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It Could Be Worse: We Could Be St. John's


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9 minutes ago, 121Merrimac said:

I think the timing of the coaching change and the dead period is a good thing.  The new head coach is most likely using the time to re-asses the direction the HE would like to take the team.  The time is probably being used to evaluate prospective recruits that match HIS new direction.  Dead Period doesn't mean that nothing is done.  I'd prefer that once HE does contact recruits, that HE is going after those student athletes that fit HIS style.  I'd hate if HE had to contact recruits the same day that HE was given the new job, and didn't have time to create a plan for moving forward.

You are forgetting one key factor though. It isn't the NFL draft and they don't wait for you. The player has to want you as much as you want them, regardless if you think they fit. 

Players are committing and taking visits as we speak. Every week is important, even if they used that initial week for planning and then started attacking last week. 

I truly believe they lost Mika Adams-Woods based on UMass having the ability to recruit him longer and get him on a visit to meet the team. 

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14 minutes ago, 121Merrimac said:

@kevin

A) if they don’t want to be at UB, then I don’t want them at UB. 

B) the dead period applies to all teams.  Other schools are not recruiting while UB is standing still.  

A) It's not a matter of wants, those can change in days. Look at the 600 players who feel like transferring. The fact is, the early bird gets the worm a lot in recruiting and I've been told as much.  

B) Exactly, we lost an extra week when recruiting was open to conduct a useless national search. Other teams had their plans set up for the open 3 days last weekend to recruit while UB had to make initial contact with players.

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No shocker, I guess we’ll never agree.  I don’t see it as a waste, that a brand new head coach takes one week to re-evaluate the current team, and the type of players they want to recruit for the future. Especially if that same week is s dead period for all other teams as well. 

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5 minutes ago, 121Merrimac said:

No shocker, I guess we’ll never agree.  I don’t see it as a waste, that a brand new head coach takes one week to re-evaluate the current team, and the type of players they want to recruit for the future. Especially if that same week is s dead period for all other teams as well. 

He's a coach that was involved with recruiting for UB with Coach B and Coach Q, two of the three are still on the staff. 

Why wouldn't he have a plan or a pipeline? I'm confused about why he needs to come up with an all-new plan. Half of what you bring to an interview is your plan to replace the 5 scholarships your team has open. 

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I think you guys are getting caught up on this notion of dead period. During a dead period coaches can still be in contact with players via phone calls. They just can’t visit and be face to face. If you’re not actively recruiting 365 you’re getting left behind. Whitesell said the first 30 days would be crucial...again we are all getting impatient. I am too. I wanna see some commits and a coaching staff rounded out. Just like I wanted a new coach hired 3 days after Oats left. Guess they will keep testing our patience. Grr.

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Kevin, JW was involved with recruiting for Oats’ style.  He might want something slightly different.  

DB06, agree, recruiting is 365.  Agree one week was lost.

My point was that to make up that one week, it’s easier to do the necessary research during a dead period than during an active period.  

Without the dead period, JW might be figuring out his style, while other coaches were recruiting face to face... an even larger loss. 

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6 hours ago, Kevin said:

UB hired a head coach from a P5 program? How is this the same? UB did a full national search to hire their interim head coach. If you think he was the best candidate available, you are very naive. I like Whitesell, he brought the 8 player current roster to the table, no one else could do that. UB got him at a FRACTION of what they were going to pay Oats and made out big time after his buyout. 

I'm still going to die on the hill that I would like to have a week of recruiting/coach building back, especially now that we've had two blackout recruiting weeks.

UCLA made out fine, I would in no way say they are worse 

St.John's is in a unique spot, a really bad spot. That has nothing to do with any other team or search.

Yes. Best candidate available for UB to hire.

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10 hours ago, McBulls said:

Interesting takes: https://watchstadium.com/news/breaking-down-college-basketball-coaching-hires-best-worst-hire-biggest-surprise-04-19-2019/

Last section re: search firms. Same firm we hired to represent us also retained by Georgia St., the landing place of Rob Lanier. COI, no? Estimated cost: $75k.

Seems like a big reason we used them.

I had it on good authority that UB wanted Lanier. I believe when he passed/Georgia State got him, it kind of changed the search for them 

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15 hours ago, dutchcountry7 said:

Why was this thread’s title changed by an admin to something completely different than the topic for which what I posted?

I think Jeseph merged the 2 threads (which made sense to me) and this title simply overwrote the other one.

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On 4/18/2019 at 8:13 PM, McBulls said:

Our search wasn't the disaster that St. John's is in the midst of, but I would argue it was poorly executed. We hired an internal candidate after a significant delay. Our recruiting class bailed during this transition- aside from Andre Allen, the decisions were announced deliberately, well into the search. A more decisive move to ensure continuity  (Whitesell or He Who Won't Be Named) may have prevented some of the defections. Our coaching hire was announced on the Saturday of the Final Four. The press conference was Monday. This prevented any appreciable networking/interviewing of assistant coaches at the prime event for such wheeling and dealing each year. As such, we are still down an assistant coach, and just hired our second. It also prevented us from regaining any recruiting momentum (hired during a dead period). Lastly, we wasted resources hiring a search firm only to select an internal candidate. This, alone, is damning. IMO, the decision (internal vs. external) needed to have been made months prior. Oats was walking- we all listened to "Gonzaga of the East" but he always added "leave for stupid money." Stupid money was surely coming this off-season. ADMA was not prepared. 

Love that Whitesell has the support of our returning players. I will accept the supposition that he is a superior basketball mind to Hodgson. Time will tell if he was the right selection. But the coaching search was poorly executed and cost us precious momentum, even if he ultimately proves to be the right man for the job.

What you have presented are basically the points I have been making, so I agree with you -- especially the poorly executed part and the internal v external part.  Previously I made a comment about how White had many conversations with Oats prior to Hurley's leaving...and was very comfortable with making Oats the coach very quickly.   I inferred from the current AD's comments about hiring Whitesell that he, perhaps, didn't have anywhere close to the level of conversations with Whitesell (or BH) though he had been on the job about a year AND knew Oats would be an attractive get.   It reeked of being not as prepared as he needed to be for this situation.

I got told I know nothing about how basketball hiring works and that I should cut the AD slack since he was a football guy!

 

 

 

 

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4 hours ago, UB92 said:

What you have presented are basically the points I have been making, so I agree with you -- especially the poorly executed part and the internal v external part.  Previously I made a comment about how White had many conversations with Oats prior to Hurley's leaving...and was very comfortable with making Oats the coach very quickly.   I inferred from the current AD's comments about hiring Whitesell that he, perhaps, didn't have anywhere close to the level of conversations with Whitesell (or BH) though he had been on the job about a year AND knew Oats would be an attractive get.   It reeked of being not as prepared as he needed to be for this situation.

I got told I know nothing about how basketball hiring works and that I should cut the AD slack since he was a football guy!

 

 

 

 

The difference was that White knew that Hurley was leaving.  it was just a question of where he was going to go.  Alnutt did not know Oats was leaving because neither nor anyone else saw Alabama coming in with stupid money.

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12 hours ago, BrooklynBull said:

The difference was that White knew that Hurley was leaving.  it was just a question of where he was going to go.  Alnutt did not know Oats was leaving because neither nor anyone else saw Alabama coming in with stupid money.

I have a few thoughts on this...

1.  I strongly suspect Alnutt will assume people are leaving (even if it would only be for "stupid money") in the future and prepare accordingly.  I mean, if anyone is supposed to be prepared, it is him (not the media, fan base, other coaches, players, etc.)  It is what it is at this point.

2.  There are posts from people on this board (at that time) that basically still think Oats was leaving even after he signed the extension.  Heck...there were also posts on Twitter, but I don't count that as much.  So when you say that, basically, no one knew...some people on this board still had that feeling. 

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