Seems related from Seth Davis' mailbag.....Iowa, disgruntled fans, performance compared to the program's history, coach leaving on his own, etc. Sorry for the length.
I am curious about Steve Alford. How is it he can coach so well at New Mexico after having been so inept at Iowa? Has the Iowa experience improved his ability to coach or did he just give up and get out when he could? Seems like he should have been able to parlay the Big Ten tourney championships into something better.
-- Travis, Ypsilanti, Mich.
If Travis was trying to pay Alford a compliment, he did a pretty lousy job. Frankly, it doesn't take a whole lot of guts to rip someone from the safety of your cubicle in Ypsilanti, especially if you're not going to provide your last name. You want to show some guts? Voice that opinion to Alford directly.
I'm not sure if it showed guts or foolishness, but I decided to reach out to Alford myself on Tuesday and read him Travis' e-mail, word for word. Steve accepted the backhanded compliment with typical good cheer -- winning tends to put a guy in a good mood -- before offering up a feisty defense of his eight-year tenure at Iowa.
"We had seven winning seasons and we won two Big Ten [tournament] titles," he said. "If you look at the history of Iowa basketball, I think they've won four or five Big Ten titles of any kind. Yet, the perception is we weren't successful there."
Travis' e-mail is yet another example of just how misguided criticism of coaches can be. If fans aren't happy with their program -- and at some point, most of them aren't -- their reflexive reaction is to call for a coaching change. In the grand scheme of things, however, the coach is not nearly as fundamental to a program's success as many fans want to believe. All you have to do is look at Alford's record before and after his Iowa tenure, not to mention Iowa's record before and after Alford coached there.
It starts with unrealistic expectations. If Alford were the coach at his alma mater, Indiana, and he took the team to the NCAA tournament three times in eight years and failed to reach the Sweet 16, that could rightly be characterized as a disappointment. At Iowa, however, that was very impressive. After Alford left, he was replaced by Todd Lickliter, who had just been named National Coach of the Year after taking Butler to the Sweet 16. Lickliter won 38 games in three years and never finished higher than eighth in the Big Ten. He got fired and was replaced by Fran McCaffrey, who had just gone to three straight NCAA tournaments at Siena. In his nearly two years at Iowa, McCaffrey's teams have gone 10-22 in Big Ten play. Those guys didn't forget how to coach upon arriving at Iowa any more than Alford remembered how to coach once he got to New Mexico. Success and failure is about much, much more than the man on the sidelines.
Remember, too, that Alford didn't get fired at Iowa. He voluntarily left for New Mexico. Why? In the first place, he was undercut by his then-athletic director, Bob Bowlsby, who refused to stand up to the message-board crowd in Alford's defense. In addition, New Mexico offered Alford a commitment to basketball that Iowa couldn't. When Alford got to Albuquerque, he had a new practice facility and a full-time strength coach, two things he didn't have at Iowa. (Iowa just completed an expensive renovation of its arena last year, which included an upgrade of its practice courts, weight room and other facilities.) The Lobos get great fan support year in and year out, which helps recruiting. (It also encourages unreasonable expectations, but that is the nature of fandom.) During his five years at New Mexico, Alford's teams have never won fewer than 22 games.
Keep in mind that the year before he came to Iowa, Alford had piloted Southwest Missouri State to the Sweet 16. That's right, Southwest Missouri State. He is, by any standard, one of the finest college basketball coaches in America. He also got out of Iowa at exactly the right time, just as fans like Travis from Ypsilanti were getting the eight-year itch. Ask Illinois coach Bruce Weber about the eight-year itch. He's in his ninth season in Champaign, and he's about to get canned.
"In this profession, it's hard to stay long-term at one place," Alford told me. "Unless you're winning 20 games and advancing in the NCAA tournament every year, which is hard to do, it becomes very difficult. With all the social media and everything else, you need to have a total commitment from the administration, not just in publicly backing you but also providing the help you need. I feel like I have that at New Mexico."
In return, New Mexico has a winning basketball team and one very happy coach. We'll see if things turn out as well at the place Alford left behind.
