You say that now about Shaka but the tone was a lot different in here a few days earlier.
Help me understand this, Flip has never been a head coach in the college ranks (at least not D1), he was a college assistant coach 25 years ago. Other than being an alumnus, why is Flip considered an attractive candidate to some? I just don't see it and maybe there's something there that an outsider isn't privy to. Then again, maybe somebody on the outside can be a bit more objective.
Are there any examples of a primarily pro coach who made a successful transition to college coaching (at least more successful than Tubby was here)? The only one that comes to mind is Larry Brown at UCLA and Kansas.
NBA coaches don't make transitions to college very often because of different reasons. Some would be because of the money, others because of the prestige. Its the same with the NFL, once a coach gets into that whole Pro coaching circuit, many of them see it as a demotion or a step down to go down to coaching college, and in many cases the pay is less. So its not going to happen very often.
But this is the deal. Coaching is coaching. There are some differences, obviously, pro coaches are dealing with adults, MEN who are getting paid and who don't always want to be there, or don't love their jobs. College coaches have young men, some arguably are only kids, and there are headaches dealing with that. So the differences seem to some to be too big for a coach to make the transition.
But certain coaches have the type of demeanor and character that they'd do well no matter what level they coached at. Tony Dungy is an example of a Pro coach who would have done well coaching a college team and I didn't mention him just because he is a Gopher alum. But Flip, imo, is a guy who I do think was successful in the NBA, in the CBA, at a Bible College, and I believe he'd be successful at the Div 1 level as well.
Flip sees himself as a teacher and has stated that if he stays involved with the NBA he would not want to coach, but would prefer doing GM work. IF he was going to coach, he's said, he would prefer to do so at the college level. He said this recently and it was pretty obvious what he was hinting at.
He's smart, a great bb mind, and humble, too. He seems to be ok with not being the U's #1 target. That takes humility considering that the T-Wolves probably want him as their GM. So how hard is it to believe that he might be ok with bringing in top notch assistants, and not doing a Tubby and bringing in a bunch of do nothing cronies that just get paid to pretend like they are doing something but really only do what Tubby told them to do. He'd probably be ok with letting NT pick one of his assistants from his Villa 7 connections.
He loves the U. He would be more likely to make decisions that were in the U's best interest, not his. There is no guarantee that anyone will every be so selfless. But like I said, it would be MORE LIKELY that Flip would have that kind of attitude towards the job.
And the day that Tubby got fired, I remember reading several tweets from former Gophers and current Gophers ALL saying, "OK, now lets bring in Flip".
Those are not old folks. Those are young men. Those are the guys just a few years older than the guys we want to bring to the U.
