Mike Woodson (63 years old) is Next Indiana Head Coach. Thad Matta is Associate AD for Men's Basketball Administration
- Thread starter Franisdaman
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Porter Moser is a fine coach and might indeed be a better choice if he were interested, but no doubt it is the bolded sentence that led bojihawk44 to call you "kinda racist." It adds nothing positive to your post.
Indy high school coaches are excited to see Woodie at IU. This guy was a head coach at two of the worst NBA franchises. He got Atlanta to the playoffs five years. Matta has been hired to help with the transition. I expect IU to go after Mike Lewis as a assistant. Mike is a IU guy. My nephew is a well connected coach in Indiana. He said the fact that Woodson played and coached in the league will play well with recruits.. I'll be interested to see how it goes.
Not all kids will know him but more will know who Howard is from being a Fab 5 member who also had a long NBA career and can relate a lot more to recruits about his time being a teammate with the likes of Lebron or D Wade with the Heat compared to Woodson who last played over 30 years ago. This is a great article breaking it down and lays out how Woodson and Howard are far from similar positions. How plenty of other former NBA players like him or college stars have flamed out moving to the college game and how Howard is more of an exception than the norm.
Sorry, Indiana: Mike Woodson Is No Juwan Howard
Sorry, Indiana: Mike Woodson Is No Juwan Howard - Post
watchstadium.com
This smells a lot like the Lovie Smith hire for Illini football
A little bit, yeah. Let’s hope it’s just as successful.
The best available candidate for the job should always be hired - black, white, or any other race. It's not racist at all to say that schools don't necessarily need to go hire black coaches. To say that they do, that they need to hire black coaches just because they're black even if they aren't the best candidate, now THAT'S racist.
That's exactly what I was thinking of. As an Iowa fan I was happy about that hire and I'm happy about this hire with IU. They are the little more successful version of Nebraska football with their fan base and unrealistic expectations and it showed here with this hiring that no decent candidate wanted this job so they had to go with an alum who has no college experience and hasn't been a head coach in over 6 years.
That is EXACTLY a liberal response.
Pack mentality. Attack others so they don't notice you.
Yeah, that's not racist or segregating or anything like that at all.
You could tell how clueless that guy was with that comment. Clearly wasn't paying attention to the 60 win Hawks in 2015.
Yes, although neither Boji or the Warriors guy he was quoting said either of the things that you just wrote above.
With Thad Matta advising they just need some good assistants. It could go either way.
So your a BIG fan and don't know who Mike Woodson is? I mean we do play these other conference teams and guys who score 2100 points in college are pretty well known......
Who has ever said that they need to hire a black guy no matter what, qualifications be damned?
You're addressing an issue that doesn't exist.
The guy last played in the Big 10 41 years ago. I consider myself a pretty big college b-ball fan and I knew who Woodson is from NBA days as a coach but too young to know or remember him playing at Indiana. Just like I don't expect too many Big 10 fans under the age of 40 to know who Ronnie Lester is who played in the same era. A time so long ago that it predates playing in Carver.
Indiana has hired Mike Woodson, he hasn't recruited a single player or coached a single game and 90% of the posters in this thread is have already deemed him a failure...comparing him to Lovie Smith! LOL Smith didn't even graduate from Illinois! I hope most on here know that football is way harder to bring back from relevance then basketball. Another hint: which University has a better basketball pedigree....Indiana or Iowa?
Yea, Fran is better then Lickliter, that has been established in his 11 years at Iowa but I'll bet that if Woodson hires assistants that know recruiting and are aggressive in recruiting top rated players the landscape may rapidly change.
Laugh now, make fun of the hire, give the guy a chance, he has Indiana roots and don't be surprised if Indiana eventually finishes above Iowa in the BIG sooner then later.
Yea, Fran is better then Lickliter, that has been established in his 11 years at Iowa but I'll bet that if Woodson hires assistants that know recruiting and are aggressive in recruiting top rated players the landscape may rapidly change.
Laugh now, make fun of the hire, give the guy a chance, he has Indiana roots and don't be surprised if Indiana eventually finishes above Iowa in the BIG sooner then later.
lol
Indiana finished ahead of Iowa as recently as 2018. They finished a whopping two games behind us in ‘19 and in ‘20.
Somehow I think they’re setting the bar a little higher than finishing above Iowa.
If you are talking about prestige I think that is why a lot of people are criticizing this hire. Indiana is a diehard b-ball school and considers itself one of the top programs along the lines of blue bloods like Kentucky, Duke, Carolina, Kansas. You don't expect a premiere program to make a hire like this or get turned down by various coaches on their wish list. Like Nebraska in football their fanbase have unrealistic expectations based on results of the 20th century but even though they have struggled they still view their programs as if they are one of the top 10 in the nation. I doubt many Indiana fans would honestly say they are thrilled with this hire be that they admit it or not.
Now could it work out, sure it could. It paid off for ISU with Hoiberg but seen plenty flame out on them. You'd expect programs like ISU or Iowa that have had a relative amount of success to make a gamble of hire like this but not as much for the traditional powers like the IU fanbase and administration that still consider themselves a blue blood.
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Good points, but Woodson is less of a gamble than was Hoiberg at ISU. The Mayor had zero coaching experience at the time while Woodson has years of NBA experience, including as a head coach.
I think you're all missing the point. How many rumors that have been substantiated, that other coaches turned down the IU job? Secondly, for the last 20 years since Bobby Knight was let go, how many coaches with no past ties to Indiana, have tried to become successful at Indiana? They have all failed or have had issues as far as I know.
So the men in charge of hiring a new coach at Indiana, had been asked to look at hiring a coach with Indiana ties. They did that. We certainly don't know if other past players from Indiana were asked and turned down the job, nor should we care. I'm sure other Big Ten fans with no ties to Iowa cared that Iowa hired Fran 11 years ago unless you count Izzo's remarks toward Lickliter which were criticized by most Iowa fans.
I didn't see a lot of criticism about the hire at Penn St, or Minnesota. I just don't get why Iowa fans care about who other university's hire for their major sports coaches, either they succeed or fail.
If Iowa wants to stay irrelevant, recruit better players.
So the men in charge of hiring a new coach at Indiana, had been asked to look at hiring a coach with Indiana ties. They did that. We certainly don't know if other past players from Indiana were asked and turned down the job, nor should we care. I'm sure other Big Ten fans with no ties to Iowa cared that Iowa hired Fran 11 years ago unless you count Izzo's remarks toward Lickliter which were criticized by most Iowa fans.
I didn't see a lot of criticism about the hire at Penn St, or Minnesota. I just don't get why Iowa fans care about who other university's hire for their major sports coaches, either they succeed or fail.
If Iowa wants to stay irrelevant, recruit better players.
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| I didn't see a lot of criticism about the hire at Penn St, or Minnesota. I just don't get why Iowa fans care about who other university's hire for their major sports coaches, either they succeed or fail. |
There were threads, shorter, but talking about the hires at Minn. and PSU with all the players in the portal after new coach hire. No one was praising these hires either. As for why Iowa fans care? It's a message board. Things get discussed all the time with other schools in the Big 10 which ironically you're posting in as well which means you care some too.
Not really when you consider age. The guy will be 69 years old when the sophomores that he‘ll be recruiting and trying to start building relationships with this summer are seniors in college. That’s a huge problem and is what makes this hire really questionable. They’re almost certainly going to need to hire a new coach relatively soon, that upheaval almost guarantees another downturn. Makes no sense. Especially if a bunch of their guys leave this year and it takes him two years to rebuild.
Except Mike's 63 years old. Howard must be around 50. And to continue with the "old" theme, did I hear that they're contacting Larry Brown (who's around 80) to fill the role Howard has Phil Martelli doing?
Might it be reasonable to assume This is a temporary hire by IU? I wonder what they have in mind down the road?
You just don’t hire rookie 62 year old head coaches every day....
You just don’t hire rookie 62 year old head coaches every day....
Woodson has already secured an excellent assistant coach who is a well known very good recruiter with the announcment he is retaining Kenya Hunter for his staff.
I don't see the Woodson's age being all that relevant given that he's just two years older than Fran, one year older than John Calipari, and younger than several prominent college coaches. Further, college coaches today have a short shelf life regardless of their age. They take new jobs or get fired.
Not only is he close to McCaffery's age, he's also close in age to McCaffery's two asst. coaches. Maybe this is part of the problem here.
SI reported that he quit today but then looks like they have taken it down, so don't know what's happening
It is April 1st and they were the people who brought us Sid Finch.
Martelli is an assistance coach, not an associate AD. Will Matta be on the bench and at every practice?
agreed - we get to see the same 'movie' with Nebraska Football as well...
Post of the day award! It's like getting a wedding invitation when you know darn well that the 'first round' of invites had been sent out the month before...
