I am in favor of giving Manning one more season, mainly because there is no Kevin Keatts type candidate out there that checks all of my boxes (successful turnaround + sustained success as a head coach, success as a mid-major head coach, and elite recruiting experience as an assistant). Earl Grant is the closest, but it’s going to take another year to convince me of sustained success (+ he doesn’t have those blue blood recruiting ties).
Additionally, we are due to have a nice level of talent next season and the first balanced roster of Manning’s tenure (of course, some of that is on Manning) so best to see how he does with that so we have a more complete view on his capabilities as a coach.
That said, I am not optimistic. Wake has underperformed fan expectations for three of his four years. On average, Wake has won 3.25 fewer games per season than the board predicted (that assumes we end up with 13 wins this season, which is an optimistic take). Wake has underperformed its Kenpom preseason ranking in three of his four years. On average, Wake has finished 18 spots lower than Kenpom’s preseason ranking (assuming a finish of 86 this year). The one preseason vs end of season comparison Wake has done alright in during Manning’s tenure is the preseason media poll vs ACCT seed. Literally dead even on average, underperforming 2 years and overperforming 2 years. (note – I usually throw out the first year, but that would actual hurt his averages).
The year that no one wants to talk about is 2015-16. We replaced Madison Jones, Aaron Rountree, and Darius Leonard with John Collins, Bryant Crawford, and Doral Moore. We won two fewer games, finished two spots worse in the ACC, and went from 120 to 118 in Kenpom. A disastrous year.
The exception to all of this is, of course, last season. This is where things get tricky. Manning definitely gets a ton of credit for Collins, but, at the same time, it’s worth wondering if it is repeatable. Collins was the product of some combination of excellent player development and excellent talent identification. Before, during, and after Manning’s hire, I have been an advocate of his ability to develop big men. No quibbles there. But, on the talent identification side, well plenty of coaches have found a 3 star player who turned into a NBA lottery talent. Stevens found Hayward. Reed found McCollum. Ryan found Kaminksy. Hell, [Redacted] found Burks. Not many guys have done it twice though. Of course, this isn’t to say that talent identification is all luck, it isn’t, but a one-off instance could just be luck. Or it could be that he does have a great ability to identify talent (due to intuition, pure hustle, novel tools, or some combination of the three), and we will start to see that pay off by seeing players perform above their rank, albeit likely more marginally than Collins did. I would be interested to see what others think, but I don’t think we can really make too many conclusions about Manning’s ability to spot talent.
The other problem that season highlights is that we were a much better team than our record indicated. We finished 290th in luck, which, as I understand it, basically describes our ability to convert efficiency into wins. Like most stats, a one year outlier can be brushed aside, but, over his head coaching career, Manning has finished 49th, 234th, 240th, 106th, 290th, and 349th. I am not sure exactly how to interpret that, but it can hardly be a good indicator.
2014-15:
Fans
-Preseason: 15-16 regular season wins
-Actual: 13 regular season wins
Kenpom
-Preseason: 104
-Actual: 120
ACC Media
-Preseason: 12th
-Actual: 11th seed
2015-16
Fans
-Preseason: 16 regular season wins
-Actual: 11 regular season wins
Kenpom
-Preseason: 60
-Actual: 118
ACC Media
-Preseason: 11th
-Actual: 13th seed
2016-17
Fans
-Preseason: 17 regular season wins
-Actual: 18 regular season wins
Kenpom
-Preseason: 67
-Actual: 36
ACC Media
-Preseason: 13th
-Actual: 10th seed
2017-18
Fans
-Preseason: 20 wins through the ACCT
-Most likely outcome: 11 to 13 wins through the ACCT
Kenpom
-Preseason: 57
-Most likely outcome: 86
ACC media
-Preseason: 11th
-Most likely outcome: 13th or 14th seed
It goes without saying that all of these measures are imperfect, with different biases and limitations, but I do think it is pretty conclusive that they directionally agree in Y2, Y3, and Y4. Two years of underachievement and 1 year of overachievement.