WolverineinSB

March 25th, 2017 at 7:16 PM ^

Explain why this isn't a home run hire. He's a hot name and just turned down his alma mater. A home run is the best available coach u can get and that's Miller for IU. Stevens, Donovan, and Alford were not possible and personally as an IU grad I would have hated Alford. He plays the exact same style as Crean and can't win in the tournament.

victors2000

March 26th, 2017 at 7:42 AM ^

He is a very good coach that has led the Flyers to some of their best seasons in basketball ever. He's passionate and I think that's what the Hoosiers need, especailly with them wanting to be a blue blood program again. I think Miller is a 'Home run' type of hire; obviously it remains to be seen but I'd rather go up against Alford instead of Miller.

jmblue

March 25th, 2017 at 12:49 PM ^

I think it's a good hire, but not quite ready to call it a home run.   (If we're defining "home run hire" as something like Michigan landing Harbaugh...)

He's done well at Dayton but they are historically a good mid-major.  We'll see how he does under the IU microscope.

 

snarling wolverine

March 25th, 2017 at 1:00 PM ^

I would define a "home run" as pulling a guy away from another Power 5 program or the pros.  The mid-major coaches don't always pan out.  Miller's résumé looks pretty good but is it better than Crean's was when they hired him?  Crean had taken Marquette to the Final Four.

 

 

TrueBlue2003

March 25th, 2017 at 2:29 PM ^

a home run but not a "grand slam". Archie is already better at Dayton than 80 percent of P5 coaches so not sure why you'd require a home run to be a P5 hire.  If that's his floor, and his ceiling is unlimited (which it is if he recruits at a high level) this is a better hire than anyone save Coach K or Roy Williams or Brad Stevens or John Calipari or any of the very few coaches with an even higher floor.  Since none of them were available, this is probably their best case scenario.  This is a better hire than Alford.  Alford isn't a good coach and that won't change.  He's a good recruiter but his bad coaching limits is ceiling.  Archie has no evidence of a ceiling yet.

jmblue

March 25th, 2017 at 1:12 PM ^

Still think that's high billing for a guy who is 4-4 in the NCAA tournament and lost in the first round the last two years.  His national rep is based mostly on one run to the Elite Eight (in 2014).   Indiana isn't just any program; they've won five national titles and view themselves as a blueblood.  It's tough to hit a home run in their ballpark.  

I think his track record shows promise but the jury's still out.  

 

jmblue

March 25th, 2017 at 1:23 PM ^

Right now his résumé reminds me of Shaka Smart's before Texas hired him: inherited a good mid-major program, kept it going, and had one memorable NCAA run that made him a hot name.  

I think it's a solid hire, but not a sure thing.  What makes him sure to succeed where Crean (who had a nice track record at Marquette) didn't?

 

Hotel Putingrad

March 25th, 2017 at 1:23 PM ^

let's not be so reflexively cynical. Brad Stevens was not coming. Steve Alford was untouchable because of the Iowa stuff. In theory, they might've had a shot at Marshall, but other than that this was the best they could've hoped for. Indiana is one of those classical blue bloods (like Arizona coincidentally). it's not at the UK/KU/Duke/UNC level. He's a good young coach just entering his prime. It's more likely than not that he will have great success at IU, with Izzo and Beilein nearing the end of the road. All he has to do is out-coach Matt Painter. He can handle that.

jmblue

March 25th, 2017 at 1:52 PM ^

Again - I don't mean to suggest he is a bad hire or that they should have gotten someone else.   He may turn out to be a great success.  I just don't think he's a sure thing to do so, as others here apparently do.

 

 

 

  

Maize in Cincy

March 25th, 2017 at 1:52 PM ^

Dayton has 5 tourney wins in the last 4 years.  They lost to Cuse last year who went on to final 4.  They lost to Wichita St in a close game this year who should have been a 3-4 seed.

Over the last few years they have had a ton of season ending injuries and a player death.  They've been left behind in the A10 while their main rival got into the big east.  Yet they keep winning.

Archie's got experience recruiting the midwest as a big 10 coach already.  He's considered one of the best in game coaches out there.

Not sure what else you would want.  Indiana winning 5 national titles is irrelevant, high school kids being recruited now don't remember any of that.  That's like saying Nebraska is a football powerhouse.

TrueBlue2003

March 25th, 2017 at 2:57 PM ^

make the tourney two of the last four years.  Had he kept making sweet 16s, he would not have been run out of town yet.  They would have been more patient with him if he wasn't so far away from getting to final fours in each of years 6-9.

Archie gives them as good a chance at competing for final fours as anyone available, save for maybe Gregg Marshall (who may not have even been available).  So it was a great hire.

El Jeffe

March 25th, 2017 at 1:20 PM ^

I kind of feel like it was a passed ball with the bases loaded in the top of the 11th to put your team up one run heading into the bottom half in game 5 of the LCS.

BursleyBaitsBus

March 25th, 2017 at 1:04 PM ^

He's a better in game coach than his brother. I think he can eclipse Sean's performance from Zona at IU. 

Idk if he can recruit as well as Sean tho. 

Blueblood2991

March 25th, 2017 at 1:25 PM ^

Came here to make a similar comment. Crean could recruit and develop players, but when it came to in-game coaching he was absolutely terrible. (Look at all the memes of his confused faces during games). I have to think that this was something that Indiana paid a lot of attention to during this hire.

IU has a strong enough program where it should recruit itself for the most part. I think he'll do a fine job.

Blueblood2991

March 25th, 2017 at 2:49 PM ^

You're absolutely correct that you can't quantify it, and it's very biased based on hindsight. It just seems that every IU game I've watched there's things he does that make you scratch your head.

His substitutions make zero sense. Uses timeouts willy-nilly. When they do use timeouts, half the time it seems like they can't even inbound the ball on a drawn up play. He panics at the first sign of adversity and switches to a 2-3 zone every single game, and if a casual viewer can see that, opposing coaches know it's coming. Clock management is terrible. The game at Crisler where we beat them 90-60 they were running full 30 sec sets like they were up by 10 points.

I could go on, but like I said having hindsight advantage makes it easier to pick out these things. 

TrueBlue2003

March 25th, 2017 at 3:11 PM ^

there really isn't a whole lot of in-game coaching necessary if you've prepared your team well and came in with a good gameplan for the opponent and your players execute it well (which is all on you as a coach).  There are tweaks you need to make in the game if your initial plan didn't work as well as you hoped, but again, that's a small subset of the X's and O's and is as much a correction of your initial gameplan as anything else.

Your X's and O's acumen (along with your ability to motivate them to execute) can fairly well be measured by how your teams perform relative to talent.  Miller's obviously been very good there.  The question is whether he can also recruit elite talent and that he can get to execute his good gameplans.  That's what makes an elite coach.