I agree with that now. When I wrote that post, I didn't know how badly Smith wanted the Gopher job and was willing to do it for less money than Coyle is paying BJ.
Nope. Either he and Gable came to an agreement before hand, or Gable put her foot down, that it had to be a Black hire.
Nope. SM is even less qualified than BJ to be a Big Ten head coach. At least BJ has coached in the Big Ten. SM has one year in college, at Memphis, then was fired or quit (not sure, but does it matter?).
You are wrong, and you can't prove otherwise.
He should've proven that he can even be a successful head coach first, at a lower level.
Gable learned her lesson.
Coyle did say Gable, "spent way too much time with him and the search committee during the process." Which I thought was a strange comment for a process that took a week, which didn't seem overly long. I doubt Gable was a wallflower and I am sure her input in that "way too much time" of a relatively short process was not input about the 5 out offense or ball line defense, I am pretty certain her input was about minority coaching ratios. I am sure Coyle was under a lot of pressure.
It really should not be difficult for anyone to understand this.
If it was really 'Black or bust' on the demand of the school president, that's wrong. We get nowhere as a program, an institution, or as a society by hiring an objectively unqualified candidate on the basis of their color. It makes a mockery of the affirmative hiring concept and can embitter or harden people against affirmative action. Not to mention the improper usurping of Coyle's authority. I hope it didn't go down like this, but I fear it did.
I'm generally of the opinion of expanding access and equity for underrepresented peoples, as I'm sure you know.
I agree with the overall point you are making, but the Wright/Washington fiasco wasn't entirely an evaluation fiasco. The spot was there for Wright to take, but he didn't take it, he wanted to play the field a bit more, maybe he was enjoying the process. I believe they wanted McKinley more, but in recruiting you learn how unpredictable kids are. As they say a bird in hand is worth two in the bush. If Pitino would have paused on Washington (who was a highly rated recruit), for McKinley, and then lost Washington and then McKinley decides to goes elsewhere, then you have nothing. I just wish McKinley would have taken the spot and not danced around.
The exact opposite happened. They slow played Wright so they could get Washington and we all saw how that worked out.
The strib hasn’t written one negative article about U of M athletics budgeting or diversity since the hire.
Not correct. Wright had his visit, didn't commit because he wanted to go to Dayton visit. Washington came in and accepted the offer after Wright's visit/non commit.
I think it isn’t easy to point at individual examples of individual kids because we don’t ever know the whole story. But the vibe from MN basketball coaches I know is that Pitino was always looking for the next best thing.
If it did go down like that I'd look for Coyle to jump ship soon to somewhere he is able to do his job without interference. If that happens it's a pretty good indication of what happened here.
This isn't true. They wouldn't let Wright commit because they had Washington coming in the following week.
I will say, the one year at Nebraska thing, I am guessing, is because he got the opportunity to come back home to Minnesota and that was a dream for him. Otherwise he would have stayed at Nebraska. Like I said, just a guess.
Not if Gable talked it out with him and they came to a mutual agreement on "the plan".
Well yeah. That's exactly what I am saying. If they didn't though I wouldn't be surprised if Coyle left soin.
OK, how do you know this?
You didn't know anything anyway.
You don't know that either. There was probably a price he could have been had at. We weren't going to pay it. And if he takes Arkansas to the Final Four they would move heaven and earth to keep him. Whatever chance we may have had probably peaked when they were getting blown out by Colgate early and evaporated when they won on Sunday, if not sooner.
So you are calling me a liar. That's fine. Go for it. I know differently. Anyway, it doesn't matter at this point. Two things are true. Johnson is the coach and you remain an idiot.
No, you don't.
I'm hardly one to defend Beeg, but it's not unrealistic that a long-time season ticket holder from the Musselman era might know some people who know the family etc. Give it a rest. You don't have to believe him if you don't want to.
He wasn't coming here for the $. But we would have to at least match whatever Arkansas is paying him/will pay him after this tournament run, plus pay his buyout. It's a big check, that got bigger with each passing day in the past week. Our shot to hire him was in 2019 and we missed it. That's life.