FW_Hoosier

All the handwringing over this hire is ridiculous. Mike Woodson is an NBA guy who clearly understands the reality of how college basketball recruiting works. It looks like IU might finally be ready to start acting like a big time program.

Rabjohns is saying Rosemond is a done deal. Interesting hire, I like it.

Interesting... If Mike Wood$on brings in this kid and another guard who can shoot, we may just be able to compete for a conference championship next year.

Glad other people are picking up on this, lmao. I’ve made it my mission to include at least one full “Mike Woodson” in every post I make from here on out.

This guy has to have some sort of pull if Mike Wood$$$on is looking at him as the third assistant, but it looks like he didn’t bring in any big time recruits at his last two stops at UGA and Bama. C’mon Mike, step up your bag man game.

Johnson and TJD are the locks... Johnson is now our best guard by far. The other three spots are up for grabs. Parker probably starts just because we’ll need the spacing. I’m not sure I see Lander starting alongside Johnson at this point. Remains to be seen if Lander will improve enough to be a high impact starter by next season, and regardless, it’ll be tough to play two point guards who can’t shoot at the same time. Assuming Johnson, Stewart, and TJD all start, that leaves another guard/wing and a forward — I see Lander, Phinisee, or Hunter starting at the third guard/wing spot, and Hunter or Thompson starting at the 4. Any way you slice it, we should be improved next year, but it’s not an elite starting lineup.

My point was that Franklin was going to be the only guard that could reliably create his own shot AND reliably shoot from deep. Johnson can definitely create his own shot and looks to be a more explosive scorer, but he’s never shot the three as well as Franklin did last season, and his percentages have frankly been pretty bad the last two seasons. It’s the three point shooting I’m concerned about now — losing Franklin is a big hit in that regard.

Archie gave the poor kid Stockholm syndrome... Needed to get back to a trash offense and the packline defense, lol. I’m not part of the classy “wishing him well” crowd. Hope the move to UVA works out terribly for him, to be quite honest. But this does suck... Losing Franklin just lowers the ceiling for next year. He was going to be the only guard on the roster that could reliably create his own shot and shoot from deep. Probably not going to be able to get a better all-around guard than him in the portal, but Mike Woodson needs to find another shooter. That will be our Achilles heel again next year... Right now, Stewart, Hunter, and Leal are the only pure shooters on the roster. Can’t really count on all of our subpar shooters (Lander, Phinisee, Johnson, Galloway) to magically turn into snipers just because they have a new coach.

The name added to the list is Yasir Rosemond, whose last two stops have been Alabama and Georgia (before Crean got there). Apparently his name came up in the FBI investigation, but he was “cleared of any wrongdoing.” I love it... Start dropping those bags Mike Woodson!!!

Instantly followed, lmao. Fife is coming in with a lot of swag.

If Franklin comes back, we should have enough talent to be a ranked team with good coaching. Even more so if we’re able to upgrade Thompson with an athletic shot blocker in the portal — are we in on anyone like that? Bring Franklin back, announce Lewis as the third assistant, bring in another forward, and let’s roll. Couldn’t ask for anything more than this thus far.

Looks like he’s not a great three point shooter, but a pretty good scorer. Good assist numbers, but turns the ball over a lot as well. https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/players/xavier-johnson-2.html

I think we’ve had this conversation before, but I disagree. We’ve been getting our ass kicked with nice kids who have good heads on their shoulders for most of the past decade. I’m ready for Woodson to start recruiting knuckleheads who won’t get pushed around.

Love it. Hiring Matta and Brown as Co-Directors of Cheating could end up being the best thing Indiana has done for its basketball program since it hired Bobby Knight.

Looks like he’s only at $400k per year, so the total is just slightly more than $4M per year between them.

So it looks like they did cheap out. Midmajor coaches and IU guys were the only options if this was all they were willing to pay... None of the Power 6 guys we were talking about would’ve come to IU for $3.5M per year.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.detroitnews.com/amp/3766698002 Here’s a list of guys, all of whom have pretty much sucked. I think the jury’s still out on Penny (hasn’t lived up to the hype, but I guess they just won the NIT today), and it remains to be seen whether Howard can keep this going.

Hence why I said Indiana either isn’t interested in or able to bring in one of those guys. I would’ve also preferred we go after Beard or one of the guys still coaching, but obviously they either already said no or Dolson just decided he wanted Woodson instead. Either way, this route is still far better than bringing back Archie for another year. The process would have played out the same way next year as it did this year, so there was no point in waiting or giving Archie another chance to save himself with a mediocre season.

If this was the #1 or #2 choice, then Dolson isn’t very smart. “Good coaches can coach” just really isn’t true when it comes to NBA guys going to college. I don’t expect him to light the world on fire next year even if TJD does come back, but he can surely do better than Archie. And that’s basically where IU is at. It’s not about getting the program back to blue blood status, it’s about getting the program back to not being a joke.

No way. I’m not super stoked on Woodson either, but bringing in an NBA guy with Matta playing some kind of prominent role in the program is infinitely better than running it back with Archie for one more horrible year and firing him in 2022. It’s apparent now that Indiana isn’t interested in or able to bring in the type of coach we’ve all been hoping for since Crean was fired (Donovan, Stevens, Beard, Oats, Musselman, etc.), so this is at least a new start. My expectations aren’t very high, but I’m at least intrigued to see how it will go. And it’s finally put up or shut up time for the “hire an IU guy” crowd.

Well, we’ll get a preview very shortly on how recruits will view the new hire. Is Woodson/Matta enough to keep everyone in Bloomington? Durham and Geronimo are likely gone. Personally, I don’t really care whether Thompson and Stewart leave — they should be easily replaceable in the transfer portal. But they’ve gotta convince Lander and Franklin to stay... And maybe Woodson can convince TJD he can get him into the first round of the draft if he comes back for one last go round.

I agree. Woodson on his own is a “meh” hire, but bringing in Matta makes it more interesting. As with most NBA guys, it comes down to the assistants, and having Matta, regardless of the weird title, is a pretty good to place to start... Have to think that won’t be a bad tag team in recruiting. Wonder if they’ll bring in Fife or Lewis as well.

Hmmmm... this is interesting.

Smh Edit: At least it’s not Moser. Mods feel free to merge with the other Woodson threads.

This was the saddest part of the Archie era to me. I was on campus from 2010—2017. While there were too many ups and downs, it was generally pretty damn fun to be an IU basketball fan in Bloomington over that period of time — I saw three Sweet 16s, two conference championships, and another tournament appearance. The team was explosive offensively, and say what you will about how weird he was, but Crean was a showman who created a lot of energy around the program. But there wasn’t enough consistency, so we fired him with the hope that we could do better. Then Archie showed up and completely sucked the life out of the program in every facet. I cut class to go to his introductory press conference in Assembly Hall, and there was zero excitement. He treated every single interview like a trip to the dentist, turned Hoosier Hysteria into a snooze fest, wrecked his players’ confidence, and instituted a style of play that was just horrible to watch on both ends of the floor. He completely killed all the momentum Crean had created around the program, and now we have to try and pick up the pieces. Winning is the most important thing, obviously, but we also need a coach that’s equipped to sell the program. Archie was a total disaster in both respects.