LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — I did not write that Mike Woodson was a super duper Grand Slam hire when Indiana University brought him home from the New York Knicks in 2021.
But I also didn’t write that Indiana spent $10 million to make the program worse, the way some knuckleheads did.
Let’s wait and see.
Woodson was a former star player under Bob Knight who developed playoff teams as an head coach with two NBA teams. He was also 63 and without college coaching experience, especially in the toxic tank of recruiting.
Two years later, Woodson has silenced most of his critics and swept the season series against Purdue. Mike Woodson earned the $1 million yearly raise Indiana awarded him over the final four years of his contract.
At an average salary of $4.2 million, Woodson will be paid what the men’s basketball coach at Indiana should be paid — like one of the Top 10 coaches in the game.
Now comes the tricky part: It’s time for Woodson to take the Hoosiers places they haven’t been in more than 2 decades.
That, more than his contract, will define Woodson’s coaching career at Indiana.
Getting to the NCAA Tournament in back-to-back seasons and winning a pair of games was a solid start.
But at Indiana the standard must be higher. Considerably higher.
Big Ten regular season and tournament championship higher.
Final Four or national championship higher.
Woodson already has been better and more entertaining than Archie Miller, the coach he replaced. He hasn’t been an outrageous and careless rule-breaker like Kelvin Sampson.
But both of his IU teams were run off the floor (by 16 points to Miami in 2023 and by 29 to Saint Mary’s in 2022) in the NCAA Tournament.
Point blank: The Hoosiers must be better in March.
Nobody has to tell Woodson that. He’s said it more than anybody. Every time he spoke to the media at the NCAA regional in Albany, N.Y. last March, Woodson said the primary reason he returned to Indiana was to win championships.
Bumping Woodson’s salary past Mick Cronin (UCLA), Eric Musselman (Arkansas), Kevin Willard (Maryland) and Tommy Lloyd (Arizona) is a powerful public sign that Indiana believes in what Woodson is building in Bloomington.
That’s a critical message to send with a string a Top 25 recruits in the Classes of 2024 and 2025 scheduled to visit Indiana over the next six weeks.
When Woodson was hired, some looked at the presence of former Ohio State head coach Thad Matta and former Michigan State assistant Dane Fife as guard rails around a coach who lacked college experience. Let’s see how this works.
Matta and Fife were gone last season — and Woodson developed a more potent team even after the Hoosiers lost starting point guard (Xavier Johnson) to a foot injury 11 games into the season.
Woodson built an impressive bond with Trayce Jackson-Davis, his best player. Instead of moving into the transfer portal or beginning his professional career, Jackson-Davis stayed at IU for his junior and senior seasons.
Jackson-Davis has consistently credited Woodson and the IU staff for creating the environment that allowed him to develop a more complete game. The Golden State Warriors agreed, drafting Jackson-Davis last June and then guaranteeing the first two years of his deal for more than $3 million, an unusual commitment to a second-round pick.
Jalen Hood-Schifino has been equally effusive in his praise for Woodson. Hood-Schifino came to IU ranked the No. 23 prospect nationally in the Class of 2022. He left as the 17th pick in the 2023 NBA Draft and the 10th highest freshman selected.
Hood-Schifino credits Woodson for trusting him to run the team as a freshman point guard, for allowing him to play through his mistakes and for demanding that he upgrade his commitment to playing defense.
But the beat goes on. IU will be without Jackson-Davis, Hood-Schifino and two other starters from the 23-12 team that earned a 4-seed in the NCAA Tournament.
Woodson must avoid the unsettling swings from success to mediocrity to success to mediocrity that defined the final 6 seasons of Tom Crean’s time as the IU coach. He can’t slide from national championship game in 2002 to missing the tournament in 2004 and 2005 like Mike Davis.
This season will be a clear snapshot of Woodson’s ability to maintain and upgrade. There are encouraging signs.
Woodson did well in the transfer portal, landing 3 players, led by center Kel’el Ware, a McDonald’s All-American arriving from Oregon.
IU’s 3-player freshman class is headlined by Mackenzie Mgbako, another McDonald’s All-American.
Once committed to Duke, Mgbako picked Indiana over Kansas, Louisville, St. John’s and others. One reason? Mgbako’s mother, Daphney, had heard great things about the way Woodson related to his players. She texted an IU staff member, asking if they would recruit her son.
With Mgbako, Ware, Johnson, Trey Galloway, Malik Reneau, Peyton Sparks, Kaleb Banks and others, Woodson has the necessary pieces to keep Indiana from sliding back to irrelevance.
More than this pay raise, Mike Woodson’s ability to do that, while winning bigger in March, will determine his legacy as the Indiana basketball coach.
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