What was the sentiment when we hired Skip?

[deaconson]

I think there was a good amount of excitement primarily because of how boring Odom-ball was to watch, especially when we could see how athletic a lot of the guys on that team were (Howard, Scott, Dawson, even Darius). Everyone had been complaining for years how we unnecessarily slowed things down when the game nationally was speeding up. Wellman basically gave the fans what they had been asking for - an up-tempo coach.

drove me nuts his last few seasons. his teams were running and blowing teams out (e.g. kansas at the joel) and as the new year turned into acc play he pulled in the reigns. had he allowed himself to change his tendencies a little he may have seen a few more seasons at wake.

 

[JimDuncan]

After the Butler loss, many of us decided it was time for Dave Odom to go. Skip was a huge breath of fresh air - very analagous to Grobe/Clawson sich.

 

[cville deac]

Odom was a good coach, and once he got rid of Stokes and brought in Haith, recruiting had picked up. But he lost that last team, I think in particular Songaila, Howard and Scott. And the Butler did it and did Odom in. I think just about everyone agreed a change was necessary.

The 2 names I remember from the search were Skip and Beilein. I think it's fair to say most of us preferred Skip - his style of more up tempo, and, while both had had success, Xavier was higher profile than Richmond was. (I think most would agree now that Beilein may have been the better choice.) The big thing was Skip really won the press conference - I'd say even more than Clawson did. Skip was a people person, a charmer, witty and oozed charisma. The whole Wake community seemed to immediately fall in love with the guy, and it didn't hurt that he had some amazing recruiting success right away. The extent to which we fell for him got me calling him Coach NotOdom on the boards just to irritate people. But yeah, his personality and instant recruiting success made for a rather giddy fan base.

 

[TreFoDeac]

RIP Skip Prosser. Take a minute to think about where we would have been right now with all the what-if's, including JJ Teague and Aminu staying at Wake.

 

[SkinsNDeacs]

Man I miss Skip. Good basketball coach...great human.

 

[Pilchard]

Skip definitely received the post-hire adulation akin to Clawson. As stated above, he amped the enthusiasm with his early public appearances. Any doubts (as the boards were gaga over Pelphrey prior to the Skip hire) about the hire were quelled very early with Skip's charisma.

Forgot about Pitt's flirtation with Skip. Skip had connections to the job as he was from near Pittsburgh; so, there was real concern that Skip would leave for Pitt. Interesting perspective to think that Skip felt WF was a better job than Pitt.

One thing has to be said about the treatment about Skip on WF boards: it was not all hugs and kisses for Skip; there were endless rants about Skip's lack of success in March; not anything close to the anti-Bz movement, but questioning his ability to get WF ready to play in post-season was a constant complaint.

 

[PhDeac]

Of course doubts about Skip never reached the levels that they did for other Wake coaches. Skip's greatest asset was that he could win a press conference after a loss. That's how he dodged the tough questions and kept more from coming.

 

[KidA23]

Of course doubts about Skip never reached the levels that they did for other Wake coaches. Skip's greatest asset was that he could win a press conference after a loss. That's how he dodged the tough questions and kept more from coming.

He also (generally) recruited such good HS talent that we presumed he'd break through eventually. I still believe he would have.

 

[cville deac]

Skip definitely received the post-hire adulation akin to Clawson. As stated above, he amped the enthusiasm with his early public appearances. Any doubts (as the boards were gaga over Pelphrey prior to the Skip hire) about the hire were quelled very early with Skip's charisma.

Forgot about Pitt's flirtation with Skip. Skip had connections to the job as he was from near Pittsburgh; so, there was real concern that Skip would leave for Pitt. Interesting perspective to think that Skip felt WF was a better job than Pitt.

One thing has to be said about the treatment about Skip on WF boards: it was not all hugs and kisses for Skip; there was a lot of rants about Skip's lack of success in March; not anything close to the anti-Bz movement, but questioning his ability to get WF ready to play in post-season was a constant complaint.

The 1 criticism I did have of Skip was his CP3 teams inability to stop good teams from scoring, and that was a bigger issue in the post-season. His 1st couple of teams were pretty good defensively, but that CP3 team just wanted to outscore you. We weren't good at zone, prolly because we didn't have tall guards. And in man, our guards didn't fight through screens, and our bigs either didn't hedge or didn't hedge effectively. The pick and roll used to kill us. I wish Dino had convinced Skip to go packline a few years before Dino did it.

 

[PhDeac]

Defense was a problem for Skip teams without Josh Howard.

 

[KidA23]

The 1 criticism I did have of Skip was his CP3 teams inability to stop good teams from scoring, and that was a bigger issue in the post-season. His 1st couple of teams were pretty good defensively, but that CP3 team just wanted to outscore you. We weren't good at zone, prolly because we didn't have tall guards. And in man, our guards didn't fight through screens, and our bigs either didn't hedge or didn't hedge effectively. The pick and roll used to kill us. I wish Dino had convinced Skip to go packline a few years before Dino did it.

Our zone defense under Skip was an abomination. I still vividly recall our game @FSU during one of the CP3 years where Von Wafer just camped out at the 3-point line (elbow extended area) and shot one wide-open 3 after another, only to be followed by Skip saying in the post-game PC that they focused in practice on taking away that very shot. Less than amusing.

 

[IAppreciateIt]

He also (generally) recruited such good HS talent that we presumed he'd break through eventually. I still believe he would have.

Yep. Good coaches who have poor post-season records typically end up winning in the postseason. Gary Williams, Lute Olsen, etc. I'm pretty positive Skip would have done the same thing.

 

[Wrangor]

Skip had the rate ability to engage everyone he met. If you entered the conversation or the interview with doubts you rarely left with them. Just an amazing human being and a very good basketball coach. Offensively and recruiting wise he was a genius. Defensively not so much.

 

[VaDeac]

Yep. Good coaches who have poor post-season records typically end up winning in the postseason. Gary Williams, Lute Olsen, etc. I'm pretty positive Skip would have done the same thing.

Add Bill Self to the list.

 

[IAppreciateIt]

The 1 criticism I did have of Skip was his CP3 teams inability to stop good teams from scoring, and that was a bigger issue in the post-season. His 1st couple of teams were pretty good defensively, but that CP3 team just wanted to outscore you. We weren't good at zone, prolly because we didn't have tall guards. And in man, our guards didn't fight through screens, and our bigs either didn't hedge or didn't hedge effectively. The pick and roll used to kill us. I wish Dino had convinced Skip to go packline a few years before Dino did it.

Those teams didn't have the athleticism and overall talent to be very good defensively. We could have improved defensively by playing slower, not playing the 3-guard lineup as much, crashing the defensive glass harder, not fronting post players, etc. However, that would have hurt our offense that was best in the nation two straight years. I think it was a good trade-off. Not saying we couldn't/shouldn't have been better defensively all things considered, but those teams just didn't have the personnel to be very good defensively.

The packline, for example, is a terrible defensive strategy for teams that want to play a lot in transition and running it absolutely killed the Dino teams that used it. The only Wake team under Skip/Dino that I think would have been a good fit for the packline was the 06 team after CP left.

 

[wfumike02]

Add Bill Self to the list.

Yeah, that's the first one that comes to mind for me.

 

[Azdeac]

The board was much more excited than I was. Loved Skip as a human, but having grown up and then lived in SW Ohio after graduation, I was never thrilled with hire. Staak built Xavier from garbage and Gillen elevated it. Skip just kept X level despite increased talent like David West. That said, as the face of our program, Skip was a great fit and it was a hell of a lot of fun until postseason came. All that said, even though I still don't believe we would have had much post season success, still wish Skip was the face of Wake. I'd be good with another hire like Prosser - it gives hope and maybe for once we can catch lightening in a bottle in March.

 

[Atlanta Deacon]

Skip brought in talent and more often than not talent wins. I don't think he was a great game coach, but he inspired kids to play hard and in the 22 years that I've been associated with Wake, he was the best face of the university.

I wonder would we be in a better place now if he had left for Pitt. Wellman wouldn't have hired his guy after Skip left instead of settling for Dino after Skip's death. Perhaps that would have avoided the groundwork for Bz being laid. In retrospect, keeping Skip feels like the curse of the monkey's paw.

 

[buckets]

Of course doubts about Skip never reached the levels that they did for other Wake coaches. Skip's greatest asset was that he could win a press conference after a loss. That's how he dodged the tough questions and kept more from coming.

Well that and the fact that he didn't suck ass as a coach

 

[Dino Gaudino]

Those teams didn't have the athleticism and overall talent to be very good defensively. We could have improved defensively by playing slower, not playing the 3-guard lineup as much, crashing the defensive glass harder, not fronting post players, etc. However, that would have hurt our offense that was best in the nation two straight years. I think it was a good trade-off. Not saying we couldn't/shouldn't have been better defensively all things considered, but those teams just didn't have the personnel to be very good defensively.

The packline, for example, is a terrible defensive strategy for teams that want to play a lot in transition and running it absolutely killed the Dino teams that used it. The only Wake team under Skip/Dino that I think would have been a good fit for the packline was the 06 team after CP left.

This isn't a revelation by any means, but we just ran into an incredibly hot West Virginia team in '05. Win that game, and we likely beat Texas Tech handily and then face a toss-up against Louisville in the Elite Eight. This doesn't get mentioned as much, but the selection committee screwed us two-fold that year. We should've gotten the fourth 1-seed over Washington, and even in getting a 2-seed they put us in a bracket with a 7-seed playing less than 200 miles from home.