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Post by PantherU on Nov 30, 2021 15:24:42 GMT -6
This is the first of what will be many threads about Our Proposal and what we as a community would like to see for the next head coach of the men's basketball program at Milwaukee.
This discussion:
Which level of coaching experience should we recommend for candidates for head coach of the Milwaukee Panthers men's basketball program?
Further: if we recommend the coach be someone who is or has been a head coach, which levels are we willing to pull from? Are we limiting it to NCAA D-I? NCAA D-I through D-III? Do we consider NAIA coaches? JuCo?
Further: if we recommend the head coaching candidates to be successful head coaches, how will we define the baseline for a "successful" coach? Do they have to be a Final Four or National Championship-winning head coach if they come from D-II or D-III? Is conference success all right? What if they're an NCAA D-I head coach, how do we define successful for them?
Further: are we interested in defining success as including success in recruiting the Midwest, Milwaukee, Chicago? Or do we give more weight to someone who can recruit high-level players to mid-major programs (evidence of NBA-level recruiting success)?
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Post by PantherU on Nov 30, 2021 15:38:52 GMT -6
I worry that if we require someone to be Bo Ryan-level successful, our pool will be too small.
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Post by BBFran on Nov 30, 2021 16:30:22 GMT -6
I am somewhat reluctant to participate in this project for the simple reason that I think it will inspire our AD to offer the current coach an extension simply as a big middle finger to our vanishing remaining fans for having the temerity to suggest that our opinion matters in the slightest.
All I’ll say is that if the HC job did open I think it would be foolish to limit what will already be a limited pool of qualified candidates (owing to the disarray in the program, the poor university support, the massively diminished fan and booster base and the miserable condition of the league — not to put too fine a point on it) to “successful head coaches.” College basketball is filled with successful head coaches who had never otherwise risen higher than being assistants. In our state alone there are two guys who had never been head coaches who either won (Gard) or nearly won (Smart) National Coach of the Year honors. We should be so lucky as to ever again have a head coach here as good as either of those guys.
My concern over the hires of Jordan and Baldwin is that after the insane and malicious firing of Jeter, we went out and got guys who were basically “Jeter-light.” Jordan, like Jeter, had apprenticed under a great coach and had come from a winning program, but he had neither Rob’s experience or Wisconsin recruiting connections. Baldwin’s resume was incomprehensibly thinner. He came from a succession of losing programs and had never been tutored by a particularly good coach, much less a great coach. And he also had no recruiting base here. His tenure is EXACTLY what an unbiased observer would have expected as the likely outcome.
Anyway, that’s my contribution. I don’t really believe anything will change for the better under the current administration, but kudos to you for trying.
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Post by Cactus Panther on Nov 30, 2021 17:52:52 GMT -6
The only men's head basketball coaching hires that have worked well at UWM in modern times are experienced head coaches from lower levels. Why not do what has worked here before? It would be a very attractive job to certain extremely qualified candidates. The right sales person, who typically is the athletic director (that is a problem for us right now) has a lot of things to sell. It should be sold for what it truly is - a sleeping giant. Here are just a few sales points:
* an historic arena that most mid-major programs are envious of. * spanking brand new practice facility. * major market to hone one's own marketing skills (see Bruce Pearl's TV and radio exposure while here). * playing in a winnable conference that gets decent media exposure in big markets on "the world wide leader in sports", ESPN. * the path to success from an extremely low point has happened before, so why not again? It was not THAT long ago. * opportunity to engage currently disengaged player and fan alumni that would like to return to a program with an upbeat coach who is perceived to be a winner.
This is just a start of the sales points. Feel free to add more here or perhaps within a separate "sales point" thread.
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Post by Pantherholic on Nov 30, 2021 18:12:52 GMT -6
I’ve been pushing for someone with head coaching experience for the last two searches and absolutely nothing has changed to make me change my mind. I even have an incredible candidate. There’s no guarantee he’d come but it’s a call that must be made.
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Post by BBFran on Nov 30, 2021 19:13:14 GMT -6
I know you're an optimist, 'holic, but I'm pretty sure Brad Stevens is happy as Boston's GM.
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Post by 73withharoldlee on Dec 3, 2021 14:55:37 GMT -6
Head coaching experience is my first choice including one with from another country. Would consider a former pro with coaching experience.
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Post by PantherU on Dec 4, 2021 14:22:42 GMT -6
I know you're an optimist, 'holic, but I'm pretty sure Brad Stevens is happy as Boston's GM. I dunno I think Coach K is kinda old and is really committing to retirement at the end of the year.
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Post by PantherU on Dec 4, 2021 16:53:08 GMT -6
Yes! Yes! Yes! I have been wanting this for the same reasons since 2005. Nice to see that it is now the majority opinion at least on this message board. How Bud did not recognize it at the time still makes me cringe. Sit and talk with Rob Jeter for a couple hours and you'll understand how persuasive he can be. But Bud also knew him, and believed in what he could have been. I mean, if you're Bud Haidet in April 2005, and you look at how successful your program has gotten in the last couple years, you're going to give weight to the coach who got you Adrian Tigert and Chris Hill, the same guy who discovered Dylan Page with no D-I offers and immediately convincing Bo Ryan to take a chance on the guy. Our perspective in 2005 was different. I mean, the other serious candidates were Matt Doherty (lol) and Mike Dunlap. Dunlap had two Division-II national championships and four Final Fours. He had just reset his program and gotten to the Elite Eight. He literally had the resume a lot of us want from the next coach. And when Dunlap eventually got a head coaching job, it was at Loyola Marymount - a mid-major program in the West Coast Conference. He didn't have his tenure ruined by the bad luck of being just below Gonzaga (a la Jeter and Butler in 2009-11) because he never came close - 81-108 in six seasons and he never finished better than sixth in the WCC. He might be a name that comes up for us now, since he's currently on the Bucks staff. But he should also stand as an example of how things may not be as bright as they seem. This is a difficult hire, so we may want to be vague on the experience or at least open to other ideas. It's not like assistant coaches automatically fail, or can't hit the ground running. Some of them DO find great success. Sometimes it's in our own conference. Todd Lickliter and later Brad Stevens both hadn't been college head coaches before they got promoted at Butler. Jeff Capel, Anthony Grant, and Shaka Smart were all assistant coaches who had never been head coach when they took over at VCU, and each was more successful than the last. Archie Miller was an assistant for his brother Sean at Arizona before taking the Dayton job. I guess what I'm saying is, it's not impossible to get a successful head coach out of someone who has been an assistant coach. And it's less important for us to have someone who can hit the ground running now than it was in 2005 when the roster was locked and loaded for another tourney run. I think we're just all at the point that this is what we want. If the fans are in lockstep on what we want, we stand a far greater chance of At the end of the day, the thing that probably hurt Jeter the most was when he became our head coach. If someone else had been hired, won and then fell off before losing their job later and Jeter replaced that guy, he'd be more judged against that unnamed coach than he was, which was against Bruce Pearl. Still, I want someone who has been a successful head coach. The lower the division, the more success I want from them. I might be asking too much but I really want a D-III candidate to have national championships on the resume. For D-II I'd like similar or close to it. For D-I low-major coaches, I'm fine if you can see clear evidence they inherited a program and made it wildly more successful or maintained the level of a successful previous head coach years after replacing them. I want to pose another question in its own Proposal thread: should we recommend hiring a basketball coach of high character?
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Post by parkerj on Dec 5, 2021 5:14:30 GMT -6
"What if they're an NCAA D-I head coach, how do we define successful for them?"
That definitely gets.......complicated. I'd be very disappointed if we wound up with Wojo or Thunder Dan, even though they've been "successful" in D-I.
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Post by Cactus Panther on Dec 5, 2021 8:06:51 GMT -6
Though Thunder Dan Majerle checks off some of the boxes, he burned out big time and did not end up being successful. He only coached GCU because he lives and has business interests nearby. The primary reason for his early success was support from amazing administration leaders like GCU President Brian Mueller and advisor Jerry Colangelo. I don't think he will ever return to college coaching.
Wojo checks off very few of the boxes in my book and was not successful.
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Post by PantherU on Dec 6, 2021 10:03:37 GMT -6
I think we may want to ask for someone to have had an upward trajectory in their career. To use Jeter as an example: he won 9, then 14, then 17, then 20 games. What if we ask for evidence that a coach has had that upward trajectory in tandem with end-of-season accomplishments?
It might be smart to say "Hey we would like a head coach who had proven he can build a program from a very low point and then won championships/went to Sweet 16's/Final Fours." Because you would be covering two facets of success.
I guess what I'm saying is I'm wary of coaches who take the reins of an already-successful program and they simply maintain that level of success. For instance, Eric Henderson has won two Summit League titles in his first two years as head coach of the program, but how much was that him and how much was it the players recruited by TJ Otzelberger and the older players brought in by Scott Nagy?
Maybe getting all of this through in a public recommendation to the university would be too messy. Maybe it wouldn't be. I'll take a quick stab at it here:
"It is our recommendation that the university hire a men's basketball coach who has had demonstrated success both in end-of-season accolades as well as building a sustainable winning program."
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Post by Cactus Panther on Dec 14, 2021 10:24:03 GMT -6
As I commented in the Rhode Island game thread, it is essential for the new head coach to have an ability to instill key team intangibles like team competitiveness, which is derived from mental toughness. On the current team, some guys seem to be competitive, like Josh Thomas, but it does not carry over to the team as a whole. Coaches are trained regarding this topic. Here is an example that I found through a simple internet search:
What are the components of mental toughness?
The will to prepare – Winning starts with full mental, physical and tactical preparation. Preparation is your battle plan. How do you need to prepare to ensure victory?
Relentlessness – Winning requires that you push forward no matter what challenges you face.
High effort or intensity – Success is always a matter of effort. Winners seek to outwork the opponents and dictate the flow of the game for the entire game.
Focus on constant improvement – Winners do not buy into the attitude that “good is good enough.” Winners seek to continually develop and achieve their true potential.
Motivation – Winners are driven to achieve a mutually agreed upon objective.All behavior in practice, training and games is directed towards achieving this goal.
Habit – A winning mindset needs to be consistent. Winning requires that you put everything on the line every day.
All coaches who seek a D1 coaching position have had exposure to this type of information and training. The key is to identify and select those who buy into it and have a successful track record of conveyance to his teams. Some winning coaches at lower levels are good at this. They would be ideal candidates.
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