6-Banner Sunday: IU basketball hires Ryan Carr as executive director

• Staff

• 3h ago

 

Welcome to another edition of 6-Banner Sunday, a joint production between The Assembly Call and Inside the Hall, where we highlight the five most essential IU sports stories of the past week. 6-Banner Sunday is written by Ari Shifron.

IU made a significant hire to boost its roster-building, adding Ryan Carr, a longtime member of the Indiana Pacers front office. However, this season’s outcome is in question after a costly loss to Northwestern, putting IU’s NCAA tournament hopes in serious jeopardy.

Additionally, we will examine Bracketology, and the women’s basketball team had its best week of the season. As usual, we will conclude with a look at the weekly shows and the rest of the Hoosier sports in action, which was led by men’s swimming and diving winning yet another Big Ten Title.

Here is what is in this week’s edition:

• IU basketball hires Ryan Carr as executive director
• Hoosiers fall at home to Northwestern in costly loss
• Bracketology updates
• IU women’s basketball clinches Big Ten tournament berth
• Podcast on the Brink and Back Home Network shows
• Hoosier Roundup

Banner #1 – IU basketball hires Ryan Carr as executive director

As this season winds down, Indiana basketball made a staff hire that appears to be looking towards a better future. This addition is Ryan Carr to be the team’s executive director of basketball.

Carr is a 1996 IU grad and former manager for the Hoosiers. He arrives from the Indiana Pacers. While with that organization, he was Senior Vice President of Player Personnel and helped build a roster that was one game from winning an NBA Championship last summer.

With NIL and the transfer portal, Carr will be tasked with helping build a squad that is better balanced than in the past. This equivalent position is becoming much more common in college sports, given the constant turnover of personnel, and IU’s choice to fill it appears to be met with optimism.

In Carr, the Hoosiers bring on a guy with professional basketball experience in the front office. However, he combines this with previous work at the college level as an assistant coach at UTEP. This combination would seem to make him a perfect fit and Carr appears excited to have this new role.

Banner #2 – Hoosiers fall at home to Northwestern in costly loss

Tuesday night against Northwestern showed why IU needs a better-constructed roster in future years. While they finally have a modern system that emphasizes the 3-pointer and spacing, the lack of post players and backup options when shots don’t fall continues to haunt the team.

The game against the Wildcats was Exhibit A in this regard. When shots were falling in the first half, Indiana built a nine-point halftime lead. However, the Hoosiers went ice cold in the final 20 minutes and even their best scoring options, Tucker DeVries and Lamar Wilkerson, couldn’t buy a basket.

When the long shots are falling, IU can play with anyone in the country. However, when they don’t, Indiana can lose to anyone in the conference, as evidenced by Northwestern pulling out a 72-68 win despite being towards the very bottom of the league.

Afterwards, IU coach Darian DeVries spoke, Inside the Hall had a photo gallery, Corazza wrote The Minute After and Film Session, Bozich penned Five Takeaways and Nick Rodecap put together a column about the defeat putting Indiana’s NCAA tournament chances in serious question.

The Hoosiers return to action today at 3:45 p.m. ET on CBS. They will face a must-win contest against elite Michigan State at Assembly Hall. While this is a tall task, it is a game IU needs if it wants to participate in March Madness.

Banner #3 – Bracketology updates

At 17-11 overall and 8-9 in the Big Ten, the Hoosiers are right on the edge of the NCAA Tournament bubble after the costly loss to the Wildcats this week. They still have a decent NET near 40.

While their metrics are somewhat improved from previous versions of this squad, thanks to beating struggling teams by large margins until this week, they lack many high-end wins and have struggled against other postseason squads. To put themselves back in a likely discussion for March Madness, they likely need to sweep this week, which would include two more quad-one wins and get them to 20 victories overall. However, the level of competition makes this a big ask.

Looking at Bracketology, Indiana is still right on the brink of the field at the moment. However, they can ill afford any more losses, given their precarious position as either one of the last couple of teams in or the first few out in most projections.

Inside the Hall and Assembly Call’s own Bracketologist, Andy Bottoms, projected the Hoosiers as an 11 seed earlier in the week, bound for the play-in game in Dayton. However, this was before the defeat to Northwestern, showing how precarious IU’s position is.

Banner #4 – IU women’s basketball clinches Big Ten tournament berth

Women’s basketball has surged recently and that continued this week. While it is almost certainly too late to make the NCAA tournament, the Hoosiers have now won six of eight and are getting hot down the stretch.

This week, they upset Oregon for their first victory over a projected NCAA tournament squad this season. They followed that up by beating struggling Rutgers and Penn State. All three victories ensured IU will finish above .500 overall and as a result locked up a Big Ten Tourney berth. This feat also makes them eligible to participate in postseason play in the second-tier WNIT or WBI Tournaments, should they choose to accept.

Their play in the conference tourney begins as the No. 13 seed on Wednesday at 3:30 p.m. ET. The opponent will be the No. 12 seed Nebraska, in Indianapolis, who beat the Hoosiers in Lincoln in a close game early in the league year.

Banner #5 – Podcast on the Brink and Back Home Network shows

Inside the Hall’s Podcast on the Brink returned this week. On it, Bozich is joined by Scott Agness, who covers the Pacers, to get more perspective on the Carr hire.

The Back Home Network has many shows. As a result, it was on air many times this week with programming.

Banner #6 – Hoosier Roundup

• Swimming and diving won the Big Ten Championship for the fifth year in a row on the men’s side.

• Softball had a huge week, winning six of seven games that included victories against Boston College and USF last weekend, as well as over Charleston Southern, Elon, and UNC Greensboro this weekend.

• Baseball had mixed results, this week defeating Xavier but falling to Notre Dame. They also have lost two of three to Western Kentucky so far this weekend.

• Wrestling competed at the Last Chance Open.

• Water polo fell to elite UCLA and USC.

• Track and field competed at the Big Ten Championships.

• Women’s golf finished ninth at the Chevron Collegiate.

• Volleyball announced it will compete on a foreign tour this summer.

Now go enjoy yourself a 6-Banner Sunday.

Aaron (Ari) Shifron
Assembly Call Contributor

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