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Possible Wake Forest Coaching Candidates Analysis

The 7-21 Whatabouts. #271. At home.
 
overtime
uncg tried to foul up three, refs didn't blow whistle - WCU hits last second heave
 
WFU Lurker said:
Well, first, if Matta is healthy and motivated he is definitely a notch above all the other candidates. I'm just worried that he isn't.

But, I think if you focus much of post season results, when you're talking about these low / mid-major programs and generally short tenures, you can get some false reads. This is especially true when talking about NCAAT appearances. In a combined 13 seasons as head coach between Brannen, Oats, and Smith, only two of those seasons have had even the potential of earning an at-large bid: Buffalo this year and Utah State this year. So, then, in all the other seasons, whether or not they went to the tournament was decided by if they could win 3 consecutive games in conference tournaments. And that is, to some degree, just a crapshoot, especially since they have faced different levels of difficulty in those tournaments. Last year, Smith's path went through #78 South Dakota State. Meanwhile, the toughest team Oats faced was #113 Toledo, and Brannen actually lost in the first round to #300 Cleveland State (the biggest post-season failure I've uncovered for any of these guys...). And this year, will it really count as a knock against Smith if he misses the NCAAT due to losing to a top ten team in the conference tournament and then having bad bubble luck?

The other factor that I think you're missing to some degree is the strength of the program that they inherited. Hurley had Buffalo at #58, and it wasn't until this year that Oats exceeded that. Now I am not trying to diminish his success because it is an accomplishment to even maintain a MAC program in upstate New York at a top 100 level, but at the same time Brannen and Smith both inherited notably weaker programs and got them to that top 100 level pretty damn quickly.
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The context is a little off here. Utah State had previous success under Stew Morrill, something Smith talks about since his hire. After Morrill they hired Tim Duryea who didn't work out as well, and they fired him after 3 seasons (imagine that, pulling a trigger in 3 years, this despite Duryea being a good recruiter). The year before Smith got there they were 17-17, so while not high in kenpom it was a team that won 17 games. Smith was able to inherit their star guard Sam Merrill, considered by many one of the best shooters from any mid-major. This year he leads the team with nearly 20ppg and is once again the star player. The cupboard was not bare for Smith.

Oats inherited Buffalo from Hurley, yes, but that team from Hurley's last season was 33% of guys that were recruited Oats. Oats team this year is 100% of guys recruited by Oats. He will be playing in 3 NCAA tournaments in 4 years. I look for that type of sustained success.

Its important to value postseason appearances because thats what you're playing for. No one cares about a guy who can consistently get to the NIT or CBI. You want your school in the brackets, and not in the first four play-in games at that. When Wake Forest hires a coach to come to the hardest league in D1 basketball, you need a guy who has been to the tournament before. You can't come to the ACC after never making an NCAA tournament in a lower league and think you can run the gambit here and make it. This conference eats unqualified coaches alive. I'm sure if you put Danny Manning in the Mountain West he will look like a better coach. Its a different level of competition, and someone who hasn't shown the capability to make it to the NCAA tournament at a mid-major, to me, is unlikely to start consistently making the tournament in the ACC.

Oats after this season will have reached the NCAA tournament 75% of the time
Prohm will have reach the NCAA tournament 50% of the time, potentially winning his conference 62% of the time if he wins the Big12 this year (possible).
Cronin will be 68% making the NCAAs, 25% conference champion
Matta makes the NCAAs 76% of the time, multiple final 4s, multiple conference championships
These are tier 1 guys

Craig Smith will potentially not make it this year, meaning 5 years coaching, no NCAA's, he's lost in the 1st round both times he played in the postseason, he's never won his conference tournament, and he inherited his best player (who is very good) from the last guy. I don't count that as tier 1. That's why I think going purely off kenpom is wrong. There is no context between Smith's kenpom jump at Utah State and what Oats has accomplished at Buffalo. I don't think he's not deserving of being on a list, I just can't rationalize why he'd be a tier 1 hire for any major program looking for a head coach.
 
I really want Oats, but have extremely high doubts Ronnie will be able to pull it off.

I’d guess we end up with Brannen, Miller, Turner type as our coach - of which I’d be happy with one, okay the other, and underwhelmed of the last.
 
I think we can all agree Rich boy Wes should no longer be considered as a serious candidate
 
DeacsATS said:
I’ve been brainstorming on a plan. It’s very much a work in progress, but hear me out...

When Wellman announces his next terrible hire, we fabricate some horrible story about the candidate’s past. I don’t have it exactly figured out... For now, let’s just say he molests collies. Whatever it is, though, it has to be really bad. We cause an uproar... It’s 100% not about the bad thing... It’s more about the underwhelming hire, but we keep that to ourselves.

The stain would have to be so bad that it makes Wellman look tone deaf for not noticing it.

Wake Forest is forced to renege on the hire and remove Wellman from his position as AD.

Somebody new comes in (maybe even John Currie) and makes a much better hire and we get back to winning basketball games.

I don’t have a name for this plan yet, but I think it’s a solid framework.
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Why don't you go ahead and do that about Wellman now? That way you don't have to unnecessarily tarnish an innocent bystander
 
netflixnchildres said:
The context is a little off here. Utah State had previous success under Stew Morrill, something Smith talks about since his hire. After Morrill they hired Tim Duryea who didn't work out as well, and they fired him after 3 seasons (imagine that, pulling a trigger in 3 years, this despite Duryea being a good recruiter). The year before Smith got there they were 17-17, so while not high in kenpom it was a team that won 17 games. Smith was able to inherit their star guard Sam Merrill, considered by many one of the best shooters from any mid-major. This year he leads the team with nearly 20ppg and is once again the star player. The cupboard was not bare for Smith.
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Not sure where I was off. He has them at 18 wins already with at least 8 games to go. They will be favored in all but one of those games. The program is performing significantly better under his leadership than it has since 2011. Of course the cupboard wasn't bare, but he has done a whole hell of a lot more with it than the last guy did.

Oats inherited Buffalo from Hurley, yes, but that team from Hurley's last season was 33% of guys that were recruited Oats. Oats team this year is 100% of guys recruited by Oats. He will be playing in 3 NCAA tournaments in 4 years. I look for that type of sustained success.
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Sure, he was an assistant for Hurley and that does give some comfort.

Its important to value postseason appearances because thats what you're playing for. No one cares about a guy who can consistently get to the NIT or CBI. You want your school in the brackets, and not in the first four play-in games at that. When Wake Forest hires a coach to come to the hardest league in D1 basketball, you need a guy who has been to the tournament before. You can't come to the ACC after never making an NCAA tournament in a lower league and think you can run the gambit here and make it. This conference eats unqualified coaches alive. I'm sure if you put Danny Manning in the Mountain West he will look like a better coach. Its a different level of competition, and someone who hasn't shown the capability to make it to the NCAA tournament at a mid-major, to me, is unlikely to start consistently making the tournament in the ACC.

Oats after this season will have reached the NCAA tournament 75% of the time
Prohm will have reach the NCAA tournament 50% of the time, potentially winning his conference 62% of the time if he wins the Big12 this year (possible).
Cronin will be 68% making the NCAAs, 25% conference champion
Matta makes the NCAAs 76% of the time, multiple final 4s, multiple conference championships
These are tier 1 guys
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Thing is the programs in these conferences make the tournament in an entirely different way from an ACC program. In the at-large era, has an ACC team ever made the tournament via auto-bid that would not have made it via at-large if they had lost the championship game? Meanwhile, it is not a remotely fair expectation for a coach, no matter how good, be able to make it into the NCAAT via an at-large bid when they are coaching in the Summit, Horizon, or MAC. Now, if you're looking at a coach with multiple years in the MWC, AAC, A10, or MVC they should have had teams good enough to get at-larges if they are good candidates. I went around and around with a poster who shall not be named last time around who was convinced that Manning was a vastly better candidate than White in large part because Tulsa beat LaTech to get into the NCAAT. That was a bad take, as proven by their respective results in power conferences.

Similarly, it is a bad take to say that Brannen is a better candidate than Smith just because Northern Kentucky beat #134 Wright State and South Dakota lost to #78 South Dakota State.

Craig Smith will potentially not make it this year, meaning 5 years coaching, no NCAA's, he's lost in the 1st round both times he played in the postseason, he's never won his conference tournament, and he inherited his best player (who is very good) from the last guy. I don't count that as tier 1. That's why I think going purely off kenpom is wrong. There is no context between Smith's kenpom jump at Utah State and what Oats has accomplished at Buffalo. I don't think he's not deserving of being on a list, I just can't rationalize why he'd be a tier 1 hire for any major program looking for a head coach.
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That's fine, and I think fair to say he's towards the back end of tier 1 (or if you want to say tier 1.5 then sure). But, to me, he's a better candidate than Brannen because his work at South Dakota was very similar to what Brannen has done at Northern Kentucky but he's also gone into a higher level program and made an immediate and significant impact.
 
LilburnDeac said:
Why don't you go ahead and do that about Wellman now? That way you don't have to unnecessarily tarnish an innocent bystander
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Because this worked at UT. I don’t want to deviate too much from that blueprint.

Stay focused... Don’t go all “6 minute abs” on me when we know 7 is the magic number.
 
WFU Lurker said:
Eh, pretty good bet that Smith is a significantly better coach than Miles. This year's Nebraska team is 42nd per Kenpom and is Mile's best. In other words, it's taken him 15 years (including 7 in a power conference) to have a team as good as Smith's team this year (his 5th year). In Mile's 5 years at Colorado St (same conference Smith is in now), his best team was 77th (so pretty much comparable to Smith's best team at South Dakota, in the Summit).

I don't think coaching tree means too much. Prosser was part of Gillen's but was a certainly a better coach.
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I think you (as well as most Wake fans) give Prosser too much credit for what he accomplished at Wake. 1/3 of his time was bolstered by CP3, who would've likely signed with any Wake coach. Odom could be largely credited with the success Prosser enjoyed his first two years since Odom recruited the main contributors (Howard and Songalia) on those teams. Perhaps you can give him credit for Dino's time given some of the NBA caliber recruits that he had on board. The poor results post-CP3 always made me question how great of a coach Prosser actually was. He seemed to coach a Roy Williams style of play, but lacked being handed a job at Kansas and UNC that would guarantee he had great recruits every year to buoy some poor in game management when up tempo wasn't the best approach for that game. Which is probably why his teams flamed out in the tournament.
 
DeacsATS said:
Because this worked at UT. I don’t want to deviate too much from that blueprint.

Stay focused... Don’t go all “6 minute abs” on me when we know 7 is the magic number.
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7's the key number here. Think about it. 7-Elevens. 7 doors. 7, man, that's the number. 7 chipmunks twirlin' on a branch, eatin' lots of sunflowers on my uncle's ranch. You know that old children's tale from the sea. It's like you're dreamin' about Gorgonzola cheese when it's clearly Brie time, baby.
 
NCDomer said:
I think you (as well as most Wake fans) give Prosser too much credit for what he accomplished at Wake. 1/3 of his time was bolstered by CP3, who would've likely signed with any Wake coach. Odom could be largely credited with the success Prosser enjoyed his first two years since Odom recruited the main contributors (Howard and Songalia) on those teams. Perhaps you can give him credit for Dino's time given some of the NBA caliber recruits that he had on board. The poor results post-CP3 always made me question how great of a coach Prosser actually was. He seemed to coach a Roy Williams style of play, but lacked being handed a job at Kansas and UNC that would guarantee he had great recruits every year to buoy some poor in game management when up tempo wasn't the best approach for that game. Which is probably why his teams flamed out in the tournament.
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It would have been a hell of a ride watching Skip coach the Teague/Johnson/Aminu/Smith team. The possibilities with that team, and potential to parlay that into sustained big time recruiting, will always be the “what if” scenario in my mind.
 
NCDomer said:
I think you (as well as most Wake fans) give Prosser too much credit for what he accomplished at Wake. 1/3 of his time was bolstered by CP3, who would've likely signed with any Wake coach. Odom could be largely credited with the success Prosser enjoyed his first two years since Odom recruited the main contributors (Howard and Songalia) on those teams. Perhaps you can give him credit for Dino's time given some of the NBA caliber recruits that he had on board. The poor results post-CP3 always made me question how great of a coach Prosser actually was. He seemed to coach a Roy Williams style of play, but lacked being handed a job at Kansas and UNC that would guarantee he had great recruits every year to buoy some poor in game management when up tempo wasn't the best approach for that game. Which is probably why his teams flamed out in the tournament.
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Ok? Still a better coach than Gillen, whose best ACC record at UVA was 9-7 (twice in seven years) which is something that Prosser matched or exceeded four of his six years. Gillen did have a better record at Xavier but they also switched to a more challenging conference starting with Prosser's second year. In Prosser's one year in the Midwestern Conference, he went undefeated in conference at 14-0, which Gillen never did.
 
NCDomer said:
I think you (as well as most Wake fans) give Prosser too much credit for what he accomplished at Wake. 1/3 of his time was bolstered by CP3, who would've likely signed with any Wake coach. Odom could be largely credited with the success Prosser enjoyed his first two years since Odom recruited the main contributors (Howard and Songalia) on those teams. Perhaps you can give him credit for Dino's time given some of the NBA caliber recruits that he had on board. The poor results post-CP3 always made me question how great of a coach Prosser actually was. He seemed to coach a Roy Williams style of play, but lacked being handed a job at Kansas and UNC that would guarantee he had great recruits every year to buoy some poor in game management when up tempo wasn't the best approach for that game. Which is probably why his teams flamed out in the tournament.
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I mean, you’re not wrong. But at least he recruited well and wasn’t a total tool like out last two coaches. And CP3 had some very solid college players around him.
 
LilburnDeac said:
Why don't you go ahead and do that about Wellman now? That way you don't have to unnecessarily tarnish an innocent bystander
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The alternative universe where Ron killed a guy when he had his accident is prolly a good time
 
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