kota
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Posts: 13
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Post by kota on Apr 7, 2017 15:50:44 GMT -5
I am tired of seeing posts in this thread. Stop with the negativity and start posting updates re: Tremont, Assistant coaches, recruits etc. Stop nitpicking what was a strong decision!
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Post by upstatesaxa on Apr 7, 2017 15:59:51 GMT -5
I am tired of seeing posts in this thread. Stop with the negativity and start posting updates re: Tremont, Assistant coaches, recruits etc. Stop nitpicking what was a strong decision! Then don't read this thread. Read the other threads that are specifically dedicated to those topics that interest you. Its not nitpicking and the quality of the decision probably will not be known for three to four years. But the quality of the process is certainly up for debate and criticism. Let me be clear: I love Georgetown the university, and have loved Georgetown basketball. But they are not the same thing; they are not equivalent. The university is more than just a basketball program, and its lots more than a guy who quit coaching twenty years ago. Do not conflate the two. Basketball is the tail, not the dog.
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kota
Member
Posts: 13
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Post by kota on Apr 7, 2017 16:07:19 GMT -5
I understand and agree. But why discuss this to such an extent. Doesn't everyone have better things to do? (for the record, I predate JTIII and JT Jr, and Jack Magee for that matter)
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Post by upstatesaxa on Apr 7, 2017 16:30:37 GMT -5
I understand and agree. But why discuss this to such an extent. Doesn't everyone have better things to do? (for the record, I predate JTIII and JT Jr, and Jack Magee for that matter) Then God Bless, you're like my dad, CAS '49, Med '52. His view - GU should de-emphasize basketball. I am not there yet. But to answer your "why" question: it goes to the heart of the integrity of the school and the people running it.
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Post by HometownHoya on Apr 7, 2017 16:58:29 GMT -5
I am tired of seeing posts in this thread. Stop with the negativity and start posting updates re: Tremont, Assistant coaches, recruits etc. Stop nitpicking what was a strong decision! Then don't read this thread. Read the other threads that are specifically dedicated to those topics that interest you. Its not nitpicking and the quality of the decision probably will not be known for three to four years. But the quality of the process is certainly up for debate and criticism.
Let me be clear: I love Georgetown the university, and have loved Georgetown basketball. But they are not the same thing; they are not equivalent. The university is more than just a basketball program, and its lots more than a guy who quit coaching twenty years ago. Do not conflate the two. Basketball is the tail, not the dog. The point is that we will NEVER know what occurred in this process unless Coach Ewing lets it slip and even he is not privvy to the process outside of his own involvement. We can go in circles chastising the admin for not interviewing anyone outside of Pat but NONE of us will ever know if that is the truth. We can say that they didn't have a national search but again, none of us will ever know the truth. I could go on and on about the criticisms that have been stated in this thread that we don't even know are valid or not. There are things you can control and things that you can't. If you can't control it and it's in the past, why keep rehashing it? Do you hope you can get enough of a following to create a petition and change the admin's mind for the next search? I'm not ecstatic about the way the search went but we got an up and coming NBA coach with strong connections to the program. If it was a blind search, he'd be the top of the non-proven tier of candidates...which is where we ended since none of the top guys (Crean, Brey, Smart, Mack) had serious interest.
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LCPolo18
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Post by LCPolo18 on Apr 7, 2017 17:04:19 GMT -5
Seems to me that a truncated semi-search occurred BEFORE Korn Ferry was retained. I appreciate that you tag them both as "Step 2" Do we KNOW if anybody other than Ewing was actually interviewed? Not (just) felt out but actually met with, face to face? If it turns out that Patrick [Standard Disclaimer: always liked him, want him to succeed now, he is our coach and will receive my support] was the only candidate interviewed, then the athletic director basically lied when he said "After a thorough national search...." I don't think the number of interviews should be a concern. Unlike professional sports, you typically only hear about one interview in college basketball coaching searches (the person who gets hired). And if there are reports of multiple interviews/offers, that usually means that someone publicly turned down the job like Duquesne or UMass this year, or UNLV last year. It's in the interest of the school either to only have one interview or only let the public know about one interview to preserve their image. It's also usually in the interest of the candidate to not interview or not let the public know about the interview unless they're sure they will be offered the job and will accept since it could be a real setback to their recruiting and their relationship with their players. A "thorough national search" doesn't mean there were multiple interviews or offers. It means that they looked at a thorough list of candidates and likely reached out to the top ones in some way to gauge interest. Ewing was likely the first candidate from their prioritized list to reciprocate interest to the point where they felt comfortable bringing him in for an interview.
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Big Dog
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Post by Big Dog on Apr 7, 2017 17:14:13 GMT -5
Nobody on here has any clue whether Ewing will be worse or better as a coach than any other name that might have been floated. There is no argument that he isn't a worthy candidate with his longtime coaching experience. This wasn't a Chris Mullin Hail Mary with some guy who has never coached. Ewing was picked because he is a coach and because he has the Gtown connection. Just like III was--III being an excellent hire in retrospect whose coaching achievements we can only hope Ewing will match.
So spare me about the process. The publicity the program has gotten nationally this week has been absolutely priceless--our hire was a bigger story this week than UNC winning the national title.
Now we find out what Ewing can do. He either wins or he doesn't, and if he doesn't, we'll want him to move on. This would have been true with any other candidate as well and we would have been equally nervous about what might happen. The best news out of all of this is that we've learned GU can in fact fire coaches with whom we have a deep personal connection if they don't perform. That finding is more important than the coach hiring process.
I hope he wins. I think there are reasons to think he can win. But I have no more idea if he will win than any of you do.
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Big Dog
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Post by Big Dog on Apr 7, 2017 17:24:58 GMT -5
This search was the first search I have gone through as a Georgetown fan. I wasn't following the team when Georgetown fired Esherick and hired JTIII, so this was my first exposure to it. Having now gone through this search, my view of the program has changed. Before the search, I viewed the Georgetown program as a top 15-20 basketball program. Like most other such programs, the fans had relatively high expectations but also realized that we are a step below the truly elite programs (Kentucky, Duke, Kansas, etc.). Georgetown paid big money for a coach and accordingly expected big results. Moreover, although the program celebrated its past (more than comparable institutions), it was not fully wedded to it. Thus, as the calls for JTIII to be removed grew louder, I figured we would do what other top 20 programs do -- we would hire a trusted, established name to bring a fresh set of eyes to the program and rebuild it. And spare me the notion that absolutely no established name would have come. Although I don't have personal knowledge of the search, I have every confidence that we could have gotten an established current college head coach to lead the Hoyas. Instead, we didn't go that direction. We went with a former player who isn't a natural fit for the position -- NBA assistant, no head coaching experience, no college coaching experience. And, for the most part, this Board supported that decision in full. Folks like me who didn't like this approach were largely dismissed, though we were a vocal minority. That has led me to a simple conclusion -- whatever I might want, Georgetown is firmly within the orbit of the Thompson family, and it will be for the foreseeable future. Although this is a loaded statement on this board, I'm trying to be neutral -- this is just a statement of where things are. The Thompson influence is not just because of JTII's personal exertion of control. It's because a core of the administrative leadership and a significant core of the fan base are more comfortable with that connection to the past than embracing the future. I saw this play out firsthand on this board. The vulnerabilities and weaknesses of other coaches were dissected thoroughly, while Ewing's own weaknesses were either downplayed or ignored outright. Indeed, most folks on here used his lack of a record as positive; it's really hard to prove that someone with no head coaching record can't be an effective head coach. Frankly, I think the administration at Georgetown had a similar conversation. They explored some other options, and then, like the fan base, quickly retreated to what made them comfortable, especially once it became clear that it would be difficult, and possibly messy, to obtain an established head coaching name. Simply put, a critical mass of the fan base and a critical mass of Georgetown's leadership want a program that remains interwoven with its past. Both bases of support are also deeply suspicious of change, of anything that seems to suggest a departure from the program's history. I think that's why you have a few die-hards on here defending even some of the most trivial things to do with Georgetown, like playing outdated music at games or affirmatively supporting a refusal to consider advanced analytics or other new tech that enhances the game for a lot of teams (personally, I'm fine with the outdated music because that's what I listen to anyway, but still). Thus, Patrick Ewing is the hire we have and the only type of hire that the program can currently support. There just isn't enough interest in the program to support the type of wholesale changes that plenty of us want. Now, again, I'm not trying to slam the Ewing hire. The time for arguing about that was before the hire was made, not after. But I think it's a mistake to act like this hire happened and now everyone just retreats to their proverbial corners. The administration was confronted with a clear choice -- choose the quintessential throwback hire, a person who speaks to the greatest days of the program's history, or take a chance on a face of the future. The school opted for the former choice, with the support of a majority of this board. I hope these folks are right, and we can win big with Ewing. For me, that'll be a pleasant surprise. But I will not support these same folks who promoted Ewing wildly on this board coming back in 2-3 years if we are struggling and begging for a change of direction. We had our chance for a change of direction this year. And we didn't take it. We chose to go with the "family" approach, whatever that means. Personally, I hope we win big. But if we lose big, I think that's the program we have chosen and the program the University deserves. Georgetown chose to go all-in on the past, and I think they have to take the good with the bad in that regard. I would not be willing to support any further changes, even if I believed they were necessary, unless I believed that the school and the fan base were actually ready to make them. I'm amazed how off the mark your perception of the program is/was. I also think the "break with the past" narrative is terribly over the top (not just by you but by everyone). I cared about the break with the past thing only insofar as I thought the Thompson past made firing III impossible. Turns out that wasn't true. Now the only other time we had a coaching search we also stayed connected with the past and took a candidate JT favored. And we were in the Final Four in 3 years. Anyway the "I will not support these same folks who promoted Ewing wildly on this board coming back in 2-3 years if we are struggling and begging for a change of direction" comment is silly. None of us knows what will happen now, just like none of us would have any idea if we had wired some Wojo-like anointed assistant type (and there really weren't any of these around). There is no objective argument that Ewing is unqualified for this position. Many love the amazing attention he has brought the program and are excited to see what he can do. If, which would be possible with any coaching hire, it turns out he is a lousy college basketball coach, well then people will want Georgetown to bring in a new college basketball coach. There is no hypocrisy in that anymore than there is hypocrisy in a school firing a coach it once chose to hire.
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tashoya
Blue & Gray (over 10,000 posts)
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Post by tashoya on Apr 7, 2017 18:24:14 GMT -5
As stated by others, we know nothing about the "search" or the search, depending on your bent. We also don't know if Patrick is at all deferential, in terms of coaching, to Big John. Patrick is too old according to some here. How old does he have to be to give him the benefit of the doubt of being his own man? He's not Allen Iverson. Patrick was a bigger get for JT2 than JT2 was for Ewing. Patrick clearly respects his old coach and very much values the lessons he imparted. But Pat is a bright guy with a heck of a list of accomplishments of his own including being the number one guy responsible for helping to cement John Thompson's legacy. Patrick has earned Big John's respect and needn't kowtow in any regard and I'd be shocked if either of those two men don't feel that way. I'm sure JT2 is available for advice and guidance but this is Patrick's team. Conspiracies aside, there's not a guy I'd expect JT2 to respect more walking in the door as the next coach of the Hoyas.
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Filo
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Post by Filo on Apr 7, 2017 18:44:32 GMT -5
I am pretty much in line with Tas and Big Dog. I wasn't necessarily thrilled with the search process, at least as it is perceived my many. And I use "perceived" because we really have no idea what the actual truth is.
I, too, am tired of all the negativity. It's the same old negative posters, with some new voices thrown in. Unfortunately, the "don't read it" response is the only solution, which is why I have been spending a little less time reading posts around here lately. I wish people could just move on at this point...
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Post by upstatesaxa on Apr 7, 2017 18:48:34 GMT -5
The point is that we will NEVER know what occurred in this process unless Coach Ewing lets it slip and even he is not privvy to the process outside of his own involvement. We can go in circles chastising the admin for not interviewing anyone outside of Pat but NONE of us will ever know if that is the truth. We can say that they didn't have a national search but again, none of us will ever know the truth. I could go on and on about the criticisms that have been stated in this thread that we don't even know are valid or not. There are things you can control and things that you can't. If you can't control it and it's in the past, why keep rehashing it? Do you hope you can get enough of a following to create a petition and change the admin's mind for the next search? I'm not ecstatic about the way the search went but we got an up and coming NBA coach with strong connections to the program. If it was a blind search, he'd be the top of the non-proven tier of candidates...which is where we ended since none of the top guys (Crean, Brey, Smart, Mack) had serious interest. So just drink the Kool Aid and move on? The reason we do not know, and as you point out, likely will not know, is because the very guys whose actions I am questioning benefit from this opaque process. They're actually counting on viewpoints like yours to put the last two years in the rear view mirror. Sort of like a traffic cop at the scene of an accident: "Nothing to see here, move along." But hey, they're great at publicizing the parts of this that feel good to them. Did Crean not have interest? Was said here (not by me) that it was the other way around. Because of some "familial antipathy," so to speak. Since our job was the last one in the major college musical chairs game, not getting a crack at it effectively shuts Crean out of coaching for a year. I know I/we can't control some things. But can sure blast about it. I don't want a following. Look at my post count; its about 5,000 less than yours. And since this inflection point is past, I'm about ready to slip off the board and go back to what I prefer: rooting for the team from afar, rooting like I have been since the starting five was Shelton, Duren, Sleepy, Tom Scates and Steve Martin. If we only interviewed one guy... no company would ever do it that way.
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bamahoya11
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Post by bamahoya11 on Apr 7, 2017 19:15:39 GMT -5
I'm amazed how off the mark your perception of the program is/was. I also think the "break with the past" narrative is terribly over the top (not just by you but by everyone). I cared about the break with the past thing only insofar as I thought the Thompson past made firing III impossible. Turns out that wasn't true. Now the only other time we had a coaching search we also stayed connected with the past and took a candidate JT favored. And we were in the Final Four in 3 years. Anyway the "I will not support these same folks who promoted Ewing wildly on this board coming back in 2-3 years if we are struggling and begging for a change of direction" comment is silly. None of us knows what will happen now, just like none of us would have any idea if we had wired some Wojo-like anointed assistant type (and there really weren't any of these around). There is no objective argument that Ewing is unqualified for this position. Many love the amazing attention he has brought the program and are excited to see what he can do. If, which would be possible with any coaching hire, it turns out he is a lousy college basketball coach, well then people will want Georgetown to bring in a new college basketball coach. There is no hypocrisy in that anymore than there is hypocrisy in a school firing a coach it once chose to hire. I'm amazed at your ridiculous suggestion that we could fire the most storied player in our program's history in a few years if he turns out to not be a good basketball coach. No, that's not how this works. Georgetown is a top 20-30 college basketball program, but it isn't run like one. We doubled down on that approach by hiring Ewing and sticking with someone closely tied to the program's history and lineage. The idea that Ewing is indisputably qualified, which you and other folks circulate, is just empty rhetoric that the pro-Ewing camp throws around to make this seem unanimous or his detractors seem irrational. It wasn't, and we aren't. And none of this is done on the cheap -- we were paying top 10 money for JTIII, and my guess is we are paying something in the same ballpark for Ewing (probably less, but still a substantial sum). The pro-Ewing folks want to run this program like a business while never being willing to actually move the program into the 21st century by getting new people, with new backgrounds, involved. That camp won this battle. But, if it turns out they're wrong on the result, no, I think it'd be ridiculous to fire him, just to open up suggestions of what alum we hire next (Roy Hibbert! Jaren Jackson! Jonathan Wallace!). Georgetown had a choice about how it wanted to run its program. It made it. But to try to have it both ways is, to use your words, "silly."
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bamahoya11
Golden Hoya (over 1000 posts)
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Post by bamahoya11 on Apr 7, 2017 19:26:04 GMT -5
I would encourage you to learn more about the history of the program by ordering DFWs excellent "The Georgetown Basketball Vault: The History Of The Hoyas." Most of the reasons that the Roey Hadar's of the world are so misguided is that they don't have any understanding of the program's history. And as for your comment on not being around for the previous coaching search, let me tell you something, you didn't miss much. It was <crickets> compared to this. This site was quiet, Casual Hoya didn't exist, and there were maybe a dozen or so active posters that still had any interest in the program at that point, and nobody viewed the program as a top 15-20 program. The program was basically irrelevant. The job search barely attracted local attention from the media, nevermind national attention. The only national attention the program had gotten in the previous 5 years was negative. Those still paying attention were hoping that the program could be competitive again. And no top candidates were rumoured, just mediocre mid-major names like Fran Dunphy from Penn and Willis Wilson from Rice. Billy Packer, the most prominent NCAA basketball media figure at that time commented that "I see no reason why Georgetown basketball can ever be as successful as it was. There's no evidence of that. I think they need a superstar. Why would a superstar go there?" The fact that someone like yourself (and many others) viewed Georgetown as a top 15-20 program going into this job search, says a heck of a lot about what JT3 accomplished at Georgetown to reestablish the program. www.hoyabasketball.com/vault.htmThanks for the suggestion. I'm going to look to get my hands on a copy and give it a read in the off-season. I'm always up for learning more about the program's history. One note on JTIII -- I do think that fans of my generation (well before Mr. Hadar but still not as long of a follower as many on this board) never fully appreciated the job that JTIII did. I decided to become a Hoya after the Georgetown-Duke upset. To that point, I had wanted to try to go to DC, but I also was drawn to Duke because of its reputation as the academic power of the South. After seeing that game, I knew I would do anything to get to go there, and I spent the next year or so taking all the hardest courses I could find in the hope that a school like Georgetown would take a chance on someone from the middle of nowhere. I committed to Georgetown right around the weekend we went to the Final Four. It was incredibly exciting to watch. I think everyone coming of age in those times thought it was going to be easy, and in some ways, we didn't appreciate the success around us. Of my friends from school who follow basketball, most of them don't follow the program anymore. Most just follow their state schools, whatever they were, before they came to Georgetown. Others were pushing for a change for like 7 or 8 years now, basically since they were in school. I have never given up on Georgetown, and I was never really a fan of making a change until the writing was on the wall this year. Still, I don't feel like I ever embraced JTIII in a way that a lot of schools feel about their coach when he is successful. In some ways, I think JTIII was a hard coach to appreciate. The Washington Post article describing his "normal" personality seemed remarkably astute to me -- he doesn't have the sort of captivating, complex personality that a lot of the big-name coaches have. He did is job and for the most part did it well without a whole lot of fanfare. But he still put together a whole lot of consistently good seasons and steered Georgetown through a really complex world of realignment. I probably should have appreciated him more.
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This Just In
Blue & Gray (over 10,000 posts)
Bold Prediction: The Hoyas will win at least 1 BE game in 2023.
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Post by This Just In on Apr 7, 2017 19:43:54 GMT -5
This is roughly how things occured 1. JTIII gets fired 2. Search firm is hired 2. Feelers are sent out to Smart, Brey, Amaker and others 3. Patrick Ewing debates if he is interested in job after the firing as feelers are sent out 4. Ewing decides he is interested in the job and either himself or David Falk makes the phone call 5. Once Ewing expresses interest via the phone call, shortly after the search is closed A. Ewing appeases the President, A.D., & JTII who did not want to fire JTIII B. It keeps the coaching job within the Thompson Tree C. It appeases portions of the fan base and The Board by hearkening back to the glory years of the 80's D. Ewing has NBA coaching experience 6. Ewing is hired Seems to me that a truncated semi-search occurred BEFORE Korn Ferry was retained. I appreciate that you tag them both as "Step 2" Do we KNOW if anybody other than Ewing was actually interviewed? Not (just) felt out but actually met with, face to face? If it turns out that Patrick [Standard Disclaimer: always liked him, want him to succeed now, he is our coach and will receive my support] was the only candidate interviewed, then the athletic director basically lied when he said "After a thorough national search...." Thats what bugs me so much.... we pay so much attention to who our next small forward will be, how our coach coaches, if the "Princeton Offense" remains viable now, etc. Details. But to me, the big thing is whether the leadership of our university has a firm grip on the vision, values and standards to be expected of our most visible -- and formerly, most successful -- athletics program, or if they are instead (a) not knowledgeable enough; or (b) not interested enough; or (c) bedazzled by the past; or (d) enthrall to, or intimidated by the guy who used to run the program which guy, if Mike Wise's reporting is to be believed, was empowered to provide a "blessing" (veto?) on the choice of coach this time around. Add "not candid enough" to that list. And if that leadership doesn't have that firm grip, and/or runs a line of bull on us during these big shakeups, well the problem is a lot bigger than landing the next point guard. Could make you feel like this: 2 stories have emerged and this coming from Patrick Ewing. At the press conference Ewing stated he called the University about the head coaching position. On ESPN's Mike & Mike in this morning, the video I posted in a thread titled Patrick Ewing on Mike & Mike, Ewing stated that John Thompson Jr. contacted him and advised that he should consider applying for the head coach position; everyone knows Ewing's dream was to coach in the NBA. This would then lead to step #4 with John Thompson Jr. in full support, Ewing notifies the university of his interest in the job. I do not think anyone else was interviewed: 1. Feelers were still being sent out 2. If someone else was interviewed, it would have came out by now 3. On Thursday March 23, JTIII was fired and on Sunday, April 2nd Hoyas4Ever announced that Ewing would be named the coach on Monday Hoyas4Ever announcement occurred before the hiring made the media cycle
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SaxaCD
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Post by SaxaCD on Apr 7, 2017 19:45:28 GMT -5
I understand and agree. But why discuss this to such an extent. Doesn't everyone have better things to do? (for the record, I predate JTIII and JT Jr, and Jack Magee for that matter) Then God Bless, you're like my dad, CAS '49, Med '52. His view - GU should de-emphasize basketball. I am not there yet. But to answer your "why" question: it goes to the heart of the integrity of the school and the people running it. I dunno, after deemphasizing its Catholic roots, the English degree and student scoial life, can't Georgetown emphasize SOMETHING? Why not hoops?
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bamahoya11
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Post by bamahoya11 on Apr 7, 2017 19:50:59 GMT -5
Then God Bless, you're like my dad, CAS '49, Med '52. His view - GU should de-emphasize basketball. I am not there yet. But to answer your "why" question: it goes to the heart of the integrity of the school and the people running it. I dunno, after deemphasizing its Catholic roots, the English degree and student scoial life, can't Georgetown emphasize SOMETHING? Why not hoops? SaxaCD, I feel like you and I have been on opposite sides of the issues lately, but then I read this, and it warms my heart. Of course, maybe we just need some really Catholic basketball players who also know their Shakespeare but like to have a good time (as they say the rosary, of course)?
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Post by HometownHoya on Apr 7, 2017 20:04:38 GMT -5
The point is that we will NEVER know what occurred in this process unless Coach Ewing lets it slip and even he is not privvy to the process outside of his own involvement. We can go in circles chastising the admin for not interviewing anyone outside of Pat but NONE of us will ever know if that is the truth. We can say that they didn't have a national search but again, none of us will ever know the truth. I could go on and on about the criticisms that have been stated in this thread that we don't even know are valid or not. There are things you can control and things that you can't. If you can't control it and it's in the past, why keep rehashing it? Do you hope you can get enough of a following to create a petition and change the admin's mind for the next search? I'm not ecstatic about the way the search went but we got an up and coming NBA coach with strong connections to the program. If it was a blind search, he'd be the top of the non-proven tier of candidates...which is where we ended since none of the top guys (Crean, Brey, Smart, Mack) had serious interest. So just drink the Kool Aid and move on? The reason we do not know, and as you point out, likely will not know, is because the very guys whose actions I am questioning benefit from this opaque process. They're actually counting on viewpoints like yours to put the last two years in the rear view mirror. Sort of like a traffic cop at the scene of an accident: "Nothing to see here, move along." But hey, they're great at publicizing the parts of this that feel good to them. Did Crean not have interest? Was said here (not by me) that it was the other way around. Because of some "familial antipathy," so to speak. Since our job was the last one in the major college musical chairs game, not getting a crack at it effectively shuts Crean out of coaching for a year. I know I/we can't control some things. But can sure blast about it. I don't want a following. Look at my post count; its about 5,000 less than yours. And since this inflection point is past, I'm about ready to slip off the board and go back to what I prefer: rooting for the team from afar, rooting like I have been since the starting five was Shelton, Duren, Sleepy, Tom Scates and Steve Martin. If we only interviewed one guy... no company would ever do it that way. I wouldn't say drink the kool aid and move on but the University says they had a search, take their word for it and move on. If the admin is that inept, should we all be questioning our degrees or our professors? I understand what you're looking for and I would have preferred that but when is the last time that ANYTHING the university did on the administrative side was highly publicized? It should have never been expected that this would be an opaque process, that is not how the university handles things. Why wouldn't we put the past two years in the rear view mirror? It's the past. It's what many people wanted us to do with the Thompson legacy with this search. Apologies, you are right about Crean, I had missed the quote about him saying he was never contacted. You're right, you can post as much as you want with it but at some point it undermines the team, coach, and University. Sorry about my post count, I tend to throw out A LOT of posts during games...mostly quick thoughts and analysis. Finally, no one in the admin treats the MBB program like a company. Yes we spend money but so does everyone in high level college athletics, doesn't mean it is or needs to be run like a company. Additionally, most CBB coach searches do not have a long list of interviewees, they make a list of targets, contact those people and bring the ones interested in for an interview.
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Big Dog
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
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Post by Big Dog on Apr 7, 2017 20:05:17 GMT -5
I'm amazed how off the mark your perception of the program is/was. I also think the "break with the past" narrative is terribly over the top (not just by you but by everyone). I cared about the break with the past thing only insofar as I thought the Thompson past made firing III impossible. Turns out that wasn't true. Now the only other time we had a coaching search we also stayed connected with the past and took a candidate JT favored. And we were in the Final Four in 3 years. Anyway the "I will not support these same folks who promoted Ewing wildly on this board coming back in 2-3 years if we are struggling and begging for a change of direction" comment is silly. None of us knows what will happen now, just like none of us would have any idea if we had wired some Wojo-like anointed assistant type (and there really weren't any of these around). There is no objective argument that Ewing is unqualified for this position. Many love the amazing attention he has brought the program and are excited to see what he can do. If, which would be possible with any coaching hire, it turns out he is a lousy college basketball coach, well then people will want Georgetown to bring in a new college basketball coach. There is no hypocrisy in that anymore than there is hypocrisy in a school firing a coach it once chose to hire. I'm amazed at your ridiculous suggestion that we could fire the most storied player in our program's history in a few years if he turns out to not be a good basketball coach. No, that's not how this works. Georgetown is a top 20-30 college basketball program, but it isn't run like one. We doubled down on that approach by hiring Ewing and sticking with someone closely tied to the program's history and lineage. The idea that Ewing is indisputably qualified, which you and other folks circulate, is just empty rhetoric that the pro-Ewing camp throws around to make this seem unanimous or his detractors seem irrational. It wasn't, and we aren't. And none of this is done on the cheap -- we were paying top 10 money for JTIII, and my guess is we are paying something in the same ballpark for Ewing (probably less, but still a substantial sum). The pro-Ewing folks want to run this program like a business while never being willing to actually move the program into the 21st century by getting new people, with new backgrounds, involved. That camp won this battle. But, if it turns out they're wrong on the result, no, I think it'd be ridiculous to fire him, just to open up suggestions of what alum we hire next (Roy Hibbert! Jaren Jackson! Jonathan Wallace!). Georgetown had a choice about how it wanted to run its program. It made it. But to try to have it both ways is, to use your words, "silly." He will be fired if he has 3 losing seasons in a row. I don't see any reason to doubt that after we just fired the SON OF JOHN THOMPSON who took us to the Final Four and to all kinds of other success until 3 of the last 4 seasons. A 15-year NBA assistant coach who almost got an NBA head job last summer and who comes from the Van Gundy coaching tree is indisputably a reasonable candidate to be hired for a college basketball head coaching position. I look forward to your essay on how top 20-30 college basketball programs are run from your deep trove of experience, by the way. The Syracuse chapter will be a real lesson in running good processes and bringing programs into the 21st century.
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Big Dog
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
Posts: 3,912
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Post by Big Dog on Apr 7, 2017 20:13:35 GMT -5
I would encourage you to learn more about the history of the program by ordering DFWs excellent "The Georgetown Basketball Vault: The History Of The Hoyas." Most of the reasons that the Roey Hadar's of the world are so misguided is that they don't have any understanding of the program's history. And as for your comment on not being around for the previous coaching search, let me tell you something, you didn't miss much. It was <crickets> compared to this. This site was quiet, Casual Hoya didn't exist, and there were maybe a dozen or so active posters that still had any interest in the program at that point, and nobody viewed the program as a top 15-20 program. The program was basically irrelevant. The job search barely attracted local attention from the media, nevermind national attention. The only national attention the program had gotten in the previous 5 years was negative. Those still paying attention were hoping that the program could be competitive again. And no top candidates were rumoured, just mediocre mid-major names like Fran Dunphy from Penn and Willis Wilson from Rice. Billy Packer, the most prominent NCAA basketball media figure at that time commented that "I see no reason why Georgetown basketball can ever be as successful as it was. There's no evidence of that. I think they need a superstar. Why would a superstar go there?" The fact that someone like yourself (and many others) viewed Georgetown as a top 15-20 program going into this job search, says a heck of a lot about what JT3 accomplished at Georgetown to reestablish the program. www.hoyabasketball.com/vault.htmThanks for the suggestion. I'm going to look to get my hands on a copy and give it a read in the off-season. I'm always up for learning more about the program's history. One note on JTIII -- I do think that fans of my generation (well before Mr. Hadar but still not as long of a follower as many on this board) never fully appreciated the job that JTIII did. I decided to become a Hoya after the Georgetown-Duke upset. To that point, I had wanted to try to go to DC, but I also was drawn to Duke because of its reputation as the academic power of the South. After seeing that game, I knew I would do anything to get to go there, and I spent the next year or so taking all the hardest courses I could find in the hope that a school like Georgetown would take a chance on someone from the middle of nowhere. I committed to Georgetown right around the weekend we went to the Final Four. It was incredibly exciting to watch. I think everyone coming of age in those times thought it was going to be easy, and in some ways, we didn't appreciate the success around us. Of my friends from school who follow basketball, most of them don't follow the program anymore. Most just follow their state schools, whatever they were, before they came to Georgetown. Others were pushing for a change for like 7 or 8 years now, basically since they were in school. I have never given up on Georgetown, and I was never really a fan of making a change until the writing was on the wall this year. Still, I don't feel like I ever embraced JTIII in a way that a lot of schools feel about their coach when he is successful. In some ways, I think JTIII was a hard coach to appreciate. The Washington Post article describing his "normal" personality seemed remarkably astute to me -- he doesn't have the sort of captivating, complex personality that a lot of the big-name coaches have. He did is job and for the most part did it well without a whole lot of fanfare. But he still put together a whole lot of consistently good seasons and steered Georgetown through a really complex world of realignment. I probably should have appreciated him more. I think this is (to your credit) a savvy recognition and a good acknowledgment. Fans who came on board in 2006 understandably see the program differently than fans like me who came on board in 1997, or those who came on board in 1980 or in 1965.
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bamahoya11
Golden Hoya (over 1000 posts)
Posts: 1,831
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Post by bamahoya11 on Apr 7, 2017 20:14:54 GMT -5
He will be fired if he has 3 losing seasons in a row. I don't see any reason to doubt that after we just fired the SON OF JOHN THOMPSON who took us to the Final Four and to all kinds of other success until 3 of the last 4 seasons. A 15-year NBA assistant coach who almost got an NBA head job last summer and who comes from the Van Gundy coaching tree is indisputably a reasonable candidate to be hired for a college basketball head coaching position. I look forward to your essay on how top 20-30 college basketball programs are run from your deep trove of experience, by the way. The Syracuse chapter will be a real lesson in running good processes and bringing programs into the 21st century. I'm sure you have a lot of experience running a basketball program. Your posts are just an attempt at modesty. That Van Gundy guy -- how many college basketball programs has he run? Oh yeah, I didn't think so. And yeah, Syracuse is a bit stuck in the past. Based on my deep trove of experience, Georgetown has not typically looked at Syracuse as a model for emulation. But then again, you outdo yourself.
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