Fire Autry

[RF2044]

Other than recruiting what was the upside that put him over the top to be hired. I just don’t see it. The feel good story of hiring one of our own isn’t enough to make the hire. Nobody outside the bot cares where the coach came from. Just a lazy hire. Jab was already disgruntled from being fired.

Path of least resistance.

Misguided sentiment to hang onto the past.

Some BoT members overstepping their roles and intervening in the hiring decision, based upon their personal relationships with Boeheim.

Because otherwise, you are right.

 

[Scooch]

When ADJW made the difficult choice to force JB to finally step down, the hard part was in the rear view mirror. Unfortunately, he and certain members of the BoT absolutely BLEW IT by hiring an undequalified candidate in Autry at a time when the program was in a precarious position after a near-decade of decline under Boeheim.

People will say that JW had "no choice," or that Boeheim would have thrown a tantrum if we'd gone outside of the program. I say, so what? He would have had a tantrum, and then it would have been over, they would have given him the same job he has, and the band aid would have been ripped off.

Instead, the program has declined even further, we have the worst coach of any P4 school, and fan apathy is at an all time high. It is an expensive lesson -- the path of least resistance might be "easiest," but when you hire someone unqualified in a performance-driven role, failure is the most likely outcome.

This whole thing was botched from the start. You don't artificially constrain the candidate pool. You don't hire an inexperienced "captain" when the ship is floudering. And you don't install someone with no proven track record, and make a continuity hire, when performance is already poor.

Red is one of our own. He's a very nice guy. He is a very good assistant coach. But hopefully this is an object lesson of what NOT to do when it comes to making hires.

My only quibble is that I firmly believe hiring Autry was a key component in getting JB to "retire". I believe the two things were very much linked, not that JB was forced out and then Red was hired.

If not for coercing JB to step down by hiring one of his guys to follow him, JB would have refused and forced SU to fire him. There wouldn't have been a gracious transfer of power. There would have been a press conference about SU terminating their legendary HC. There would have been endless news cycles of former players trashing the school.

We can debate if that was the right approach, but it seems clear to me that SU did not want that kind of press, so they did what they did.

 

[Blanko97]

He’s not on this list. There will be a lot of competition for Hodgson et al.

That’s because his seat has already burned up

 

[orangepassion]

He’s not on this list. There will be a lot of competition for Hodgson et al.

Autry can’t even make the top 10? That’s the clincher that he needs to go.

 

[JarHeadJim]

Carmelo Anthony appears unhappy with state of Syracuse hoops

Syracuse alum Carmelo Anthony does not appear happy with the current state of the program, commenting "SMFH" under a highlight from Monday's loss to UNC.

www.espn.com

 

[Newhouser]

"At the time," JB had already been mouthing off that ENTIRE YEAR, and had garnered a significant amount of coverage from the sports media every time he said something controversial. He was being made fun of the in sports media, seemingly every other press conference.

So if he'd thrown a tantrum at the end, and bad mouthed SU? That would have sucked, it would have garnered some minor coverage with the sports media at large making fun of him some more, and then it would have been over. Band aid ripped off.

I have an alternate theory. JB wanted a job, and he wanted something to do after he stopped coaching. I think he would have been motivated to get that job more than he wanted to scorch the earth. The fear of him scorching the earth is one of the big reasons why the University employed the path of least resistance, but not the only one.

And I think it is overstated, to help rationalize away the strategically indefensible outcome of who we hired as the replacement.

I think your second paragraph is spot on. By the end of his tenure the national media could have cared less about JB or our program. Sort of dismissed as the old man ranting again. It's also why I think the scorched earth scenario is overstated big time.

 

[phil77]

He’s not on this list. There will be a lot of competition for Hodgson et al.

Red isn't on the hot seat because he is already fired.

 

[Sbucketball]

He’s not on this list. There will be a lot of competition for Hodgson et al.

How has Jeff Capel held on this long. He's on the hot seat every year. Pitt really doesn't care do they.

 

[IthacaMatt]

Fair enough but probably a very small few know what actually happened. For the record I don’t know. ADJW doesn’t have to outsource his process with a firm. I would expect reasonably he would have had to share his process and decision making with the chancellor and BoT. I don’t think he goes to the Chancellor and says”hey this guy Fran called me, I was immediately aligned and wanted him hired on the spot and by the way I didn’t look at anyone else. Nor did I solicit inputs and guidance.” I mean people need to take a step back and just think about it carefully. Especially given the amount of money involved. Fans get emotional so kinda think emotionally. (Not saying you are, just in general).

Yes, and taking a step back and looking at it rationally, when you begin a coaching search, names often get leaked to the press.

We know the Autry hiring was dictated by JB, not the result of a search. It was also the cheap option, although they apparently over-paid to hire an unproven coach.

I don't recall many names getting leaked in the press before Fran was hired. There were a couple coaches that were mentioned on this board, but never anything public. That tells me that they didn't get too far in the process with other candidates. We didn't have anyone turn us down. And, again, we hired a guy with no head coaching experience, probably for about half the price of a proven head coach.

 

[Archimedes]

Path of least resistance.

Misguided sentiment to hang onto the past.

Some BoT members overstepping their roles and intervening in the hiring decision, based upon their personal relationships with Boeheim.

Because otherwise, you are right.

Hindsight is 20/20. There were good and valid reasons for hiring Red.

1.) A continuity hire is legit when your program is #6 in all-time wins.

2.) There was proven donor money behind Red. Take the sure thing to the bank.

3.) The SU football coach was looking for homes back west in early 2023. Hire local. He won't check out.

There was a logic to hiring Red and I'm guessing a lot more people here supported it then than are letting on now. Board consensus is too tough on ADJW and the BOT now. Just my $.02.

PS -- The BOT's job is to "intervene" in everything. Maybe Red's BOT backers just argued better.

 

[Brooky03]

The conjecture here is bananas, lol.

The well wasn’t poisoned. They did what senior leadership tends to do in these situations (in my corporate world experience. YMMV); they gave an internal guy a shot because it was a) cheap b) easy c) worked in the past and just generally tends to work out well enough. That’s it. I know everybody here is an insider with the whole scoop and all the knowledge of the inner working and yada yada, but the JB/BoT strong arm stuff and AD with his hands tied seems drastically exaggerated, at the very least.

Was JB kicking and screaming? Yeah, probably. Did he have friends on the BoT? Of course. Was there some influence by them? Yup. But the bottom line is a continuity hire is not at all uncommon in these scenarios and far from crazy. It was ultimately the wrong decision. Win some lose some.

 

[djorange1989]

The conjecture here is bananas, lol.

The well wasn’t poisoned. They did what senior leadership tends to do in these situations (in my corporate world experience. YMMV); they gave an internal guy a shot because it was a) cheap b) easy c) worked in the past and just generally tends to work out well enough. That’s it. I know everybody here is an insider with the whole scoop and all the knowledge of the inner working and yada yada, but the JB/BoT strong arm stuff and AD with his hands tied seems drastically exaggerated, at the very least.

Was JB kicking and screaming? Yeah, probably. Did he have friends on the BoT? Of course. Was there some influence by them? Yup. But the bottom line is a continuity hire is not at all uncommon in these scenarios and far from crazy. It was ultimately the wrong decision. Win some lose some.

Continuity hires are common, but usually those happen when a program is still doing well. We sucked when JB retired/was pushed out, that was clear. They absolutely took the cheap and easy way out and the results show it.

 

[Scooch]

Continuity hires are common, but usually those happen when a program is still doing well. We sucked when JB retired/was pushed out, that was clear. They absolutely took the cheap and easy way out and the results show it.

A problem is that not enough people thought we “sucked”. That includes a LOT of people here who were fervently making excuses for the last several years of Boeheim’s tenure (scholarship loss, early draft entries, transfers, facilities, sun spots, Aquarius being in retrograde, etc.).

We made a couple Sweet Sixteen runs so a bunch of influential folks thought all was hunky dory.

 

[Scooch]

I said it at the time and I’ll repeat it again now… I believe the decision makers felt they needed to follow the legend with an SU guy.

Here’s why (again, I said this in March of 2023)… if you hire outside the family and that guy fails, then you’ve burned a bunch of bridges with alums and boosters who wanted a family hire. Winning them back would be difficult.

If you hire Red then those people are placated. If he fails (and boy oh boy did he fail) then you have free rein to hire anyone from anywhere as his replacement. Yes this meant burning 3 years. But it may have preserved more relationships (read: $$$) for the long term.