Should be, but it won't be. Take a look at who will be here in 2018, assuming Biggie isn't back as a senior. It's looking pretty awful, and is a repeat of the dark days of 2012 and 2013. 2017 has produced low ranked projects who look a lot like past low ranked prospects such as Lawson, Hale, Tacos, Bade, etc. This in a year where Indiana was LOADED, Painter was devoted to recruiting the best (and I don't doubt at all that he was devoted and tried his best) and yet he still struck out, landing guys that looked like plan D or E when 2017 recruiting began.
11 years in, we have more NCAA tournament misses than we do sweet 16's, one shared B1G title and not a single elite 8 to our name. Recruiting has been decent at times, but not good enough to bring us our first four since before many of us were born. For those that think this is the year, we've been hearing that for a while. Spoiler alert... we don't have the D or the guard play to do it, and I think we finish with a worse record that last year, likely a lower seed and an exit in round 2.
CMP has not been awful, no one should say that. But he isn't going to elevate this program past a B1G title every decade or so and the occasional S16 to go along with some real clunkers (2018 is right around the corner). If you are ok with that, cool, CMP is your guy. For the rest of us, eventually you have to realize that your ceiling is pretty mediocre, and while the floor could be lower, you take a risk and see if you can do something special. We can always get another CMP type in here who
is paid as a top 4 coach in the B1G and produces top 5-6 numbers over his tenure (behind in B1G championships and advancing in the tourney to Izzo, Beilein, Matta, Crean, Wisky combination).
