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Basketball Assistant Coaches

TheIshThatSaved WakeForest

TheIshThatSaved WakeForest

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A comment that DeaconSig made on another thread made me think about this.
We know that Coach Battle is likely gone after this season since his son will be out of high school. He almost took the Providence assistant job this summer, so it is pretty obvious it won't take a lot for him to leave. Every past player seems to love him and he has been a steady recruiter for a long time. Losing him will hurt.

If he leaves, we lose our best (and pretty much only) experienced recruiter. Bz's ties are mostly to the NBA and it would be hard to find an established recruiter/good coach to join him on this sinking ship. If he could convince someone, great, but I don't have high hopes.

Just another reason to go ahead and make the move.
 
Agreed. Let Rusty sink or swim elsewhere. Maybe Wes Miller can find him a spot on his staff. Bz only brought in a former NBA player he coached looking to break into college and a former NBA exec. It's pathetic that he has been in college coaching since 2005 and doesn't have enough contacts to fill a staff with college coaches.
 
Well once it fell through with Stevens wasn't Wellman looking for someone specifically that would give the current staff a shot to stay on? That was probably Wellman's biggest mistake in the search, inasmuch it surely severely limited his pool. The recruiting class we saved hasn't been nearly as productive as hoped or needed.

Once we move forward we need a completely fresh start.
 
Yeah, I just can't see it making sense to go find another "top recruiter" to recruit one class and then get canned. Clean house and bring in a new staff- preferably one that can hit the ground running with respect to recruiting.
 
I could be wrong, but I think I read from someone (Daniels? Telep?) that Rusty has developed a nice recruiting reputation.

Anyone know if that's true/untrue?
 
TheIshThatSaved WakeForest said:
That would surprise me, but I'd love for it to be true if you can find it.
Click to expand...

I'm honestly not sure if there's any lasting evidence of it, since it may have happened in a Telep chat or something like that.

I could be completely imagining things, but I thought someone asked Telep about Wake's recruiting ability and he said something to the effect of: "Wake still has a great 'brand' and some guys that are well-liked in the NC High School scene like Rusty LaRue."
 
If Battle goes and [Redacted] stays... No hope for the next few years of Basketball IMHO.

Wellman, figure it out. PLEASE.
 
Let Battle have the top job and Randolph joins the staff. The players and recruits are happy and the Joel fills up starting next season.
 
deaclite said:
Let Battle have the top job and Randolph joins the staff. The players and recruits are happy and the Joel fills up starting next season.
Click to expand...

That actually sounds like a recipe for disaster.

"Take a tough situation, make the coaching staff less experienced, and make sure there are as many WFU alums on the coaching staff as possible so when we meltdown next year we can start eating our own."
 
And for what it's worth, I think Battle's a great human being. Everything I've read and heard from these boards points to him being a fantastic person. In addition to this, he's been responsible for many of our highly-rated recruits over the past 4-5 years.

But, no one's ever really convinced me that he can coach. Under Dino, we were terrible at offense and good at defense. Under [Redacted], I think we look better on offense but we're horrible at defense. Battle was involved in both of these regimes, so it's not clear to me what he "adds" to our team in terms of strategy, motivation, or ability.
 
TexasDeac10 said:
I'm honestly not sure if there's any lasting evidence of it, since it may have happened in a Telep chat or something like that.

I could be completely imagining things, but I thought someone asked Telep about Wake's recruiting ability and he said something to the effect of: "Wake still has a great 'brand' and some guys that are well-liked in the NC High School scene like Rusty LaRue."
Click to expand...

I recall a positive statement about Rusty's NC recruiting ability made by Telep in his talk at the Raleigh Sports Club several weeks back.
 
Fuck Your Couch said:
Well once it fell through with Stevens wasn't Wellman looking for someone specifically that would give the current staff a shot to stay on? That was probably Wellman's biggest mistake in the search, inasmuch it surely severely limited his pool. The recruiting class we saved hasn't been nearly as productive as hoped or needed.

Once we move forward we need a completely fresh start.
Click to expand...

Does that mean Bz should take his recruiting class with him?
 
Take his recruiting class where? All I said was that if/when Bz gets fired we should stop clinging to remnants of an old staff to shoehorn a new candidate in his place. We've made our last two hires based partly on retaining two recruiting classes. That hasn't worked out well.

I love the Super Six and I think they have already bonded and are strong in their commitments to Wake, more-so than anything else.
 
Fair point by Ish. I tend to agree.

But assuming [Redacted] is back, isn't our dobo a former Knicks scout or coach? Maybe he could step in for the year.
 
Given his age and experience, Nix said he doesn't know how long he will remain as Wake Forest's director of basketball operations. He no longer has his sights set on becoming a college head coach but said he can envision becoming a college athletics director.

But upon joining a staff that includes assistants Jeff Battle, Rusty LaRue and Walt Corbean, he made one thing clear.

"One of the things I like to do is really try to parlay this experience of getting back into college into maybe athletic administration," Nix said. "I would like to be an athletic director maybe. And I'm realistic.

"I told Walt and Jeff and Rusty, I'm not here for their job. The coaching thing, the bug, that bug left. If Jeff ([Redacted]) says 'I need you to coach,' that's a whole different story.

"But I'm here to be his wing man and support these guys."

http://www2.journalnow.com/sports/2...-to-pay-price-for-doing-whats-rig-ar-1152691/
 
He obviously doesn't have the passion to coach or motivation to suddenly become a recruiter at this stage in his life. He's more likely to be the next Ron Wellman than the next Jeff Battle.
 
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