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If the UB men’s basketball team wins the MAC tournament again next year, I will get Jim Whitesell’s face tattoo’d on my chest to constantly remind me that I was wrong about this hire I fully believe in his coaching ability, I just have my doubts that we will be able to recruit as aggressively as we did with Hodgson

This is nonsense. We aren’t Kennesaw State or Stetson. We’ve made the tournament 4 out of 5 years, have a great current roster, and are a launching pad for coaches into 7 figure salaries. I’m sorry if I’m being an ass but this “no one wanted the job” narrative is garbage

It's all that Kevin guys fault. He got in a Twitter fight with Fife. Lol. Just kidding

The point is, the administration wanted Whitesell to go up against some of the top names in the business for this job and not just hand it to him if he wasn't the best fit. This should make us even more confident that he crushed his interviews over everyone else

Jim Whitesell in my opinion is a great choice, especially if he can get a top recruiter to be on his staff With that said why did it take so long? It comes across like you settled for someone you didn't really want to hire in the first place

I don’t want a HC who is Twitter beefing during the Final 4

Here is one endorsement, although now from a former player.

He gets well earned bonus points for STAYING IN BUFFALO and keeping the team together after our ex coaches bolted

Personally after the whole twitter thing, I hope the hire is Stephens from Michigan State or Murray from Louisville. I know it’s unlikely that it will be Murray but they both have excellent resumés and I think they would both be ideal fits to keep the ball rolling here

That exchange is absurd for an assistant coach and possible Bulls candidate to engage in. I can’t imagine why he would even be lurking unless he thinks he may be our guy. How exactly does he think this will play regardless of where he winds up coaching? Hi- I’m Dane Fife. I quit my last mid major job because it was too hard to win at. I’m back at a P5 school, my comfort zone. Buffalo and other mid majors should settle for mediocrity because of the available resources. When we of Blue Blood heritage stoop to grace you with our coaching wisdom, you should be thankful for .500, if you’re so lucky. Oh, and by the way, I’ll engage fans in twitter throw downs- and not with relevant facts, but to make fun of the number of followers they have.

The point was we needed a coach to come in and bring in a few players. Whitesell is going to have his hands full keeping his team here. Where in the world does he find 5 scholarships from in April? He didn't have his own pipeline, Bryan's job was to recruit. I have no problems with Whitesell, but this whole thing was botched.

Youre being extremely combative and defensive, Id watch that. You've been this way on this forum. You're allowed to be pessimistic and negative if you chose to be... thats on you, but just have a conversation. You are throwing around a ton of ill founded accusations about Alnutt. Saying he lowballed AC of P5 schools. Do we have a single idea if thats true? No. He could have been offering them 700-800k each for all we know.

I think there were more legal implications with the vacation to Florida BH took then anything else. The move is getting the praise from several of the graduating players.

Rooting for him as well. Can only imagine how much this fiasco cost the university. Alnutt needs to explain himself for throwing money around so easily.

Wish we had Wes for longer than a half season. But Wes had a connection to Oats. So that was an exception. Guys I agree with the whole transfer thing. We are gonna be players in that market. There’s over 500 players listed it’s hard to think we won’t get one or two or three. It’s modern day college basketball. I just had a discrepancy with some of the players listed is all. Appreciate the time you took digging through all that and compiling the list. I just think if we do get transfers it will be under the radar guys. Who knows. And that’s my whole point...we don’t have coach and we don’t know what direction we are headed in. I guess my impatience and frustration is just growing. It’s all out of love though guys. Sincerely.

Wes Clark was a 4 star recruit at Missouri, imagine if we had him on our team for even just one year?

Will Regan was a 3 star recruit at Virginia, it’s a shame we never could have convinced him to play for us.

Bring on Murray

Two quick points on the length of time since Oats left. First it is less than two weeks. To some it may seem like an eternity. It is not, especially with the world's largest basketball coaches networking event this weekend, aka the Final Four. Second, hiring quickly is not always the best. If you do not fully investigate a potential coach you can end up being embarrassed. Remember the George O'Leary era at Notre Dame, it lasted all of 5 days. https://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/15/sports/notre-dame-coach-resigns-after-5-days-and-a-few-lies.html UB will have a coach. A full staff of assistants and a full roster for the 2019-20 season. In other words (invoking the father a rumored candidate's father's movie):

From a financial standpoint they do. Jim had to have sold Alnutt on the team staying with him regardless of the recruits leaving and I'm assuming sold him on an associate HC and plan for the 5 open scholarships. Without this, I'm not sure how you would get a job. Mark may have given him a week to gather all of the details. The second they all arrived in MN together, I know something seemed up.

Man I want a title just to see this go viral on social media.

Definitely saving this 😅

I'd love to know why we couldn't land these guys? If you weren't going to pay the going rate, why go through the charade?

I’m not inspired by this hire and I’m a little concerned as to what the AD and search firm were doing all week? But ok, he’s the guy so I will get behind Whitesell and see where it goes. I’m assuming those de-commits were Oats/Hodgson guys anyway so they weren’t staying at UB regardless. Hoping he can keep the rest of the team intact and play up-tempo

Not pleased with the choice. If it was going to be Whitesell, why wait till now? Why hire a search firm? Why keep our recruiting class dangling? This has the look of Alnutt not being able to get a good outside candidate to take the job and settling for what we had, minus our recruiting class.

Considering an hour ago you “reported” that it was down to a final 3, forgive me for laughing at your agreement about no one wanting the job 😂

I was flat out told this, and it seems to be true.

Both of you fellas need to step back and take a deep breath. Fact is NONE of us knows what went on. Let's see how this plays out.

Who knows, maybe Alnut spoke with the existing players and found out some could leave if Whitesell doesn’t stay. Just a possibility. Also, any chance that some of the decommitted players re-committ after the Whitesell move?

Translation: No one wanted the job

All I’m saying is we better hire a damn good recruiter. Whitesell is a good coach, but what we need is someone that can rebuild this shitshow of a recruiting class Pardon my language

Same. This took too long. For reference Apr 9 2015 - Hurley announced he's leaving Apr 9 2015 - Oats named interim Apr 13 2015 - Oats made permanent

Personally I am not sold on this and think Alnutt should be ashamed

Jim is about as nice of a guy as one can be. He's also an EXCELLENT basketball coach. He has been around the game for a long time and knows many coaches. I am very much rooting for him.

I think I was ok with the heavy search for the bigger fish... As long as we didn't lose anything in the process. And so far it appears despite the search, we didn't lose anyone on the roster. So the wait didn't have any effects that I can see right now... as far as recruits go that was going to happen either way. I guess in a perfect world we could have kept both Hodgson and Whitsell while Oats created a new staff. But didnt fall that way.

Not sure what my initial reaction is. Maybe because of all the names, time, and search Im a little letdown. But I have no idea what went on behind the scenes. Whitesell probably was the best bet to keep the current roster intact and if that comes to be true, then its not a horrible "hire" at all. This roster is very good and keeps some consistency. I just dont think BH was to be trusted or else he would have been a good candidate. His lack of HC experience probably hurt too. After hearing Murray, Lanier, Stepehens etc... I think I was just hoping for that splash. Although after the dust settles Im just happy we did the work and have made a decision. Now lets start building towards next season.

Damn I was really counting on a Murray Ghostbusters statue outside Alumni

Sorry Reggie isn’t here. He’s out back trying to figure out how many players it takes to run a dribble hand off.

Is that you Reggie? Are you forgetting this team is potentially targeting a head assistant from a P5 program who is used to recruiting 3+ stars? Segu/Williams? Hawkins/Noah? Jeremy Harris was a 4-star then JuCo player. Technically the best recruit to ever play here, via 247 You can get high recruits to come here and play for a ranked team (yes we will finish in the polls ranked). A team that's made the tournament 4 out of 5 years, under different coaches. A team that's been selling out seats, winning tournament games, and has buy-in from a P5 AD. A new coach has this portal at his disposal and will grab some of them who "underperformed". Alabama cant start 400 players.

Exactly I knew what you meant and I could see where my enthusiasm may have been portrayed as unrealistic so no harm at all. Personally on the list of players shown, I’m most interested in the 2 ⭐️ players : Shakur Juiston, Noah Horchler, Adam Flagler, Caleb Daniels, Desmond Cambridge, Takal Molson, and Jalone Friday as well as 3 ⭐️ players: Max Hazzard and Chad Lott

If somehow Murray gets the position, do you think his dad makes any donations? I’m fine with just having him at the games but that would be great too lol

Fife absolutely sounds like a dick. And Montgomery has done a horrible job at NIU. There is no reason he shouldn’t be able to recruit Chicago. Outside of beating UB, (his only accomplishment) there are athletes and talent there with no results.

Is that you coach Fife? He has an alert for his name? How do you know? Why was I the only person about MAC/Buffalo/coaching search, that he's answered at all about this? It wasn't like he was tagged. I believe I just used his last name. Disrespect for a .371 coach who is on their way out? Fife then went on to say how difficult the job was. It didn't seem too bad for Hurley/Oats. Or for Keno Davis, Tod K, Rob Senderoff, or Michael "predicted last" Hauger. Tell Hauger that it can't be done. Also, please tell me where I attacked him. "Fife make me nervous" is pretty far from an attack and if that's the soft skin that he has, oh my.

But he’s not doing a good job. Who cares about the MAC? What have they done for us? If this criticism of Montgomery turned him off to the job, I’m glad.

Way to piss off our future head coach lol. I joke I joke. But it’s interesting that he responded. Yea he was defending his boy but why was he even reading? Makes me think he’s digging around getting a feel for the fan base and such bc he could be our guy.

No. They are eligible right away. Only transfers have to sit out. Grad transfers are also immediately available.

https://www.twitter.com/CoachDaneFife/status/1113990367731429376 Fife coming off as sort of an asshole here

Good things were happening with UB Basketball. Cierra Dillard named Honorable Mention All-American C.J. Massinburg also named Honorable Mention All-American Nick Perkins Selected to play in NABC All-Star game I realize these are all seniors that won't be here to help the teams next year, but every honor garnered by our players, makes UB more visable to those outside of our little community, and maybe even to prospective coaches.

Well now no one will have anything to worry about about leaving early. The women's games will have about 500 people in seats now. With the loss of the 2 head coaches, I have changed my stance on any possibility of a price increase. I am anti-increase. We'll be lucky to have someone to sit next to now.