Author Archives: Kent Sterling

“Archie, we have a pulse!” Stunning win against Sparty serves as a defibrillator for Hoosiers NCAA Tourney hopes

Archie Miller appears equal parts thrilled and challenged by his 2019 team after consecutive wins against ranked opponents.

In a stunning development, the hopes of the Indiana Hoosiers to earn a bid to the NCAA Tournament are not only alive, but thriving.

The window that was open just a crack now appears to be open enough to offer hope that the Hoosiers control their own destiny with two final regular season tests.

After losing 12 of 13, IU righted the ship with two home wins against ranked opponents.  Today’s 63-62 nail-biter against Michigan State put the Hoosiers back on the bubble despite 12 Big 10 losses.

You can argue that IU is not good enough to be competitive in the Big Dance, but all doubt is gone they are good enough to win a game or two in it.  That potential for excellence elevates them over a bunch of other bubble teams.

Indiana has six quadrant one wins, and that is a damn good number in a category that’s very meaningful for the selection committee.

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It’s debatable whether Indiana winning seven games that were separated by nine points at the end of regulation is good or bad, but no sane coach or player argues with winning.

There is no doubt IU is playing its best basketball of the season.  Today’s win against the Spartans was the fourth straight game that saw nearly maximum effort from everyone for 40 minutes.

The horrific 84-63 loss at Minnesota was the turning point.  Indiana was flat throughout, and that is being kind.  Archie Miller used other terms that challenged players’ pride.

Now it’s up to IU to follow back-to-back quality wins by finishing the regular season with two more wins at Illinois and against Rutgers.  Get that done, and follow it with a rare win at the Big 10 Tournament, and they will dare the committee to not punch their ticket.

There are two ways to look at this season for Indiana – the cup half full view is to focus on how a team that played so poorly to lose at Rutgers and Northwestern could also sweep a top five team like Michigan State.  Cup half empty would be how could a team good enough to sweep Michigan State, and beat Wisconsin, Louisville, and Marquette get their asses smoked by Minnesota, Rutgers, and Northwestern?

Better to see IU’s season as both half full and half empty.  That would be appropriate for a 15-14 team that is capable of good and bad in equal measure.

The good news is that if IU finds a way to sweep the next two games, the NIT should be a no-brainer regardless of the Big 10 Tournament.

A bid to the NIT would be step in the right direction for a program that hasn’t enjoyed any madness in March since 2016 when IU went to the Sweet 16 as a five-seed.

There are some significant questions to ask about the trajectory of the Indiana program, but for now the only relevant concern is what kind of effort will they bring Thursday night in Champaign against the Fighting Illini.

In returning to the Cowboys, Jason Witten didn’t need to make sooo clear exiting ESPN was his idea

Jason Witten is returning to what he does best.

Jason Witten is coming back to the Dallas Cowboys.

Good news for the Cowboys, the NFL, for ESPN, and football fans who watch Monday Night Football..

As dynamic a Cowboys tight end as Witten was for 15 seasons, he was just that bland as a well-paid analyst on MNF.

People is Bristol knew it, wanted a chance to turn back the clock, undo the hire, and take another hard run at Peyton Manning.  With this decision by Witten, they get their chance.

Witten was adamant about who made the call in the statement announcing his return to the Cowboys, “This was completely my decision, and I am very comfortable with it.”  Well, okay then.

What he’s trying to communicate in very strong language is that ESPN didn’t fire him.  I wouldn’t have thought they did if Witten hadn’t been so heavy handed about it.

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When people strongly deny what hasn’t been accused, it smells like the preempted accusation might be warranted.

Getting fired by a media company like ESPN should not be a source of shame.  The blame for Witten’s blandness isn’t Witten’s – it belongs to the guy who assessed him as a potentially compelling voice in a booth that has had great voices like Cosell, Meredith, Gruden, Madden, and others like Dennis Miller, Tony Kornhiser, Alex Karras, and O.J. Simpson.

Some work.  Some don’t.  That’s media.

As a player known for being an offensive weapon, Witten was unwise to take such a defensive stance as he announced his return to the Cowboys.

Who’s next in the booth?  It will be Manning if ESPN can stomach the asking price.  He won’t come cheap.

Frank Reich and Chris Ballard speak, and boring leadership is beautiful for the Colts

Who could have guessed this accidental pairing would be so perfect?

The Colts front office and coaching staff are boring.  Fans should love it.

Sure, it would be more fun to write and talk about a team in total disarray with a rampaging buffoon clumsily running the show.  Arguing with people bad at running sports franchises is fun for the media.  This is not that.

General manager Chris Ballard and coach Frank Reich seem to be really good at their jobs, and very honest and consistent in their messaging.

They are good because they had the stones to step confidently onto that ever-thinning branch last season, doubling down with every loss or misstep.  They are good because of the way Ballard responded to the very temporary adversity Josh McDaniels leaving represented.  They are good because they talk instead of bloviate.

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Each spoke to the media yesterday, and not surprisingly said the same things they always say.  It’s boring, and it works.

Here are two quotes from yesterday, and they are so similar in tone and content it really doesn’t matter which came from Ballard and which came from Reich:

“…the vision – sitting down and talking with Chris (Ballard) at the beginning about the kind of players that we wanted to get. Obviously, talented players but the kind of players with the character, with the football IQ, with the toughness, guys who love to practice, guys who just love being around the game and we have a lot of those guys in the locker room. Guys who respect each other, guys that we can build trust with, that are trustworthy, guys that fight to get better all the time, we got a load of those guys in the locker room.”

“It’s been a good evaluation period for all of us. I talked a lot about how we reset and we go through a thorough evaluation of everything we do – scouting, coaching, medical, strength, player evaluations. We go through them ad nauseam and we try to figure out where we are going to get an edge, where do we need to get better, what do we need to do to continue to take our program to another step? I think we have come up with some good solutions. We are going to make some tweaks to our program internally, but our mission will never change. We will just continue to push to get better each and every day. That’s our mantra.”

By the way – top was Reich and bottom was Ballard, if you hadn’t figured that out.

Now, it’s not enough to say those things – your daily work must reflect that philosophy of daily effort toward improvement.  And you need players – good players.  Culture without talent will get a GM and coach fired just as quickly as talent without culture.

The Colts raised their level of talent exponentially last season with a stupendous draft (Quenton Nelson and Darius Leonard as easy examples – the first rookie tandem from the same team to be named first team All-Pro since Dick Butkus and Gale Sayers with the Bears in 1965), prudent  signings of effective free agents, and determined work toward internal improvement.

It would be so much more fun this time of year to be in Cleveland, Detroit, or Cincinnati, where the prospects are dim, but the anger always entertaining.  Come September, the excitement should be on the field for the Colts.

Sage Steele calls out IU fans fans for leaving early, but pigs at the trough cause empty seats

Here’s what ESPN’s Sage Steele tweeted about IU fans leaving Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall early Tuesday night:

A few things to know about the game:

  • 9p start time because of ESPN scheduling.
  • Game went two OTs and lasted until almost Midnight.
  • Pace was marred by endless replay reviews.
  • Many fans come from Indianapolis – an hour away.
  • Indiana had lost 12 of 13 before that game.

I understand Sage’s concern.  Riding out a game this thrilling should be a moral imperative for IU fans.  Many of us come from a time when IU games were must see TV around which schedules were built.

To go to a game at Assembly Hall was a gift not to be disrespected with an early departure.  Watching IU play with passion among 17,000+ like-minded zealots was a bucket list item.

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Then Indiana became (mostly) mediocre, the pace of games was stunted by replay reviews, and start times were dictated by networks determined to maximize exposure and revenue.

Games were no longer geared toward in-arena fan satisfaction.  They evolved into a TV show presented in spite of fans who choose to attend – not for them.

Conferences want money, schools want money, and networks want money.

The same thing has happened with football.  As TV networks have determined how to pace the TV broadcast of a football game and when to start it to maximize revenue, fans have shown up up in fewer numbers, and they don’t stay as long.

Football games used to take three hours.  That still seems to be the right amount a time to remain anchored to a bleacher seat, so that is how long fans remain.  After three hours, people head back to the car to reboot the tailgate or head to campus bars.  Chastising fans for leaving is the worst way to correct the problem.  The best is to listen to them, and correct the issues that lead to their exodus.

Basketball games used to begin at 7p-ish, and lasted a max of two hours.  To expect people to destroy Wednesday productivity for a little more Tuesday night basketball is ridiculous.  Even Indiana Basketball isn’t that important.

Sage is one of the nicest people in sports media and a great Hoosier, but admonishing fans who have been awake for 16 hours, worked a full day, and have an hour drive ahead of them for leaving a basketball game that would last 2:55 is just silly – especially when her employer is partially culpable for the scheduling.

Tickets provide fans a choice to attend and stay; they do not command our rigid attendance.

As the NCAA, conferences, and schools continue to allow TV networks to prioritize revenue generation beyond the needs of the in-arena fan, fans will continue to respond by living lives on their schedule – not the network’s.

If Sage is unhappy with empty Assembly Hall seats at 11:39p, she should wander down the hall in Bristol and complain to her bosses.  They’re responsible for her discontent.

Kent Sterling hosts the fastest growing sportstalk show in Indianapolis on CBS Sports 1430 every weekday from 3p-7p, and writes about Indiana sports at kentsterling.com.

After last night’s profane meltdown, Iowa needs to mandate Fran McCaffery deal with his anger – Hawkeyes deserve better

Fran McCaffery is prone to bouts of explosive rage, and last night’s was profane and embarrassing.

Iowa basketball coach Fran McCaffery went off the rails – again – last night.

According to a report in the Toledo Blade, after Iowa’s 90-70 loss at Ohio State, McCaffery followed referee Steve McJunkins down a hallway and screamed,  “You cheating m—-rf—-r! You’re a f–k–g disgrace!”

Sadly, the disgrace is McCaffery.

I’ve always found McCaffery to be an interesting guy – a good coach whose abilities are overshadowed by his outrageous and red-faced hissy fits.  I’ve asked coaches who’ve known McCaffery for a long time about him, and he is almost universally liked and respected.

He recruits the hell out of Iowa, and wins Big 10 games with those kids.  That isn’t easy.  From a recruiting standpoint, Iowa is not exactly Indiana.

Over his almost nine seasons in Iowa City, McCaffery’s teams are 78-82 in the Big 10.  No disgrace in that at Iowa.  He’s a good coach.

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But given his incendiary behavior, I would never trust him to shepherd my son through the end of his adolescence into early adulthood.

Student-athletes deserve more than a guy who knows where to pout the Xs and Os on a dry erase board.  There should also be a mandate that a coach serve as a mentor for his players, and McCaffery is as likely to break a dry erase board as draw a play on one.

He berates players, officials, broadcasters, and official scorers with a troubling ire – the kind of ill-tempered ranting that is unacceptable in virtually every other profession.

Why coaches are rewarded for insanity while most others in society are fired is unexplainable.  Bosses who treat employees and officials as McCaffery does would rightly be led from their offices in shackles.

It’s absurd that an educator at a state university would be allowed to continue his reign of public belligerence and bellicosity without someone stepping up to help McCaffery deal with his anger disorder.

I’m not advocating McCaffery be fired, but it would be in the best interest of the university, student-athletes, and McCaffery himself if a round of treatment for anger management was required.

There is a time and place for anger and profanity.  I enjoy occasional dalliances with both, but as a relentlessly deployed indulgence, it’s bad management and an even worse example for his student-athletes.

It’s time for basketball coaches to behave like the managers who will one day employ student-athletes – most of whom will never play in the NBA.

That should start with one of college basketball’s most egregious offenders.

Iowa athletic director Gary Barta needs to risk incurring McCaffery’s wrath by demanding he curb his instinct to indulge in it.

Here is the announcement released this afternoon by the Big 10 in response to McCaffery’s tirade last night:

Big Ten Issues Public Reprimand of Iowa Men’s Basketball Coach Fran McCaffery and Announces Institutional Fine

ROSEMONT, Ill. – The Big Ten office issued a public reprimand of Iowa men’s basketball head coach Fran McCaffery for violating the Big Ten Sportsmanship Policy following Iowa’s game against Ohio State on Feb. 26. The Big Ten supports the University of Iowa’s suspension of Coach McCaffery announced on Wednesday. In addition, the conference announced that the institution has been fined $10,000 as a result of the violation.

The Big Ten determined that McCaffery’s postgame actions were in violation of Big Ten Conference Agreement 10.01, which states in part that “The Big Ten Conference expects all contests involving a member institution to be conducted without compromise to any fundamental element of sportsmanship. Such fundamental elements include integrity of the competition, civility toward all, and respect, particularly toward opponents and officials.”

The Big Ten Conference considers this matter concluded and will have no further comment.

Kent Sterling hosts the fastest growing sportstalk show in Indianapolis on CBS Sports 1430 every weekday from 3p-7p, and writes about Indiana sports at kentsterling.com.

Patriots owner Robert Kraft’s quarter hour visits to a prostitute are funny until human trafficking stops the laughter

Watching an arrogant mope like Bob Kraft tumble is fun – until you learn he’s fallen on victims of human trafficking.

It’s easy to make fun of New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and the charges that he was physically serviced twice in 17 hours on January 19th and 20th at the Orchids of Asia Day Spa in Jupiter, Florida.

That the second visit took 15 minutes from the time he walked in the door to the moment he exited is funny.  Kraft seems to treat his need for physical pleasure like most of us use a gas station tire pump – stick some money in the machine, and try to take care of business before the buzzer sounds.

What deflates the comedy is the report that many of the “orchids” at the “spa” are victims of human trafficking, and it’s impossible to believe Kraft didn’t at least suspect it.

The irksome reality of prostitution is that if the physical congress was enjoyable, compensation would not be required.

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It’s easy to look at prostitution as a victimless crime, but when the “orchids” are held captive, it’s no longer entrepreneurially minded women willing to service old rich guys who have a quarter hour to kill before hopping on their private jet to the AFC Championship Game.  It’s caged human beings being forced to debase themselves for the monetary gain of their captors.

Laughing at Kraft is good sport – it’s always enjoyable to see the arrogant as idiots capable of the same boobery as the rest of us – but sexual slavery is not funny.  The people who enjoy their services are as morally corrupt as those who employ them.

Kraft deserves whatever mockery comes his way, but as a man who helped support human trafficking through his very brief visits to the Orchids of Asia Day Spa, he deserves much more.

Kent Sterling hosts the fastest growing sportstalk show in Indianapolis on CBS Sports 1430 every weekday from 3p-7p, and writes about Indiana sports at kentsterling.com.

IU & Pacers play tonight, and need to embrace completely different styles of play to win

 

If Indiana wasn’t going to play a lottery pick like he’s a lottery pick, why did they recruit a lottery pick?

There is no sure-fire strategy to succeed at scoring the basketball.

For teams with good players at all five spots, ball movement and selflessness works.  For teams with one dynamic player, a good player, and three who can’t shoot, the ball needs to be controlled by the star.

It’s tough when there is a single serious offensive threat on the floor, and no one else commands legit defensive respect.  It’s hard to get the ball to the stud as often as he needs it, but for Indiana, their best chance to score every time down the floor is to get the ball to Romeo Langford.

Oddly, IU appears committed to sharing the ball to their own detriment.

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Against Purdue, Indiana played eight guys.  One of them was Zach McRoberts – a guard who wouldn’t shoot six times in a game at the Hyper.  Juwan Morgan was 3-for-14.  The other six Hoosiers each shot six, seven, or eight times, and made a combined 11 shots.

I love Morgan, but when he shoots more than twice as often as Langford, the erase part of the dry-erase board must be used.

It’s nice to share the ball, but sharing the ball among those six guys to the tune of an 11-for-39 night is a great way to score 46 points.

The last game Indiana won while scoring in the 40s was a 49-45 win over Iowa in 1984.  To win, IU most score points, and if not Romeo, who?  Zora Clevenger might have coach the last time IU won while scoring 46 or fewer.

Give your best player the ball – and let him go to work!

Basketball is not complicated.  Scoring points is good, and your best offensive player has the best chance of scoring.

Give Romeo the damn ball.

Conversely, the Pacers seem to be a team where everyone can score, so the ball is shared.  There is no great offensive player on the team, so on any given night, Myles Turner, Bojan Bogdanovic, Thad Young, Domas Sabonis, or Tyreke Evans can lead the team in scoring – and each has during wins.

That’s the way they play, and thus generosity is the culture of the team.  And it is successful.  If the Pacers were losing 11 of their last 12 as the Hoosiers have, I might ask for someone to step up as the alpha male and go to work, but the Pacers are 38-20 (3rd in the East).

Stay the course.  Share the ball.  Don’t argue with success.  Frustrate more talented teams by kicking their asses with old fashioned ball movement.

At IU, argue with failure!  Do something different with Romeo while you have him.

Easy game.  Coach to your talent.  Win.  See, easy.

Kent Sterling hosts the fastest growing sportstalk show in Indianapolis on CBS Sports 1430 every weekday from 3p-7p, and writes about Indiana sports at kentsterling.com.

Tom Crean gets screwed in Georgia loss – and #iubb fans should feel no joy because of it

Tom Crean grabs the PA microphone and admonishes Georgia fans for throwing a stuffed animal on the floor.

A Georgia fan threw a small stuffed bulldog toward a Mississippi State player about to shoot a free throw with 1/2 second left in a tie game.  Georgia coach Tom Crean ran to the scorer’s table, grabbed the PA microphone, and admonished the fans.

The referees convened and assessed a technical foul for fan behavior.  The Mississippi State player knocked down a free throw, and they won by a point.

Crean was irate.

Georgia has had a tough season – winning only one SEC game so far this season.  A win at home against Mississippi State would have been nice for Crean, the Bulldogs, and fans in Athens.

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That the refs decided to call a technical without a warning was strange.  It’s also odd that there is no proof the stuffed animal came from a Georgia fan.  It’s likely, as the game was played at Georgia, but there are a number of clever visiting college fans who might try to manipulate the outcome of a game by tossing something onto the floor in the hopes of generating a T for their hosts.  (Of course, none would come from Indiana University, whose best effort to disrupt Purdue Tuesday night was to yell “***k you, Haarms!” – which revealed IU students as a group collectively incapable of anything clever.)

The point is not to berate IU, claim injustice for Georgia, or decry the lack of rationality by fans who throw stuff (even harmless items like small stuffed animals) on a court or field.

I was no fan of Crean as a basketball coach at Indiana, and he was no fan of mine as someone who held him accountable for his leadership of Indiana’s basketball program.  As outspoken as I was about Crean’s mismanagement, last night’s loss gave me no joy.

Georgia got screwed last night.  A game that very likely was headed for overtime ended because of the technical foul called on Georgia because of the idiotic but benign behavior of a fan.

Losing eats at coaches, and last night’s loss was as brutal for Crean as any loss for any coach this season.

Georgia showed a level of fight Crean should be proud of in coming back against Mississippi State after being behind by as many as 17 points in the second half.  That’s a hell of a thing – leading a team that had lost 11-of-12 SEC games going into last night’s debacle to battle like hell for 40 minutes.

My disdain for Crean as Indiana’s coach was never personal.  He was not the right fit as coach at IU for a variety of reasons, but that’s no reason to celebrate his unearned misery last night.  I hope he gets Georgia turned around.

Last night’s game should have given Crean a night to breathe easy and enjoy the fruits of his team’s labor and continued willingness to work hard and believe in each other.

Georgia’s loss was a shame because the referees overtly affected the result of a game that deserved to be determined by the players.

Crean and his Bulldogs deserved better, no matter where he worked prior to Georgia.

Kent Sterling hosts the fastest growing sportstalk show in Indianapolis on CBS Sports 1430 every weekday from 3p-7p, and writes about Indiana sports at kentsterling.com.

Indiana fans fall short in shouting “***k you, Haarms” at the Boilermaker who beat them #iubb

The best IU fans could do to harass this Dutchman from Purdue was “***k you, Haarms!”?

The chants were audible throughout the game as IU fans expressed their disdain for Purdue center Matt Haarms, “***k you, Haarms!”

I have no problem with yelling at opposing players – it’s part of the fun of going to the game.  I have no problem with profanity – skillfully used, it can punctuate a point and get attention.

But I have a problem with IU students yelling “***k you, Haarms!” throughout the game because it’s not clever.

Many times during his 29 years as Indiana’s basketball coach, Bob Knight grabbed the PA microphone from Chuck Crabb to chastise fans for yelling profanity.  Despite my affection for shouting obscenities, I always listened to Knight because he was a scary guy.

There are rules preventing coaches from doing that today, so Archie Miller lacks the means to communicate his displeasure, if he feels any.

I would pick up the mic and demand better, but not necessarily cleaner from the student section.

Again, my disdain for last night’s chants is not driven by a prudish aversion to swearing, but a lack of respect for college students who can’t come up with anything more clever to distract a kid like Haarms.

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IU students were shouting at a 7’3″ Dutchman with goofy hair from Purdue, and the very best they could come up with was “***k you, Haarms!”?  How about swearing at him in Dutch?  That’s barely clever, but it would be a step in the right direction.

When I was a student at IU, we spent three hours per day in class, slept another four hours, and invested the other 17 hours a day annoying people.  At no point did we chant, “***k you, (insert name here)!”  We weren’t always classy, but there was always a bit of wit in our exploits.

Indiana University’s student body should demand better from themselves as they harass opponents at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall, Greeks on North Jordan, or professors in Ballantine Hall.

IU lost 48-46 to Purdue last night as Haarms silenced the fans with a tip in with 3.2 seconds left.

Now that was clever.

Kent Sterling hosts the fastest growing sportstalk show in Indianapolis on CBS Sports 1430 every weekday from 3p-7p, and writes about Indiana sports at kentsterling.com.

Keion Brooks Dad tweets an update about his recruiting, and I couldn’t care less #iubb

Keion Brooks Dad tweeted this update about his recruitment yesterday:

And I don’t care.  He’s the 38th ranked player in the 2019 class, so he’s highly sought after, but it makes no difference to me whether he pledges Indiana, Kentucky, North Carolina – and anyone else.

Nothing against the kid.  I don’t know him.  It’s not that I’m above caring about where a high school senior chooses to play basketball.  I drove to New Albany to see the Romeo Langford commitment, so I’m as susceptible to the recruiting drama as the next guy.  (It’s also important to note that I spent my high school years in New Albany, and spent a little time with Langford, so I have an affinity for the kid.)

But news about Brooks does nothing for me.

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Some of it is that I don’t like prep schools like La Lumiere strip-mining talented basketball players from their hometowns as a marketing ploy.  They prey on the inability of kids and their parents to deal with the adversity of high school basketball.

I think jumping to a prep school encourages a kid to take the path of least resistance, rather than learn to overcome temporary struggles.

A more significant reason for my ambivalence about Brooks is the state of Indiana University Basketball.  Until the current roster plays with purpose as a unit, I don’t much care who those players are.

Until a culture of toughness is instilled at IU, I’m afraid tough-minded recruits will opt to play among like-minded teammates.  That means IU will remain a mish-mash of players with a variety of agendas.

Maybe Brooks can be a transformational player who should be coveted by coaches and fans, but the transformation I need to see at Indiana is in a demand for behavioral change for the Hoosiers.

Until that happens, Brooks updates – and those like them – will escape my attention.

Kent Sterling hosts the fastest growing sportstalk show in Indianapolis on CBS Sports 1430 every weekday from 3p-7p, and writes about Indiana sports at kentsterling.com.