JB and a Plan ???

[orangedave]

The guy can't keep his trap shut. That's about all I learned from this thread.

Maybe he was just tired of the constant questioning and felt like he had to say something - even if it didn't actually mean much.

 

[HRE Otto IV]

Our brand is good but that doesn't mean we will be successful. Since our title (17 seasons) here is a list of Final Four appearances by school. Notice how many Indiana has? When was their last title? Arizona Final Fours? Maryland? How many titles has UCLA won since Wooden? When was their last one? Historically how many programs have had success under multiple coaches? Can we?

5-
UNC, Michigan State

4-
UConn, Kentucky, UCLA

3-
Louisville, Florida, Duke, Nova, Kansas

2-
Butler, Ohio State, Wisconsin, Syracuse, Michigan, Gonzaga

1-
GA Tech, Oklahoma State, Illinois, LSU, George Mason, Georgetown, Memphis, West Virginia, VCU, Wichita State, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, Loyola-Chicago, UVA, Texas Tech, Auburn, Baylor, Houston

 

[elimunelson]

We are a top 10 program, its not really debatable.

SU has one of the top 10 largest fanbases, and has for years, per the most reputable research firm that surveys for such things.

SU is top three in attendance.

SU has elite facilities.

SU is located in a fertile recruiting radius.

SU is in the top college basketball conference, historically.

SU will pay to land a premiere head coach.

Anyone who debates our top 10 status is brain dead. I landed in Athens Greece in August 1996 and the security guards looked at my jacket and mimicked a shot. they spoke no english but knew Syracuse=Rony=basketball=success at basketball=known commodity. And that was, checking notes, 26 years ago. The program has only become more notable since.

Where i'll disagree somewhat is we have no idea what Wildhack thinks about the next coach and if the DNA is within the assistants or Hopkins (i lump them together) and its worth preserving versus blowing it all up and creating a new DNA with an outside. One of these roads will cost alot of money. The other won't. JW may think why spend top money for an outsider when the insider will have a shot at rebuilding this thing back to the glory of yesteryear.

No one really knows. What we do know is...Jim will say things and continue to say things until he says good bye (and then will probably still say things)

 

[Toga]

Because the guys on the bench aren't qualified. There's one reason.

And they wouldn't stack up well compared to external candidates. There's reason #2.

And because they are mediocre recruiters. Reason #3.

And the product on the court suggests that they aren't great at teaching the game. Reason #4.

And because this hire is probably going to define Wildhack's tenure at SU, so he'd be stupid to limit his choice and artificially constrain the candidate pool to guys tied to the program -- 1 of whom is floundering at the P5 level, and the other 2 who haven't gotten a sniff to be a head coach anywhere else. Reason #5

And because when a product is in decline, the way to reverse that trend isn't to promote someone who is going to keep doing the same things, and crossing their fingers that the results are going to be different. Reason #6.

And because Wildhack is a former senior executive at a prominent [putting it mildly] sports-related organization. He understands how excecutive hires work, and isn't going to settle for someone underqualified. Reason #7.

And because our brand is still strong, and accordingly there will be lots of solid external candidates who will be interested in the job when the time comes to make the change. Reason #8.

And because JB has admitted himself that he isn't going to personally selecting his replacement. Reason #9.

But that's just off the top of my head -- shall I go on?

Other than that Mrs. Lincoln

 

[Goin' Deep]

Have to go outside....
Yes JB built this program. But the building stopped. Hard to put a time stamp on WHEN the building stopped...10 years ago give or take? And now the building is in need of repair. We were elite, we were a top 10 program. But you're kidding yourself if you think SU IS one of the best bball programs over the last decade.
The only way I would take ONE of the coaches from the current bench, would be Autry with 3 new assistants.
And I'd make him swear to junk the 2-3 zone.

 

[SWC75]

You have to be .500 to make the NIT

Not since 2017.

National Invitation Tournament - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Alsacs]

Wow.
He is passive aggressively saying to the fanbase IMO.
You people are so upset with this season you want me to retire.

No sir.
People are frustrated at the trend and decline of the program. Not this year.
The timing of going off into the sunset with your kids was on the table.

People are frustrated at the double speak. These comments are now just his way of getting his frustrations out.

Hopkins, Autry, McNamara as HC isn’t ideal either.
These last 8 years sre why.
They won’t turn it around or JB could have.

 

[Toga]

Wow.
He is passive aggressively saying to the fanbase IMO.
You people are so upset with this season you want me to retire.

No sir.
People are frustrated at the trend and decline of the program. Not this year.
The timing of going off into the sunset with your kids was on the table.

People are frustrated at the double speak. These comments are now just his way of getting his frustrations out.

Hopkins, Autry, McNamara as HC isn’t ideal either.
These last 8 years sre why.
They won’t turn it around or JB could have.

Well coach, it's partly the results, partly you'll be 78 next season and partly your being a dick to your own players in press conferences.

 

[pearl31]

Hopkins, Autry, McNamara as HC isn’t ideal either.
These last 8 years sre why.
They won’t turn it around or JB could have.

eh I get your point here and you could be right, but I don't subscribe to the notion that "if JB couldn't do better than what we've been, then none of those 4 assistants could have either" - too many variables at play, I mean I could easily argue that with Hop or Red in charge we'd at least have much better recruiting and thus much more formidable rosters

 

[rrlbees]

Good friggin grief! Is he for real? Is he really attempting to imply correlation between the "plan" he referred to yesterday with a 'plan' in place when he was 35, 50 remark? Talk about a stretch relative to the "unpublished" plan then vs. the present day "unpublished" plan. Unreal!

Made sense to me. The plan as it relates to him coaching = his contract. Used to be 5 year contracts. Since his contract ends this year I believe, the new plan is x more years. The part of the plan that makes up the process to identify his successor isn’t what he was talking about.

 

[Newhouser]

Anyone who debates our top 10 status is brain dead. I landed in Athens Greece in August 1996 and the security guards looked at my jacket and mimicked a shot. they spoke no english but knew Syracuse=Rony=basketball=success at basketball=known commodity. And that was, checking notes, 26 years ago. The program has only become more notable since.

Where i'll disagree somewhat is we have no idea what Wildhack thinks about the next coach and if the DNA is within the assistants or Hopkins (i lump them together) and its worth preserving versus blowing it all up and creating a new DNA with an outside. One of these roads will cost alot of money. The other won't. JW may think why spend top money for an outsider when the insider will have a shot at rebuilding this thing back to the glory of yesteryear.

No one really knows. What we do know is...Jim will say things and continue to say things until he says good bye (and then will probably still say things)

Call me brain dead I guess. Not sure citing a story from 26 yeas ago in the home country of up to that point one of our most famous players proves our Top 10 status.

In the current basketball landscape I think Top 10 status is a stretch, and usually an age slanted debate. Guess we will see soon how much pull the job has.

 

[007]

I can’t keep it a secret any longer. I will take the job. I’m a Syracuse graduate and I attended almost all of JB’s practices his first three years at Manley Field House when I was a student at SU. Coach used to close practice to fans, but he let me stay. I would sit under the basket. Occasionally, I would go one on one with Rosie. He couldn’t guard me on the perimeter even though I was (am) only 5’6”. The fans will like my style. I love to pressure 95 feet the entire game. Although, some games I only used five players and pressed the entire game (true). I played both man and zone. I have to admit, I watched nearly every Rick Pitino training video. Every practice is one hour of individual fundamentals and one hour of team work. I won several games with last second out of bounds plays. There wasn’t a defense that a team could play that I didn’t have an offense or set plays to run against it. I played man, zone (2-3, 1-3-1, matchup, box and 1, triangle and 2, three man and 2 zone). I just turned 65 last month and now eligible for Medicare so I could save the University health care costs. I’m already receiving a pension so I will take a little less. My two stepsons are out of college eligibility so I won’t be coaching my kids. I do have a seven year old grandson who would be eligible when I’m 76. That’s still younger than JB is now. My left knee is a little cranky, but otherwise I’m still in excellent health. My staff will only be individuals who are active members in Syracusefan. PM me if you’re interested. I’m anxious to get started. I’m hoping JW will announce the change after the season is over. FYI, I promise not to badmouth my centers at post game press conferences and they will not have to cover the corners. Go Orange!

Have you been swimming in the icy waters of Brantingham lake again without your skull cap?

 

[Manleymen]

No offense to Hop but he has won nothing at UW. We need a proven stud Coach. If Red or Gerry take the helm - who is going to get the Tier 1 recruits in America. No one on this staff has brought in great players recently. And the program needs to go in another direction. How many fast break points does SU have this year? Ten? We can't even play a simple man-to-man defense or full court press anyone and that would include a great many Division II teams. Will any of the current in house coaches be able to coach/recruit and get us in the top twenty for the next ten years? I don't think so and would not role the dice with any of them. If you want to fill the dome, pony up and bring in that stud coach. If he is worth it he will bring in the revenue for SU from top to bottom, tv revenue, apparel, vending sales, and restore the program where it belongs as one of the top year in and year out bluebloods. Don't settle for anything less. It is the only way.

 

[MikeSU02]

Made sense to me. The plan as it relates to him coaching = his contract. Used to be 5 year contracts. Since his contract ends this year I believe, the new plan is x more years. The part of the plan that makes up the process to identify his successor isn’t what he was talking about.

Again, regardless of if it makes sense or not, this is just a bad spot for JB to have to keep getting hit over the head with this question without exact details.

I mean this sincerely, I just think it's a bad spot for JB to be in now.

If what you say is true, then they need to lay it out clearly like that. All good. If it's TBD, that is fine, but then they are leaving JB out on an island. JW has to get out there and take some of the heat off him.

 

[orange44]

Again, regardless of if it makes sense or not, this is just a bad spot for JB to have to keep getting hit over the head with this question without exact details.

I mean this sincerely, I just think it's a bad spot for JB to be in now.

If what you say is true, then they need to lay it out clearly like that. All good. If it's TBD, that is fine, but then they are leaving JB out on an island. JW has to get out there and take some of the heat off him.

Agree.

 

[OrangeXtreme]

Schedule Georgetown at home for the first Saturday in March

Shouldn't we play someone we can beat?

 

[kcsu]

No offense to Hop but he has won nothing at UW. We need a proven stud Coach. If Red or Gerry take the helm - who is going to get the Tier 1 recruits in America. No one on this staff has brought in great players recently. And the program needs to go in another direction. How many fast break points does SU have this year? Ten? We can't even play a simple man-to-man defense or full court press anyone and that would include a great many Division II teams. Will any of the current in house coaches be able to coach/recruit and get us in the top twenty for the next ten years? I don't think so and would not role the dice with any of them. If you want to fill the dome, pony up and bring in that stud coach. If he is worth it he will bring in the revenue for SU from top to bottom, tv revenue, apparel, vending sales, and restore the program where it belongs as one of the top year in and year out bluebloods. Don't settle for anything less. It is the only way.

You will be surprised how well Red and Gmac will do when they are in control.

 

[Zelda Zonk]

Random stuff:

Whether we are a “top 10 program” depends on the criteria. Basically, that’s going to be an arbitrary, contrived set of characteristics by a fan, toward including the program they favor.

Can‘t really assess the recruiting skills of the current assistants, because they have had to recruit into a JAB program. One can say that should be easy because he’s in the HoF, but that’s not likely as significant of a ‘plus’ as a lot of people want to believe. Relationships, personalities, trust, playing style, opportunities, the school itself, etc… make a difference. Getting NBA-bound kids to jump into a zone-only program, under a guy who ‘just watches’ practice from a catwalk, rips you off the court for a single mistake—whether it was really yours or not, and doesn’t relate to you as a person unless it’s absolutely required… that all changes if Red becomes HC. Recruiting changes, and it’s possibly going to be down to demonstrating who we are going to be for a year to show the next round of recruits that they can be excited about playing for us again.

I don’t think there’s real meaningfulness in saying an assistant “isn’t qualified” because they haven’t been a Head before. In those terms, no one is ever “qualified” for any promotion. Having the qualities to succeed should be the bar, and it’s guesswork for just about anyone, because the context is different from wherever an outsider may have succeeded in his past.

JAB indicated we’d be trying some M2M, but as noted upthread, I’m hoping that is a premeditated transition move, or at least gets our staff involved with passion with learning/re-learning how to coach it. I have a feeling, though, that the Lemoyne debacle rears it’s he’d again, JAB goes ballistic with every point scored against it, and it is short-lived next season, but he’ll be able to say, “See?”

”Iron clad plan” and JAB specifically saying he’s coaching “next year” would seem to mean next is the last, but I’ve been burned before, so I’m just going to stop speculating now, and try to wait it out. I don’t expect great results from next year’s team, but just the drastic change will make it interesting for a while. Hope we get Mintz, as he could be a difference-maker. I don’t have a good sense that relying on Joe to create plays and feed the freshmen is going to be effective. Mintz, on the other hand, could be the dynamic player that makes the entire offense better and will help to extract the athleticism from those newbies who may not operate so well in a slower, more stilted scheme, where the fallback is too often a fallback three from Joe, after he’s unable to get by anyone.

 

[Toga]

You will be surprised how well Red and Gmac will do when they are in control.

Belief without evidence.

 

[PoppyHart]

Man, this is exhausting to keep up with.

When the JBJ movie on Netflix (The Orange Does’t Fall Far From The Tree) is released, it will surely have him riding into the sunset with his children.

For the sake of artistic integrity, I hope this is a non-fiction piece and we can start the rebuilding, and rebranding, process in a few weeks.

 

[Cusefan0307]

Shouldn't we play someone we can beat?

Colgate?

 

[Fly Rodder]

You will be surprised how well Red and Gmac will do when they are in control.

What are the powerball numbers for this week?

 

[Manleymen]

You will be surprised how well Red and Gmac will do when they are in control.

Don't they run all the practices now, and recruiting?

 

[pfister1]

Yes I don't remember comments about expectations being low.

You wouldn’t, because even if he firmly believed that he’s not going to publicly say that. As a coach he’s going to try to demonstrate confidence in his players, help them attack each game one at a time (because even overmatched teams can pull an upset from time to time, although becomes less likely if their coach has publicly announced that he has no confidence in them and they aren’t winning any of these games).

 

[orangepassion]

HAS ANYONE SAID MARK FEW YET?

I think a Few have