Danny Manning Credibility Watch

[RChildress107]

Oy vay...what a load of holier than thou, superiority complex moralizing bullshit. No wonder an already small pool of people posting on this board choose to check out when things start going sideways. Why argue with people like you who view everything through this kind of prism? So depressing.

What prism is that?

 

[RChildress107]

I think the problem that most are having is that the debacle of this season doesn't give much optimism that Danny is going to somehow completely turn this thing around next year. So it's easy to find things to pick at that suggest our one year of "success" is the aberration, not the other three years of disappointment.

If only there were reason to believe something about our team might change next year to significantly improve our performance. I wish Manning could just make our entire roster about a half star better.

 

[RChildress107]

Oh God, I should've kept reading, but this is even worse. Well, at least I know I can put you on ignore and not feel like I'm missing out. Does putting you on ignore make me a racist too? How about just treating people like you want to be treated and not worry so much about the color of somebody's skin? Call an asshole out for being an asshole, regardless of skin color. Call out a bad coach for making shitty substitutions and coaching decisions regardless of his skin color or pedigree as a former player.

We can all wish that we lived in some post-racial society where everyone has been treated equally regardless of skin color for as long as anyone can remember, but that doesn’t make it so.

Putting me on ignore doesn’t make you a racist, just makes you a coward. Denying that you have racial biases, conscious or otherwise, isn’t a good sign though.

Can we get back to hyperventilating about our basketball program?

 

[RChildress107]

Certainly hope that this is true. But I tell you one thing that I'm right on as well. We've lost probably 10 games over his four years that even mediocre in-game coaching would have won. Maybe it does't make any difference in the long term of a program when he is winning sweet 16 games in two years, BUT wining is wining and sitting like a statue on the bench when we melt down end of games time after time.. It doesn't lend itself to fan loyalty. It's not just losing - its how we're losing. That concerns me.

Now that’s the type of measurable expectation I’m talking about! If Manning isn’t at least .750 next year in games that diverdeac thinks even a mediocre in-game coach would have won then he’s got to go.

 

[wfu22fan]

Certainly hope that this is true. But I tell you one thing that I'm right on as well. We've lost probably 10 games over his four years that even mediocre in-game coaching would have won. Maybe it does't make any difference in the long term of a program when he is winning sweet 16 games in two years, BUT wining is wining and sitting like a statue on the bench when we melt down end of games time after time.. It doesn't lend itself to fan loyalty. It's not just losing - its how we're losing. That concerns me.

DM does not appear to be the sharpest knife in the drawer by any means. His press conferences and sideline demeanor lead one to believe that he is the dullest knife. And his lack of success in late game situations bears that out. He’s just in way over his head. The game moves too fast for him at crunch time.

 

[guitardeac]

IMO, too much is made here of DM’s in-game coaching. We are a very undisciplined team. That comes from practice and every single day since the player comes into the program. Disciplined players/teams commit to defense. Danny may have good in game strategies, and I suspect that he does. Because that part is just not that hard. And there are often more than one strategy in a given situation that will work. But these players are not committing to play on the court and they are not even close to committing to stopping their man.

 

[RChildress107]

IMO, too much is made here of DM’s in-game coaching. We are a very untalented team.

Right now the only thing people should be worried about is talent. Until we have the talent necessary to compete at a high level, bitching about Manning’s “in-game coaching”, “sideline demeanor”, “discipline”, “motivational skills” or some other subjective measurement that you are neither qualified or in a position to make is foolish.

On that note I’m out until the end of the season. I hope Manning can finish the season strong and build momentum for what will be a much more talented team next year. Have fun wallowing; I’m sure I will be greatly missed.

 

[tigerswood]

Right now the only thing people should be worried about is talent. Until we have the talent necessary to compete at a high level, bitching about Manning’s “in-game coaching”, “sideline demeanor”, “discipline”, “motivational skills” or some other subjective measurement that you are neither qualified or in a position to make is foolish.

On that note I’m out until the end of the season. I hope Manning can finish the season strong and build momentum for what will be a much more talented team next year. Have fun wallowing; I’m sure I will be greatly missed.

Wait, really? This is turning out to be a great Sunday.

 

[Why the Deac Not]

Can we please stop talking about player improvement? At the end of the day, WGAF? Why does that even matter? The best benchmark we have is comparing how we stack up against other teams in our same conference. DM’s teams have finished in 12th, 14th and 10th place respectively after the end of his first three years of coaching. We are now in 14th place. But man oh man, look how much our players have improved with his stellar coaching! Give me a break...

Yup, at the end of the day, you're judged on your overall results as a head coach and Danny's record is, heretofore, underwhelming. That's really all that matters at this level unless your name is Dino and you work for Ron Wellman.

 

[Why the Deac Not]

Things that Manning deserves blame for:

1. The 2016 recruiting class.
2. This year’s performance.
3. End of game performance, to the extent that is a real statistical phenomenon and not just the feeling that we suck at the end of games more than a team of our caliber would be expected to.
4. Awful suits
5. Stunting the next Anthony Davis’s development by not playing him enough his freshman year.

When Manning doesn’t meet reasonable, consistent, measurable expectations I blame him. When he does meet or exceed those expectations I give him credit. A novel concept, I know.

Good post until the end, then can't resist the urge to soak it with condescension and smugness. Well done...consistency with every post that Danny Manning would envy.

 

[wolfpack30844]

Manning is recruiting his arse off.

 

[Why the Deac Not]

My expectations for Manning from the beginning were:

Years 1 and 2: Stabilize the program, rebuild recruiting relationships, get your staff and system in place, show some glimmers of hope.

Years 3 and 4: Return to competitiveness, move safely back into the top 100, win some big recruiting battles, improve the talent all the way to the end of the bench, make an NCAA tourney, return to relevance.

Year 5 onward: begin a stretch similar to the mid-90s and early 2000s, make the tourney every year, get a couple top 4 seeds, contend for at least one ACC and national championships.

Unless we finish the season very strong (getting to 15 wins and mid to low 70s in Kenpom) he will have come up a little short of the Year 3-4 expectations. I think the likely explanation for that was whiffing on the 2016 class compounded by early departures that were unexpected at the time the 2016 class was being recruited. Manning deserves a good deal of blame for that.

So basically do in five years what Dave Odom did in 3 years. But Manning's defense, Crawford ain't quite Randolph Childress. i'm willing to give Danny the benefit of the doubt and see what he can do with ostensibly more talent in year 5. Had Collins stayed 3 years like RoRo, then we most certainly would have made the tourney this year (IMO). Although it is not out of the realm of possibility that we would have messed that up this year too. Everyone talks about Dinos and losing him, but I think Arians meant much more to our offensive efficiency from a year ago than Mitoglou ever did.

However, that denies the reality that Danny (and his assistants aren't above criticism here) continues to make many of the same puzzling decisions (or in some cases doesn't do anything at all) he's made since he took the reins of this program. We still can't play zone defense and while the defensive effort and rebounding has been better in the last several weeks, he still relies too heavily on the wrong players or wrong combo of players at many of the wrong times. That's not to say there isn't an obvious paucity of "clutch-ness" with respect to this team. But in the end the buck stops with Danny to make the moves that put the team in the best position to win at the end of games. And that isn't happening enough.

 

[Why the Deac Not]

We can all wish that we lived in some post-racial society where everyone has been treated equally regardless of skin color for as long as anyone can remember, but that doesn’t make it so.

Putting me on ignore doesn’t make you a racist, just makes you a coward. Denying that you have racial biases, conscious or otherwise, isn’t a good sign though.

Can we get back to hyperventilating about our basketball program?

You're the one who claims to be less racist than old white guys. What does that have to do with basketball and judging our coach's ability to motivate, teach and coach at the end of games. You're the one who brought it up. Have you been chronically mistreated and/or the victim of racism throughout your life?

And who said I was denying fallibility as a human? You are insinuating that I am a racist and you don't even know me. We all have prejudices and to say otherwise is to completely deny reality...that is human nature. We all form opinions and perspectives based on our own experiences. But somehow I doubt that you are the only one who has all of this figured out as you would certainly never admit your own biases or prejudices.

 

[Why the Deac Not]

IMO, too much is made here of DM’s in-game coaching. We are a very undisciplined team. That comes from practice and every single day since the player comes into the program. Disciplined players/teams commit to defense.

I agree with the gist of what you're saying, but isn't it Danny's (and Delphi's and Steve's) job to teach them how to play more disciplined? Perhaps we are not doing the right things in practice that need to be done in order for this team to not make the same maddening, bone-headed or panic-induced mistakes they seem to make in the majority of games. Every good team in the NFL talks about how you are often only as good as you practiced that week or throughout the season. I think there's is more to that than just typical athlete coach-speak cliche platitude-making to the media.

ETA: I am most certainly no "oracle" and the computer changed "Dolph" to Delphi. If only Randolph was a sooth-saying predictor of our opponents' tendencies and strategy.

 

[donaldross]

Yup, at the end of the day, you're judged on your overall results as a head coach and Danny's record is, heretofore, underwhelming. That's really all that matters at this level unless your name is Dino and you work for Ron Wellman.

Objectively there have only been 2 successful coaches in Ron's 30 years here. Dave Odom and Dino Gaudio. He hired neither and fired both.

 

[dartsndeacs]

Really stretching to say that Gaudio was successful while Prosser was not.

 

[donaldross]

Really stretching to say that Gaudio was successful while Prosser was not.

How is that? Gaudio won. Prosser didn’t.

Last two ACC seasons:

Prosser:
3-13 (12th of 12)
5-11 (11th of 12)

Gaudio:
11–5 (2nd)
9-7 (5th)

Prosser is a classic example of if you are a really good guy & die suddenly people somehow forget how horrible you were.

 

[CreamyGoodness]

way to go with the small sample size to try to fit that ridiculous narrative.

 

[ChrisL68]

The papers have been signed...

 

[donaldross]

way to go with the small sample size to try to fit that ridiculous narrative.

Small sample size? Gaudio only had 3 seasons. How about postseason success? Regular season? Any objective measure has Gaudio in the win column and Prosser not.