Wow. You know, he’s remarkably low profile for a former Indiana player with a solid NBA career and successful NBA head coaching experience.
His head coaching track-record is… intriguing. Why on earth did Atlanta not resign him in 2010? That 53 win season (that he painfully worked a dumpster fire of a team up to over the course of a few years) was the 6th best season in franchise history. The Knicks not resigning him after 2 solid years and 1 mediocre one makes sense because the Knicks do short-sighted things all the time.
This feels like a hire that could be an under the radar home run (if he’s basically gotten shafted due to racism) or a time-bomb if there was a reason teams kept not keeping him around despite actually pretty decent results.
Edit - Woodson is the only Knicks coach since Pat Riley to win their division, and one of only five Knicks coaches ever to do it. Lapchick, Holzman, Pitino, Riley, and Woodson. That’s the complete list of HCs to lead the Knicks to winning their division.
It seems to me that we are taking our time with the transfer portal. I hear of players we have reached out to and nothing else. I assume we are more active but I’m seeing some players I would love to pick up being very active with Zoom calls and all but not from us. I love CJ Felder
Woodson is very unlikely to be a good hire. He is 63 and has never coached in college or recruited. Matta’s health is incredibly fragile. Matta is being pitched to the fan base as a great advisor that won’t count against the coach limit, but the real reason he is an associate AD is that he can’t physically be on staff for games due to his health limitations.
Matta’s contributions will be limited in that capacity. Glorified film coordinator. He also won’t be able to recruit. People that follow the NBA could give a better idea, but Woodson always struck me as the very definition of an NBA mediocre retread. Supposedly the old guard wanted an IU guy.
Howard is a lot younger and more suited to recruiting than Woodson and had the good sense to hire veteran college coaches. I have been impressed with him. It does seem that model is what IU is going for but wow. I can’t see it.
Yes, we desperately need Indians to be good in college basketball. And duke and unc and Kentucky etc. sorry, I can enjoy college basketball with none of those things.
UCLA is still in this tournament though. We are hitting refresh every 10 minutes to see if you know who has bailed yet. And when I say you know who I don’t know who but I guess we all do though even though REDSHIRTING WAS ALWAYS THE PLAN!
How did Thad Matta fail? Two of the three Final Fours Ohio State has been to in the 64+ team era. And the one that wasn’t his got vacated. Similar story with Big Ten championships. Not sure I understand the comment.
Yeah Matta was very good. One of the best in cbb, it was just the back problems that did him in. Great coach, from what I remember also ran a clean program.
Xhoo, yeah I saw more than a few IU posters that were against a Tony or Beard hire… !!!
Eh, Woodson isn’t a “mediocre retread”. He’s old, but he’s also responsible for one of the best seasons in the Hawks’ history which he worked the team up to after taking over a complete disaster of a team (he coached there for 6 seasons, and their win totals increased every single year he was there), and despite coaching the Knicks for just 2+ seasons, he’s one of only 5 Knick headcoaches to win their division.
The question is whether he kept getting let go because of racism of dumb management, or if there was something else going on that kept getting him fired. Also, of course, his coaching has all been at the NBA level and he might not be able to recruit or connect with college players. He’s not a bad gamble, imo.
What kept getting him fired was being fifty games under five hundred in his career.
Maybe it works out. I see little evidence to suggest he was a better than average coach.
Maybe it works out.
Edit to add: To be clear, I do have sympathy for baby sitter coaches in the NBA. The most charitable reading is that he got pigeonholed in the NBA as a baby sitter coach. It does happen. There is some talk that is happening with Stevens now, that they outgrew him. Phil Jackson made a career off that sort of thing, swooping in after baby sitter coaches. Maybe it will work. I just doubt it, too many negatives.