Frustrated by stagnation, Mark Coyle puts more money into Gophers men’s basketball

BleedGopher

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I can only imagine the texts he sends his wife!

Per Greder:

After Coyle fired head coach Ben Johnson and courted Medved away from Colorado State in March, revenue sharing was discussed in the hiring process.

“Those conversations he and I had were very upfront, talking about that,” Coyle said. “We wanted to invest a little bit more in men’s basketball to help that program get jumpstarted.”


Go Gophers!!
 




“Stagnation” can describe the status of pretty much every sport under Coyle’s watch. I can’t think of one sport that’s gotten markedly better in his tenure as AD.
 



“Stagnation” can describe the status of pretty much every sport under Coyle’s watch. I can’t think of one sport that’s gotten markedly better in his tenure as AD.
Football - Yes
Men's Hoops - Nope (Johnson hire)
Women's Hoops - Nope (Whalen hire)
Men's Hockey - Nope
Women's Hockey - Nope
Wrestling - Nope
Volleyball - Nope
Softball - Nope
Baseball - Nope

On paper, that's a pretty depressing resume for an AD but I'll never claim to have enough insight to determine how much of the blame resides with the UM Administration's ineptitude and possible financial restraints placed on Coyle.
 

Football - Yes
Men's Hoops - Nope (Johnson hire)
Women's Hoops - Nope (Whalen hire)
Men's Hockey - Nope
Women's Hockey - Nope
Wrestling - Nope
Volleyball - Nope
Softball - Nope
Baseball - Nope

On paper, that's a pretty depressing resume for an AD but I'll never claim to have enough insight to determine how much of the blame resides with the UM Administration's ineptitude and possible financial restraints placed on Coyle.
Makes Maturi look better day after day. 🤔😏🤷
 

Football - Yes
Men's Hoops - Nope (Johnson hire)
Women's Hoops - Nope (Whalen hire)
Men's Hockey - Nope
Women's Hockey - Nope
Wrestling - Nope
Volleyball - Nope
Softball - Nope
Baseball - Nope

On paper, that's a pretty depressing resume for an AD but I'll never claim to have enough insight to determine how much of the blame resides with the UM Administration's ineptitude and possible financial restraints placed on Coyle.
I wouldn’t say Fleck has markedly improved the football program from the Kill/Claeys years. Marginally improved? I’ll buy that, but we haven’t seen a dramatic change in terms of wins and losses or prominence of the program, either in conference or nationally. But I agree with your assessments of all the other sports (the current men’s and women’s hoops regimes do have a chance to break out after he made two historically awful hires before them).
 



I wouldn’t say Fleck has markedly improved the football program from the Kill/Claeys years. Marginally improved? I’ll buy that, but we haven’t seen a dramatic change in terms of wins and losses or prominence of the program, either in conference or nationally. But I agree with your assessments of all the other sports (the current men’s and women’s hoops regimes do have a chance to break out after he made two historically awful hires before them).
I would say that Fleck has raised the "floor" of our program, but like you, I would certainly still like to visit the "ceiling".
 

I wouldn’t say Fleck has markedly improved the football program from the Kill/Claeys years. Marginally improved? I’ll buy that, but we haven’t seen a dramatic change in terms of wins and losses or prominence of the program, either in conference or nationally. But I agree with your assessments of all the other sports (the current men’s and women’s hoops regimes do have a chance to break out after he made two historically awful hires before them).
Id echo marginally not markedly improved during his tenure for football. Last three years included two 8-4 regular seasons. If we go over to the football board, im hearing that this would be a pretty successful year if we could get to 8-4.

If we were closer in time to 2019, id probably say "marked."
 





I would have preferred he said “substantially more” than “a little bit more”.
 




Football - Yes
Men's Hoops - Nope (Johnson hire)
Women's Hoops - Nope (Whalen hire)
Men's Hockey - Nope
Women's Hockey - Nope
Wrestling - Nope
Volleyball - Nope
Softball - Nope
Baseball - Nope

On paper, that's a pretty depressing resume for an AD but I'll never claim to have enough insight to determine how much of the blame resides with the UM Administration's ineptitude and possible financial restraints placed on Coyle.
Wrestling no one going to do what JRob did at his best, Iowa is still a wagon and Penn State has the best high school wrestling in their backyard to recruit from. One can certainly argue they are better now than they were at the end when JRob resigned. Little surprised he kept that one in house TBH or more that eh was allowed to keep that one in house.

Hockey kinda the same as wrestling Lucia had a better overall run early on, reached the pinnacle of his sport twice, but I would certainly argue Motzko last four years were better than Lucia last four years. Seems like Woog, Lucia and Now Motzko went through the same cycle in the post Herbie era. I am willing to bet when we replace Motzko the powers that be in our local hockey community will once again tell whomever the AD is what to do.

Women's hockey Brad Frost was an assistant on the inaugural team, they have had two coaches. Perhaps if Sparty and Michigan started fielding women's teams it would cut off Wisconsin and Ohio States recruiting efforts there, or perhaps the gophs could be less provincial in that sport.

Baseball the new guy is what the third coach since the Korean war? Will see how years two and three go but 14 lead that program into the ground post 2018

Softball besides Piper, Coyle did hire Traschell who got us to the world series and then somehow the two seed in a regional when we were number two in the country the following year when they were even better.

Men's basketball seems pretty obvious what the parameters were and after we didn't get Gates we went a certain way. I'm willing to judge Coyle there based on how Niko does since he had the freedom to pick who he wanted.

Won't defend the Whalen hire but everyone loved it at the time so it seems pretty convenient to bitch about it now. Will see how Dawn does.

Volleyball, Hugh was better but last I check we are still a top 25 program in the country, not like they've bottomed out. Will see if they can get to a final four again with this coach

Soccer seems to be doing better.

DO people hate Coyle because he mumbled too much in a press conference in 2017? Everyone seems to be in a rush to run off the Best AD we've had since segregation ended. There's a reason Coyle's name gets mentioned when USC or other big time programs have openings, personally I thought he did a good job of being proactive and making Pitino, Whalen and Lucia's buyouts more stomachable. I for one don't want to go back to Maturi and Megatongue type AD's again
 

I wouldn’t say Fleck has markedly improved the football program from the Kill/Claeys years. Marginally improved? I’ll buy that, but we haven’t seen a dramatic change in terms of wins and losses or prominence of the program, either in conference or nationally. But I agree with your assessments of all the other sports (the current men’s and women’s hoops regimes do have a chance to break out after he made two historically awful hires before them).
I would say Fleck has raised both the ceiling, (2019) and the floor of the program. His worse season was year one (0) at 5-7.
 




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