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2020 College Basketball Coaching Carousel

I don’t think Wake is as good of a job as it used to be. But I also think we can do better than Wes. If he wasn’t close by and have Wake roots no one here would want him to be our coach.
 
This year, UNCG beat Georgetown on the road. G'town at 10-3 is a projected to be a NCAA tourney team with wins over OK State (road), SMU (road), Cuse and Texas. In 2018, UNCG won on the road at State. That State team went 11-7 in the ACC and made the tournament (FWIW, since the infamous "nut-punch" game on March 6, 2005, WF has won once at State in 14 tries, that includes two loses under Skip and 0-3 under Gaudio). Miller took on a UNCG program that was in the gutter (they were #284 when he took over), with very little resources, and they are now a top 100 team (actually in the 70 to 85 range) for the third year in a row -- with an evolving set of players. That is the ceiling (and probably above the ceiling) for anyone coaching at UNCG. It's no longer a fluke, or a coach riding a single talented player. Not saying Miller should get offered the WF job, just that he has proven he can build a program and sustain it. Miller should be on the candidate list. There are grounds to conclude that Miller could coach on a Power V level and have that team as a regular NCAA tourney participant.

New to this thread, but I agree with this. I don’t understand why we should expect Wes to pick up big time wins with UNCG. With the record he has, that’s pretty much as high as they can go. They don’t have the resources you need to be able to win, even in their conference. He rebuilt their program from nothing. At Wake, he would be able to do much more. I think Wes is a good coach. One big thing for me is he is a very good communicator. Go watch one of his press conferences. He’s able to talk well. He can tell you what they as a team need to improve on. Very little things like communicating well show you so much.

He’s young, he’s got energy, and his teams are well coached. They’ve also been consistently good. They haven’t dipped much at all. If Danny was fired, and I was John Currie, Wes would be in my top 3 for sure.
 
New to this thread, but I agree with this. I don’t understand why we should expect Wes to pick up big time wins with UNCG. With the record he has, that’s pretty much as high as they can go. They don’t have the resources you need to be able to win, even in their conference. He rebuilt their program from nothing. At Wake, he would be able to do much more. I think Wes is a good coach. One big thing for me is he is a very good communicator. Go watch one of his press conferences. He’s able to talk well. He can tell you what they as a team need to improve on. Very little things like communicating well show you so much.

He’s young, he’s got energy, and his teams are well coached. They’ve also been consistently good. They haven’t dipped much at all. If Danny was fired, and I was John Currie, Wes would be in my top 3 for sure.

apologies, double post.
 
Every year someone has to win the SoCon. Wes has only won it once. It’s not much to expect an ACC level coach to win it more than once. For example, Mike Young won the SoCon tournament 5 of the last 10 years and 3 of the last 6 years post-Davidson before he was hired for an ACC job. Same conference.

Why should we hire a coach demonstratively worse than the one VT just hired? Again?
 
UNCG doesn't have the resources to win in the Southern Conference?
 
Apparently not as many resources as Wofford, a school with fewer than 2000 undergrads.
 
Every year someone has to win the SoCon. Wes has only won it once. It’s not much to expect an ACC level coach to win it more than once. For example, Mike Young won the SoCon tournament 5 of the last 10 years and 3 of the last 6 years post-Davidson before he was hired for an ACC job. Same conference.

Why should we hire a coach demonstratively worse than the one VT just hired? Again?

Maybe VT is now the better job? I know that is blasphemy and untrue from a historical standpoint but Skip Brown and Rod Griffin ain't walking through that door.
 
Apparently not as many resources as Wofford, a school with fewer than 2000 undergrads.

https://woffordterriers.com/sports/2016/10/13/richardson-indoor-stadium.aspx

Check out that link. Take a look at the photo gallery. Former Panthers owner donated his pocket cash to greatly upgrade their facilities. They have the best in the conference. Beautiful building, great resources, but most importantly, a great sell to recruits. UNCG doesn’t have a facility.

No, they don’t have the same resources Wofford does.
 
I don't buy the poor mouthing of this job. It isn't elite, but it isn't a terrible dead end job that some suggest either.

We had one halfway decent season and had the #4 recruiting class in the ACC the next season.
 
The right guy will make this an excellent job again.
 
https://woffordterriers.com/sports/2016/10/13/richardson-indoor-stadium.aspx

Check out that link. Take a look at the photo gallery. Former Panthers owner donated his pocket cash to greatly upgrade their facilities. They have the best in the conference. Beautiful building, great resources, but most importantly, a great sell to recruits. UNCG doesn’t have a facility.

No, they don’t have the same resources Wofford does.

Good post.

Wofford has better athletic facilities than a lot of places and it matters. Sure it’s lucky for them that Jerry pours money into program but Wake has many more donors that does this. Does UNCG have any? Can’t believe I am defending Wes Miller here but if you think Wake can do better I’d love to know who you think would take the job.
 
Love the dumb qualifier at the end. “We had to hire the guy that begs for change over on University! He was the only one who would take the job!”

If you think Wes Miller, with his pathetic resume, is the best coach who will take the job, then you might as well find another school to adopt.
 
Love the dumb qualifier at the end. “We had to hire the guy that begs for change over on University! He was the only one who would take the job!”

If you think Wes Miller, with his pathetic resume, is the best coach who will take the job, then you might as well find another school to adopt.

Wake Forest is still one of the top jobs in the country, and anyone who thinks otherwise doesn’t know any better. When we are offering a high salary, it doesn’t get much better. Once the Chris Paul Locker Room is completed, we’ll have the top facilities in the ACC (and country). There is no reason why Wake isn’t a destination job for a coach. The only problem may be how much are we willing to offer up? If DM’s contract still has a lot to be paid off, we may have to go out looking for a coach with less guaranteed money.

As of right now, as much as people hate it, Danny is on track for another year at Wake. So we may have to hold off on the coaching search for a couple of weeks. If we go back to losing to mediocre teams in the ACC, this thread will get some traction i’m sure.
 
Wake Forest is still one of the top jobs in the country, and anyone who thinks otherwise doesn’t know any better. When we are offering a high salary, it doesn’t get much better. Once the Chris Paul Locker Room is completed, we’ll have the top facilities in the ACC (and country). There is no reason why Wake isn’t a destination job for a coach. The only problem may be how much are we willing to offer up? If DM’s contract still has a lot to be paid off, we may have to go out looking for a coach with less guaranteed money.

As of right now, as much as people hate it, Danny is on track for another year at Wake. So we may have to hold off on the coaching search for a couple of weeks. If we go back to losing to mediocre teams in the ACC, this thread will get some traction i’m sure.

 
These are all over 1 year old:






Add to that Louisville and Kansas both have top facilities and basketball player-only dorms that are nuts.
 
Ph- you still seem to think the Wake job is a good job, sadly it’s not. Miller could at least build it to possibly mid tier ACC. Dude is no miracle worker but can coach circles around Manning.
If Wes did that though, he'd be here for life and that's all we'd ever be for as long as any of us will be alive. That's the problem with Wes, he's unfirable unless he fails miserably, and even then it would be hard.
 
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One reason we had a strong stature back in the day was that the ACC was clearly the superior conference in a college basketball landscape that wasn’t too far behind college football. Due to expansion and the completely different media landscape, plenty of programs offer what Wake used to be able to offer and the road to the tournament is much tougher for ACC teams.
 
Here's another name to keep in mind:

LaVall Jordan at Butler. He is now in his 3rd year at Butler, and the Bulldogs are 14-1 ranked #4 in KP. They have a ton of top 100 wins:

- #37 Minnesota
- #52 Mizzou
- #51 Stanford
- #93 Mississippi
- #29 Florida
- #23 Purdue
- #76 St. John's
- #41 Creighton

Their lone loss was by 1 point at #10 Baylor. Jordan would not be an easy get as he went to Butler; he was on the team that boat-raced Wake Forest in the 2001 NCAA tournament. Jordan took the Butler job in 2017-8, and then received a contract extension in 2018; Jordan was apparently one of the finalists for the Michigan opening that went to Juwan Howard (Jordan was an assistant under Bielein at Michigan). Reasonable to think that Wake Forest could pony up more cash than Butler, but not sure if the difference in cash would be enough for Butler to leave his alma mater, and who heads a program that is light-years ahead of WF.

One last thought: when hiring the next coach, while past track record is a key factor, it's not the only factor that should be considered when deciding who will have WF basketball in the best position 3 years, 5 years, 7 years from now. The two coaches that went head to head in the NCAA final last March were Tony Bennett and Chris Beard. Probably the two brightest 50 and under coaching stars in college basketball. Bennett coached a total of 3 years before getting the UVA job. His last year at Washington State before getting the UVA offer, Wazzu went 17-16 (8-10); there were many more "accomplished" coaching candidates that UVA could have hired.

Before getting the Texas Tech job, Chris Beard had coached one year at low-major Arkansas Little Rock.

Similarly, Board fave Pat Chambers, who has Penn State at #21 and took the job when that program was below where WF is now, coached two years at low-major Boston University in the Patriot League. Chambers best win at BU in two years was over#71 Northeastern.

There isn't one definitive formula for finding the coach best suited for the WF job. It could be an older seasoned coached that has moved around college basketball, like Ben Howland, but it also could be a coach with brief experience or not the most top 25 wins/accolades/conference championships in his lesser conference.
 
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