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Who Were the Up & Coming Coaches 4 Years Ago

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oldmandeac

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Maybe seeing Bobby Lutz name attached to App St made me think about this. Seem to recall he was a hot commodity at one point. Who were the hot names this board wanted before the Buzz hire and how have they done since then?

The secondary question is what makes a great coach great? Ability to recruit? Over what period of time ? Anyone can get lucky and stumble upon a great player or two. Did having Tim Duncan make Dave Odom a great coach? Given that, does a 4 year or less stint at a program truly indicate a coach's abilities or is success bridging multiple recruiting classes (losing and replacing key/star players) required? Even Skip had a bad year in this measure. Is it X's and O's? I watched a Florida player take an ill-advised 3 pointer in a key situation yesterday when Dayton was making a run late in the game. If Dayton that further fueled the comeback and they had won, would that have made Billy Donovan a bad or less desirable coach? Is Archie Miller a less desirable coach since an 11 seed lost to a #1 seed or is his brother Sean fallen in esteem more because his team was a #1 seed and lost?
 
If bobby lutz were ever a hot name he wouldn't be an assistant at NCSU..he left head coach at Charlotte to be asst at Iowa state...that doesn't scream up and comer
 
Brad Stevens had just gone on his first title game run with Buttplug.
 
The list kind of confirms my thinking...

Gregory has had three losing seasons at Georgia Tech and their faithful aren't thrilled with him.
Donahue was fired this year by Boston College
Stevens went to the NBA (doesn't count)
Groce has had two 20 win seasons at Illinois but losing conference records
Brownell has had two good and two arguable bad seasons at Clemson

Not one of them is the big success they were at their prior schools. So what is missing? How does that translate to the hot coaches now that we may or may not be pursuing? Hence, the secondary question - what makes a great coach? How do the K's, Pitino's, Williams', and the like become consistent winners and others do not? How do we find that type of guy?

By the way, Lutz was hot in the 2005-2007 time frame - he had taken Charlotte to the NCAA's 5 times in 7 or 8 years (NIT in two I believe). I think his issue is he stuck with Charlotte too long rather than strike while the iron was hot. When Charlotte had a down year in 2009 followed by an end of season collapse after a promising start in 2010, they fired him.
 
I think that batch of coaches was objectively worse, though. Not every "up & coming coach" is the same.
 
oldmandeac said:
The list kind of confirms my thinking...

Gregory has had three losing seasons at Georgia Tech and their faithful aren't thrilled with him.
Donahue was fired this year by Boston College
Stevens went to the NBA (doesn't count)
Groce has had two 20 win seasons at Illinois but losing conference records
Brownell has had two good and two arguable bad seasons at Clemson

Not one of them is the big success they were at their prior schools. So what is missing? How does that translate to the hot coaches now that we may or may not be pursuing? Hence, the secondary question - what makes a great coach? How do the K's, Pitino's, Williams', and the like become consistent winners and others do not? How do we find that type of guy?

By the way, Lutz was hot in the 2005-2007 time frame - he had taken Charlotte to the NCAA's 5 times in 7 or 8 years (NIT in two I believe). I think his issue is he stuck with Charlotte too long rather than strike while the iron was hot. When Charlotte had a down year in 2009 followed by an end of season collapse after a promising start in 2010, they fired him.
Click to expand...

I don't see how Gregory was pegged as an up-and-coming coach, personally. Dude was an average mid-major coach at best and is proving to be a below average high-major coach at best. Outside of hiring [he who shall not be named], this was a head scratcher of a hire to say the least. Reeked of few options and limited capital.

I'm honestly surprised that Donahue was as bad as he turned out to be. I admired his work at Cornell, but that might have just been a function of having the greatest combination of players in the program's recent history. It could also be the [he who shall not be named]-effect of inheriting a roster of incredibly good and disciplined veteran players, and doing well with them. Who knows.

I think folks should wait to judge Groce and Brownell:

-Groce's 2013 and 2014 classes look like keepers, and I'll chalk up the disappointment this year to patching up the post-Weber disaster. Rayvonte Rice was their best player... Even so, top-50 finish in kenpom this year and has an NCAA Tournament win under his belt, albeit with Weber's last team.

-Coaching at Clemson much royally suck. I have been impressed with how Brownell's teams play even if they are really talent deficient. If Brownell can coach up the guys on his bench and the recruits he has coming in like he did KJ McDaniels, then they could definitely get back to where they were in Purnell and Barnes's glory days. Dude just has to recruit better and Clemson is a hellhole for basketball recruiting...

The only other guy I can think of is Gottfried. If I was a State fan, then I'd be really disappointed in how his tenure has gone. His recruiting is deceptively mediocre (he's scoring the higher maintenance guys at the lower ends of 5 and 4-stars) and his teams haven't really shown much in the way of discipline, toughness, or consistency.
 
Who cares about the "Up & Coming?" The available was Greg Marshall.

That ship has sailed, because Wellman decided to hire bzdick for reasons he has yet to explain.
 
Brian Gregory as an up and comer? ROFL.

He was a career mediocre mid-major coach who had the good luck of having been an Izzo assistant. Dayton fans wanted him gone and GT baffling threw him a lifeline.

Chris Mooney was up and coming at that time though. Hasn't really made a jump.
 
RedSoxFaithful said:
I think that batch of coaches was objectively worse, though. Not every "up & coming coach" is the same.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I don't think the choices 4 years ago were that great. I was a Marshall fan back then but other than that, I was never really impressed. This year there are a lot of coaches I think will be successful.
 
Liquid Karma said:
Brad Stevens had just gone on his first title game run with Buttplug.
Click to expand...

I swear to God I have looked at this post for at least 3 minutes debating whether I thought that LK typed it that way as an insult to Butler or whether he got caught with a really unfortunate autocorrect.
 
ibleedgoldandblack said:
I swear to God I have looked at this post for at least 3 minutes debating whether I thought that LK typed it that way as an insult to Butler or whether he got caught with a really unfortunate autocorrect.
Click to expand...

i choose to believe the latter, and further believe that "buttplug" would have be custom-added to the autocorrect by the phone owner...
 
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