Pat Graham Article

Hmmm... Pat and I both attended IU at the same time, are the same age and have very similar thoughts on the state of Basketball in Indiana. The only real difference is that he was 6-5 and I'm 5-9... oh and he could play ball.

Former Mr. Basketball Pat Graham talks change - Jeffersonville Evening News

Some good quotes...

"I don't care what they say. They've lost so much money going this way, it's not even funny. It's just not what it once was," Graham says about high school basketball in Indiana, which divided schools into four classes eight years ago. "I don't think it'll ever get back to what it was. Ten to 15 years ago, basketball in Indiana was as good as it gets. Now it's just middle of the road."

A big one, he says, is the summer AAU circuit, which many players consider more important than their high school team because college coaches are watching so closely. Graham said he thought he'd never see the day when somebody would turn down the chance to play for the Indiana All-Stars, but Carmel's Josh McRoberts, a Duke signee, did this year in favor of another all-star game.

"The pride, the prestige and the competitiveness just aren't there anymore," Graham said of the historic Indiana All-Stars squad, which dates to 1939. "AAU can't make you. It can help you, but it can't make you."

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His confidence in IU isn't as true. He says everyone in the athletic department -- from the president to administrators to the coaches -- needs to "look in the mirror" to begin some much-needed rebuilding from the top down.

"There's gonna have to be a lot of changes," Graham said. "I don't see anywhere in the near future where something changes and it gets back to like it was in the '80s when basketball was going to the Final Four and football was good under (ex-coach) Bill Mallory. It's like every time since (firing Knight) that they've had a decision to make, it's been the wrong one. Or it's been one step forward and two steps backward."

Most of Graham's frustrations are, obviously, in the state of the men's basketball program, which lost in the NCAA championship game in 2002 under coach Mike Davis but hasn't gone to the NCAA Tournament the last two seasons. Indiana fans won't want to read this, but Graham fears the Hoosiers' difficulties won't end soon.

"I won't ever not root for Indiana, but they're gonna struggle next year and I don't know when it's gonna turn around. It's just going to be a while until IU gets back to where the fans want it to be," Graham said. "I don't care if they got Greg Oden (Lawrence North's star 7-footer who recently committed to Knight's alma mater, Ohio State) or not. You need more than one great player to make a good basketball team.

"I wish IU would go back to getting basketball players, not just (athletic) talent," he added. "None of us (when Graham played at IU) could jump over a phone book, but we all knew basketball. We knew the game."