Todd’s Take: Some Names Indiana Fans Probably Don’t Need To Worry About

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – It finally happened. The various bugs that have been floating around finally got me. I am resting up with a nasty bit of illness. We’ve all been there. You know the drill.

As I try to get some rest, my mind turns to the Indiana men’s basketball coaching search. Less about who it might be, but who it will not be.

I came around to this line of thinking when researching the Nate Oats story on Saturday. (You can file Oats under “unlikely,” but his credentials are so good he had to be written about.)

I came across data that would suggest one coach – we’ll get into him in a minute – would bring the perfect mix of both offensive and defensive prowess to the job. But upon seeing the name? I knew instantly he was a non-starter.

Speaking of names, I should probably explain whom we at Hoosiers On SI are choosing who to write about. Our philosophy on these stories is to cast a wide net. To account not only for realistic possibilities, but also to address coaching candidates casual fans might have their eye on – realistic or not.

At the end of the day, our job is to inform, but not every Indiana fan is created equally in terms of how engaged they are. We have to inform casual fans as well as those who are living and dying by every rumor.

I think it’s hard for those engaged in every minute detail of a coach search to understand that for every one fan who is locked into the Trilly Donovan’s Discord account, there are probably 99 who aren’t.

For example, we wrote about the possibility of Brad Stevens last week knowing full well it was very unlikely he was going to be Indiana’s next coach – a reality that has since been confirmed. Some of the comments on social media from the more dialed-in fans after we published that story were critical that we wrote about Stevens at all.

I disagree with that. There are fans out there who thought Stevens was a viable choice. They deserve to have their choice examined just as much as the diehards do. The story made it clear Stevens was a long shot. Our job is to present the possibilities and determine how likely they might be.

So we’ll be writing about a lot of possible candidates. Some realistic, some not so much.

However, there are some coaches who don’t make it into the big net. Coaches we know aren’t going to be coming or Indiana would be interested in. Here’s a few who fit that bill.

• Kelvin Sampson – The coach I mentioned above was Sampson. He has Houston ranked in the top 10 in Kenpom.com in both offensive and defensive efficiency. Only one other coach – my namesake Todd Golden at Florida – can make the same claim. The Cougars lead the rugged Big 12 Conference by two games.

Based purely on win-loss record, Sampson would be a home run. He’s 784-354 all-time and has Houston back as the national power it was from the 1960s to 1980s. He’s the reigning national Coach of the Year.

In a vacuum, he’d be great. We’re not in a vacuum, and most fans know why Sampson is a non-starter. He coached Indiana from 2006-08 and left under fire in the wake of NCAA violations that sent Indiana’s program to rock bottom for almost a half-decade.

Indiana Hoosiers head coach Kelvin Sampson talks with guard Armon Bassett (1) during the second half of the quarterfinals of the Big Ten Tournament against the Illinois Fighting Illini at the United Center in Chicago, IL. | Jerry Lai-Imagn Images

I have seen some fans send Sampson up the flag pole as a choice, noting that the things he did that were illegal in the 2000s no longer are. Those fans also note the Hoosiers were on the path to winning under Sampson.

It’s true that many of Sampson’s transgressions seem quaint by today’s rules, but the legacy of the Sampson era is about more than just the rules that were violated.

The Sampson era sent Indiana backward to the depths it had never mined in the modern era of college basketball. Whether the rules were dumb or not, they were rules at the time and they were brazenly violated. Apart from the rules, there were also character issues among some of the players.

Indiana fans sat through three seasons of misery as the program tried to recover. Many of those fans haven’t forgiven or forgotten Sampson for that. Hard to blame them for feeling that way.

So to have Sampson back would be divisive to say the least. That’s even assuming Sampson would entertain the idea. I would say the odds on that are something akin to winning the lottery.

• Matt Painter – You’re a cheater, Todd! You wrote about Painter last week!

I did, but not as part of our series on coaching candidates. It was a column that stated my own view. Anything that says “Todd’s Take” is a column of opinion if you’re not aware.

And my opinion remains that my first call would be to Painter, but the column was also written in a manner that also recognized how far-fetched the idea was. Those who read the column, and not just the headline, realized I made light of my own suggestion by the end of the piece.

The overarching theme of that column is that no coaching search should be so inhibited that it’s not about the simple mission of finding the best person for the job. Painter is an extreme example to illustrate that point.

If one thing surprised me in the reaction to that column, it was the depth of feeling among some Indiana fans that Painter isn’t a good coach. To me, that’s the rivalry blinding some fans to reason.

However, what I was blinded to was how divisive Painter would be as Indiana’s choice. Divisiveness is not what Indiana needs right now. To the degree it’s possible, Indiana needs a coach that unites as many factions of the fanbase as is possible.

Again, all of this assumes Painter would consider coming, a very unlikely prospect, as my original column made clear.

• Older, proven winners – Would Tom Izzo, Bill Self or Rick Barnes do well at Indiana? They undoubtedly would, but they are all ensconced at their current spots and unlikely to want to start anew at this stage of their careers, so barring something weird, you can rule them all out.

• Rick Pitino – The man has wanderlust so I can see a scenario where he would be interested. He also has Saint John’s in the top 10, so he hasn’t lost his fastball. With the NIL resources Indiana has? It would serve him well.

I just don’t see it from Indiana’s perspective. Pitino is 72, much older than Mike Woodson, so you’d have to have some sort of succession plan in place. That’s a big commitment on Indiana’s part, almost akin to hiring two coaches at once, similar to what SMU did when it hired Larry Brown at the same age Pitino is now in 2012. Would Pitino be worth it? I think Indiana can find what it wants without having to contend with all of that.

• John Calipari – I spoke of uniting Indiana’s fanbase. Nothing would unite Hoosier Nation quite like their animosity in having Calipari in charge at Indiana. Given that he is in year one at Arkansas, it’s unlikely anyway.

• Anyone on the current coaching staff – This search feels like it needs to be a clean break. I think Calbert Cheaney and Jordy Hulls are still highly regarded among fans as former Indiana players, and perhaps they’ll have a place with the next regime. But neither has been a head coach before. Indiana needs an experienced hand on the tiller. No one on the current staff fits the bill.

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