Red can’t coach, but what makes a good/great coach.

[OrlandoCuse]

It’s clear Red doesn’t have the makings of a good to great coach. There’s obviously intangibles and skills that are required to be a good or great coach that he’s missing. But my question is, what are those skills and intangibles that make a good to great coach?

I’m sure the ability to communicate effectively is one. I don’t think Red is an effective communicator. He may know what he wants to do (maybe) but can he communicate it to the team and the team respond?

System builder? Great coaches seem to have their own style that is emulates by the team

Skill developer? A great coach sees the potential in players and develops them to achieve their full potential

What else? What are the things that make some coaches great that others fail at?

 

[phil77]

Now they also need to be good in a room full of people, good with the media, and be able to get money out of the donors pockets.

 

[Cuse_NYC]

It’s clear Red doesn’t have the makings of a good to great coach. There’s obviously intangibles and skills that are required to be a good or great coach that he’s missing. But my question is, what are those skills and intangibles that make a good to great coach?

I’m sure the ability to communicate effectively is one. I don’t think Red is an effective communicator. He may know what he wants to do (maybe) but can he communicate it to the team and the team respond?

System builder? Great coaches seem to have their own style that is emulates by the team

Skill developer? A great coach sees the potential in players and develops them to achieve their full potential

What else? What are the things that make some coaches great that others fail at?

I don’t think he even knows what to implement. Offense we clearly don’t run plays. Defense he wants them to be an aggressive man to man. His way of coaching that is to clap and get the bench excited when we get up on a guy. I don’t think he has one quality of a college basketball head coach. Even the coaches that stink are good bull ishers in the pressers. They can almost make you think they can turn things around. His pressers just continue to make you wonder how he got the job.

 

[swish7]

Winning

 

[Zelda Zonk]

1) Recognition of weaknesses.

Not sure how anyone—from a consistent fan to the media to the professional coaching ranks—can watch our games and not recognize that we do very little effectively toward play making and creating efficient offensive possessions. We appear to not run plays other than iso and clumsy picks and the once-per-game weave. As someone said in the game thread, we have a ‘pickup game offense.’

2) Have to be a good teacher and enforcer of fundamentals. That includes defensive positioning, movement, switching/hedging, situational adaptation, free throws, simple techniques like picks, feeding the post, when is a shot a good shot…. Basic stuff. The same basic stuff that either gets you wins or blown out in 2K, actually….

 

[Sbucketball]

I don’t think he even knows what to implement. Offense we clearly don’t run plays. Defense he wants them to be an aggressive man to man. His way of coaching that is to clap and get the bench excited when we get up on a guy. I don’t think he has one quality of a college basketball head coach. Even the coaches that stink are good bull ishers in the pressers. They can almost make you think they can turn things around. His pressers just continue to make you wonder how he got the job.

Maybe it’s just press nerves but Red sometimes seems like he doesn’t grasp concepts or know answers to questions and just speaks in generalities. Some is just coach speak of course. But i’ve wondered if he’s just not that smart. Compare to JB who was clearly very smart.

 

[HyattsCuse]

In game adjustments so you don’t get outscored by 30 in a half.

 

[Cuse_NYC]

Maybe it’s just press nerves but Red sometimes seems like he doesn’t grasp concepts or know answers to questions and just speaks in generalities. Some is just coach speak of course. But i’ve wondered if he’s just not that smart. Compare to JB who was clearly very smart.

Yeah, unfortunately it seems you’re right with the not that smart.

 

[Surfan06001]

He has no feel for the game.

 

[Newhouser]

Based on what I've seen this week, whatever the guy from Michigan does.

 

[RedtheGOB]

Win big and lose small especially when people are watching. Everything else will fall into line.

Losing by 20+ at the P4 level is not acceptable. The players at the P5 level are all too good for that to happen so it’s the coach and the program. Even this Iowa St team that had every advantage was only a 10 point spread. We got blown up by 30 in half. No one would’ve lost their minds this much if we just didn’t quit.

 

[cliftonparksufan]

It’s clear Red doesn’t have the makings of a good to great coach. There’s obviously intangibles and skills that are required to be a good or great coach that he’s missing. But my question is, what are those skills and intangibles that make a good to great coach?

I’m sure the ability to communicate effectively is one. I don’t think Red is an effective communicator. He may know what he wants to do (maybe) but can he communicate it to the team and the team respond?

System builder? Great coaches seem to have their own style that is emulates by the team

Skill developer? A great coach sees the potential in players and develops them to achieve their full potential

What else? What are the things that make some coaches great that others fail at?

If you look at the records of some of the greatest coaches in history, their careers didn't start out great.

Jay Wright had a losing record each of his 1st three seasons at Hofstra.

Coach K had a losing record two of his 1st three years at Duke, and already had five years experience at Army prior to that.

Dawn Staley had losing records her first two years at South Carolina after having eight years experience as Head coach at Temple.

I'm not advocating for more time for a coach who can't win. In the NIL era, three years is enough. However, if I'm the AD of a major university, the circumstances would have to be very overwhelming to hire someone without head coaching experience. Basketball or Football need to be treated the same. Just like in the NFL. If you are the GM, if you can hire an established coach, why wouldn't you.

So why did Coaches Wright, K and Staley start out struggling. I would guess maybe the culture, the talent, the unfamiliarity. Hard to say. But, once it clicked, it really clicked.

The nice about this Vegas tournament is that you got to watch a lot of top coaches and programs in battle. I'm watching Gonzaga struggling against Michigan in what pre-game they said could be Mark Few's best team ever. It happens.

 

[Sherman20]

It’s clear Red doesn’t have the makings of a good to great coach. There’s obviously intangibles and skills that are required to be a good or great coach that he’s missing. But my question is, what are those skills and intangibles that make a good to great coach?

I’m sure the ability to communicate effectively is one. I don’t think Red is an effective communicator. He may know what he wants to do (maybe) but can he communicate it to the team and the team respond?

System builder? Great coaches seem to have their own style that is emulates by the team

Skill developer? A great coach sees the potential in players and develops them to achieve their full potential

What else? What are the things that make some coaches great that others fail at?

I think Red has poor communication skills, unlike Hop, who was a great communicator and motivator. He also doesn’t seem to have a good grasp of modern offensive basketball or can’t teach it effectively.

 

[OrlandoCuse]

If you look at the records of some of the greatest coaches in history, their careers didn't start out great.

Jay Wright had a losing record each of his 1st three seasons at Hofstra.

Coach K had a losing record two of his 1st three years at Duke, and already had five years experience at Army prior to that.

Dawn Staley had losing records her first two years at South Carolina after having eight years experience as Head coach at Temple.

I'm not advocating for more time for a coach who can't win. In the NIL era, three years is enough. However, if I'm the AD of a major university, the circumstances would have to be very overwhelming to hire someone without head coaching experience. Basketball or Football need to be treated the same. Just like in the NFL. If you are the GM, if you can hire an established coach, why wouldn't you.

So why did Coaches Wright, K and Staley start out struggling. I would guess maybe the culture, the talent, the unfamiliarity. Hard to say. But, once it clicked, it really clicked.

The nice about this Vegas tournament is that you got to watch a lot of top coaches and programs in battle. I'm watching Gonzaga struggling against Michigan in what pre-game they said could be Mark Few's best team ever. It happens.

I think trajectory matters when judging a coach. Taking over a program that struggled takes time to rebuild.

However, Red fails that test. He took over for a legend and was the continuity hire. But he had been with JB long after the glory years. The program was sliding while Red was the primary assistant coach. That should have been a signal he didn’t have what it takes.

Then you look at his trajectory after taking over as HC and it’s been poor. Started off okay with 20 wins but it was against a weak schedule and he missed the NCAAT (wasn’t even sniffing the bubble). Then he put up the worst season in the last 60 years of the program. Major red flag that probably should have ended with his termination. However, they used lack of NIL as an excuse.

He got the NIL and turned over the roster. Now his team is a mess after getting drilled by ISU. Tenn is coming on Tuesday to lay another drubbing to his team, that has glaring weaknesses.

Red’s back is up against the wall. He just doesn’t have what it takes to coach at the highest level. There’s enough talent on this team to win, but they won’t be successful under Red.

It’s pretty sad what has become of Syracuse basketball. Too much living in the past, hoping for the glory days to return without any clear strategy to bring the program back to its previous standard.

 

[Ottoman]

I think some coaches like JB are just great basketball minds. Those types of coaches can get away with a lot of mistakes in terms of personnel and staff - they can win with a few good players and great strategy. Other coaches, who are not as gifted, need to assemble a great team of assistant coaches and donor outreach staff. I think Red thought he was the first type and ended up being the second type. Unfortunately, it's a bit late in the game to change course now.

 

[OrangeFoo]

I think people are overplaying the margin of loss... the team's legs and spirit clearly gave out after that ISU run in the early 2nd half. They started panicking and heaving up shots and ISU would immediately get a dunk or a 3 out of it. It is what it is... collapses happen sometimes.

What makes a good coach these days? 1. Having a vision 2. being able to sell the vision to recruits, the school, the boosters and the fans 3. being able to recruit good players who can execute the vision 4. being able to translate that vision to execution in the off season and practices 5. turning the vision into a game day execution plan. 6. Making adjustments in the game when the gameplay goes wrong

This last off season, Autry made a lot of improvements on 1,2,3 and maybe 4... he was getting straight Fs in all of these in my opinion. The biggest issue I see now is that 5 is good on the defensive end but completely lacking on the offensive side. And most damningly he is completely failing on 6 on both ends of the court. When Kansas and especially ISU figured out our D there were no adjustments made that I could see. ISU did the high pick and roll and used pin downs on the inside guy numerous times to get easy buckets and we didn't adjust.

On offense I didn't see even a cohesive primary strategy much less a single adjustment made across three games beyond subbing in different players. We gave almost no help to George to get open, there was no secondary screens or actions to get guys open, there was very little motion off the ball.

The beauty of JB is that he was an elite coach across enough of those metrics from the get go that he was able to compensate for areas he wasn't as good in. I would argue that JB's strengths as a coach completely switched from 1 to 3 in the first part of his career to 3-6 in the latter half.

Can Autry become a good/great coach? Yes, I believe he can. But based on his coaching growth trajectory it will take at least a few more years before he can go 2-1 in these type of tournaments and turn us back into a top 25 program. Do we have the patience to wait it out?

 

[Goin' Deep]

I think people are overplaying the margin of loss... the team's legs and spirit clearly gave out after that ISU run in the early 2nd half. They started panicking and heaving up shots and ISU would immediately get a dunk or a 3 out of it. It is what it is... collapses happen sometimes.

What makes a good coach these days? 1. Having a vision 2. being able to sell the vision to recruits, the school, the boosters and the fans 3. being able to recruit good players who can execute the vision 4. being able to translate that vision to execution in the off season and practices 5. turning the vision into a game day execution plan. 6. Making adjustments in the game when the gameplay goes wrong

This last off season, Autry made a lot of improvements on 1,2,3 and maybe 4... he was getting straight Fs in all of these in my opinion. The biggest issue I see now is that 5 is good on the defensive end but completely lacking on the offensive side. And most damningly he is completely failing on 6 on both ends of the court. When Kansas and especially ISU figured out our D there were no adjustments made that I could see. ISU did the high pick and roll and used pin downs on the inside guy numerous times to get easy buckets and we didn't adjust.

On offense I didn't see even a cohesive primary strategy much less a single adjustment made across three games beyond subbing in different players. We gave almost no help to George to get open, there was no secondary screens or actions to get guys open, there was very little motion off the ball.

The beauty of JB is that he was an elite coach across enough of those metrics from the get go that he was able to compensate for areas he wasn't as good in. I would argue that JB's strengths as a coach completely switched from 1 to 3 in the first part of his career to 3-6 in the latter half.

Can Autry become a good/great coach? Yes, I believe he can. But based on his coaching growth trajectory it will take at least a few more years before he can go 2-1 in these type of tournaments and turn us back into a top 25 program. Do we have the patience to wait it out?

Respectfully, NO Autry will never be a good coach.
Remember the end of his first year when players would "bump" into him coming off the court. He didn't have their respect.
You listen to his post game press conferences and it has become obvious he is clueless on how to get the most out of his players/team.
Tell me how it's acceptable for a team to be the worst free throw shooting team out of some 330+ programs. That should have been addressed the first day of practice- not cured but definitely improved.
You look at the facilities CUSE has...the Melo center and the dome,,,and then look at the "product".
He's not taking advantage of these facilities. Quality players and 20 thousand fans are not showing up.
And the coaching staff...? Autry picked them. Griff is a disaster.

Can Autry's team substantially improve over the next 20 games? I want to see it. But the 2nd half of the Monmouth game was the "canary in the coal mine".

 

[swish7]

Based on what I've seen this week, whatever the guy from Michigan does.

There is some content available to answer that question.



- YouTube

- YouTube

- YouTube

 

[CU44SE]

This year’s team is clearly better than anything we’ve had in the past several seasons. The upgrade in athleticism is obvious and has made a huge difference.

But aside from improving the roster—with a lot of credit going to Kline for finding the right pieces—what has Autry actually done from a coaching standpoint to make the team better?

We’re collectively shooting around 40% from the free-throw line (excluding Donnie Freeman). JJ and Kyle have two of the worst free-throw motions I’ve ever seen, and nothing seems to be getting corrected. It’d be one thing if the shots were going in, but they aren’t.

Defensively, we’ve definitely improved, but that feels more like a natural result of better athletes and moving on from some guys who were allergic to playing defense. I’m not even sure the improvement is coaching-driven.

However, my biggest concern is the offense. There’s no real system or direction. As someone else mentioned, it often looks like pickup ball—if we aren’t running in transition, we have almost nothing in the half court. The ball sticks, it turns into iso ball, and it becomes “who can beat their man.” We rarely generate wide-open looks, and that’s just not a recipe for consistent success.

 

[sweetpea]

I think people are overplaying the margin of loss... the team's legs and spirit clearly gave out after that ISU run in the early 2nd half. They started panicking and heaving up shots and ISU would immediately get a dunk or a 3 out of it. It is what it is... collapses happen sometimes.

What makes a good coach these days? 1. Having a vision 2. being able to sell the vision to recruits, the school, the boosters and the fans 3. being able to recruit good players who can execute the vision 4. being able to translate that vision to execution in the off season and practices 5. turning the vision into a game day execution plan. 6. Making adjustments in the game when the gameplay goes wrong

This last off season, Autry made a lot of improvements on 1,2,3 and maybe 4... he was getting straight Fs in all of these in my opinion. The biggest issue I see now is that 5 is good on the defensive end but completely lacking on the offensive side. And most damningly he is completely failing on 6 on both ends of the court. When Kansas and especially ISU figured out our D there were no adjustments made that I could see. ISU did the high pick and roll and used pin downs on the inside guy numerous times to get easy buckets and we didn't adjust.

On offense I didn't see even a cohesive primary strategy much less a single adjustment made across three games beyond subbing in different players. We gave almost no help to George to get open, there was no secondary screens or actions to get guys open, there was very little motion off the ball.

The beauty of JB is that he was an elite coach across enough of those metrics from the get go that he was able to compensate for areas he wasn't as good in. I would argue that JB's strengths as a coach completely switched from 1 to 3 in the first part of his career to 3-6 in the latter half.

Can Autry become a good/great coach? Yes, I believe he can. But based on his coaching growth trajectory it will take at least a few more years before he can go 2-1 in these type of tournaments and turn us back into a top 25 program. Do we have the patience to wait it out?

Nice post! I don't think point 5 and 6 are going to develop any more than we are seeing right now.

 

[Col. Bleep]

Not saying it may not take a couple of years to get your own players and change the culture.
And now you have to have the NIL $$$$.
But some guys can do it right away.
Not saying I like or would hire all of them.
But they can win almost immediately.

Dusty May
Mark Pope
Will Wade
Kelvin Sampson
Rick Pitino
Scott Drew
Bruce Pearl
Fred Hoiberg
And some others

K is an example of someone who needed a couple of years at Duke to build his team
It wasn't until he had a backcourt of Johnny Dawkins and Tommy Amaker and a frontcourt featuring Mark Alarie and Jay Bilas that he started winning.

 

[swish7]

Sorry, why don't we like coaches GMac or Hopkins anymore?

 

[OttoinGrotto]

Sorry, why don't we like coaches GMac or Hopkins anymore?

Because confidence has evaporated that the Boeheim way of building a program wins today in college basketball.

 

[5OutFred]

Sorry, why don't we like coaches GMac or Hopkins anymore?

Because neither of them has won anything or meet the criteria for the position except for being in the "family." That's it.

 

[Wrinkle]

I'm not saying Red is the guy for us and I can't with certainty proclaim he is going to survive the season, but we need to at least give the staff credit for their preparation for Houston. Team was absolutely locked-in, playing hard and the prep was excellent. The Kansas game was incredibly frustrating because we simply could not hit a shot all game. Missed tons of open shots. I don't think that loss is on the coaches.

Second half was an absolute disaster against Iowa St but we played another pretty damn good first half. It's hard to look at 0-3 in Vegas and feel good but I do believe this is Red's best team and we are on the cusp, we are quite close to being a legitimately good team