Toughest legend to replace? Calhoun

[HooperScooper]

From Andky Katz of ESPN.com.

Toughest legend to replace? Calhoun

Calipari and Krzyzewski were picked by 2 other ESPN writers.

 

[Fishy]

The person who replaces Calhoun will be hitting the road with a new practice facility, etc. And God bless the big-headed fool, but Katz worrying about UConn not being in 'fertile' recruiting grounds is simply idiotic. Throw a rock in New England and you hit a good prep prospect and throw it a little harder and it lands in NYC.

Calipari can be replaced. That program is a different animal mostly because it is so central to such a huge percentage of the population of that state. Someone can come in and sling snake oil and do just fine there.

Coach K will be the hardest to replace. Very few coaches are bigger than their program...a guy like Brad Stevens is, but that's because his program is wee lil one. But Coach K is Duke basketball now - whatever they were has been erased and it's been replaced with a rat-like sneer from on high.

The next coach at Duke will be treated for a bleeding ulcer within 18 months of taking the job.

 

[UConnDan97]

And God bless the big-headed fool, but Katz worrying about UConn not being in 'fertile' recruiting grounds is simply idiotic. Throw a rock in New England and you hit a good prep prospect and throw it a little harder and it lands in NYC.

Yes!! This. One million times this! And that is what bothers me about most of Andy Katz's articles; they are so poorly thought out that I think he comes up with them while sitting on the can, doing a crossword...

 

[WestCoastHusky]

Yes!! This. One million times this! And that is what bothers me about most of Andy Katz's articles; they are so poorly thought out that I think he comes up with them while sitting on the can, doing a crossword...

That's one comment that is just plain stupid. There are plenty of basketball talent around UCONN not to mention access to NYC talent. UCONN has always recruited nationally and it won't be any different once someone else take it over.

 

[7774]

The next coach at Duke will be treated for a bleeding ulcer within 18 months of taking the job.

Don't worry about that guy. It's Duke, his assistant will get credited with all the losses.

 

[freescooter]

Don't worry about that guy. It's Duke, his assistant will get credited with all the losses.

Not so sure Coach K will be that hard to replace as long as they don't try to make Duke, say Michigan State or UCONN. Duke is always going to appeal to a certain level/type of player, and will always get their share of those guys. They were the same type of players that bill foster recruited when he was there. Kind of more "suburban" players if you will.

Dean's successor only took UNC to the Final Four twice in 3 years. And after a dumb decision on his succesor, UNC is right back at the top under Roy Williams. Roy's successor hasn't done too bad at Kansas.

Calipari is a totally different bird. I'm not exactly sure how you do replace him, but Kentucky has no particular ethics when it comes to this stuff so I don't think they'll have a big problem.

Calhoun has built UCONN into a major player. As long as they don't do something silly, I suspect that they will have a pretty good list of potential replacements and that we'll be just fine. Building the program was the hard part.

 

[Inyatkin]

Two Kentucky coaches other than Calipari won national championships in recent memory. How exactly would he be irreplaceable?

 

[DogMania]

That's one comment that is just plain stupid. There are plenty of basketball talent around UCONN not to mention access to NYC talent. UCONN has always recruited nationally and it won't be any different once someone else take it over.

I didn't arrive in CT till after JC took over. Now I don't completely agree with Katz' statement, but then again, before JC, was UConn regularly recruiting top 100 talent from around the globe? I don't think so. Even early on, JC was not landing many top recruits from all over. It was one here, one there and then more became interested and then more decided to come. For a program that is as successful as UConn, it has far fewer McD AAs as many of the other top programs.

Now unless the replacement completely fails and the program slips into irrelevancy, I don't see UConn having trouble continuing to garner national and international interest. I think once JC's replacement achieves something significant such as win the BE or reach the F4, if he hasn't already, I think he'll land his share of top 50 talent and keep the program as one of the top ones in the nation. It sure would help if JC can somehow fill the cupboards in 2013 and/or 14 with some talented recruits to get his replacement well on his way. At a minimum, hopefully he can finds a few diamonds in the rough like he always has and coaches them up as he passes the reigns to the next guy.

If the talent is not up to Big East caliber and UConn slips below the middle of the BE pack when the hand-off occurs, it could be some bumpy sailing and who knows how long it might take to build the program back up. My guess is the team overachieves this coming season. They add a few nice pieces of the puzzle and either JC coaches them deep into the tournament in 2014 or passes this group on to his replacement who has a enough of a solid measure of success to add some of his own recruits and keeps things going.

Let's hope that we don't face the same fate that SJU and GU suffered when their long time coaches moved on. Both tanked shortly afterwards and only GU has since pulled themselves out of it. That happens a lot though there have been a few that have not skipped a beat. Painter at Purdue has done a nice job replacing Keating (sp?). Miller has done well at AU, even after Lute pulled that program down by it's bootstraps. UNC took a mini-hit when Smith retired, but good O'l Roy has gotten them back to the top. Seeing what happens to our program will be very interesting. And of course we all hope it turns out as one of the success stories and not one of the tragedies.

 

[freescooter]

Dm,

You are a good example of a lot of people on here who don't really remember the pre-Calhoun days. UCONN didn't recruit big time many big time recruits, though they had a few, Cornelius Thompson comes to mind and McKay was sort of the next level, as was Norman Bailey, but all of them were local kids. But to be honest UCONN didn't really try to recruit big time recruits from outside the state either. I heard Calhoun talk about this point and I once had a chance to talk to Dee Rowe about it too, and they said almost the same thing.UCONN didn't really see itself on that level and didn't exactly even know how to recruit big time players..pre-Calhoun the recruiting budget was the smallest in the then Big East. They also didn't have a system n place to deal with support for players, or to support recruiting and a million other things that Georgetown and Syracuse and even Providence and Seton Hall all did becasue they all had played at a higher level than UCONN had before joining the Big East.They had to go through the tortures of the damned to get a recuit lunch in a campus dining hall. If people actually go back and read the report and the plan that was done more or less concurrent with Calhoun's hiring, they would get that this was actually more than a 1-man show. Now that doesn't mean anyone could have done it. Calhoun was masterful, but Jim Calhoun with a recruiting budget that only let him recruit Connecticut kids and the odd kid from just over the Mass and NY lines,driving a Chevy Chevette to the visits (that was what was assigned to recruiters by the University motor pool in the 70's) and Jim Calhoun with only the support system to keep Okafor-types eligible (ok an exaggeration, but you get my drift) is a whole different career. He's probably still one of UCONN's better coaches, but his success would probably have quite a bit lower than it was. It is possible I guess to turn straw into gold, but only if you have the resources to get the straw...we didn't have the setup to get the straw. Now jsut becasue some of the geniuses who post here will say Calhoun did it himself, understand that I think he went far far beyond any reasonable expectations even given th eother changes. Not a soul would have predicted even an NIT title never mind 3 national championships, and very few coaches could have gotten UCONN to that point. But without the other changes, neither could Jim Calhoun gotten UCONN that far.