ON THE BRINK. AGAIN. — The Weekly Opine

The last truly big moment for IU men’s basketball happened way back in December 2011. (Photo credit: The Weekly Opine)

IU hoops now at the confluence of irrelevance and delusion.

It is off-season now, five months before college players take the court for the first official practice, on Friday, October 12 at 12:01 a.m.

Midnight Madness now includes the men’s and women’s teams, the pep band, cheerleaders, 3-point shooting and dunk contests. Fans are allowed in-arena, as is the media. Not really a practice, Midnight Madness is an exhibition celebrating the return of college basketball.

Sitting here in May, the sting of Indiana University’s collapse during Big Ten play, brief resurgence, then listless performance in the Big Ten tournament has faded. So has IU’s nonchalance in its last game, a home loss to Wichita State in the NIT. With a trip to New York’s Madison Square Garden at stake, IU played uninspired ball and left more questions than answers going into the offseason.

Now is a good time, while there is relative calm, to look at the condition of Indiana’s once mighty basketball program. (Editor’s note: I am an IU grad and huge fan.)

This is Indiana?

Let’s start here; last season was as embarrassing as anything that has unfolded since Assembly Hall (now named Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall) opened in 1971.

Since SS Hall opened, six coaches have overseen Indiana’s men’s team. Bob Knight (1971-2000), Mike Davis (2000-2006), Kelvin Sampson (2006-2008), interim-Dan Dakich (7 games in 2008), Tom Crean (2008-2017) and Archie Miller (2017-present).

Only Knight and Davis led IU to the Final Four, where Knight won three national titles in five attempts. Davis lost in the title game in his only Final Four in 2002.

That’s it. Zero Final Fours and zero Elite Eights since 2002. And a disheartening flameout in the Sweet Sixteen in 2013, with NBA lottery picks Victor Oladipo and Cody Zeller surrounded by a veteran-laden team. Incredibly, only once since 1993 has Indiana advanced past the Sweet Sixteen (2002).

And - you’d better sit down - in the history of the Big Ten post-season tournament, IU has never won the thing and the Hoosiers played in Sunday’s title game just once, way back in 2001.

IU’s last national championship? A generation ago, in 1987. Thirty-two years and counting. A streak unlike any for IU since the Big Dance began in 1939 (Indiana also won national titles in 1940, 1953, 1976 and 1981). Nowadays, I cringe when the TV camera shows the five title banners hanging in SS Hall.

Hardly the success required to cling to the (delusional) notion that IU is still one of the “blue bloods” of college hoops.

Alternately, the arrow for the women’s program, fresh off an NCAA Sweet Sixteen run, points skyward under the tutelage of 6th-year coach Teri Moren. The IU women have compiled four straight 20-win seasons and appear prepared for more success. Moren is a straightforward coach whose stature and demeanor remind me a little of Tennessee’s great Hall of Fame coach, the late-Pat Summit.

So, what happened to men’s hoops relevance at the state school that is supposed to exemplify the Hoosier state’s unmatched fervor for basketball?

Been a long time since Indiana unfurled the last of its five national title banners. (Photo credit: The Weekly Opine)

Love him or hate him, he was dang good

Tales about Bobby Knight are beyond legendary. His crazy, wild temper flashed often, none more memorably than when he tossed a chair across the court while a Purdue player was about to shoot a technical foul shot.

Knight, and his mentor Pete Newell, revolutionized the sport with innovations like the motion offense and zone-like, man-to-man help defense. His furnace blast demand that his teams take quality shots and protect the ball made their disciplined style a joy to behold. (And make recent IU teams hard to watch with the careless turnovers).

Knight’s abhorrence for mistakes famously manifested when he grabbed sophomore Jim Wisman by the jersey, after the guard committed two quick turnovers in a nationally televised game.

And yes, Knight did eventually wear out his welcome. Even me, a strong supporter in the 1970s and 1980s, evolved and tired of his antics. By the time Indiana University belatedly, and rightfully, did the same, showing Knight the door in 2000, the basketball program was slipping.

Annual losses in Round One or Round Two of the NCAA tournament, including stunningly embarrassing upset losses and royal ass-kickings, suffered during Knight’s final years proved IU was losing its edge. So did defections of highly touted players like home-grown Luke Recker. This period temporarily tarnished Knight’s coaching legacy and coincided with what seemed to be increasingly outlandish behavior.

But there is no denying Knight had arguably the greatest basketball mind of any era. His three titles would obviously be four, if not for Scott May’s injury in 1975. I make the case that two more titles slipped away. One in 1980 when injured Mike Woodson missed most of the season, and again in 1993 when Alan Henderson suffered a knee injury a few weeks before the NCAAs.

A bad fit

After Knight was disposed of, two years of very good basketball were delivered by Knight’s successor, Mike Davis, and a rejuvenated team free from the literal stranglehold of Knight. Too bad Davis himself and a segment of Hoosier Nation were not ready for Davis to coach Indiana for the long haul.

Davis blew one of the best college jobs in America. From the outset, he had one foot in Bloomington and one foot in a fantasy NBA job, lobbying so blatantly about his desire to coach in the NBA it was tantamount to begging.

Never having learned that every thought that popped into his head need not exit his mouth, Davis complained publicly about things dear to Hoosier fans, like the team’s candy-striped warm up pants. Knowing that many fans wanted Steve Alford to coach Indiana, Davis sunk into a state of perpetual paranoia.

Davis also did not put in the work necessary to build relationships with Indiana high school coaches. He largely missed out on a bumper crop of home-grown talent, including Greg Oden and Mike Conley Jr.

Adding to the malaise, a segment of Hoosier Nation turned Davis’ tenure into an excuse to exercise their bumpkin racism, which may have influenced some recruiting prospects to bolt from the state.

Davis now admits he wasn’t prepared for a job like Indiana, recently saying Indiana should be your last head coaching job, not your first. But as Davis logically explained back in 2000, when you are making (my est.) $60,000/year as an assistant coach and you are offered the head coaching job that pays a base salary in the range of $200,000/year, you do not take a pass.

Next men up

Kelvin Sampson was a repugnant hire.

Sources say former-IU president Adam Herbert was unusually hands-on in hiring Sampson. As was his modus operandi, Sampson broke NCAA rules, suffered penalties and shamed IU. Soon, the stench of Sampson was gone, as was Herbert, leaving the basketball program on the brink – of extinction.

Enter Tom Crean who, according to some fans, escaped Marquette ahead of the posse.

Crean encountered reduced scholarships and a dearth of talent thanks to the Sampson mess. To his credit he did a phenomenal job re-energizing and saving the program.

Crean could not, however, take the Hoosiers to the Final Four promised land. Guiding the Oladipo-Zeller team to the No. 1 ranking for much of the 2012-2013 season, and then faltering in the Big Dance was a bad sign. A tepid season and missed NCAA tournament in 2016-2017 ultimately did him in.

Crean’s firing in 2017 left Indiana a team without a coach or elite talent, edging toward the brink…again.

IU’s fast start in 2018 fizzled in 2019 due to injuries, lack of discipline and sometimes puzzling coaching. (Photo credit: The Weekly Opine)

It’s Miller time. (Or is it?)

With the arrival of Archie Miller, the pep band started playing the venerable Miller High Life advertising jingle after home wins. Trouble is the jingle is slow-paced and kind of drab and sucks the energy out of the building. Note to pep band; when the buzzer sounds, strike up the IU fight song!

Now entering his third-year, Miller is already at a crossroads.

When he arrived, there was a mix of excitement and curiosity. Miller coached Dayton to the Elite Eight in 2014, a tournament run absent from IU’s resume for well over a decade. There is still optimism, albeit in some corners fading, that he can take Indiana beyond the Elite Eight.

Miller was also an assistant under his older brother, Sean, who is the head man at Arizona. Sean Miller now sits under thickening storm clouds, courtesy of the FBI-Adidas bribery investigation. (Archie assured Indiana brass that he [Archie] is clean. Hopefully, his brother’s woes do not affect Archie’s concentration.)

After a first year that showed glimpses of a promising future, the wheels fell off last season. Admittedly, IU was hammered by injuries. But the team lacked sustained toughness and chemistry. There was no leadership. No long-range shooters. As the season wore on, a lack of winning culture became evident.

In IU’s final game, the 73-63 loss to Wichita State (a game IU never led) IU players were seen laughing and goofing off on the bench with a few minutes to play. Championship programs like Duke, Kentucky and Michigan State do not tolerate that type of behavior.

Another example of delusion running rampant in B-town is juniors-to-be Al Durham and Justin Smith declaring for the NBA. Sure, they just want NBA scouts to evaluate their game and then withdraw their names before the draft. But this smacks of the everybody gets a trophy mentality. Two average players so tone-deaf they think applying for the NBA draft is warranted.

Juxtapose Durham and Smith with Illinois sophomore-to-be Ayo Dosunmu. A much better player than Durham or Smith, Dosunmu had an excellent freshman season and was legit, receiving mentions as potentially a second-round pick in the NBA draft.

Yet, Dosunmu displayed self-awareness, recognizing he’s not quite NBA-ready. He did not declare for the NBA to obtain feedback from pro scouts. With input from his college coaching staff, Dosunmu knows what he needs to work on to become a better player. His priority is improving his game and staying connected to his Illini teammates.

Meanwhile, delusion reigns in Bloomington as IU teeters in a familiar place. On the brink.

There are remedies.

IU has excellent facilities. The fan base is as knowledgeable as any. Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall is, as veteran announcer Gus Johnson calls it, “the Carnegie Hall of college basketball.” Last season notwithstanding, SS Hall provides a tremendous home-court advantage.

Unfortunately, delusion has seeped into Bloomington. (As recently as a few years ago, some highly delusional fans thought IU should bring Knight back – to coach!?)

After the loss to Wichita State, seniors-to-be DeRon Davis and Devonte Green started up with “what we’re gonna do next year” chatter. Hopefully, they prove to be correct but after going 3-for-3 missing the NCAA tournament their first three seasons at IU, Davis and Green should zip the big talk and just get to work. (I’d say “just do it” but Nike is not IU’s apparel sponsor.)

Improvement should (better) occur when the remaining Crean players exit after this season. In fairness, Miller should be evaluated once the roster is 100% players he recruited. (Note: Crean recruited juniors Durham and Smith but was fired before coaching them.)

IU needs to re-think one-and-dones. This year’s Final Four teams were all veteran squads that leaned on experienced upperclassmen. The Kentucky-Duke model, recruiting 3-4 one-and-dones each year, has produced only two NCAA titles recently, in 2012 and 2015.

With high-level talent produced annually in-state, IU should focus primarily on 4-star and 3-star athletes from Indiana who will stay in college at least until their junior year (like D.C. native Oladipo did, leaving with his diploma in hand) or stay all four years (like Hoosier-bred Ray Tolbert did). And try to recruit at least 75% Indiana kids, who understand the game better, due to the top-notch coaching at the high school level in the state.

Look no further than arch-rival Purdue, with no one-and-done McDonald’s All Americans. What Purdue had was upperclassmen leaders and a blend of hard-nosed veterans plus sophs and freshmen who played within their capabilities. The result? A crowd-pleasing Elite Eight tournament run.

The Hoosiers are devoid of fundamental discipline. Too many mindless, unforced turnovers. Poor free throw shooting. An inability to finish fast breaks. Silly fouls sending key players to the bench. Loafing during pre-game warm-ups.

All signs of a careless attitude and lack of accountability. All reflect poorly on Miller. All must be fixed immediately. A demanding coach who insists on accountability is required, either Miller or someone else.

Right now, IU making the NCAA tourney next season looks like a long shot, at least on paper.

Significant improvement, like the progress Durham made from his freshman year to his sophomore year, must become the norm for all returning players. Five-star (one-and-done?) recruit Trayce Jackson-Davis must deliver as advertised. A true leader must emerge. A program that has been like squeezy, soft, Charmin for several years must toughen up. Knock on wood, the injury bug will not repeat. And the coach has to coach ‘em up hard.

And, IU fans must tap our patience reservoir. Thirty-two years and counting...