How often do assistants / staffers from previous regimes stick around? I canāt recall anyone (certainly not at an assistant level) that lasted through Jones to Gillen, Gillen to Leitao, or Leitao to Bennett, off the dome.
I know Childress stayed on for Forbesās first year at Wake, but I also think his son was there. I feel like there are a handful of other examples, though none are springing to mind.
I know itās been fairly common here in football, but those are much bigger staffs. Maybe now with the bigger hoops staff, it would be good for some of the UVa legacy guys to hang around on a new staff (one or two of J-Willy, Zay, Chase, Kyle).
He was the Mayor of Ames, Iowa and he left that job.
But yeah, I basically think heās a midwest guy whoād rather stay in the Midwest, all else being equal. He even managed to stay in the Midwest for his entire 10-year NBA career (Indiana, Chicago, Minnesota).
Plus he doesnāt strike me as someone we should put a full court press on to overcome that natural obstacle.
He left Iowa State to coach the Bulls in the NBA. I donāt think he wouldāve left for another college job. But neither here nor there. Iād be happy with him if he was our next coach, but I donāt expect him to leave Nebraska and Big Ten TV money for a non-Duke/UNC ACC job.
These are my exact thoughts about every Big10 and SEC coach. It will take a lot to pull them away from that kind of money in the current landscape of the NCAA
I am sure to support Ron and other staff. Will be interesting to see how close he remains to the program if everything is ushered out next season with a whole new coaching staff and philosophy.
Iām not too worried about Tony souring once / if his design is ushered out.
I think he gets it based on his retirement press conference. This quote made me believe he doesnāt intend to claim ownership going forwardā¦
āIāve been here for 15 years as the head coach, and I thought it would be a little longer, to be honest, but thatās been on loan,ā Bennett said. āIt wasnāt mine to keep. This position has been on loan and itās time for me to give it back. And itās mine to give back.ā
I almost think bringing a bunch of incumbent players is a negative. It could mask any warts in the first few years. Ideally the new HC will be able to sign better talent at UVA than he was able to in his prior role.
I think heād consider it. Yes we would need to be very aggressive but the reality is heās never legitimately going to compete for championships at Nebraska where he realistically could at UVa.
And while the ACC is down, the basketball brands in the conference are still very real and a smart coach will recognize an opportunity to position himself next to Duke, UNC, Cuse, Louisville, etc. at a moment when most of those programs are extremely vulnerable. You basically get similar/better prestige as the B1G with an easier path to winning a bunch of games.
I think thatās the wrong way of looking at it. Thereās absolutely no reason why we canāt be competitive in year 1 if we make the right hire. Maybe not championship competitive but zero reason we canāt put a top 50 squad together. In fact, that should be the expectation. If we are aiming lower than that or thinking itās a long game, weāre doing it wrong.
Agree. We need to approach the future with the mindset that this is a national championship level program and winning the second one is THE goal for the future.
It may not be attainable in the very immediate future, but we are selling ourselves short if we intentionally aim lower than competing for the next natty with the next moves we make.
I mean itās a guessing game. A new coach is going to have to recruit a whole new team of players that want to come play here. He is going to have to hit on a lot of those portal players to have a top 50 team
We can aim as high as we want but coaches and players have to want to come here and as we have seen lately there arenāt a whole lot of great coaches and players that want to come to a dying league especially in a program that has academic and moral requirements. Weāre going to have to hit the lottery and that is hard to do
You act like picking a coach is like throwing a dart while blindfolded, or that we found Tony Bennett on the side of a street corner and he just so happened to be a HOF level coach lol.
Guys will be vetted and the people who make decisions will make an educated choice on who they think is best fit for the job. Is there some luck involved into how it ends up working out? Sure, but itās not like weāre just picking at random here and hoping for the best.
Bringing some of his own players and or previous recruits is a decent way of having some immediate success while gaining your footing in a new locale and new recruiting lands and getting your staff comfortable etcā¦. Like Indiana football and West Virginia basketball this year as recent examples.
It also makes your program immediately viable and attractive to players and players circles parents agents etcā¦
How does this years set of coaches compare to previous years? It feels like most of our top candidates are guys who just hired or just signed extensions