Archive for the 'Commentary' Category

ItH follows up with L. Jon Wertheim

Published
by
Taco John
on October 31, 2008
in Basketball and Commentary
. 0 Comments

I toyed with the idea of sussing more quotes out of L. Jon Wertheim’s article as a follow up to what I wrote yesterday, but then the boys at Inside the Hall tracked down the man himself and asked him a few questions. There’s even more great information in the Q&A. I don’t want to steal too much thunder, but one question and answer stood out as confirming what a lot of people have expected about Sampson’s hiring:

ITH: You talk a bit about how fond former IU President Adam Herbert was of Sampson. There seems to be a debate on Herbert’s involvement in hiring Sampson. Some believe he was the main person responsible yet ultimately Rick Greenspan lost his job over this debacle. From what you gather, was it Herbert’s decision to hire Sampson and what role did Greenspan have in the decision?

Wertheim: I had been told by multiple sources that Herbert took an active role in the hiring of Sampson. Let’s put it that way. I asked a variation of this question to Herbert via email and was not extended the courtesy of a response. I know that Bob Kravitz raised this issue as well but I thought the lack of accountability and candor was pretty galling. For the high-minded “light and truth” talk (at a publicly funded university, no less), you’d like to think the leaders would have been significantly more answerable to the students/constituents when scandal hit.

As for Rick Greenspan this didn’t make the SI story, but I emailed him a question about Dr. Herbert and whether he felt betrayed or thrown under the proverbial bus. His response: “On these type of questions, I have and will continue to take the high road. I have seen the low road and there is too much traffic.”

I think Greenspan told us all we need to know without saying much at all.

The Definitive History of the Sampson Era

Published
by
Taco John
on October 30, 2008
in Basketball and Commentary
. 2 Comments

I agree with Ryan over at Inside the Hall 100% on this. L. Jon Wertheim’s Sports Illustrated article on how Kelvin Sampson brought down IU Basketball and what Tom Crean is doing to build it back up is a must read. I don’t know if must read is strong enough, if it’s not, let’s say required reading. If you are a Hoosier fan, you owe it to yourself to read this. It is the most complete and balanced record of events you will find, and paints a picture about the period of March 2006 to the present. It’s a picture that is a lot different than the one most fans have in their head, and really makes me think twice about one of my strongest held beliefs about the Sampson Era.

I want to start by pointing out the exact same quote that Ryan did, but for different reasons:

There were other signs that the program was coming apart. Reserve forward DeAndre Thomas was arrested for driving without a valid license and paid a fine. Guards Jordan Crawford and Armon Bassett and forward Jamarcus Ellis were each suspended by the program for undisclosed reasons. Multiple sources close to the team assert that marijuana use was common among a group of players, some of whom were made to take part in a drug counseling program set up by the athletic department. Despite a wealth of academic support, the team’s collective grade-point average plummeted from 2.89 in the fall semester to 2.13 in the spring, when players were cutting classes.

According to Eric Gordon Sr., his son “didn’t get involved in the smoking and partying” and, as a result, felt alienated from some of his teammates. Likewise senior co-captain D.J. White rarely spent time around his fellow players away from the court. “The kids weren’t on the same page,” says Gordon Sr. “They didn’t have similar backgrounds or experiences or goals, and basically all hell broke loose.”

This to me tells the entire story of the struggles the team had during the season and the complete collapse once Sampson left. Both the vocal senior leader and the talented freshmen who were expected to steady and guide the team were isolated and withdrawn from the rest of the team. Maybe you could argue that DJ, as an experienced senior, and Gordon, who always projected an air of seriousness and professionalism, could have done more, but with the coaching staff involved in their own problems and the problem children having such little buy-in to the team concept, their peer pressure wasn’t going to measure up.

Continue reading ‘The Definitive History of the Sampson Era’

Looking at the Fred Glass hire

Published
by
Taco John
on October 29, 2008
in Commentary and IU Athletics
. 0 Comments

I’m a fan of this hire, so I’ll get that out of the way upfront and look at this (and make my case) by answering the critics of this hire.

“I can’t believe we hired someone with no college athletics experience!”

First and foremost, there’s a lot of Rick Greenspan haters who are crying this. Greenspan was very successful at Army, had lots of college athletics experience, and if you listen to the townsfolk at the gate with torches and pitchforks, he all but single-handedly rode the athletic department off a cliff, and either damaged the university as a whole or was a symbol of IU’s continuing decline. I’m not going to unpack that, but clearly athletic department experience doesn’t prevent you from making mistakes. And don’t forget the guy Greenspan replaced, Mike McNeely, who was an awful AD. He had extensive experience in college athletics.

In fact, there were a few people who said Bob De Carolis wasn’t an appropriate candidate because Oregon State’s athletic department was too small potatoes compared to IU’s. This all to me seems like scars from the Mike Davis era. IU fans are terrified of someone learning on the job, so they refuse to embrace an up-and-comer and an outsider. Personally, I’d rather have someone on their way up than on their way down. Imagine if IU managed to land Jeremy Foley (AD at Florida). Wouldn’t we have questions about why he chose to run a smaller athletic department?

And while I know that there’s big danger of saying management is management is management, but to some degree it is. There are certain qualities that you can carry from one industry to another. Have enough of those and you’ll do ok as long as you are bright enough to learn the ropes.

“We just hired him to copy Notre Dame!”

Frankly, who cares? Yes, I understand that hiring crazes can sweep through an industry, especially sports. Look at professional coaching. One year it will be about the hot assistant, the next year everyone will want college coaches, the next year it will be experienced retreads, then maybe young ex-players. But if ND makes a hire and it causes IU’s administration to say “Hey, maybe we should consider this group of people,” that’s a good thing.

Maybe it was a me-too hire, but it’s not like IU grabbed the first alumni lawyer they found off the street to run the athletic department. Glass is a respected and experienced attorney who has a great deal of experience doing some (many?) of the things that are required of an athletic director. Even if we zeroed in on because of ND’s hiring of Jack Swarbrick, I believe that Glass has sufficient qualifications to deserve a chance and support to go with it.

“This hire is terrible, because he’s clearly going to (insert priority or action)!”

I’ve seen a lot of these. The two biggest are “tear down Assembly Hall” and “focus on basketball.” I always enjoy when one complaint is that a guy is inexperienced at a job and you know little about him and are too unsure, but the second complaint is that he’s clearly going to do a certain thing based on his past. I would tend to tell someone looking for the better complaint to stick with the first one. We really don’t know how Glass will run an athletic department because we have no history to look at. Maybe he’ll think small, maybe he’ll think big.

“This is the same ole’ thing” or “Why couldn’t we get a wow hire?”

In the world of athletics administration, this is a wow hire. Hiring a guy from outside the college atheltics world is about as sexy as it gets. It was a hire that was picked up by ESPN and made national sports news. Not much more you can ask for in terms of “wowing” anybody. Would the proverbial Jeremy Foley hire have stunned IU fans a little more? Maybe. But what’s the obsession with big first impressions anyway? I understand the importance of having that in basketball. We’re a big time school, we should have a big time coach, and now we do (with a big time contract to match). I can see the value of such a hire in football where getting people in seats is important. But as far as the AD position goes, I’m of the belief that a really good AD is a guy you don’t see or hear a lot about.

And this is not the status quo. The status quo had been a guy with extensive collegiate athletics experience, including AD experience at a smaller school. This does change the game a bit. I find it odd that the same people will point out Glass’s lack of AD experience, then claim this is the same sort of decision IU always makes. For this position, the last two guys have been very different, and (according to some) haven’t been very successful.

I think this was a solid hire. I like that instead of a resume of committees or organizations, Glass has a resume of results. He gets things done. He’s familiar with at least some of the immediate challenges the department is facing. And his legal background will hopefully lead to a conservative, long term approach to major decisions. Maybe not the eye-popping, home run of a hire some were demanding, but certainly a solid double at first glance.

Fixing the Student Section

Published
by
Taco John
on October 23, 2008
in Basketball and Commentary
. 5 Comments

So Monday, I talked about IU fans, expectations, and lots of other ideas about what we might want our fans to be. And I know I said we need to stop worrying about process. That said, there are some things we can do in the student section that will start this journey of getting the type of fan base in the Assembly Hall that we want, with the one caveat that saying “When I was a student, blah, blah, blah,” is not a good way to define what we want.

Why are we starting with the students? We’re starting with the students because they’re the easiest group to change. The students are all in one place (by that I mean in Bloomington), they are relatively consistent in what they want, you can build a structure (i.e. student government) to both tell them all what you want and learn what they want, there’s less of them than there are alumni/public, and they pay less so you can push them around a bit. I know that’s kind of cynical, but those last two are really critical when you’re changing the student section. Because while I said that they are relatively consistent, they aren’t totally consistent. Some want more seats, some want better seats, and some just want t-shirts and coordinated chants.

“So Mr. Know-It-All, how do you fix the student section?”

Some Students Can’t Get Seats That’s the biggest thing. I think a good 85% of the issues with the student section would be solved if some people didn’t get seats. This is a radical change from the current policy of allowing any and every student who wants to get tickets to have tickets. There are a lot of pluses in doing that, don’t get me wrong. When you have a team like IU had last year, there’s something to be said for allowing as many students as possible to see that. And the people who want to go every game will be able to get the tickets if they want them bad enough.

However, making it really easy for anyone to buy a ticket brings with it certain problems. When you let everyone in, you let in a lot of riff-raff. You get the people who show up late. You get the people who leave early. You get the people who show up drunk. You get the people who just want to visit with their friends. You get the people who don’t know any of the players or more generally anything about basketball. These aren’t bad people, but they aren’t going to be your most dedicated fans.

So while you can get tickets every night, remember that as soon as you go over the 7500 or so student seats, you are going to start keeping people out of the gym who really want to be there and will be there no matter how bad the team is or how much money you ask. And you’re going to likely be letting in some people who aren’t going to be there with you through thick and thin. Even last year, there was a lot of chatter about how the students didn’t come to see that great team or how they came late to some of the lesser games. Which leads to a new problem:

When everyone who could possibly want to go to a game has a ticket, there’s no market for the diehard student who has a test that night and cannot go to the game. Last year, there was a lot of bickering back and forth between students and alumni where the students were criticized for not coming. And when the students responded that they were busy, alumni demanded to know why the tickets weren’t sold. And the answer is that every single person who wanted to see that team had a ticket already. There was no market because anyone could get a ticket.

So at the very least, the athletic department should get away from this unlimited ticket idea. There are 7500 seats, 7500 season ticket packages. Once they’re gone, they’re gone. If you get it, you’ll get to go to every home game when school is in session, and you’ll get first crack at cool things like games in Indianapolis or postseason games. Give everyone a really good reason to buy a ticket and do it quickly. But you can give everyone an even better reason to get tickets…

Less Seats I want to sit down around the metaphorical campfire with the students for a second. Let’s get real here. Students want better seats. You’re not getting 7500 really great seats. You’re either getting the 7500 seats students have now, maybe marginally better, or you’re getting much better seats but less of them. And I think the fewer, better seats option is the better long term solution for students.

I just personally think it solves so many problems if there were 4000 seats instead of 7500. It ties in with the bigger point of creating exclusivity and scarcity with Indiana basketball tickets. When there are 7500 seats that anyone can buy, there is no scarcity. And by extension, going to an IU game is not a special event. I talked yesterday about how you have to sell basketball games to students now. You can’t just expect them to show up and spend a not insignificant amount of money on tickets. But if you take away close to half of the seats, you have an instant selling point: exclusivity.

Not only that, but I’m basing this on the premise that at the very least, the seats the students lose will be the worst ones. Obviously if you take away the 3500 best seats, that’s a massive problem. But if quality of the average student seat is a lot better, that takes away a lot of apathy. Right now, there’s actually a difficult choice between watching the game on Big Ten Network HD and sitting in the balcony. Not only are you far away and a lot of the seats are obstructed view, but you aren’t treated well in the balcony, with concession stands and bathrooms not being open and the roof leaking.

So the idea is that all the seats are at best decent and not everyone on campus has a seat, it’s a bigger deal to go to a game. And when you can’t go to a game, there are likely a lot of people clamoring to get a seat, so there’s a thriving secondary market for tickets, and maybe even I can make a bit of money if I sell some really good seats to a big game and pay for the rest of the games I’m going to actually attend.

This builds excitement Just that will get people excited about going to a game. I’m imagining a situation where the tickets are first come, first serve. There should still be assigned seats because I’m not thrilled by the idea of Krzyzewskiville, or having to block out 5 hours potentially twice a week for a 2 hour basketball game. But have people camp out once a year isn’t a big deal. You could even do it around Midnight Madness. Imagine that you wait outside for a couple days, you get into Midnight Madness early, you buy your tickets, and maybe you get some pizza or something. And then, you’re introduced to the fans. Think of the sense of community and responsibility that would entail when the rest of the fans are told “These are the students that committed to being here all the time. If there’s an empty seat, you know who to blame.”

And to all the people who think “selling” basketball to the students means laser shows, rap music, and free t-shirts, this is selling without changing how the game is presented at all. Part of marketing is distribution. IU Basketball tickets have horrible distribution because they’re too easy to get. There’s a reason you can’t walk into any jewelry store and buy a Tiffany’s diamond. I would think most IU fans would say that the students start treating the program like a cherished jewel. Maybe it’s time the athletic department did the same and stopped throwing around basketball tickets like beads on Bourbon Street during Mardi Gras.

Building a Program: Coaching

Published
by
Taco John
on September 16, 2008
in Commentary and Football
. 0 Comments

Ah, the coach. It’s likely where fans lose the most sleep at night. The coach is the public face of the program. The coach is where you can make or break a program with one decision. Hiring football (or basketball) coaches can get an athletic director hired or fired. A new coach is a fresh start. Fans feel like a new coach can completely revolutionize a floundering program. A new coach will make the old players better, bring in better recruits, and basically allow fans to dream a little bigger.

But does a coach really matter that much? Some programs have hired and fired many coaches without getting a whole lot for their investment. One of the biggest caveats with hiring a new coach is that if you weren’t supporting the old coach and do not support the new coach, results will probably be similar. Hiring a new coach is tricky with a program that’s struggling. Fans get so crazy about new coaches that they demand a lot more than you might expect. And if you don’t deliver, the AD better start updating a resume. I haven’t done lists in this series, but I’ll throw out one here.

1. Continuity is the most underrated quality in a program Continuity is so important. Every time you change a coach, you lose something. The entire staff leaves, and maybe a good chunk of the rest of your athletic department, like strength and conditioning staff, administrators, even athletic directors. Firing a coach, even the worst coach in the world, incurs certain costs. You lose institutional knowledge. A bunch of college kids, with limited practice time, have to learn new systems, new terminology, new ways of doing things. No matter how down your program is, it’s important to know that the second you fire a coach, your program got worse, because you lost any good qualities in the program.

2. The decision to fire a coach is only as good as the coach you hire This ties into the first point. As soon as you fire a coach, your program just got worse. So to have a successful new hire, he needs to come from behind, so to speak. And in addition, most new hires are judged by one of two standards. Either the new coach needs to do better than the old coach, or the new coach needs to meet some mythical set of standards established by either the administration or the fanbase. For evidence, you can see the firing of Glen Mason at Minnesota. In that case, the fans got tired of going 6-5, 6-6, 7-5 and going to a medicore bowl game. Fans were expecting to take the next step with a new coach, but instead the old coach was set so far back, he’ll have to rebuild. No matter what you thought of Glen Mason, it was a poor decision to fire him if Brewester cannot take the team to the next level.

3. Try and get a coach who will stay Just because you don’t fire a coach doesn’t mean a coach won’t leave. Programs that aren’t at the top tier of college football are at great risk of losing a successful coach when another program swoops in with more prestige and more money and steals your coach. Finding a good fit is very important, and not just from a competitive standpoint. To bring this back to IU, that was the beauty of the Hep hire. Not only did he look capable of turning the program around, he also looked like he would retire at IU. Here was a guy who was not looking for the next big job. He wanted to be at IU. When you’re building a program from very little or nothing, you need to find someone committed to your program.

What does all this mean for IU? It means that at the moment, Bill Lynch is the best coach for the job. IU’s short term goal is to go to more bowls, consolidate its position as a winning program, and drag the program up the Big Ten ladder. The biggest thing about the decision to retain Lynch is money. If IU was not willing to up the ante in a major way, keeping Bill Lynch and keeping his staff in place was by far the best move. While a lot of fans would have liked to use the little bit of hype IU got to land a big name coach, that was not going to happen on what IU is paying Bill Lynch. It all comes back to continuity. Unless you can hit a home run, it’s not worth throwing out everything you have to get rid of a guy who is doing a solid job. And considering that since his extension, Lynch has upgraded IU’s recruiting once again, the boring play was, at least so far, the smart play.

What We Learned: IU’s West Coast swing

Published
by
Taco John
on September 14, 2008
in Commentary and Soccer
. 1 Comment

So now that the Hoosier’s annual trip out west is over (quite successfully I might add), it’s time for a very special What We Learned. While I will hold on to the dream that I might have produced this sort of content after every home or televised away soccer match if I was in Bloomington this year, I do know since this was my only guaranteed opportunity to watch IU this year, I made sure to go to Drake Stadium and watch. And now that I’ve seen this team in the flesh, I can stop saying “the recap made it sound like…” and give you some real thoughts.

1. Will Bruin is that good

I have gushed over Will Bruin in the past. I will probably continue to gush over Will Bruin. He deserves every bit of the praise heaped on him by both me and everyone else that made him one of the two best recruits in the country (along with fellow IU freshman Tommy Meyer). Bruin brings something to the IU attack that has been lacking since Pat Noonan left: a skilled forward with lots of size. Brian Ackley is a nice player, and has scored his share of goals, but Will Bruin is different. He has a great touch on the ball. He has both speed and quickness that I frankly didn’t expect out of a player of his size.

But the best thing about Will Bruin is he has the goal scorer’s knack for being around a ball when he’s needed. There’s a lot in sports generally, and soccer particularly, that is impossible to teach. Most of it is instincts. Will Bruin has goal scoring instincts. He knows where other guys are, he is around balls that drop in the box, and he gets his head on so many balls. He is just a great weapon for IU to have.

Continue reading ‘What We Learned: IU’s West Coast swing’

Building a Program: Recruiting

Published
by
Taco John
on September 13, 2008
in Commentary and Football
. 2 Comments

Darius Willis as he commits to the Hoosiers (image courtesy H-T)

Darius Willis as he commits to the Hoosiers (image courtesy H-T)

Newsflash: Indiana’s recruiting is the best it ever has been. Or at the very least, the best in a while. And yes, I’m talking about football. Football recruiting at IU is at an all-time high. The 2009 class will be one of the best and deepest in quite a while. Not only that, the 2008 and 2009 classes have included some of the highest rated recruits since recruits have been rated.

This is not the no-brainer that some might think it is. That’s because the operative phrase with the improvement in recruiting is “baby steps.” IU started with recruiting classes that included players who were not ranked at all. Then the program began picking up two-star recruits, a couple of whom (Kellen Lewis, James Hardy) turned out to be absolute hidden gems. And now IU has a class where three stars are the rules, and those three-star recruits were landed early and filled needs, so the coaches could focus on maybe landing a couple bigger recruits.

Contrast that with fellow Big Ten cellar dweller a couple years ago, Illinois. Despite winning four games total, and one Big Ten game, in 2005 and 2006, Ron Zook opened a few pipelines and was landing recruiting classes that were drawing national attention and rankings. Major recruits from the DC and Baltimore areas were flocking to Illinois despite the horrible records. The payoff occurred last year when Illinois beat Ohio State and went to the Rose Bowl, their first bowl game since 2001.

Fundamentally different approaches here. While IU sort of made the best with what they had and got to a bowl game with less than stellar talent across the board, Illinois struggled until the recruiting paid off and skyrocketed from bottom of the pile to BCS bowl. The reason I bring this up is that some fans (and many rival fans) believe there is two levels of recruiting: good and bad. Great and pointless. Five-star and zero-star.

Amazingly, I feel compelled to sit here and defend the right of IU fans to get excited about the current recruiting. Not only is the recruiting getting better, but look at who the schools IU is beating out are now. SEC, ACC, Big East, and other Big Ten schools. No longer is IU landing recruits because it’s the only BCS conference program that offered a scholarship. IU is dragging itself up, slowly but surely, to a higher level and competing with the programs it “should” (dangerous word).

So get excited. Just like IU’s record has improved from two wins, to three wins, four, five, and now seven, the recruiting is taking the same sort of baby steps. From no stars to rated recruits to a couple of three stars to a class where three stars are the rule. Needs are being filled. Depth (depth!) is being built at key positions. Is it the fireworks and laser shows of say an Illinois? Not even close, but it’s improvement, and when you’re where IU was a few years ago, that’s all you can ask.

The IU Twilight Zone, part II

Published
by
Taco John
on July 29, 2008
in Commentary
. 2 Comments

“There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call … the Twilight Zone.”

Consider if you will for a moment the possibility that DJ White never broke his foot. Entertain the idea that the Marco Killingsworth/DJ White frontcourt pairing came to fruition. Envision if you will a reality where Mike Davis’ help arrived and worked. What would have happened?

Obviously IU would have been more successful during the 2005-2006 season. The pairing of DJ and Marco would have been one of the best frontcourts in the country. Both had the ability to pound you down low and step out and hurt you. By the end of the season, IU also have a nice little rotation at the three, Marshall Strickland was solid at the two, and Earl Calloway had emerged as the starting point guard.

DJ would have erased many of Marco’s shortcomings. His pre-injury athleticism would have made up for Marco’s inability to get off the ground. He would have protected the rim better and caused the man Marco was guarding to have another defender to think about when DJ came from the help side. Simply put, the team would have been better.

But how much better? In the few games they played together, DJ and Marco never looked in sync. At some point you simply have too much firepower in a certain area and they get in each other’s way. How much of that was the lack of practice and time together and how much was simply never going to be overcome? My guess is a significant amount would be overcome but there would be a bit of frustration.

So what would the result have been? You would have to believe IU would have won the Duke showdown. I would believe IU would have won the game at Indiana State. Maybe IU still loses most of the Big Ten road games they lost, but they likely beat Iowa at home and possibly UConn and maybe even Penn State, whipping out most of the devastating five game losing streak that prompted Davis’ resignation. IU also probably advances in the Big Ten Tournament to the final against Iowa. That probably gives IU a higher seed, they avoid Gonzaga who was within seconds of making the Elite Eight, and probably go to at least the Sweet 16.

The larger question is whether this would have been enough to save Davis’ job. There were a lot of fans who were of the opinion that Davis had to go, no matter what the level of success was. Now, considering that Davis did not have enough success in the won/loss column, it’s hard to take IU fans at their word that they do not care how much Davis won if they had to watch his offense. When fans though are saying that a national championship is not enough to earn a contract extension, that says a lot.

I guess the biggest issue would be if Davis had made the Final Four. That would have made the expectations of the Davis era very clear. Mediocre seasons until Davis hit a good recruiting class, which would build up into a great team. He would never get more than you thought out of his talent, but when he occasionally got the talent, he would succeed. I don’t think it would have. My feeling is that if DJ hadn’t gotten hurt, anything short of a national title in 2006 would not be enough to keep Davis employed at IU to this day.

The IU Twilight Zone, part one

Published
by
Taco John
on July 22, 2008
in Commentary and IU Athletics
. 0 Comments

“There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call … the Twilight Zone.”

Consider if you will for a moment the possibility that Kelvin Sampson was not a man addicted to phone calls. Entertain, if only for a fleeting instance, the idea that Kelvin Sampson was truly a man who had made a mistake and had learned to walk a new path. Envision, if you will, a reality where IU Basketball continued to have an (relatively) untarnished legacy.

Well, we know for starters that Sampson and Greenspan would still be employed by the university. We also know that most of the mass player exodus would not have occurred. Coming off IU’s Elite Eight bid, the future would look very bright for IU. A veteran team would be coming back, albeit minus Eric Gordon and DJ White, who both jumped to the NBA. Also minus Brandon McGee, who remained in Sampson’s doghouse and showed no signs of climbing out.

But Sampson also brought in another highly touted recruiting class to do battle with a Big Ten that looks somewhat weaker following the graduation of numerous Wisconsin contributors (like that ever matters), Ohio State’s NBA casualties, and Michigan State’s loss of veteran leader Drew Neitzel. With two of three scholarships left to play with, Sampson would probably have made a push for similar players as Tom Crean did. Josh Harrelson would have been a quick target, given Sampson’s penchant for juco players. Maybe he lands Emmanuel Negedu. Perhaps Tijan Jobe or Verdell Jones are on this theoretical IU squad. Regardless, it’s still a team in much better shape, although with IU fans once against asking where the post presence is coming from amongst a young and untested group.

Football would be slightly affected. Kellen Lewis’ suspension, seen by many IU fans, particularly those who pay more (too much?) attention to the basketball program, as part of a growing pattern would instead be an isolated incident. It would be Blake Powers and Kellen Lewis, not Blake Power, Kellen Lewis, and the entire basketball team.

Or would it? Would the academic casualties have happened? We’ll never know. Even if they were motivated to try I doubt most college aged kids have the ability to look at themselves and answer the question “Where did you go off the tracks?” Was it Sampson’s lack of focus on academics? Was it the strain of supporting their coach throughout the season? Or was it the removal of a father figure that caused a total collapse? I doubt even those involved will ever know for sure.

This was part one of the IU Twilight Zone, looking back at past events over IU’s very recent history and asking the question of how it would change the present. To see the rest of the series, check out the Twilight Zone archive.

My top 10 most memorable IU moments as a student

Published
by
Taco John
on July 20, 2008
in Commentary and IU Athletics
. 3 Comments

After six years and two degrees, I’m finally leaving Bloomington. While I was here there were a lot of ups (soccer, football) and a lot of downs (basketball, soccer, football). Not all of these are good, not all of these are even one moment, but this are basically the 10 biggest memories I’ll have of IU athletics.

Continue reading ‘My top 10 most memorable IU moments as a student’