Will the third Zeller be the charm for IU?

First appeared on September 28th, 2010
in The Lebanon Reporter
So Washington High School’s Cody Zeller is the “must get” Tom Crean “must get” or apparently the four horsemen of the apocalypse will ride into Crean’s living room and it won’t be to shoot a Capital One commercial. This is what the local media types would have us believe. I’ll openly admit listening to and reading local sports personalities; if it weren’t for them then coming up with material would be like A LOT harder plus I wouldn’t be able to spell complicated words like sensationalism or non-partisanship.


And it’s probably best explained before I go on that I don’t buy anyone peddling high school kids like pieces of meat. Nowadays it would seem any Plecostomus with a laptop and no distinguishable form of a life produces their own list of prospects. What happened to the days when people left it to Street and Smith’s or George Michael (of the “Sports Machine” fame, not of the “public bathroom” fame) to tell them who the best players where?

Some believe, when it comes to Zeller, that Crean needs to do whatever necessary to bring the kid to B-Town- except for going all “Ricky Roe” and rolling in a family tractor that is; or calling him every 30 seconds as one former IU coach is likely to suggest.

It all makes one wonder if this is about Crean landing a top recruit or if it’s more about IU whiffing at the first two Zellers? I think it’s really more about public perception. All apologies to Purdue, but since I’ve been alive the public perception (and by public we’re speaking of the 294 million Americans not living in Indiana) has been that Indiana University has the top basketball program in the state.

Understanding nature’s rule that there be only one big dog in every pack; the rest are required to stay on the porch. And as far as Indiana’s proverbial front porch is concerned, Butler is as close as they have ever been to supplanting the Hoosiers as the big dog. And before I go on, no-Indiana’s proverbial front porch does not include any form of washer-dryer combination.

Which brings us back to Zeller. Who cares if he goes to North Carolina anyway? Would that be the end of the world? I mean it’s not like the Surgeon General’s put out a warning that DVR causes cancer or MTV is cancelling “The Hills” (What’s that? They cancelled “The Hills”?).

Hoosier fans can’t see Zeller’s choosing another school as a bad thing. A bad thing would be announcing the demolition of Assembly Hall the day after Zeller passes on IU or signing Oprah’s Texting While Driving Ban simply because you secretly hold out hope she will give you a car or a trip to Australia for doing so.

This is more about ours being a world of instant gratification. A world slowly breeding an entire generation of people too impatient to wait for anything (these people don’t read newspapers because yesterday’s news is SO yesterday). Why watch Indiana struggle when you can just go to Wal-Mart, buy some Butler boxer shorts and call yourself a fan? Besides, it’s a far easier move than stomaching another double figure loss to Kentucky.

The NCAA early signing period starts the second week of November. After visiting Butler and North Carolina, Zeller’s “Magical Mystery Tour” will conclude in Bloomington on October 31st. If the Hoosier’s lose him to UNC it’s not “Tom-you better start looking over your shoulder news”. But should Crean lose Zeller to Butler, then panic might have good reason to go house hunting in Bloomington.