Indiana basketball, forget big fish and hire a winner. See Drake’s coach

Drake’s coach Ben McCollum just wins. Google him. He could be a smart fit for Indiana, especially if the ‘big fish’ aren’t biting.
Indiana made a shrewd move hiring football coach Curt Cignetti from James Madison. Remember that playbook with this hire.
Drake coach Ben McCollum won three Division II national championships.

Don’t overthink this, Indiana.

Hire a winner. Never mind whether he’s a household name that’ll light up talk radio or whether he played for Bob Knight or whether he’s a disgruntled coach of the blue blood built by John Wooden.

The Hoosiers don’t need to check any of those boxes, because they just need a winner. Someone like the hoops version of football coach Curt Cignetti might work quite nicely.

When Dolson hired Cignetti from James Madison 15 months ago, the new coach got so miffed by repeated questions about his background – he’d never been so much as a coordinator at a Power Four school – that he shut down that line of inquiry with a quote that became legendary at Indiana:

“I win. Google me.”

He won in Division II. He won in the Championship Subdivision. He won at James Madison. He won a record 11 games in his first season at Indiana. Nobody needs to google Cignetti anymore to know he wins, and Dolson looked like a savant for hiring a guy who’d previously been coaching in the Sun Belt.

Now, google Ben McCollum. What do you see?

He wins at an 81.8% clip across multiple divisions. That includes four Division II national championships in 15 seasons at Northwest Missouri State and a 27-3 record amid his first season at Drake. The Bulldogs are seeded No. 1 in this week’s Missouri Valley Conference tournament.

College basketball requires annual roster reconstruction, and that’s particularly true after a coaching change. McCollum, 43, rebuilt Drake with a starting lineup of five transfers. Four of those starters followed McCollum from Northwest Missouri State. They haven’t missed a beat. Read that again. Drake’s starting lineup featuring four Division II transfers produced 27 victories and counting and a résumé worthy of NCAA Tournament consideration in McCollum’s first season.

Remind you of anyone? Cignetti made his Indiana splash with a bunch of players who followed him from James Madison.

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Ben McCollum just keeps winning. Sounds like Curt Cignetti

The Bulldogs play tough defense, and they rebound. They beat Vanderbilt and Kansas State. They won the regular-season conference title of one the nation’s best mid-major leagues by two games.

Heck, there was a time earlier this season when Indiana was mired in a rut that Drake probably would have beaten the candy-striped pants off the Hoosiers, despite not having Indiana’s war chest.

Is McCollum a sure thing? No, but point me to the sure thing who would definitely leave their current gig.

Florida didn’t hire a sure thing when it rolled the dice with a 31-year-old Billy Donovan, who’d coached Marshall for two seasons. Donovan became one of the best hoops hires of the past 30 years.

Alabama smartly seized Nate Oats before another power-conference school caught onto the guy winning at Buffalo. Indiana would be well-served by Oats, but why should he leave Alabama? Answer: He shouldn’t. He can win a national championship where he’s at, maybe as soon as this season. It’s too late to hire Oats, but the window of opportunity remains open on McCollum.

Indiana basketball has a lot to offer, even if you wouldn’t know it based on how its past few coaches fared. Because of the program’s pedigree, financial commitment and its hungry fan base, the Hoosiers could convince themselves they need a “big fish.’ I won’t say that’s a terrible mindset, but coaching searches differ from talk radio. In searches, the “big fish” don’t always say yes.

Captain Ahab never caught the white whale, and Brad Stevens is not walking through Indiana’s door any more than Donovan walked through Kentucky’s.

Drake’s Ben McCollum offers a smart, realistic choice for Indiana

Kentucky fans convinced themselves they’d hook a lunker last year, before reality set in that neither Donovan nor Baylor’s Scott Drew nor Oats planned to plug Rupp Arena into the GPS, and Kentucky hired Mark Pope from Brigham Young. I’d bet Mississippi’s Chris Beard would drive to Assembly Hall tomorrow, as long as Indiana would make room for his trunk full of baggage.

Forget baggage, though, and never mind the big fish who aren’t leaving their honey holes, and don’t fret that Dusty May, the guy Indiana should’ve hired last year, will stay put at Michigan.

There’s more than one coach who could win at Indiana. McCollum wouldn’t be the only choice, but I think he’d be a good one. The Hoosiers can wait for someone else to hire him, and if he enjoys another season or two at Drake like this one, someone will. Athletic directors know about this guy. Here’s Indiana’s chance to cut to the front of the line.

McCollum’s introductory news conference would be easy. Just repeat the four words Cignetti said.

Blake Toppmeyer is a columnist for the USA TODAY Network. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer. Subscribe to read all of his columns.