I mean hes not wrong?!?! Not a great excuse but maybe factual
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I think he had some decent older talent (VT transfer whose name escapes me, plus Miami transfer whose name escapes me) and some great young talent (Jalen Duren), but he hasnāt done a great job integrating everyone.
Landers Nolley / Earl Timberlake
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He does a great job recruiting. Supposedly two ānumber 1ā ranked recruits with Emoni re-classifying. The team is unraveling and he is more defensive and angry in a post-game than Coach K attacking that student reporter the one time. Too many egos on that teamā¦ Wish I had put more than $5 on the SMU money line.
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On the one hand, heās technically correct. On the other hand, that complaint flies in the face of how he runs his whole program.
Do Duren and Bates really expect to still be there when theyāre 22? Memphisā whole approach is pitching super-talented 17/18 year olds on the opportunity to play against 22 year olds so they can be in the NBA by the time theyāre 20. Complaining about them being young isnāt wrong, but feels like massive hypocrisy.
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It is massive hypocrisy. I enjoy watching the implosion.
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Fox licensed the right from John Tesh for the season we won the Championship for their college basketball broadcasts.
This is an awesome narrative of the song origin and live performance of it by a full orchestra. The violinists really get into it. Great song. https://youtu.be/V_h7Lm7C9Nk
The Ringer wrote a long oral history of the song too. More than anyone ever needed to know, but an interesting read. āBA-BA DA-DA-DA BAAA!ā: An Oral History of āRoundball Rockā - The Ringer
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Thatās actually pretty awesome. I had no idea John Tesh wrote that, and he actually kinda kills it in the performance.
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The recruiting philosophy was his own choice. If you bring in a bunch of guys who have one-and-done in their heads and likely a heavy dose of me-first attitude, then he better know how to manage them. He has gone the Kentucky and Duke route, and itās been hard for those blue bloods to reach Final Fours even with their pedigrees. Isnāt this the second year in a row they have fallen apart? When most of his guys leave and he starts the same cycle next year, is he going to complain again? IMO this was pretty predictable.
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Also, hate to bring this up for obvious reasons, but the [redacted] wave of [redacted] really hit them hard, because while Penny indicated that he knew [redacted] in the preseason, it turned out he never followed up to check, and several players were not [redacted] and my view on that is [redacted]. So heās got young guys that he was blending with vets, and there were some positive indications of progress, but then [redacted] and at a key stretch, those guys couldnāt play or practice together for a couple weeks at a time.
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Oh yea itās predictable and Iām not upset about it or even defending Penny. Just stating the point that heās not wrong, he is playing a bunch of 17,18,19 year olds against teams that have 20,21,22 year olds. Now did he create this entire situation and has Memphis under him been a massive flame out? Yep.
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I also want to point out, that were he not Penny, there is enough mounting evidence for folks to start questioning whether heās the right man for Memphis.
- undercut Tubby (mostly with kids from his AAU program ā whatās now called Bluff City) to create a groundswell to get Tubby fired
- Acted really poorly in the whole Wiseman situation by trying to challenge the NCAA and making the situation much worse. As a strategist, you gotta know when to frontally attack, and when to retreat, and Penny messed up.
- He keeps blaming his vets this year (publicly) for not accepting the new kids when IT IS YOUR NUMBER #1 JOB TO MAKE SURE THAT GOES SMOOTHLY
- Thinking Alex Lomax can play the point
- Thinking Emoni Bates can play the point
- Misstatments or outright lies about [redacted]
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And heās blaming the media for not giving him a free pass.
I will not be nominating Penny for the Tony Bennett How to Handle Adversity Award this year.
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Thereās an instinct for combativeness that a lot of elite hoopers have that serves them very well when they hoop, and very poorly when they are trying to do things other than hoop (like, for example, coach). If this is how Penny treats conflict, how well do you think he handles conflict in his locker room? About like this ā somebody gets the blame and somebody is right and somebody is wrong. Most of us move on from that framing around the time our brains mature.
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Itās the age old thing of elite players donāt always translate into good coaches/GMs etc. At the college level where a coach has to be both itās even worst. Penny stepped into a big spot being the hero coming home and he brought a ton of swag and attention to what he was doing from the get. And honestly he wasnāt prepared for the role and all of that is becoming evident right now.
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I think this is a very generous statement lol unless maybe the āusā is a smaller subset of the US or world population
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This is on point. Dunning Kruger style
think there is some insecurity as well when you maybe realise it aint so easy and tougher to control than when you were on the court
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Love you going deep right there. Definitely some insecurity at work, we tend to become the most defensive when we are the most insecure. When I first started coaching I was the epitome of combative with media and players, I thought it made me look tough, but it was I was insecure in my abilities and worried about being exposed. After some time, retrospection and talking with other coaches I find thatās a common trend in coaching circles of new coaches.
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Heh, true. Most of us āshouldā move on. And, look, the finger points at all of us on this. I should have less of a temper. Etc, etc.
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Man I wish I could find the study I read on the topic and link it. The % of people who donāt reach full maturity is much higher than I wouldāve guessed. Nothing crazy like 33% or anything like that but not something negligible like 2% either.
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