McCollum - Medved Rivalry

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Oatmeal Savage

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I’m excited about the start of the season and the start of the Niko regime. This is definitely the right place for him and I think he’s the right coach for us.

That being said, I’m curious to see how things play out south of the border. The algorithms served me up this (and preview of Gophers-Iowa football). Iowa is definitely the right place for him. It’ll be interesting to see if he’s right for Iowa. For the sake of a good rivalry, I hope so.

Medved and McCollum both have a decent amount of head coaching experience at lower levels, the one year of Drake seasoning, and both were hired the same year to take over the Big Ten programs they care about that need a shot in the arm to return them to the glory days they remember.

A rivalry has to be competitive, so the games can be close, we can be near each other in the standings, and we can both make the NCAA tournament. But let’s beat them in the games, edge them out in the standings, and advance at least one round further each time.
 


Oatmeal Savage said:
I’m excited about the start of the season and the start of the Niko regime. This is definitely the right place for him and I think he’s the right coach for us.

That being said, I’m curious to see how things play out south of the border. The algorithms served me up this (and preview of Gophers-Iowa football). Iowa is definitely the right place for him. It’ll be interesting to see if he’s right for Iowa. For the sake of a good rivalry, I hope so.

Medved and McCollum both have a decent amount of head coaching experience at lower levels, the one year of Drake seasoning, and both were hired the same year to take over the Big Ten programs they care about that need a shot in the arm to return them to the glory days they remember.

A rivalry has to be competitive, so the games can be close, we can be near each other in the standings, and we can both make the NCAA tournament. But let’s beat them in the games, edge them out in the standings, and advance at least one round further each time.
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I just want to be good enough to be a rival with anyone again! We haven't finished ahead of wisconsin in the BT standings since the Final Four. Would love our traditional football rivals to be our traditional basketball rivals again, but it's up to Medved to earn that right.

Go Gophers!!
 

BleedGopher said:
I just want to be good enough to be a rival with anyone again! We haven't finished ahead of wisconsin in the BT standings since the Final Four. Would love our traditional football rivals to be our traditional basketball rivals again, but it's up to Medved to earn that right.

Go Gophers!!
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He will.
 



BleedGopher said:
I just want to be good enough to be a rival with anyone again! We haven't finished ahead of wisconsin in the BT standings since the Final Four. Would love our traditional football rivals to be our traditional basketball rivals again, but it's up to Medved to earn that right.

Go Gophers!!
Click to expand...
Well put.

The Iowa situation is going to be very compelling to watch. I was always impressed with Fran and his teams' play and feel like he got a raw deal down there. That said, McCollum has all the signs of being an uncommon coach and program builder. He clearly knows what he's doing, and his results have been almost unreal. That said, Lickliter showed that nothing is guaranteed in Iowa City--that even though the program has been objectively successful over the years, it can go bad.
 

Bad Gopher said:
Well put.

The Iowa situation is going to be very compelling to watch. I was always impressed with Fran and his teams' play and feel like he got a raw deal down there. That said, McCollum has all the signs of being an uncommon coach and program builder. He clearly knows what he's doing, and his results have been almost unreal. That said, Lickliter showed that nothing is guaranteed in Iowa City--that even though the program has been objectively successful over the years, it can go bad.
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Fran’s teams were generally good to very good on offense, but bottom of the barrel on defense. He would routinely put the 5 best offensive players on the floor and ignore defensive liabilities altogether. This is objectively supported by his teams’ analytics over the years.

McCollum’s teams have had much better analytics, and he seems to get both ends of the floor. It’ll be down to recruiting for him, because he’s a much more complete coach
 

I'm not thinking that Ben McCollum has proven much at the Power Conference level. Clearly, he can coach and has had terrific success at the D2 level plus 1 year at Drake. There will be a learning curve for him in recruiting, travel, preparation for B10 opponents. Niko is 8 years older, has coached high D1 basketball for 8 years with success, and things for MN should be smoother in program building. Like some of the pre-season All Big Ten player picks, McCollum is still just the shiny object to me until they win games.
 

formerlybis said:
Fran’s teams were generally good to very good on offense, but bottom of the barrel on defense. He would routinely put the 5 best offensive players on the floor and ignore defensive liabilities altogether. This is objectively supported by his teams’ analytics over the years.
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It's true.
 



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