IU next year

[tornado]

Performed poorly down the stretch, lots of losses, few returning players, new coach, new system...
how does everyone think they'll do next year?

--Top 10?
--Top 20?
--NCAA?
--NIT?
--even turns down the CBI?
--Good but not great?
--.500 club?
--Worse than Illinois this year?

Other IU news....
--Eli Holman, IU's big freshman who is trying to get a medical redshirt, is leaving campus and going back to his California home to ponder transferring elsewhere.

http://indiana.scout.com/2/743177.html

--The Indianapolis Star says it has confirmed that Eric Gordon is leaving and going to the NBA and will make his announcement Monday.

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080403/SPORTS0601/804030514

--here's something I didn't know....
Peoria Central's Chris Reynolds is the Senior Associate Athletic Director at IU

http://iuhoosiers.cstv.com/genrel/reynolds_chris00.html

[tornado]

Here's one more note from an article on how Kelvin Sampson's violations were finally all uncovered at Indiana.........

"Compliance DID NOT find the transgressions. In fact compliance missed all of it. An intern in the Ice Miller office stumbled across it almost by accident, which is the way most things happen. He was doing a last minute review and saw something curious and followed up. Kind of like the Watergate security guard finding tape over the lock on the door. So we don??™t be so boastful about the compliance people."

This has to raise serious quesitons on why IU didn't and couldn't find the violations themselves...
Were they just looking the other way?? Did they even care?

[tornado]

Just saw even more rumbles on the premium IU boards about possibly more players leaving, DeAndre Thomas (good friend of Jamarcus Ellis from their days at Westinghouse and Chipola) and Jordan Crawford, and that some of the Marquette recruits might be coming in at IU,
which could take prospecting playing time from kids like MR

[pfunk880]

Middle of the Big 10, probably NIT.

[IlliBraves]

Worse than Illinois, bottom of the Big Ten. Illinois will make the NCAA, IU will not.

[mportsch]

It's hard to say at this point - I think we can make a better guess this summer, when we should actually have a good idea of how the IU roster will look for next season. I fully expect Crean to bring in a few more 2008 recruits, either by getting his Marquette commits to follow him or by picking up players that will be released from their LOI by other coaching changes.

All that being said, here's how their depth chart for next year looks as of now:

PG Jordan Crawford So.
SG Matt Roth Fr.
SF Brandon McGee So.
PF Kyle Taber Sr.
C DeAndre Thomas Sr.

C Eli Holman RS-Fr.
PF Tom Pritchard Fr.
PG Brett Finkelmeier So. (walk-on)

That's it - there are no other players on the roster. I don't see how that team could finish any better than 9th in the Big Ten. If that's their rotation, I wouldn't be surprised to see them finish last in the conference - Northwestern is returning three good players in Coble, Thompson, and Moore, which is better than any threesome from this IU roster.

Now, we have to recognize that Bassett and/or Ellis might get reinstated, which would be a huge lift to the roster, but I still don't think they'd finish in the upper half of the conference. NIT or CBI would be a best case scenario then, but it's very possible they end up with a postseason ban for next season anyway.

The bottom line is that IU won't likely be close to the NCAA tournament for at least the next two seasons. Crean needs to get to work immediately to bolster his 2008 class, then he really needs to hit a home run in 2009 to speed up the rebuilding process. Sampson really left that program in shambles.

[pfunk880]

NIT or CBI would be a best case scenario then, but it's very possible they end up with a postseason ban for next season anyway.

I hadn't thought of that... very possible.

[real fan]

Should be getting banned from any post season play for 1 year.

[tornado]

Tom Crean was interviewed by Jody Demling of the louisville C-J and asked about the two potential starters who were dismissed........
“I’m certainly not going to disrespect any decisions that were made before I got there,” Crean said."


Here, also, is a quote from Matt Roth...per an interview by phone with an Indiana writer...
""He called me Wednesday night," said incoming freshman Matt Roth, a guard from Washington, Ill.
"He was really enthusiastic for being up all day, dealing with all those interviews and questions, and I was really impressed."
Matt then said he had second thoughts about going to IU, but did confirm he is still loyal.

[tornado]

A couple updated notes on Indiana......

--IU is still under some of its own self-imposed sanctions from last fall, and some of them are--

"The head coach is not allowed to make recruiting phone calls or recruiting visits for one year (until 10-31-08 )"

IU will reduce its number of permissible phone calls to a high school senior from two per week to one per week for nine months (until 7-31-07). The head coach (Crean) is allowed to make only every other one of these calls.

IU will reduce the number of calls that (the head coach) can make to a high school junior to every other one of the monthly calls that are allowed.

IU will limit (the head coach) to four off-campus recruiting days during the fall 2007 contact period (ended 10-5-07), and 10 additional off-campus recruiting days for the following 10 months (until 8-5-08 ). [...no more off-campus days remain for Tom Crean]

IU will reduce the number of permissible official paid visits by recruits from 12 to six during 2007-08. [all been used, already]

So.....some pretty serious restrictions, and Tom Crean had already started to make some phone calls when the University found out from NCAA that those prior self-imposed restrictions MUST still be followed by new head coach Tom Crean.......whoa........



Tom Crean appears ready to hire recently fired head coach at Toledo, Stan Joplin, as one of his assistants.

[IlliBraves]

Self-imposed punishments are bull#hit. The only reason for self-imposing a penalty is to somehow circumvent the NCAA and get away with the violations. That's not really that big of a punishment. I'll start buying into self-imposed penalties when someone bans themselves from post-season play (Yeah, I know it's happened before, but only after something REALLY serious happens). Nobody should get away with cheating because they decide to slightly limit the number of phone calls they can make. If someone wants to go to your school, they will. Nobody's going to de-commit because the coach only can call you once a week.