Question: Name three things that made me vomit since my last blog post.

As alert citizen Katie Jenkins pointed out, I haven’t posted since last Thursday. Since that time, I had to suffer through an IU loss in the NCAA Tournament, a nasty bout with the flu, and (due to the flu) a loss in the current blog war with my blog nemesis, Elizabeth. She now has a two game lead on me.

I’m still recovering from the flu. Come to think of it, I’m still recovering from the IU basketball season. But, it’s not over. Now we have to go through weeks/months of the search for a new coach. We’ll have to endure Andy Katz claiming to know “insider info” on who the next coach will be. I for one haven’t forgotten how he named everybody but Kelvin Sampson the last time around.

Personally, I’m not ready to make a prediction yet. I will say that I won’t be disappointed if Dan Dakich gets the job. That might seem crazy, given how the season ended. But, I don’t think you can lay that at Dan’s door. I think he tried to keep things as normal as possible to get through the end of the season. I think given the job, things would look a lot different. I also don’t buy the argument that he wouldn’t be able to recruit. During my time in Bloomington, I always found him to be personable and at ease in any setting. I have no doubt that he could sell a kid on IU. As for his record at Bowling Green, it wasn’t stellar. But, maybe he learned a few things along the way. Plus, he had more than his share of bad breaks at Bowling Green. In his last 5 years, his starters missed a combined 124 games due to injuries.

Take for example a coach you may remember. His records in his 9th, 10th, and 11th year as a coach at the school he is famous for were respectively 16-10, 16-9, 14-12. By most current big time basketball standards, those seasons would have probably resulted in the coach being fired. But this particular college stood by their coach. And in year 16, he won a National Championship. Then he won another. After a “down” year, he won seven more. After another “down” year, he won one more. That coach was John Wooden and the school UCLA. Someone once asked me if I thought we would ever see a dynasty like UCLA again. I said no, but not for the reasons most pundits offer (players leaving early, parity, expanded tournament field, etc.). I said it’s because no school is going to give a coach 15 years to perfect his craft.

I’m not saying that Dakich is the next John Wooden and if someone else gets the job, I’ll support whoever it is. But, I like Dan. And I hope he’s on the sideline when I go to Assembly Hall next year.

Carry on, Citizens!