Family matters

In Boston, they're kicking Brad Stevens upstairs to the front office, so there go the final shreds of a particularly stubborn hallucination. Repeat after me, boys and girls: HE'S NOT COMING BACK TO COLLEGE. NOT, NOT, NOT.

So forget about him eventually winding up as Mike Krzyzewski's successor at Duke after he turned down bags of cash to be Archie Miller's successor at IU. And how do we know that?

Because, again, HE'S TAKING OVER DANNY AINGE'S CHAIR.

Also, Coach K took the "eventually" out of the occasion by announcing yesterday that 2021-22 would be his last season. And while Duke was announcing that, it also announced assistant coach and former Duke star Jon Scheyer would be the next head coach.

Scheyer has no experience as a college head coach, but his elevation should surprise no one who understands how things work at places such as Duke. After almost 40 seasons and five national titles, Krzyzewski has established a culture at Duke that is as permanent and sustainable as any ivy-covered edifice on the grounds. And so there was zero chance Duke would go outside the family for K's successor, just as there was zero chance North Carolina, eight miles down the road, would go outside the family to succeed Roy Williams, who's also stepping down.

The Tar Heels tabbed former Carolina star and now top assistant Hubert Davis to fill Williams' seat. Because at both Duke and Carolina, the culture is everything.

Whether that's the correct way to look at things is immaterial, because at both schools the powers-that-be could hardly have looked at it any other way. There are simply certain prerogatives at certain institutions, and to expect those who make decisions at those institutions to stray from those prerogatives would be like expecting them to stop breathing.

And so culture trumps experience and coaching resume, at places such as Duke and North Carolina. At places such as Indiana, too, where the culture withered on the vine years ago while the decision-makers futzed around with outsiders.

Kelvin Sampson, Tom Crean and even Archie Miller brought heftier college resumes to the table than Mike Woodson, a pro guy who's never coached college kids. But what he does have is a link to a basketball tradition Bob Knight built upon and took to new heights, and which Woodson will now try to restore as a Knight acolyte.

It's what a particular strain of IU fan has been baying for, lost in the past though he/she may be. And it remains to be seen if it's in fact recoverable, this no longer being 1976 or '81 or '87.

Best available evidence so far is that Woodson is already hard at work re-knitting the IU hoops fabric, and he's gotten Miller's holdovers to buy in. Now all he has to do is turn that into Ws.

And Scheyer and Davis?

Same deal.

Culture may be the coin of the realm in those places, see. But you gotta keep it fed.