Author Archives: Kent Sterling

Indiana Basketball – despite mediocrity, lack of toughness, & recruiting troubles – keeping Archie Miller makes sense

Assembly Hall used to be Indiana’s Great Church of Basketball. Now, it’s a just a place where kids play.

Over and over since Indiana’s bizarre and thoroughly disappointing loss to Michigan State, I have tried to write a reasonable and sober defense of Archie Miller and his Hoosiers.

I mention the team’s youth, the need to avoid a death spiral for Miller’s job as he will lose the ability to recruit prior to finally being canned, the $10.5 million buyout – a borderline indefensible expense given COVID related athletic department financial losses, and the remaining four regular season games.  About halfway through, I lose interest in what I’m writing and start fresh.

This time, I’ve really started fresh.

None of the crap I wrote about mitigating factors matters.  It’s all nonsense.  Writing about Indiana Basketball should not be about excuses for mediocrity, and it sure as hell should never be about buyouts.  It should be about winning games, clever offensive and defensive schemes, and recruiting to a culture of toughness and excellence.  Championships should be the goal, and excellence the expectation.  Failure to move toward superiority should be answered by writing the check to start fresh.

The sad truth of Indiana Basketball is that they are mired in relentless mediocrity from which there appears to be no relief.  Since 2016, IU has not secured a bid to the NCAA Tournament.  If not for COVID, they were a bubble team last year and may have been invited.  We just don’t know.  Indiana has yet to post a winning Big 10 record under Miller, and barring some odd and unforeseeable pivot toward greatness, this will be the fifth straight season they have failed in that regard.

Why has Indiana been so average for Miller’s four seasons?

Indiana under Miller has been defined by a lack of cohesiveness, toughness, and development.  All those qualities are shaped by the head coach, and Miller has utterly failed in instilling any of them.  Miller himself talks about the lack of toughness in postgame media appearances.  After four years, I’m tired of the talk.  Enforce a culture of toughness, or clear the deck for someone who will.

Can you imagine any reason this upcoming offseason to buy into the inevitable talk about finally reaching a turning point?  I hope you can.  It will keep you engaged during another long spring and summer.  I applaud your optimism, even if it is based in delusion.  As for me, I’ll side with Shakespeare, who wrote, “What’s past is prologue.”  That means, it is what it was.  Indiana long got by on the momentum of a program built on a foundation of toughness, shooting, and emotional investment.

Right now, Indiana is not tough, can’t shoot, and appears to be ambivalent to its collective responsibility to compete.  There are outliers like Armaan Franklin and Race Thompson, who fight from possession to possession, but Indiana’s overall mode screams satisfaction.

If all that isn’t unacceptable to the people in charge – from Miller to athletic director Scott Dolson all the way up to outgoing president Michael McRobbie – then shutter the damn program and call it a day.

Indiana Basketball is the most important connection graduates have with the university.  Watching every game used to be an inviolable appointment.  We can’t watch students take A211 or H106 exams, so we watch basketball.  The joy and pride we felt for years as the Hoosiers competed has eroded, replaced by frustration which has now evolved toward a dangerous level of indifference.

The sad truth is that auditing freshman as they take an accounting or history test might be more enjoyable than watching a basketball game.

COVID has served a purpose as Assembly Hall’s empty seats were mandated by a need for social distancing instead of fan ambivalence to the Hoosiers as a team and institution.  If not for COVID, those seats would communicate the grim truth that a large swath of IU fans have responded to the team’s muddled and inconsistent effort by choosing another way to enjoy themselves.

The problem with moving on from Miller is that an upgrade needs to be found, and that is a responsibility that has resulted in failure after failure since Knight was fired in 2000.  Trusting Miller to rebuild from his own mess is foolish, but expecting the power structure that has provided Indiana fans with leaders like Mike Davis, Kelvin Sampson, Tom Crean, and Miller to hire the next coach is idiocy.

I might have finally hit upon the argument that makes sense for keeping Miller.

Colts trade for Carson Wentz – perfect timing finally comes for the Colts AND Wentz!

The Colts trade to acquire Carson Wentz has a high ceiling and low risk. Another sweet deal by Chris Ballard.

Timing is everything.

In the NFL, as in life, winning comes to those who do the right thing at the right time.  Today’s trade by the Colts to acquire quarterback Carson Wentz seems to be the right deal for the right guy to the right team for the right price.

If Colts general manager Chris Ballard had tried to wrangle Wentz from the Philadelphia Eagles after the 2019 season, GM Howie Roseman would have laughed and hung up.  There wouldn’t have been a batch of first round picks tall enough to compel the Eagles to turn loose their franchise QB.

A year later, the Colts ponied up a 2021 third rounder and a conditional second round pick to take Wentz and his contract.  The Eagles will continue to remember the massive Wentz deal less than kindly because of the $33.8-million in dead cap space that stays with the Eagles, while the Colts pay him roughly $25M per year over the next four (if everything goes as hoped).

This might just be a perfect marriage between a quarterback in need of a fresh start and a team in dire need of an upgrade at quarterback.  Last year, Wentz was unprotected by a dilapidated offensive line with a gaggle of flawed weapons at wide receiver and an injured running back.  The Colts offer a coach who has already extracted the best out of him, a neighborly fanbase, a well-constructed organization, a stout and healthy offensive line (as long as Ballard finds a left tackle), and a defense ready to win.

The Colts provided a similar circumstance to beleaguered, stationary, and aged Philip Rivers a year ago, and Rivers turned back the clock.  He cut his interception rate from 20 to 11 and increased his wins from five to 11 while enjoying his final season of professional football.

Wentz is 10 years younger than Rivers, and may bring a decade of quality play to the Colts.  The trade allows the Colts the assets needed to patch the remaining holes (receiver, cornerback, edge rusher, and LT) via the draft and free agency.

The $25M Wentz will be paid is roughly $21M shy of the Colts’ expense at the quarterback position last year.  And giving up a third round pick leaves the Colts with their first and second rounders intact for the upcoming draft.

There is always the possibility that Wentz can’t be fixed emotionally or physically for the longterm.  The Colts would then find themselves in the same spot in a year or two.  Given the cost, this was a deal with a high ceiling and very manageable cost that would have no bearing upon their ability to get the QB of their dreams next offseason.

Given their options – trading up to acquire the draft rights to a diamond in the rough like Trey Lance or signing a free agent like Andy Dalton, this was a shrewd deal that might just set up the Colts to reach owner Jim Irsay’s goal of multiple championships.

Sure that’s an optimistic view, but the offseason is exactly the right time for such pie-eyed optimism!