Identity Crisis (Why Indiana Basketball will keep losin' until they holler at the Man in the Mirror)

"This used to mean something bruh!"

Steven Strogatz, the famous mathematician, once said, “When you create something new, you’re breaking tradition – which is an act of defiance.” Dick Cheney broke it down like this, “There comes a time when deceit and defiance must be seen for what they are. At that point, a gathering danger must be directly confronted. At that point, we must show that beyond our resolutions is actual resolve.” Then Iyanla Vanzant, the inspirational speaker, got into a boyz head with, “You’ve got to know what your ‘thing’ is, and you’ve got to call it a ‘thing,’ whether it’s meanness, nastiness, unforgiveness, arrogance, ego, resistance, rebelliousness or defiance. Everybody’s got a ‘thing,’ and once you call your ‘thing’ a ‘thing,’ we can give it a place to be or dismiss it.”

Well playboy… Indiana Basketball has to be honest with themselves with who they’re gonna be. Either you wanna be an elite program and compete for Big Ten and National Titles every year or you wanna keep tryin’ to satisfy your “Good Ole Boy” fan base down in Southern Indiana? . But you can do both! You’ve got to call your ‘thing’ a ‘thing’ and deal with it.

Let’s keep it real or all the way 100, whichever comes 1^st! Boyz down at IU keep screamin’ that they want to be an elite program but they keep refusin’ to do the things necessary to become one. For years Indiana basketball has been tryin’ to appease their southern Indiana fan base by always havin’ at least 7 white players on the roster at all times. And the few brothers that they do recruit aren’t from the ghetto. They only want the black kid that comes from the college prep school, the very stable home or both because they don’t want to deal with the baggage that comes with the hood kid.

Here’s the problem playa, the REAL elite programs are pillagin’ the ghetto for the best players every year black and white. Sure, there are kids like Yogi Ferrell that went to a rich private school that can play but those are like findin’ a needle in a hay stack and Duke’s already got a lock on that department bruh. They’re able to sign the elite black players from the private prep schools because they’re mostly kids of former pro athletes with bread.

So IU keeps lookin’ for the Yogi’s of the world and Yogi isn’t even a future pro. Stop it bruh! He’s a good college player because if he were a pro he’d already be a pro. You're not gonna find duns like Alan Henderson every year. A rich kid, relatively speakin', that went to Brebeuf with NBA talent that's dyin' to go to IU. Stop it! 

Even if you tried to recruit a kid from the hood now you wouldn't get him. Why? Because he can't relate to anybody on the team. But if he shows up at Kentucky or Louisville the whole team makes him feel at home. Why? Because they're all from the same place bruh! 

The only reason Bobby Knight recruited Isiah Thomas was because he was at a private school and not in the Chicago Public Schools where he lived on the rough west side of the Chi. They wouldn’t have touched Zeke with a ten foot pole if he were goin’ to school in the hood. Not a chance! Why? Because IU doesn't want the baggage. Here's the problem playa, the REAL elite programs hire ancillary staff that understands how to deal with the baggage.

Now you can tell me that havin’ a roster full of white kids is just a coincidence all day playa but I’m not buyin’ it. I’m an IU grad and I’ve been watchin’ them play since I was a shorty in third grade back in 1975. Bobby Knight was a basketball genius so he could take a great player and a roster full of average players and win Big Ten and national titles. But if you’re tryin’ to compete with the elite programs of the world in 2014 where the game is faster and played above the rim then you gotta get some horses and they aren't always in the suburbs and rural America! 

The top programs are recruitin’ McDonald’s All-Americans like crazy and those players are black 90 percent of the time and often from the ghetto and you don’t really want either of them in full demand so you’re in trouble.

If the very best players in high school are more often than not black and you keep thinkin’ that you can win without a roster full of them because Bobby did it you’re smokin’ crack. Bobby’s left the buildin’ playboy! Duns down at IU still think that they can go to New Castle and find the next great player. Well the best player to EVER come out of New Castle has already left the buildin’! When boyz think that they can go to Bedford and get a stud they’re trippin’ because the best player from Bedford as already left the buildin’! You can’t go to Washington, In. and find a beast anymore because the only three beasts that will EVER come out of Washington have already left the buildin’! You can’t go to French Lick and get an absolute stud again because he’s already left the buildin’ too! If there were other cats in those little towns that could play at the elite level they would be playin’ bruh!

Larry Bird was the only one of those cats that was a MONSTER. Bird was a beast!!! But that’s like findin’ a need in a hay stack too in some little town in 2014 bruh. French Lick has produced its only diamond. Move on playa. Larry himself even said, “I really got irritated when they put a white guy on me.” But IU still thinks that it can be an elite program without a roster full of brothers and they're competin' against programs with roster full of them.

Michigan State is goin' to the gutter and gettin' boyz out of Gary, Flint, Chicago and places like Detroit and beatin' the brakes off of IU annually. 

You’re gonna have to be defiant to your fan base and start recruitin’ the best players black and white! If the best player comes from a broken home and is livin’ in the ghetto on the south side of Chicago or Gary somewhere and he qualifies for school then you gotta bring him in. Well... that’s if you want to compete for titles! Think about this bruh, usin’ it’s formula over the years, IU wouldn’t have recruited cats like LeBron, Melo or Derrick Rose. Why? Because they were hood kids. You aren’t gonna find very many Gary Harris’ out here bruh. Where he grows up in a stable home with loving and attentive parents in the suburbs that can ball out of control. Then you’ve got to convince him to come to IU which they couldn’t. Stop missin' on opportunities to get talent because of your fan base's feelings.  

Accordin’ to a study done by the NCAA in 2012 on the probability of a kid even playin’ college basketball. There were more than a half a million kids playin’ high school basketball. Only 3.3 percent of them will ever play at the college level and only .03 percent of them will make it to the NBA. So that means playa that 96.7 percent of duns playin’ in high school won’t play at any level of college basketball.

Let’s take it a step further pimpin’! If you are an elite program then that means that you are at least a Top 10 program. So there is a .024 percent chance of a boy playin’ at that level. Now if the black player makes up 70 percent of the elite players at the college and NBA level and you want to consider yourself an elite program. Then why isn’t your roster at least 70 percent black or somewhere even close to that? Because your fan base doesn’t want it to look like that. I know boyz are upset with me right now but somebody’s gotta say it. And keep this real, how many black kids in that .024 percent are from the suburbs and go to private schools? Very few!!

Again, you’ve got to figure out who you’re gonna be. It’s not Tom Crean’s fault or even the next cat you bring in only to fire. It’s the boosters and the administration’s fault because they hand cuff every coach that shows up with stipulations. “We gotta keep our fan base happy and we don’t want ‘thugs’ or junior college players." Those are code words for “we don’t want a team full of brothers.” Not down here! Not at IU.

Now if you think that I’m talkin’ crazy just go pull the tape of the Indiana vs. Syracuse game durin’ 2012-2013 season when they took IU to the cages in the hood and pushed them around all night long. If you don’t go get some cats with some gonads you’re gonna get pushed around every time you show up to play boyz that do. Havin’ a team full of cats from the suburbs or rural America, black or white is gonna get you blasted every time you run into some duns that are hungry that thinks that this is my only way out. "It's school or pro ball because I can’t go can’t go back to the ghetto." IU got drug in that game because of the hunger boyz played with not so much the X’s and O’s. Tom Crean had nothin’ to do with them gettin’ pushed around. Hunger pushed them around playa.

Now I know that I’m gonna be public enemy No.1 around this piece today but somebody had to tell these boyz that they’ve got an identity crises that needs to be addressed before they go through another head coach and fire him too. Stop me when I start lyin’!

Holla At Ya Boy!
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