but you know, at some point you had to you
24:44
Speaker 3: had to look at this season probably you know, a
24:47
Speaker 3: couple of weeks ago, and you know, you knew that
24:50
Speaker 3: the tournament was going to be you know, you're you're
24:53
Speaker 3: trying to make it. But it's like this team wasn't
24:55
Speaker 3: going to be a protected seed. I think we all
24:57
Speaker 3: knew that, you know, come middle of February, this team
25:00
Speaker 3: had a hard ceiling where I don't think anybody would
25:02
Speaker 3: have rationally thought like, oh my god, you have a
25:04
Speaker 3: chance to win a final four, go to a final four.
25:06
Speaker 3: So it's like play some more minutes, Like see what
25:09
Speaker 3: he got like, maybe you get him some good run
25:11
Speaker 3: for next year, and you know you're not going to
25:13
Speaker 3: play the n I or the Crown, but use the
25:15
Speaker 3: Big Ten tournament as your version of the Crown of
25:17
Speaker 3: leading into next year. And that that's where I questioned
25:20
Speaker 3: some of those decisions. But you know, this is this
25:23
Speaker 3: is where we're at, and this is the bed they
25:25
Speaker 3: were made. And what where I'm concerned for everybody is
25:29
Speaker 3: just to me, it ratchets up the pressure next year unnecessarily,
25:33
Speaker 3: and it's that the pressure next year is going to
25:35
Speaker 3: be immense because I don't see a world we're missing
25:38
Speaker 3: the tournament next year or even being like a first
25:41
Speaker 3: four in you know, it is good enough for most fans.
25:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the pressure this year wasn't really all that
25:50
Speaker 1: high until the last five or six weeks because everyone's
25:53
Speaker 1: focus was on football, right fully, so people really were casuals.
25:57
Speaker 1: A lot of IU fans were casual observer of this
26:00
Speaker 1: basketball team until the football team won the national championship,
26:04
Speaker 1: and some people, I mean, I think that that that
26:07
Speaker 1: perdue game, obviously, I think is where people really kind
26:09
Speaker 1: of dove in and looked at this team for the
26:11
Speaker 1: first time.
26:11
Speaker 2: And that was kind of that run where.
26:14
Speaker 1: They beat Rutgers, they beat Purdue, I think they that
26:17
Speaker 1: was also the stretch where they beat UCLA. So they
26:19
Speaker 1: had a little momentum there where they stopped the losing
26:21
Speaker 1: streak and and I think people turned it on and
26:24
Speaker 1: thought at that point, oh, this team kind of looks
26:26
Speaker 1: like a tournament team, even after they you know, escaped
26:29
Speaker 1: that that game against Wisconsin at home, they beat Oregon
26:32
Speaker 1: at home and kind of had that that break where
26:34
Speaker 1: they knew they were gonna have those tough road games,
26:36
Speaker 1: but all you gotta do is come home and maybe
26:38
Speaker 1: beat Northwestern in Minnesota and you're likely in.
26:41
Speaker 2: And they couldn't do that, and so.
26:43
Speaker 3: And that's the first part is you're you know, the
26:46
Speaker 3: last four out. They're still the fourth team out, like
26:48
Speaker 3: you were so close.
26:49
Speaker 1: And two more wins, right, two more wins and they're
26:52
Speaker 1: comfortably in.
26:53
Speaker 3: I think one more win, I mean it it, Alex.
26:56
Speaker 3: There's a world where this is probably more for like
26:59
Speaker 3: you know, my co host a Owen or the pracketologists.
27:01
Speaker 3: I think if they win one of those two Northwestern games,
27:04
Speaker 3: they might be in. There's a world where if they
27:07
Speaker 3: just don't get blown out by Illinois, and Purdue. Maybe
27:10
Speaker 3: keep that Ohio State game closer. Just on metrics alone,
27:14
Speaker 3: there's possibly a world where between Iowa, Illinois and Perdue
27:18
Speaker 3: if those are just eight point losses and everything else
27:21
Speaker 3: stays the same, they might have still squeaked in not
27:27
Speaker 3: changing anything. But you do that and you flip a win,
27:30
Speaker 3: you know, flip Northwestern into a win, I think they're
27:32
Speaker 3: in to me. The scarier part is, you know Ucla
27:38
Speaker 3: was a double overtime one point win, Wisconsin at home
27:41
Speaker 3: was a overtime one point win. You can play the
27:45
Speaker 3: opposite game and flip those both to losses. This season
27:50
Speaker 3: looks way different. Man, that's seven and thirteen and the
27:52
Speaker 3: Big Ten that is not even close to the tournament
27:55
Speaker 3: that's finishing on like nine of thirteen. So I mean
27:58
Speaker 3: you have to play both. And like we were really
28:01
Speaker 3: close to making the tournament, we were also two points
28:04
Speaker 3: away from having a pretty dismal season.
28:09
Speaker 1: Two part question here, curious for your thoughts on both
28:11
Speaker 1: of these. One thing that encouraged you this season in
28:14
Speaker 1: terms of watching maybe the style play or the program.
28:17
Speaker 1: And the second part what you may be alluded to
28:22
Speaker 1: this a little bit too, but just in terms of
28:24
Speaker 1: style of play and the roster and the team. What
28:26
Speaker 1: was maybe the most of the discouraging or thing lingering question
28:30
Speaker 1: that you have kind of as we head into the offseason.
28:32
Speaker 3: Here, the most encouraging thing was was the style of play.
28:36
Speaker 3: You know, I think after you know, having pack line
28:39
Speaker 3: defense seared into my brain for four years and then
28:42
Speaker 3: kind of the Mike Woodson double big We're not gonna
28:44
Speaker 3: play modern offense for four years. It was nice to
28:47
Speaker 3: see a team kind of running a normal defensive scheme
28:50
Speaker 3: that seemed to run good plays and for a while there.
28:53
Speaker 3: My joke this whole season was this team was like
28:55
Speaker 3: a golden retriever. Like they're big, they're dumb, they're gonna
28:58
Speaker 3: knock stuff over, but they're fun to washing, They're fun
29:00
Speaker 3: to play with. I went to the Marquette game up
29:03
Speaker 3: in Chicago, and that's where I kind of came up
29:04
Speaker 3: with it. I'm sitting there with my son, I'm like,
29:06
Speaker 3: this team's fun, Like they're they have their deficiencies for sure,
29:10
Speaker 3: but like they are fun and they're trying hard, and
29:12
Speaker 3: so that's I liked that. And I like the way
29:15
Speaker 3: they played. I like the three point shooting. I kind
29:18
Speaker 3: of liked how a lot of the players seem to
29:20
Speaker 3: have green lights, and it reminded me of partially some
29:24
Speaker 3: of the positives of the creen era. Whi's like, you
29:27
Speaker 3: had an offense that seemed dynamic and that had that
29:29
Speaker 3: ability to kind of rattle off some runs. You know,
29:33
Speaker 3: from a negative point of view, I think the defense
29:35
Speaker 3: was a real problem this season, where on the flip side,
29:37
Speaker 3: you just had again these massive runs where you know,
29:40
Speaker 3: Louisville goes up sixteen to nothing. You know, you mentioned
29:42
Speaker 3: some of the Illinois Purdue Nebraska game where it's like
29:45
Speaker 3: just a twelve zero run. You know, the final game
29:47
Speaker 3: against Northwestern Northwestern what you know, they went on a
29:50
Speaker 3: twelve two run to end the first half and a
29:52
Speaker 3: twelve two run in the second half. You just you
29:54
Speaker 3: can't you can't give up those kinds of runs against
29:57
Speaker 3: you know, teams like Northwestern Northwestern played him at home,
30:01
Speaker 3: they went on a thirteen to two run to finish
30:03
Speaker 3: the game. And I just I don't want to hear
30:06
Speaker 3: arguments of roster construction and talent when you're playing Northwestern,
30:09
Speaker 3: Fine Illinois for you, I'll take it, Michigan State, whatever.
30:13
Speaker 3: Don't want to hear it against Northwestern. So that that
30:16
Speaker 3: bothers me. And then you know, the other thing I
30:18
Speaker 3: will say is this. In his first press conference, Darren
30:23
Speaker 3: DeVries said, you know, no matter what, you know, this
30:26
Speaker 3: team's gonna play hard and we're gonna make you proud.
30:29
Speaker 3: And I saw that at the beginning of the year.
30:31
Speaker 3: But I saw that Wayne as the season went on,
30:33
Speaker 3: and I get it, man, your your college kid. Things
30:36
Speaker 3: aren't going well. The fans are what we'll call it apathetic,
30:40
Speaker 3: but you know they're they're not blowing the doors off,
30:42
Speaker 3: the place isn't full, the balcony's empty. You're losing it
30:45
Speaker 3: home the Northwestern Like, I get it. That sucks. It's
30:49
Speaker 3: that is not an easy putt so to speak of
30:51
Speaker 3: keeping your your spirits high and coming out and playing
30:53
Speaker 3: with a ton of intensity. But I also would say, like,
30:56
Speaker 3: that's not what we were promised, but like that's what
30:59
Speaker 3: we were told would have And you know, I was
31:01
Speaker 3: not at that game in the Big Ten Tournament, you know,
31:04
Speaker 3: but I've been watching basketball for years, Alex, and I
31:07
Speaker 3: was telling people, like you could Northwestern was playing harder.
31:10
Speaker 3: It just it jumped off the TV screen like they're
31:12
Speaker 3: going after rebounds, they're going for loose balls, we look
31:16
Speaker 3: like a bunch of guys who were kind of just
31:18
Speaker 3: playing pick up basketball and hadn't played much together, and
31:21
Speaker 3: they looked like a team that was kind of ready
31:23
Speaker 3: to check out. And I my first exhibit is the
31:26
Speaker 3: seventy one to sixty one, seventy four to sixty one score,
31:29
Speaker 3: And the second exhibit is that they all checked out
31:31
Speaker 3: and didn't want to play anything anymore basketball for Indiana
31:35
Speaker 3: the rest of this year. And so that's the part
31:37
Speaker 3: that disappointed me is I feel like down the stretch,
31:40
Speaker 3: when they had a lot of opportunities to play some
31:42
Speaker 3: games and to play, you know, in front of the
31:44
Speaker 3: home crowd, and to show that you know, hustle and
31:47
Speaker 3: spirit and that playing hard, I don't think that they
31:51
Speaker 3: did to the level that I think a lot of
31:53
Speaker 3: us were expecting or we were told that's what this
31:55
Speaker 3: team was going to focus on.
31:56
Speaker 1: This year, quick quickly before we end football I believe
32:00
Speaker 1: starts here next week. This is kind of a different
32:03
Speaker 1: feeling for Indiana fans going into spring ball, with obviously
32:09
Speaker 1: the defending national champions, a ton of expectations going into
32:12
Speaker 1: next season. How does that change for you in terms
32:17
Speaker 1: of how you follow spring ball? And are you going
32:19
Speaker 1: to be a lot more locked in this year than
32:21
Speaker 1: you have ever been? And what what's maybe your your
32:25
Speaker 1: first thoughts on this team and what your outlook is
32:29
Speaker 1: going into next season.
32:30
Speaker 3: I'm probably the wrong one to ask, because I just
32:32
Speaker 3: I've never gotten into preseason much of anything. Like I'm
32:36
Speaker 3: I'm super fired up for football. I'm already thinking about it.
32:39
Speaker 3: I'm looking at the schedule. I'm excited to see Hoover
32:42
Speaker 3: playing quarterback and Turbot running back. Like I'm excited for
32:45
Speaker 3: these guys, and I will probably follow a little bit
32:48
Speaker 3: more of it. But you know, I'm a big Pacers fan.
32:50
Speaker 3: I don't really watch the preseason much just because I
32:53
Speaker 3: don't think you learned. I've never felt like I learned
32:55
Speaker 3: much from it. And I'm like, I just am kind
32:57
Speaker 3: of always ready for the first games that Matt but
33:00
Speaker 3: that so I'm wired a little bit incorrectly on that.
33:03
Speaker 3: I will say, from Crimson Cast's point of view, Galen
33:06
Speaker 3: is going to be covering the spring ball a lot more.
33:08
Speaker 3: We're going to have a lot of features on all
33:09
Speaker 3: of the new players, and I will keep up with
33:12
Speaker 3: it more than I normally would, where I never kept
33:15
Speaker 3: up with springball at all. But that's like I said,
33:18
Speaker 3: I'm just I'm not quite am. I just never feel
33:22
Speaker 3: like I take much out of preseason exhibition, much of anything.
33:26
Speaker 3: And you see that with you know, the same thing
33:28
Speaker 3: with basketball. It's like, you know, Indiana was last year
33:31
Speaker 3: or the year before, played Tennessee at Tennessee and like
33:34
Speaker 3: a scrimmage thing and they won or they played really well,
33:36
Speaker 3: and it's like it didn't lead to it didn't mean anything.
33:38
Speaker 3: I've I have a really hard time finding any correlation
33:41
Speaker 3: between what I see in scrimmages or practices and how
33:45
Speaker 3: it affects games outside of just kind of it's fun
33:50
Speaker 3: to watch. I watch you playing football, and I will
33:52
Speaker 3: probably keep up more just trying to learn the players
33:55
Speaker 3: a little bit and learn a little bit more about them.
33:58
Speaker 3: But again that goes back to you know, IU football
34:01
Speaker 3: did a great job of winning to get people in
34:04
Speaker 3: and then telling the stories of those players. So I'm
34:07
Speaker 3: I'm ready for more of those stories. Like I'm ready
34:09
Speaker 3: to learn a little bit more about Turbo and you know,
34:12
Speaker 3: and and Hoover and just learn more about their you know,
34:15
Speaker 3: what stories are really cool to tell and what can
34:17
Speaker 3: I learn from it?
34:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know Signetti doesn't go overboard on spring practice either,
34:22
Speaker 1: and I know the spring game is not going to
34:24
Speaker 1: be maybe the spectacle that you see at some of
34:26
Speaker 1: the other SEC schools, but I will be curious just
34:28
Speaker 1: to see kind of how it looks this year. I'm
34:31
Speaker 1: sure it's going to be a record turnout just in
34:33
Speaker 1: terms of people showing out to see it. And uh, again,
34:37
Speaker 1: as you mentioned, this is all about winning games consistently.
34:39
Speaker 1: I think the other everything else falls into place when
34:42
Speaker 1: you do those things.
34:43
Speaker 2: And and hopefully.
34:45
Speaker 3: That's how I'm going to cut you off, but that's
34:47
Speaker 3: how the question that always comes up is like can
34:49
Speaker 3: can I you can can it? Can they support both?
34:52
Speaker 3: Like can they support both basketball and football? And like
34:54
Speaker 3: is football bad for basketball? It's like, look, it's not
34:56
Speaker 3: winning a national championship is not bad, So let's just
34:58
Speaker 3: start there, like this is all. But you know, the
35:02
Speaker 3: thing that you and I were talking about before we
35:04
Speaker 3: started is if you look around the landscape of college athletics,
35:08
Speaker 3: there are not a lot of universities that have shown
35:11
Speaker 3: a success of being high level in both football and
35:15
Speaker 3: basketball at the same time. And I think a lot
35:17
Speaker 3: of that is based on like sometimes they have the
35:19
Speaker 3: wrong coaches they have. You know, it's just kind of
35:21
Speaker 3: a cyclical thing where it's like Florida is really good
35:23
Speaker 3: in basketball right now their football program is struggling. They've
35:26
Speaker 3: had good football and not good basketball. I think they
35:29
Speaker 3: could support both, they just haven't. You know, I look
35:33
Speaker 3: around the Big Ten and I look at like Michigan
35:35
Speaker 3: as an odd example, where they have Josh Beeline for
35:38
Speaker 3: fifteen years. He's one of the best coaches in the
35:40
Speaker 3: Big Ten. You know, you cover them up there. It's
35:43
Speaker 3: like they're not always selling out even when they're pretty good.
35:46
Speaker 3: It's like, are they able to support both? I don't know,
35:48
Speaker 3: maybe it's a Michigan thing. My point is it's not impossible.
35:52
Speaker 3: I think Indiana could definitely support both at both levels.
35:56
Speaker 3: What it can't be is the fans have to drag
35:58
Speaker 3: one of the programs along by their feet, like both
36:01
Speaker 3: the programs need to be if both the programs are
36:05
Speaker 3: winning at a high clip, if that comes first, and
36:08
Speaker 3: I know it's again it's like, we love IU, we
36:10
Speaker 3: love the university. The goal here is we're trying to
36:13
Speaker 3: win games. That's what this is all about. That's what
36:16
Speaker 3: tournaments are for. Like there's money being changed hands here.
36:19
Speaker 3: If this is a real thing, we're not just here
36:22
Speaker 3: to support because we love it, which we do. But like,
36:25
Speaker 3: the real high level support comes with high level winning
36:28
Speaker 3: behind it. And if Indiana is winning both at both levels,
36:31
Speaker 3: I don't see why there'd be any problem supporting both
36:34
Speaker 3: the same levels. I think the trouble is when you're
36:36
Speaker 3: trying to make this argument of like, well, one team
36:38
Speaker 3: won a national title and one team isn't making the
36:40
Speaker 3: NCAA tournament. Can they support both at a high level,
36:43
Speaker 3: It's like, well, probably not. Like the theme that's not
36:46
Speaker 3: winning is going to have to start winning and then
36:48
Speaker 3: they'll be able to support both at the same time.
36:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, they definitely.
36:53
Speaker 1: I mean there's definitely the financial resources to win heavily
36:57
Speaker 1: in both. They've they've proven that because look at what
36:59
Speaker 1: I Football is now spending on a coach. They they
37:02
Speaker 1: they had a proof of concept with Signetti. He obviously
37:06
Speaker 1: won big that first season, took it to another level
37:09
Speaker 1: in year two, and now you kind of see the
37:10
Speaker 1: pouring end of the resources. From a basketball perspective, the
37:14
Speaker 1: reality is from the fan pursport, from fan support showing
37:19
Speaker 1: up the games, and also financial they're gonna have to
37:22
Speaker 1: make do with what they have right now and outperform
37:25
Speaker 1: expectations in order for everyone, not just the fans. The
37:28
Speaker 1: fans have been there at a solid level of support,
37:31
Speaker 1: but if you expect more money, uh, to ramp things
37:34
Speaker 1: up in the future, you got to have an ROI
37:36
Speaker 1: on that money, right and and to do that, you're
37:38
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to outperform expectations, win more games. And
37:42
Speaker 1: I think I think you're right. I think they can
37:44
Speaker 1: support both. But I think you don't want to. Obviously,
37:47
Speaker 1: you don't want to just throw away money. And I
37:49
Speaker 1: think the last couple of years it's hard to argue
37:54
Speaker 1: that they've not really necessarily met expectations.
37:57
Speaker 3: Clearly, I don't think donor money is renewable resource. It's finite.
38:01
Speaker 3: Like at some point donors get tired of giving money.
38:03
Speaker 3: I'm a donor. I you know, I'm still donating, but I,
38:08
Speaker 3: like I you everybody has their own reasons, but at
38:10
Speaker 3: some point you do get tired of, you know, donating,
38:12
Speaker 3: And I'm also not donating like nil changing sums either.
38:16
Speaker 3: You know, I'm donating to keep my tickets, but you
38:17
Speaker 3: know the people who are putting the real money for
38:19
Speaker 3: anil stuff like they want to return on that. Those
38:22
Speaker 3: returns are wins. It's not just oh it's great, I'm
38:24
Speaker 3: happy we're doing well. I'm happy this kid is wearing
38:25
Speaker 3: candy stripes like they want wins and what I think.
38:29
Speaker 3: You know, you look longer term. Part of the reason
38:31
Speaker 3: that football had trouble getting that support was you look
38:34
Speaker 3: back and it's like, well, where are the excited football donors?
38:37
Speaker 3: Like where was the four years where you went to
38:39
Speaker 3: IU and You're like, damn, that was fun. I'm going
38:41
Speaker 3: to go start my career, make a ton of money,
38:43
Speaker 3: and now I want to give like that. I want
38:44
Speaker 3: to remember all those great memories I had at football.
38:46
Speaker 3: It's like, no, there was thirty years of nothing and
38:49
Speaker 3: guess what you got was thirty years of donors who
38:51
Speaker 3: just like football wasn't afterthought. Well that's changed now. Like
38:54
Speaker 3: all the kids who were in school now some of
38:56
Speaker 3: them are. You know, they're going to have great careers.
38:58
Speaker 3: All of them are gonna be awesme because all IU
39:00
Speaker 3: grads and they're all gonna have great careers. But like
39:02
Speaker 3: that's where the in thirty years, that's where the donor
39:05
Speaker 3: pool is gonna be making the big money. You know,
39:07
Speaker 3: they'll be in the middle of their career making money,
39:09
Speaker 3: and it's like, now you can start really harvesting those donations.
39:14
Speaker 3: I look at you know, I'm forty seven. I wish
39:16
Speaker 3: I was younger, but I'm I'm still feeling great. Uh.
39:18
Speaker 3: You know. I graduated in two thousand. I was there
39:22
Speaker 3: for some of the later night you know, really good
39:24
Speaker 3: runs in eighty seven and ninety two. That's because I
39:26
Speaker 3: grew up in Bloomington. If you just took me as
39:28
Speaker 3: an IU student like ninety six to now, I haven't
39:31
Speaker 3: had a great run. Man Like we had a Final
39:34
Speaker 3: four run that was fun. I had a firing of
39:36
Speaker 3: Bob Knight that was very acrimonious. I had the Crean
39:39
Speaker 3: you know, middle the twenty four months of good good
39:42
Speaker 3: Crean that was awesome. Another Final Four and not a
39:45
Speaker 3: lot there. And it's like I should be entering my prime.
39:47
Speaker 3: I am entering my prime earning years based on you know,
39:51
Speaker 3: the way business works. And it's like, I my generation
39:55
Speaker 3: should be the massive, the next you know, the next
39:57
Speaker 3: version of donors. My generation's attachment to IU basketball. I
40:02
Speaker 3: don't know. I don't know that question. I know the
40:04
Speaker 3: people who are older than me. They have national titles
40:07
Speaker 3: in their history, they have an undefeated season, Like, that's
40:09
Speaker 3: where that comes from. I look at the generation below me,
40:12
Speaker 3: It's like, what do they have? I mean, they have
40:14
Speaker 3: the watch shot and like some of them are getting
40:16
Speaker 3: to a point where it's like, that's like and that's
40:18
Speaker 3: where I think these are longer term problems that it's like,
40:22
Speaker 3: this is this needs to be solved, and it's solved
40:24
Speaker 3: by by winning or else. You know, you're not gonna
40:27
Speaker 3: have the same sport you've had in the past of
40:29
Speaker 3: a support of a you know, four or five time
40:31
Speaker 3: national championship program.
40:33
Speaker 1: Absolutely well leave it there, Scott. Always good to see you,
40:37
Speaker 1: always good to talk. Thanks for making time. I always
40:40
Speaker 1: enjoy your podcast with Galen. I purposely skipped your I'm
40:44
Speaker 1: gonna go back and listen now because I didn't want
40:46
Speaker 1: to rehash anything and ask you the same things.
40:49
Speaker 3: Or you know, the ground negative. I hate ending on
40:53
Speaker 3: the note that we did. I mean, I I'll cut
40:55
Speaker 3: you off just I want to end on a positive
40:57
Speaker 3: note that I mean, I think, you know, I like
41:00
Speaker 3: a lot that I saw under the debris era. It's
41:02
Speaker 3: a better better, you know, better coach, team, better style
41:06
Speaker 3: the mix didn't work this year. That's fine, like get
41:09
Speaker 3: a better mix. You have some freshmen coming in, and
41:12
Speaker 3: the good news is you can prove it. I think
41:14
Speaker 3: to me, it's actually a positive note. It's like, yeah,
41:16
Speaker 3: you didn't get it done this year. This can all
41:18
Speaker 3: turn around very quickly. Go out and win some games,
41:20
Speaker 3: and I will end on this. You look at like Miami,
41:23
Speaker 3: Miami of Florida, who we also kicked the snot out
41:25
Speaker 3: of them in the national title game. Don't forget that, folks,
41:28
Speaker 3: twenty twenty six, twenty five were national champions. Miami went
41:32
Speaker 3: twenty five and eight. You look at their record this year.
41:35
Speaker 3: They really didn't beat anybody in the top not like
41:39
Speaker 3: they didn't beat anybody in the top twenty five and
41:41
Speaker 3: Ken Pom everybody good. They lost to they lost a BYU,
41:44
Speaker 3: They lost to Florida twice, they lost to Virginity, they
41:46
Speaker 3: lost to Louisville or takes Florida once, Clemson. They just
41:50
Speaker 3: they beat everybody else. It's like, so just go beat
41:52
Speaker 3: every other team that's top twenty five. You look at
41:54
Speaker 3: this year, it's like if Indiana does that, like just
41:57
Speaker 3: don't lose to Minnesota. Don't lose to Iowa at home.
42:02
Speaker 3: Don't lose the Northwestern twice, and don't lose to Ohio State.
42:05
Speaker 2: Don't lose to Nebraska when you're up sixteen in the
42:07
Speaker 2: second half either.
42:08
Speaker 3: Man, I'm with you, but like Nebraska's rank fourteen. Just
42:10
Speaker 3: to make my point, it's like, if you just take
42:12
Speaker 3: those those five or six losses off the table, we're
42:16
Speaker 3: twenty three and seven, we're in the tournament, might be
42:19
Speaker 3: a protected seat. It's like, it's not. We're not asking
42:22
Speaker 3: for the world here. Man, I don't need to win
42:23
Speaker 3: the Big ten. Like, just just beat everybody that's not
42:26
Speaker 3: in the top twenty. If you do that, you're great.
42:28
Speaker 3: Miami did that with a whole new roster this year,
42:30
Speaker 3: so it can be done. I'm positive that it can
42:33
Speaker 3: be done. It's just like the work starts now. Debrez
42:36
Speaker 3: has his full staff under him. He didn't last year.
42:39
Speaker 3: So like, let's you know, I would say, put it
42:42
Speaker 3: behind us, look at it with positive eyes, and let's
42:44
Speaker 3: get ready for next season. I'll just you know, I'll
42:46
Speaker 3: be watching with baited breath, in a little bit guarded,
42:49
Speaker 3: and probably with one eye on spring football.
42:52
Speaker 1: You've also got a whole football season between now and basketball.
42:55
Speaker 2: So that's something that's all look forward to, somit.
42:58
Speaker 3: I mean, long football season. Now with the playoff we
43:01
Speaker 3: go in, we go into January.
43:02
Speaker 2: Baby, oh, I know that should be another fun one.
43:05
Speaker 1: I mean I've seen what I've seen some preseason predictions
43:08
Speaker 1: for Indiana to win the Big Ten again.
43:10
Speaker 2: So that's that's where they're gonna be picked.
43:12
Speaker 3: Let's go. I'll take it. Yeah, they're over unders wild.
43:15
Speaker 3: It's it's high. The big money bets are gone like that.
43:18
Speaker 3: The last two years you could have gotten those. I
43:19
Speaker 3: got some. I bet Heisman Mendoza beginning of the year
43:22
Speaker 3: at like five hundred to one.
43:24
Speaker 2: It was great.
43:24
Speaker 3: Those odds are over.
43:26
Speaker 2: Yep.
43:27
Speaker 1: All right, Scott, thanks as always, uh for making time.
43:30
Speaker 1: Appreciate you as always. Make sure you're checking out Crimson
43:33
Speaker 1: Cast if you're not, although if you're listening to this podcast,
43:35
Speaker 1: you're probably also listening to Crimson Cast. Those guys do
43:38
Speaker 1: a terrific job over there. If you enjoy the show,
43:41
Speaker 1: as I said at the top, believe us a five
43:43
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43:45
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43:48
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43:50
Speaker 1: another episode of podcast On the Break