trueblue32

New Mexico St had a player arrested for murder and they basically cleaned house with that program. I understand not wanting to touch it with a ten foot pole if you are still on the way up. I don’t know about Idaho but it could just be that it’s Idaho. Not sure it’d have been an upgrade enough to justify starting over

I will say, the order in which Alnutt has reached out to them does not mean a ton to me. Claunch is more interesting to me than Calhoun, and pretty even with Halcovage and Jones. Claunch has been a hot name for people that follow the D1 landscape for a few years now. Hiring a 33 year old with head coaching experience is good, Hodgson/Cohen are similar ages (maybe even older?) with no experience leading a program. People wanted a young up and comer and now they're confronted with what that means with a MAC program hiring from low majors and now they're scared.

Austin Claunch (aside from not having known NE connections) would be a good hire. He's a well regarded up and comer. His record at Nicholls (which is still good) understates the job that he has done there. The Southland is one of the worst conferences in the country and Nicholls was rated as the worst job in that conference. https://watchstadium.com/southland-basketball-coaches-rank-the-best-jobs-in-the-conference-08-29-2019/ KenPom ranks them as the #309 program in the country and that's AFTER the 4 successful years that Claunch has had there. He was also known as an early embracer of the transfer portal, and I'd suspect could cobble a good roster together from the portal alone in short order. He wouldn't have been one of my top options but I'd be happy if we can land him

He’s pretty well known/regarded in the analytics community and I didn’t realize that he’s from Williamsville. Interesting one (which means he will say no)

Search firms are not really what they sound like. Generally the AD brings the names to the table and they facilitate the process and "take the fall" if the hire doesn't work out. I don't have faith in Alnutt or the firm. https://www.si.com/college/2019/05/22/coaching-search-firms-consultants-freshmen-mailbag

This is actually a fair point I hadn't thought of. Kim English is doing it right now moving from George Mason to Providence. It'll be hard for the first school that's strapped enough to do it to get a decent candidate to agree to it, but if the market moves that way it does make some sense on the school's end.

It's a trade-off to consider depending on the gap in candidate quality between those looking for 5 and those looking for 6+. Personally, after the Whitesell debacle and this search I'm not super keen on handing out extra years to candidates with no leverage and I can understand why the department wouldn't be either

UB Hires: Whitesell: 5 years Burke: 5 years 2023 Carousel Comps (that I could easily find details for): Hodgson at Arkansas St: 5 years Steve Lutz at WKU: 4 years Brooks Savage at ETSU: 5 years Tobin Anderson at Iona: 5 years Sundance Wicks at Green Bay: 5 years Will Wade at McNeese State: 5 years Jason Hooten at New Mexico State: 5 years I don't understand how the length is a possible hang-up. 5 years is pretty standard. If Alnutt is offering any less than 5 (maybe 4) then I understand why people are saying no. If the candidates want more than 5 years then they are not serious about getting the job

While you get results it will be almost impossible to recruit high schoolers if there's no "guarantee" they the coach they are committing to will be there for the full 4/5 years. Even landing younger transfers will be difficult with the new limits on transfer waivers. If the coach they commit to doesn't get renewed they're stuck without being able to transfer a second time with immediate eligibility

There's also time for Curtis Jones to transfer to Toledo or something, but I'm trying my best over here

The bright side is we aren't a farm system for other MAC teams like NIU. In '21 their leading scorer transferred to Ball State, in '22 their second leading scorer transferred to Akron, in '23 their leading assister transfers to Akron.

The key is apparently finding a coach who will sign a contract without thinking about it:

Yeah I think this kinda sums up the gap in the opinions on Whitesell here over the years. The variance in a given season can really shape the outlook. Analytics help you cut thru the noise, although I understand many fans don't care about that. I think his first 3 seasons were fine as a "floor" for what everyone wanted UB to become, and that's why I was fine with Whitesell when he was hired. I value never falling off the map like we have started to do this year. Some people wanted a "ceiling" hire during the last go around, and I didn't think that's wrong either, but I think there was risk to starting from scratch and hoping you don't bust on the first season. There are different risk tolerances, but I think everyone hoped for UB to continue to rise one way or another. I would've liked to see UB sit on the Oats' buyout, and then use it to buyout Whitesell after last year when we'd be starting anew regardless, but with a coach with more upside. Hindsight, yada yada. Now we need a "ceiling" hire and the handling of the Whitesell era has handicapped us. I thought the Whitesell era could've been a bridge to the next great era of UB basketball, but it looks like we'll be stuck settling for a coach and hopefully it works out somehow.

I don't know if it devalued the position itself. Good candidates were taking interviews. We still need to be able to pay good candidates. There are other good positions that will also pay well.

So Calhoun is making $200k base to build a winner at Youngstown State while Alnutt is making $295k a year here to burn every program to the ground. I have an idea on where Alnutt could find some money!

LMAO oh wow I didn't catch up on this thread before posting. We are in trouble

While Calhoun does not get me super excited winning at YSU as hard. From Jeff Goodman's poll a couple years ago on the best jobs in each league YSU was last in the Horizon League: https://watchstadium.com/horizon-league-coaches-rank-the-best-jobs-in-the-conference-12-28-2018/ Where they win: “Honestly, I can’t really think of anything. The job is brutal.” – Horizon head coach The knock: “Where do you start? It’s by far the toughest job in the league, and it’s not even close. They don’t have support, tradition or really much to sell, to be honest.” – Horizon assistant

I was thinking he’d probably be a D1 prototype of the type of big man McCollum has had at NW Missouri St. Same type of skill set but an extra few inches of height and good athleticism

Efficiency isn’t a scheme or a roster building strategy. Efficiency is the goal of all offensive schemes, McCollum just runs one of the best offenses in the country. It’s predicated on spacing the defense, this is done via “gravity”, making defenders stick to their man. They have to do this if they’re worried about you making a shot or cutting to get a shot when they help off. McCollum’s offenses largely force this via pick and pops off of ball screens, it’s not the only way to run offense, but it’s the way he runs his. Ball screens are a lot less dangerous if there is no pop threat, which Jack doesn’t present. He doesn’t have the skill to shoot or make a play off the bounce in a pop scenario. He does have good hands and finishes pretty well and he has a strong motor on the offensive glass. I’m not saying he’s a bad player but he just doesn’t really fit the mold of what McCollum does. I’ll also say playing a big man out of fear of the opposing team’s big man was a microcosm of what drove me nuts about Whitesell. Some coaches force mismatches and will make you match up with them. Other coaches will acquiesce and match up with the opponent. I felt Whitesell fell in category #2. I feel McCollum is in category #1. Oats was in category #1. Famously he saw DeAndre Ayton and Dusan Ristic and met that with Jeremy Harris (as opposed to leaning on more two big lineups with Perkins/McRae/Smart) who cooked them offensively. Then on the defensive end he schemed to help Harris with Clark/Jordan/Caruthers cheating off their men to help over the top on entry passes and dig down when Ayton put the ball on the floor.

Houston, Miami, Penn state, and Missouri are some notable tourney teams who get essentially no minutes from anyone over 6'8". Nick Perkins was pretty good at 6'8". Quibbling about a matter of inches on listed heights wasn't my main point. The point is that he values skill over being a big body. Recruiting in the D1 pool maybe it ends up being 6'8" and 6'9" guys, but he's not going to completely change his system to retain Isaac Jack.

Jack is a goner if McCollum is the coach. His whole system is predicated on creating space with pick and pop bigs and athletic cutters. Jack isn't either of those. He'll be a fine player somewhere but it wouldn't be at UB under McCollum Edit: i.e. last year their tallest rotation players were 6'7" and 6'6", they attempted 7.9 and 4.1 3-pointers per 40 minutes respectively. Jack attempted 0 all season and shot 57.1% from the free throw line

I have no idea how this is calculated but the Massey Ratings has a composite ranking of all basketball teams across divisions. NW Missouri was #126 this past season while UB was #181. https://masseyratings.com/cb/ncaa/ratings 2022: 131 2021: 106 I'm not sure what year that quote from the Lipscomb coach was about NW Missouri being a top-100 team nationally, but it doesn't appear far fetched.

I looked at his Twitter yesterday and I only saw the DOBO Jack Fitzpatrick following him so those are new I believe. For whatever that’s worth edit: Fitzpatrick is the video coordinator, Fox is the DOBO whoops

I don’t see it included but you can estimate from box score stats (you need PBP data for an exact answer due to the variance in FTs you can shoot, 3 vs 2 vs 1 depending on the situation). I have them at 61.9 possessions per game which would be tied for 358/363. So, very slow, I don’t know if he’s bound to that though if he can land higher caliber athletes here. Either way I value winning above all else and I will embrace the (lack of) pace if that’s what he brings

It seems he played there and did the oats “I’m never leaving” thing for a while but things change