Getting their man

Well, that was quite the production.

"That" being the second coming of The Decision, which is what happened yesterday down in New Albany, where Romeo Langford made the entire state happy by picking up the IU cap instead of the Vanderbilt or Kansas cap. This in front of hundreds of fans/supporters/family/media, after speechifying and much drawing out of the dramatic pause.

(Which was all fine, by the way. A top-end athlete announcing his college choice is and always should be a  production-number occasion -- not only for him but for college athletics, which as we all know is a major corporate entity whose revenue depends largely on how many Romeo Langfords they can attract.)

At any rate, this was a great day for Indiana University and head coach Archie Miller, who vowed he was going to make recruiting Indiana a priority. Getting Langford, the first Indiana Mr. Basketball to sign with IU since Cody Zeller in 2011, was therefore both essential and  the ultimate validation of that vow. And it signaled that Indiana is once again a major player on the national recruiting scene, a not inconsiderable thing in itself.

Here's what you need to keep in mind, though: Getting Romeo, in terms of the impact on Miller's program, wasn't nearly as crucial as getting Jerome Hunter out of North Carolina or Jake Forrester out of Pennsylvania, or Damezi Anderson and Robert Phinsee out of Indiana.

That's because if Langford proves to be what everyone projects he'll be, he'll be at Indiana for one year and then declare for the NBA draft. The others, presumably, will be around for awhile longer. And therefore will be more crucial to Miller's program going forward.

Langford may well be the kind of player who can get the Hoosiers to the next level. But it will be the Hunters and Forresters and Andersons and Phinisees who will be charged with keeping them there. How they develop, and how the recruits who come after them develop, will define Indiana's program far more than Langford will.

So, yeah, celebrate Romeo staying home. But keep an eye on the ones who'll likely make that home what it becomes.