Shama: What uw has achieved in basketball during the last 20-plus years is remarkable; what U coaches and administrators have done is embarrassing

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BleedGopher

BleedGopher

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per Shama:

Since 2000 Wisconsin has been to three NCAA Final Fours and one national title game. The Badgers have earned their way into the NCAA Tournament every year except 2018. The Gophers have been to the Big Dance five times in 22 years, with two wins.

Only a Gopher fan with no expectations could be satisfied with the disparity between the boys from Dinkytown and Minnesota’s rivals to the East.

What UW has achieved in basketball during the last 20-plus years is more than admirable. It’s remarkable. What the coaches and administrators in charge of Gopher hoops have done is embarrassing.

Two states with such similar histories, culture, populations and demographics. We’re also talking two land grant universities with similar resources for their basketball programs—but with such dissimilar results.


Go Gophers!!
 

Said in a more positive manner, we're far better at being worse! Or, They have gotten lucky. Or, they get all the calls! Or, it just proves we don't cheat! Or, wait until MN wins, it will be that much more enjoyable! Go gophers!
 

Shama gets a lot of grief on here for being the master of the obvious, but he's plainly, thoroughly and comprehensively written something down here. The U has wanted to do better and tried to do better but has been unable to. It speaks to our school's incompetence and ineptitude.
 

Bad Gopher said:
Shama gets a lot of grief on here for being the master of the obvious, but he's plainly, thoroughly and comprehensively written something down here. The U has wanted to do better and tried to do better but has been unable to. It speaks to our school's incompetence and ineptitude.
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Yep. And speaking strictly for myself, I'm done listening to Coyle's gibberish about building championship level basketball programs at the U. The last three hoops hires between men and women had a grand total of one year of head coaching experience when they were hired. Programs looking to build champions don't offer up their programs as on-the-job training at the power five level time after time if they're serious about competing at the highest level.

My advice is to continue to support the teams (obviously), but don't buy into Coyle or another other administrator's blather about expectations of excellence or competing at the highest level. It's all BS.
 

MRJ said:
Yep. And speaking strictly for myself, I'm done listening to Coyle's gibberish about building championship level basketball programs at the U. The last three hoops hires between men and women had a grand total of one year of head coaching experience when they were hired. Programs looking to build champions don't offer up their programs as on-the-job training at the power five level time after time if they're serious about competing at the highest level.

My advice is to continue to support the teams (obviously), but don't buy into Coyle or another other administrator's blather about expectations of excellence or competing at the highest level. It's all BS.
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I'm torn on this. I mean, Tom Izzo had no college head coaching experience when he took over at MSU. Shrewsberry had only a couple years at IU-South Bend, and he seems to be doing alright at Penn State. It's a leap of faith to hire someone less experienced, but it can pay off. I was all for hiring Pitino, but after a few years you have to be able to recognize what you have and not let it go to a seven-year Vietnam situation when there are opportunities to hire someone like Eric Musselman.
 


Bad Gopher said:
I'm torn on this. I mean, Tom Izzo had no college head coaching experience when he took over at MSU. Shrewsberry had only a couple years at IU-South Bend, and he seems to be doing alright at Penn State. It's a leap of faith to hire someone less experienced, but it can pay off. I was all for hiring Pitino, but after a few years you have to be able to recognize what you have and not let it go to a seven-year Vietnam situation when there are opportunities to hire someone like Eric Musselman.
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It's not so much one hire or another. But this AD (and this program going back to Teague) has now established a pattern of taking total fliers on coaches with little or no qualifications for the job. It sends an awful message, especially when the department continues to try and brand itself as legitimate. Frankly, it's a slap in the face to paying customers because all they can honestly sell is the hope that they might be competitive some day.

Again, I don't blame the coaches. This falls totally on Coyle and company at the top.
 

what we don't know is this:

what restrictions were placed on Coyle as far as salary for hiring a head coach and assistants? How much micro-management was taking place by or from the Administration?

Now, if the Administration told Coyle "you have a blank check - go out and hire the best head coach and staff regardless of cost," then that is one thing.

But, if the Administration said "don't spend more than X on your coaching staff," then that is a whole 'nother kettle of fish.

Hey, Maybe Coyle isn't good at hiring coaches.

But maybe, the candidates looked at the job, the conditions, the history and the salary, and said "I can do better than that."

In the end, the Gopher men's basketball program has finished with a winning conference record in 3 of the last 25 seasons. Under multiple coaches.

so, maybe this is just a crappy job and they wind up having to hire people who are willing to work here.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
what we don't know is this:

what restrictions were placed on Coyle as far as salary for hiring a head coach and assistants? How much micro-management was taking place by or from the Administration?

Now, if the Administration told Coyle "you have a blank check - go out and hire the best head coach and staff regardless of cost," then that is one thing.

But, if the Administration said "don't spend more than X on your coaching staff," then that is a whole 'nother kettle of fish.

Hey, Maybe Coyle isn't good at hiring coaches.

But maybe, the candidates looked at the job, the conditions, the history and the salary, and said "I can do better than that."

In the end, the Gopher men's basketball program has finished with a winning conference record in 3 of the last 25 seasons. Under multiple coaches.

so, maybe this is just a crappy job and they wind up having to hire people who are willing to work here.
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The "crappy job" angle is a crutch. Shama correctly asserts that this is no worse a job than Wisconsin was when they started winning a quarter century ago.
 





I feel like Iowa also has pretty decent results on the hardwood?

Such that, again, it feels disappointing that we couldn't be more like that.
 


Winnipegopher said:
Was Bo Ryan or Greg Gard ever publicly censured for not filling up a rental car before dropping it off?

That incident tells you all you need to know about the University of Minnesota and its priorities.
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Greg Gard was never publicly censured for grabbing an opposing coach by the shirt.
 



short ornery norwegian said:
what we don't know is this:

what restrictions were placed on Coyle as far as salary for hiring a head coach and assistants? How much micro-management was taking place by or from the Administration?

Now, if the Administration told Coyle "you have a blank check - go out and hire the best head coach and staff regardless of cost," then that is one thing.

But, if the Administration said "don't spend more than X on your coaching staff," then that is a whole 'nother kettle of fish.

Hey, Maybe Coyle isn't good at hiring coaches.

But maybe, the candidates looked at the job, the conditions, the history and the salary, and said "I can do better than that."

In the end, the Gopher men's basketball program has finished with a winning conference record in 3 of the last 25 seasons. Under multiple coaches.

so, maybe this is just a crappy job and they wind up having to hire people who are willing to work here.
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We beat this horse to death months ago. Could Coyle write a 10-year $50 million check for Musselman? Maybe not.

Could he have gotten Craig Smith or Niko Medved for basically the same contract he gave Ben? Yes. He chose Ben. It was not the most logical choice at all. But maybe it was the correct one. We'll find out. So far, too early to tell anything. Would I still take both of them over Ben today? Yes, though it's not as big of a gap as 6 months ago.
 

Gophers_4life said:
I feel like Iowa also has pretty decent results on the hardwood?

Such that, again, it feels disappointing that we couldn't be more like that.
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Yes, but with the exception of the three terrible years when Todd Lickliter was coach, Iowa, since the seventies, has hired coaches who have ranged from decent to very good: Lute Olson, George Raveling, Tom Davis, Steve Alford, and now McCaffrey. Raveling, Davis, and McCaffrey were all very experienced head coaches coaches prior to the Iowa job and Alford had won about 62% of his games over four years at Missouri State before going to Iowa.
 

Bad Gopher said:
Shrewsberry had only a couple years at IU-South Bend, and he seems to be doing alright at Penn State.
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Shrewsberry didn't have as tough of a job as Ben as he didn't have to replace as many players. He returned four solid veterans and a couple of lesser supporting players. Even so, his team really wasn't much better than ours.

Craig Smith at Utah and Tom Crean at Georgia had to replace most of their rosters and they did worse than Ben, especially Crean.

Having said that, Ben definitely could have done a better job recruiting in the front court and that failure cost him dearly.
 



A fish rots from the head.
The blame over these two decades falls on the ADs who were hired by the Presidents.
 





All time MN is 98 -100 against WI in Basketball and in Football it is 62-61-8 in favor of WI. Seems like the schools are very similar like Shama points out.
 

MRJ said:
It's not so much one hire or another. But this AD (and this program going back to Teague) has now established a pattern of taking total fliers on coaches with little or no qualifications for the job. It sends an awful message, especially when the department continues to try and brand itself as legitimate. Frankly, it's a slap in the face to paying customers because all they can honestly sell is the hope that they might be competitive some day.

Again, I don't blame the coaches. This falls totally on Coyle and company at the top.
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Yeah we should go out and hire former national champion coaches who have been to multiple Sweet Sixteens with multiple teams! What could go wrong!

And sorry but we are exactly the types of programs that should take fliers on coaches. Gopher Mens and Women's basketball is not some sort of historical powerhouse the great years are far far far outnumbered by the bad and mediocre years. The Men have been to the NCAA Tourny a whopping 14 times. In my 42 years on this Earth they have made the NCAA tourny 30% of the time and that is if you count the years that have been vacated. We are an also ran. And don't even get me started on the Women's team...

This team has no advanced history to fall back on, no previous glory days like at least the football team has. This is a program that has been riddled with scandal and underachieving since the 1970s. I remember years as a youth where we celebrated making runs to the NIT so...yeah. Taking a flier is exactly what we should be doing.
 

Dave H said:
Yeah we should go out and hire former national champion coaches who have been to multiple Sweet Sixteens with multiple teams! What could go wrong!

And sorry but we are exactly the types of programs that should take fliers on coaches. Gopher Mens and Women's basketball is not some sort of historical powerhouse the great years are far far far outnumbered by the bad and mediocre years. The Men have been to the NCAA Tourny a whopping 14 times. In my 42 years on this Earth they have made the NCAA tourny 30% of the time and that is if you count the years that have been vacated. We are an also ran. And don't even get me started on the Women's team...

This team has no advanced history to fall back on, no previous glory days like at least the football team has. This is a program that has been riddled with scandal and underachieving since the 1970s. I remember years as a youth where we celebrated making runs to the NIT so...yeah. Taking a flier is exactly what we should be doing.
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Not entirely true, we do have claim to the 1902 and 1919 Helms National Championships. But frustratingly the Badgers have 3 Helms Natty's during that time and your Chicago Maroon's won 3 straight Natty's in this era.

basketball.fandom.com

Helms Foundation National Champions

Helms Foundation Basketball National Champions An expert panel appointed by the Helms Foundation met annually to vote on a National Champion from 1939 until 1982. They retroactively ranked basketball champions back to 1901. From 1939, when the NCAA Division I Men's Tournament started, the Helms...
basketball.fandom.com basketball.fandom.com

Go Gophers!!
 

short ornery norwegian said:
what we don't know is this:

what restrictions were placed on Coyle as far as salary for hiring a head coach and assistants? How much micro-management was taking place by or from the Administration?

Now, if the Administration told Coyle "you have a blank check - go out and hire the best head coach and staff regardless of cost," then that is one thing.

But, if the Administration said "don't spend more than X on your coaching staff," then that is a whole 'nother kettle of fish.

Hey, Maybe Coyle isn't good at hiring coaches.

But maybe, the candidates looked at the job, the conditions, the history and the salary, and said "I can do better than that."

In the end, the Gopher men's basketball program has finished with a winning conference record in 3 of the last 25 seasons. Under multiple coaches.

so, maybe this is just a crappy job and they wind up having to hire people who are willing to work here.
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I don't they gave Coyle a blank check. If they did we should have Eric Musselman as the coach
 

howeda7 said:
We beat this horse to death months ago. Could Coyle write a 10-year $50 million check for Musselman? Maybe not.

Could he have gotten Craig Smith or Niko Medved for basically the same contract he gave Ben? Yes. He chose Ben. It was not the most logical choice at all. But maybe it was the correct one. We'll find out. So far, too early to tell anything. Would I still take both of them over Ben today? Yes, though it's not as big of a gap as 6 months ago.
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Craig Smith at Utah will be interesting to follow, nothing impressive with his first season. Gates from Cleveland state failed to make tourney as #1 seed in their conference bracket. Did Niko even want to leave?
 

Spottedmuskie said:
Craig Smith at Utah will be interesting to follow, nothing impressive with his first season. Gates from Cleveland state failed to make tourney as #1 seed in their conference bracket. Did Niko even want to leave?
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I don't know one way or another, but if I had to bet money, I'd say we could've gotten Niko back here. He's an alumnus of both the U and RAHS; he's got roots and, I think, family here. Last few weeks at church, a Medved has been on the sick list for prayers; I'm guessing that's his kin.
 

Spottedmuskie said:
Craig Smith at Utah will be interesting to follow, nothing impressive with his first season. Gates from Cleveland state failed to make tourney as #1 seed in their conference bracket. Did Niko even want to leave?
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Gates would not even interview. As far as I know they never even talked to to Niko. But he's from Minneapolis. Do you think he would turn down a B1G job in his home town to stay in the Mountain West. Nothing in his job history suggests he's averse to moving up.
 

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