Time to move on from Mark Alnutt?

[Big 4 Hoops Blogger]

Given the major regression in Buffalo's three major money sports, I wonder if it's time for UB to start looking into Mark Alnutt's future with the athletic department. I'm not one to call for people's jobs but the regression in football and basketball is apparent right now.

I never expected football and basketball to continue dominating after Lance Leipold, Nate Oats and Felisha Legette-Jack departed but I did expect them to be more competitive and have more opportunities to win MAC Championships. Now, we're seeing football and men's basketball near the bottom of the D1 ranks with WBB still to be determined.

I understand that Alnutt has a very difficult job with little support from SUNY or UB's president but it's his job to raise money and look over successful teams, especially in the money sports. I give him credit for raising money for the Murchie Family Fieldhouse but can't overlook his recent botched hires, declining performance of football/basketball and diminished community support.

Where do you all stand on this?

Edited November 23, 2023 by Big 4 Hoops Blogger

[Blue03]

I vote yes taking note of the term “consider”. Yes our teams suck, complete and total regression, but why is that? Football, MBB, and WBB all had our great coaches leave, and the results left with them. So we find ourselves in a hole that’s not exactly Alnutt’s fault, but now it’s on him to fix it. And you can’t say he’s done the worst job trying to do so. We’ve seen record recruiting classes and admit it, at some point you’ve found yourself at least a little bit excited about each of his major coaching hires. We get mad at Alnutt when the coaching appointment doesn’t work out, but at the beginning it doesn’t look like a bad hire. We could beg him to hire a coach, and if the appointment we ask for doesn’t win championships we’d still be blaming him for it. Some things you just can’t know until it plays out, even though the coaches seem like they’ll be a good fit. All in all he’s done his job, he’s made Buffalo and enticing place for recruits and brought it quality coaches. Are there things he needs to be better at? Absolutely, need to improve attendance and support. Is he the right one for the job? Probably not, that’s why I think we should consider replacing him. But it’s worth at least seeing the things he’s done right.

[Big 4 Hoops Blogger]

33 minutes ago, Blue03 said:

I vote yes taking note of the term “consider”. Yes our teams suck, complete and total regression, but why is that? Football, MBB, and WBB all had our great coaches leave, and the results left with them. So we find ourselves in a hole that’s not exactly Alnutt’s fault, but now it’s on him to fix it. And you can’t say he’s done the worst job trying to do so. We’ve seen record recruiting classes and admit it, at some point you’ve found yourself at least a little bit excited about each of his major coaching hires. We get mad at Alnutt when the coaching appointment doesn’t work out, but at the beginning it doesn’t look like a bad hire. We could beg him to hire a coach, and if the appointment we ask for doesn’t win championships we’d still be blaming him for it. Some things you just can’t know until it plays out, even though the coaches seem like they’ll be a good fit. All in all he’s done his job, he’s made Buffalo and enticing place for recruits and brought it quality coaches. Are there things he needs to be better at? Absolutely, need to improve attendance and support. Is he the right one for the job? Probably not, that’s why I think we should consider replacing him. But it’s worth at least seeing the things he’s done right.

I agree with the majority of this and appreciate the balanced, well thought out response. I think it’s a complicated topic but one that many in the UB fanbase will have varying opinions on.

In my video, I try to take a fair viewpoint while also supporting my stance. I was a fan of the Maurice Linguist and Becky Burke hires due to a preference for young up & coming coaches with recruiting ability. I never liked the Jim Whitesell hire although I understood the logic behind it. I'm going to give George Halcovage time due to the situation he's inheriting.

My concerns beyond the success of the money sports definitely has to deal with dwindling community support and and a general apathy that has grown among UB fans over the past few years. There was a ton of momentum behind the athletic department from 2015-2020 and it's fading away due to a lack of positive results recently.

Edited November 23, 2023 by Big 4 Hoops Blogger

[Chet]

I agree with your take. It's unbelievable that there is not a coach from the Nate Oats tree coaching the Bulls. Three of Oats assistants were hired as Head Coaches this off season and none are at UB. ADMA completely cut ties to the greatest era in UB athletics history.  

[Big 4 Hoops Blogger]

If you like this video and want to see more UB and Buffalo sports takes, please subscribe to my new YouTube channel. I have the link below. I'm hoping to grow it in addition to my Twitter page.

[BrooklynBull]

On 11/22/2023 at 11:55 PM, Chet said:

It's unbelievable that there is not a coach from the Nate Oats tree coaching the Bulls. Three of Oats assistants were hired as Head Coaches this off season and none are at UB.

How many of them were urged by the higher ups at Alabama to look elsewhere after the off the court issues last year?  Do I know? No.  But after the program was thrown under the bus by Nick Saban, I assume some were.

[UB Horns Up]

I voted yes it’s time to move on from Mark Altnutt. Why because we aren’t asking UB Bulls football and basketball to beat Power 4 opponents just me competitive in the MAC with our peer football and basketball schools. When UB Bulls are having trouble competing in the MAC with our peers again after all the money invested who do you get rid of? If it isn’t Maurice Linquist and it isn’t the UB offensive coordinator which would be my choice over Mark Altnutt? Who? Mark Altnutt has had his hand in all these current UB Bulls coaching decisions to hire and extend contracts. The bottom line is the bottom line the buck has to stop somewhere. Even though I want the UB Bulls offensive coordinator fired. Also UB fans don’t give me money it can’t be that expensive to fire the UB Bulls offensive coordinator in my opinion. UB Horns Up! Go Bulls! Let’s Go Buffalo 

[MKBullsfan]

I think coaches should be given 3 years to prove themselves. If by year 3 you haven’t shown you can recruit/coach or showing an positive trend with wins increasing each year then change is needed. The AD should have 5 years to show results trending in a positive direction or conference championships from his own hires. Have we seen this? Do fans feel excited to watch Bball or football anymore?

[Sportsfan]

8 hours ago, MKBullsfan said:

I think coaches should be given 3 years to prove themselves. If by year 3 you haven’t shown you can recruit/coach or showing an positive trend with wins increasing each year then change is needed. The AD should have 5 years to show results trending in a positive direction or conference championships from his own hires. Have we seen this? Do fans feel excited to watch Bball or football anymore?

UB President is nearing retirement

AD has underachieved across football and basketball

Change will come, just not until President retires

[Tee4three]

From a basketball point of view, you need to see how the coach does a bit longer than four games to judge if alnutt hit a HR or missed

 

I don't follow closely other sports(non football and basketball)but aren't other sports doing well and have hired good coaches recently?

 

[Big 4 Hoops Blogger]

15 minutes ago, Tee4three said:

From a basketball point of view, you need to see how the coach does a bit longer than four games to judge if alnutt hit a HR or missed

 

I don't follow closely other sports(non football and basketball)but aren't other sports doing well and have hired good coaches recently?

 

No one is judging Halcovage right now. I stated in my video it's way too early to evaluate him and the early returns on Burke are encouraging.

The Alnutt conversation has more to do with the major regression of MBB/WBB and Football under him the past few years. The Bulls non-money sports have been successful recently but we'd all agree that's not the number one priority for AD's in drumming up community support.

[Big 4 Hoops Blogger]

11 hours ago, MKBullsfan said:

I think coaches should be given 3 years to prove themselves. If by year 3 you haven’t shown you can recruit/coach or showing an positive trend with wins increasing each year then change is needed. The AD should have 5 years to show results trending in a positive direction or conference championships from his own hires. Have we seen this? Do fans feel excited to watch Bball or football anymore?

The word to describe most of the UB fanbase right now is apathetic which is the result of football and basketball going from having their best seasons in program history within the past five years to now being among the worst teams in D1 at the present moment.

Edited November 25, 2023 by Big 4 Hoops Blogger

[rma]

I replied to you on Twitter but here's a more comprehensive view of my take of his performance:

Accomplishments:

• Kept Felisha Legette-Jack in Buffalo for 3 more years. It was reported by credible sources, but never 100% confirmed, that in 2019 Penn State offered Jack. Alnutt got the support to get her one, two, three contract extensions and one final offer after the 2022 season that she was never going to accept. There's no doubt in my mind that if the Syracuse job did not open up, she would still be here.
• Oversaw upgrades to S-A facilities. He did not get a lot of the work done on fundraising it, but the field house was started and completed under his watch. The football team is upgrading their training facilities from a garage, and the Nan Harvey Natatorium can finally be renamed back to Nan Harvey Field and is capable of holding softball competitions instead of deep sea fishing competitions. The UB football locker room is at the P5 level now after not being renovated in a long time.
• Made a good Olympic hire, and made a commitment to another good Olympic hire. Scott Smith (Alnutt hire) has done an an amazing job with UB volleyball, a team that was a perennial doormat. This year UB volleyball (co-)won the MAC East for the first time ever and was the #2 seed in the MAC volleyball tournament. UB beat Big East DePaul and SEC Mizzou in straight sets, both of which finished their season .500 or better in conference. Alnutt also got longtime UB soccer coach Shawn Burke on a multi-year contract shortly before UB got their first ever team win over an Ohio State program. I'm personally not a fan of multi-year contracts for coaches (specifically football and basketball) but if there's no chance of him getting fired in that timeframe (there is not) he earned it.
• Got the UB Athletics Hall of Fame Back into annual inductions. I'm not exactly sure what happened here, but late in the Danny White years the annual inductions into the UB Hall of Fame ended. I don't know if Alnutt specifically started it back up, but under his watch it is back, which is good to see.
• Tiny, minor, upgrades to the fan experience. Things like beer sales, a food truck in UB stadium, and better football concession stand food this year are a good start. Concession stands are also cashless (in contract to other Big 4 programs) which makes things go faster. The Coca Cola fan zone this year was nice for the few people that were there, and I liked that it had a big screen showing other college football games. There's a lot of UB fans that are UB (the school) fans and don't follow other college football. I'd like to see some more college football fans at UB games that are rooting for UB. Hard to do in the northeast outside of Pennsylvania though.
• Not really much of an accomplishment, but one thing that I did like about him is he seemed to be one of the most visible ADs in recent times. He is at a lot of UB athletic events. One year he was out selling 50/50 tickets before a football game because it was during a break and there was no team to sell them. During the MAC tournament in 2018-19 he was out with a very non-donor UB crowd. The anti-Danny White.

Shortcomings:

• I could beat to death the Whitesell hire but you all can do that better than me. But my problem with the coaching search was that in both instances the coaching search was being done through agents and on Twitter. Whichever search firm we used sucks. Candidates that didn't get offers said in public that they were declining it. When Leipold left we had this. Regardless of if the searches were a mess or not it looked messy to outsiders. During the Danny White years, all of the searches and hiring processes would have been quiet if not for an enthusiastic niece. Bobby Hurley was leaked as the hire an hour before he was introduced as the new head coach.
• I really can't complain about the Linguist hire because I was a huge fan of it when it happened. But the nonstop rotation of coordinators is concerning.
• Lack of upgrades to the fan experience. I listed above the small upgrades. These move the needle a tiny bit, but there's still large capital improvements that need to happen. Alumni Arena needs air conditioning. Our scoreboard is an abomination, which over two years ago was "first and foremost." What happened since then? We still have a track stadium that has a football field, and next year UB is set to be the only FBS football team that plays in a track stadium. Even worse than football in a track stadium (on a field with soccer markings) is soccer on a football field (with football markings) in a track stadium. Shawn Burke deserves a ton of credit for getting some of the top soccer talent in WNY despite the stadium situation. Which brings me to...
• No facilities master plan. In the Athletic article I linked Alnutt said “We have a master plan that’s been put together and we’re going to go public with in the near future” and so far the "near future" is more than 26 months. The most recent master plan is almost 10 years old and includes facilities for varsity programs that do not exist anymore. Since that Athletic article was posted the Bills secured a new stadium location and got $850 million of taxpayer money. And New York taxpayers paid for about half ($20 million) of the Syracuse Dome renovations.
• It seems like everything is the Wal-Mart/downgraded version of what it was during Danny White. Nothing in particular that's huge, but a lot of small stuff.
  • The UB Hall of Fame, though it has been revived, went without inductees for a few years under Alnutt.
  • Gameday: Things like not being allowed to bring outside food into Alumni Arena, that seemed to never be a rule or enforced previously. I complained previously on here about being told that I had to sit in my men's basketball seats for a women's side of a doubleheader.
  • Advertisements. Awesome, we're running TV ads during football games to get people to UB Stadium! Not so fast my friend, the ad that is being run as recently as Thanksgiving day was for the CMU game almost 2 months ago. The football season is over. I thought this was just a network screwing up but I've seen the ad on multiple networks multiple times. As I am typing this now, watching the Ohio State-Michigan game, the same ad aired AGAIN (now twice in the same commercial break)! What the hell.
  • This year during the first couple football games we tried something new and innovative by having a shout from both sides of the stadium (think WE ARE! PENN STATE! or LET'S GO! MOUNTAINEERS!) but it's clear that both whoever planned that and the PA announcer had never experienced something like that. The PA announcer said all three sides of it multiple times-so nobody knew if you were supposed to say what he was saying or say it afterwards. And "Go Blue, Go White, Go Bulls!" is much harder to execute than "Let's Go! Buffalo!"
  • It's small, but another example is the cheap crap they gave away to STH last year as a concession for having only 5 games. One of them was a license plate cover. A year later it's pretty faded.
  • I'm sure there's a ton more.
• The merchandise situation has not improved. I really want a UB football jersey that is more recent than the one I have signed by TG. I refuse to buy the cheap AliExpress crap that is being sold because I can get one from AliExpress for half the price. If you don't want to deal with NIL find out some way to sell Mack jerseys. Or for basketball I think a lot of people would buy a good quality 5, 33 or (WBB) 24 jersey. The retro bull shirt was great but the roll out took too long to get it online. I shouldn't have to be buying shirts and shipping them to UBFan members, though I gladly did.
• I think there was a lack of due diligence done on the Becky Burke hire.  I'm speculating a bit here but it's an absolutely terrible look when your new coach only has one returner from the previous coach, seemingly on purpose (another cryptic tweet from a WBB mom the day her daughter went into the portal). Then one player quits during the season citing mental health in a now-deleted instagram post. And all of your coaches leave, one not loving basketball and wasn't happy. And most of your roster leaves after that first season (toxic environment?). This seems to be similar to what happened at USC Upstate too. Not a lot of that roster stuck around. It also says quite a bit that only one (1) player followed Burke here.

The new Bills stadium is going to price out a ton of western NYers from live football. I've always touted UB as the family and budget friendly alternative to the Bills and Sabres. UB will never replace the Bills, but you will have Bills season ticket holders that will move to attending a few games a year. Bills fans that might attend 3 or 4 games a year might drop to 1 or 2. Ticket prices are already up. There has to be a way to get people that are now watching the Bills from their couches on Sunday into UB Stadium on Saturday to watch live football. But you can't do that with a track stadium and a scoreboard that is worse than the one in RWS over 20 years ago. Time is of the essence and I really don't have a ton of confidence in Alnutt to not fumble the opportunity out of the endzone for a touchback.

It really sucks listing all this stuff out, but right now there's people that care. And that's much better than not having people that care.

[Big 4 Hoops Blogger]

I really appreciate your response RMA. That’s probably the most thorough, well put explanation of what Alnutt has done so far as Buffalo’s athletic director. 
 

I am guilty of putting a heavy emphasis on football and basketball. In the end, I don’t think Alnutt is going anywhere anytime soon but wanted to address it on here with it being a topic brought up on social media often among the UB fans I interact with.

As you brought up, there’s points backing up both sides of the conversation.

Edited November 25, 2023 by Big 4 Hoops Blogger

[RapidsFan]

.

Edited February 18 by RapidsFan

[John]

On 11/25/2023 at 3:41 PM, rma said:

I replied to you on Twitter but here's a more comprehensive view of my take of his performance:

Accomplishments:

• Kept Felisha Legette-Jack in Buffalo for 3 more years. It was reported by credible sources, but never 100% confirmed, that in 2019 Penn State offered Jack. Alnutt got the support to get her one, two, three contract extensions and one final offer after the 2022 season that she was never going to accept. There's no doubt in my mind that if the Syracuse job did not open up, she would still be here.
• Oversaw upgrades to S-A facilities. He did not get a lot of the work done on fundraising it, but the field house was started and completed under his watch. The football team is upgrading their training facilities from a garage, and the Nan Harvey Natatorium can finally be renamed back to Nan Harvey Field and is capable of holding softball competitions instead of deep sea fishing competitions. The UB football locker room is at the P5 level now after not being renovated in a long time.
• Made a good Olympic hire, and made a commitment to another good Olympic hire. Scott Smith (Alnutt hire) has done an an amazing job with UB volleyball, a team that was a perennial doormat. This year UB volleyball (co-)won the MAC East for the first time ever and was the #2 seed in the MAC volleyball tournament. UB beat Big East DePaul and SEC Mizzou in straight sets, both of which finished their season .500 or better in conference. Alnutt also got longtime UB soccer coach Shawn Burke on a multi-year contract shortly before UB got their first ever team win over an Ohio State program. I'm personally not a fan of multi-year contracts for coaches (specifically football and basketball) but if there's no chance of him getting fired in that timeframe (there is not) he earned it.
• Got the UB Athletics Hall of Fame Back into annual inductions. I'm not exactly sure what happened here, but late in the Danny White years the annual inductions into the UB Hall of Fame ended. I don't know if Alnutt specifically started it back up, but under his watch it is back, which is good to see.
• Tiny, minor, upgrades to the fan experience. Things like beer sales, a food truck in UB stadium, and better football concession stand food this year are a good start. Concession stands are also cashless (in contract to other Big 4 programs) which makes things go faster. The Coca Cola fan zone this year was nice for the few people that were there, and I liked that it had a big screen showing other college football games. There's a lot of UB fans that are UB (the school) fans and don't follow other college football. I'd like to see some more college football fans at UB games that are rooting for UB. Hard to do in the northeast outside of Pennsylvania though.
• Not really much of an accomplishment, but one thing that I did like about him is he seemed to be one of the most visible ADs in recent times. He is at a lot of UB athletic events. One year he was out selling 50/50 tickets before a football game because it was during a break and there was no team to sell them. During the MAC tournament in 2018-19 he was out with a very non-donor UB crowd. The anti-Danny White.

Shortcomings:

• I could beat to death the Whitesell hire but you all can do that better than me. But my problem with the coaching search was that in both instances the coaching search was being done through agents and on Twitter. Whichever search firm we used sucks. Candidates that didn't get offers said in public that they were declining it. When Leipold left we had this. Regardless of if the searches were a mess or not it looked messy to outsiders. During the Danny White years, all of the searches and hiring processes would have been quiet if not for an enthusiastic niece. Bobby Hurley was leaked as the hire an hour before he was introduced as the new head coach.
• I really can't complain about the Linguist hire because I was a huge fan of it when it happened. But the nonstop rotation of coordinators is concerning.
• Lack of upgrades to the fan experience. I listed above the small upgrades. These move the needle a tiny bit, but there's still large capital improvements that need to happen. Alumni Arena needs air conditioning. Our scoreboard is an abomination, which over two years ago was "first and foremost." What happened since then? We still have a track stadium that has a football field, and next year UB is set to be the only FBS football team that plays in a track stadium. Even worse than football in a track stadium (on a field with soccer markings) is soccer on a football field (with football markings) in a track stadium. Shawn Burke deserves a ton of credit for getting some of the top soccer talent in WNY despite the stadium situation. Which brings me to...
• No facilities master plan. In the Athletic article I linked Alnutt said “We have a master plan that’s been put together and we’re going to go public with in the near future” and so far the "near future" is more than 26 months. The most recent master plan is almost 10 years old and includes facilities for varsity programs that do not exist anymore. Since that Athletic article was posted the Bills secured a new stadium location and got $850 million of taxpayer money. And New York taxpayers paid for about half ($20 million) of the Syracuse Dome renovations.
• It seems like everything is the Wal-Mart/downgraded version of what it was during Danny White. Nothing in particular that's huge, but a lot of small stuff.
  • The UB Hall of Fame, though it has been revived, went without inductees for a few years under Alnutt.
  • Gameday: Things like not being allowed to bring outside food into Alumni Arena, that seemed to never be a rule or enforced previously. I complained previously on here about being told that I had to sit in my men's basketball seats for a women's side of a doubleheader.
  • Advertisements. Awesome, we're running TV ads during football games to get people to UB Stadium! Not so fast my friend, the ad that is being run as recently as Thanksgiving day was for the CMU game almost 2 months ago. The football season is over. I thought this was just a network screwing up but I've seen the ad on multiple networks multiple times. As I am typing this now, watching the Ohio State-Michigan game, the same ad aired AGAIN (now twice in the same commercial break)! What the hell.
  • This year during the first couple football games we tried something new and innovative by having a shout from both sides of the stadium (think WE ARE! PENN STATE! or LET'S GO! MOUNTAINEERS!) but it's clear that both whoever planned that and the PA announcer had never experienced something like that. The PA announcer said all three sides of it multiple times-so nobody knew if you were supposed to say what he was saying or say it afterwards. And "Go Blue, Go White, Go Bulls!" is much harder to execute than "Let's Go! Buffalo!"
  • It's small, but another example is the cheap crap they gave away to STH last year as a concession for having only 5 games. One of them was a license plate cover. A year later it's pretty faded.
  • I'm sure there's a ton more.
• The merchandise situation has not improved. I really want a UB football jersey that is more recent than the one I have signed by TG. I refuse to buy the cheap AliExpress crap that is being sold because I can get one from AliExpress for half the price. If you don't want to deal with NIL find out some way to sell Mack jerseys. Or for basketball I think a lot of people would buy a good quality 5, 33 or (WBB) 24 jersey. The retro bull shirt was great but the roll out took too long to get it online. I shouldn't have to be buying shirts and shipping them to UBFan members, though I gladly did.
• I think there was a lack of due diligence done on the Becky Burke hire.  I'm speculating a bit here but it's an absolutely terrible look when your new coach only has one returner from the previous coach, seemingly on purpose (another cryptic tweet from a WBB mom the day her daughter went into the portal). Then one player quits during the season citing mental health in a now-deleted instagram post. And all of your coaches leave, one not loving basketball and wasn't happy. And most of your roster leaves after that first season (toxic environment?). This seems to be similar to what happened at USC Upstate too. Not a lot of that roster stuck around. It also says quite a bit that only one (1) player followed Burke here.

The new Bills stadium is going to price out a ton of western NYers from live football. I've always touted UB as the family and budget friendly alternative to the Bills and Sabres. UB will never replace the Bills, but you will have Bills season ticket holders that will move to attending a few games a year. Bills fans that might attend 3 or 4 games a year might drop to 1 or 2. Ticket prices are already up. There has to be a way to get people that are now watching the Bills from their couches on Sunday into UB Stadium on Saturday to watch live football. But you can't do that with a track stadium and a scoreboard that is worse than the one in RWS over 20 years ago. Time is of the essence and I really don't have a ton of confidence in Alnutt to not fumble the opportunity out of the endzone for a touchback.

It really sucks listing all this stuff out, but right now there's people that care. And that's much better than not having people that care.

A very good comprehensive analysis. There is more to the Becky Burke comments than you stated but my opinion is what she did with a depleted roster and all the other things going on in the first year was exceptional. Last year’s coaching staff really did not mesh at all and with the transfer portal madness some of the accountability has to be with the players. This present coaching staff seems to be meshing really well together with input from the entire staff. Burke has seemed to of toned down a bit and with a year here seems more comfortable. A toxic environment can be seen all over basketball! How about Oats staff all leaving and some of his players transferring just to name one team. Enjoying watching this team and coaching staff evolve and see some exciting basketball. Probably should of put these comments in another forum as I really didn’t want to take away from the Alnutt comments. Go Bulls!!!

[Big 4 Hoops Blogger]

This is where things currently stand with the men’s basketball program.

[Steve86]

Not really surprising to anybody who is watched the team play this year.
 

What point are you trying to make?

[Big 4 Hoops Blogger]

29 minutes ago, Steve86 said:

Not really surprising to anybody who is watched the team play this year.
 

What point are you trying to make?

Title of the thread answers that question.

[rma]

46 minutes ago, Big 4 Hoops Blogger said:

Title of the thread answers that question.

So he made the wrong hire, or should have told his basketball coach to recruit a point guard and a guy that can play center/forward? 
 

He fired the guy everyone wanted him to fire. UB basketball is rebuilding but it’s too early to say Alnutt made a bad hire here, which seems to be the implication. There’s enough working against MA to say he likely will not be here longer than his contract without poor basketball results. 
 

ETA: The guy a lot of people (including me) had at/near the top of their list is #280 in the NET with a better roster. 

Edited December 4, 2023 by rma

[Big 4 Hoops Blogger]

I’m not referring to Halcovage at all with that post. I’m going to be patient and give him the time he needs to turn around the program.

My point is that Alnutt’s managing of the basketball program has seen them regress from being one of the top mid-majors in the country to one of the worst teams in D1.

The thread is about whether or not Alnutt should be fired. This is more evidence that supports the point.

[trueblue32]

I think it's fair to be critical of the hire already. We need to stop pretending that this was just the hand that Halcovage was dealt as if it was entirely out of his hands whether or not we retained any players on the roster. The only player he retained that wasn't forced to be here due to transfer rules is Zaakir Williamson who is not a D1 caliber player. Even if we pretend that having experienced players was out of Halcovage's hands, here's a list of teams with equal or lesser minutes continuity and D1 experience, and a first year coach.

180.) Notre Dame
274.) Southern
287.) Texas A&M Corpus Christi
298.) Green Bay
318.) Valparaiso
322.) Manhattan
338.) Buffalo
341.) Northwestern St.
342.) Idaho
360.) Coppin St.
361.) North Carolina A&T

Even within this specific set of parameters Halcovage is not doing a good job early compared to teams that are universally less resourced aside from Notre Dame and (maybe) Valparaiso. Alnutt hired a coach who hasn't led a program and only worked in a program that's success was predicated on 4 year guys and few incoming transfers. Is that a recipe we expect to succeed in the current basketball landscape as a mid-major?

The bigger issue is where are we getting money to buy out Alnutt and hire a replacement? Then where are we getting the money to buy out these coaches and let a new hire replace them? It's not happening, Alnutt has positioned us here and we're stuck here.

At some point people need to accept that UB's Top 25 seasons were flukes that we've now cut all connection to. We're not a special school that's destined for greatness, waiting for the right guy. We're UB before Oats and Leipold. We don't need guys who are doing their best in the tough circumstances of being a mid-major. We need coaches and administrators with plans to succeed in spite of that.

Edited December 4, 2023 by trueblue32

[MuchMany]

1 hour ago, Big 4 Hoops Blogger said:

I’m not referring to Halcovage at all with that post. I’m going to be patient and give him the time he needs to turn around the program.

My point is that Alnutt’s managing of the basketball program has seen them regress from being one of the top mid-majors in the country to one of the worst teams in D1.

The thread is about whether or not Alnutt should be fired. This is more evidence that supports the point.

Your first paragraph and your second and third paragraphs contradict each other. 

[Big 4 Hoops Blogger]

13 minutes ago, MuchMany said:

Your first paragraph and your second and third paragraphs contradict each other. 

They actually don’t. I’m talking about long term regression from the point of Oats leaving until now. I never once mentioned that I thought Halcovage was a bad hire or that I don’t like him.

I’m simply referring to the drop off the men’s program from one that was 32-4 and ranked 14th in the country in 2018-19 to one that is the 3rd lowest NET team in the country right now. I’m putting the blame on Alnutt. Not Halcovage.

[MuchMany]

2 minutes ago, Big 4 Hoops Blogger said:

They actually don’t. I’m talking about long term regression from the point of Oats leaving until now. I never once mentioned that I thought Halcovage was a bad hire or that I don’t like him.

I’m simply referring to the drop off the men’s program from one that was 32-4 and ranked 14th in the country in 2018-19 to one that is the 3rd lowest NET team in the country right now. I’m putting the blame on Alnutt. Not Halcovage.

They do. Halcovage will not get "the time he needs to turn around the program" if Alnutt is fired. If you believe in being "patient" re: Halcovage turning things around, then Alnutt doesn't deserve to be fired. You're using a zoomed in analysis of the basketball program at its low point to make a zoomed out point regarding the department as a whole. Ie if UB is back in the mid 100s next year, this small data point of being ranked 360 doesn't really matter at all.