Gottleib: Boeheim "very good, not great"

[SWC75]

He and John Feinstein do a "thought of the day thing that turns up on the score. He said that there are four ways to judge a coach:

1) Do you compete for national championships on a regular basis?

2) How well do your players do in the pros?

3) Do you stay off of probation?

4) Does anyone imitate your style?

Since he's been to only 4 Final Fours, (actually it's three, Doug, as a head coach), his players don't do well in the pros, he was on probation and no one imitates him, he's very good but not great, according to Doug.

Fire away.

 

[CuseTroop]

Cowheard talked about this too. Says its not JB's job to make players good in the pros, his job is to make players good in Syracuse. He asked When Duke had a great player in the pros. In regards to #4, Cowheard mention that Coach K has running the zone (I havent watched Duke play much this year, so IDK if he was talking about USA basketball, or Duke)

 

[dasher]

JB's #1 job is to win basketball games. He has won 900 of them. Only 2 other guys have done that. Seems pretty great to me.

 

[NKR1978]

My issue with this is how many people have been better in the Boeheim era? K, Calhoun, Knight, Smith, Roy Williams, Izzo, Donovan and Pitino. At worst JB is the 9th greatest coach of his era and top 15-20 all time. Out of thousands that have coached college basketball. That's pretty great to me.

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[jdubs30]

Cowheard talked about this too. Says its not JB's job to make players good in the pros, his job is to make players good in Syracuse. He asked When Duke had a great player in the pros. In regards to #4, Cowheard mention that Coach K has running the zone (I havent watched Duke play much this year, so IDK if he was talking about USA basketball, or Duke)

I'm a big Cowherd guy and love his show. I thought he would be anti-JB, but I was glad to hear he thought JB was elite. He was arguing with someone who works on his show (who went to Syracuse) and basically called him an idiot for not thinking JB was a top tier coach

 

[jordoo]

My issue with this is how many people have been better in the Boeheim era? K, Calhoun, Knight, Smith, Roy Williams, Izzo, Donovan and Pitino. At worst JB is the 9th greatest coach of his era and top 15-20 all time. Out of thousands that have coached college basketball. That's pretty great to me.

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Right, that is the very worst he could be. Gottlieb loves to stir the pot.

 

[MyMeloMyMan]

It is interesting...in that team sports is such a copycat thing, that no one has ever tried to go full zone like JB.

 

[CuseTroop]

I'm a big Cowherd guy and love his show. I thought he would be anti-JB, but I was glad to hear he thought JB was elite. He was arguing with someone who works on his show (who went to Syracuse) and basically called him an idiot for not thinking JB was a top tier coach

I think OE said that was Chris Mullin.

 

[sutomcat]

He and John Feinstein do a "thought of the day thing that turns up on the score. He said that there are four ways to judge a coach:

1) Do you compete for national championships on a regular basis?

2) How well do your players do in the pros?

3) Do you stay off of probation?

4) Does anyone imitate your style?

Since he's been to only 4 Final Fours, (actually it's three, Doug, as a head coach), his players don't do well in the pros, he was on probation and no one imitates him, he's very good but not great, according to Doug.

Fire away.

Call me old fashioned, but you play the game to win. I think when judging coaches not coaching t shirt league baseball, you need to consider if they win games or not.

I also reject the claim that no one imitates JB.

His 2-3 zone is played by many teams in college basketball today. Eastern Michigan, Louisville, Florida, Princeton, Indiana, etc. Michigan State won an NC in 1979 using the 2-3 after getting schooled by the Syracuse 2-3 the year before.

Heck, Duke, the USA basketball team and the various NBA teams play it on occasion. This was all driven by Jim Boeheim and his version of the 2-3. He has changed the face of basketball at every level and is without question one of the 5 most influential basketball coaches of his era.

 

[jdubs30]

My issue with this is how many people have been better in the Boeheim era? K, Calhoun, Knight, Smith, Roy Williams, Izzo, Donovan and Pitino. At worst JB is the 9th greatest coach of his era and top 15-20 all time. Out of thousands that have coached college basketball. That's pretty great to me.

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Cowherd inferred he thought JB was better than Knight and Calhoun. ROy Williams, Izzo, Donovan and Pitino weren't even brought up.

 

[Rocco]

Gottlieb still pissed he didn't get to play out his career at his dream school.

 

[CuseIsInTheHouse]

What makes a "great" coach? If 900 wins and a national championship doesn't do it, what does?

If Gottlieb says that "he's obviously not great", apparently I'm missing something with the criteria that other people see. It's "obvious", so where should I look?

 

[Marsh01]

Unfortunately there are 3 things that pundits look at that hold weight more than anything.

1. How many final fours have you been too?
2. How many titles have you won?
3. How many of your players are successful in the NBA?

Thats it. Had Keith Smart's shot not gone in and JB wins 2 titles as opposed to just one they are putting him on Mt. Rushmore.

 

[Tobias Funke]

The Concept of your players don't translate to the NBA so you are not a good coach is wrong in two ways.

1. JB's job is to win games in college, that's it
2. Doesn't his argument actually work against his point. JB doesn't have a dearth of NBA talent like Cal yet he still got to 900 wins

 

[Scooch]

What a bizarre criteria to define "greatness"?

What on earth do the last 3 have to do with, well, anything really?

 

[RF2044]

The Concept of your players don't translate to the NBA so you are not a good coach is wrong in two ways.

1. JB's job is to win games in college, that's it
2. Doesn't his argument actually work against his point. JB doesn't have a dearth of NBA talent like Cal yet he still got to 900 wins

Completely agree.

And in terms of combating this, I guess there's only one thing left to do: win the whole ing thing.

 

[kingtidge]

Cowherd inferred he thought JB was better than Knight and Calhoun. ROy Williams, Izzo, Donovan and Pitino weren't even brought up.

Pitino is only better when he wears the colnel sanders suit...

 

[kuethstheman]

I think Gottlieb's off, for the most part:
1) National Championships - Yes
2) Players in the pros - BS
3) Off probation - OK but should be lower-weighted IMO
4) Imitate your style - BS

As Tom said, total wins should count big.

Also wondering what his categories are besides "Great". If you have to be in the top 20 all time to be great (and I bet you'd have to be to make Gottlieb's list), that limits Great to what? A .0001 percentile?

No, I don't think JB is in the top .0001 percent, though he may not be far outside that.

I think the lack of NCs is important and you could say he's not in the top-most tier ("Super"?) because of that but he's in the next tier, which I would label as "Very Great".

 

[tbonezone]

longevity alone and not necessarily skill can get you some lofty numbers. question then becomes why are you so longe?

 

[JohnCuse44]

Wins and Rings thats all that matters. JB could use a few more rings.

 

[Tobias Funke]

I had an epiphany today. We spend a lot of time worrying about the criticism of JB and I understand the alumin who may feel that the integrity of the University is a factor. There is proof that 2 groups of people don't seem overly bothered by it.

Jim Boeheim
Incoming players.

From a basketball perspective that is what matters. Does anyone really think that Kentoucky fans care what the perception of their coach is? Just win baby

 

[ssbriefcase]

Wow, so wins isn't even on the criteria? Dumb. He does like to stir the pot and this is one instance out of many. Also more teams are playing zone than ever before, besides coach K consulting JB on the zone. Freakin Indiana is playing it now, and that was sacrilegious to play anything other than man for them until now. I know because I hear it called a "kindergarten zone" all the time by my IU friend. It was great revenge seeing them and the announcers saying IU was playing zone a lot now.

 

[RF2044]

He and John Feinstein do a "thought of the day thing that turns up on the score. He said that there are four ways to judge a coach:

1) Do you compete for national championships on a regular basis?

2) How well do your players do in the pros?

3) Do you stay off of probation?

4) Does anyone imitate your style?

Since he's been to only 4 Final Fours, (actually it's three, Doug, as a head coach), his players don't do well in the pros, he was on probation and no one imitates him, he's very good but not great, according to Doug.

Fire away.

I really don't have a problem with Gottlieb [or any other broadcaster] talking about things this way, although I agree with Scooch [above] that this particular set of criteria are bizarre.

Boeheim does deserve some criticism in my mind for not doing as well in the tournament as you'd expect, historically. No doubt, we've had some really good teams over the years that underachieved relative to their seedings. Even so, this dialogue might be completely different if Smart misses an off-balance shot, or if Arinze doesn't tear his quadriceps. Heck, we came within an eyelash of making the final four last year even without Fab, our key defensive cog. So if any one of those things plays out a little differently, maybe this is a different discussion.

But back to Gottlieb: that's what talking heads are paid to do, find to talk about and overanalyze it by breaking things down into minutia. Frankly, Boeheim IS great, he's had an unbelievable career, he's in the hall of fame, and we haven't even talked about his illustrious Team USA accomplishments. He's just accomplished something that only two other coaches have accomplished, he's about to be in 2nd place all time in about a week, and he has a legitimate shot at attaining 1000 wins.

If Gottlieb wants to argue that his accomplishments aren't as great as they could be, then I think he'd have a case. But to suggest that JB is "very good but not great" is pretty asinine.

 

[OrangePA]

I think many have copied Boeheim's use of the 2-3 zone - even Pitino who was a one-to-man coach when he arrived on the Hill back in 1976-77.

So, that part of the analysis by Gottlieb I think is wrong.

 

[Tobias Funke]

Not good enough for Gottlieb, but good enough to help get the gold medal. I will take the gold everyday