You're listening to the Back Home Network presented by Home Field Apparel. Welcome back to Crimson Cask Ale and Clavio joining you. I'm going to bring Scott on here in just a minute. We recorded this podcast on Friday around noon as we were reacting to the news from the previous night of the decommitment of Liam Mcneely from the IU basketball program and kind of where that leaves
everything. It's obviously been a very strange last week, really last month for IU men's basketball as unfortunately things are not going well and we talk a lot about that on this upcoming podcast. We talk about kind of the overall set up of things with the basketball program. We talked about the some of the weird messaging that we've heard and I think just overall trying to get a a bead on how all of this reconciles with where the
fan base is at right now. And and you know we didn't dive a whole lot into some of the things that ended up coming up later on on Friday. There was a lot of media that came out on Friday that if you're an avid consumer of IU men's basketball materials, you may want to go check out. There was an interesting segment of a podcast from I think it was the The Sleepers podcast which I'd recommend checking out. There was a good segment with Rob Doster on field of 68 that's
worth checking out. There was a nice about 8 minute video from Sam Vicini which delved into some things and and left some things unsaid. But there were, there were some clear implications. I think all these are worth checking out if you're an IU fan right now. And there's others. I mean the podcast on the Brink with Zach Osterman's worth listening to. There's just a lot to consume and and to think about there's a
lot of different perspectives. We tried to capture some of that on this show that we're about to unveil. And you know, before we get into the bulk of this first, well, first of all I want to get the business out of the way. But I've got a couple of other quick things to add to the beginning of the conversation before we dive in to the bulk of
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We've got fleece day coming up soon we've got jerseys more shooting shirts, some other stuff coming out here soon. So all kinds of fun things go check that out. Use the code Home 23 get 15% off your first order. Also just a reminder, we're on sub stack crimsoncast.substack.com free subscription gets you an e-mail about once or twice a week with all of our podcasts and occasionally some links to articles or other items that we
found to be worthwhile. I'll try to put a couple of items from what I just discussed into that e-mail today, which you probably if you if you're already subscribed you've seen it and if not you will when you subscribe. You also have a paid subscription option. It's it's low cost, it's $5 a month, $50 a year if you want to financially support the podcast and we try to give those folks some extra items, some extra videos. In this e-mail today we've got Scott giving an IndyCar preview.
We're going to try to increase our overall IndyCar coverage throughout the course of this upcoming season as as it's starting tomorrow. The the Grand Prix of Saint Pete is happening on Sunday, so you got that coming, so you should go ahead and subscribe, it'd be great. We'll try to do some regular podcasts on that as well. Again, crimsoncast.substack.com. So a couple other items real quick that I wanted to hit on before we got started.
First of all, you know in this podcast that Scott and I did, we we didn't talk whole lot about Senior Day or the Michigan State game. And I, you know a quick preview on I guess one of those items is that we're still not sure and I'm recording this at about 1:30 on Saturday and and so maybe probably something will break right after I record this. But we're still not totally sure if Anthony Leal and Trey Galloway are planning on walking on Senior Day.
That was something that was was not revealed during Mike Woodson's press conference on Friday and we still haven't heard anything on social media at this point. So we we may see Trey Galloway and Anthony Leal talk to the crowd. We may not. We know we're going to see Xavier Johnson talk to the crowd and I'm assuming we're going to see Anthony Walker talk to the crowd, but we're not sure beyond that. You know, this is an interesting thing.
It's a little bit surprising, you know, not entirely shocking, but it's a little bit surprising. We don't know about either of those players and what their intentions are and and look, they could choose not to talk and Senior Day and and still not be back. They could choose to talk on Senior Day and still be back. I mean they're a bunch of stuffs on the table in terms of all of
this. But certainly you know this is both an artifact of kind of the weird spot college basketball's in right now with with not just the portal but the COVID year that a lot of players including Leo and Galloway are are still, you know, using or could use. It's, you know, there's all there's that, but there's also the clearly the very odd circumstances surrounding the IU basketball program right now.
So a lot to think about there and it will be interesting to see how it all plays out on Sunday. The game at 4:30, you know, hopefully fans go and are in full throated support of of all the players, but particularly the seniors and hopefully they're able to lead IU to a win against the Michigan State team. That's a really interesting case to take a look at. You know, Michigan State has had one of those seasons that is just kind of peculiar to watch.
They are 18 and 12 right now. They're ten and nine in conference. They had to squeak out a win against Northwestern earlier this week That ended a three-game losing streak, which included home losses to Iowa and Ohio State. Which is not what one might have expected out of Michigan State in any season, let alone a season when Iowa's very mid and Ohio State is not very good. But they did beat Northwestern, which was a good sign for them.
They look to be safely in the tournament largely because, you know, they've done just enough. They've yeah, they beat Baylor in a semi home environment. They beat Illinois. They've got some Rd. wins, although nothing that's like something you'd write home to your mom about. They've they've won at Maryland, at Penn State, at Michigan. They're one of those teams that has a really good defensive presence. They're they're 11th in Ken Palm
and defensive efficiency. They play a pretty slow down style. They really slow down their opponents. That's probably been one of the key items of of what made this made their defense so good. Similar to IU, they're not a team that that takes a lot of threes as a proportion of their overall offense dissimilar to IU. They do hit threes at a pretty good clip. They're about a 36% three-point shooting team, but their offense has just been kind of gunky all
season. You know, they've really only got one truly efficient scorer and and that's Malik Hall, the the senior post player and most of his work is getting done in the paint, but he's also been fairly effective. When he's gone out and shot threes, you know, they've they've not gotten the season I think that they would have wanted offensively out of Tyson Walker. They haven't gotten the season they would have wanted offensively out of AJ Hogard and they've just struggled.
I think from an identity perspective, a lot of the things you expect out of the Michigan State team, you haven't really seen out of this team. Now that said, they are one of the unluckiest teams in college basketball, which is something that we talked about in an earlier episode when we were talking about, you know, trying to figure out how teams rate
against each other. If you recall Maryland also a tremendously unlucky team and and as I mentioned when I was trying to explain that earlier the luck statistic in Ken Palm is a stand in for looking at your statistical performance as a team in each game and the computer saying based upon how you performed you should have this record and if you're above that in terms of wins that improves your luck standing and if you're below it it decreases your luck standing.
So it's luck is almost, it's a it's a catch all phrase and it isn't really luck as much as it is over or under performance according to what the computers would expect. And Michigan State has underperformed quite a bit. A lot of that is because they have had a lot of relatively close losses in in their season. They they lost by three and overtime in the first game of the season to James Madison, they lost by what, nine points to Duke on a neutral floor?
They lost by 6 to Arizona and on a neutral floor They lost by 7 to Nebraska on the road. They lost by three to Illinois on the road. They lost by three to Minnesota on the road. They lost by three at home to Ohio State. Like they played well enough that they probably could have either gotten closer or won almost all those games. But it didn't happen for them. And so does that mean anything? I mean it didn't against Maryland. Indiana was able to to play
well. And I think this is an interesting match up for Indiana because Indiana, I would argue is playing better right now on the whole than Michigan State is. And how much of that maintains in this particular game when Michigan State could really use the win just in terms of stabilizing their tournament resume And for seating purposes, it's going to be really fascinating to see. Michigan State has played really
well. They really only had, you know like four games this season where you could say, wow, you, you played significantly under under standards, actually maybe 5 and all of the more losses. But the vast majority of their games, they have been pretty impressive in terms of their overall performance. And what's going to be fascinating to me is how well do they perform offensively in a road game. They're only, statistically speaking, on pound. Ken Palm, they're only a four
point favorite. And on Torvik they're only a 3.3 point favorite. So the computer's kind of like Indiana in this one. And you know Michigan State not being able to hit threes consistently, they were two for 17 in that win against Northwestern.
They were two for 14 in their win on the road against Michigan. And that ultimately ends up being one of those deals where I don't know how Michigan State will necessarily perform when they come in to Assembly Hall and you know that has been, they've had luck. They have obviously beat Indiana last year you know at home, but they lost an Assembly Hall. They they lost 8269 at IU that was in what mid January last year but they beat Indiana by 15 at the Breslin Center in in 2022.
They they beat Indiana at home and they didn't play Indiana on the road that year. But you know, Michigan State hasn't been the unbeatable foe for Indiana that that they, you know, maybe had been consistently over the course of some time that, you know, Archie's last year they did sweep Indiana, but that Indiana by that point it already really started to go downhill and was losing games left and right.
So anyway, all that said, I am really curious to see how all of this plays out and what we're going to get out of both teams. I think for IU, whatever lightning they've managed to bottle over the course of the last couple of games or last three games in terms of offensive positivity has got to be where it starts and and they've got to play good
defense. If if you look at what Indiana's done in terms of their performance so far in this winning streak, they they were really impressive offensively against Wisconsin. They were really impressive offensively for the whole game against Maryland. They that they're adjusted offensive efficiency in that game was 130.3 and then even though they weren't nearly as impressive offensively on the road against Minnesota, they were very impressive defensively.
Minnesota, they they held to an adjusted defensive number of 79, which is ridiculously low. That's that is if you go all the way down the list they've only played one better defensive game all season and that was the game at home versus Maryland back in the beginning of December. So. Looking at all that. I think Indiana's got a fairly good chance to win this game if they can get the field goals to drop. And you know the last three games, Indiana's effective field goal percentage.
And for those who don't know what that is, effective field goal percentage is counting 3 pointers, 1 1/2 times what you would count 2 pointers to account for the fact that they're worth more points. Indiana's effective field goal percentage in the stretch of games from the Illinois loss all the way through to the Penn State loss on the road, hovered
somewhere between 45 and 52%. In the last three games, Indiana's effective field goal percentage has been 68% against Wisconsin, 62 1/2% against Maryland and 59.1% against Minnesota. So if the shots are falling, I like Indiana's chances in this one and we'll just have to see if they've, if they've crap captured some kind of a vibe from a shooting perspective that will allow them to take
advantage. Because at the end of it all, this ends up being kind of newfound strength for Indiana in terms of, hey, we can shoot the ball and it'll go in versus what has been an existing strength for Michigan State all season, which is their ability to play defense and and hold teams to not great shooting percentages. So with all that said, we'll see
what happens in the game. I hope if you're going that you have a good experience and hopefully Indiana's able to give the fans something small to cheer for as they close out the home campaign and get ready for the Big 10 tournament. We'll see what happens. Anyway, we're going to go ahead and go to Scott. We'll have probably a recap podcast coming on Monday sometime, so be sure to stay
tuned for that. And obviously we'll in that same period of time, we'll finally have a sense of what Indiana seating is going to be and what their pathway will be for the Big 10 tournament, which will take place starting on Wednesday. Although it sounds like now for Indiana, they've removed themselves from the equation for the first games that are played on Wednesday. So Indiana will start on Thursday.
We just don't know who they're going to play or what their seeds going to be. All right. Joining us now, Scott is with us, Scott. Good to see you. How you doing, hey? Man, how you doing? I'm doing fine. Interesting way to go into the last game of the season, obviously for IU as I just. Want to let you know that I'm committed to the podcast? Are you? I'll just choose my words very carefully. Are you sure? I don't know. I mean, Barstools call it. I'll see what they have to say.
Wow. Scott on Barstool is absolutely a scenario that we let's like an alternate universe that I would, I'd be frightened to see how it played out. Yeah, I mean. Definitely would hit the explicit button for. Sure. Anyway, we need to talk a little bit about what's going on with the IU basketball. Obviously, we've we've covered this quite a bit in various ways over the course of the last month, month and a half. And then obviously there's been
a lot of news that's come out. I talked about this a little bit at the beginning of the live pod on Wednesday with Zion Brown. We talked about the announcement that Mike Woodson was going to be coming back. It was an odd announcement in as much as you don't normally get those kind of announcements on a Wednesday in the middle of the week, 2 hours before a road game. Interestingly, Indiana played
well in that game. Then after the game, Mike Woodson like categorically refused to talk about his job or his position at IU despite the university putting out a statement saying that he would be coming back next year. I mean, anytime you have that vote of confidence as we know it in this business, it's normally worth talking about, but just categorically shut down that conversation, which is fine,
That's his prerogative. But then yesterday, about almost exactly 24 hours after that news leaks, the bombshell drops that Indiana's lone recruit for the 20/24/25 season, Liam Mcneely, the five star out of Montverde Academy, has asked out of his NLI and is asking to have his recruitment reopened with a heavy amount of speculation that he might be refocusing his efforts on going to Kansas, which is the school that he basically chose Indiana over back in the fall.
So now things are even in sharper relief for IU basketball As as of today, the 8th of March, Indiana has zero committed recruits coming in next year, an uncertain future in terms of their current roster.
They they could all be back. But even if they are all back, it's clear that it's not a very complete roster and you've got the very high likelihood that Khalil Ware is going to be leaving to go to the draft, and you have a coach who has essentially been assured of his spot as the head coach. But there, you know, with the number of questions that are surrounding the current state of the program, it's got a lot of fans on edge beyond that. I mean, it's just it's not a
great situation overall. Scott, I guess first of all, I want to get your general reaction to the Mcneely news. And then I wanted to do something and kind of lay out what we know and what we don't know, 'cause I think it's important that we split those things apart. But let me let me start with you and your thoughts on the Mcneely situation. Well, from a different point of view, it's it's a bummer and we've been here in certain spots
with IU basketball. It's not great, but it's like we should be talking about a three-game winning streak. Like we should be talking about a team that's trying to get to 500, trying to get ready for the Big 10 tournament. Like we're we're not talking about basketball. That's not great with the Liam Mcneely news, you know that. To me it's like the order of operations is really what's kind of damning here is you know kids opt out all of the time.
It's not great that he was a high level recruit that we were going after that Now the stacks up to basically we we took a bunch of home run swings for 2024 and we're going to come 04 you know 04 at the plate. But the fact that you have that Woodson announcement which I I I guess they had, I don't you wonder why they had to make it. It's like they make it the next day Mcneely makes his announcement like you you they might be unrelated and it could very well be their unrelated.
They feel related and it just feels very much like 1 begot the other which isn't a great a great vibe or a great look. And now you're left you know where there were already a lot of questions for next season. You know, with, and I'm, I'm quoting you on Twitter kind of like, well now we don't need to worry about who we're going to pair with Mcneely in the portal. It's like there's already like all the holes to fill. The trouble was Mcneely was a pig. You are already kind of plugging in.
Well, that pig's gone and and now instead of, you know, hitting a three run home run in the portal, you've got to hit a Grand Slam and maybe also hit a second home run and then maybe a triple of your third at bat. Like you've got to really go pretty wild with what you've got to do. It. It makes the path for a really successful season next year unbelievably narrow and you know, they've already shortened the recruiting window. It's just so it it's it's not awesome.
It's not great. And you know, it's things can be recovered. Things can be done. But you know part of the college basketball viewing and fun experience is, you know, you and I don't get into recruiting that much, but there is kind of the fun of like, oh, like there's recruits. I'm going to watch McDonald's All American a game and there is an Indiana player and like so to have none. Just to have no recruits, none to look at, nobody from Mr. Basketball, nobody from the
Indiana, Kentucky game. Like there's just no recruits coming in that that's that. That kind of takes away from even just part of the fun of college basketball, of getting excited about it. Not to mention the fact that for a team that currently needs, it seems to have a lot of holes that needs to be plugged. To have 0 answers on how it's going to be done is a little bit daunting as a fan.
Well, I think all of that is very well stated and I guess I'd add to it that it's just a weird spot for a program like Indiana or like Indiana thinks that it is perhaps would be the better way of putting it to be in at this point where you know you the the recruiting and the overall acquisition of players has been pretty uneven so far under Mike Woodson and that is really starting to look more like perhaps the norm. You know Indiana obviously when Woodson came in had to fill some
holes. They went out and got a couple guys in the portal. They they grabbed A recruit off the shelf that had backed out of a commitment at another university. That was the first year. Then you know they also brought in a player that had already been committed. They had a couple of players that they you know, they they wanted to try to recruit This year it felt like all of the efforts were around some really
big pieces. Obviously, you know, Mcneely, Boogie Flan and Derrick Queen, and, you know, it was a, it was a kind of a bitter consolation prize for Indiana, that they swung at three of those and we're only going to get one of them. Now they've swung at three of them and they've gotten none of them.
And the idea that that's it, there's no backup plan, There's nothing like on the horizon, I think for a lot of fans is it should be. And it and it is rightfully concerning and I think for those people who are watching the trajectory of the program very closely, what we've been talking about over the course of not just the month but really the last year is that the system that Indiana's playing isn't that attractive right now to a lot of recruits.
It's attractive to post players and I think that's why you get a Khalil Ware and it's why you get a a Malik Renew in Mackenzie. And Baca is kind of a unique case which we will kind of put aside for a second. But you know the the juice that you would have in terms of trying to bring people in, a lot of it is, is it's not just nil dollars, it's it's about fit as
much as anything else. People talk, we talked about this before, but people talk about like Dalton Connect like why did he go to Tennessee. You know Indiana was interested in him and he didn't even take a visit. I don't believe even if he did, if it was an official one. It's not just about, hey, here's X number of dollars in NIL, it's about what's the fit, how are you going to play within this
system. And as we've talked about, it's hard to reconcile what you see out of players, freshmen and sophomores especially that are in Indiana's system and how much they are struggling to contribute. Or how long of a in the Mackenzie and Bacco's case, how long it took them to get up to speed versus what you're seeing at Purdue, at Illinois, where not only are you seeing those programs integrate freshmen, get them into their system, but
you're also seeing transfers. You know, Purdue has thrived this year with a transfer that they got out of the Missouri Valley Conference who has played a big role for them. Illinois, same thing, you know Marcus Damask came out of the the Missouri Valley and it's like it's the the system doesn't seem to be attracting even mid level players who are looking to take a jump up, let alone top level players who might be looking at a place like Indiana as where they'd want to go.
And I guess what worries me now, you've left everything to do in the portal. You don't get the long tail development like you were talking about. The Portal hasn't been around for that long, but we do have all of this data that it's not a particularly reliable place to go if you're having to rely on it to essentially bring a new team or large parts of a new team in.
And the idea that especially you're going to go get a starting point guard that can play it at a big 10 caliber level throughout the course of the season in the Portal seems fanciful given that those are among the most valuable players in basketball. And there are offensive systems out there and teams looking for players like that who would be much better suited in most cases to allowing those players to showcase their skills to get to the next level.
And yes, you can point to Jalen Hutchefino and say, well look what we did with him, but I don't know if that's enough. I think it might have been enough coming off a season where you were a four seed in the NCAA tournament and finished second in the Big 10. I don't know if that's enough.
If you're coming off a season where your offense is hovering around 100th in Ken Palm, you're around 100th in Ken Palm overall, and you missed the NCAA tournament, like at some point it's not about the nil dollars or what happened two years ago. It's about what are we dropping you into now as a Portal player? I think if you're an IU fan, there's real cause for concern because there doesn't appear to be a clear pathway towards reconstituting a roster that already has some holes.
And that's assuming that nobody else leaves. So I think there's there's two other things here and each of them are are I think real problems where you kind of have diametrically opposed things that both need to be done kind of at the same time. So when you look at you know, what needs to be done in the portal, this is something Woodson has talked about that you know, you know that the team needs more continuity and a little more leadership.
And so on one hand you can think, all right, you know in the portal you need to go after you know juniors and seniors and and guys who can be leaders. You know, one of the troubles is that if you you're going to need to get five or six guys in the portal who are going to be big time contributors next year. The idea that they're going to all have, you know, Jelly and continuity is, is is probably really hard. You're going to have the same problem next year.
But if you do go with the leadership aspect, you're just perpetuating a cycle where now you need to get six more guys the next year or you can go and get maybe some sophomores in the in the portal. But now you're going to have the same, you know going off of what Woodson has talked about with leadership, you're now going to have that leadership issue.
But to me the the bigger issue that I see is something I listen to the assembly call radio show last night and something that Joe brought up. He kind of brought up his like the the doomsday scenario. But I'm going to take a step back, you know when when they announced that Woodson was coming back. I think we can all agree that this season has been you know various stages of disappointment where where where it files and that continuum, it depends on
where you see things. But you know this is not gone well and I I firmly believe that you know if they're going to bring Woodson back there does I feel like need to be some kind of change to the staff in my mind you can't just bring just run it all back so you know if you.
But on the flip side, as Joe was mentioning on the podcast last night, like if you start having to do some staff overhauls, you're now when you lose an assistant, you lose all the relationships that that assistant had with recruits and
transfers. And now not only are you trying to work the portal in a 45 day manner while fighting other teams, if you're also trying to hire two assistant coaches in that process, that becomes an even more complex and a a harder, you know, a harder problem to solve. And I view this as a real problem.
It's like, so now you're looking at it as, like, you know, if you just bring back the entire staff with the idea of like we need continuity to at least solve this portal problem, it's like okay, but you're are you solving the problems that caused a really poor season this year? But if you do what you need to do, which is maybe make some staff changes, you're now making the the ability to get the players you need this offseason even more difficult, which may not build the foundation that
new staff needs next year. It's like I I don't they're they're kind of in a spot where they've got to pick one or the other, but they're both kind of the the worst option for each option. There's a whole separate conversation to be had about 2526 right now. You know and this is, this is where so one of the. So first of all I think it's important to emphasize for people listening to the show, We've got people who are very
online who listen to the show. They're on Twitter, they're on the Discord, they're they're very plugged in to the chatter online. We've also got a lot of listeners who aren't plugged into those things. And I and I think it's important for the people who aren't plugged in online who might be thinking about all this, like why do you guys keep talking about Woodson being in trouble?
Because a lot of that discourse hasn't really soaked in outside and and and I to some degree think that, you know, you can't say that there's a a clear pathway for why we're already at the conversation of Woodson being potentially under fire to the point that Indiana felt the need.
And when I say Indiana, I mean Indiana really loosely like people, people who are involved with Indiana decided to put out an unnamed statement, not even a statement, but just kind of a confirmation that Mike Woodson would be back For a lot of people. They're like, well, this season's been a bit tough, but it's not like they have a losing record like Archie Miller had in in his last year.
It's not like, you know, there's clear, like ironclad discontent like Crane had in his last year and yet we've seen booing at Assembly Hall already. There's all these things that have occurred for I think for a lot of people who are observing the program closely, the concern is not so much the results this year alone. That is certainly part of it. The larger concern is the real lack of clear pathway or plan or
strategy moving forward. And and I think just taking next year into account and this idea that we're going to plug a bunch of holes and there's going to be 0 recruits. You know maybe you'll get, you'll pick someone off that decommits somewhere else perhaps. But again, you've the chance that you've built a long term relationship with that player and you're really thinking through how they fit into the the organic chemistry of IU
basketball I'd say is low. Maybe you get lucky and someone that you spend a lot of time on the committed somewhere ends up decommitting because a coach gets fired or whatnot. That's there is a possibility there, but more likely than not it's a situation like Tamar Bates where oh here's a five star that's available because there was a coaching change at Texas. We're going to grab him.
You saw how, and you know Tamar had other things going on, but you saw how like that was not a great fit organically when you compared it to, say, Jalen Huchefino and the way that that recruitment went. So you don't have a player that you've recruited like? That coming in. Or even like, I mean just another example like Malik Renew who has worked out but like his first year was still rocky.
So if you get that, you know you get a Malik Renew type next year, it's like, is that enough to get you out of the hole you've dug? Because it it could be a bit of a project. And the point is, the point is, you know, next year there might be the ability to do some patchwork with the portal. Maybe you get lucky. You know Mike Weymouth from the Ex's and Joes on Twitter laid out kind of from a production perspective what Indiana would
need to do in the portal. And it's daunting, you know, I mean even for a program that suppose you know has the nil resources that IU has. IU doesn't have the market like the brand value to go and just get anybody that they want. They're not North Carolina. They're not a tough program like Arizona that's you know, a a single digit seat every year and and plays you know this attractive offense.
They're not Kansas, they're they're, you know, Indiana is just kind of this sea level program right now. And that might be being charitable, quite frankly, because sea level programs probably make the tournament
more than twice in seven years. So you end up with this situation where you are banking largely on not just going into the portal and getting what you need and having those players immediately contribute at a level that is significantly above what you've seen out of this year's team. You've blamed if you're Mike Woodson.
You've blamed the lack of continuity and all the fresh faces this season on your team not playing well and now you're going into a season where you'll have less continuity in most cases. You know it's certainly you're not going to have whatever continuity you had at the at the point guard position if you lose Khalil where you're having to
break somebody new in there. But what worries me even more the next year is without any freshman that you have cultivated relationships with and really thought about their long term placement within the program, you have an even weaker foundation for the following year. And the lack of success in recruiting and the lack of strategic effectiveness in who you've targeted in recruiting over the course of the last couple of seasons.
I mean, because let me think about it, the recruits that Indiana's pulled in that they had a longer tailed recruiting relationship with. I mean well, Gabe Cops, who's struggled to contribute offensively at least in terms of statistics. CJ Gunn, who has barely played. Caleb Banks, who has barely played. I mean, Malik Renew's been a success and Mackenzie and Bacco's talented enough that he's been able to round into
shape on the floor. But you know the other players that you've been relying on. But renew. And Malik were not long term recruit. I'm like, well your no, your point, your point's to it's a good point but but but even with that it's like OK, take Malik Renew out of that equation. You just don't have a lot of
that stability. If that's really the problem, you're really in trouble I think in terms of trying to create some kind of organic chemistry between your players and your coaching staff on the fly in the portal. When generally speaking, the players that are coming in from the portal are not sure things as we've seen with several other programs, there are success stories, but there's a lot of non success stories that we don't talk about.
And and something more to that you know that that Twitter post about you know what we would need to get in the in the portals I've seen some of this. I've heard people talk about it the last 24 hours about, you know what we what we would need to get and how we need to do And just you know if we could dial back the expectations for next year a little bit you know can we at least get to like a 10 or 11 seater.
Just getting the you know and and this is where I have struggle with it is again for those who are not in the online discourse I'm kind of like foot in, foot out. I'm not as deep into it as others. But you know, all I can say is that the some people it is not to do it now this different time for a different debate, but like the fact is some people have checked out like some. People, a lot of a lot of people have checked out. Some people have been like I I think we need to move on and
that has happened. And as I've said many times, once fans cross that Rubicon, rightly or wrongly, you don't get them back by just performing at AC level. You have to over perform and what I mean by that is like you know last year you're you know fourth in the Big 10.
You you go a four seed in the NCAA tournament you don't make it to the Sweet 16. Like that's not an over performing year like over performing is winning the Big 10 making the Elite 8 having a real shot at a final four maybe make the final four. Like this is where I think that I I get concerned just from a wanting the the program to be successful and healthy and vibrant is you have a a portion of the fan base that is. That is out.
Right now and I continue to bring this up when people kind of discuss like all right, let's just, you know we dial back expectation, we can just kind of you know steady things for next year and then move it for the year after. It's like this is how you get into the problems of the Archie
problem. These are all these problems we get into is like at some point you have to over perform you might have to do it two years in a row to get those people back and I think that's that's the issue is all of the things that we're looking at next year now without Mcneely it it's kind of like can we just struggle to get to here And I'm like that getting to that minimum threshold is not good enough you
you have to over perform. And you know the last thing I'll say too is just, you know, as it it's also tough just because you know again part of college basketball is the fun of recruiting and like you know, getting a five star recruit buys you, you know, it buys you some of that window of time where it's like hey you just you can talk about the future and you'd like you've lost all of that now. Well, yeah, I mean, you know, here's the thing.
I think that we too easily sometimes allow this idea that fans are the problem, especially with Indiana. Like there's been such an unbroken chain of a lack in the problem, lack of success over the course of the last 25 years, and it always seems to boomerang back to this idea that fans are the problem. You're talking about fans getting disengaged. You know, the the idea to me that fans are at the root cause of like the Mcneely departure is is about the dumbest thing I've heard spoken.
That is, that's a coaching thing. I'm sorry. You know, players of that caliber don't decommit because of what's going on on on social media. And if and if you think that to borrow something that you used to say for years on the podcast, you're either lying or you're stupid. I mean that that is, that is, it's amazing to me. I think more than anything else. And this is more of a macro
thing. Over the last month and 1/2 as as IU has failed to meet what I think we're pretty low reasonable expectations for a program that has the type of of recruited talent that's currently on the roster. The amount of, oh, you people are, you know, you fans or you people that are talking about this online or or you're causing the problem and everything would be fine if people would all just get It's like that's not the way that it works.
OK? Fans are reacting to what they're seeing and what's being put in front of them and they're not a unified. It's not like there's a hive mind that, you know, this is not some kind of gestalt consciousness where you know, all the fans just think automatically the same way. There are, you know, from from the 19 year old on campus who's just being introduced to IU basketball for the first time, to the 46 year old living in Noblesville who's been watching for 20 some years and hasn't
seen any any success. To the 75 year old retiree living in Scottsdale who's seen it all, like everybody to some degree is watching all of this, processing it. They're seeing what's going on on the floor game after game. They're seeing the the weird trajectory that recruiting is taking and and that the overall discourse around the program has has taken because of the stuff that's going on on the floor. And a lot of them are just like, you know what this is?
I've seen so many people the last week even before the announcement that you know that that Woodson was going to come back and then the Mcnealy de commitment, which I'm still not sure if those are connected in terms of timing or if that was entirely incidental. I've seen so many people just because of the nature of the way this season has played out in in the context of the last 1020 years say I can't do this.
I'm I'm tired of giving this much attention this much money to to focusing on it. And you know at some point if you if you and you know we we see this with some of the statements or lack thereof. You know you you know for for there to be in the press conference today like well I'm not going to talk about recruiting. It's like really like the most of the season has been predicated on this idea that the problem is guys not hitting
shots. So you go recruit a guy whose primary thing is to hit shots and now that player is no longer coming. Of course people are going to want to hear something on the recruiting front. You just got a public vote of confidence in your job from your employer, which is never a good sign in any sporting environment. Can you imagine? Remember the last time that a a vote of confidence for anybody's job in sports coaching came out and things were good?
Like the Miami Heat aren't coming out and be like, hey, we're going to keep Spolstra for next. Year. So. So if it's not, if it's not Mike Woodson's job to talk about those things, someone needs to say something. Because what you're what you're relying on at this point is fans being given occasionally a fun product, but more often than not
a not a fun product to watch. And you know you, you've got fans who spent tons of money on tickets, far more than what you see at other Big 10 schools for the same product because of the brand, because it's supposedly special and they're not being given a return and they're being asked to emotionally invest in something. And they are. And then when that doesn't work out, they're told, well, shut your mouth, you don't know what you're talking about and you're
the problem. That's like that's that's how you lose a generation, which has been happening, and I'm not, this is not even a matter of saying, well, they need to make a change. It's that right now. If you're an IU fan, I think you are desperately looking in many, in a lot of cases, I want to speak for everybody.
But I, the people that I'm seeing online, the people that I've talked to, they're looking for a reason to remain engaged because they've watched what looked like a positive trajectory for the program take 180° turn. And they're basically being told, well, you need to not worry about any of that, just sit in your seats and cheer and that's that. And I I hate to say it like that's not the era that we're in. Like that's that's not how audiences work.
And I feel like Indiana basketball is even an even worse case scenario now than it was when Crean got fired because at that point there was at least some success to point back to. That was at a level where you could say, well, look, we've hit, we've hit some pinnacles. They're not the pinnacles we want. It's like they've been no pinnacles hit. You know, going to the NCAA tournament, that's not success at IU. That's just, that's supposed to be what you do and that that
gets pointed to as well. You know that that's a justification for XY or Z is kind of. Baffling at this point. So I'm going to take an even more like macro 30,000 foot view of this. But to to the fan engagement thing is, you know, I've been thinking about this for a while is like just kind of like, you know, are are you taking it seriously? Because I take it seriously like. And are you not you like you as the university. Are you, are you guys really taking this seriously?
And, you know, I have no stats pulled up. I'm just kind of thinking of teams in the top of my top of my head, like, you know, UCLA basketball. It's like over the last 20 years. Are they really taking it seriously? I bet I would just like probably not. Like probably in the last 1050. It doesn't feel like they're taking it as seriously as they used to. It's like Alabama. I don't think they did. And now I think they do like Oregon.
I think they did for a while. I'm not sure they do anymore. You know, and this is all based and you can go micro and be like they made this good decision that that bad decision. But I think if a UCLA podcast is having the same discussion, they said Indiana, you think they're taking it seriously. Like, no, they're probably not. And you look here, it's like, do you think North Carolina takes basketball seriously?
I do like and and yes there are coaches who've been good and bad and like you get the right coach and it and it it it makes things different. But this is where I just kind of step back and, you know, I'm not picking one decision here, but just kind of an overarching, like part of me is honestly like is is this something that is that that the university is taking as seriously as I do because the the checks keep coming, you know, the bills keep coming due.
And like we always talk about like, you know, what is deserved? Like are you deserve this, deserve that. Like I know that I'm deserved to to pay the bills for the tickets when they come every year. The prices don't ever go down. And there is a part as a fan where it's like, are are you taking this seriously? Because we're not having the results of a program that takes it seriously. Now you can be taking it seriously and make a lot of wrong decisions.
And it's like are you doing things the correct way? But it it does feel like, you know, when programs feel like they're taking it seriously. Like I said with like, you know, UCLA at times, Oregon at times, Alabama now, you know when they start taking it seriously, like they pop. They just, they they pop and and you see them hit here and there. They don't all win a title. They don't all make an Oregon
made a final four in that run. But it's like there was five or six years where Oregon was like, wow, that's a real force. They're doing something there. And it's just that's kind of where I go back to like it's just I I know people are taking it. I I know people are trying and like I don't think they're just fluffing this off. But it it it is something that has crossed my mind.
I think sometimes it's too easy to assume when we say are they taking it seriously, we're talking about a unified organization that's running things. And I don't know that that's necessarily something that can
be assumed. I mean, and I don't want to get into this now, but if you understand how this communication generally works in college sports, a lot of weird stuff that's happened over the last couple of weeks that has me scratching my head a little bit about, you know, the idea of IU as a unified entity moving forward with all of this. It's just it's a little bit off from what I would normally
expect even. And I look, I think the biggest exemplar of that you're going to, if you feel the need to, in year three of a coach, come out and say he's going to be back, you obviously somebody has realized there's a problem. Well, normally I think in that case, like there needs to be a road map put out there by somebody like fans. This is, this has not been a successful season. We understand that. There's concerns. We have full faith. Here's stuff that's being done.
Maybe that's coming at the end of the year if if the statement on Wednesday was supposed. Yeah 'cause it's so much I like you got MIL at the end of the. Year. Well, that's. Well, no, you're right. I mean, but but you know the idea that that statement that came out Wednesday again with which wasn't a statement, it was essentially just a message that was sent out to media saying Mike Woodson's going to be back next year.
The idea if that if the idea behind that was that that was going to tamp down the the angst and and the irritation that a lot of fans both online and offline are expressing in the apathy that has started to well up. If that was the idea that that was going to fix that it's actually had the opposite effect, especially coming so proximally to Mcneely decommitting, you know, so there's got to be something else. And I just at this point, this is a weird thing to be watching.
And you know, you and I have covered IU basketball for over 15 years now doing this podcast. We've seen a lot of weird stuff. You know, this is really starting to remind me of like the the end of Davis's interim year or or that period of time like an O four O 5 after Greenspan got hired where, you know, it felt like the the train was leaving the station and they were going to move on from Davis and then they didn't.
And you know what? The reason I bring those times up is that there was a clear within Indiana Athletics and the broader Indiana administrative landscape, historically speaking, there was a lack of coherent planning and strategy, you know, and at the time you got to remember, like you had Miles Brand who was trying to grandstand his way into an Ivy League job and firing Bob Knight was part of that. But hiring Mike Davis was part of that too.
And kind of undercutting the existing power structure of the athletic department was part of it. And that's why a lot of those decisions that happened over that 4-5 year span from like 2000 to 2005, you go back even extended out to when Samson got hired, like 2000 to 2007. You look at it in papers like what the hell was going on during that time. And you know, Indiana didn't even have a full time athletic director during part of that time after Michael nearly got fired.
No relation. And that, sorry, you're a fine, Siri. Don't worry. You know they end up bringing a vice president from elsewhere on campus to come in and run athletics for like I think 18 months, you know? So, and the reason I bring all that up is I can't remember a general vibe around IU athletics being this disorganized, at least around basketball since
then. And it's it's so jarring coming off of what happened with football, where it felt like there was finally a clear vision about what IU Athletics wanted Indiana football to be. And they went out and found a guy who they could build around and they gave him financial resources. And obviously we have to see what happens with IU football, but it feels like there's a pathway towards success there. Here, like with basketball, it
just feels so disjointed. And so there's there's such inconsistent philosophies right now, and it shines through in what you're seeing on the floor. It shines through with the recruiting process. It shines through with the reliance on the portal, which I never, I never thought of all things IU would consciously choose to become a school that relied on the portal to fill roster holes.
I mean, obviously not mean you're going to fill bits and pieces as you can, but to fill this many potential roster holes with Portal players, that just smacks of there's there's not a clear consensus about what direction the program is going and and so it's hard to even say, like are they taking it seriously, 'cause I don't know who they is at this point. It's fair and and you're not. You're right, this is a one of the most awkward times we've had cloudy as to where we're going.
And it's it, you know, the two things are one, it's wild because again, the whole idea with bringing back a former night player and somebody from that era was that you're going to bring some of that night lineage with you. And Night lineage is about you know building players developing players, seeing people grow and having continuity and kind of a system It it's it's wild none of that is happening and that we are at this point with you know that was one of the selling
points of a of a night person. The other thing that I would say we'll have more time to talk about in the offseason, it's just you know the, you know a lot of people are trying to find you know what's the the positive way out if we lower expectations for next year and this and that. I just I hate to be this guy but I just want to lay out that like what is at the feet here too that they could be going is like next year could be really funky
like could be really toxic. You already have fans who are unhappy and voicing in an assembly hall. And I I will tread lightly here, 'cause I I I don't I don't Boo at games. I don't like booing players at all. I think it's fair to kind of Boo coaches. They're adults. They get paid. It's fair to kind of Boo what what you're seeing. I'm not a fan of booing players even at the NBA level. I just don't it's not my style.
That said, you know, I, I, I'm hopefully you can understand my point of making it across like next year if you have, if you go out and get seven or eight guys in the portal and things start to go sour next year, it could get really toxic because people are already annoyed. They're going to be like, hey man, you had a chance to make a change last year, you didn't do anything and now we're with this.
And then you know guys like, you know, Will Sheehy who had been around for four years, Yogi Ferrell, guys who you have a relationship with. You know, at least it's like, hey man, I'm pissed at what's going on. But like I love those guys on the floor. If you just have a bunch of guys who were just all new, just a whole, and I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but it's like it could just get really toxic really quickly.
And it's just like this is as it's like half this podcast has been you and I kind of lamenting the break in the IU fan base between Davis and Knight. And then it's like did they do the right thing with Samson? And then it's like with Crean, it was coming back and then it became the pro Crean, anti Crean faction. It's like we continually find ways to fracture and break this fan base into different
sections. It's almost like the spider man meme where like at some point we're going to come around like, whoa, are you pro knight? Anti queen pro Woodson are like, Oh no, we're both, we're both anti Woodson, pro queen one like, anti knight, pro knight. Like it's like we we've broken into 35 different factions. But like I could see next year being another year where we just break the fan base in half
again. Yeah, I mean, I don't think I would say that that was hyperbole or that you were overdoing it. If we hadn't already seen fans in the middle of February booing players, you know in the in the middle of a big 10 game that Indiana end up going on and losing it's man, I don't know. I I'm at a point right now where I'm. I'm fascinated by where things are currently AT. And again, like, if you've gotten tired of this conversation, I don't blame you.
I'm kind of tired of talking about it because I don't know what I mean. Yeah. But so much of the problem has been like Indiana has continued to struggle to find the right fit. And if you listen to XS and Joes, which I recommend, everybody does. They spend so much time rightfully talking about the the actual successful programs. The Villanovas. The North Carolinas.
The the the Kentucky's the, you know, the the Michigan's over the course of the last 15 years and and what they've done and what patterns have existed with the coaches that they've had and the players that they've brought in and the way that those players have meshed together and that just isn't here and it hasn't been here for a while with IU and it can get solved. And there's the thing I think it's important to keep in mind, like college sports in particular, it's.
Yes, there's there's certain program aspects that matter, but so much of it is about the coach. So much of it is about the coach's ability to understand the landscape, to navigate the different things you have to navigate in terms of dealing with players, developing players, having a system together that's going to be compatible with those players and also work in the larger framework of college basketball. And the, you know, a lot gets
pinned on programs. This, you know, we've heard this about IU, like this program's over the hill. Or, you know, like it's no longer a special program. And it, you know, you can't with any intellectual honesty say that, oh, it's a program thing. When you can look around at all the programs that were in the dumps or had, you know, declined, who then hired the right coach and then things took off. Purdue's a great example.
Like Purdue basically abandoned their basketball program for five years at the turn of the century, and then they made the right hire. As it turned out. And with a couple of bad years in the middle, that's made Purdue as successful, if not more so than they were during the Katy era. Villanova's another one. Villanova had success in the 80s. They tailed off. They were kind of in the pits in the in the early 2000s. They make their right hire,
suddenly you're off. You can say the same thing about Virginia, you can say the same, there's there's several other programs that you can point to. And and so that's where this is where I think having the situation with Woodson is so difficult. And again we're talking about it because the universities thought that it was important enough that they had to come out and make a statement slash non statement that Woodson was going to be retained.
So it's not like all of this stuff is just being invented. But you know this is where having a former player who's got a lot of NBA head coaching experience is just a it's a difficult thing to try to parse because it's hard to look at the
results and the trajectory. More importantly, and I think it's, I think it's the, you can look at the results this year and it's one data point, but the trajectory as it's currently on paper and the problems that have contributed to this season and why it hasn't been as successful, it's hard to reconcile that with a clear vision of success. And at the end of it, it, it really does come back to whoever the head person is and what they're doing.
And again, we have that example here at IU with Terry Moran. You know, if you were following like Indiana women's basketball was a nothing program and you know, Kurt Miller did some good things to kind of get the beginnings going. But Terry Moran's taking it to an entirely different level and has had this sustained pattern of success over the last six seasons. And that I think illustrates the point. Is that still a possibility
under Mike Woodson? Maybe, but it seems progressively less likely in terms of the, the, the, the pieces that are currently there, the pieces that we know are coming in, the pieces we know have to come in. And the examples that have been given to us over the course of the first three seasons in terms of how these things are likely to be managed. And so I think if you're an IU fan who thinks that Woodson deserves a fourth year, that's
fine. But I would recommend that perhaps you think about, OK, what are the metrics of success that Indiana should be focusing on and how is how is this coach and this staff addressing those in a way that seems like tangible progress? If you're someone who thinks that a change needs to be made, I think you've probably crossed a threshold where it's, as you said earlier, going to be hard
to bring you back. It's and and that does create the fishers in the fan base that you just referred to that are real hard to fix. I mean, when a lot of people lost faith in Cream about halfway through the 1415 season and it never got repaired, even with a Big Ten title and a Sweet 16 appearance. And that does not seem like a likely scenario for next year for this particular program at this particular point in time. It's a good point that you make.
I and it's something that unfortunately Indiana's just kind of stuck with now. Yeah, I mean I I think at that point we're, yeah, I I think we're kind of belabouring all
points at this point. But it's a it's it's it's a bummer and you know it's this was you know you and I talked about it last year that it's it's great to go out big game hunting and I'm happy they tried and I think it's good and it's something that Indiana is this the you know the take away from this shouldn't be all right we got to be gonna go out for five stars Like no you you can continue to do this You just need to have backup plans and you know then you also need to
again I I have no idea nor do I care Like you know why Mcneely did what you know decided to decommit what his reasoning was. But you know once you commit Mcneely you know this isn't I just continue to use the NBA because that's where Woodson come from and it seems to be where a lot of his philosophies still evolved from. It's like this isn't the NBA where like once you sign you know once you sign Carmelo to an offer sheet like he's going to be here next year.
Like you know the the you can decommit from these things. Like are you continuing to keep touch with this Mcneely
throughout the year. I'm I'm assuming they did but they obviously didn't do enough or he didn't like what he was seeing and or hearing because he is now decommitted and and so but all of that said it's like you got to have a plan BI think that's where you and I you know this shot across the bow yesterday was like all right well whatever was left of plan A is gone and it's too late to get Plan B in because there is no
more recruiting. And you really don't have time to do that because you know now you got to hit the portal hard And so you know we we shall see but it's going to take and you know the last thing I will say is like it's it's going to take a maniacal amount of work to get this done. You know when you look at this like you're you're looking at, you know there are 10 players coming back for next year. One of those is Khalil Ware who who should go to the NBA.
Like anybody who says, oh, maybe Ware wants to come back like no, Ware should be going to the NBA. So you effectively have nine players coming back. One of those is Caleb Banks, who I I'm assuming is still a player on the. He was he. He came in at the end of the Minnesota game. We actually saw him on the floor. So yeah, I was, I was pushing a 103 fever that night. So I'm. I'm not sure, but so. All right, great. So so we we can count on him for two minutes.
We're up by 20 but you have you know him and CJ Gunn and Caleb Sparks or or Peyton Sparks are three of those players who who are barely playing in games. So you're down to like 6 players so you need to get you know six or seven players. It it's just it's a lot of work to be done. You have you have to start short shoring up 2024-2025 recruiting. You probably need to make a couple of staff changes.
Like this is a a ton of work for a coach who has has made some good strides, made some good portal moves, but doesn't doesn't always give off the appearance that he's burning the the candle on both ends at all times. That's just going to have to change. This is going to have to be the hardest he's ever worked or the most strategic he's ever worked in in college basketball.
And he's got to figure it out. He's got to figure it out unbelievably quick because I think the portal now is like 45 days, right? Yeah, it's, it's 15 days less than it than it than it has been in the past. And so that's. Right. The last thing I know, I'm cutting you off. Like the last thing is, you know, for those who are not fully engaged in the portal, it's like the idea that just, you know, all of the portal doesn't start until the end of the year and we'll just wait till then.
It's like, I'm assuming half of the guys have already who are going to be in the portal already have a good idea of where they're going. Like there's already conversations going play it. Players have agents now like the the all the rules are out the windows like it is, it is all free games. So the idea that it's like, oh, we'll just wait till the end of the year and figure this out, like all of these discussions are already happening.
So it's kind of like we don't know it yet, but I think the die is already cast as to whether we're going to win or not in the portal. Yeah, I know I and it goes both ways. And you know, if Indiana's been doing their due diligence, they've been reaching out as well. And look, magic can happen. But I think that there is justifiable concern from fans who are looking at a roster where you're going to lose your most productive player regardless.
You're going to lose. The point guard that the head coach has now multiple times said is the linchpin to everything. And you're you don't have a recruit, you have no recruits coming in, you have no four year or Mcneely was going to be a four year player, but you have no freshman coming in and you're going to rely on essentially trying to get people to come here again to play in an offense that isn't very attractive unless you are a post player.
And that is, that is daunting for any fan who's try. And And again, IU fans are not unreasonable. There are entire message boards, entire websites devoted solely to recruiting and the idea that you just focus on the team that's on the floor. That hasn't been college fandom for decades now. It's about the recruiting process. It's about who's in the pipeline. It's about how those players are developing and that there's there's such little to grab
onto. If you're an IU fan in those areas that yeah, you're at a point where what do you do? You're just kind of you're you're you're you're again, you're being told to just sit there and and trust in the process which is probably going to lead to some angst on the part of a bunch of people. Anyway, let's go ahead and wrap up. We'll see what happens Senior Day coming up on Sunday, and apparently other than Xavier Johnson, we don't know who is walking.
Mike Woodson, in His press availability on Friday, said that he hadn't had a conversation with Trey Galloway or Anthony Leal yet about whether they were going to be taking part. Which to be fair, Chloe Moore McNeil on the women's side also waited until she made that decision. Like right before the Senior Day
for women's basketball. But still, given the general concern around everything, it would be nice to have a clearer sense of what to expect, you know, even just out of Senior Day, let alone the rest of things for IU basketball moving forward. And I don't say that from my perspective, I'm not on anything, but if you're fans, I think you're probably like, I'd like to know a little bit more about what's going on moving forward because I'd like to know how to feel. I have one last question.
Like it it feels like it's 17 and 13 we're we're going to be getting an NIT berth or or possibly in the NIT like our we're. We're still on the outside of NIT Bracketology. Really. So you you don't you don't see us hosting a game and having to deal with funky, funky vibes at A at an Assembly Hall NIT game? I mean, is it possible, you sure. I mean if Indiana, if they beat Michigan State, they might move into a position where they could host a game.
But I mean if you're on the, if you're on the lower edges of the bubble in the NIT, you'd probably be going somewhere else where they would host. But it's it's certainly possible. If you're asking if Indiana would turn down another NIT, I'm not asking that. I'm just, I'm just like, I'm wondering if you know Siri, Siri does not want, no. Just going nuts today with this we. Don't need to. Let's let's wait until we get through the Big Ten term.
I don't know. I just it's more like you know what the vibes would feel like for that it's I'm with you, man. I I don't remember a time that have been kind of this this odd for vibes. It's a weird time, so I was just thinking like an A home NIT game would probably be a really another weird experience. Yeah, I mean, let's I I would prefer to pass on that experience, if at all. I didn't. I didn't go to the NIT games back in what was it, 819? It just, I wasn't here that that
spring break. So that was part of the reason. But yeah, those tend to be kind of odd experiences to say the least. So maybe maybe would be best for all involved if that didn't happen, but we'll see anyway. All right, we'll go ahead and wrap up. Thanks to Scott, and thanks to all of you for listening in. We'll we'll catch you folks on the flip side, bring back the Bison. So long, everybody.