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Our Next BB Coach or #MannUp + other coach talk

Deacsfan27 said:
I think Ron Wellman, regardless of a lot of Wake Forest fans opinions, is still highly respected by most in the coaching/AD world. Nothing solid to base that off of, just my opinion.

I disagree that RW isn't a coach's AD. He has proven himself to defend a coach almost to a fault. I agree that the Dino Gaudio firing was extremely questionable, but I think that could be explained away if the coach asks him point blank about why that decision was made. Once again, we do not know the whole RW vs. DG story and there could very well be a lot more to it than the public knows about. If the coach has serious concerns about that I believe that RW will have no problem at all explaining to him exactly what happened and why it happened.

You have to keep in mind that the opinions and knowledge that we have as fans are not necessarily the same views that potential coaches would have coming into a possible coaching position here.

I'm not as sure that we can land Shaka Smart as RJ is, but I do think we can land a coach that has won on a fairly high stage at the NCAA level before.

On an aside...a lot of people here acknowledge that Ron Wellman identified Brad Stevens as a potential coach before he even reached back to back Final Fours. While he was unable to secure the deal, potentially because Stevens went to the Final Four that year, it does say a lot about RW and his ability to distinguish talent in an up and coming basketball coach. That right there is half the battle. This time, he needs to complete the second step and actually hire said coach.

I agree that there are a fair amount of questions surrounding our basketball team and the AD that led us into this situation. I, however, am not completely willing to write off his ability to right the ship and turn it around to where we need to be.
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Fair points.

Adout3000 said:
This point is ridiculous. Of course, Wellman identified Stevens as a potential coach prior to the Final Fours. So did everyone else. Any coach who takes a mid-major to an at-large caliber seed is going to be on ADs' radars. As of the time of Gaudio's firing, Stevens had done it three years in a row - the first as the second-youngest coach in D1, the second after losing four starters from the previous year's team, and the third as a preseason top-10 team (thanks, Wikipedia!) - and he was all of what, 33?. The ability to distinguish an up-and-coming coach in Stevens is about equivalent to the ability to distinguish Michael Jordan as an up-and-coming player after he hit the jumper to beat Georgetown - you might not know just how great they'll become but you know they're going to be pretty damn good.
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Also true.
 
We'd be in heaven right now had IU's resurgence started one year earlier.

The concept of a "crony hire" is for the lazy. It's total crap. Bzedlik was a minimum of our third choice. The difference between us signing him and State signing Sidney Lowe was we didn't do our hiring in public. It was the one thing that Wellman did correctly in this fiasco.
 
RJKarl said:
We'd be in heaven right now had IU's resurgence started one year earlier.

The concept of a "crony hire" is for the lazy. It's total crap. Bzedlik was a minimum of our third choice. The difference between us signing him and State signing Sidney Lowe was we didn't do our hiring in public. It was the one thing that Wellman did correctly in this fiasco.
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wait what?
 
Deacsfan27 said:
I love Pat Kelsey. Always been a fan of him and his speech at the Carolina Challenge last year confirmed it even more. I am in the camp though that Wake should completely clear themselves of the Skip Prosser tree for several reasons.
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Strickland33 said:
What reasons would those be?
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Are there reasons beyond the typical talking points?
 
Strickland33 said:
Are there reasons beyond the typical talking points?
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I don't mean culture reasons or whatever Ron Wellman wants us to think was wrong with the prior coaching administration. I think Wake Forest needs to bring in somebody that is separate from the ways we have done things in the past. If we hired Pat Kelsey then who would fill out his coaching staff? Guys that he has known throughout his coaching tenure, perhaps those that have served at Wake/Xavier in the past.

Most people agree that when Jeff [Redacted] is fired Wake needs to clear the coaching staff and start from new. Hiring Kelsey would make this move pretty difficult I believe.
 
Strickland33 said:
Your whole post. If I didn't know you better, then I might think you're trying to spin the [Redacted] hire.
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I think he's saying if Indiana was good one year earlier, we'd already have Stevens or Alford, and that there's no way Buzz was our first choice.
 
tiltdeac said:
I think he's saying if Indiana was good one year earlier, we'd already have Stevens or Alford, and that there's no way Buzz was our first choice.
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We know this. But it is ahistorical. We threw a heap of money at Stevens and failed. As others have pointed out more eloquently, Wellman conducted a pitiful coaching search given his lengthy tenure and hired his incredibly unqualified friend. How calling this a crony hire or extolling lazy coaching search as they are - a crony hire and pitiful search for an experienced AD - is what I still am having trouble understanding... I'd rather have had Wellman go through proper channels, conduct a search, and remain accountable. I hate how this secretive process has allowed him and [Redacted] to destroy our program and drag Skip and Dino through thr mud because there is zero accountability
 
An interesting question would be whether you want a Wellman-esque hiring process, or one like Fowler had before he hired Lowe?
 
Strickland33 said:
Your whole post. If I didn't know you better, then I might think you're trying to spin the [Redacted] hire.
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Then you don't understand our history or the English language.

"We'd be in heaven right now had IU's resurgence started one year earlier."

Had IU gotten good that year, it's extremely likely that either Stevens or Alford would have accepted our offer. They would have known not to wait for the job. We be in heaven with one of those guys coaching our team.

The concept of a "crony hire" is for the lazy. It's total crap. Bzedlik was a minimum of our third choice. The difference between us signing him and State signing Sidney Lowe was we didn't do our hiring in public. It was the one thing that Wellman did correctly in this fiasco."

It's not "spinning" to say this wasn't a "crony hire". It's spinning to say it was.
Secondly, the only thing Wellman did correctly in this fiasco was to keep it out of the press. That's not "spinning". It'/s accurate. He failed in waiting so long to fire Dino. He failed to get the guys he wanted. But he did keep everything out of the press.

I don't get why this is so difficult for you to understand.
 
Deacsfan27 said:
An interesting question would be whether you want a Wellman-esque hiring process, or one like Fowler had before he hired Lowe?
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I'd actually prefer neither, but if forced to choose then I choose the latter. Anything is better than [Redacted]. Lowe left Gottfried a ton of talent. You won't be able to say that for [Redacted]'s successor.
 
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RJKarl said:
Then you don't understand our history or the English language.

"We'd be in heaven right now had IU's resurgence started one year earlier."

Had IU gotten good that year, it's extremely likely that either Stevens or Alford would have accepted our offer. They would have known not to wait for the job. We be in heaven with one of those guys coaching our team.

The concept of a "crony hire" is for the lazy. It's total crap. Bzedlik was a minimum of our third choice. The difference between us signing him and State signing Sidney Lowe was we didn't do our hiring in public. It was the one thing that Wellman did correctly in this fiasco."

It's not "spinning" to say this wasn't a "crony hire". It's spinning to say it was.
Secondly, the only thing Wellman did correctly in this fiasco was to keep it out of the press. That's not "spinning". It'/s accurate. He failed in waiting so long to fire Dino. He failed to get the guys he wanted. But he did keep everything out of the press.

I don't get why this is so difficult for you to understand.
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Okay, and if Kobe had not demanded a trade from Charlotte then the Hornets may have generated enough money to convince Shinn to keep the team in Charlotte and they would have become a dynasty... I agree with you about Indiana, but it didn't happen like that and our AD was unable to make a hire given these very material and obvious circumstances.

Regarding the latter, I just disagree. A big reason why Buzzout started so early was, in part, because of how Wellman and the AD managed the hire so poorly in the press. Unlike you, however, I will disagree without being disagreeable. :thumbsup:
 
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Never mind. I'll just realize that you know all and I know nothing. That's your position.
 
RJKarl said:
Never mind. I'll just realize that you know all and I know nothing. That's your position.
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I'm not sure that I said that. You're entitled to your opinion, just as I am to mine. As neither of us are Ron Wellman, the truth remains out there. Happy New Year, RJ.
 
Wes Miller has UNCG within 7pts of NCSU @ half. And this without his leading scorer, Trevis Simpson(scored 25pts against us), who twisted his ankle walking across campus this morning.
 
Strickland33 said:
We know this. But it is ahistorical. We threw a heap of money at Stevens and failed. As others have pointed out more eloquently, Wellman conducted a pitiful coaching search given his lengthy tenure and hired his incredibly unqualified friend. How calling this a crony hire or extolling lazy coaching search as they are - a crony hire and pitiful search for an experienced AD - is what I still am having trouble understanding... I'd rather have had Wellman go through proper channels, conduct a search, and remain accountable. I hate how this secretive process has allowed him and [Redacted] to destroy our program and drag Skip and Dino through thr mud because there is zero accountability
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This continues to drive me nuts!
 
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