• Welcome to OGBoards 10.0, keep in mind that we will be making LOTS of changes to smooth out the experience here and make it as close as possible functionally to the old software, but feel free to drop suggestions or requests in the Tech Support subforum!

Basketball Expectations for the future

OGB, 35-7 was based on deacfan27's 30 games a season criteria in his first post. We actually play more than that, thus using 31 games from real life.

Good post on the non-con. People are saying we need reasonable improvement to make it out of an unreasonable hole. To make it back to the NCAA in 3 more seasons, we need "unreasonably" great improvement.
 
deacvision7 said:
Why do people keep forgetting to mention the fact that in 3 years when Buzz will supposedly (and hopefully, I will add) turn this thing around and get us on the NCAA bubble that he will be 61 years old when that season ends. Not sure how any confidence could exist that he will keep going for much longer to maintain the program he built. It isn't like the guy has a great track record of staying at jobs for long anyway, even when he was younger.

Just a horrible, horrible hire by Wellman. Absolutely atrocious.
Click to expand...

All that is just speculation. The other way to look at it is that he was moving up in conference profile and school from AFA in the Mtn. West, to Colorado in the Big 12, to Wake in the ACC. Certainly it can argued that Wake has a higher basketball profile than Colorado, and the ACC an historical higher profile than the Big12.

He had success at AFA so Colorado seemed like a natural fit. At least some momentum had started during his three years there so a job offer comes from an ACC School and you take it. You can't advance much past the ACC in conference profile, so you settle there, try to build a winner, and coach until your 70 or 75. Have enough success and you get to name the year you retire.

Whether we've made a good hire remains to be seen, but to discount it solely on age and how long he'll continue to coach is a reach.
 
The problem isn't really his age, but rather it's how little track record he has at his age. Most fans would have been pretty happy if we had hired Tubby Smith because at 58 he had a track record of enormous success.
 
TBR said:
The problem isn't really his age, but rather it's how little track record he has at his age. Most fans would have been pretty happy if we had hired Tubby Smith because at 58 he had a track record of enormous success.
Click to expand...

That's a good point in terms of post-season success and so on. I think Ron must have felt that the track record he saw in Bz is the knowledge base he brings in terms of being associated with D-1 and NBA basketball for 32 years(at the time of the hire.)

My guess is that Ron was tired of watching our teams be outcoached(I know I was) and decided to go with someone from a BCS conference with a supposed ability to X and O.

I'm sure he recalled the shellacking AFA put on us in '06 and had to figure that Bz was his man. Given Bz's experience in the NBA, and an upward trend at Colorado, he thought he was safe from any backlash. Ron guessed wrong in regard to the backlash.

Still, I think Ron believes that Bz can do really good things here. I'll also say that, as chance would have it, I happened to be at a dinner during the '95 season where I was seated at the same table Ron was. Someone asked him about Caldwell, and he said he believed Jim was the right man for the job and would get it done at Wake. Uh, we saw how that worked out.
 
Last edited:
You never ever make a hire based on one game. Dino outcoached some pretty good coaches on multiple occasions, but he was not a good coach.

This was not a safe hire. Being successful as a NBA assistant coach does not guarantee success as a college head coach. They are entirely different jobs.

As time passes I am becoming less concerned about his recruiting ability and more concerned about his motivating abilities.
 
deacvision7 said:
Why do people keep forgetting to mention the fact that in 3 years when Buzz will supposedly (and hopefully, I will add) turn this thing around and get us on the NCAA bubble that he will be 61 years old when that season ends. Not sure how any confidence could exist that he will keep going for much longer to maintain the program he built. It isn't like the guy has a great track record of staying at jobs for long anyway, even when he was younger.

Just a horrible, horrible hire by Wellman. Absolutely atrocious.
Click to expand...
I don't really see why this is relevant to a thread about our 3 year expectations. It seems like just another shot at Wellman and Bzzz but instead of "we'll never be successful" now it's "if we're successful we're still screwed". I don't get the need to do that.
 
A basketball coach can still coach in his 60's, particularly if he's riding a solid upward trend and a couple of successful seasons. We'll see if that happens, though.
 
deacfreke2 said:
That's a good point in terms of post-season success and so on. I think Ron must have felt that the track record he saw in Bz is the knowledge base he brings in terms of being associated with D-1 and NBA basketball for 32 years(at the time of the hire.)

My guess is that Ron was tired of watching our teams be outcoached(I know I was) and decided to go with someone from a BCS conference with a supposed ability to X and O.

I'm sure he recalled the shellacking AFA put on us in '06 and had to figure that Bz was his man. Given Bz's experience in the NBA, and an upward trend at Colorado, he thought he was safe from any backlash. Ron guessed wrong in regard to the backlash.

Still, I think Ron believes that Bz can do really good things here. I'll also say that, as chance would have it, I happened to be at a dinner during the '95 season where I was seated at the same table Ron was. Someone asked him about Caldwell, and he said he believed Jim was the right man for the job and would get it done at Wake. Uh, we saw how that worked out.
Click to expand...

For years, I've thought people overestimated that 06-07 team. The Bz hire confirms it. A bad ACC team traveled to mile high conditions and got beat by an experienced team. It happens.
 
I wouldn't have been all that pleased if we had hired Tubby. His past success is great but I think that has taken some of the competitive fire out of him. Tubby can rest on his laurels and just coast into retirement.
 
WakeForestRanger said:
I wouldn't have been all that pleased if we had hired Tubby. His past success is great but I think that has taken some of the competitive fire out of him. Tubby can rest on his laurels and just coast into retirement.
Click to expand...

I get that argument, but were you really more excited about [Redacted] than you would have been about Tubby?
 
We should have hired Dennis Felton. He blew out a young Wake team at home in December the following year with JJ and JT.
 
Hopefully Derek Waugh is available next time we're looking.
 
TBR said:
I get that argument, but were you really more excited about [Redacted] than you would have been about Tubby?
Click to expand...

Bz wasn't even on my radar as a coach for us so no. But I think Bz feels like he has something to prove here while Tubby doesn't. I have my doubts that we would have been any more successful with Tubby.
 
WakeForestRanger said:
Bz wasn't even on my radar as a coach for us so no. But I think Bz feels like he has something to prove here while Tubby doesn't. I have my doubts that we would have been any more successful with Tubby.
Click to expand...

I don't. Not at all. Tubby went to something like 15 straight post season appearances. [Redacted] had 2 straight (and that's it). Tubby has a national championship ring. [Redacted] once made it to the NIT Final 4.

Tubby is a better coach than [Redacted].
 
TBR said:
I don't. Not at all. Tubby went to something like 15 straight post season appearances. [Redacted] had 2 straight (and that's it). Tubby has a national championship ring. [Redacted] once made it to the NIT Final 4.

Tubby is a better coach than [Redacted].
Click to expand...

OMG, how can you seh that? Bzz is the best coach evah! He took a 7-25 team and led them to 8-24 this season! Our recruits read these boards and you are scaring them away.

Did I miss anything?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top