OT: So no matter how hard Geno trys, his teams will be average?

[SVCBeercats]

What do you think about this video as it applies to Geno's coaching?

 

[msf22b]

Interesting, but I don't think that the lecturer is necessarily commenting on the general subject of excellence...
Rather today's obit of the superb Katherine Johnson.

 

[Dokey]

Oddly enough, I was addressing this very issue yesterday in my Facebook review of former ESPN journalist Kate Fagan’s The Reappearing Act. That book primarily discusses her struggles coming out lesbian while surrounded by Christian homophobic teammates but the early chapters deal with why she almost quit basketball. Recruited to the then national powerhouse Colorado, Fagan redshirted her first year while recovering from an injury. When she returned next year to the team, she was miserable and told herself she hated basketball and so went to inform her coach of her decision.

That coach was Hall of Farmer Ceal Barry who, with apologies to Geno, Pat, Tara, Muffet, etc., I consider the best coach in the women’s game. And it was how she handled Kate Fagan that explains her greatness. When Barry recruited this New York player, she was fooled by Kate’s brash, in your face attitude, and so pushed her relentlessly in practice, jumping on every mistake. When Kate announced she was quitting, Barry immediately saw that she had mistaken the mask for the real woman behind it.

Give me two weeks, Barry said. I have been coaching you all wrong. At the next practice, Kate was late in setting her feet to take a charge. In a game that would be a foul. Barry blew her whistle. Kate waited for the inevitable criticism. Instead, what Barry said was, “That’s exactly the kind of effort we need more of.” Kate would go on to play and eventually start for Colorado until she graduated four years later. For reasons I can only guess at, Barry retired from coaching at age 49 shortly after Kate left with 510 victories. She’s still at Colorado as associate athletic director in a department that just saw another member inducted into the Hall of Fame.

Sadly, the Colorado program deteriorated after Barry left but this year is showing resurgence. No one is more pleased that Ceal Barry, the coach who tailored her coaching to the player, not the other way around, and, in my book, is aces.

 

[and one]

The short answer (admittedly I'm not sure what the question is) is that no, UConn WBB is not long overdue for a series of 3-26 seasons. Random events do relentlessly seek the mean frequency. When non-random factors are present, not so much. For Geno coached teams, this year represents a regression to the mean; Geno teams have operated for a long time in the range of 0 to six losses. We'll have either 3 or 4 losses this year.

As time goes on new variables in the system will have to be factored in to result in a new normal. Geno retires. The number of excellent women bball players continues to rise and more college teams are able to recruit really good players.

What comes after Geno is unknown but my guess is that they will be the equivalent of Carolina or Kentucky on the men's side. Not great every year but very good most years.

 

[Sifaka]

"OT: So no matter how hard Geno trys, his teams will be average?"

Leaving aside the novel spelling (tries~trys!), the question is unclear.
Average for all of wcbb? For whatever league UConn happens to find itself in?
Average for UConn?

"What do you think about this video as it applies to Geno's coaching?"

I don't think this video applies to Geno's coaching.

See the excellent post by and one, above for more detail.

 

[JonathanXIV]

Almost by definition, the mean will be different for every team. Each team is an independent variable which makes up the whole of WCBB (which will always be "average").