And how much success did Stanford and Vanderbilt experience with their OADs?
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73 we do not disagree on the continuity point. The new era of open transfers definitely hit TB hard. It made it impossible for him to teach and coach young men the way he had in the past. But he was unable to make adjustments to his schemes and vision that made this harder on the program. One thing off the top of my head was the red-shirt year. That should have gone away years ago. To his credit Sanchez seems to have indicated he is not in favor of redshirting healthy players. You can call me a bit delusional on my opinion that schemes need to be changed, but I think you need to look at some of the evidence again. The schemes worked when TB and the staff had hit after hit with underrated HS recruits that turned out to be pretty good pros. The athleticism required to get out to three point line after a skip pass was something few could master outside of an athlete like Atkins or Anderson. We had a physically imposing line up for four years that probably would have made any defense work. The cracks in the defensive scheme actually started to show with the national championship crew. We relied on offensive efficiency throughout that run. The defense on most nights looked great, but when a team got hot (Edwards with Purdue) we had to rely on three players who were great scorers in college to keep us in position to win. On the offensive end I cannot understand how you could say we do not need to adjust. Ryan Dunn is the most recent example of a player who found his confidence after departing the team. I can point to Morsell, Shayok, Darius, Tobey, Murphy, and even Gill who we discovered were offensive talents (or more well rounded) after they left the strict system in place here.
I am not trying to ruffle anyone up here. Tony was a great coach, teacher, and leader. He remains a great representative of the University and our values, but his retirement is fully connected to the changing environment and game of college basketball. He did not want to make big changes that were needed to keep the program successful. His leaving was evidence that bigger adjustments need to be made.
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A completely different argument. Schools like UCLA and Michigan have also had one and dones
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And how successful have UCLA and Michigan been as a result of the OADs? And each has gone through a succession of coaches recently. One might suspect that roster instability leads to staffing instability. And, if schools like UCLA, Indiana, Louisville, Michigan, and Ohio State, which all have rich basketball traditions, have difficulty attracting the right coach, what is it that makes the Virginia job so appealing? Personally, I think the best thing that can happen is that Coach Sanchez enjoys some success this year and retains his job.
Iâll add it also isnât like Tony didnât and wasnât actively trying to get the OADs. Wouldâve taken Ament in a second haha. Has handed out numerous offers over the years to the elite prospects. Knowing when to back out of the race was generally the smart play.
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Thatâs not the argument that you were making before.
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Shaka and Otz should be the first calls, but Odom is at the top of the next tier to me.
Honestly if we limited ourselves to only current and former VCU coaches we could do a lot worse.
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We have an opportunity with a new coach to define a new era. Granted - high academics are a legit constraint, but beyond that and our willingness to adapt to NLI/portal dynamics, I am donât think we need to project our problems in last 5 years into the future. I love CTB and all he did for our program. But - I am moving thru my change curve into hope for future.
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The guy Otz was an assistant under, Hoiberg, is also in that top list. Or should be.
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I mean, if Dawnâs a candidate, why not consider Kim Mulkey?
She has a better career record than Dawn and more national titles. Plus sheâs a snazzy dresser and seems like a lot of fun.
Or maybe we can get Tara VanDerveer to come out of retirement. Is Pat Summit still alive?
Dawn Staley. LOL! What a joke.
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I like Hoiberg and would be fine with him, but I am not fully sold on him. He took over a Nebraska team that won 19 the year before he got there and has only done better than that total once. Heâs really only had one nice season in the NIL era. I know its a hard job, but I have more confidence in Otzâs understanding of modern times than Hoibergâs. Hoiberg just may be more gettable.
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This is the kind of analysis Iâd like to see.
What about TJOâs track record before ISU screams âis definitely going to be a great hireâ ex ante?
But you need some sort of basis to look back systematically at power 5 hires that were successful or not (which youâd have to define somehow, like % of NCAATs made since hire, NCAAT wins per season since hire, or however you choose to define it), and delve backwards into what their track record looked like pre hire and then compare the successes vs the failures.
My suspicion is that in both subsets, winners vs losers, youâre going to see a lot of the same stuff. Like dudes (not dawns) who coached 3-4 years at a mid major, showed progress in win totals, made a tourney, then cashed in for a high major job. Itâs easy to look at TJO and say âwhatever that was it has workedâ but I bet youâd find a ton of track records that looked very similar but led to failure.
Ultimately the question is what is the best predictor of success. Then youâd have to layer in the qualitative stuff like âthe uva wayâ etc.
Iâd hope search firms would have all this analysis done already but I wouldnât be totally surprised to learn theyâre mostly a bunch of bullshit artists there to collect fees, much like investment bankers.
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I donât think either have gone through a succession of coaches and both programs have had pretty good success.
Michigan had Beilein there 12 years through 19 making 2 tournament finals in 9 appearances, numerous second weekend appearances and a couple B10 championships. Then he left for the NBA. You could argue that aside from actually winning the tournament, he was as successful as Tony Bennett. Then they hired Howard who made an E8 and S16 and won the B10 and also won a National Coach of the year. He cratered the past 2 seasons.
UCLA had Steve Alford for 6 years and he made 3 S16s and another tournament appearance and won the P12 once. Then Mick Cronin the past 5 years has a FF and 2 S16s and 2x Pac12 coach of the year.
And we canât leave out Gonzaga and Mark Few performing well with multiple OAD players over many years.
A whole lotta this gets unaccounted for in analysis:
Side note, itâs kinda remarkable that Otz got hired with that resume.
You know whoâs done a nice job returning a program to its former heights and would only be making a smaller step up compared to the small conference guys? Richard Pitino.
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Love Richard. Great call
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Agreed, after seeing what he did at UNLV and his short track record overall, Iâm not sure how he got a (at the time) P5 job. But heâs turned out pretty well for them.
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Another guy who has done really well in his âsecond actâ is Bryce Drew at Grand Canyon. Though maybe he benefits from the financial advantages that institution has from theirâŚbusiness practices.
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Interesting that Iowa State took a chance on Oltz when UNLV was worse in his 2nd year. Maybe the administration just had trust/liked him when he was an assistant under Hoiberg?
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Maybe it wasnât considered a good job. Maybe he wasnât their first choice (another variable to consider).
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Look how negative the comments are on the Reddit thread at the time of the hire!
https://www.reddit.com/r/CollegeBasketball/s/ALiETQScef
The guy with Fairfield and UVA fan affiliations (?) saying that Otz was gonna get canned in 4 years was a funny thing to come across.
Other comments are talking about how they rushed it to try to retain recruits/players, how they should have been more patient to draw in more candidates, etc etc
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