I was wrong!

I have to admit I was wrong about Mike Davis. I really thought that once he got this team off to a hot start, he would start demanding a contract extension using his lack of a recruiting class as the main reason. But I was dead wrong. Mike has really learned a lot in his 5+ years. Instead of requesting a contract extension himself, he went through the media and got Gregg Doyle to do his dirty work. Smart move Mike!

Get off his back: IU's Davis proves he's worthy - cbssportsline.com

Mike Davis has coached his way off the hot seat and into a long-term contract extension at Indiana. Nothing on the contract front has been announced. It hasn't even been discussed. But it will happen, and it should happen soon. If I'm Indiana athletics director Rick Greenspan, I'm finalizing Davis' contract extension soon.

Because the price keeps going up.

Excuse me? How can the price keep going up? He is already the 2nd highest paid coach in the B10 at $900K a season. 1 good half season erases 2 bad years?

This victory was another step in the maturation process of a coach, Mike Davis, who has done what Matt Doherty and Steve Lavin could not do -- survive on-the-job training in one of the most demanding jobs in college basketball.

Hmmm... Lets review Lavin's record at UCLA... Lavin went 145-78 in seven years and took the Bruins to the final 16 of the NCAA tournament five times in seven years. He won 20 games all but 1 of his seasons... His teams upset the #1 team in the country 4 times yet also lost to basketball powerhouses such as Cal State Northridge, Northern Arizona, Ball State and Detroit Mercy. Sound familiar? That wasn't good enough for UCLA. You think Davis would have survived at UCLA missing the NCAA Tourney 2 straight years? How about Matt's record... 53-43 in 3 years, including 1 season that saw UNC ranked #1 late in the year, 1 season under .500 and 1 season in the NIT. Hmmm... also similar... yet Matt was shown the door after missing the NCAA for 2 straight years. It sure is nice that IU was much more patient with Davis than UNC and UCLA were.

"I'd never been a head coach, and to do it here, where you're in a fish bowl -- everyone watching everything you do, every day -- it was an unbelievable situation," Davis said. "There were so many things I didn't know. I didn't know how to speak to the alumni group. I didn't know how to call timeouts or run a practice. I'd never done those things. And this is one of the most demanding jobs in the country. But I learned. I got better."

Yep... this speaks for itself. IU made a HUGE mistake... PERIOD! A full coaching search should have been done after that interim year.

"It's been difficult because of the uncertainty -- and that uncertainty has come from the outside," Davis said. "But look at the players we've had come in here: D.J. White, Marco Killingsworth, A.J., Ratliff, Robert Vaden. ... They've all come here because of me, and despite the uncertainty they've played hard for me -- and I love them for that."

Exactly... it used to be players came to IU for INDIANA... but then again its all about Mike now.

Good Job Mike! You are learning... keep using the media... they will be happy to do your dirty work for you. I'll expect Terry and Kravitz to have similar articles in the Star in the next week.