Author Archives: Kent Sterling

Archie Miller wins next three at #iubb or Brad Stevens comes home – I’m good either way!

This picture will give goosebumps to IU fans, but seeing Brad Stevens in a red sweater on the sidelines in Bloomington is just short of an impossibility.

If Brad Stevens becomes available for Indiana University athletic director Scott Dolson to hire as basketball coach, he could pay for both Archie Miller’s buyout and Stevens’ contract in four hours by starting a Go Fund Me page.

I don’t wish Stevens ill will in Boston.  He is a tremendous coach and better human being.  I hope he keeps or gets whatever gig he covets.  ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith says Stevens is in trouble with the Celtics, and while I don’t pay much attention to his bleating or those of the other two hour per day pundits on ESPN and Fox, his thoughts about coaches sometimes make sense.

Archie Miller is also a guy I hope succeeds.  His four seasons at Indiana have been relentlessly mediocre, but I keep watching the Hoosiers because success seems so close – or at least it did.  Championships were promised when Miller was hired in 2017, and fans are still waiting for delivery.  I don’t know Miller as I do Stevens, so I can’t speak to the kind of human being he is.  Miller has not been willing to share much of himself to media or fans, so whether he is a great guy is an unknown, but I would still love to see IU win in bunches regardless.

What we do know is that IU needs to win its final three regular season games to finish with a winning Big 10 record for the first time since 2016.  That ignominious streak includes all four of Miller’s teams.  It’s also been that long since Indiana earned an invitation to the NCAA Tournament.  Fans are more than a little edgy about Indiana being a Big 10 doormat year after year, and are loudly calling for yet another change in coaches.

The last time IU went five straight years without going to “The Big Dance” predates it being called “The Big Dance.”  It was a small dance from 1968-1972, with only 25 teams bracketed, so being excluded did not bring the shame to the Hoosiers it does today.  Indiana is still projected in the tourney by some bracketologists, but with three tough games left, they still have a lot of heavy lifting to do to get there.

Stevens’ Celtics are two games under .500 with a game tonight against the Pacers.  If he can’t get better results, general manager Danny Ainge is far more likely to point at Brad as the cause than the roster he put together.  Ainge didn’t get to be general manager of the Celtics by accepting blame for his flaws.  If the Celtics don’t pivot from their current malaise, Ainge could decide eight years is enough for Stevens.

That might be the opening Indiana needs to hire the guy who attended so many IU games at Assembly Hall as a kid with his dad, and led Butler to back-to-back National Championship games in 2010 and 2011.  Stevens is universally beloved in his home state, and would be hailed as the perfect fit by the vast majority of difficult to please fans.

Stevens to IU is the long shot of long shots whether Stevens is retained by the Celtics or not.  The recruiting grind is not something NBA coaches enjoy when they consider a return to college, and Stevens would be an perfect fit for ESPN, Turner, or Fox if he wants to make some easy cash in media.  He would get immediate offers from other NBA teams as soon as his ouster in Boston was made known, so it’s not like Indiana would be his only option for gainful employment.

Stevens to Indiana would almost have to be the result of a calling – a siren song to that young fan who loved the Hoosiers growing up in Zionsville.  It would have to represent a dream come true, as the money and responsibilities would likely be at least as good elsewhere.

It would also take a weird confluence of timing.  If Indiana continues its downward slide and the decision is made to make a change, it’s unlikely Stevens would lose his job simultaneously.  Dolson is not going to sit with an opening until the NBA regular season ends for the Celtics on May 16th.

Indiana turning the corner with Miller as coach is a wonderful dream, and so is Stevens returning home to coach in Bloomington.

Both are roughly equal in their likelihood.

Indiana Basketball – AD Scott Dolson knows it may be more costly to retain Archie Miller, right?

Indiana athletic director Scott Dolson is going to earn his salary in a couple of weeks as he steps out on a skinny limb to either retain or replace Archie Miller.

Will Archie Miler be back for a fifth season as Indiana’s basketball coach?

Social media is filled with terse messages from angry IU fans who have had enough.  Last night, they wanted athletic director Scott Dolson to fire Archie as the team plane landed in Bloomington.  That did not happen, even after his program’s latest humiliation at the hands and dunks of Rutgers.

A small sect of reflective and sober fans understand that the Hoosiers have another three tests left in the regular season.  This bizarre team that has defied expectations – both good and bad – all year, and they might just run the table to land a spot in the NCAA Tournament and cool Miller’s seat.  It’s a long shot, but possible.

Assuming that doesn’t happen, Indiana will watch the NCAA Tournament on TV for the fifth straight year.  When Miller was hired, athletic director Fred Glass laid out the expectations for the program very clearly.  Indiana is expected to contend for championships – both Big 10 and national.  Obviously, they have fallen well short.  In fact, IU has gone five straight years without  a winning conference record.

Smart people will tell you that Miller will be tough to fire because of the buyout terms that will force the university to pay Miller every dollar owed him through the end of his seven-year contract if they pull the trigger.  That comes to a whopping $10.5 million to pay Miller to sit on the beach drinking Corona like Snoop Dogg.

During a normal year, IU could make some calls to raise that kind of bread.  Because of COVID, IU’s athletic department is already underwater by $40-$60 million.  That means they have already been working over alums to try to hold things together until they can better deal with the shortfall.

Simple logic – the kind best loved by media – tells us that waiting for Miller’s buyout to hit 50% after next season is the smart play.  That makes the nut a much easier $3.5 million, and with COVID restrictions mercifully evolving out of our lives, the Hoosiers could move on from Miller quite easily.

Sadly, collegiate athletics is not that simple.  If Dolson is hoping Indiana fans are willing to invest financially and spiritually in a team led by a mediocre coach they know will be replaced as soon as it is feasible, he is misguided.  That kind of short-term thinking may be more costly to IU than biting the bullet to finally hire the right coach for this program.

Not only will fans unplug from the program, so will recruits.  Miller as a lame duck might be the head shot that finally renders obsolete Indiana Basketball as we know it – or have known it.  Financial prudence might cause IU more longterm harm than Bob Knight‘s boorishness or Kelvin Sampson’s indifference to NCAA rules.  Rebuilding will be delayed by yet another year, and this fading jewel of a basketball program may never recover.

The balconies of Assembly Hall that sit empty this season because of COVID, may remain forever empty because of apathy.

These are perilous times for Indiana Basketball, and not just because the regular season is going to conclude with games against #3 Michigan, Michigan State team in East Lansing, and a Purdue team Miller has never beaten – at least not as Indiana’s coach.

My advice to Dolson would be to get basketball moving forward as quickly as possible.  If the timing is right to hire the coach to steer the program out of this forever circling mediocrity, hit the throttle and damn the torpedos.  If that coach isn’t available, ride out Miller’s fifth year while giving him all the authority he needs to elicit disciplined execution from a roster that appears not too worried about consequences for noncompliance.

And please do all of it without convening a blue ribbon panel of check writers to sign off on the hire.

Indiana Basketball hits new low in abysmal 22 minute stretch against Rutgers #iubb

Watching Rutgers dunk last night appeared to be as fun for Indiana players as Rutgers fans.

Indiana was outscored 57-22 during roughly the middle half of last night’s 74-63 loss to Rutgers.  That stretch of putrid basketball may have doomed IU to its fifth straight season without an invitation to the NCAA Tournament.

Facing a test that would either put Indiana inside the bubble for the NCAA Tournament or exclude them from it, Archie Miller chose to play his starters a maximum of 32 minutes.  For contrast, in Butler’s win over Seton Hall last night, LaVall Jordan played four of his starters at least 35 minutes – two played 39.  The Bulldogs are 8-13 as they rebuild, and somehow found the tenacity to play their best group through nearly the entire game.  Indiana managed minutes with a broad rotation of players who get lost defensively and cannot score.

During a crucial stretch in the second half, BTN analyst Stephen Bardo, who is relentlessly positive, wondered aloud, “Who on the floor for the Hoosiers is going to score?”  His comment preached to a choir of Indiana fans tired of watching a stagnant and simplistic offense struggle to put the ball in the bucket.

During Indiana’s opening 23-8 run, Al Durham threw in four three-pointers, and Trayce Jackson-Davis was allowed free access to the rim, resulting in dunks.  When Rutgers adjusted by  pressuring IU’s guards, the Hoosiers had no answer.  Either Miller didn’t understand what was happening well enough to counter, or IU’s players aren’t competent enough to execute his plan.

Either way, Indiana’s collapse was as predictable as it was galling.  There was no way the Hoosiers were going to continue to pour in buckets at a rate necessary to hold off the inevitable Rutgers bounce, but it shouldn’t have devolved so far the Scarlet Knights could outscore IU by 35 over the next 22 minutes!

As Jordan Geronimo made the score cosmetically more appealing with two late three-pointers, chances for IU’s NCAA bid faded to near zero.  With games remaining against #3 Michigan at Assembly Hall, and road trips at resurgent Michigan State and always tough Purdue, it seems a win in any of the three is a long shot.

That final game at Mackey Arena looks especially daunting.  Purdue treats Miller’s IU team like little brothers on the court and in recent recruiting battles.  A loss to the Boilermakers would be a fitting and nauseating end to Miller’s fourth regular season at Indiana.

I can’t help but hope the Hoosiers find a way to defy the obvious expectations of losing against Michigan, Michigan State, and Purdue.  Every time fans and media have thought they had Miller’s Hoosiers figured out, they have found a way to bounce in the other direction.  Impermeable evidence of IU’s lack of predictability lies in its inability to either win or lose more than two consecutive games through this season’s 23 games.

Indiana might have forfeited its opportunity last night to return to March Madness, but it also losing to Rutgers might awaken the pride of some of the Hoosiers who seem lost both physically and emotionally.

The good news is that college basketball seasons are long.  Sadly, that might also be bad news if Miller can’t somehow compel his team to show 40 minutes of fight in any of these three final tests before they limp into Indianapolis for the Big 10 Tournament.

 

Indianapolis Colts – grading the 2020 Draft, another honor roll effort by Chris Ballard

We won’t get a chance to ask Chris Ballard a bunch of questions at the NFL Combine, but that doesn’t keep us from evaluating his work!

At some point, what we assess as excellent drafts will have to net playoff wins, but there is no denying that the selections made by GM Chris Ballard and his staff in the 2020 NFL Draft were critical in lifting the team back into he postseason for the first time since Andrew Luck’s retirement.

Ballard makes a lot of moves within a draft – and from draft to draft – so applying a grade to his work is never as simple as looking at the players acquired and determining their value.  For instance, DeForest Buckner was not drafted, but he was acquired in a trade with the 49ers for the Colts first round pick at #13 and then signed to a contract extension.  Including him as part of this class makes sense.

Michael Pittman Jr. was drafted 34th, but that selection was acquired when Ballard traded out of the first round of the 2019 draft.  He netted the pick used to grab Pittman as well as the 46th pick of the 2019 draft (which was then dealt to net Ben Banogu at #49 and the fifth rounder that was used on Marvell Tell).  So do we apply Pittman to the 2019 or 2020 draft?

For simplicity and accuracy, I’m going to count Buckner and Pittman as a part of this draft.  Because of that, the 2020 haul for the Colts is quite impressive, putting the Colts in the playoffs with an aging quarterback who led the Chargers to a 5-11 record the year before.

Pick by pick, here is the 2020 Colts draft class:

#13 – DeForest Buckner, DT – A

It’s not often need syncs with availability this neatly.  The Colts craved a three-technique who could dominate the middle of the line, and Buckner proved himself to be in a class just behind Aaron Donald in that spot.  Getting a player of Buckner’s quality with the 13th pick would be a tough task.  The 49ers traded down a spot to 14 with Tampa and took Javon Kinlaw, a defensive tackle who did not come close to Buckner’s productivity as a rookie.  Maybe he pops in his second or third year, but Buckner was a much better player in 2020.  At 26, Buckner’s best may be ahead of him.

#34 – Michael Pittman, Jr, WR – B

As we discussed, Pittman is part of the bounty the Colts reaped for swapping the 26th pick of the 2019 draft with WFT.  Montez Sweat was taken by WFT with that pick, and the Colts wound up with Ben Banogu and Pittman.  Sweat has totaled 16 sacks in two seasons, while Banogu has yet to fully develop.  Pittman had a productive 2020.  In 13 games, Pittman caught 40 passes for 503 yards.  Those numbers aren’t eye-popping, but he should see growth as a sophomore.

#41 – Jonathan Taylor, RB – A+

After starting slowly, averaging 36.4 yards in his first nine games, Taylor exploded for a 123.5 yards per game average over his last six.  Taylor is clearly the back of the future for the Colts offense – a group that likes balance between running and passing.  It might have been better for Taylor to play behind Marlon Mack for a season, but Mack’s torn Achilles mandated an acceleration in his development.  If the 2020 draft was relitigated, there is no doubt Taylor would go in the first round.

#85 – Julian Blackmon, FS – B+

Similar to Taylor, Blackmon was expected to work as a backup for Malik Hooker, before Hooker tore his Achilles.  Blackmon stepped in without much training camp as he rehabbed his surgically repaired ACL and played very well initially before fading a bit late in the season.  He projects as a starter in 2021 and beyond.  That’s solid return for a late third rounder.

#122 – Jacob Eason, QB – Incomplete

This pick is impossible to assess, given Eason’s lack of work as a third-stringer behind Philip Rivers and Jacoby Brissett.  If Eason can become a trusted backup to Carson Wentz, that would be a great result for a fourth round pick. After watching hing Eason through camp, I loved him.  He missed one throw that I saw, has all the measurables minus foot speed, and is said to be a tireless worker.  We’ll see.

#149 – Danny Pinter, OG – B

The overall health of the interior of the offensive line kept us from seeing what Pinter might be moving forward.  According to the coaching staff and Ballard, the Colts love the Ball State product.  Offensive line depth will surely be tested at some point moving forward, and Pinter will have a chance to validate that trust.

#193 – Robert Windsor, DT – Incomplete

The Penn State grad played in two games, making two tackles.  Who knows what he will or won’t be?  Maybe he develops as Grover Stewart has.  Maybe not.

#211 – Isaiah Rodgers, ST/CB – A

Rodgers was a dynamic kickoff returner for the Colts, averaging 28.8 yards per return – taking one to the house against the Browns.  A sixth rounder who gives you points is a net win whether he ever shows as a CB or not.

#212 – Dez Patmon, WR – Incomplete

Was on the field for two snaps.

#213 – Jordan Glasgow, ST – A

Glasgow is a special teams guy, and a very good one.  He made nine tackles on kick coverage, making him a bargain given his draft slot.  Teams need crazy from a sixth round special teamer, and Glasgow sure seemed high strung as he shedded blockers.

*******

Frankly, I’m getting a little tired of blowing kisses to Chris Ballard, but what else can I do?  In the aggregate, this draft class grades as an A-.  There is not a clunker in the bunch – yet.  Among the nine players acquired, six contributed heavily to the Colts return to relevance.  This class, combined with the incredible haul from 2018, has built a foundation of talent and a culture of toughness that may result in the Colts finding a way to the next level of the postseason.