Head Coaches Discussion

[beenaround]

Pitino is a short term fix...but it is also the surest short term fix out there. There is no better choice ( of anyone who would come here.)
He will have us in serious March Madness conversation by next year, and Top 25 for at least a year or two after. From there...onward and upward.

[hoyaguy]

Mar 2, 2023 11:52:52 GMT -5 beenaround said:

Pitino is a short term fix...but it is also the surest short term fix out there. There is no better choice ( of anyone who would come here.)
He will have us in serious March Madness conversation by next year, and Top 25 for at least a year or two after. From there...onward and upward.

And more importantly he can make the job a good one again instead of being a rotting corpse that only desperate assistants flock to

[gatormcclusky]

Mar 2, 2023 11:24:36 GMT -5 thedragon said:

Mar 2, 2023 9:35:01 GMT -5 prhoya said:

You keep harping on that. There really is no one better who is available right now in a manageable way. It will be a monumental resurrection and load of work to fix the program from the ground up. It will require someone who has done it before and everyone at GU Basketball should get out of the way. It will also require for him to bring his team of trusted people. I trust that he can do it and leave it working in a professional way, not Mary and Pops’ way.

I keep harping on it because I think it greatly matters.

Lets take a quick look at the 4 oldest active coaches in D-1 college basketball:

1.  Jim Boeheim (78)- the decline is nearly complete.  Syracuse is looking for a way out.  
2.  Cliff Ellis (77) - last place in Sun Belt
3.  Leonard Hamilton (74) - one of the worst seasons of his career this season
4.  Jim Larranaga (73) - The best of the older bunch.  Miami is a top 25 team.  Theyve been aided GREATLY in the new NIL environment by booster John Ruiz and his bottomless wallet, of which Georgetown will not have. 

No college coach has won a championship beyond 68 years old (please correct me if this is wrong, but this was the case as of a few years ago).

And again, I dont look at this as any old job a great coach (which Pitino is!) can turn around with a snap of ones fingers.  We have NIL hurdles.  We have administration hurdles.  We have (maybe less so after the Ewing years) academic hurdles.  And we have perception issues.  This isnt simply a .500 team like Xavier who had been a consistent bubble sitter that needed some new energy and took that risk on a much younger coach with a checkered past in Sean Miller.  This isnt the Georgetown of JT3 vintage where first round flameouts could potentially quickly be turned into postseason success.  Assuming Ronny is gone (which I truly believe to be the case) then this is a program that needs rebuilding from the foundation.  There is NOTHING that should be left behind from the PR team to the social team to the SIDs office to the "chief of staff" to strength and conditioning and beyond.  Asking a then 71 year old to lead this from the ground rebuild is a TALL TALL task.  Could he do it?  Sure. He certainly has a track record of success.  But if I was the one handing the keys over to a new coach in the hope of resurrecting a dying program that needs a top to bottom overhaul - hiring a grandfather in his 70s would not be my top choice.  People at that age want to work less not more.  They want to work smarter not harder.  They want to balance their job with their family time.  I respect all of that.  I just dont want that in my new coach that I want to resuscitate a dying program.

I realize Im in the minority - Im fine with that.

I agree with you that age matters and that coaching at this level is primarily a younger man's game, but I think you're being a little disingenuous about the four coaches you listed by only mentioning this year's results.

Boeheim took Syracuse to a Final Four at 70 years old and has had three NCAA appearances and just one losing season since then.

Hamilton won 29 games at 70 and 26 at 71, and this season marks his first sub-.500 record since 2005.

Larranaga is the winningest coach in Miami history over his twelve years there and had won 60% of his games prior to the NIL era.

Ellis has been the least recently successful of the four but prior to this season had won 58% of his games at Coastal and went 19-14 last year.

you're right that this program needs a complete overhaul top to bottom, and I agree it's reasonable to wonder if a senior citizen like Pitino would be up to that task. But when you look at the overall resume and prestige of the available candidates, I believe he's the clear #1 even taking his age into account. There's no one else who can match his experience, name value and track record of consistent success everywhere he's coached, and the fact that he's won almost 75% of his games at Iona the last few years is good enough for me to think he's still got plenty of gas in the tank to resurrect the Hoyas.

[RBHoya]

One of the interesting aspects of college basketball is that you're "clout trading" to an extent.

If you hire Rick Pitino, obviously you hope it works out and he resurrects the program and we're back in the dance every year and maybe competing for Final Fours or titles.

But at a minimum, you know he's bringing eyeballs to the program. You know it makes a big splash, huge media coverage, lots of nationally televised games, etc. He's going to bring a lot of clout. It's going to raise the profile of the program even if the results aren't everything we hope. Hiring him sends the world a message--Georgetown is premiere program, they want to win, and they're bringing in the biggest ace available to try to do that, past transgressions be damned. In a sense, even if the results are kind of mediocre (say 2 tournament appearances in the next 5 years and no second weekends) and he retires, we're still in a pretty good position to land a strong coach a few years from now when the job opens again.

Contrast that with hiring the low or mid major du jour--if THAT coach has the same mediocre results and we want to move on in 5 years, we're probably not a very attractive destination to an in-demand coach. You're kind of on that Depaul path--there's nothing special about you, you're just another forgettable program who hired another nobody who couldn't get blood from a stone. You're just.....bad.

In a lot of situations or walks of life I might lean away from the "splashy" hire, but given how much of this game is built around perceptions and clout trading, in this case making the splash actually has value.

Of course, you can say that Ewing was a splashy hire and results are all that matters, and that's fair to an extent; but Ewing's results have not been mediocre, they've been historically bad. It's hard to imagine a scenario where Pitino isn't middle of the pack at worst, where as Ewing has been one of the worst coaches in the history of the league.

I don't think media buzz/attention/clout is even in the top 5 reasons to hire Pitino, but it's a nice bonus. And for those who worry about "what's going to happen if he retires in a few years?" the point is that we'll be in a strong position to make a next hire regardless of how it actually pans out on the court, because he will a) clean house of any old guard, b) send a message to the world that we are committed to winning and willing to pay the price to do so, and c) restore us to national relevance. If you hire a coach from the ivy league or a mid-major with no national name recognition and he has the exact same on-court results, you very likely do not accomplish those 3 things.

[professorhoya]

Even at a place like Duke the admin seems clueless as they gave the job to Tommy Amaker and coach K had to talk Amaker out of accepting the job. (Also at Villanova where admin picked Neptune over Jay Wright’s recommended pick)

www.sportingnews.com/us/amp/ncaa-basketball/news/mike-krzyzewski-tommy-amaker-jon-scheyer-vincent-price-duke/vvjyiqycbvtnoukrytlj04k6


h

[thedragon]

Interesting to see the University of Minnesota part ways (they called it "stepping down") with their own alumnus player hero turned coach (without any previous college coaching experience) Lindsay Whalen today. They announced that she will be a "Special Assistant to the AD" for the remainder of her contract - which typically means she will have zero input and its just a nice gesture to someone who has meant a lot to their school.

[Healy]

There are other coaches out there who consistently succeed and could be available.
Example: Herb Sendek, Santa Clara
Good track record in several conferences, winning records, recruits well (especially under the radar types), develops players for the pros, plays by the rules.

[HoyasAreHungry]

Mar 2, 2023 16:58:48 GMT -5 Healy said:

There are other coaches out there who consistently succeed and could be available.
Example: Herb Sendek, Santa Clara
Good track record in several conferences, winning records, recruits well (especially under the radar types), develops players for the pros, plays by the rules.

Who knew Herb Sendek has a HoyaTalk burner?

[jackofjoy]

Probably have my head in the sand but NIL should be like at the bottom of the list of priorities (worries) if we get Pitino. As has been mentioned, he probably could (read: "would") have had the current roster at least with 6-8 wins in conference. Some might argue more. Yeah, I know there's buzz about Murray and maybe others getting NIL, but I have to believe Pitino could get some high-3 and low 4 stars (meaning little to no NIL) to at minimum a respectable BE record and restore some dignity. If that's all the ceiling ends up being for the next 3-4 years sign me up. Too many scars from the past 5 years I guess ...

[nbhoya]

It sure would be nice to get one single morsel of actual news on this front. 110+ pages and some tweets of speculation.

[bigskyhoya]

Perhaps this is a silly question, but given that a successful basketball program at Georgetown is important to the Big East, do you think anyone from the league is whispering in admin's ear that it's time for a change?

[drquigley]

Mar 1, 2023 20:29:37 GMT -5 guru said:

Mar 1, 2023 14:37:57 GMT -5 drquigley said:

I’d like to weigh in on the coaching thread because I think, as class of ’68 grad I might be able to bring some perspective to what the University will do after Ewing is fired or resigns. (FWIW I think Rick Pitino is the best choice for us if the University is serious about returning the basketball program to prominence. But, as I explain below, I don’t believe the University is).

If you remember, back when JT2 was hired there were few if any minority coaches in college basketball. It was hoped that Thompson would not just improve upon our dismal record under Jack McGee and maybe get us an occasional NIT invitation but also change the schools image as an exclusively white college in a predominantly black city. No one envisioned what JT2 would accomplish over the next 40 years or the attention he would generate not just as a basketball coach but also as a civil rights icon. In effect, the University got a twofer - a prominent basketball program and all that entailed while also earning a relatively easy (and probably undeserved) reputation as a leader in the effort to both provide educational opportunity to underprivileged minority students and literally change the “face” of college coaching. Unfortunately for the basketball program this twofer came with a price, i.e. the GU basketball program became JOHN THOMPSON and any effort to move on from JOHN THOMPSON could be viewed as endangering Thompson’s (and the schools) progressive civil rights legacy.

Meanwhile, the University was also moving on from its fellow Catholic colleges and establishing itself as an “elite” academic institution. When I enrolled in September 1964 GU was no more academically prestigious (or expensive) than BC, Fordham, Villanova, Seton Hall, or other East Coast private Catholic colleges. “Ivy Envy” became the order of the day and a GU degree became prestigious enough for privileged parents to try and bribe the tennis coach to get their kids in. In this environment, a failing basketball program might be embarrassing but would never be viewed as an existential threat to the University and any effort to revive that program by hiring a coach whose credentials are solely basketball related will be viewed as an unseemly effort to soil the University’s academic/progressive reputation.

So goodbye Pitino/Brey and any other coaches who bring only a successful basketball resume to the new coach hunt. I think the University will be looking for a minority coach who has run a successful basketball program while also demonstrating a commitment to our nation’s ongoing civil rights struggle. It is also an intriguing possibility that, just like by hiring John Thompson, the University might, by hiring Dawn Staley, get another twofer, i,e, break another college coaching barrier and position itself at the forefront of another civil rights battle — while also getting another damn good coach.

You’re talking about 50+ years ago. Everything - literally, everything - surrounding the upcoming hire is different than it was a half century ago. Harkening back to the past to guide the way forward is what has gotten us into this miserable predicament.

You completely missed the point of my post. As I say upfront I think Pitino is our best chance of returning the program to prominence. But I was trying to point out that GU is probably looking at more than just pure coaching ability from the person it selects. Considering the University's efforts to maintain its reputation as an "elite" academic institution, and looking at its efforts over the past 40 years to both connect with the DC black community and project itself as an inclusive and diverse institution I feel certain that the University would never consider men like Pitino and Brey and just might think "outside the box", like they did 48 years ago, and approach Dawn Staley. I agree that the jury is out on whether she would actually be a successful D1 mens basketball coach but I'm trying to make the point that what many of the posters are looking for in a new coach is probably not what DeGoia and the Board may be looking for.

[astrohoya]

I doubt it.

For one frankly the conference has been a huge success without us being good.

Secondly, if our admin can’t see it already, no whispering will make any difference.

[mapei]

In other words, if Pitino were Black he would be hired in a nanosecond. Sigh.

[3xhoya]

Mar 2, 2023 18:03:26 GMT -5 drquigley said:

Mar 1, 2023 20:29:37 GMT -5 guru said:

You’re talking about 50+ years ago. Everything - literally, everything - surrounding the upcoming hire is different than it was a half century ago. Harkening back to the past to guide the way forward is what has gotten us into this miserable predicament.

You completely missed the point of my post. As I say upfront I think Pitino is our best chance of returning the program to prominence. But I was trying to point out that GU is probably looking at more than just pure coaching ability from the person it selects. Considering the University's efforts to maintain its reputation as an "elite" academic institution, and looking at its efforts over the past 40 years to both connect with the DC black community and project itself as an inclusive and diverse institution I feel certain that the University would never consider men like Pitino and Brey and just might think "outside the box", like they did 48 years ago, and approach Dawn Staley. I agree that the jury is out on whether she would actually be a successful D1 mens basketball coach but I'm trying to make the point that what many of the posters are looking for in a new coach is probably not what DeGoia and the Board may be looking for.

At the end of the day the greater DC community will only connect with the University if we win. It doesn’t matter as much who the coach is. Nobody is jumping on board 2 wins and 30 plus losses.

[alleninxis]

Correct. People like winners. Everything is irrelevant (John Thompson Jr's time included) to nearly everyone without wins. It's the reality.

[hoyasaxa2003]

Mar 2, 2023 18:03:26 GMT -5 drquigley said:

Mar 1, 2023 20:29:37 GMT -5 guru said:

You’re talking about 50+ years ago. Everything - literally, everything - surrounding the upcoming hire is different than it was a half century ago. Harkening back to the past to guide the way forward is what has gotten us into this miserable predicament.

You completely missed the point of my post. As I say upfront I think Pitino is our best chance of returning the program to prominence. But I was trying to point out that GU is probably looking at more than just pure coaching ability from the person it selects. Considering the University's efforts to maintain its reputation as an "elite" academic institution, and looking at its efforts over the past 40 years to both connect with the DC black community and project itself as an inclusive and diverse institution I feel certain that the University would never consider men like Pitino and Brey and just might think "outside the box", like they did 48 years ago, and approach Dawn Staley. I agree that the jury is out on whether she would actually be a successful D1 mens basketball coach but I'm trying to make the point that what many of the posters are looking for in a new coach is probably not what DeGoia and the Board may be looking for.

I’m not sure how being an elite academic institution can be squared with Ewing having the worst APR ratings I can remember at Georgetown, which very well might lead to sanctions.

[nbhoya]

Mar 2, 2023 18:03:26 GMT -5 drquigley said:

Mar 1, 2023 20:29:37 GMT -5 guru said:

You’re talking about 50+ years ago. Everything - literally, everything - surrounding the upcoming hire is different than it was a half century ago. Harkening back to the past to guide the way forward is what has gotten us into this miserable predicament.

You completely missed the point of my post. As I say upfront I think Pitino is our best chance of returning the program to prominence. But I was trying to point out that GU is probably looking at more than just pure coaching ability from the person it selects. Considering the University's efforts to maintain its reputation as an "elite" academic institution, and looking at its efforts over the past 40 years to both connect with the DC black community and project itself as an inclusive and diverse institution I feel certain that the University would never consider men like Pitino and Brey and just might think "outside the box", like they did 48 years ago, and approach Dawn Staley. I agree that the jury is out on whether she would actually be a successful D1 mens basketball coach but I'm trying to make the point that what many of the posters are looking for in a new coach is probably not what DeGoia and the Board may be looking for.

But DC isn’t even a black city anymore. It’s almost 60% white or other now.

[thedragon]

Mar 2, 2023 18:08:22 GMT -5 mapei said:

In other words, if Pitino were Black he would be hired in a nanosecond. Sigh.

If Pitino was black he would've never gotten another chance after Louisville...

[prhoya]

Mar 2, 2023 19:14:59 GMT -5 thedragon said:

Mar 2, 2023 18:08:22 GMT -5 mapei said:

In other words, if Pitino were Black he would be hired in a nanosecond. Sigh.

If Pitino was black he would've never gotten another chance after Louisville...

He would at JT2’s HBCU Georgetown. Remember Patrick got the job after his off-court past.