Author Archives: Kent Sterling
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Why Trent Williams is a must sign free agent for the Colts! Indiana Basketball loyalty explained!
Indiana Basketball – why do IU fans torture themselves by continuing to watch?
When Isiah Thomas and Bob Knight found a rhythm in 1981, so did the Hoosiers as they won an NCAA Championship.
Why do I watch every Indiana game from start to finish?
Indiana fans are among the most ardent in college basketball. After a monotonous and historic run of mediocre basketball, Hoosiers still block out two-plus hours of their lives to watch. No matter the opponent, stakes, or apparent level of futility, we still show up wearing red and while – even alone in our homes.
The question of why I keep coming back has echoed in my head for years. Through the meager Tom Crean years at the beginning of the rebuild he directed through its inevitable demise, and now during four hopeless years under Archie Miller, I continue to show up to see if they make the changes to become a competent unit.
It’s rare that I am pleased with the style or effort during an IU game. Maybe I enjoyed the Florida State game (a loss) because it seemed the team had finally decided to embrace the necessity of everyone energetically working in harmony.
My love for Indiana Basketball dates back to my freshman year in Bloomington when the Hoosiers evolved from a very ordinary team with a 7-5 record to become a relentless storm of pure basketball excellence during a dominant NCAA Tournament run that ended with a 63-50 win over North Carolina.
The difference between a disjointed roster and coach and one that played with total unanimity of purpose was there for anyone to see during that season. early in the season, Bob Knight fought with Isiah Thomas over style of play, and Landon Turner had great talent but none of the energy needed to unlock it.
Then the switch flipped.
Knight turned Isiah loose and Ray Tolbert, among others, compelled Turner to explode as one of the country’s best players. Suddenly, the team that was so easily beaten in December became an impossible to contend with juggernaut in February and March. It was right there in front of us as I lived in the glow of Assembly Hall right across 17th Street in Briscoe Quad.
When people look at the game by game results of the 1981 Hoosiers, they see nine losses and conclude this was an OK team that got hot at the right time. That wasn’t the thing at all. Indiana evolved from a collection of disparate parts clunking across the Assembly Hall floor into a finely tuned instrument of winning basketball. Every possession was a well-executed masterclass, and opponents wilted under the pressure of matching IU’s near perfection.
It was during that run 40 years ago as potential and reality merged that I fell in love with Indiana Basketball. The possibility of seeing it again has kept me coming back through more than 1,000 games. The Hoosiers have never approached the beauty of that 1981 team, but there have been nibbles toward it in 1987, 1992, 1993, 2002, and 2013.
So I keep watching in the hopes that whomever the coach is can get players to buy into the majesty of basketball played by those with an unshakeable commitment to the game and each other.
Often coaches believe it is up to them to outsmart their opponent, but true leaders are committed to binding talented players as a whole to form one heart and one mind. Great basketball is like jazz – if great talents embrace a common rhythm and melody, a transcendent moment occurs for players and its audience. If talented musicians each try to take for themselves rather than give to the whole, the music breaks down into a hideous cacophony.
Indiana Basketball has not made beautiful music for a long time, and I’m not sure Miller is the conductor to compel its creation – or the understanding of the sacrifices that cause it.
The 1981 Indiana team had raw talent, devotion to one other, and a selfless leadership to attain the highest form of the game I have ever seen. They took fans on a unique goosepimply ride to a championship. That’s why I come back. I want that ride again.
It’s not likely to happen tomorrow against Rutgers, but I will watch because…you never know.
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Colts Ballard & Reich embody traits of great leaders; IU’s Archie Miller – lacking a couple of traits
Indiana Basketball – if the IU coaching job was open, would you want Dolson to hire Archie Miller?
Four years ago, IU fans were told Archie Miller was a grand slam hire that guaranteed Indiana would compete for Big 10 titles. Four years in, fans are tired of waiting.
Will Archie Miller be back at Indiana or won’t he?
That’s the question of IU’s offseason, which could begin as soon as Thursday night. Indiana will try to push forward the end of the season as far as they can at this weekend’s Big 10 Tournament, but as the 10-seed it’s likely the disappointing 2021 campaign will end there.
Indiana needs to earn a spot in the tourney finals to finish the year with a .500 record that would almost certainly punch their ticket to the NIT. Beating Rutgers, Illinois, and likely Iowa on consecutive days will be a tough task for a group that has lost its last six games by an average of over eight points.
This is a miserable time to be an Indiana Basketball fan.
The Hoosiers are in year five of a mediocre run the likes of which have not been seen in Bloomington in over a century. Even in the worst of times, Indiana has always found a way to post a winning conference record at least once every five years.
As a result, Indiana fans crave a reason to hope brighter days might be ahead. That means a new coach or talented recruiting class. Nothing against Logan Dumcomb, but he alone does not comprise a transcendent class. Although change doesn’t always bring a better outcome (see replacing Tom Crean with Archie Miller), it’s the likeliest road to salvation for a basketball program.
Indiana has 10,500,000 reasons to bring Miller back. Those are the dollars IU would have to cough up to make Archie go away, and that ignores the giant sack of cash that would be needed to reel in the new guy.
Another significant motivation to avoid firing Miller is that Indiana has a lame duck president who will be replaced by someone on July 1. With Michael McRobbie leaving, why would he sign off on the buyout when the athletic department is at least $40M in the hole due to COVID-related revenue losses? Alums are already being strong-armed for donations that will help retain faculty on furlough. Who would also pony up the $10.5M for Miller to pack a box?
On the other side of the coin, how costly would it be for IU to roll into a fifth year of Archie. The malaise contaminating the IU fanbase would certainly lead to Simon-Skjodt Assembly Hall being half full for games next season and TV viewership for IU games at all time lows. Some of those fans might never come back.
During times like these, fans ask questions like, “Where would you rank Miller as a Big 10 coach?” Sadly, the answer is damning by anyone’s reasonable reckoning.
Here’s the list of coaches unquestionably ahead of Miller – Tom Izzo, Matt Painter, Brad Underwood, Chris Holtmann, Fran McCaffery, and Juwan Howard. They have won at a much higher level than Miller. Greg Gard, Steve Pikiell, Mark Turgeon, and Chris Collins can be safely listed among those whose achievements have trumped Miller’s while at IU. That leaves Fred Hoiberg, Richard Pitino, and Jim Ferry – the guy who took over from Patrick Chambers as the interim coach at Penn State.
I feel better about Miller as a coach than Pitino and Ferry. Hoiberg has achieved nothing of note at Nebraska. Sure, Hoiberg won at Iowa State before being hired by the Chicago Bulls, but Miller won at Dayton too. Let’s say Miller slides in at 11th.
Is that what Indiana wants as the leader of its hallowed basketball program – the 11th best coach in the Big 10? Is there any reason at all to believe the Hoosiers are about to hit a tipping point to rejoin the elites of college basketball?
Think of it this way, if the IU job was open today, would you be in favor of Dolson hiring Archie?
The most important question of all – if Miller is seen as the cause for Indiana’s indefinite standing alongside college basketball’s mediocres, who can athletic director Scott Dolson hire to lift the Hoosiers back to respectability?
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