New assistant coach: Allen Griffin

[RF2044]

I think it's a higher floor lower ceiling hire.

Agree 100%.

 

[721Comstock]

I think it's a higher floor lower ceiling hire.

So is the roof the ceiling? :noidea:

 

[NKR1978]

I lived in Bayside for a few years... Hmmmm.

I live in Long Island City. I feel that qualifies me.

 

[jdubs30]

I think it's a higher floor lower ceiling hire.

Yep.

The chatter of Wellman possibly getting the job would have been a lazy hire, IMO. But JB went out to get a guy who's been an assistant coach under a very good up and coming young coach whos been to, and had success in, the NCAA tournament. It's not like AG was selling insurance policies and JB all of sudden called him up and asked if he was interested in coaching.

 

[NYCSUGrad]

Clicking ignore takes less time than posting a retort.

True but I wasn't being facetious there.

Unless you meant him?


I ended up actually answering the question without going to the board.

 

[Arangeman]

So where does Prof. Griff fit in the hierarchy? Red is the new Hop, is Gerry is the new Red? Is Griff the new Gerry?

 

[721Comstock]

So where does Prof. Griff fit in the hierarchy? Red is the new Hop, is Gerry is the new Red? Is Griff the new Gerry?

I'd imagine Griff is senior to GMac - certainly in terms of overall experience he is.

 

[NYCSUGrad]

I guess my question would be does it matter if you can only have 2 on the road instead of 4 when more often than not nobody from the staff is out there?

????????? do you KNOW none of the FOUR staff was out there? Except maybe on Christmas or their wife or kids' birthdays? Then yeah, priorities.

That's a real head scratcher of a question

 

[Townie72]

You're trying to make excuses for the staff but are uninformed. Literally within 48 hours of the interview/story running we went to visit him at his school and tried very hard to get him to visit the campus again but he declined and committed to Miami shortly thereafter. We did not cool on Lonnie Walker.

We dropped the ball. No other way to spin it no matter how hard you try.

OK.

Have you ever been a salesman?

I have --- for IBM way back.

We had about a 70% share of the mainframe business, but we didn't get every order. Sometimes, no matter how strong an effort we made, no matter how much information we provided, no matter how much our solution was technically better or better supported, we just didn't get the order. We chased every order we thought we had a legitimate shot at as hard as we could with as much skill and resources as we could muster. (We didn't have a limit like the number of scholarships.)

Other coaches have products (programs) they are selling too. It's not always the salesperson's fault.

It's not dropping the ball. It's not failure. It's how the real world works.

 

[cuseinseattle]

I have to say that unless you are one of the REALLY big schools, with shall we say CERTAIN REPUTATIONS for not being frugal, almost every school and its fan base will complain about the recruits who disappointed them. It's just the nature of recruiting and even the big schools have kids who transferred because they were promised they would start by say sophomore year but they barely got off the bench that year because they were recruited over.

As for BJ Johnson and Ron Patterson, they were victims of the scholarship debacle. BJ had a very good year at his A-10 school and that's a tough league to play in. Ron Patterson may or may not have made a leap if he had been able to stay on the team. And Kaleb wasn't expecting to be our starting PG as a freshman, but his predecessor was drafted in the first round so Kaleb did his best. That he didn't improve in his sophomore year might have been in part due to the fatigue level of playing 35 minutes a game when you should have been playing 10-15 minutes. You don't necessarily get a chance to rest in the summer because you have to play in leagues or you get rusty.

That's my instant analysis without getting to the recruiting board. Feel free to rebut my points.

I think with Kaleb it was about being thrust into a role that he or the team wasn't expecting him to have. He lost confidence and never recovered. I thought he would be a good player. I think Ron Patterson and Chino were both mistakes but mistakes happen. I agree recruiting is about projecting and that is an inexact science. I have to do that for my work and can sympathize. I personally liked Brunson, Newton and Morris a lot and I feel like many other posters did as well so that is why I brought them up. If we had made the mistake with Morris and gotten another good PG it wouldn't have been as much of an issue.

 

[Ward]

????????? do you KNOW none of the FOUR staff was out there? Except maybe on Christmas or their wife or kids' birthdays? Then yeah, priorities.

That's a real head scratcher of a question

What?

 

[FrancoPizza]

It's not like AG was selling insurance policies and JB all of sudden called him up and asked if he was interested in coaching.

Replace insurance policies with Burdick cars and that pretty much describes the Gerry hire.

 

[HOFCeluck]

Replace insurance policies with Burdick cars and that pretty much describes the Gerry hire.

I think there's legit reason to be critical of Gerry, but that pendulum has swung waaaaaay too far over now.

 

[cuseinseattle]

Quade wants to be a pro and thinks Kentucky will make his route easier.

Oak Hill is on TV a few times a year (in fact they were on ESPN this week) and we shall see regarding Coleman. I know Coleman hopes your right. To me Coleman is a kid who benefited from playing alongside good players and a class where there was a significant drop in the ability of the 6th and 7th point guard.

I agree that Coleman has good players around him but I think he is a good player as well. I have seen him play on TV multiple times and watched entire games. My thoughts aren't solely based on highlight reels.

 

[cuseinseattle]

I think there's legit reason to be critical of Gerry, but that pendulum has swung waaaaaay too far over now.

This is probably true but I think it is also that people who are frustrating with the regional recruiting and some of the swing and misses are using Gerry as the target for that which I get because he is a much easier target than Boeheim or Hop or Red but the reality is that it is the staff as a whole and not on one person in my opinion. I think the frustration is that our 3rd assistant shouldn't be the primary recruiter. This goes back to USA Basketball and I'm sure we have discussed this enough.

 

[Ward]

OK.

Have you ever been a salesman?

I have --- for IBM way back.

We had about a 70% share of the mainframe business, but we didn't get every order. Sometimes, no matter how strong an effort we made, no matter how much information we provided, no matter how much our solution was technically better or better supported, we just didn't get the order. We chased every order we thought we had a legitimate shot at as hard as we could with as much skill and resources as we could muster. (We didn't have a limit like the number of scholarships.)

Other coaches have products (programs) they are selling too. It's not always the salesperson's fault.

It's not dropping the ball. It's not failure. It's how the real world works.

This is a 180 from your last excuse for the staff but isn't accurate either.

It's unrealistic to think just because we want a kid that they will 100% of the time come on board. I'm well aware of that. I have no problem and do not hold the staff accountable one bit if we lined things up, put our best foot forward and the kid just decides another program is a better fit for him. It happens a lot more than it doesn't. No problem with that at all and you'll never see me complain for one second about those situations. Only qualm I have with us missing on Quade is how irresponsible it was to cut ties with all back up plans but that's been discussed plenty.

What is a different situation is when we are recruiting a kid and don't put our best foot forward with our approach and see a very attainable elite talent go elsewhere. For example like what I stated before, have a 5 star swing man from a nearby recruiting hotbed in our self restricted recruiting region, grew up an SU fan, has us in his final group and shortly before he is deciding to commit to a school says he hasn't heard from us in awhile and doesn't know if we want him as a part of our program. That's not doing a good job and putting yourself in the best position possible to close the sale of your program. And based on your description of your approach to sales at IBM you would agree that what transpired is not putting yourself in the best position possible for a successful outcome. Situations similar to these are the catalyst for my frustrations in our recent recruiting efforts - the self inflicted missteps.

I think Red is a GREAT member of the staff. I wish we utilized him much more than we did for the important 2017 class.

I like the hire of Griffin. I think from a recruiting perspective if we're going to focus on the northeast like we have been I am hopeful he and Red can tag team that NY/NJ area and get some quality talent into the program. I've been fortunate to know him a little bit back when he was just out of college and back in Syracuse and think he is a great guy who I like representing our program. I like too that he has experience and has worked hard and proven himself as being a good assistant coach on this level prior to being added to the staff and given an inordinate amount of recruiting responsibilities.

 

[billsin01]

What I would very much like to know is who else they looked at/interviewed? Im in the camp that they should have gone out and grabbed a well connected recruiter or and AAU head coach type because I think the program could have used a nice boost on the recruiting front and this was a perfect opportunity to take advantage of the situation. That said, I don't hate the hire. I think AG could very well be a hard working, solid XO's coach who is dedicated to the University. My biggest concern is with my original question, who else did they consider?

If the staff and administration conducted their due process and deemed AG their guy then I will feel better. But, if there were no real interviews, litte conversation and dialog on the direction and needs of the program, well then, I couldn't agree more with it being a lazy hire (If that did occur it would also bring up some questions regarding the new AD). So I am very interested to find out how extensive the process was.

I would say it's a 'safe' hire without knowing what you lay out above -- which is how much effort was put into the search. The other point that I'll make, and I'm not sure if it's been made in this thread previously, is does the program desperately need a dynamic recruiter or are they fine with a solid one? My point being, do they maybe tweak the recruiting strategy to find players further down in the rankings that are more likely to stay for multiple years? Do they recruit similar kids but really push the 'family' angle of syracuse basketball?

Not sure how valid either of those points are but they seem worth considering.

 

[dasher]

So its an agenda when people who love GMac as a player say the guy fell into a elite job and hasn't done a good job in that job. Either as a guard coach or as a recruiter. After the Fine incident JB should have brought in a coach. He gave GMac that job. People can hold him to a higher standard as a result.

I can list recruits Hopkins and Autry have brought in. GMac wasn't the primary recruiter for anybody except Moyer and Francis even said that was really a Hopkins start job and GMac finished.

It is not an agenda. You think GMac is good as a recruiter? Let's hear why.

The big kid we brought in this year was a gmac recruit.

 

[RF2044]

I would say it's a 'safe' hire without knowing what you lay out above -- which is how much effort was put into the search. The other point that I'll make, and I'm not sure if it's been made in this thread previously, is does the program desperately need a dynamic recruiter or are they fine with a solid one? My point being, do they maybe tweak the recruiting strategy to find players further down in the rankings that are more likely to stay for multiple years? Do they recruit similar kids but really push the 'family' angle of syracuse basketball?

Not sure how valid either of those points are but they seem worth considering.

My responses:

• does the program desperately need a dynamic recruiter or are they fine with a solid one? Absolutely -- recruiting is the life blood of any high major collegiate sports program. Not to knock the capabilities of the personnel on hand [including JB], but we've seen evidence recently of the staff not getting the job done, especially in the past year. We should be adding the best recruiters we can, to correct this issue - in the same way that Troy Weaver gave us a huge shot in the arm in 2002. Nothing against Griffin, I give him a lot of credit for leaving the fold and having success. I'm fine with hiring him, but I do think we missed an opportunity to bring in an ace, bulldog recruiter. Get the best candidate you can for the job, period. If that's somebody with connections to the program like Griffin, disco. But sometimes it is somebody external to the program, like Roby Murphy or the aforementioned Weaver. I feel like Griffin was a solid hire, but not somebody who is going to get the fan base excited or somebody who will move the needle on the recruiting trail. Which is why I agreed with the post earlier about him being a high floor but low ceiling add to the staff. Just to add to this, I am greatly encouraged by what we saw from JB in recent weeks, getting down to Georgia to visit Jordan Tucker, making his presence felt with important 2018 recruit Hameir Wright, etc. Great sign. But I feel like this hire was uninspired, and the "easy" choice. Would love for Griff to prove me wrong. Loved him as a player, respect him as a coach.

• My point being, do they maybe tweak the recruiting strategy to find players further down in the rankings that are more likely to stay for multiple years? Possibly. Our program has experienced the dual edged sword over the past few years of not having enough foundational talent / program guys. Part of that is due to early entrants, part of that is due to an excessively high number of transfers. Some of it is also due to unforeseen circumstances like DCII's body simply failing him this season after he was relatively healthy last year, and experienced starter Tyler Roberson regressing. I feel like the players we've added thus far in the class of 2017 will go a LONG way towards replenishing depth / talent, and stocking the program with four year guys who can be supplemented by higher rated recruits.

• Do they recruit similar kids but really push the 'family' angle of syracuse basketball? Nothing wrong with that, but whatever works.

 

[Alsacs]

The big kid we brought in this year was a gmac recruit.

Brissett or Sidibe?
Brissett seems like the higher upside player down the road IMO.

 

[Briancuse]

Brissett or Sidibe?
Brissett seems like the higher upside player down the road IMO.

He seems to be the higher player now and down the road.

 

[RF2044]

Brissett or Sidibe?
Brissett seems like the higher upside player down the road IMO.

Hard to say -- I think they BOTH have NBA caliber upside.

 

[Briancuse]

I was just checking out nbadraft.net, they have Brisset listed as the 46th best incoming freshman.

 

[iommi]

Brissett or Sidibe?
Brissett seems like the higher upside player down the road IMO.

Sidibe was primarily G-Mac.

 

[NYCSUGrad]

I think with Kaleb it was about being thrust into a role that he or the team wasn't expecting him to have. He lost confidence and never recovered. I thought he would be a good player. I think Ron Patterson and Chino were both mistakes but mistakes happen. I agree recruiting is about projecting and that is an inexact science. I have to do that for my work and can sympathize. I personally liked Brunson, Newton and Morris a lot and I feel like many other posters did as well so that is why I brought them up. If we had made the mistake with Morris and gotten another good PG it wouldn't have been as much of an issue.

That's not inconsistent with what I said. Any time he would get pulled and yelled at probably wore him down, even though it wasn't anything JB wouldn't do to all his players when they are messing up.

I think it was a perfect storm for Kaleb and that's quite sad.

Now Chino if you mean Chukwu I disagree about because he got poked in the eye during I think the second game, literally couldn't see straight then got poked again and was out for the season with a horribly painful and uncomfortable regimen to fix a detached retina.