Exploring Indiana's Top Coaching Candidates and Choices

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00:00As you just heard me talking about who should Indiana hire and you had your top nine list,

00:07the top nine to Corsi replacements.

00:10The one I want to ask you about first is your ninth is shirts.

00:14He's been sick, right?

00:15Like you said, all kinds of health issues.

00:17He was like freaking out.

00:19He thought he had ALS.

00:20Everything else.

00:21Am I crazy?

00:22This is after Indiana State and he went to St. Louis.

00:25That's a very interesting choice.

00:27I think he's a hell of a coach, but is he okay with his health?

00:32Like I have to wonder, yeah, I'll be honest with you.

00:36I don't know, but he's been coaching and St. Louis has played good basketball for most

00:43of the Atlantic 10 season.

00:44They had struggled to get it going early on as he started at at SLU, but they played much

00:50better lately.

00:51They are not the best team in the Atlantic 10, but they are in contention.

00:56He was at the very bottom of the list, primarily because of the wonderful job he did in Terre

01:01Haute, which is only about an hour away from Bloomington, and he established himself as

01:08a significant coach there.

01:10I don't think that the list, I don't think that the search will get that far, but I thought

01:14it was worthwhile including him.

01:16But the names for me that stuck out, when I do a coaching list, I'm not giving you things

01:22that aren't going to happen, Scott.

01:25And you go back to what happened last March, or April, excuse me, when Cal decided that

01:32he was going to leave Kentucky and he was going to go to Arkansas on a Sunday evening,

01:37the night before the title game.

01:39And I went back to my hotel room and I wrote, look, Nados is not coming.

01:45You're not getting Scott Drew, and you're certainly not getting Dan Hurley after he

01:48won two in a row.

01:49So let's talk about what you can get.

01:51And my first name was Mark Pope, and that's who ended up being the coach four days later.

01:57And so that's what I was trying to do with Indiana, was, okay, who might you be able

02:00to get?

02:01And I led with T.J.

02:02Otzelbarger, knowing very well that the reports are out there that his buyout is significant

02:07and probably not manageable for Indiana.

02:11But I do think that it's certainly something worth exploring, because he's such a fantastic

02:18coach.

02:19And if that's not the one that works, then my second choice was Grant McCaslin at Texas

02:24Tech.

02:25What you have to understand, Scott, is that these things, these parallel moves, they don't

02:31happen in real life.

02:33I mean, to find one, you have to go all the way back to 2003, when Roy Williams left Kansas

02:40to go to North Carolina.

02:43And he did it at the behest of Dean Smith, who had to ask twice, basically, because remember

02:47the first time, when Bill Guthridge left the job, they asked Roy to come back, and

02:53he said, no, I'm sticking with my guys at Kansas.

02:56And then they came back after it didn't go well with Matt Doherty, and he said, okay,

02:59I'll come.

03:00And he had two great decades, two and a half great decades.

03:03But it was quite clear that that's not something that ordinarily happens.

03:08So you have to look a level down.

03:11And what I say about Indiana in this circumstance, with where college athletics have gone over

03:18the past three, four years, is that that level down isn't now necessarily a mid-major league.

03:25The financial differences now between the Big Ten and the Big 12 slash ACC are so significant

03:31that for all but the most glamorous programs, Duke, Kansas, Carolina, that constitutes a

03:37level down.

03:38And that's why McCaslin and Oselberger were at the top of my list.

03:43So it sounds to me, in Portuguese, like you're telling me that they can't afford the buyout.

03:51Meanwhile, Indiana pays their football coach as much as anyone in the country, and their

03:55NIL bucket is deep.

03:58So don't tell me that they can't afford him.

04:02But you're saying they don't want to pay that tap, then pay him.

04:05But if they really want a great coach, that's what they're going to have to do.

04:07So what you're saying is, in essence, skip it, go with the Texas Tech coach because he's

04:13a really good coach.

04:15If you say you're okay with paying the buyout, I'm all in, because he's going to win.

04:19Just do it.

04:20He is that good.

04:22TJ is that good.

04:23He is going to win.

04:25And he's got a great personality and an indomitable work ethic.

04:29He would be an absolute, just spectacular success at Indiana, exactly what they've needed.

04:36I had reservations about Arch Miller, although I thought he was a terrific coach and still

04:40do now that he's at Rhode Island, but I had reservations about how he would appreciate

04:45the fishbowl concept at Indiana.

04:48I don't have that concern at all about TJ.

04:50I don't have any concerns about TJ.

04:53At Iowa State, the concern I have is, is he ever going to get good enough players to win

04:58as big as he's capable of winning?

05:00And that may not be important to him.

05:03Or maybe he thinks that eventually it'll just keep working its way out until finally, like

05:07Scott Drew, he has those guys.

05:10But at Indiana, I have no doubt that he would get those players and he would win big.

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