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Where do you stand & what do you do?


KoB2011

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Where I stand -

At this point, believe in him long - term, with a couple caveats, seeing team improvement each season, recruiting his style of player still underway but successful so far, and team culture building has improved each year along with the on court play.

But caveats, need to see improvement both in recruiting and in game planning for more outside shooting and better pace. I am not a fan of a slow offense with reliance on ball control for more scoring. I like the transition game CAM is developing but the overall pace is too slow.
 

And I am more risk tolerant on getting the young talented players going over defensive mistakes, strongly believe CAM is too rigid, that his core approach to D gets in the way of developing players during the season who could help significantly offensively and by mid-season and show the type of defensive improvement needed to win at a higher level.
We can’t win well without being able to fill up the basket. We just lost again for lack of scoring. We do have really talented players, I don’t buy for a second that these guys aren’t talented enough to win well in the B1G, and I do think the team is moving in the right direction, but CAM needs to loosen the reins a bit.

Think I Thomas and RMK. I’m not saying we have an IT (one of the best PG’s ever), but RMK adjusted to him, he let up on him and gave him more freedom. CAM is rigid. He does not bend, at all. It’s his D or the bench, generally, for the young players. Yes, Lander and Hunter need to improve defensively, for example, but when we get low assist rates, almost no scoring, and slow offense out of our starting guards as a coach you need to consider some give and take to increase the O. Starting Galloway was a move. Getting guys who can push the ball and spread the floor more run imo is needed.
So I am in CAM’s camp but I am growing frustrated with his rigidity and insistence on what I see as over-emphasizing D and running a slow O, to the detriment of our offense and development of certain players 

Litigation partner, Asst President and Executive Committee member, Texas law firm 

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After Crean rebuilt the roster from scratch, I was excited to see a new, well-regarded coach level up the program. And he was young and promising enough that I thought we might have our guy for the next 20 years or more. Four years in and the program doesn't feel elevated much at all. We look to be a bottom half Big Ten team once again, with a mostly average roster. We've recruited Indiana well, but I want stars and don't much care where they're from once they put on the jersey. The gains on defense are undeniable, but offset by how often we struggle to score. It makes for a tough product to watch, which can be accepted if we win at the level of a Virginia or a Wisconsin, but we're not. 

My interest in Indiana Basketball has become less and less with each season under Archie. He'll get a fifth year, for many reasons. But it will take a remarkable season for him to restore the faith that's eroded over the past four years. Barring that, I'll be ready to move on. I just want Indiana Basketball to be fun, and neither Archie's product nor his personality are enjoyable to me.

I'm a business analyst for an insurance company.

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11 minutes ago, Hoosierhoopster said:

Where I stand -

At this point, believe in him long - term, with a couple caveats, seeing team improvement each season, recruiting his style of player still underway but successful so far, and team culture building has improved each year along with the on court play.

But caveats, need to see improvement both in recruiting and in game planning for more outside shooting and better pace. I am not a fan of a slow offense with reliance on ball control for more scoring. I like the transition game CAM is developing but the overall pace is too slow.
 

And I am more risk tolerant on getting the young talented players going over defensive mistakes, strongly believe CAM is too rigid, that his core approach to D gets in the way of developing players during the season who could help significantly offensively and by mid-season and show the type of defensive improvement needed to win at a higher level.
We can’t win well without being able to fill up the basket. We just lost again for lack of scoring. We do have really talented players, I don’t buy for a second that these guys aren’t talented enough to win well in the B1G, and I do think the team is moving in the right direction, but CAM needs to loosen the reins a bit.

Think I Thomas and RMK. I’m not saying we have an IT (one of the best PG’s ever), but RMK adjusted to him, he let up on him and gave him more freedom. CAM is rigid. He does not bend, at all. It’s his D or the bench, generally, for the young players. Yes, Lander and Hunter need to improve defensively, for example, but when we get low assist rates, almost no scoring, and slow offense out of our starting guards as a coach you need to consider some give and take to increase the O. Starting Galloway was a move. Getting guys who can push the ball and spread the floor more run imo is needed.
So I am in CAM’s camp but I am growing frustrated with his rigidity and insistence on what I see as over-emphasizing D and running a slow O, to the detriment of our offense and development of certain players 

Litigation partner, Asst President and Executive Committee member, Texas law firm 

It's funny. I agree with just about everything in this post except the conclusion that starts it off.  😄

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U.S. Navy nuclear fast attack submarine 4 years (Qualified in Submarines); Business/Finance IU '77; Title Insurance in Madison WI a couple of years; Civil and Environmental Engineering UW-Madison '82; Registered Professional Engineer - Water Engineering then Chief of Engineering and Planning for International Airport and reliever Airport. Retired!! Fishing, boating, long walks in the woods, reads detective noir, loves live electric blues and jazz.

Followed Archie Miller here in Dayton.  Was not happy with any of the previous coaches since RMK.  Administration, at the time, really wanted to de-emphasize IU basketball.  Well, they certainly achieved that goal.  Was a fan of Archie Miller over here in Dayton!  Was hoping that he would get a look from IU.  Pleasantly surprised that IU hired him as HC.  But...

I have posted a number of times on another site that Archie Miller relies on smart team basketball players with quickness and initiative.  Especially the guards must initiate the offense and be floor generals.  So far, that has not happened on Archie's watch.  Al Durham dribbles off of his foot and as an upperclassman still makes mental errors and is streaky. Rob P. looked good and promising but has never gotten past the stage of slowing the ball down and he doesn't score since he had his bell rung.  Last year the team chemistry must have been really a huge challenge.  We all saw the results of that.  Thank goodness those players are gone.  I do wonder if Archie could have handled that situation better...I speculate that he did try.

But the residual mess is that it may have hurt not just team development but recruiting.  A big from way northwest of us didn't stick around because he was 'homesick'. But the freshmen class is very exciting.  Lander needs a year or two.    

The team is playing ok on defense most of the time.  Kofi ruled under the basket.  And Illinois got hot from the 3 in the second half.  We wonder about TJD sitting with just a few fouls while the game got out of control.  And the shots don't fall.  Why the heck IU starts slowly game after game I do not get.  While I am not happy with results on the basketball court, I also think that churning coaches...getting rid of them and starting over is not the way.

I say keep HC Archie Miller a few more years.  He is clean. He is smart.  He is a really good X's and O's guy. When he actually has a team, he is flexible on adjustments.  Every year hype lends us to believe that the bench is good.  But that has not proven out. He was successful over here in Dayton...somewhat because of his recruiting smart, long, quick 'basketball players'. He motivated them as a team. But he did not have the prima donnas or one-and-dones.  They did beat Syracuse and Ohio State!  Give him a few more years.  Figure out what to do with Phin and Al right now and you have a top 20 team.  At the end of this season, it is likely, those two won't be starting.  And I hope Brunk heals quickly.

 

 

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Financial/accounting management.

I like Miller's demeanor but I question whether he is the guy.  I think you can point to things on the stats side that say there have been incremental improvements within the program from years 1 to 4.  There has also been some improvement in the overall win column.  Those are positives.  On the other hand, the wins and losses and conference finishes have not improved over the past 3 years.  This year so far has been a microcosm of his time here, there are things you can point to an say, "well, that is a positive development" in the preconference and there were some positive things.  You get to conference and we drop the first few games and the positive stuff that we are talking about now is how hard we competed against a really good Northwestern and a really good Illinois.  I am looking for more than competing in year 4.  Frankly, at $3 million a year, just having a coach that can get his guys to compete is the lowest bar I have ever heard of. 

I want Miller to succeed because I think replacing the coach every few years is a bad look.  However, I think keeping a guy around for 9 years when it was clear in year 5 that this is just not going to work is dumb too.  What do I think is going to happen?  I think Miller is in big trouble if he does not show true improvement in the W and L column this year.  I think TJD is gone next year and Miller really whiffed on 21 recruiting.  Yes, he can bring in more transfers for next year but it seems like his system requires the better part of a year to figure out and he has shown that he will ride "experience" time and time again before he will let new guys figure it out on the court.  The new guys that get play are the NBA level guys that step in right away.  Miracles can happen I suppose but if this year goes poorly, I think next year is a giant question mark.  If he whiffs on the tournament again this year, the heat will be on.  His buyout protects him this year but not after year 5 IMO.

He needs to win now.  The excuse that the Big Ten is good just doesn't fly with me.  He is paid better than almost all of his conference peers.  We should be the "good" that people are talking about when they talk about how good the conference is too.  Instead we are the dead weight.  We were the dead weight in the BIG/ACC challenge (we really competed and lost a game we should have won IMO) and we are an afterthought in conference now.  If you are looking at the schedule, Indiana is one of the games you see as a break if you are another team.  Many may not like that but if you are an Iowa, how many other teams would you want to play besides Indiana in conference?  Maybe 3 or 4 others?

So yeah, Miller has a ton of work to do and not much time IMO.  And if Glass forced him to take players and keep certain people on the team from the start, he was an idiot for allowing that to happen.  My team, my rules and I am not going to an AD that will micromanage me like that.

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Medical Device sales/ Engineer.

I am still with CAM. I feel I am seeing progress every year, towards his style of play which I like. What I feel about this year, is that we are JUST/ equally as good as the teams that have beat us, minus maybe Texas (although that looked more like we were seer in the headlights). I am probably generalizing here, but I feel 1-3 made shots, at the right time, in any of the games that we have lost would have changed the outcome.

I feel we are just as good, but not the MUCH better than other teams that we are looking for from our looooong drought since prominence. Being so "equal" gives us an  extremely small margin of error. So having said this, I expect CAM to have 1-2 more years after this, to move from equal to dominate. At that time, he will have had his shot. 

 

** OH, and I do feel there are some controlling forces being enacted upon him, but I have no proof, it's just a feeling.

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Retired Financial Advisor. (in other words, I'm an old fart)

I want to be supportive of any IU coach. Archie is starting to make it difficult for me, mainly because I don't see him being creative in his approach to game plans. Sure he might change switching schemes on the one defense he runs, but that's not creative. Our offense is pathetic and he doesn't hold players accountable for repeated stupid mistakes, or lack of effort. He constantly talks about TO's, but does not bench, or hold players accountable. Trayce had 3 TO's yesterday, 2 or 3 against NW, and he's still off limits, as far as getting in his face and sitting him. Same with Al. Durham might be a good 2, but he sure isn't a PG.

I don't think his teams (and thus recruiting) are tough enough (mentally) to compete in the B1G. 

Lots of people talk about the improvement from YTY. But this is Indiana. Not NW, not OSU, not MN. We expect more. I think the improvement increases have been minimal, especially this year. Us old guys expect tough minded, team play, and effort every game. Otherwise you sit...now. Archie seems to be 3-4 games late in making some of those decisions. I saw Galloway affect the game positively the first 10 seconds he checked into his first game.  Why does it take Archie so long to recognize that? He finally gets a start on game 6-7?

Archie appears to be a great guy. Not quite sure he's a great coach. Don't see any of his players heaping love on him, like the football guys do to Tom Allen.

I truly hope Archie and IU succeed. But I have more doubts now, than I ever did.

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Physician--Retiring end of year

Grew up on CBK BB.  Loved those years. I have no idea if we will ever get back to those days with CAM.

CAM has many of the qualities of CBK that I loved.  However, he seems to be much too lenient on the more experienced players when they make the same mistakes over over.  I like the character of the kids he is recruiting and culture he is creating.  No desire for a replay of the Sampson era.  However, as others have stated, I think his resistance to change could be his undoing.  He seems to value seniority and performance on D to a fault.  The O has suffered as a result.  I loved the change in lineup vs UI. The O flows better with some of the younger players.   I completely agree with Hoopster that they need to have game experience Early and Often to improve the development and help by seasons end.  He needs to be more tolerant with mistakes made my the younger players.  I still see continued improvement in the team from year to year.  I think now we can see what his vision for the team is going forward. 

CBK said we had hired a good coach but we needed to be patient.  I'll take his judgment on BB any day of the week.  He didn't give a time frame so I won't either.  Many of  the talking heads and sports gurus at the time CAM was hired agreed. As long as I see us recruiting high character and talented kids I will stay with CAM for the forseealble future--no specific number of years.  Doesn't mean I won't have my disagreements and criticisms from time to time.  I am not interested in reentering the revolving coaching door and see no home run to replace him at this time.

I remain hopeful that CAM can get us where we want to be.  

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2 hours ago, IUFLA said:

Firmly behind Archie...like the culture he's building...it's a long term thing.

Retired military...air traffic controller for 20 years...air traffic control software engineer for 7 years...FAA manager of air traffic control software group 14 years.

This is pretty cool. I was an air traffic controller in the military before I got accepted into flight school. 
 

Another dynamic I think matters is where you live. I think it’s easier for me to separate myself from the negative IUBB talk when we lose because I don’t live in Indiana. 
 

I also support CAM and don’t think a coaching change will do us any good at this point. 

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I’m so torn. There’s things he does when I think to myself ‘he’s the guy’ and then other things he does which make me think to myself: ‘he’s not the guy’.

Just like everybody, my concern is the offense. I don’t like these trends: shooting percentage, free throw percentage, and bouts of stagnation. We can only blame the personnel for so long before we can blame the coach. At some point ‘potential’ of players, coaching, program, etc. can no longer be used as an excuse. If we don’t make the tournament this year (or are a bubble team sneaking in) then next season is do or die for Arch.....and by “do” I mean top 3 in the Big Ten. I don’t care how good or bad the B1G is, but a middle of the pack 6th place finish will be a failure IMO. 

On another point, Galen Clavio had a good point last night in regards to playing time and Freshmen that I think ultimately impacts recruiting. CAM runs a defense that is looking great but has taken 4 years to develop. The pack line is not easy and is a system that young/new players will need to adjust to; it caters to CAM’s philosophy of “get old, stay old”. That said, it’s becoming increasingly harder to ‘stay old’ in CBB with the new transfer rule, not to mention the early entrants into the draft. Also, if a successful defensive requires 4 veterans to be on the floor in order to be ran correctly then underclassmen will not be seeing much playing time (even to help break an offensive drought). Is this where higher ranking recruits are going to want to go? Furthermore, if 1/4 of the roster doesn’t have a decent chance of seeing the floor then how does it make sense we continue to leave empty spots open on the roster? Without proper depth, one significant injury will likely dismantle an entire season. (Doesn’t that sound familiar?)

In theory this philosophy can be great, but given the reality it seems like CAM will constantly be swimming against the tide and so will our program. I fear this will only yield mediocre results. Year by year this seems to be coming to fruition. 

...i own a promotional products (swag) distributorship and moonlight as a head coach for a swim club. 

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I am a recently retired institutional investment manager:

I look at this as if I was an AD evaluating the program in year 4 of the coach's tenure.

Pros:

No scandals and don't worry about headline risk or legal liability to the program or the university

A team of very high character players with strong academics

Team is gradually trending into an upper echelon defensive team. Against a difficult schedule, has allowed one team to score over 70 points and none over 75. Held IL to 69 (matching their low against Baylor) after they had averaged 93 in three previous B1G games. Reportedly came into yesterday's game as highest ranked defense in B1G.

Very solid Soph and Freshman classes

Cons:

Not currently winning at a level demanded by IU fan base and donors. When hired, prior AD laid out expectations of competing for championships.

Not generating enough offense to win consistently at this level. In three of four losses, opponent scored fewer than 70 points

Recent signs that recruiting may be slipping (maybe), but hired Kenya Hunter, to hopefully help turn around

Although winning at a modestly higher level and showing signs of statistical improvement, team has been falling back in B1G standings

Outlook and Action Plan:

Obviously see how this season plays out.

Meet with coach periodically, including end of season, to hear his plan to win at a level that was expressed at time of hiring. What is time table? What if certain scenarios occur? He is a young coach in his first Power 5 job, do I have confidence in what I hear or not?

Continually evaluate potential coaching replacements, but don't plan on making a change until 2022 (when buyout goes down), unless there is a catastrophe. 2022 will either be a replacement year or contract extension year, depending upon the next two seasons.

Have a very defined set of criteria for a men's basketball coach at IU. Does current coach meet criteria or do I replace with another, recognizing the risks of a coaching change.

 

 

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Account Manager for a Fortune 500 company.

 

I want Archie to succeed but I don’t see it happening. I think it’s a combo of bad luck and coaching. I thought this year was going to be the year he would shut up most of the haters but it hasn’t turned out that way so far. I hate it for the program but I have a feeling we will be looking for a new coach in a couple years. I watch all these other programs succeed at IU (swimming,football, soccer, woman’s bball) and I wonder if the rumors are true that the men’s bball program has been handcuffed by the higher ups. I’m at a loss and it’s frustrating watching this program slowly go down hill. I HOPE Archie finds a way to be success because I would gladly eat crow. 

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Software/business analyst for an RV components company.

I want Archie to be the guy, but it's becoming clear the best we can hope for is to have a team that's capable of making a run every 4 or 5 years, and then reloading.  We won't be consistently competing for B1G championships, or capable of making a Final 4 every year.

Whenever Archie's tenure ends, I think Crean will have better results than Archie at IU.

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I want to make sure one thing is abundantly clear that I probably wasn’t clear enough with in my original post in this thread. 
 

Even though I am more on the pessimistic side of our long term prospects under Archie, I sincerely do hope he succeeds.  Please don’t think those of us who are not sold on him secretly sit in front of our televisions hoping we lose so he looks bad. Nothing could be further from the truth.  I hope we finish 18-2 in the B1G and this whole topic of conversation goes away. 

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Environmental Odor Control Engineer (also a deplorable).....

My take on CAM is he is too nice and easy on his players. This team is a reflection of the coach. I see no fire and no one seems to be willing to take charge of a game, other than TJD on occasion. Give me that coach that has that fire, ala RMK, any day. If the players get their feelings hurt? So be it....

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12 minutes ago, Proud2BAHoosier said:

Environmental Odor Control Engineer (also a deplorable).....

My take on CAM is he is too nice and easy on his players. This team is a reflection of the coach. I see no fire and no one seems to be willing to take charge of a game, other than TJD on occasion. Give me that coach that has that fire, ala RMK, any day. If the players get their feelings hurt? So be it....

I saw Franklin trying to take control yesterday.  

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2 hours ago, 5fouls said:

You going to share your thoughts?

I will, I just wanted to let the conversation get going. 

I am still firmly, although slightly less firmly than previously, in Archie's corner. I think he's had some bad breaks in terms of guys he was forced to rely on not being a fit, some injuries to guys he did bring in the first year slowing development (Rob, Race, Hunter), and just a general lack of getting breaks. Having said all of that, I do see us getting better every year. We are starting to play defense at a really high level almost every game. We are seeing our shooting start to be more regularly in the upper 30s every game. I've seen us play better to end the year pretty much every year under Archie. These are all good trends. 

But... He hasn't gotten us where we want to be nearly as fast as any of us want. So I think of it in terms of if a company hires a really promising employee but their first few quarters the results don't follow like you hope; do you cut bait on that employee because the results aren't what you hope, even though you see improvement and things going in a positive direction or do you accept that investment you made might take a little longer to pay off than you hoped? For me the answer is, unless you can bring in a clear upgrade that isn't going to have to do a reset on the principal's Archie has put in place (a la Tony Bennett) you stick with Archie. 

As for what I do for work; I sell enterprise software (6 and 7 figure deals) primarily to CROs, General Counsels, COOs, CIOs, and CFOs. 

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