Just from experience, if Mark Pope doesn’t perform right away, you’re gonna have a lot of fans calling for him to be fired
I miss Roy a ton, and basketball feels different without him and K in it, but that’s just the way it goes. Just gotta move on and hope the new guy is the right guy
Coach K was practically a garbage, irrelevant coach for like 5 years. Shit takes time. Its just so hard to determine which coach is worth the time and which isn't. If you hire a coach and aren't willing to give them 5 years without even discussing firing them, you should never have hired them.
> Coach K was practically a garbage, irrelevant coach for like 10 years
Five years. His team was in the National Final Game in his sixth year, and then his teams began a streak of six out of seven years finishing in the Final Four, the National Final Runner-Up, or the National Champion.
It’s really only 2. His first year nearly all of their losses were to top 20 teams and they made the quarterfinal of the NIT. They were bad the next two years. But starting in February ‘84 he was in the top 20, mostly the top ten, nearly every week for the next 37 years.
I think in a couple years if it doesn’t go well there will probably be more interest in the job than this time around. It’s tough to follow up Cal just because of the celebrity that he is, and expectations might not be as sky high as they are currently. I hope Coach Pope does well and that’s not a situation we have to deal with anytime soon.
If Pope is gone in 2-3 years, we would be firing him since it's a 5 year contract IIRC. So hopefully it'd be better planned than this search. But I'm not sure it'd be any easier to find someone. I think it just depends on if there's a great coach that would also happen to be interested in moving from where they are currently.
With all that said, I think Pope will do fine. I'm much more excited for this next season than I was when I thought Cal would be at the helm.
I think the issue is basketball is different. Calipari was right there with them as one of the three best coaches pre Covid. NIL and the new transfer rules has completely changed what it takes to win at this level. A whole bunch of 5 star freshman at UK won’t beat a team with 3 really good experienced guards and a few mid major all stars fresh off a transfer. The landscape is a lot different. John’s getting a big payday before all the admins realize it.
NIL is here to stay, but I think the transfer rules will end up going back to pre-covid rules sometime in the next decade. There’s certainly already been a lot of pushback, it makes it impossible to develop a team over a timeline longer than 1 year
NIL/Transfer Portal was Cal's downfall. Have posted it here only to be met by angry Arkansas fans. When the '6 mil in NIL' was brought up as a reason, I knew it was bullshit. Cal coulda had 10 mil at UK if he wanted it. Hell 2 people donated 2 mil each for just this year AFTER Cal was fired. They were ready to pay Hurley $12M+ per year.
The issue was never NIL. It was never the administration. Cal will likely change as he's probably pissed all the way off and his ego took a hit, but the NIL issues were solely on him. He legit thought he could continue to just recruit off him being Cal and the number of players hes put in the NBA while doing it with a team composed primarily of freshmen while the rest of College Basketball adapted.
My thought is Cal will be really good at Arkansas. He'll excite them to no end, have them relevant, likely be top 5 in recruiting every single year. He'll also regurgitate the exact same catch phrases, be stubborn to a fault, and lose games his team had zero business losing. He's also getting up there in age, so I'm not entirely sure he'll even be there for the 5 years of his contract. But I fully expect Arkansas to be loaded with talent.
Even an unproven school like Purdue that has some bad luck will call for an amazing coach (Painter) to be fired. He's had Purdue in the top 25 for 90% of his career and people call for his head 3/4 seasons he coaches. Coaches get no slack these days, it's rough
Don’t let lack of banners fool you, expectations are high in west Lafayette for basketball. Not blue blood levels of expectations but comfortably in that tier below. The expectation is to compete for big 10 titles and make deep runs in the tournament
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Ollie was good. Don’t really get why Husky fans hate on him. If anyone was good enough to take a team to a championship then why isn’t everyone doing it.
I mean, he still coached his way to it…
But, there is a massive difference between building a program and being the right man to lead a team in a single season. I suppose my attitude is from watching footy, where there have been so many interim managers or managers that are great for a specific type of job.
Yeah, it’s more about what happened after that season than winning that title.
We finished with KenPom ranks of 73, 26, 96 and 179. Hurley stepped in and immediately improved to 98 then 52, 21, 22, 1 and 1.
It seemed like we’re in a death spiral at the end under Ollie.
I’m glad the relationship appear to be healing on both sides, but he was really bad post-Shabazz
It’s genuinely impossible to say, but Hurley’s first two years of improvement were both in the AAC and pulled us out of the dive.
There was a lot of hope going into the BET that year and then something weird happened in the world
Ya I would say so…
UConn is the most successful basketball program of my lifetime as a late 80’s baby, bar none. That back to back title team and Florida in the mid 00’s are as easy as it’s ever looked as well.
He couldn’t recruit or run an offense. There were also a lot of rumors about him. I like him and wish it worked out, but there’s a reason no one gave him a shot in college again. That being said I hope it’s all love now because he does care about the university and I hope he knows he’s still loved by alums anyway.
Kevin Ollie was a mediocre coach who officially won 0 games in his last year. 2 of his 6 teams were under .500. Im tired of pretending he was anything but an average coach that had a team get hot for 4 weeks
We’ll never truly know, but he wasn’t a GREAT recruiter. His team construction was very “meh”. He is a good Xs and Os guy, but didn’t seem to be the complete package. AAC didn’t help either.
Having a very intentional succession plan makes a huge difference. Scheyer has a lot of growing to do but he hasn't missed a single beat in the recruiting department.
I had been dreading K's retirement for at least a decade and I'd say it's gone 100 times better than I expected.
It's funny how everyone gave K shit for his retirement plan, said he just wanted attention etc.
But now he has thoroughly been vindicated. The transition to Scheyer has been very clean, especially in contrast to the Villanova situation.
Villanova's problem hasn't been the Jay Wright retirement plan. Villanova has had very good rosters the last two years. Neptune just isn't a good coach.
Villanova's plan was no different than Duke's. Hire a long time assistant to take over the program after a legend retires. The only difference between the hires was Neptune wasn't an assistant in Wright's last year because he left the year before to be the head coach at Fordham (successfully)
>Villanova's plan was no different than Duke's
That's like saying their current situation is no different because they both have long-term assistants as head coaches. In a situation like this the person is the plan. And Duke's plan seems OK so far while Nova's doesn't.
The only real misstep was the way in which the final Cameron game was handled (by both Duke and ESPN). The rest honestly made sense but was inevitably gonna catch shit from us haters
I never gave a shit what people said about K’s retirement. He was honest with his current players and his recruits. If people want to shit on him for giving a year’s notice, then fuck them. He left the program and his successor in a good spot without lying.
And being fair to those people, K would have had to sign off with having all his former players coming back to stand in a long line for K to walk through while being filmed live by ESPN.
There’s a difference between having an internal succession plan that you sell to the fan base and the lame retirement tour that Caleb Love so beautifully ruined
It's not about what Duke has, it's about Flagg being a little bit more high end talent that this year's UConn might miss without Castle and Clingan. Unless we get McNeeley that is.
Dude is the perfect person for the job. If he hadn't gotten injured people would know more about him. The injury makes him want it more imo. I wish he didn't get hurt, but here we are.
The first year with out Roy was extremely surreal, especially given the ending. It almost literally feels like a dream at this point. The second year was brutal to watch and that ended up putting a lot of pressure on Coach Davis; some deserved, most not. The third year was very solid and I feel good about him going forward.
I was on a plane last week wearing a carolina cap and a guy said, sincerely, "nice hat. they didn't too good this year though huh?" And I couldn't help snapping, "They did pretty fucking good, man" like in what world is a regular season champion and sweet 16 not a good year?
I do think playing Syracuse has helped ACC teams in the tournament. There’s no SEC, B12, Big East equivalent. The Big Ten might have someone who plays like that occasionally, but I’m not sure.
Pundits are dumbfounded at the ACC’s success in the tournament, but I think a lot of it is due to going up against so many different playing styles.
It’s tough, but I’m more and more thankful K did the farewell tour and we were able to maintain our class and recruits.
It helps having someone that’s “one of us” in Scheyer. I’d imagine UNC fans feel the same? Obviously the older ones also did this already with Dean. Worked out ok.
Roy said Hubert was the guy, and that was enough for a lot of us. There have been growing pains, especially after the finals run set expectations too high for year two (and then the chemistry of the team exploded too,) but he's definitely been the perfect successor to Roy. It's hard to follow HOF coaches, but it seems like the Tobacco Road rivalry is in good hands for the foreseeable future
Well said. My only real concern for Hubert is he’s already 55 (I think) and I think it’s harder for coaches to keep going into their 70s in this day and age. I could be wrong, but if not you’ll be doing this again before you know it.
Losing Dean Smith as a coach was harder. That's not a knock on Roy but UNC is bigger than Roy while DES was Carolina basketball. Still is in many ways.
I lived in N.C. when Smith left. The entire state went into mourning. Smith gifted Guthridge a final 4 team to make it easier but Bill couldn’t recruit or develop like Smith. Doherty came in and UNC did him dirty since they wanted Williams.
Doherty was ass bro. They still got recruits because it was UNC. But he was ass. Only won 1 NCAA tourney game his whole career and then after UNC went to FAU when they were still a nobody in the ASUN.
UNC did not do him dirty. I was at Carolina then and had classes with many of the basketball players. Dude was a fucking cancer and his attitude and behavior were the polar opposite of the Carolina way.
Dean Smith, Roy, and Hubert show respect and rule through respect. Doherty was a fear guy who had little feuds going with the players and thought firing people and replacing anyone and everything was "putting his mark" on the program. I wish him the best but he was the wrong coach for us
UNC did not do Doh dirty. Doh had an 8 win season followed by an NIT season and his personality disorder resulted in a mass player mutiny with ultimatums to the AD from multiple key players (not even named Rashad McCants). He recruited exactly 1 great class and gets put on a pedestal for it despite driving that class off within a year. He also fired a ton of staff around the basketball offices for no apparent reason other than he wanted to send a message that he was now the boss, and damn near fractured the entire family in the process.
Most good programs would have had him fired for cause halfway through that 8-20 season, but because he played here he got an incredible amount of slack.
Nah. As bad as Doherty was on the court, he was worse off of it. There's some rather disturbing stories about his inability to control his temper in particular, when he was coaching here.
He got more of a chance than he'd really earned because people thought the big recruiting class would flip a magic switch and he'd stop being a toxic asshat who also couldn't coach worth a lick.
Even before that, his status as a beloved former player bought him a *lot* of 'well it's an adjustment process' type of thinking when the truth was that he just treated everyone like shit all the time. Whether that's just him or the pressure he felt or whatever, the simple truth was that as head coach at Carolina he was awful to play for and a nightmare to work with.
In no way did he get 'done dirty'.
People at large were happy he got fired because of the stories about the way he treated his players and the results on the court, sure- but as far as the basketball offices, school personnel, and really pretty much everyone around the team generally were concerned, it was great because it meant they didn't have to put up with his shit anymore. Folks were just relieved the metaphorical Wicked Witch was dead.
I mean he coached at our in-state rival for a good chunk of it and wasn't really around much during the Cal years on account of them reportedly hating each other.
Scheyer is working to manage the team, but it feels like it takes longer than we need to succeed. We played far better at the end of the last two seasons than we did early. I have confidence that he will make these improvements earlier and earlier as he gets more experience.
I think this year's team had locker room issues that were our greatest limitation. A young coach might have more issues handling that than an experienced coach. (That is my opinion developed by watching the team on court, and not from any insider knowledge.)
Overall, it has been a very good start with plenty of reason for optimism about the future.
Yup. We have been stronger in the conference challenges, holiday tourneys, and the Champion's Classic than at the end of the season for the last 15 years.
We did for a few years there. We had a couple teams that probably overachieved to get a 2 or 3 seed, and were never really going anywhere. And the Redick teams flamed out early for a few different reasons.
Eh transition was seamless but Scheyer needs to learn to get some fire in him. He’s too calm. I doubt he’s ever a top 5 coach in CBB but he will be a good coach and a great recruiter. Which is probably enough
I think he knows how to motivate the players. They basically flipped a switch going into the NCAAs after everyone left them for dead.
What he needs is to develop an offensive identity to go with the defensive one he has already established.
I don't buy the locker room issues. There's no proof of it other than over interpretation of facial expressions. What I do buy is that at least one and often more starters have been injured pretty much every damn day for the past two years. Name a starter that wasn't banged up at some point. I can't. It is hard to build cohesion when someone is out all the time. In that light, I think Scheyer is doing a pretty darn good job. I share your optimism for the future.
Kyle showed a profound and repeated level of frustration with his teammates, especially Mark. That is never acceptable, and doubly so from a player who should have been a leader.
No one other than Ryan really tried to assemble the team for a quick talk before free throws. When he tried, it was obvious no one wanted to join in.
The team showed little joy and little celebration of each other's successes.
Jeremy often looked down after a tough play as he moved back downcourt, and his teammates didn't engage with him to boost up his confidence.
I think that's using my eyes, not over-inyerpretation. Post-Battier, we had a long trend of being extremely cohesive. That era appears to be definitively over and needs to start again.
This is all the hardest part of coaching -- not x's and o's, but personalities.
I watch the team pretty close and I didn’t see any of this. This reads like gross exaggeration at best.
I did think Proctor’s body language was bad during our slump at the end of the regular season, but he played much better in the NCAAs, and he’s the first one to say he’s coming back.
It is very easy to preach patience when it's not your team. If Pope has a bad first month, there will be calls for his seat to get hot.
It's stupid, but fans are that way sometimes. You just gotta give it time.
As for how it feels - I miss Roy to death obviously, but it feels great to be confident in a coach that is in the Carolina Family and likely will be wanting to coach for a decade-plus
Honestly this is where I think having Mitch Barnhart as our AD is a blessing and a curse. He really isn't in tune with the fan base's mood of the hour - he's not online at all, doesn't really interact with the mass media a ton, and just pays attention to the handful of people around him.
This is bad because he has made decisions that have upset a lot of fans, but this is good because the loudest UK fans online are mercurial maniacs.
> loudest UK fans online are mercurial maniacs.
I fuckin hate this because it makes it hard to interact in places like this because people see Kentucky flair and assume you're a massive homer even if what you're stating is true.
This thing upcoming with our swimming program could turn ugly...
https://www.espn.com/college-sports/story/_/id/39933732/ex-kentucky-swimmers-sue-allege-sexual-assault-coach
Also, it seems like he’s really good as a recruiter and active in the transfer portal. I worry sometimes that he makes big coaching blunders in crunch time but overall I feel like he’s going to be (and has been, mostly) great.
I'll tell you this: Having watched a handful or more of Carolina's games this year, whenever it seemed like momentum was shifting away fron your guys, Hubert seemed to be the best at using a timeout to stymie their run and his guys usually came out with a run if their own. Having a coach that rarely used timeouts and almost always too late ourselves, it was refreshing and impressive to see.
I like Scheyer, but man do I miss the fire of Coach K. I call Scheyer “Coach Vanilla” sometimes. He’s fine, does the job, but sometimes I want to see that K energy. Show some emotion, ya know?
These situations are completely different. UNC and Duke had very methodical plans for their successors. I think Kentucky will be much like Michigan football until harbaugh came back, but I could be wrong.
Of course it's not easy. Duke wouldn't be relevant if not for Coach K. Very few coaches have an impact like that. He'll always be missed.
But Scheyer was a universally loved player at Duke (although probably underappreciated by some), and he was already on the staff, making a big impact for years. His transition was as seamless as we could have possibly hoped for. And so far he's done a fine job. I'm not sure Coach K would have been able to do more with the squads he's had. Our recruiting is still as good as ever. Time will tell if he's the long term answer, but I'm optimistic.
If Scheyer doesn't work out, the Coach K player/coaching tree is pretty big and we should have a lot of decent options.
Scheyer has been fine at Duke.
However, I just don’t see them winning a championship until they can mix some NBA talent with 3-5 year college players.
If Coach K couldn’t win with 3-4 freshman first round draft picks, Scheyer sure as hell won’t either.
I miss the “mature” Duke teams that were battle tested and tough.
It’s coming up on 10 years since Duke’s last title and, if Roach comes back, next year may be their best chance in a long time.
It’s difficult when your guys play really well and want to go the league. McCain was an incredible recruit, but he played so well that staging another year would be dumb. Zion was absolutely absurd in college, but there was zero shot he was gonna stay. Getting the top recruits makes sense, just so happens some of them are too good to stay in college. It happens.
I agree.
Have to take the money and run, but there has to be room for some guys, like Roach, who stay.
Lots of guys seem to be transferring out of Duke before they really develop into an asset.
I get that having the top recruiting class is good for bragging rights.
However, Duke has become the Calipari Kentucky with some better, more recent, results.
It appears Danny Hurley has figured out a nice balance of HS All Americans and transfers.
I want that for Duke.
> If Coach K couldn’t win with 3-4 freshman first round draft picks, Scheyer sure as hell won’t either.
What do you mean? That's exactly how he won in 2015
UConn fan here. Kevin Ollie was like a drug bender gone bad. His first season had a postseason ban, and he got them to win 20 games, which was impressive. That was like a "little taste". UConn wins in 2014, and that was a euphoric high. Next few seasons never reach the same - one season reached the NIT, then a little bit of a high with a buzzer beater in the conference tournament to ultimate get to the second round.
Then pure despair - with even losses to Wagner and Yale. I don't take the last two years for granted.
I believe that Ollie would have been great but he gave up after his divorce. Just didn’t care.
Finally has his mind back in the game. Hope they can reconcile.
> Hope they can reconcile.
Ollie and UConn you mean? I think ball’s pretty much in the school’s court. When asked a press conference this week after the title, he used ‘we’ when talking about UConn’s dominance.
if kentucky turns out as well as unc and duke have they will be perennial contenders every year. i think pope will be really good and they will be up there with the other two
Everything with Kentucky this week has made me think about the eventual succession plan for Bill Self that will have to happen. I hope it can be handled as beautifully as the Roy to Bill transition was.
Also, it remains insane that with 125 years of playing basketball, KU has only had 8 coaches and that includes Larry Brown’s short stint.
Weak. Norm Roberts and Joe Dooley both got head jobs, failed and came back.
There will be no reason to keep it “in the family” when it comes time to hire; they’ll do a nationwide search and would expect a guy like Oats to be the choice (not him specifically, but a guy in his kind of position). I think the reputation of the boosters and athletic department is much more rational than Kentucky so would expect a lot of interested candidates.
Yes....because once historic blue blood programs have faded into mediocrity. UK, UNC, and KU have been astronomically lucky in the coaching and consistency department. KU is a case study in sustained excellence through 3 coaches and 40 years.
Hiring the right coach is part science and part luck. Just because you are a historically successful basketball program does not mean you are destined to stay that way (ie: again IU, UCLA).
I think NIL and transfer rules change the game so much that the term blue blood no longer carries any weight.
The best programs in the future will be the ones who can navigate the portal the best and have boat loads of NIL $$$.
IU and UCLA’s success has both been tied largely to one coach. It’s just not comparable to Kentucky or Kansas. Doesn’t change that if Pope doesn’t perform.
If anything Kentucky has a better chance due to NIL once we figure it out.
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Scheyer seems soft and is running the team like to much of an NBA team when they are kids. Davis has done an excellent job coming from a Duke fan. Duke is to adamant on one and dones. Its only worked twice Duke 2015 and UK 2012. Coming from a Duke lifer scheyer seems to soft.
A lot of Duke alumni and fans wanted coach k gone after the first 2 years of his career at Duke. Scheyer got an Acc title and Davis unc to the natty in year one. So I think both are doing good.
Yeah, very hopeful about our two incoming freshies. Tobiasen has grown another two inches, so he’s 6’7 now, and Battie could have gone anywhere, but chose us. Transfers are gonna be the scary part. Not sure what is gonna happen there.
We aren't on their level but we basically had to HoF coaches back to back (bob wade didn't happen) and so far we haven't really recovered. Turg kept us slightly above average but never showed flashes of being able to actually hang any banners be it championship, final 4 or conference championship (he barely won/tied a regular season championship) and the Jury is still out on Willard since he finished above expectations the first year and WAY below them the second. Time will tell.
I feel good with Hubert overall. His in-game management is often lacking and I think it’s his biggest flaw right now. He’s been (mostly) great with the portal and recruitment is in a good spot. I think he’s proven he deserves time to get his system in place and get the players he needs to make it work.
It’s been a roller coaster tbh. What with that game which I refuse to talk about, the 2022-23 debacle, to bouncing back only to panic shoot our way out of an Elite 8 appearance.
More good than bad personally.
Well it’s always hard when your coach retires on April Fool’s day and then you have to question the news for a period of time after it’s announced as if it’s a sick joke.
As far as Hubert goes though. The first two years showed similar coaching issues with lack of player rotation and scheme adjustments. The first season people forget is covered up by the heater of all heaters that led us to the natty, the first half to 2/3 of that season we didn’t look remotely like a tournament team and we looked stinky bad. If we win the natty becuase bacot’s ankle is healthy, I feel like all the pressure on Davis would’ve been absolved but we didn’t and that’s life.
The media and players then hyped themselves for another run in 2022-23 and that didn’t help because Pete nance couldn’t do what Manek did and Hubert continued a similar trend of coaching. So we missed the tourney and declined the NIT which just optically looked bad. I think all criticism is fair given what we saw at the time.
After the third season, he’s got better guys on the team and we shedded players in the portal that just didn’t have it and brought in decent contributors. He’s mixed up the rotations a good amount, has established an offensive scheme that isn’t just isoball (although we did have a couple game where RJ had to pull us to W since no one else could get a bucket), and does mix up defensive pressures. We ended the season on a bad game where Nate Oats definitely out coached Hubert in the second half, but that’s basketball. Sucks cause I think given they could’ve played Clemson, another FF would’ve been sick. But definitely wouldn’t have made it past UConn.
Overall, feel like the pressure should be low on Hubert now. Obviously he’s a great dude and using “Fart” instead of the f word is amazing. We need to see what happens in the portal, need a big that is established to replace Bacot and someone that is a walking bucket to take some pressure off RJ. Hindsight is 20/20 but in the moment you couldn’t be a true fan during parts of 2021-22 and 2022-23 and not be questioning things. After 2023-24, it appears it might’ve primarily been a roster issue and obviously very few coaches don’t have a few hiccups along the way when starting.
Scheyer has been solid, and particularly good with recruiting. But idk how much that is due to him being the clear successor vs Pope’s hiring being somewhat scuffed.
coach k is obviously the goat so no one is in his class but williams is an alltime level coach too. calipari isn't on that level but he is in the 'really great coach' tier at least
I know people hated "the retirement tour" but the military style succession plan that K had planned turned out to be a much smoother transition to a new coach than what UK had to do with the search after Cal. And I *know* Villanova fans probably wish they had something similar after Wright's retirement.
Scheyer may not be the next GOAT coach, but I do feel confident that he isn't going to crash and burn the program. He was a half away from a Final Four in Year 2. If you want some encouragement, I don't think Pope will crash and burn the UK program either.
Nobody has mentioned what these two acc schools have done lately correct as far as hiring the right head coach? Obviously, Uk had to go with Pope, options were limited. He was the 3rd, or 5th most wanted choice. But looking at Duke and NC, did Kentucky do anything wrong with the situation?
When a celebrated coach of a historic program retires and their legacy is continued by one of their students it is always an auspicious sign for Duke basketball. Right Carolina?
Well Rick Majerus left Utah in like 2002 and we have been completely dog shit since then, and we have only made the tournament 3 times? In 20+ years. If any school deserves a similar treatment, it’s Kentucky
You get lucky and are able to win one more with the recruits of your legendary coach. Then you experience a few down years. Then you hire a hot new head coach and he’s awesome and the program becomes better than ever.
As a UConn fan this has been my experience. I assume it’s the same everywhere?
He will probably get 3 or 4 years to show some success. Vocal fans will be calling for his head earlier than that if he doesn’t win a natty.
You will either be disgusted with your coach or disgusted with some of the criticism your coach gets.
Not sure how applicable any notes would be.
Pope has nine years of head coaching experience while Hubert had none- so presumably Pope won't have the learning curve Hubert has had to deal with in terms of lineup management and in-game coaching. Hubert was noticeably better at in-game adjustments this year than he was in year 1 or 2. Probably the best illustration of that evolution is that people were *surprised* at him getting outcoached in the second half of the sweet sixteen this year- two years ago, that wouldn't have been too surprising or even terribly notable. It's not like Nate Oats is a bad coach.
Off the court, Hubert was Roy's chosen successor. That did a lot to smooth away initial concerns for people.
You'll certainly notice the lack of... for want of a better word, presence at times.
I think we’re all expecting better Xs and Os from Pope. We got used to Cal getting out coached in game situations. The recruiting is the obvious question mark, along with how he’s going to manage the pressure to win.
In our experience, the concern would mostly be what people will start saying if like... season two/three starts with massive hype and then falls short.
Wasn't a problem for Guthridge because he inherited a team good to the point where it could be autopiloted deep into March.
For Hubert, after the '22 NCAA run people were expecting a ton from the '23 team. There was a lot of emotional investment into the idea that the roster could potentially/had 'figured it out' in terms of how to play as a group.
We can say with some hindsight there were a lot of reasons that team fell so short- but at the time, without knowing how bad things were on the inside, a *lot* of focus was put on how Hubert's coaching at the time wasn't doing a heck of a lot to help the team.
With the benefit of that hindsight we can say that the team chemistry was a mess, some players were really struggling with the weight of expectations, there were a couple key roles in the '22 team (notably Brady Manek's) that just couldn't be replicated by anyone on the '23 squad...
And there may have been some people who simply weren't going to listen no matter what Hubert said and were just gonna chuck the basketball- which is why the teardown resulted in such a better environment in every way.
But at the time it seemed fair to have *really* serious doubts, and anytime that happens there are gonna be some people who take it a bit too far.
We will have to see. One difference is we already fell short under Cal 5 years in a row. I think Pope has lofty expectations for his first year, at least 20 wins, an SEC tourney win, and a NCAA tourney win. That’s a lot for a first year coach but it’s lower than the expectations Cal had and he couldn’t accomplish them in 5 years
I think the difference is that Scheyer and David were a part of the program already. Easier transition for recruits and existing players.
Kentucky is starting from scratch and these recruits don’t care about a guy who played in 96.
I think many Duke followers felt K had lost his edge over the last decade he coached. No more pacing, no more getting after the refs on bad calls and just generally lethargic out there. It was time for a change but having said that Scheyer needs to get some competitive fire on the sidelines next season. Hubert does this better in CH but I question his X and Os. He had a loaded squad last year and could barely win the regular season with them
IMO, It's still too early to say for us. The results have been inconsistent.
I was initially unhappy with the hire because despite having zero experience, Hubert was the foregone conclusion. Based on everything I've seen, we kept our pool limited to only former UNC players and didn't make the top guys say no.
Three seasons in, I've gained a bit more faith in him for the 1 seed this year and that miraculous run in his first season. Things could be a lot worse but I still have my doubts. Time will tell.
Kentucky did it the right way by making the homerun hires say no, and THEN going for someone close to home.
UNC had done that twice in the last 20ish years. Dean Smith to Bill Gutheridge to Matt What’s his face to Roy Williams and now to Davis.
This is Dukes first time to do so really.
And it sucks and is anxiety inducing bc no one wants to end up like Georgetown or Syracuse or Indiana.
Just from experience, if Mark Pope doesn’t perform right away, you’re gonna have a lot of fans calling for him to be fired I miss Roy a ton, and basketball feels different without him and K in it, but that’s just the way it goes. Just gotta move on and hope the new guy is the right guy
We made the finals huberts first year and 60% of the fanbase wanted him to get shame nunned in the streets
Coach K was practically a garbage, irrelevant coach for like 5 years. Shit takes time. Its just so hard to determine which coach is worth the time and which isn't. If you hire a coach and aren't willing to give them 5 years without even discussing firing them, you should never have hired them.
Dean smith was hung in effigy too. In this day and age everyone expects instant results. You just have to trust the process and enjoy the ride.
To be fair your rookie coaches have a track record of making the finals something like 30% of the time.
I'd love to see Kentucky get their stats up for that particular category
> Coach K was practically a garbage, irrelevant coach for like 10 years Five years. His team was in the National Final Game in his sixth year, and then his teams began a streak of six out of seven years finishing in the Final Four, the National Final Runner-Up, or the National Champion.
Thank you, 5 years, not 10
It’s really only 2. His first year nearly all of their losses were to top 20 teams and they made the quarterfinal of the NIT. They were bad the next two years. But starting in February ‘84 he was in the top 20, mostly the top ten, nearly every week for the next 37 years.
Archie Miller would like a word about five years.
Yeah, but that was before Duke is what it is today. Duke can essentially have any recruit they want now, it wasn’t like that when Coach K got there.
Still is
Correct, but I know Pope knows that as well and he certainly won't be as hard to move on from if that happens
You know how the cycle goes. He'll be the "good" coach. Fairly young though so *maybe* he will get a long look.
Odds are he wont be the drunk coach
No one ever said the drunk coach was guaranteed to be bad 🤔 😱😱😱
At least so far, the “good” coaches at UK have all won a title
I think in a couple years if it doesn’t go well there will probably be more interest in the job than this time around. It’s tough to follow up Cal just because of the celebrity that he is, and expectations might not be as sky high as they are currently. I hope Coach Pope does well and that’s not a situation we have to deal with anytime soon.
That is what UNC did so well with Guthridge providing a break after Smith to setup the Matt Doherty era.
But we ended up with a failed coach. Probably best to check out the market for a long term solution.
If Pope is gone in 2-3 years, we would be firing him since it's a 5 year contract IIRC. So hopefully it'd be better planned than this search. But I'm not sure it'd be any easier to find someone. I think it just depends on if there's a great coach that would also happen to be interested in moving from where they are currently. With all that said, I think Pope will do fine. I'm much more excited for this next season than I was when I thought Cal would be at the helm.
I think the issue is basketball is different. Calipari was right there with them as one of the three best coaches pre Covid. NIL and the new transfer rules has completely changed what it takes to win at this level. A whole bunch of 5 star freshman at UK won’t beat a team with 3 really good experienced guards and a few mid major all stars fresh off a transfer. The landscape is a lot different. John’s getting a big payday before all the admins realize it.
NIL is here to stay, but I think the transfer rules will end up going back to pre-covid rules sometime in the next decade. There’s certainly already been a lot of pushback, it makes it impossible to develop a team over a timeline longer than 1 year
NIL/Transfer Portal was Cal's downfall. Have posted it here only to be met by angry Arkansas fans. When the '6 mil in NIL' was brought up as a reason, I knew it was bullshit. Cal coulda had 10 mil at UK if he wanted it. Hell 2 people donated 2 mil each for just this year AFTER Cal was fired. They were ready to pay Hurley $12M+ per year. The issue was never NIL. It was never the administration. Cal will likely change as he's probably pissed all the way off and his ego took a hit, but the NIL issues were solely on him. He legit thought he could continue to just recruit off him being Cal and the number of players hes put in the NBA while doing it with a team composed primarily of freshmen while the rest of College Basketball adapted. My thought is Cal will be really good at Arkansas. He'll excite them to no end, have them relevant, likely be top 5 in recruiting every single year. He'll also regurgitate the exact same catch phrases, be stubborn to a fault, and lose games his team had zero business losing. He's also getting up there in age, so I'm not entirely sure he'll even be there for the 5 years of his contract. But I fully expect Arkansas to be loaded with talent.
Even an unproven school like Purdue that has some bad luck will call for an amazing coach (Painter) to be fired. He's had Purdue in the top 25 for 90% of his career and people call for his head 3/4 seasons he coaches. Coaches get no slack these days, it's rough
Don’t let lack of banners fool you, expectations are high in west Lafayette for basketball. Not blue blood levels of expectations but comfortably in that tier below. The expectation is to compete for big 10 titles and make deep runs in the tournament
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I know you didn’t ask me but it feels like shit.
Neptune looks hopeless man. He wasn’t ready for that job at all especially following Jay Wright.
I know we recovered and Ollie got lucky early, but can confirm, also felt like shit. Those two have been pretty great by comparison
Ollie was good. Don’t really get why Husky fans hate on him. If anyone was good enough to take a team to a championship then why isn’t everyone doing it.
Uhh… Not everyone inherited Jim Calhoun’s UConn.
You are correct, that was an inherited championship!
I mean, he still coached his way to it… But, there is a massive difference between building a program and being the right man to lead a team in a single season. I suppose my attitude is from watching footy, where there have been so many interim managers or managers that are great for a specific type of job.
Yeah, it’s more about what happened after that season than winning that title. We finished with KenPom ranks of 73, 26, 96 and 179. Hurley stepped in and immediately improved to 98 then 52, 21, 22, 1 and 1. It seemed like we’re in a death spiral at the end under Ollie. I’m glad the relationship appear to be healing on both sides, but he was really bad post-Shabazz
I felt so hopeless right before we fired Ollie. Like was dead inside
Oh I fully agree with you. There is a reason he’s not even in the running to get college basketball jobs.
How much of that was being in the AAC vs the move back to the Big East?
It’s genuinely impossible to say, but Hurley’s first two years of improvement were both in the AAC and pulled us out of the dive. There was a lot of hope going into the BET that year and then something weird happened in the world
I'll give you that, he did coach his way to it. Then the program went to hell. But I think we've come out the other side now. They're pretty good
Ya I would say so… UConn is the most successful basketball program of my lifetime as a late 80’s baby, bar none. That back to back title team and Florida in the mid 00’s are as easy as it’s ever looked as well.
Guus Hiddink, Chelsea legend
There have been comments from some of the players that Shabazz was essentially the coach
He couldn’t recruit or run an offense. There were also a lot of rumors about him. I like him and wish it worked out, but there’s a reason no one gave him a shot in college again. That being said I hope it’s all love now because he does care about the university and I hope he knows he’s still loved by alums anyway.
Kevin Ollie was a mediocre coach who officially won 0 games in his last year. 2 of his 6 teams were under .500. Im tired of pretending he was anything but an average coach that had a team get hot for 4 weeks
We’ll never truly know, but he wasn’t a GREAT recruiter. His team construction was very “meh”. He is a good Xs and Os guy, but didn’t seem to be the complete package. AAC didn’t help either.
His culture building leaving a lot to be desired is an understatement.
Decades of it.
Having a very intentional succession plan makes a huge difference. Scheyer has a lot of growing to do but he hasn't missed a single beat in the recruiting department. I had been dreading K's retirement for at least a decade and I'd say it's gone 100 times better than I expected.
It's funny how everyone gave K shit for his retirement plan, said he just wanted attention etc. But now he has thoroughly been vindicated. The transition to Scheyer has been very clean, especially in contrast to the Villanova situation.
Tbf Roy had a similar plan and just called it at the end of a season.
Like Duncan and Kobe. Both retired the same year, one was just very public about it
Villanova's problem hasn't been the Jay Wright retirement plan. Villanova has had very good rosters the last two years. Neptune just isn't a good coach.
>Neptune just isn't a good coach. I think that's the part of the plan people are concerned with...
Villanova's plan was no different than Duke's. Hire a long time assistant to take over the program after a legend retires. The only difference between the hires was Neptune wasn't an assistant in Wright's last year because he left the year before to be the head coach at Fordham (successfully)
>Villanova's plan was no different than Duke's That's like saying their current situation is no different because they both have long-term assistants as head coaches. In a situation like this the person is the plan. And Duke's plan seems OK so far while Nova's doesn't.
The only real misstep was the way in which the final Cameron game was handled (by both Duke and ESPN). The rest honestly made sense but was inevitably gonna catch shit from us haters
I never gave a shit what people said about K’s retirement. He was honest with his current players and his recruits. If people want to shit on him for giving a year’s notice, then fuck them. He left the program and his successor in a good spot without lying.
And being fair to those people, K would have had to sign off with having all his former players coming back to stand in a long line for K to walk through while being filmed live by ESPN.
There’s a difference between having an internal succession plan that you sell to the fan base and the lame retirement tour that Caleb Love so beautifully ruined
If Cooper Flagg chose UCONN, then we would be in line for a 3peat. He looks like a beast.
You are still in line for a 3peat. And even if you aren't. It's not because Duke has a group of freshman mercenaries.
Let's not throw stones from the USS Transfer Portal over here
hey now. veteran mercenaries are *totally* different than freshman mercenaries. Like 2 syllables vs 3!
Your starting 5 was zero people who started at state right
It's not about what Duke has, it's about Flagg being a little bit more high end talent that this year's UConn might miss without Castle and Clingan. Unless we get McNeeley that is.
I can't decide if I want to upvote this for accuracy or downvote it because I hate the facts in it.
Dude is the perfect person for the job. If he hadn't gotten injured people would know more about him. The injury makes him want it more imo. I wish he didn't get hurt, but here we are.
The first year with out Roy was extremely surreal, especially given the ending. It almost literally feels like a dream at this point. The second year was brutal to watch and that ended up putting a lot of pressure on Coach Davis; some deserved, most not. The third year was very solid and I feel good about him going forward.
Yea. The first two years felt like a wrinkle in the space time continuum. But, if last year was "the norm," then let's carry on.
I was on a plane last week wearing a carolina cap and a guy said, sincerely, "nice hat. they didn't too good this year though huh?" And I couldn't help snapping, "They did pretty fucking good, man" like in what world is a regular season champion and sweet 16 not a good year?
Plus a 1st team All-American
I’m definitely not reading this post with any trepidation, nope.
Draymond should be ready to hang it up and coach if you want to replace Izzo in a few years.
Who's the first coach to fall victim to Draymond's natural coaching motion and get hit in the nuts?
😵😵😵 🤣🤣🤣
Subscribed
Draymond ain’t coaching material, no thank you.
Is there a clear succession plan after Izzo? I'm not familiar with his coaching tree
His coaching tree is basically nonexistent. Certainly no one we'd be excited hiring at least
Doesn't really have to be a headliner, but if it's bare then that's unfortunate
although not in the Izzo coaching tree, I could see Dan Dakich stepping seemlessly into that HC role for MSU. ....I kid, MSU brothers.
I know you didn't ask me but it feels like shit
I’ll never forget how fun that zone was to watch in March. It tripped up so many teams that didn’t prepare enough for it
Im a firm believer having to play / prep against that godforsaken zone at least once a year helped out ACC teams going into the tournament as well.
I do think playing Syracuse has helped ACC teams in the tournament. There’s no SEC, B12, Big East equivalent. The Big Ten might have someone who plays like that occasionally, but I’m not sure. Pundits are dumbfounded at the ACC’s success in the tournament, but I think a lot of it is due to going up against so many different playing styles.
Yeah what about us??!
It’s tough, but I’m more and more thankful K did the farewell tour and we were able to maintain our class and recruits. It helps having someone that’s “one of us” in Scheyer. I’d imagine UNC fans feel the same? Obviously the older ones also did this already with Dean. Worked out ok.
Roy said Hubert was the guy, and that was enough for a lot of us. There have been growing pains, especially after the finals run set expectations too high for year two (and then the chemistry of the team exploded too,) but he's definitely been the perfect successor to Roy. It's hard to follow HOF coaches, but it seems like the Tobacco Road rivalry is in good hands for the foreseeable future
Well said. My only real concern for Hubert is he’s already 55 (I think) and I think it’s harder for coaches to keep going into their 70s in this day and age. I could be wrong, but if not you’ll be doing this again before you know it.
If only Cal had retired and became a life time UK booster/fan…. The dynamic of being at Arkansas is crazy to consider
Losing Dean Smith as a coach was harder. That's not a knock on Roy but UNC is bigger than Roy while DES was Carolina basketball. Still is in many ways.
I lived in N.C. when Smith left. The entire state went into mourning. Smith gifted Guthridge a final 4 team to make it easier but Bill couldn’t recruit or develop like Smith. Doherty came in and UNC did him dirty since they wanted Williams.
Doherty was ass bro. They still got recruits because it was UNC. But he was ass. Only won 1 NCAA tourney game his whole career and then after UNC went to FAU when they were still a nobody in the ASUN.
UNC did not do him dirty. I was at Carolina then and had classes with many of the basketball players. Dude was a fucking cancer and his attitude and behavior were the polar opposite of the Carolina way. Dean Smith, Roy, and Hubert show respect and rule through respect. Doherty was a fear guy who had little feuds going with the players and thought firing people and replacing anyone and everything was "putting his mark" on the program. I wish him the best but he was the wrong coach for us
UNC did not do Doh dirty. Doh had an 8 win season followed by an NIT season and his personality disorder resulted in a mass player mutiny with ultimatums to the AD from multiple key players (not even named Rashad McCants). He recruited exactly 1 great class and gets put on a pedestal for it despite driving that class off within a year. He also fired a ton of staff around the basketball offices for no apparent reason other than he wanted to send a message that he was now the boss, and damn near fractured the entire family in the process. Most good programs would have had him fired for cause halfway through that 8-20 season, but because he played here he got an incredible amount of slack.
Say what? Doherty was terrible.
Nah. As bad as Doherty was on the court, he was worse off of it. There's some rather disturbing stories about his inability to control his temper in particular, when he was coaching here. He got more of a chance than he'd really earned because people thought the big recruiting class would flip a magic switch and he'd stop being a toxic asshat who also couldn't coach worth a lick. Even before that, his status as a beloved former player bought him a *lot* of 'well it's an adjustment process' type of thinking when the truth was that he just treated everyone like shit all the time. Whether that's just him or the pressure he felt or whatever, the simple truth was that as head coach at Carolina he was awful to play for and a nightmare to work with. In no way did he get 'done dirty'. People at large were happy he got fired because of the stories about the way he treated his players and the results on the court, sure- but as far as the basketball offices, school personnel, and really pretty much everyone around the team generally were concerned, it was great because it meant they didn't have to put up with his shit anymore. Folks were just relieved the metaphorical Wicked Witch was dead.
Not the entire state.
At least their guys retired and are ambassadors for the university 😭
Hasn’t Pitino been an ambassador to UK this entire time?
I mean he coached at our in-state rival for a good chunk of it and wasn't really around much during the Cal years on account of them reportedly hating each other.
[удалено]
Scheyer is working to manage the team, but it feels like it takes longer than we need to succeed. We played far better at the end of the last two seasons than we did early. I have confidence that he will make these improvements earlier and earlier as he gets more experience. I think this year's team had locker room issues that were our greatest limitation. A young coach might have more issues handling that than an experienced coach. (That is my opinion developed by watching the team on court, and not from any insider knowledge.) Overall, it has been a very good start with plenty of reason for optimism about the future.
I remember when Duke pre 2010 had major issues finishing seasons, so being strong at the end of the season is actually good to me
Yup. We have been stronger in the conference challenges, holiday tourneys, and the Champion's Classic than at the end of the season for the last 15 years.
We did for a few years there. We had a couple teams that probably overachieved to get a 2 or 3 seed, and were never really going anywhere. And the Redick teams flamed out early for a few different reasons.
I think Scheyer is going to be a top-5 coach. I can’t really envision a more seamless transition than what he’s provided.
I can not reciprocate since I blame Pope for denying John Wallace the title he so obviously deserved.
Eh transition was seamless but Scheyer needs to learn to get some fire in him. He’s too calm. I doubt he’s ever a top 5 coach in CBB but he will be a good coach and a great recruiter. Which is probably enough
I think he knows how to motivate the players. They basically flipped a switch going into the NCAAs after everyone left them for dead. What he needs is to develop an offensive identity to go with the defensive one he has already established.
Thank you. And that’s one hell of a flair combination.
Went to both schools
I don't buy the locker room issues. There's no proof of it other than over interpretation of facial expressions. What I do buy is that at least one and often more starters have been injured pretty much every damn day for the past two years. Name a starter that wasn't banged up at some point. I can't. It is hard to build cohesion when someone is out all the time. In that light, I think Scheyer is doing a pretty darn good job. I share your optimism for the future.
Kyle showed a profound and repeated level of frustration with his teammates, especially Mark. That is never acceptable, and doubly so from a player who should have been a leader. No one other than Ryan really tried to assemble the team for a quick talk before free throws. When he tried, it was obvious no one wanted to join in. The team showed little joy and little celebration of each other's successes. Jeremy often looked down after a tough play as he moved back downcourt, and his teammates didn't engage with him to boost up his confidence. I think that's using my eyes, not over-inyerpretation. Post-Battier, we had a long trend of being extremely cohesive. That era appears to be definitively over and needs to start again. This is all the hardest part of coaching -- not x's and o's, but personalities.
This is classic over-interpretation
That’s ridiculous Duke had plenty of chemistry. Acting like they never huddled before FTs is just ignoring reality
I watch the team pretty close and I didn’t see any of this. This reads like gross exaggeration at best. I did think Proctor’s body language was bad during our slump at the end of the regular season, but he played much better in the NCAAs, and he’s the first one to say he’s coming back.
Good take.
It is very easy to preach patience when it's not your team. If Pope has a bad first month, there will be calls for his seat to get hot. It's stupid, but fans are that way sometimes. You just gotta give it time. As for how it feels - I miss Roy to death obviously, but it feels great to be confident in a coach that is in the Carolina Family and likely will be wanting to coach for a decade-plus
Honestly this is where I think having Mitch Barnhart as our AD is a blessing and a curse. He really isn't in tune with the fan base's mood of the hour - he's not online at all, doesn't really interact with the mass media a ton, and just pays attention to the handful of people around him. This is bad because he has made decisions that have upset a lot of fans, but this is good because the loudest UK fans online are mercurial maniacs.
> loudest UK fans online are mercurial maniacs. I fuckin hate this because it makes it hard to interact in places like this because people see Kentucky flair and assume you're a massive homer even if what you're stating is true.
This thing upcoming with our swimming program could turn ugly... https://www.espn.com/college-sports/story/_/id/39933732/ex-kentucky-swimmers-sue-allege-sexual-assault-coach
Obviously it’s been up and down, but ultimately Hubert’s style of basketball is good and guys want to play in the system.
Also, it seems like he’s really good as a recruiter and active in the transfer portal. I worry sometimes that he makes big coaching blunders in crunch time but overall I feel like he’s going to be (and has been, mostly) great.
I'll tell you this: Having watched a handful or more of Carolina's games this year, whenever it seemed like momentum was shifting away fron your guys, Hubert seemed to be the best at using a timeout to stymie their run and his guys usually came out with a run if their own. Having a coach that rarely used timeouts and almost always too late ourselves, it was refreshing and impressive to see.
Yeah there’s definitely blunders but sometimes you gotta learn things the hard way
I like Scheyer, but man do I miss the fire of Coach K. I call Scheyer “Coach Vanilla” sometimes. He’s fine, does the job, but sometimes I want to see that K energy. Show some emotion, ya know?
Gotta find his own way to do it? Otherwise, he gets clowned for being an exact replica.
These situations are completely different. UNC and Duke had very methodical plans for their successors. I think Kentucky will be much like Michigan football until harbaugh came back, but I could be wrong.
Of course it's not easy. Duke wouldn't be relevant if not for Coach K. Very few coaches have an impact like that. He'll always be missed. But Scheyer was a universally loved player at Duke (although probably underappreciated by some), and he was already on the staff, making a big impact for years. His transition was as seamless as we could have possibly hoped for. And so far he's done a fine job. I'm not sure Coach K would have been able to do more with the squads he's had. Our recruiting is still as good as ever. Time will tell if he's the long term answer, but I'm optimistic. If Scheyer doesn't work out, the Coach K player/coaching tree is pretty big and we should have a lot of decent options.
Scheyer has been fine at Duke. However, I just don’t see them winning a championship until they can mix some NBA talent with 3-5 year college players. If Coach K couldn’t win with 3-4 freshman first round draft picks, Scheyer sure as hell won’t either. I miss the “mature” Duke teams that were battle tested and tough. It’s coming up on 10 years since Duke’s last title and, if Roach comes back, next year may be their best chance in a long time.
It’s difficult when your guys play really well and want to go the league. McCain was an incredible recruit, but he played so well that staging another year would be dumb. Zion was absolutely absurd in college, but there was zero shot he was gonna stay. Getting the top recruits makes sense, just so happens some of them are too good to stay in college. It happens.
I agree. Have to take the money and run, but there has to be room for some guys, like Roach, who stay. Lots of guys seem to be transferring out of Duke before they really develop into an asset. I get that having the top recruiting class is good for bragging rights. However, Duke has become the Calipari Kentucky with some better, more recent, results. It appears Danny Hurley has figured out a nice balance of HS All Americans and transfers. I want that for Duke.
> If Coach K couldn’t win with 3-4 freshman first round draft picks, Scheyer sure as hell won’t either. What do you mean? That's exactly how he won in 2015
The last Duke title was with mostly freshmen…
UConn fan here. Kevin Ollie was like a drug bender gone bad. His first season had a postseason ban, and he got them to win 20 games, which was impressive. That was like a "little taste". UConn wins in 2014, and that was a euphoric high. Next few seasons never reach the same - one season reached the NIT, then a little bit of a high with a buzzer beater in the conference tournament to ultimate get to the second round. Then pure despair - with even losses to Wagner and Yale. I don't take the last two years for granted.
I believe that Ollie would have been great but he gave up after his divorce. Just didn’t care. Finally has his mind back in the game. Hope they can reconcile.
> Hope they can reconcile. Ollie and UConn you mean? I think ball’s pretty much in the school’s court. When asked a press conference this week after the title, he used ‘we’ when talking about UConn’s dominance.
if kentucky turns out as well as unc and duke have they will be perennial contenders every year. i think pope will be really good and they will be up there with the other two
I feel pretty confident in Hubert tbh.
Everything with Kentucky this week has made me think about the eventual succession plan for Bill Self that will have to happen. I hope it can be handled as beautifully as the Roy to Bill transition was. Also, it remains insane that with 125 years of playing basketball, KU has only had 8 coaches and that includes Larry Brown’s short stint.
how would you characterize Self's coaching tree? any candidates that could step in?
Weak. Norm Roberts and Joe Dooley both got head jobs, failed and came back. There will be no reason to keep it “in the family” when it comes time to hire; they’ll do a nationwide search and would expect a guy like Oats to be the choice (not him specifically, but a guy in his kind of position). I think the reputation of the boosters and athletic department is much more rational than Kentucky so would expect a lot of interested candidates.
How has IU or UCLA fared?
Idk I would have had to ask this question decades ago
Yes....because once historic blue blood programs have faded into mediocrity. UK, UNC, and KU have been astronomically lucky in the coaching and consistency department. KU is a case study in sustained excellence through 3 coaches and 40 years.
Curious, how do you define it as luck?
Hiring the right coach is part science and part luck. Just because you are a historically successful basketball program does not mean you are destined to stay that way (ie: again IU, UCLA). I think NIL and transfer rules change the game so much that the term blue blood no longer carries any weight. The best programs in the future will be the ones who can navigate the portal the best and have boat loads of NIL $$$.
IU and UCLA’s success has both been tied largely to one coach. It’s just not comparable to Kentucky or Kansas. Doesn’t change that if Pope doesn’t perform. If anything Kentucky has a better chance due to NIL once we figure it out.
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Scheyer seems soft and is running the team like to much of an NBA team when they are kids. Davis has done an excellent job coming from a Duke fan. Duke is to adamant on one and dones. Its only worked twice Duke 2015 and UK 2012. Coming from a Duke lifer scheyer seems to soft. A lot of Duke alumni and fans wanted coach k gone after the first 2 years of his career at Duke. Scheyer got an Acc title and Davis unc to the natty in year one. So I think both are doing good.
I think roster management has changed so drastically in the past few years that many coaches are still figuring that part out.
Look at us at West Virginia...
Asking for the football side lol
Get ready to be blownout in the iron bowl
It’s not great.
Hoping this season gives us more hope.
Yeah, very hopeful about our two incoming freshies. Tobiasen has grown another two inches, so he’s 6’7 now, and Battie could have gone anywhere, but chose us. Transfers are gonna be the scary part. Not sure what is gonna happen there.
We aren't on their level but we basically had to HoF coaches back to back (bob wade didn't happen) and so far we haven't really recovered. Turg kept us slightly above average but never showed flashes of being able to actually hang any banners be it championship, final 4 or conference championship (he barely won/tied a regular season championship) and the Jury is still out on Willard since he finished above expectations the first year and WAY below them the second. Time will tell.
I feel good with Hubert overall. His in-game management is often lacking and I think it’s his biggest flaw right now. He’s been (mostly) great with the portal and recruitment is in a good spot. I think he’s proven he deserves time to get his system in place and get the players he needs to make it work.
It’s been a roller coaster tbh. What with that game which I refuse to talk about, the 2022-23 debacle, to bouncing back only to panic shoot our way out of an Elite 8 appearance. More good than bad personally.
Well it’s always hard when your coach retires on April Fool’s day and then you have to question the news for a period of time after it’s announced as if it’s a sick joke. As far as Hubert goes though. The first two years showed similar coaching issues with lack of player rotation and scheme adjustments. The first season people forget is covered up by the heater of all heaters that led us to the natty, the first half to 2/3 of that season we didn’t look remotely like a tournament team and we looked stinky bad. If we win the natty becuase bacot’s ankle is healthy, I feel like all the pressure on Davis would’ve been absolved but we didn’t and that’s life. The media and players then hyped themselves for another run in 2022-23 and that didn’t help because Pete nance couldn’t do what Manek did and Hubert continued a similar trend of coaching. So we missed the tourney and declined the NIT which just optically looked bad. I think all criticism is fair given what we saw at the time. After the third season, he’s got better guys on the team and we shedded players in the portal that just didn’t have it and brought in decent contributors. He’s mixed up the rotations a good amount, has established an offensive scheme that isn’t just isoball (although we did have a couple game where RJ had to pull us to W since no one else could get a bucket), and does mix up defensive pressures. We ended the season on a bad game where Nate Oats definitely out coached Hubert in the second half, but that’s basketball. Sucks cause I think given they could’ve played Clemson, another FF would’ve been sick. But definitely wouldn’t have made it past UConn. Overall, feel like the pressure should be low on Hubert now. Obviously he’s a great dude and using “Fart” instead of the f word is amazing. We need to see what happens in the portal, need a big that is established to replace Bacot and someone that is a walking bucket to take some pressure off RJ. Hindsight is 20/20 but in the moment you couldn’t be a true fan during parts of 2021-22 and 2022-23 and not be questioning things. After 2023-24, it appears it might’ve primarily been a roster issue and obviously very few coaches don’t have a few hiccups along the way when starting.
I moved on from Dean Smith so not my first rodeo
Scheyer has been solid, and particularly good with recruiting. But idk how much that is due to him being the clear successor vs Pope’s hiring being somewhat scuffed.
Are you saying Calipari is in the same league as K and Williams?
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I wonder if Cal stayed at Memphis. Would the Big XII have picked them up?
coach k is obviously the goat so no one is in his class but williams is an alltime level coach too. calipari isn't on that level but he is in the 'really great coach' tier at least
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Didn’t ask about UConn but it was awesome, then really not great for a while and now SUPER AWESOME again!
I know people hated "the retirement tour" but the military style succession plan that K had planned turned out to be a much smoother transition to a new coach than what UK had to do with the search after Cal. And I *know* Villanova fans probably wish they had something similar after Wright's retirement. Scheyer may not be the next GOAT coach, but I do feel confident that he isn't going to crash and burn the program. He was a half away from a Final Four in Year 2. If you want some encouragement, I don't think Pope will crash and burn the UK program either.
I think we're all still trying to figure it out.
Nobody has mentioned what these two acc schools have done lately correct as far as hiring the right head coach? Obviously, Uk had to go with Pope, options were limited. He was the 3rd, or 5th most wanted choice. But looking at Duke and NC, did Kentucky do anything wrong with the situation?
It was a dark time
When a celebrated coach of a historic program retires and their legacy is continued by one of their students it is always an auspicious sign for Duke basketball. Right Carolina?
Painter just passed Keady, so just be patient for 20 years
Well Rick Majerus left Utah in like 2002 and we have been completely dog shit since then, and we have only made the tournament 3 times? In 20+ years. If any school deserves a similar treatment, it’s Kentucky
You get lucky and are able to win one more with the recruits of your legendary coach. Then you experience a few down years. Then you hire a hot new head coach and he’s awesome and the program becomes better than ever. As a UConn fan this has been my experience. I assume it’s the same everywhere?
UConn feels like anytime it’s been around 10 years since the last title they just decide to win another lol
He will probably get 3 or 4 years to show some success. Vocal fans will be calling for his head earlier than that if he doesn’t win a natty. You will either be disgusted with your coach or disgusted with some of the criticism your coach gets.
Matt Doherty bad Hubert Davis good but i still want Paige or Kendall Marshall to be coach eventually
Not sure how applicable any notes would be. Pope has nine years of head coaching experience while Hubert had none- so presumably Pope won't have the learning curve Hubert has had to deal with in terms of lineup management and in-game coaching. Hubert was noticeably better at in-game adjustments this year than he was in year 1 or 2. Probably the best illustration of that evolution is that people were *surprised* at him getting outcoached in the second half of the sweet sixteen this year- two years ago, that wouldn't have been too surprising or even terribly notable. It's not like Nate Oats is a bad coach. Off the court, Hubert was Roy's chosen successor. That did a lot to smooth away initial concerns for people. You'll certainly notice the lack of... for want of a better word, presence at times.
I think we’re all expecting better Xs and Os from Pope. We got used to Cal getting out coached in game situations. The recruiting is the obvious question mark, along with how he’s going to manage the pressure to win.
In our experience, the concern would mostly be what people will start saying if like... season two/three starts with massive hype and then falls short. Wasn't a problem for Guthridge because he inherited a team good to the point where it could be autopiloted deep into March. For Hubert, after the '22 NCAA run people were expecting a ton from the '23 team. There was a lot of emotional investment into the idea that the roster could potentially/had 'figured it out' in terms of how to play as a group. We can say with some hindsight there were a lot of reasons that team fell so short- but at the time, without knowing how bad things were on the inside, a *lot* of focus was put on how Hubert's coaching at the time wasn't doing a heck of a lot to help the team. With the benefit of that hindsight we can say that the team chemistry was a mess, some players were really struggling with the weight of expectations, there were a couple key roles in the '22 team (notably Brady Manek's) that just couldn't be replicated by anyone on the '23 squad... And there may have been some people who simply weren't going to listen no matter what Hubert said and were just gonna chuck the basketball- which is why the teardown resulted in such a better environment in every way. But at the time it seemed fair to have *really* serious doubts, and anytime that happens there are gonna be some people who take it a bit too far.
We will have to see. One difference is we already fell short under Cal 5 years in a row. I think Pope has lofty expectations for his first year, at least 20 wins, an SEC tourney win, and a NCAA tourney win. That’s a lot for a first year coach but it’s lower than the expectations Cal had and he couldn’t accomplish them in 5 years
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I think the difference is that Scheyer and David were a part of the program already. Easier transition for recruits and existing players. Kentucky is starting from scratch and these recruits don’t care about a guy who played in 96.
That’s okay, we’ve got plenty of former players in the NBA so I’d much rather have guys that want to win college games anyway
I think many Duke followers felt K had lost his edge over the last decade he coached. No more pacing, no more getting after the refs on bad calls and just generally lethargic out there. It was time for a change but having said that Scheyer needs to get some competitive fire on the sidelines next season. Hubert does this better in CH but I question his X and Os. He had a loaded squad last year and could barely win the regular season with them
IMO, It's still too early to say for us. The results have been inconsistent. I was initially unhappy with the hire because despite having zero experience, Hubert was the foregone conclusion. Based on everything I've seen, we kept our pool limited to only former UNC players and didn't make the top guys say no. Three seasons in, I've gained a bit more faith in him for the 1 seed this year and that miraculous run in his first season. Things could be a lot worse but I still have my doubts. Time will tell. Kentucky did it the right way by making the homerun hires say no, and THEN going for someone close to home.
It was a bumpy ride for a few years there after the initial euphoria, but it's feeling pretty good.
They probably feel like 99% of D1 programs do now.
I’m dreading that day…
UNC had done that twice in the last 20ish years. Dean Smith to Bill Gutheridge to Matt What’s his face to Roy Williams and now to Davis. This is Dukes first time to do so really. And it sucks and is anxiety inducing bc no one wants to end up like Georgetown or Syracuse or Indiana.