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It’s time... Fire Archie Miller


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11 minutes ago, KoB2011 said:

Do you think a business is more likely to let a poor employee stay around longer when the market for replacements is not good? Or do you think most business would keep an employee that has disappointing performance but has never had conduct issue when the market for a replacement is poor?

If you trust your hiring process and your institutional training then you absolutely cut your ties and look for your replacement. You never hold on to poor employees. It lowers productivity and brings down company morale. Before long it starts to drag on your good employees...and then it starts to effect your product/service and before you know it you’ve eroded your company all because you don’t have the vision and initiative to make a change when you should have.

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6 minutes ago, IU Scott said:

Well when I worked for Conseco in my 2 years there think I had 4 managers.  All were let go because of job performance

Sounds like that didn't work out very well to keep changing without a solid person ready to fill the void.

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This might be stating the obvious, but it seems as if Dolson is facing a rather unusual decision tree for this decision. As I see it, there are four main options:

Option 1) Stay committed to Archie (whether for financial reasons or otherwise). Miller comes back for 2021-22.

Option 2) Go all in on Brad Stevens. Realistically, this would require being prepared to wait until May or June to hire. This, in turn, would trigger another decision:

(a) Fire Archie now, but risk striking out on Stevens, and thus have to hire a third or fourth tier candidate over the summer (or going the full 2021-22 with an interim). This might be ok if you’re confident that Fife would be a good fallback option, but otherwise isn’t a great option IMO.

(b) Retain Archie for now, but be ready to cut bait in May/June if Stevens actually accepted. The obvious downside here is that the fanbase will largely be frothing at the mouth the next couple months assuming that the administration is content with Archie, when that may not actually be the case.

Option 3) Replace Archie now no matter what. This would mean that you fire Archie now, and take the best available candidate you can land, even if you ultimately end up with Alford or Fife.

Option 4) Replace Archie only if you can land a top tier replacement. This might mean letting Archie twist in the wind for a couple weeks until you can confidently gauge whether a Chris Beard, Scott Drew, or Chris Mack, is going to be willing to take the position. If not, then you might keep Archie for one more year to lower the buyout and regroup for a hopefully better slate of options next offseason (which may or may not materialize).

Interestingly, to me, there are several options on that list where Dolson may determine that Archie is not the long-term answer, but still not part ways with him now. So we may not know what the administration is really thinking if there is no news for a week or two on the Archie front.

 

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6 minutes ago, Feathery said:

I get rid of the poor performing employee. This isn’t even a hypothetical for me, it’s my reality. When companies hold onto poor performers out of fear of a better replacement, that’s when culture suffers. Your high achievers have to pick up the low achievers slack and you start to lose them. When your culture is shot then you have an even bigger problem. 
 

I do not rate Archie highly as a coach. I see many coaches that are attainable that are better than Archie. I’m not even an Alford guy, but he is better than Archie. That’s how poor of a coach Archie is. Which is why I am adamant that a coaching change needs to be made. Another year just kicks the can for another year, delaying the process making IU better. 

And that's fair if that's your mindset on firing/hiring, but it isn't a universal truth and I don't see any evidence that Archie is killing our culture.

But I hope when you make hiring decisions and evaluate talent for whatever you do for a living you show significantly better judgement than thinking Alford is a better coach than Archie. 

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2 minutes ago, IUProfessor said:

This might be stating the obvious, but it seems as if Dolson is facing a rather unusual decision tree for this decision. As I see it, there are four main options:

Option 1) Stay committed to Archie (whether for financial reasons or otherwise). Miller comes back for 2021-22.

Option 2) Go all in on Brad Stevens. Realistically, this would require being prepared to wait until May or June to hire. This, in turn, would trigger another decision:

(a) Fire Archie now, but risk striking out on Stevens, and thus have to hire a third or fourth tier candidate over the summer (or going the full 2021-22 with an interim). This might be ok if you’re confident that Fife would be a good fallback option, but otherwise isn’t a great option IMO.

(b) Retain Archie for now, but be ready to cut bait in May/June if Stevens actually accepted. The obvious downside here is that the fanbase will largely be frothing at the mouth the next couple months assuming that the administration is content with Archie, when that may not actually be the case.

Option 3) Replace Archie now no matter what. This would mean that you fire Archie now, and take the best available candidate you can land, even if you ultimately end up with Alford or Fife.

Option 4) Replace Archie only if you can land a top tier replacement. This might mean letting Archie twist in the wind for a couple weeks until you can confidently gauge whether a Chris Beard, Scott Drew, or Chris Mack, is going to be willing to take the position. If not, then you might keep Archie for one more year to lower the buyout and regroup for a hopefully better slate of options next offseason (which may or may not materialize).

Interestingly, to me, there are several options on that list where Dolson may determine that Archie is not the long-term answer, but still not part ways with him now. So we may not know what the administration is really thinking if there is no news for a week or two on the Archie front.

 

To me 2B would not be far to Archie because if you fire him in June then he won't have a great chance to get another job.

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7 minutes ago, dgambill said:

If you trust your hiring process and your institutional training then you absolutely cut your ties and look for your replacement. You never hold on to poor employees. It lowers productivity and brings down company morale. Before long it starts to drag on your good employees...and then it starts to effect your product/service and before you know it you’ve eroded your company all because you don’t have the vision and initiative to make a change when you should have.

We all realize I'm not talking about holding onto him indefinitely, right? Like this scenario you laid out hasn't been suggested by anyone, but keep arguing a straw man to prove your point. 

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Just now, IU Scott said:

To me 2B would not be far to Archie because if you fire him in June then he won't have a great chance to get another job.

Fair enough, although that would mean he'd get to fall back on his buyout and live off that for a year while figuring out his next move.

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3 minutes ago, KoB2011 said:

And that's fair if that's your mindset on firing/hiring, but it isn't a universal truth and I don't see any evidence that Archie is killing our culture.

But I hope when you make hiring decisions and evaluate talent for whatever you do for a living you show significantly better judgement than thinking Alford is a better coach than Archie. 

We both agree Alford isn’t the answer. But Alford is a better coach. Go look at their track records objectively. Big Ten records comparison and Alford has a higher winning %. Mid-Major records are comparable but Archie didn’t breakout until the top teams in the A10 left the conference and opened the door for him. So if Alford isn’t the answer, which we both agree, then Archie isn’t either. 

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9 minutes ago, KoB2011 said:

We all realize I'm not talking about holding onto him indefinitely, right? Like this scenario you laid out hasn't been suggested by anyone, but keep arguing a straw man to prove your point. 

Keeping the wrong person for any amount of time after it’s clear they are the wrong person is a bad move. By the time you have identified this they are already affecting the organization adversely.  

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10 minutes ago, KoB2011 said:

We all realize I'm not talking about holding onto him indefinitely, right? Like this scenario you laid out hasn't been suggested by anyone, but keep arguing a straw man to prove your point. 

So we wait a year, what candidate is available, that IU couldn’t get this year, because of an administration road block?

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16 minutes ago, IUProfessor said:

This might be stating the obvious, but it seems as if Dolson is facing a rather unusual decision tree for this decision. As I see it, there are four main options:

Option 1) Stay committed to Archie (whether for financial reasons or otherwise). Miller comes back for 2021-22.

Option 2) Go all in on Brad Stevens. Realistically, this would require being prepared to wait until May or June to hire. This, in turn, would trigger another decision:

(a) Fire Archie now, but risk striking out on Stevens, and thus have to hire a third or fourth tier candidate over the summer (or going the full 2021-22 with an interim). This might be ok if you’re confident that Fife would be a good fallback option, but otherwise isn’t a great option IMO.

(b) Retain Archie for now, but be ready to cut bait in May/June if Stevens actually accepted. The obvious downside here is that the fanbase will largely be frothing at the mouth the next couple months assuming that the administration is content with Archie, when that may not actually be the case.

Option 3) Replace Archie now no matter what. This would mean that you fire Archie now, and take the best available candidate you can land, even if you ultimately end up with Alford or Fife.

Option 4) Replace Archie only if you can land a top tier replacement. This might mean letting Archie twist in the wind for a couple weeks until you can confidently gauge whether a Chris Beard, Scott Drew, or Chris Mack, is going to be willing to take the position. If not, then you might keep Archie for one more year to lower the buyout and regroup for a hopefully better slate of options next offseason (which may or may not materialize).

Interestingly, to me, there are several options on that list where Dolson may determine that Archie is not the long-term answer, but still not part ways with him now. So we may not know what the administration is really thinking if there is no news for a week or two on the Archie front.

 

My sense is that option 4 is the approach that is/will be pursued.

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Just now, Feathery said:

We both agree Alford isn’t the answer. But Alford is a better coach. Go look at their track records objectively. Big Ten records comparison and Alford has a higher winning %. Mid-Major records are comparable but Archie didn’t breakout until the top teams in the A10 left the conference and opened the door for him. So if Alford isn’t the answer, which we both agree, then Archie isn’t either. 

Sure, but I'm not trading a guy that isn't the answer for a guy that isn't the answer.

I don't agree, from what I've watched of Alford coaching, that he is a better coach than Archie. I understand completely that Archie is going to be judged by what the numbers say and he should be, that's how I am judged to, but I also understand that unless you are putting two people in the exact same situation you can't just compare the numbers and say who is actually better at what they do. 

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1 minute ago, Feathery said:

So we wait a year, what candidate is available, that IU couldn’t get this year, because of an administration road block?

Could be Beilein, could be Stevens. Maybe another year of rest pushes Matta to want to come back.

Could be that a guy like Drew, Beard, or Musselman doesn't want to move their family as we're still dealing with Covid but would be in a place to do that.

Could be that any of those guys don't have an interest in IU because of the issues with our administration but with a new President maybe they won't have that outlook in a year.

There is an unimaginable amount of things that can change about circumstances that could make next year different. 

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He needs to go.  Too many viable options out there.  And IU basketball is a wasting asset.  We still have a narrow window to pull off a rising Phoenix like Bama football, but they need to be bold.  Very bold.

I don’t see any way Stevens turns down $6+M especially if you turn the keys over to him and get out of his way.  He comes home.  He is at zero risk of embarrassing the university.  He is almost certain to NOT embarrass the basketball program.  He restores the program in a way we all expect (good kids, good basketball, good program).  People that say we have zero chance have never dealt with high stakes business deals in their lives.  That’s all this is.  We have the right levers to get him.  I have zero doubt about that.  Question is, do we have the right people with the right vision to do so.

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1 minute ago, IndyFife said:

He needs to go.  Too many viable options out there.  And IU basketball is a wasting asset.  We still have a narrow window to pull off a rising Phoenix like Bama football, but they need to be bold.  Very bold.

I don’t see any way Stevens turns down $6+M especially if you turn the keys over to him and get out of his way.  He comes home.  He is at zero risk of embarrassing the university.  He is almost certain to NOT embarrass the basketball program.  He restores the program in a way we all expect (good kids, good basketball, good program).  People that say we have zero chance have never dealt with high stakes business deals in their lives.  That’s all this is.  We have the right levers to get him.  I have zero doubt about that.  Question is, do we have the right people with the right vision to do so.

So Stevens has no say in this or maybe he is not interested in college coaching any longer

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4 minutes ago, IU Scott said:

So Stevens has no say in this or maybe he is not interested in college coaching any longer

Have you heard directly from him?  There is no such thing as zero chance.  That’s what I said.  And with his ties back to the state, there is something more than just a very small chance.  

Are you the type of guy that gets told no, and then drops his head and walks away?  Coffee is for closers.  Always be closing.

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18 minutes ago, KoB2011 said:

We all realize I'm not talking about holding onto him indefinitely, right? Like this scenario you laid out hasn't been suggested by anyone, but keep arguing a straw man to prove your point. 

I didn’t know we were talking about Archie. Just from experience. You move on when from a bad hire as soon as possible. Cut your losses. There is never a good time or easy time to fire someone. You just do it and get to work on finding a replacement. If there aren’t great ones you hire the best and you work like hell to train them up well. I don’t know how long you are saying to stick with bad employees...you didn’t say. A week? Two? I mean you can keep changing the situation if you want. I’m just saying most people that do hiring and firing for a living or have lots of experience managing personnel...they cut the strings as soon as they can.

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46 minutes ago, KoB2011 said:

Do you think a business is more likely to let a poor employee stay around longer when the market for replacements is not good? Or do you think most business would keep an employee that has disappointing performance but has never had conduct issue when the market for a replacement is poor?

If this were a normal for-profit company, Archie would've been let go in the middle of the season. I have absolutely no doubt about it. A CEO of a company gets paid millions of bucks and is there to make things happen, not there to make excuses. 

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19 minutes ago, KoB2011 said:

Sure, but I'm not trading a guy that isn't the answer for a guy that isn't the answer.

I don't agree, from what I've watched of Alford coaching, that he is a better coach than Archie. I understand completely that Archie is going to be judged by what the numbers say and he should be, that's how I am judged to, but I also understand that unless you are putting two people in the exact same situation you can't just compare the numbers and say who is actually better at what they do. 

All coaches and teams are judged by the records. You are what your record says you are. I’ve watched both Archie and Alford teams. Alfords teams are better to the eye and results have shown that over time. Alford IS NOT the answer. I’m using Alford as an example to demonstrate how poor of a coach Archie is. 

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The situation is too toxic to keep Archie for a whole year.  If he stays, every time a team goes on an 8-0 run, Assembly Hall will boo.  And seeing as how TJD will likely leave, I expect a lot of 8-0 runs from the opposition.  (some of them will likely be back-to-back 8-0 runs).  Furthermore, the fan base hates him so much right now, that they might even be angry if he actually experiences mild success because they want him to get fired.  If he actually overachieves next year, sneaks into the tourney as an 11 seed, and keeps his job, people may even be angrier.

Even if it means hiring from lower tier of candidates, it is simply wrong to put a whole program through Archie Miller for an entire season.  

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1 hour ago, KoB2011 said:

No, I'm assuming basketball coaches are people. You all are assuming they're not. 

The notion that basketball coaches don't have the same personal considerations all of us have when changing jobs, or that a university doesn't have the same considerations as a business when making decisions, is honestly silly. Do you guys really believe something with this much at stake operates purely in the form of a silly childs game? 

Like it or not, he accepted $$$$$$$$$$  with this job and he failed.  Now he is starting to feel the effect of his actions.  Grow up.  

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13 minutes ago, IndyFife said:

Have you heard directly from him?  There is no such thing as zero chance.  That’s what I said.  And with his ties back to the state, there is something more than just a very small chance.  

Are you the type of guy that gets told no, and then drops his head and walks away?  Coffee is for closers.  Always be closing.

I have heard people who has talked to Stevens who has said they prefer the NBA lifestyle  I don't buy the notion that everybody is for sell for a certain price.  I don't believe if you just offer Stevens 7 mil that he would just take it because of the amount of money.

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