Herbst and our new AD

[jibsey]

........should be meeting right now to plan the coaching transition of our men's basketball team. Now hear this;
Brad Stevens is going to a big time school someday soon with a big fat contract. Book it. That school is going to have their head coaching needs met for about 20 years. They are going to be competitive for final fours and national championships, and in other words they are going to be where we have been under Jim Calhoun for the last 15 years. We all know at this point that coach as great as he has been and as much as he has accomplished is winding things up because of his health and age, this year maybe, next year, the year after whatever. We likely have no tournament next year anyway and also lose 2 likely lottery picks, so this isn't going to exactly be an easy sell to Stevens, but damnit shouldn't we try? Calhoun is stubborn and a maverick but he's 70 and not in good shape. Stomach ailments, cancers and now back problems have seen him miss lots of games. Age is not likely to make him any healthier. This is not running him out of town. He goes out with a program built from scratch and 3 titles and his head held high. We do this one year from now and Stevens may be unavailable. President and AD need to secure the future of our program.... Now.

 

[willie99]

she will do the right thing, keep JC as long as he wants to stay

 

[metsfan2323]

........should be meeting right now to plan the coaching transition of our men's basketball team. Now hear this;
Brad Stevens is going to a big time school someday soon with a big fat contract. Book it. That school is going to have their head coaching needs met for about 20 years. They are going to be competitive for final fours and national championships, and in other words they are going to be where we have been under Jim Calhoun for the last 15 years. We all know at this point that coach as great as he has been and as much as he has accomplished is winding things up because of his health and age, this year maybe, next year, the year after whatever. We likely have no tournament next year anyway and also lose 2 likely lottery picks, so this isn't going to exactly be an easy sell to Stevens, but damnit shouldn't we try? Calhoun is stubborn and a maverick but he's 70 and not in good shape. Stomach ailments, cancers and now back problems have seen him miss lots of games. Age is not likely to make him any healthier. This is not running him out of town. He goes out with a program built from scratch and 3 titles and his head held high. We do this one year from now and Stevens may be unavailable. President and AD need to secure the future of our program.... Now.

You probably wanted this move made after the 2010 season, and if it were made there would have never been a championship last year. Thankfully you are not in management position at the school.

 

[HuskyBballFan]

If certain Boneyarders were Butler fans, wouldn't Brad Stevens be getting grilled for not even sniffing the bubble this year? For not parlaying the presumed recruiting momentum that comes with back-to-back NC game appearances into anything noteworthy? Wouldn't we be saying that he "got lucky and went on a magical run that's not repeatable without Hayward, Mack, and Howard?"

 

[businesslawyer]

The new AD needs his emergency plan for who he is calling if JC comes to him and says he's done. That is, at least for now, the only plan he needs. I don't think Duke is upset that K wasn't pushed out after the year he was rendered useless by back pain and surgery.

 

[djct1999]

as much as i want to credit calhoun for last year, the team was 9-9 going in to the big east tournament. .....then we all know what happened next. we caught a geenie in a bottle, the geenie was called kemba walker, and he went on one of the best runs in college basketball history. i am in no way saying that calhoun had nothing to do with it, but that was more kemba than anything else and a run like that happens once in a lifetime. we should cherish that championship run and applaud where it places coach in the history of college coaches, but don't expect going forward for it to happen like that.

 

[businesslawyer]

If certain Boneyarders were Butler fans, wouldn't Brad Stevens be getting grilled for not even sniffing the bubble this year? For not parlaying the presumed recruiting momentum that comes with back-to-back NC game appearances into anything noteworthy? Wouldn't we be saying that he "got lucky and went on a magical run that's not repeatable without Hayward, Mack, and Howard?"

We know the answer to that from the football board. Yes, he'd be getting ripped because many here don't understand that different level programs have different reasonable levels of expectation for what is overperforming.

 

[djct1999]

coach k hasnt missed a game since.....coach calhoun misses 5+ annually. do you really think coach paterno was as effective coaching from a skybox as coach saban is from the sideline. enough is enough. anyone on this board is a fool to think that coach calhoun doesnt deserve to go out on his terms. but at some point, this inconsistency and uncertainty that currently clouds the program needs to stop. the absolute hit or miss over the last four years is as much concerning as it is astounding. this debate can go and on with no clear answer but the facts remain that coach calhoun is 70, he misses games regularly, the program has been hit hard with ncaa sanctions.......we are very close to a major crossroads on the fate of this program and i am afraid that if we stay on course for too long, we can conceivably become umass and not unc.

 

[jibsey]

You probably wanted this move made after the 2010 season, and if it were made there would have never been a championship last year. Thankfully you are not in management position at the school.

It doesn't matter if he comes back and coaches us into the tourney because it doesn't change his health situation and his advancing age.As far as Stevens goes, I'd be willing to take a shot at what he could do with the kind of recruits he could get at UCONN. Regarding 2010, he was 2 years younger and in a different health situation. I understand the sentiment of having him call his shot but I think this is a good time for the change.

 

[BlueMAB]

We know the answer to that from the football board. Yes, he'd be getting ripped because many here don't understand that different level programs have different reasonable levels of expectation for what is overperforming.

You forgot to mention on the football board 2 conference championships in 7 years, 5 bowl bids, and a BCS trip is the definition of "mediocrity".

 

[specialisthusky]

These were the exact posts made during the end of the 2010 season.

This isn't some mediocre washed up old timer we are talking about. This is Hall of Famer Jim Calhoun. The man, at the very least, deserves to play out the remainder of his contract. If the school feels it is time to go their separate ways than that would be the appropriate time to begin making calls.

 

[upstater]

as much as i want to credit calhoun for last year, the team was 9-9 going in to the big east tournament. .....then we all know what happened next. we caught a geenie in a bottle, the geenie was called kemba walker, and he went on one of the best runs in college basketball history. i am in no way saying that calhoun had nothing to do with it, but that was more kemba than anything else and a run like that happens once in a lifetime. we should cherish that championship run and applaud where it places coach in the history of college coaches, but don't expect going forward for it to happen like that.

Totally disagree with this. You may have noticed the team went undefeated out of conference. There's a reason for that. Calhoun built the team to win in the NCAAs. In the BE last year, it was a Whack-a-Kemba fest, and once they got normal reffing, they went on a run. It was built-in.

This is precisely why after the BE tourney, UConn was picked as the 4th team most likely to win the national championship by 10-20 million people using the ESPN tourney challenge brackets. To say UConn came out of nowhere is perhaps proper only if you ignore what was literally happening in BE games, as well as their OOC record against the toughest schedule by far in the nation. Most watchers were not at all surprised by UConn's tourney run.

 

[metsfan2323]

OMG, Randy Edsall apologists trying to turn this into a Randy Edsall thread. I thought you guys were "over" him.

 

[Prezidint]

Totally disagree with this. You may have noticed the team went undefeated out of conference. There's a reason for that. Calhoun built the team to win in the NCAAs. In the BE last year, it was a Whack-a-Kemba fest, and once they got normal reffing, they went on a run.

This is silliness. Many things coalesced to allow UConn to go on the run, but reffing was not the main reason. I'd throw out that Lamb's emergence was the critical component, but there were others related to the players, not the reffing. And the notion that JC "builds" teams that he knows will founder in BE play and thrive in post season play is plain stupid.

Last year was as close to a miracle as you're going to see in your lifetime, and it didn't occur because of some grand design.

And, of course, the most obvious counter to your silliness is that we won 5 in a row against Big East teams in the Big East tourni to start our run.

 

[djct1999]

maybe most uconn watchers werent surprised by the run, but pretty much everyone else was absolutely shocked by it. no one on a national scale believed any team can win 5 games in 5 nights then go on to win the tournament. i do see your pt on the out of conference schedule and how they ran the table but even that makes a 9-9 run in the big east more suprising. no one said they came out of nowhere. but if you dont think kemba was the overwhelming factor, explain to us all this year, with the exact same team, a year more of experience and development but without one key component. kemba made everything on last years team click.

 

[Cheddie]

........should be meeting right now to plan the coaching transition of our men's basketball team. Now hear this;
Brad Stevens is going to a big time school someday soon with a big fat contract. Book it. That school is going to have their head coaching needs met for about 20 years. They are going to be competitive for final fours and national championships, and in other words they are going to be where we have been under Jim Calhoun for the last 15 years. We all know at this point that coach as great as he has been and as much as he has accomplished is winding things up because of his health and age, this year maybe, next year, the year after whatever. We likely have no tournament next year anyway and also lose 2 likely lottery picks, so this isn't going to exactly be an easy sell to Stevens, but damnit shouldn't we try? Calhoun is stubborn and a maverick but he's 70 and not in good shape. Stomach ailments, cancers and now back problems have seen him miss lots of games. Age is not likely to make him any healthier. This is not running him out of town. He goes out with a program built from scratch and 3 titles and his head held high. We do this one year from now and Stevens may be unavailable. President and AD need to secure the future of our program.... Now.

Would Stevens be a good successor @ UConn? Probably. Would it be a good idea to force out a Hall of Fame coach on the off-chance that Stevens is locked up soon by another school? Absolutely not.

As much as you may love the UConn program, I'd submit that Calhoun probably has you beat in devotion, loyalty and commitment to its best interests. If he didn't believe in his heart and soul that he could further the program by staying, I have no doubt he'd step aside. So, I trust the man, and I also trust President Herbst and AD Manuel, with the program's future.

Stevens is good, but he's not the only promising young coach in America. And even if he were to leave Butler, I think we've all learned from the Big East shuffle that contracts can be terminated anyway.

 

[BlueMAB]

OMG, Randy Edsall apologists trying to turn this into a Randy Edsall thread. I thought you guys were "over" him.

Nobody mentioned him, or even alluded to him, until you brought him up.

I posted about the accomplishments of the program, and how they are viewed by the fans. That has nothing to do with the head coach.

 

[Excalibur]

We have no idea if Stevens actually knows what he's doing or just stumbled upon one really good class at Butler.

 

[MTHusky]

Hiring Stevens to replace JC is like UCONN hiring Mitch Buonaguro over JC. Buonaguro was was the Fairfield coach and wanted the UCONN job. Luckily he didn't get it!

 

[businesslawyer]

Hiring Stevens to replace JC is like UCONN hiring Mitch Buonaguro over JC. Buonaguro was was the Fairfield coach and wanted the UCONN job. Luckily he didn't get it!

Yes. Exactly like that. Because Buonaguro took Fairfield to two NCAA finals

 

[BlueMAB]

We have no idea if Stevens actually knows what he's doing or just stumbled upon one really good class at Butler.

You say "Stumbled upon" others say "recruited".

 

[businesslawyer]

We have no idea if Stevens actually knows what he's doing or just stumbled upon one really good class at Butler.

You never fully know how recruiting at one level translates to recruiting at a higher level. But I sat in the arena in DC waiting for UConn to play last March and watched Stevens beat ODU and Pitt. I have zero doubt that "he knows what he's doing."

 

[Excalibur]

You say "Stumbled upon" others say "recruited".

There are plenty of coaches who strike it rich once with a class and can never repeat that success. I think he's a good coach and would do well with better talent in a major league, but let's not pretend that the jury isn't still out.

 

[upstater]

maybe most uconn watchers werent surprised by the run, but pretty much everyone else was absolutely shocked by it. no one on a national scale believed any team can win 5 games in 5 nights then go on to win the tournament. i do see your pt on the out of conference schedule and how they ran the table but even that makes a 9-9 run in the big east more suprising. no one said they came out of nowhere. but if you dont think kemba was the overwhelming factor, explain to us all this year, with the exact same team, a year more of experience and development but without one key component. kemba made everything on last years team click.

Why would Kemba's greatness detract from Calhoun?

The point I'm making is simple. Style of play makes a huge difference. It's the reason why UConn does so well in the tourney and why Pitt ALWAYS flounders.

Ultimately, we disagree on one major factor. You says "everyone else was shocked by it" and yet UConn was the fourth most popular pick to win it all among tens of millions of college bball fans. No surprise since they finished the season ranked 8th nationally. Ranked 8th and picked 4th most likely to win before the tourney? That should not be a shock to anyone, especially given their OOC record. Style of play and the abundance of freshman accounts for the bE regular season record.

 

[BlueMAB]

There are plenty of coaches who strike it rich once with a class and can never repeat that success. I think he's a good coach and would do well with better talent in a major league, but let's not pretend that the jury isn't still out.

There aren't many coaches that make it to back to back championship games, no matter how good the recruiting class was.

The jury may still be out on Stevens, but as far as Ollie is concerned, the trial hasn't even begun.