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Has Blogersodear given up on new basketball coach?

I’ve been going through the KP data and historical conference standings and the list of strong mid-major candidates is short.

They all have flaws.

Long track records of mediocrity with outlier years of success.

Stains due to other issues (Chris Jans getting drunk and fired from Bowling Green).

It’s kind of depressing, actually. Anyone that strings together 2-3 years of success moves to a better job.

So you’re left taking a risk with one of those guys that has had 1-2 years of success with no real way to delineate if they are good coaches or if they lucked into talent right off the bat.

This is what I was trying to get at a bit last night. The list is not overly deep, and everybody behind legit Power 5 proven coaches is going to be a risk at some level.

That's why I was asking for specific names from posters who questioned some of the names on the list. It's easy to say "I don't want that guy" without naming who you actually think we should (A) go after, and (B) could realistically get.
 
I'm on the Brinks truck to Thad Matta's house.

After that, Oats.

Another mid/low major coach is John Becker at Vermont. Not so young, (50) but lots of winning. 192-126 over eight seasons there . 3 regular season and two conference tournament titles. Coach of the year 3x. No p6 experience is a flaw.

ETA:

He is 103-20 (.832) in conference since 2011. Worst finish is 3rd. 186-82 overall. Won at least 20 games every year. Currently 10-1 in conference play.

His record at Gallaudet in the late 90's was not good. That drags down his overall record. Maybe he learned something between 1998 and 2011. Worked as an assistant to Mike Lonergan at Vermont before Lonergan moved to GW.

Not big on the Becker idea. He didn't build that up but rather piggy backed off predecessor's success there. If we go into that league, Ryan Odom is the only one there. Vermont's only loss in league this year is to UMBC and that's now two in a row UMBC has beaten VT. And Odom built this up from a dumpster fire prior to his arrival. 7 wins the year before to 21 in his first year and 25 in his second.

I'm not lobbying for Odom yet, he needs more time. Just saying he's a better fit than Becker, imo.
 
you gotta be kidding with ryan odom. again, it’s comical how much time we spend talking about mediocre (or worse) options just because some sort of previous connection to wake basketball makes them seem familiar.

if we have to only talk about one additional guy, look at mike rhoades, who has a much, much better resume than someone like wes miller.
 
you gotta be kidding with ryan odom. again, it’s comical how much time we spend talking about mediocre (or worse) options just because some sort of previous connection to wake basketball makes them seem familiar.

if we have to only talk about one additional guy, look at mike rhoades, who has a much, much better resume than someone like wes miller.

The VCU guy? Miller actually has a better resume at this point. VCU guy has never finished higher than 5th in conference and has no NCAA or NIT appearances.
 
Rhoades completely turned around a dreadful Rice program in three years, with his own players (his last season at Rice had zero seniors). Now he’s poised to have VCU have one of their best years ever next year.
 
auto bids from shitty confernences don’t mean much. i know some people tried to knock michael white for not making the ncaa tourney
 
DR says coaching resumes shouldn't matter. Let's hire the guy who opens the gym for rec leagues. We could probably get him for $150K.
 
I completely agree with Appetite on this.

People get way too fixated on winning 2-3 games in a conference tournament as a 3-4 seed in one-bid leagues to get an NCAA Tournament. Now what Odom did in the first round against UVA was extremely impressive, but I want guys who have been 1st/2nd in their league even if they didn't make the NCAA Tournament. That's way more important to me than what happens in a one-off scenario.
 
auto bids from shitty confernences don’t mean much. i know some people tried to knock michael white for not making the ncaa tourney

That’s Michael “Lost in the C-USA Championship Game to Danny Manning” White to you.
 
I completely agree with Appetite on this.

People get way too fixated on winning 2-3 games in a conference tournament as a 3-4 seed in one-bid leagues to get an NCAA Tournament. Now what Odom did in the first round against UVA was extremely impressive, but I want guys who have been 1st/2nd in their league even if they didn't make the NCAA Tournament. That's way more important to me than what happens in a one-off scenario.

Agreed. See Danny Manning and Mike White in C-USA. Not that White was a realistic choice for us due to what other posters have pointed out, but I do remember him being among the board favorites during the last coaching search. Still a good case study to this point.
 
He's makes the most sense as a realistic candidate:

1. Age
2. Possible financial constraints we will be dealing with
3. ACC ties
4. Regional recruiting ties
5. Ties to Wake
6. Enthusiasm


If we can get any of the guys in the top tier that I wrote about then I would take them over Wes, but I have no idea how realistic that is at all - guessing slim to none on all of them.

I think people make too much over ACC and regional ties. Skip Prosser had none and he was successful, same with Tony Bennett.
 
Two points:

As a Florida fan, I like Mike White. But he hasn’t done all that much at UF to date.

I’ve looked at Mike Rhoades. He’s worth discussing, at least. Don’t know too much about him outside of KP info.
 
FWIW, Rhoades was the guy all the VCU fans wanted when it looked like either Wake or Marquette were going to end up with Shaka.

Probably the most similar profile to Clawson in that he is young but has been a head coach for a bunch of years, albeit mostly at a non-FBS level.
 
I think people make too much over ACC and regional ties. Skip Prosser had none and he was successful, same with Tony Bennett.

I agree. I honestly don’t really care about regional, conference, school, etc. ties. Yeah I guess they’re nice, but only if all the other right boxes are checked first. Look at the top four teams in the conference right now (UVA, Duke, UNC, and VT). Only one of their coaches had any type of school/conference/region ties prior to coming to the ACC and the other three are doing just fine. K, who has had the best career out of the bunch, came to the ACC at a time where regional ties were probably way more important than they are now and things seemed to work out fine for Duke.
 
I agree. I honestly don’t really care about regional, conference, school, etc. ties. Yeah I guess they’re nice, but only if all the other right boxes are checked first. Look at the top four teams in the conference right now (UVA, Duke, UNC, and VT). Only one of their coaches had any type of school/conference/region ties prior to coming to the ACC and the other three are doing just fine. K, who has had the best career out of the bunch, came to the ACC at a time where regional ties were probably way more important than they are now and things seemed to work out fine for Duke.

But Bennett and Buzz each had significant P6 experience. Bennett had been an assistant, Associate HC and HC for a decade at a P6 school. Buzz had two P6 stops and was a P6 HC. Thus, each had deep, high level recruiting ties as well their higher level experience than HOF Wes.

K came from Knight and was in a much different era.
 
But Bennett and Buzz each had significant P6 experience. Bennett had been an assistant, Associate HC and HC for a decade at a P6 school. Buzz had two P6 stops and was a P6 HC. Thus, each had deep, high level recruiting ties as well their higher level experience than HOF Wes.

K came from Knight and was in a much different era.

That’s kind of my point (not the P6 stuff, but more about recruiting). If you can recruit, you can recruit. It doesn’t matter where you plop down a good recruiter; they’ll be fine, especially in today’s landscape where the best recruiting work is done at a national or international level. I’m saying that conference/region/school ties are being overblown and should not be a serious factor unless we’re splitting hairs. I’m not saying that quality experience in a top conference is unimportant. I feel pretty confident that Matta and Oats (one with top conference experience and the other without) would be able to recruit to Wake out of the gate better than some of the other names being tossed around only because hey coach 30 minutes down the road or we’re an assistant at Wake a decade ago. This isn’t to say I don’t like Miller or Kelsey. I think they could both be very successful at Wake. It’s to say that being from NC or being a former assistant at Wake should not be a deciding factor in hiring them.
 
There are an ass ton of typos in that and I can’t edit on mobile. Oops
 
But Bennett and Buzz each had significant P6 experience. Bennett had been an assistant, Associate HC and HC for a decade at a P6 school. Buzz had two P6 stops and was a P6 HC. Thus, each had deep, high level recruiting ties as well their higher level experience than HOF Wes.

K came from Knight and was in a much different era.

That's the point. Local and/or ACC recruiting connections or any connections don't matter. If a dude can be a successful coach in Wisconsin or Washington, he can coach in Virginia or North Carolina.
 
You've established that. Those are not reasons to put him in his own tier.

Hire the best coach. It is a very good job and there are lots of "realistic" candidates, and only a handful of not realistic ones

Why are people complaining about what tier someone is in on the free website where the contributors are volunteers?

I think what you all mean to say is “Thank you for doing this work so I can have more information about possible candidates.”
 
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