IU Basketball

I may get in the paper again tomorrow, with a comment about the Indiana basketball team. I said they would be better than last year, but not as good as next year. Here's the thing about the team: we are just now getting to the point where the last pieces of fallout from the Knight firing are manifesting. The seniors from this year - and make no mistake, it's a bad senior class - are the group that would have been recruited primarily after the firing, but before Coach Davis was given the job permanently. I don't think Adolph Rupp could have done much of a recruiting job under those circumstances. I'm hearing quite a bit of rumbling about how this might be Davis' last year, but I don't buy it. With the two Auburn transfers that will play next year, with a couple of good recruits, with maybe a couple of starting forwards taller than 6'3", I think the program might be able to get back on its feet.

Now, the Davis philosophy towards recruiting is a lot different than Knight's. We've moved from the real recruiting of student-athletes to going after the NBA talent that all the Kentuckys and Arizonas like to have. I really miss watching a smart kid with not much athleticism, like Jarrod Odle, going up against some bozo with no interest in anything but the NBA draft, like Joel Przybilla, and taking him to school. We won't see any more of that.

Well, we must move with the times. Indiana, our Indiana, Indiana, we're all for you!