What was the sentiment when we hired Skip?

[RJKarl]

Skip brought in talent and more often than not talent wins. I don't think he was a great game coach, but he inspired kids to play hard and in the 22 years that I've been associated with Wake, he was the best face of the university.

I wonder would we be in a better place now if he had left for Pitt. Wellman wouldn't have hired his guy after Skip left instead of settling for Dino after Skip's death. Perhaps that would have avoided the groundwork for Bz being laid. In retrospect, keeping Skip feels like the curse of the monkey's paw.

Or if Battle's wife hadn't been ill and he would have taken the job instead of Dino.

 

[socaldeac]

People were pumped about Skip. The name kind of came out of nowhere, but mainly because I think people didn't think he'd be interested in leaving Cincinnati, and also the boards were entirely fixated on John Pelphrey. He nailed the press conference, where his personality and humor were a welcome change from the seriousness of Odom.

ODOM was much like Buzz in the sense of quirky, nerdy, not much of a recruiter. He got luck with Duncan and Childress. One major difference when Odom took over as opposed to Buzz. Were there were no expectations. I assume if Odom was hired after Skip, he also would have been run out of town.

 

[DirkTheDeac]

Skip might not have been the greatest game coach but he was never intimidated by K or Roy. The attitude he instilled in kids and the belief anything was possible more than made up for the Xs and Os.

 

[PhDeac]

We screwed ourselves with seeding by getting killed by State without CP and not getting a chance to beat Duke who did get the #1 seed.

 

[Dino Gaudino]

We screwed ourselves with seeding by getting killed by State without CP and not getting a chance to beat Duke who did get the #1 seed.

I remember there was a big debate among talking heads about not wanting to give three teams from the same conference 1-seeds because it had never happened before. And then the committee gave the Big East three number ones in 2009.

 

[PhDeac]

True. But it shouldn't have been close.

 

[Milhouse]

ODOM was much like Buzz in the sense of quirky, nerdy, not much of a recruiter. He got luck with Duncan and Childress. One major difference when Odom took over as opposed to Buzz. Were there were no expectations. I assume if Odom was hired after Skip, he also would have been run out of town.

what an insult to odom

 

[deactherunner]

Skip came during my freshman year, and I remember "run and press" being elevated to a mantra. I also remember Skip (or someone with access to his e-mail account at least) personally e-mailing the Screamin Demons with scouting reports on the other teams and who to yell at (Moses Malone Jr, for instance). I wish we still got as excited for ACC games as Skip got us for South Carolina State.

 

[ericstratton]

ODOM was much like Buzz in the sense of quirky, nerdy, not much of a recruiter. He got luck with Duncan and Childress. One major difference when Odom took over as opposed to Buzz. Were there were no expectations. I assume if Odom was hired after Skip, he also would have been run out of town.

Not to get too off-topic, but I disagree. The difference with Odom is that, whether you like his style or not, he could coach and his teams were prepared for the opponent's game. I forget what year it was (age is a bitch) but the year we won the NIT I was at MSG for the championship game vs. Notre Dame and it was a damn clinic. We dismantled them. The team wasn't great that year, but he knew how to use his talent. IIRC, that year the Irish had that big kid, Troy Murphy?, and he was a force. We kept him in check. Maybe his main problem was that he was better at using his middling players than his stars, but wouldn't we all be glad if that was our coach's main problem now?

 

[PhDeac]

Yeah. Odom was nerdy, but he was nowhere near as bad as Buzz. And I took issue with Odom's recruiting down the stretch with some absurd lands like AW Hamilton, Schoetz, and Rodney West, but the man brought four of our all-time greats to Wake.

 

[Dino Gaudino]

True. But it shouldn't have been close.

Nope. The OT loss versus Georgia Tech and the throat slash FSU collapse probably cost us as much as the ACCT loss. Win one of the first two and the last one doesn't drop us off the top line.

 

[PhDeac]

Good points. I was at that Tech game. That was something else. Great atmosphere. Hell of a game. Not even 10 years ago.

buckets, thanks for starting this thread. It's good to remember the good old days, even the bad old pains of the good old days.

 

[OldGoldBeard]

This isn't a revelation by any means, but we just ran into an incredibly hot West Virginia team in '05. Win that game, and we likely beat Texas Tech handily and then face a toss-up against Louisville in the Elite Eight. This doesn't get mentioned as much, but the selection committee screwed us two-fold that year. We should've gotten the fourth 1-seed over Washington, and even in getting a 2-seed they put us in a bracket with a 7-seed playing less than 200 miles from home.

Non-nut punch things that went wrong that year:
1. Taron misses the FT against F$U that would have won that game and gotten us the 1-seed in the ACC
2. Gut-wrenching OT loss at GT, with CP missing the game-winner
3. Duke utterly collapses in Chapel Hill; up 9 with 3 minutes left, UNC closes on an 11-0 run and wins the "regular season title."
4. As the 2-seed, we get matched up against a talented and pissed-off State team that wallops us in the second half (tied at halftime, IIRC), instead of a push-over Clemson team that we beat by about 30 in Death Valley earlier that year.
5. Creighton tied, with the ball, should be OT at worst, shoots a 3-pointer that gets blocked and turns into a fast break the other way to give WVU the win.
6. Craptastic draw and seeding that ended up with us playing WVU instead of a pathetic Pacific team.

If any of those things break the other way...

 

[VaDeac]

Odom was nerdy. He could also coach, occasionally attract talent (though he had some very lean recruiting years) and was not a dick.

 

[IAppreciateIt]

Non-nut punch things that went wrong that year:
1. Taron misses the FT against F$U that would have won that game and gotten us the 1-seed in the ACC
2. Gut-wrenching OT loss at GT, with CP missing the game-winner
3. Duke utterly collapses in Chapel Hill; up 9 with 3 minutes left, UNC closes on an 11-0 run and wins the "regular season title."
4. As the 2-seed, we get matched up against a talented and pissed-off State team that wallops us in the second half (tied at halftime, IIRC), instead of a push-over Clemson team that we beat by about 30 in Death Valley earlier that year.
5. Creighton tied, with the ball, should be OT at worst, shoots a 3-pointer that gets blocked and turns into a fast break the other way to give WVU the win.
6. Craptastic draw and seeding that ended up with us playing WVU instead of a pathetic Pacific team.

If any of those things break the other way...

Not to mention the Illinois Triple Montez:

1. Blow us out on TV when we are #1
2. Blow undefeated season at Ohio State when OCC are on their official visit
3. Blow title game vs. the holes

 

[deaconson]

ODOM was much like Buzz in the sense of quirky, nerdy, not much of a recruiter. He got luck with Duncan and Childress. One major difference when Odom took over as opposed to Buzz. Were there were no expectations. I assume if Odom was hired after Skip, he also would have been run out of town.

what an insult to odom

indeed. there is no comparison between bzz and odom. one can speak coherent thoughts. one usually can't. one has accomplished something. won a few post season games. had success that he did not need to point to a previous stop and claim he laid the foundation. odom had his issues as a coach but you can't compare the two.

 

[Maztal]

what an insult to odom

yeah seriously. Most of us know about how Tim Duncan got here, but to suggest that Odom lucked into two ACC titles is ridiculous. Odom was a good coach (however I am glad he left when he left) and I'm very thankful that he spent his prime coaching years in Winston-Salem.

and as far as there being no expectations when Odom took over in comparison to bzz..well didn't some of those Odom teams (along with the Prosser and Gaudio teams) help create those expectations?

 

[ONW]

[Redacted] makes Odom seem cool. That's difficult to do.

And Dave actually won a few things.

 

[DirkTheDeac]

Odom was nerdy. He could also coach, occasionally attract talent (though he had some very lean recruiting years) and was not a dick.

He was a good coach. But I have to say, for all the shit Dino got in his three short years not doing anything in the post season with all his NBA talent, how did Odom not go to a FF with Duncan and Childress? That's a rhetorical question because I watched all those games. Wake is like the greatest golfer never to win a major. All the ability but it doesn't happen. I think if Skip was still with with us and Dino had convinced him to adopt the pack line D we could have gotten there.

Well, enough of this. It didn't happen and I have to watch the sock puppet with all his competent coaching ability lead us to victory, maybe, against FSU tomorrow night. Sweet.

 

[PhDeac]

Dirk, you probably e-stoned me a time or two many years ago for asking that question.

We've had great players. We haven't had a great coach.