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Jim Whitesell - UB's New Head Coach


Kevin

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30 minutes ago, Jeseph said:

Why not? If the players buy into the concept roll with it.

PJ Fleck's RTB seemed stupid from the outside but man did their sideline get pumped up for it...

I was in the middle of the College Gameday pit with hundreds of people shouting "ROW THE BOAT!"  The WMU community bought in and it was their rally. 

It's a gimmick, but a good one.  Unfortunately, it was PJ Fleck's gimmick and has nothing to do with WMU.  The blue collar thing resonates with Buffalo much more, even though it does not reflect the current state of employment in the Buffalo region.  Plus it kinda strokes the egos of Buffalonians as hard workers.

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2 minutes ago, MDBullsfan89 said:

Definitely an easy guy to root for. Even with continued success I don't think we have to worry about him taking another job in a few years.

I can see a plan where Whitesell brings short-term continuity and develops a staff (Coach Q) that is groomed to take over down the road.

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14 minutes ago, 961819 said:

I just want a recruiter to be named soon and work to be done ASAP with our decommitted recruits 

They're going to give it a shot, all we can ask of JW (and of the players who committed to a coach who went elsewhere). I'm more optimistic of our chances here than I was a few days ago.

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56 minutes ago, 961819 said:

I just want a recruiter to be named soon and work to be done ASAP with our decommitted recruits 

So you think that Jim and Jamie aren't actively talking to these guys? A "recruiter" has to be the only one who takes care of these items? I highly doubt it, especially in the off-season. 

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53 minutes ago, Jeseph said:

I can see a plan where Whitesell brings short-term continuity and develops a staff (Coach Q) that is groomed to take over down the road.

I'm certainly not worried about "down the road". I could be wrong, but I think Jim is here to stay, as long as he is successful and wishes to remain as head coach. Let's get today right before we worry about tomorrow. If we do this right, tomorrow will be set up on it's own, just like when Bobby left and Nate stayed, Nate left and Jim stayed. It will take care of itself, just keep putting the right guys on the floor and pushing the right buttons with them while they're out there.

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26 minutes ago, skrabukes said:

So you think that Jim and Jamie aren't actively talking to these guys? A "recruiter" has to be the only one who takes care of these items? I highly doubt it, especially in the off-season. 

The term "recruiting coordinator" is really overblown right now.  It is the offseason, Jim and Jamie are both recruiting coordinators.  The point of that title is in season, that one coaching staff member is still recruiting and looking ahead to the future of our program.  Bryan did that well, but that came with the caveat that he misses a lot of practices and had very little interaction with game planning on a game to game basis.

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5 hours ago, UB92 said:

This upcoming year was going to be crucial in Oats' development as a coach.  Gone would be the five seniors and Oats would have to figure out how to merge all of this talent on to the roster and get them to click.  I was interested to see how it would happen.  Would it have ended up with a MAC crown?  Who knows.

But now that is moot. 

I don't get your point about "goals are much lower to continue the upward trend".  So...enlighten me.  What lower goals next year, in your opinion, would constitute continuing this upward trend?  I am curious.  Remember...a month ago we were looking to be the "Gonzaga of the East".

I don’t think a deep run or being ranked need to be our goals next year for us to still keep progressing. Yea we didn’t get w deep run in the tourney but we did lose to a championship game team and we still made it out of the first round. 

I think just making it to the tournament would be a huge step. We are losing 5 seniors, 2 coaches and a handful of recruits. If we can still win a MAC championship given those circumstances it just proves even more that this program is legit. That’s not as gaudy of a goal as this year. I’m just saying if we still have success in a rebuilding year, people will continue to take us seriously and not just a flash in the pan 

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5 hours ago, UB92 said:

This upcoming year was going to be crucial in Oats' development as a coach.  Gone would be the five seniors and Oats would have to figure out how to merge all of this talent on to the roster and get them to click.  I was interested to see how it would happen.  Would it have ended up with a MAC crown?  Who knows.

But now that is moot. 

I don't get your point about "goals are much lower to continue the upward trend".  So...enlighten me.  What lower goals next year, in your opinion, would constitute continuing this upward trend?  I am curious.  Remember...a month ago we were looking to be the "Gonzaga of the East".

We raised the ceiling this past year. Next year we can raise the floor

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51 minutes ago, skrabukes said:

So you think that Jim and Jamie aren't actively talking to these guys? A "recruiter" has to be the only one who takes care of these items? I highly doubt it, especially in the off-season. 

I was literally just making a statement, where did I say that they weren’t? The whole over analyzing thing is getting really old really fast man

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Winning the Mac should still be a realistic goal.

We are losing 5 seniors but the returning players have a lot of talent. Including 2 that should compete for player of the year

All we are really missing is depth at the 4 and 5 spot. We get the juco's re committed and the Bulls will be very dangerous come March once again

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28 minutes ago, BullBoy said:

The term "recruiting coordinator" is really overblown right now.  It is the offseason, Jim and Jamie are both recruiting coordinators.  The point of that title is in season, that one coaching staff member is still recruiting and looking ahead to the future of our program.  Bryan did that well, but that came with the caveat that he misses a lot of practices and had very little interaction with game planning on a game to game basis.

Yeah, I think that is what a lot of people didn't understand.

The success of the staff was that they all focused on their strengths.  Hodgson was great at pounding the payment and put the time in on the road.  But he has never coached and was hardly ever at practices. 

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25 minutes ago, dutchcountry7 said:

Yeah, I think that is what a lot of people didn't understand.

The success of the staff was that they all focused on their strengths.  Hodgson was great at pounding the payment and put the time in on the road.  But he has never coached and was hardly ever at practices. 

It's why he didn't get the job over Whitesell.

When everyone else didn't think the label mattered, I immediately jumped all over that Interm label, figuring Jim was the best internal candidate according to Alnutt. There was no way that Bryan would have gotten the job over Whitesell who was the top internal choice.

He ended up beating out Fife, Murray, Caputo, and others. 

I still think a portion of the delay was the drama around Bryan and trying to pay him enough to be the associate HC/recruiting end and really being 1B to this team. he was making 150,000 last year, and I'd guess got a bump to 200k, but still lower than a regular level assistant at Alabama. 

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I was supportive of the hire. Now I love it after watching the broadcast. 

Rewind 4 years.  http://www.ubbulls.com/sports/mbkb/2014-15/releases/201504165a9prb

To replace Hurley, oats hires 3

whitesell - is the brains and mentor (interesting that JW references NO as his mentor today, show you his humility)

Marshall - is the big name to replace Hurley. Name will be used in recruiting. He is later replaced by Lindsey Hunter.

Hogdson - is the young hungry guy who will need to outwork everyone else in recruiting

We know Oats is good. Oats thought that highly of Whitesell to bring him here as his Associate HC. It was Oats selling Whitesell on Buffalo and that was a huge underrated coup at the time. 

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34 minutes ago, Kevin said:

I still think a portion of the delay was the drama around Bryan and trying to pay him enough to be the associate HC/recruiting end and really being 1B to this team. he was making 150,000 last year, and I'd guess got a bump to 200k, but still lower than a regular level assistant at Alabama. 

Just to clarify, you're just speculating, right? 

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52 minutes ago, Kevin said:

Partially. I'm speculating on that first sentence, I am not on the second. 

Thanks.  I know the second half is accurate.  But I did not hear the first half.  I would be shocked if it were true--given what happened with him and how he was nowhere to be found.

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2 hours ago, Kevin said:

It's why he didn't get the job over Whitesell.

When everyone else didn't think the label mattered, I immediately jumped all over that Interm label, figuring Jim was the best internal candidate according to Alnutt. There was no way that Bryan would have gotten the job over Whitesell who was the top internal choice.

He ended up beating out Fife, Murray, Caputo, and others. 

I still think a portion of the delay was the drama around Bryan and trying to pay him enough to be the associate HC/recruiting end and really being 1B to this team. he was making 150,000 last year, and I'd guess got a bump to 200k, but still lower than a regular level assistant at Alabama. 

Hodgson was making more than the Associate HC, Whitesell? Seems odd. I think I read somewhere that Whitesell made around $135k not counting bonuses last year.

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Buffalo News article pretty much put to bed all the rumors that have been circulating. Alnutt being blindsided, not having a list of candidates, oats being shady, etc. Lots of worry around here for nothing. Here is the link

https://buffalonews.com/2019/04/08/jim-whitesell-ub-mens-basketball-coach-nate-oats-mark-alnutt/

 

edit: also is nice to see the players were involved in the process. Specifically mentions Graves and Perkins being brought in the discuss the search and ask their input.

Edited by UB05
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2 minutes ago, Kevin said:

The heavy travel and focus on recruiting? He was literally in a new city every day?

I would agree that it’s a grind. However, I wonder how often the head recruiter (not sure if that’s what title Hodgson had) for a DI MBB team has a higher salary than the Associate HC. I would contend rarely.

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