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Hypothetical: Who Replaces Bz at the end of the season?

Paulsen is 5-6 this season coming off double digit losses to Marist and Fairfield. #117 in Friday's Kenpom though.
 
PhDeac said:
Paulsen is 5-6 this season coming off double digit losses to Marist and Fairfield. #117 in Friday's Kenpom though.
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Such is life in the Patriot League.

My concern with Paulsen centers around his style of play and recruiting. I think those issues could potentially negatively feed on each other and cause him to fail here.

Best case scenario with him is we get Odom like results with Skip style press conferences. I do find the connection between Paulsen and Clawson to be an interesting human interest story, but that's no reason to hire him.
 
Paulsen wouldn't be a [Redacted] level disappointment, but that's the kind of hire we have to make in football, we should be able to do better in basketball.

Wellman is going to do something stupid though. Either hire a retread (looking at you Seth Greenberg) or hire someone who has spent too long at a low-major without having quite enough success (Paulsen)
 
TBR said:
Paulsen wouldn't be a [Redacted] level disappointment, but that's the kind of hire we have to make in football, we should be able to do better in basketball.

Wellman is going to do something stupid though. Either hire a retread (looking at you Seth Greenberg) or hire someone who has spent too long at a low-major without having quite enough success (Paulsen)
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I'm not sure the basketball job is better in this athletic climate.

The football job has appeal because we are in a P5 conference, have a lucrative TV deal, can afford to pay well.

Mid-major coaches are compensated very well in basketball, have had a lot of postseason success, etc. Think Wichita State, Gonzaga, VCU, etc.
 
Fair point that the mid major to high major gap is bigger in football than in basketball, but at the same time the Wake football job is at the back of the high major pack, while the basketball job is towards the front. The football job is still a stepping stone to something else, the basketball job is a destination (or a stepping stone to the professional game or to a top 5 cbb job).
 
The basketball job is massively more desirable than the football job. Three of our last four coaches have gotten us to top 5 rankings (two had us at #1). There is no way in hell this could happen with football.

Especially with the new ACC, Wake is a destination program for basketball. We are a coaches incubator for football.
 
The #1 thing I'd look for in our next coach is an excellent recruiter. We all know what Skip said. The team with the most NBA talent wins. Coaching aside, the current team simply does not have the talent to win consistently, and it's only going to get worse next year when we rely on CMM and Cav to shoot the basketball well (Yikes). We need a guy who can get Top 50 players consistently.
 
RJKarl said:
The basketball job is massively more desirable than the football job. Three of our last four coaches have gotten us to top 5 rankings (two had us at #1). There is no way in hell this could happen with football.

Especially with the new ACC, Wake is a destination program for basketball. We are a coaches incubator for football.
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Wake Forest's basketball program has become a graveyard for basketball coaches. It is going to take a long time to turn around this program and make Wake Forest relevant again.
 
YankeeInAtlanta said:
Wake Forest's basketball program has become a graveyard for basketball coaches. It is going to take a long time to turn around this program and make Wake Forest relevant again.
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this is insane. post-skip we've had 2 coaches: 1 was able to bring in great talent but couldn't win big games, and one has been pretty much a disaster. "graveyard" status seems extremely far away from 1 questionable and 1 bad hire, right?
 
YankeeInAtlanta said:
Wake Forest's basketball program has become a graveyard for basketball coaches. It is going to take a long time to turn around this program and make Wake Forest relevant again.
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It has been a long time since a Wake BB coach went to an unquestioned better coaching position: Jack McCloskey to the NBA as head coach back in the '70's. Tacy retired. Staak -NBA assistant for multiple teams (and 3 game "interim head coach." Odom - to SC, lateral move and limited success. Skip - graveyard, literally. Dino - broadcast work. Looks like Wake is much more the end for coaches than a springboard.
 
trickytrefo said:
this is insane. post-skip we've had 2 coaches: 1 was able to bring in great talent but couldn't win big games, and one has been pretty much a disaster. "graveyard" status seems extremely far away from 1 questionable and 1 bad hire, right?
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Well, Odom did ok after leaving Wake for South Carolina. And, you know, the expression was literal for Skip. It also doesn't look like Tacy or Staak did anything in college after they left Wake either (though I only did a quick Wiki check on that). So Wake certainly isn't a stepping stone job, and hasn't been for a long time. However, Wake needs to turn back into a destination job, which it certainly can be.

ETA: Deaconblue beat me to it.
 
Wake's biggest trump card with respect to both sports is its conference affiliation. Wake needs, and always has needed, the ACC much more than it needs Wake.

The issue is that the relative important of conference affiliation is trending in opposite directions in basketball vis-a-vis football. Never has being in a "power" conference been more important in football than right now, while the opposite is true in basketball. In short, Wake football is buttressed tremendously by being in one of the few AQ conferences left standing, while Wake basketball -- at least with respect to the attractiveness of its head coaching position -- has been whittled away by the success of mid-major programs like Gonzaga, Butler, Xavier, Wichita State, and VCU.

All that said, I actually would posit that both positions are more attractive than most here give them credit for. The football job has the benefit of always having a seat at the big boy table, having a chance to sneak into the Orange Bowl (if not an 8+ win season) by virtue of unbalanced schedules and an infusion of historically basketball-centric schools from the Big East, and modest if not downright realistic (!) fan and alumni expectations. The expectations in basketball are admittedly much higher, but for good reason: we are in one of, if not the, most fertile recruiting areas in all of HS basketball, few schools' alumni have greater recent NBA success than we do, our facilities are stronger relative to basketball, and financial and academic limitations on recruiting are somewhat mitigated by the vastly smaller number of scholarships in play. (This is of course to say nothing of the fact that the ACC has always been fancied as a basketball-first conference, with in-conference rivalries more of a recruiting boon than the same are in football.)

At the end of the day, the Wake basketball job is definitely superior IMO, but neither is a slouch and the question of just how good the Wake basketball job really is sort of is a moving target given the recent upheaval in conference affiliations.
 
redwing42 said:
Well, Odom did ok after leaving Wake for South Carolina. And, you know, the expression was literal for Skip. It also doesn't look like Tacy or Staak did anything in college after they left Wake either (though I only did a quick Wiki check on that). So Wake certainly isn't a stepping stone job, and hasn't been for a long time. However, Wake needs to turn back into a destination job, which it certainly can be.

ETA: Deaconblue beat me to it.
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well the joke about skip dying is absolutely hilarious. grade A stuff...i'm surprised you and Deaconblue gave it out for free.

also...if you think coaching candidates could POSSIBLY care about what Tacy and Staak did after leaving wake, you're as bright as i'd expect someone to be making light of a beloved coach's untimely death. wake is an elite institution, has a good (not great) basketball history, and has multiple elite players currently in the NBA, including quite possibly the best PF of all time. how the fates of Odom, Staak and Tacy after they left the school could possibly dissuade a coach from coming here makes absolutely zero sense.
 
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redwing42 said:
Well, Odom did ok after leaving Wake for South Carolina. And, you know, the expression was literal for Skip. It also doesn't look like Tacy or Staak did anything in college after they left Wake either (though I only did a quick Wiki check on that). So Wake certainly isn't a stepping stone job, and hasn't been for a long time. However, Wake needs to turn back into a destination job, which it certainly can be.

ETA: Deaconblue beat me to it.
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In what world is South Carolina a lateral move for a bball coach from Wake Forest? Since 1975, South Carolina has made the NCAA Tourney exactly FOUR times.

It's a HORRIBLE job at a very low level SEC school.
 
I would really hope experience at a private school isn't a requirement for our next basketball coach.

A reasonably successful coach at Wake can have no pressure and name his retirement date and write his own name on the court while making a a nice chunk of change.
 
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The small school issue is much more relevant for FB. At a small school, the FB team is 1-2% of the total student body. At a big school, it is a few tenths of % of the student body. Much easier for FB players to find someplace to fit in other than FB.

A BB team is 0.2 - 0.3% of a small school and it is a lot easier to find places to fit in. Also, it is a lot easier for a dozen or so guys to be a "group" than it is for nearly 100.

So, yeah, it is not nearly as important for Wake's next BB coach to have small/private school background as for FB, but it wouldn't hurt and would be a plus, all else being equal.
 
Jeff Battle. But not at the end of the season. After blowout losses to UNC, UVa and Pitt Bz is fired and Battle is named interim coach.
 
trickytrefo said:
well the joke about skip dying is absolutely hilarious. grade A stuff...i'm surprised you and Deaconblue gave it out for free.

also...if you think coaching candidates could POSSIBLY care about what Tacy and Staak did after leaving wake, you're as bright as i'd expect someone to be making light of a beloved coach's untimely death. wake is an elite institution, has a good (not great) basketball history, and has multiple elite players currently in the NBA, including quite possibly the best PF of all time. how the fates of Odom, Staak and Tacy after they left the school could possibly dissuade a coach from coming here makes absolutely zero sense.
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I think you misunderstand my post. For one thing the Skip comment wasn't meant as a joke, it was just a statement of fact. I am one of the last people that would ever make light of Skip's passing. Secondly, I'm not saying that Wake is a graveyard, I'm stating that Wake can and should be a destination job. Not that coaches want to come here, do well and move on, but that Wake can and should be a premiere coaching position (though not elite) and that it can be the lasting stop for a very good to great coach. Odom was not trying to parlay his success at Wake into a better job, and neither was Skip. We shouldn't be hoping to get a coach looking to build his resume, we should be hiring coaches who are looking to cap it. I don't think that is possible right now, but that can change quickly once the damage from [Redacted] is repaired.
 
Skip turned down Pitt. It's rumored that Odom turned down State.
 
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