Zuckerkorn

As an old, white fart - getting rick rolled is still better than a lot of the background audio onrecruit highlight vids.🤴

So much of this is beyond ridiculous. I saw a report of a state legislator (I forget where) that got a letter advising him to change his last name (Cox) because is sounds offensive.

I feel much the same, but as you say "it is what it is". Unbalanced BB conference schedule and conference tourney both a result of expansion have taken the luster off of winning the conference, IMO. From my perspective the expansion of the big 10 beyond ten teams hasn't positive at all. But, everything in life is driven by money & politics these days.

One difference that will be interestinng to watch play out is that CMW is an experienced NBA coach v.s. some of the others who were primarily NBA players. It does appear we're pushing hard for JHS - gotta succeed both on-court and off (recruiting) and this would be a nice feather in Woody's cap.

The closest thing I can contribute is finding out, just a couple of years ago, that a "neighbor" where I grew up was a former basketball player for IU (Marvin Christie). I always just knew him as "Dr. Christie". I believe he played in the 50's and was a 6' 1" forward (lol). Courting greatness... Sadly, he passed away in the past year or so.

I have no hate for Archie, but his career as a major conference head coach may be over. He doesn't seem to have the personality or passion for it, didn't seem especially well-liked by his players, his tenure here was a bust, and he acts like a recluse.

Exactly. There have been many seasons when there were several quality teams in the big ten, but only occasionally one that was worthy of NC discussion.

There's a part of me that doesn't care about the conference aspect of all this. If Gonzaga can put together consistently good teams (Butler did in the past also), just put together a great program and win against whoever the competition is. There can be more joy in being a Boise State than a Vanderbilt in football, and beyond the shared revenue most of the SEC teams are just "also rans".

Lol. Then I'm out. A couple of days ago I was changing channels and briefly stopped on the olympic broadcast. They were showing the women's synchronized diving, specifically the 2 Americans that I believe took the silver medal. Anyway as the camera followed them after their dive let's say it was quite entertaining - very high-cut suits and little need for the imagination!

I heard an interesting discussion about this yesterday, specifically how the conferences can combat this SEC drive to overwhelming dominance: The SEC moves are primarily about football. If the other conferences vote against expanding the CFB playoff, it would limit the maximum number of SEC teams in the playoff to 2. I don't know the details of how the playoff system works or the status or procedures for expanding beyond 4 teams, but it sounds like this would really throttle the SEC (until they break away and start their own organization I suppose).

I think in RMK's mind he is no longer associated with Indiana University, but has embraced the basketball program. In general I'm OK with that. It was his period of turning his back on the players and team that rubbed me the wrong way and that seems to be water under the bridge now. As one who is inherently cynical about large institutions (corporations, education, governments) I think there's plenty to be disenchanted with - Miles Brand, BOT, etc specifically.

With ND being a quasi-member of the ACC, does the Grant of Rights stipulation apply to them the same as the other member schools?

Hmmmmm. Very intriguing...

I first started following IU basketball as a kid during the '74-'75 season and was really into in the next season. I'm sure I heard and knew it at the time, but the Rutgers team being undefeated entering the tournament had completely exited my memory. So 1976 was the last year the NCAA had an undefeated national champ AND two undefeated teams in the FF. Pretty neat! Thanks for that reminder.

And, that uninspired effort was against our main conference rival at home - the very definition of "unacceptable".

To extend upon that a bit, does this mean all the top NBA players are all going to jump to the Nigerian team now? International pile-on teams at the olympic level 😐

Another blow for the UI fans who were hoping he'd be their savior to replace Cockburn....

I thought the former Surgeon General was suiting up in the C&C for a minute there...😄

Someone mentioned a female gymnast - big opportunity for some of them on OnlyFans lol

I think you make a good point. It's not like we haven't seen "good kids" do stupid things in the past. Will businesses want to risk being associated with a kid who does something like that? IDK. I've wondered how this rule works for things like, let's say a team photo or poster. Could a company sell posters/schedules with the players likenesses on it and then give the profits (split equally) to the players? Maybe "instructional" videos with a player demonstrating his skills with a coach. Without knowing the rules (or caring to research them), it seems there are multiple avenues to generate income for the players.

Yeah when I first heard that Brown was joining Hardaway, I was a bit disappointed that he wouldn't be available for helping CMW. Then I remembered my concerns when he was talked about as a potential assistant - problems with compliance everywhere he went, and his age. Still, he's a basketball genius but I think we'll be OK with him there and not here.

I used to look forward to the Olympics when I was young, then realized I'm not a fan of sports that are based on judging. Then the TV coverage ruined my remaining interest with their "human interest" approach. I was so disappointed in 1984 when they showed so little of the BB games - presumably because Knight had them kicking everybody's tail.

Speaking of long necks, does anybody remember that guy that played at purdue, I think his name was Michael Scearce (or something like that)? Almost freakish. And didn't Derrrick Holcombe have calves that looked like hams?

Precisely. Expectations are probably the biggest barrier at traditional schools. My sense is that often new coaches last longer at lower profile schools because of it, IDK. In any case it certainly will be interesting to see how things proceed at Duke and UNC.

Point taken, but only two of those coaches lasted long at those schools (Pitino & Hall who both coincidentally continued winning for several years until being ousted for NCAA rules violations). All of the other bb schools had immediate success with the successors, but didn't each decline in fairly short order and replaced those coaches? Nobody was going to continue with the record UCLA had been used to and Bartow proved at UAB he was a very good coach. To your point, not a retirement, but Self following Williams was highly successful. Matt Painter has done a great job at continuing to maintain good but never great success at purdue. It got me thinking about HOF coaches at non-blueblood schools. (BTW, I didn't specifically mention blueblood schools but rather HOF coaches). Honestly don't know who is or isn't actually in the HOF, I think of guys like Fred Taylor, Lou Carneseca, Massimino. Edit: I think I got my Kentucky cheaters mixed up (Hall/Sutton). Only realized after I looked at the HOF wiki. There are very few HOF successors to HOF coaches (Crum/Pitino, Williams/Self), Knight/Davis...🤪).