Coaching Carousel & Hot Seat 2018

[stever20]

Saw Hurley did in fact leave for UConn.

If nothing else, this totally shows where the A10 is in relation now to the AAC. To have your best coach leave for the AAC is devastating.

The AAC if UConn and Memphis get back to their normal becomes a whole lot more difficult to ignore. Already had 3 top 6 seed year this year.

Stever, the problem at UConn is its devastating drop in attendance in recent years, which is why they were willing to go to the max to get Hurley. If he’s successful, his contract will pay for itself.

Membership in the AAC hurts UConn attendance for a number of reasons, regardless of how the league is rated. So, objective #1 For both Hurley and their AD Benedict has to be to improve attendance. More wins will help a lot but they also need to bolster the schedule with schools that are of more interest to their fan base.

My proposal is that UConn use all of their available OOC games to schedule P6 Northeast teams from the Big East, ACC, and Big Ten. They should accept the fact that the bottom half of the AAC is a group of schools that teams normally schedule in November/December to warm up against. They should therefore lobby the AAC to schedule some conference games in December. In my proposal, they would play high level tournament games in November and go from there with the P6 games, saving some feature games with their old BE rivals for January/February.

This is the old “play any team, any time, any place” Gonzaga attitude with which a team schedules more like an independent than one whose feature games are in conference. Here are the 9 games I propose that they schedule OOC every year:

Boston College
Providence
Syracuse
St. John’s
Seton Hall
Rutgers
Villanova
Maryland
Georgetown

A side benefit would be building relationships with ACC and B1G schools who might eventually help them in their efforts to gain membership in one of these leagues. In this effort, they might prefer to schedule Pitt or Penn State instead of Seton Hall.

Your thoughts?

Few things-
1- with the move to 12 teams/18 games, UConn avoided playing 4 of the weaker teams a 2nd time. 10 of the 18 conference games were tier 1 or 2. The league had only 3 sub 150 teams. Teams regularly schedule more than that number of bad teams.
2- they are going to want to make the tourney. Doing a schedule with 9 P6 teams, plus an exempt tournament, plus the AAC(a top 7 conference) would be an impossible schedule. The AAC is MUCH tougher than the WCC ever has been or ever will be. MUCH deeper.
3- they still will need home games. They had this year 6 games vs poor teams OOC. Those games pay the bills. That's not going to change much.
4- winning will cure a lot of ails. The AAC showed this year they can with a good OOC along with good conference play- get a top 2 seed. That would get folks excited more than anything else. They've gotten series with Nova and Georgetown already- and would expect more and more of those.

[herodotus]

Saw Hurley did in fact leave for UConn.

If nothing else, this totally shows where the A10 is in relation now to the AAC. To have your best coach leave for the AAC is devastating.

The AAC if UConn and Memphis get back to their normal becomes a whole lot more difficult to ignore. Already had 3 top 6 seed year this year.

Stever, the problem at UConn is its devastating drop in attendance in recent years, which is why they were willing to go to the max to get Hurley. If he’s successful, his contract will pay for itself.

Membership in the AAC hurts UConn attendance for a number of reasons, regardless of how the league is rated. So, objective #1 For both Hurley and their AD Benedict has to be to improve attendance. More wins will help a lot but they also need to bolster the schedule with schools that are of more interest to their fan base.

My proposal is that UConn use all of their available OOC games to schedule P6 Northeast teams from the Big East, ACC, and Big Ten. They should accept the fact that the bottom half of the AAC is a group of schools that teams normally schedule in November/December to warm up against. They should therefore lobby the AAC to schedule some conference games in December. In my proposal, they would play high level tournament games in November and go from there with the P6 games, saving some feature games with their old BE rivals for January/February.

This is the old “play any team, any time, any place” Gonzaga attitude with which a team schedules more like an independent than one whose feature games are in conference. Here are the 9 games I propose that they schedule OOC every year:

Boston College
Providence
Syracuse
St. John’s
Seton Hall
Rutgers
Villanova
Maryland
Georgetown

A side benefit would be building relationships with ACC and B1G schools who might eventually help them in their efforts to gain membership in one of these leagues. In this effort, they might prefer to schedule Pitt or Penn State instead of Seton Hall.

Your thoughts?

Other than for their putrid play the last few years, attendance at UConn is hurt, and will be hurt by the bottom teams. Look, if UConn becomes good, they'll pack the place for Memphis, Houston, Cincy, WSU, and whatever other team might be very good. They won't draw well for the other teams because they suck, and there's no history. PC, St. John's, and Seton Hall weren't very good the last decade or so of the old BE, but fans would still come out to see UConn kill them because of familiarity. Now, honestly, UConn fans aren't going to care about playing Creighton right away, but since Creighton is good, a rivalry could develop. ECU is Rutgers, only worse. No rivalry will ever develop there.

[RedStorm]

1 reason I think Hardaway might do better than Mullin is he's got the recruiting ties. Like for instance the #1 player in the 2019 recruitign class. If those guys come to him as a result of this- that's just huge.

Wont matter if he cant coach. Will just be another Steve Lavin who underperforms with great talent.

Although I suppose merely overpowering your competition with talent might work better against garbage midmajor opponents like the ones that dominate the AAC than in a true major conf.

[stever20]

1 reason I think Hardaway might do better than Mullin is he's got the recruiting ties. Like for instance the #1 player in the 2019 recruitign class. If those guys come to him as a result of this- that's just huge.

Wont matter if he cant coach. Will just be another Steve Lavin who underperforms with great talent.

Although I suppose merely overpowering your competition with talent might work better against garbage midmajor opponents like the ones that dominate the AAC than in a true major conf.

what mid major conference has ever gotten 3 top 6 seeds?

[stever20]

Other than for their putrid play the last few years, attendance at UConn is hurt, and will be hurt by the bottom teams. Look, if UConn becomes good, they'll pack the place for Memphis, Houston, Cincy, WSU, and whatever other team might be very good. They won't draw well for the other teams because they suck, and there's no history. PC, St. John's, and Seton Hall weren't very good the last decade or so of the old BE, but fans would still come out to see UConn kill them because of familiarity. Now, honestly, UConn fans aren't going to care about playing Creighton right away, but since Creighton is good, a rivalry could develop. ECU is Rutgers, only worse. No rivalry will ever develop there.

That's 4 of the 9 home conference games UConn would get every year. Add to that a good OOC home game in January, and their Jan/Feb schedule wouldn't be too bad.

this year with an abysmal team they drew 8600 per conference game. Down from 10,928 2 years ago(which was only down about 800 from their final big east season). It's UConn sucking so badly that's hurting them right now.

[GumbyDamnit!]

1 reason I think Hardaway might do better than Mullin is he's got the recruiting ties. Like for instance the #1 player in the 2019 recruitign class. If those guys come to him as a result of this- that's just huge.

Wont matter if he cant coach. Will just be another Steve Lavin who underperforms with great talent.

Although I suppose merely overpowering your competition with talent might work better against garbage midmajor opponents like the ones that dominate the AAC than in a true major conf.

The Penny hire should not be taken lightly. He is absolutely locked in with the AAU scene. Didn’t I hear a rumor of Larry Brown joining Penny’s bench? If that happens, Memphis will be a Top 20 team in short order. For all of Brown’s faults, “X’s and O’s” is not one of them.

[gtmoBlue]

The NBE (intentional) rushes out to 'help' Syracuse...signing H&Hs to help BAYHEIM and cheating ass S'cuse for old times sake..."we had a great rivalry" back when they were in the BE.

Now you propose to help UConn too? There is nothing in the BE teams giving UConn a game other than nostalgia..."Oldtime sakes" sentiment. Let UConn die and everyone will be better off.
Or let them schedule all ACC and B1G games to attempt to resuscitate their program. There is no incentive for the BE to help UConn for any reason. Let's take care of the BE, we are not St Vincent de Pauls or
the Salvation Army.

Val and the conf HQ should state a policy: No games with UConn to all our teams.

[GoldenWarrior11]

Under the same logic, the AAC is better than the Big 12. Memphis hired Tubby Smith away from the Big 12. There are also just slightly below the PAC, since they hired a fired coach in Johnny Dawkins.

[cu blujs]

Not exactly on point with the thread topic, but didn't want to start a new thread. Word this morning is that Darian DeVries is to be announced today as the next head coach at Drake. Darian came to Creighton about 20 years ago in the early years of Altman's rebuilding project and is one of the longest tenured assistant coaches in the country. He stayed to coach under Mac (played at UNI, but graduated before McDermott got there I believe), instead of heading off to Nike U with Altman. I think all Creighton fans are happy for him. Solid recruiter and very good game planner. It was getting to be now or never time for him to move into a head coaching D1 job, and Drake is a good place to cut his teeth. Looking forward to see how McDermott does in replacing him. This is going to be a really important hire for Coach.

[Friarsfan94]

1 reason I think Hardaway might do better than Mullin is he's got the recruiting ties. Like for instance the #1 player in the 2019 recruitign class. If those guys come to him as a result of this- that's just huge.

Wont matter if he cant coach. Will just be another Steve Lavin who underperforms with great talent.

Although I suppose merely overpowering your competition with talent might work better against garbage midmajor opponents like the ones that dominate the AAC than in a true major conf.

what mid major conference has ever gotten 3 top 6 seeds?

I have no idea where they keep the record for “most times getting 3 top 6 seeds”, whatever the hell significance that has...but to answer your question, if the AAC got “3 top 6 seeds” then you have answered your question! Congrats Stever! So smart!