Depends on what you mean. Indiana’s hoops program is always going to have more prestige than Michigan’s. Hoops just means more there both at the university and in the state. I think that plays into what would be defined as “blue blood”.
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Yeah, it all depends on your definition. On top of recent national success and championship pedigree, I think of a blue blood as a school that jumps out at you as soon as they are involved in a recruitment and they carry a ton of cache (which allows them to land most of the 5 stars). If Michigan is in a recruitment with Indiana, I like their odds. If they are in a recruitment with Duke or Kentucky, I do not. It’s all about your own personal criteria though
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Yeah, I guess that’s not how I was defining it so would have a very different list.
Yeah, I think Indiana has to be removed from the blueblood discussion. The way I think of bluebloods is that that you have prestige/resources that allow you to still reasonably succeed after/with mediocre coaches. The vast majority of high-major schools are pretty much just as good as their coach is, but blue bloods can attract resources/talent that allow them to overcome that (not necessarily to atmospheric heights). IU’s recruiting has just been meh for a while (only one top ten class since 2013, and about 3 in the past 15 years or so?), and their results have been down for a very long time.
They don’t seem to have any national prestige that significantly elevates them above other programs anymore. Yeah people in Indiana love basketball… But people in Arkansas really love football too.
Indiana’s blue blood-ness to me would just come down to the fact that it’s probably the best job in the Big Ten by a lot?
Which job would you rather take?
Maybe overall, but if the coaches both simultaneously retired (or one got fired) after this year and I’m a coach, I’m choosing MSU over Indiana. I think the foundation there is much stronger currently.
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I don’t think any B10 program really qualifies as a blue-blood at this point. I think IU did at one point, but it’s lost that prestige. As far as which program would I take? Probably Illinois due to the Chicago recruiting base.
Like practically, what does the IU job actually get you? Indiana is not a fertile recruiting ground anymore, there doesn’t seem to be any national draw to Indiana (and the state is not a particularly awesome place to live), I don’t think their facilities are significantly better (if at all) then other high-level B10 programs. What makes coaching at IU easier than coaching at Illinois or OSU? Fan support is the best argument I can find, but as I mentioned, there are a lot of bad football teams in the south with phenomonal fan support.
Edit: I also won’t argue against IU having the “perception” of being a great job from people who are not 18 year old recruits… But it doesn’t really matter what they think if it doesn’t translate to things that help you win basketball games.
I agree with this:
“The way I think of bluebloods is that that you have prestige/resources that allow you to still reasonably succeed after/with mediocre coaches.”
But it also seems to me that there’s still significant prestige there, and Indiana does produce plenty of talent. As a baseline, when you can retain in-state five-stars like Romeo Langford and Khristian Lander, that’s a pretty good start.
Michigan and Ohio State have the “football school with a lot of money” vibe that a lot of people refer to as a positive. As in, there are expectations but not expectations like you’d face at a place like Indiana.
I think it is much easier for Indiana to recruit the best players in Indiana than it is for Illinois to recruit the best players in Chicago.
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Well then who qualifies and meets your description of a program which can succeed with mediocre coaching? Because Kentucky, North Carolina and UCLA are the bluest of blue bloods, and yet their respective records under Billy Gillespie, Matt Doherty and Larry Farmer/Steve Alford/etc. pretty much make it clear that blue bloods still need great coaching.
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Is Chicago really a better recruiting ground than all of Indiana? Genuinely asking.
I remember Grady giving us decent minutes in the Duke upset. I thought he could have been a decent guy if he’d focused exclusively on basketball. Regardless, I think that with the Sims/Harris/Udoh core we could have squeezed out a .500 record, but Beilein was building for future and we had a lot of guys confused trying to figure things out that year. Of course it paid off in year 2.
Beilein has evolved his system over time, obviously incorporating a lot more ball-screen action for one, but he’s just not fundamentally a guy who can plug and play. His players need to get used to what he wants and that takes time (ask all the PGs that have played for him.)
If I wanted to win championships right off the bat, I’d pass on him. Beilein is a guy for the long haul. The paradox is that, other than at Michigan, he tends not to stay for the long haul. At his age now, I’d assume another 5-year tenure like he had at Richmond, Canisius and WVU. Is it worth it then? You’ll be searching for a coach again around 2026…
I don’t have the data but that seems to be very much the case.
Which job is the best in the Big Ten is an entirely different discussion. I don’t think any Big Ten schools are blue bloods, but I think you can make different arguments for IU, MSU, UM, MD, IL and OSU as the best jobs in the league. MSU is the best program currently. UM and OSU probably carry the biggest brand names nationally for recruiting purposes (and have the biggest athletic departments). It may also be nice to not have as much pressure to win as you would at a place like Indiana. IU has the best fan base and built-in recruiting grounds. IL has the best local hoops city among the crowd (it’s a whole different animal being able to land Chicago players though). MD has the DMV area in their backyard
Do you think this is true at the moment? Because if it’s not true at the moment then that ‘always’ wants some scrutiny.
Always is kind of a long time, while prestige is something that may be accrued but also rises and falls.
All of these names resonate a little differently with each of us, of course. But to me, Indiana is more like a ‘once-storied’ team. . . a team in perennial pursuit of a restoration narrative.
I mean that in the sense that Michigan is clearly a better program by results over the last decade but way more people still care about Indiana basketball to a greater degree than anyone cares about Michigan basketball.
Just flip the example around with Michigan football, same idea.
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I think Grady was better than some people thought at the time. I don’t think Beilein was a big fan and he saw the writing on the wall and switched to football. But I think he could have been a solid rotation guy.
IU is a blue-blood basketball program in the way that Michigan is a blue-blood football program. In other words, fans and media think they SHOULD be and they were at one time…but the sport has passed them by for a variety of reasons and they haven’t really been a blue-blood in over 20 years. Both are on the next tier of “very good school committed to the program who might be able to flirt with being in the same elite tier but probably is never going to return to that sustained status.”
In IU’s case the conference has gotten a lot more competitive around them, they haven’t had a great coach in a long time, the recruiting pipeline in Indiana isn’t nearly what it once was, national recruiting has become much more necessary than it was in their heyday, and some of the qualities that made them unique long ago aren’t unique anymore as schools have invested heavily in their facilities and everyone is on TV now.
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I think you can make arguments for ohio state(most resources), michigan(biggest national profile), michigan state(most recent success) and maryland(best local talent) over iu(most historical). I dont think any job in the b1g is easily the best and thats part of what makes the conference unique.
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I would say it’s easy to tell how big basketball is at IU. The fan base is large, passionate and knowledgeable and there’s no doubt that basketball is king. I wouldn’t discount the tradition either.