Indiana landed big man Oumar Ballo yesterday, possibly the best transfer of the offseason. It’s a significant pickup for Mike Woodson’s program, and to some, a surprising one. Just weeks ago, the decommitment of high school recruit Liam McNeeley had Indiana fans ringing alarm bells about the Hoosiers’ ability to bring in talent. Clearly, the program still has some pull.
It’s important to be clear that neither Ballo nor McNeeley’s decision likely came solely down to money. McNeeley, a 6’8” wing, is forecast by most to end up at Kansas, the program that’s churned out Gradey Dick and Johnny Furphy in back-to-back years. If it isn’t KU, it might be UConn, the back-to-back national champions. If it isn’t UConn, it might be Kentucky, a program with similar DNA to Indiana’s but more recent success. As for Ballo, it’s possible he views Mike Woodson’s program as a good place to shine as a big man, seeing Trayce Jackson-Davis’s success two seasons ago and looking at Kel’el Ware’s first round hopes this June. Neither of those guys is a perfect comparison for Ballo, but the point is: Individual players make decisions tailored to themselves. It’s rarely only a bidding war.
Still, it helps to have money, now more than ever. And looking from a distance, it’s unclear why Indiana would have more money than, say, Wisconsin. The difference is how much each school’s community cares about basketball relative to football.
Among high-major schools—the old Power Five, minus Washington State and Oregon State, plus the Big East—most would prioritize football over basketball, if forced to choose. If you focus on only the two most powerful conferences in college sports—the Big Ten and the SEC—the list of definite basketball schools dwindles to a handful: Kentucky. Indiana. Purdue. UCLA. Illinois. Maryland. While others have basketball leanings (perhaps Rutgers and Northwestern, maybe Vanderbilt), Indiana is in unusual company in terms of how much it values basketball relative to football. In fact, looking at that list and thinking of football’s impact, it’s possible Indiana is more a basketball school than any other university of its resources. Duke is small. North Carolina, UConn, and Kansas don’t get the benefits of Big Ten or SEC membership. Indiana is an athletic department of top-40 resources nationally, at least in terms of what’s hypothetically available from its TV deals and its booster ecosystem. Its ratio of basketball enthusiasm to football enthusiasm is likely the highest of any school in that echelon.
What does this all mean? Well, in the NIL era, acquiring talent is never going to be a problem for Indiana hoops. Unless it gets itself kicked out of the Big Ten or disaccredited, Indiana will always have resources available, especially if the coach is someone the booster base supports. Similarly to Kentucky, we will never be able to count Indiana out. This makes the struggles of Woodson and Archie Miller even more shocking. Especially Woodson. Miller coached there under the old NIL and transfer rules.
Does Deion Sanders Have a Plan?
I don’t think Shilo Sanders was appointing himself defensive recruiting director with his Instagram story yesterday. I don’t think that when Shilo Sanders said, “Defense transfers DM me. Offense transfers DM (Shedeur Sanders),” he meant that he and his brother were overseeing Colorado’s entire transfer effort. But at the same time, would it be that out of character for the Sanders family to approach the transfer portal this way?
So far, Deion Sanders’s approach in Boulder seems to be this:
1. Build and maintain a popular brand centered around the word “Prime.” Market the program heavily to boosters, fans, media, and recruits. The brand comes first. The focus is always the brand.
2. Bring in as much talent as possible, especially through the transfer portal.
3. When results are poor, single out one problem and replace the group of players responsible.
That’s it. That’s the process.
It’s not the worst way to run a football program. Bringing in as much talent as possible is a good move, especially if you’re capable of bringing in a whole lot of talent. Likewise, marketing is a big deal these days. Even if Sanders gets bored in a few years, Colorado will have benefited from the invigoration he’s brought to the Buffalo name, especially given the morass that preceded Sanders’s arrival.
The problem is that it’s still unclear if Sanders knows how to run the football part of a football program, or if he even has an intentional approach. It’s unclear how he’s going about identifying prospects. It’s unclear if he has a development plan. For gameplanning, the approach seems to be similar to how the roster gets built: Bag big name assistants and hope for the best. Motivation is branded as a strong suit, much as it was at Western Michigan for P.J. Fleck. But what Sanders seems to be doing, overall, is building a baseball team. He’s throwing all the best individual pieces he can find into one organization, preaching motivation, and hoping it works out. I’m not sure that works in college football.
Honestly, even if Shilo Sanders and Shedeur Sanders really are in charge of recruiting, that’s not the biggest problem here. Some scouting and some character screening and some tailoring to fit would help, but Colorado’s going to have top-25 talent if Deion Sanders sticks around long enough, and even the most chaotic top-25 talent can produce consistent bowl eligibility and fringe Big 12 contention. Those would be big things for Colorado in this day and age. The concern is the football part. Colorado’s big wins last year came against 5–7 teams. Jackson State’s Celebration Bowls both ended disastrously. Deion Sanders is a heck of a marketer and a heck of a recruiter. He really might be a solid baseball coach, if he was taking this approach to that game. But college football is a long haul, one that rewards discipline and attention to detail. Even USC, much further towards football program on the reality show to football program spectrum, has struggled to succeed under Lincoln Riley’s transfer-heavy approach. Shilo Sanders’s Instagram story isn’t really the problem. But it points towards the underlying reality: We shouldn’t take this program seriously.
The Rest
The NBA:
- The most surprising thing about the end of this Warriors era, which appears to be what we saw last night, is how meekly it went out. It was anticlimactic in its ending. By this morning, the NBA world was on to Jontay Porter. In two hours, the NBA world will be on to something involving the Heat or the 76ers. Even despite the 2022 championship, the last few years of the Warriors era has felt like a concert that continues even when the band has played all its hits. I don’t know if this says as much about the Warriors as it does about today’s sports psyche. We’ve been ready to move on.
The NHL:
- I will confess: My little nerd heart was over the moon about the Flyers indeed pulling their goalie in a tie game last night. One thing to clear up, on that front: Even though the Red Wings had won moments before the move was made, there was still no incentive for the Flyers to keep their goalie in the net. Sure, they had nothing to gain at that point, but they had nothing to lose, either. If anything, a loss in that situation would be better in regulation because of draft position. I understand the dejection from Detroit fans about how it went down, but the Flyers didn’t do anything wrong.
Chicago:
- Great road trip from the Cubbies. A 5–4 record against the Padres, Mariners, and Diamondbacks is pretty darn good. Last night would have been a great win, and Kyle Hendricks’s current state is very concerning (thank goodness for Ben Brown, if he can even somewhat keep it up), but as long as the Cubs can stay somewhere above .500 over the first half of the season, they should be around the front of the NL Central. The Cubs are in a really, really good spot, and Hendricks is the only guy whose performance is screaming “problem.”
- Like many, I’m cautiously optimistic about the Bulls tonight. I think it gets lost sometimes, amidst how frustrating ownership and the front office is, that this is a likable roster. Especially, speaking personally, this iteration without Zach LaVine (nothing against Zach LaVine as a guy—I think any overpaid, high-usage, offense-first player would probably be just as grating). Take care of business tonight, then take a shot on Friday. That’s the hope, anyway.
- Nothing too noteworthy from the Blackhawks last night. They lost to the Knights. Played fine. One more game, then a few weeks off until the draft lottery.
