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Post by williamtsherman on Oct 15, 2015 8:22:47 GMT -6
One thing we hear repeated over and over on this board is the need to have patience with our coaches. Why? Is it a common pattern for a coach to lose for three years and then suddenly become good? Have the people advocating patience studied the record of successful coaches and brought us the fruits of some resulting wisdom? No, not at all. It's more wishful thinking, timidty, a mindless repetetion of lame conventional wisdom, and a general loser attitude. The truth is the exact opposite of what they say. Winning coaches who climb the ladder of success win and win early. They don't stop to trouble with excuses and pleas for patience, they just start winning. Maybe some of these coaches walked into a favorable situation at some of their stops, but I'm sure in the majority of cases they had a rebuilding task on their hands. But they still won early. linkHere's a link to a site that has a list of 100 or so successful coaches. You can look up the season records of these coaches as they climbed the ladder. Almost invariable, they won early at every stop. I looked at a dozen or so, and did not find a single example of one who had losing records each of their first three years, at any of their schools, and then eventually ended up being successful. Winning coaches win. That's the obvious lesson. With this pattern being so obvious and so strong, I'd say the onus is on the "patience" people to explain to us why we should expect any other pattern. Certainly our own experiences here at BSU do not suggest patience brings anything other than frustration. The Sherman Three Year Rule for coach evaluation is a strong, evidence-based plan. Patience is for losers.
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Post by cardfan on Oct 15, 2015 9:19:03 GMT -6
I think it will be pretty clear after this year what direction whitford will be going.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 15, 2015 9:58:04 GMT -6
I think it will be pretty clear after this year what direction whitford will be going. Yeah but he can have another crappy year and still be heading in the right direction. Just showing improvement likely won't be enough.
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Post by bsu0 on Oct 15, 2015 10:02:39 GMT -6
Duke is sure glad they Krzyzewski a chance ...38-47 in his first three years in Durham.
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Post by williamtsherman on Oct 15, 2015 11:13:26 GMT -6
I guess that first year at 17-13 gave them some grounds to think K knew what he was doing, eh?
The more I look through that site, the more it strikes me how quickly winning coaches start winning. In fact, it often seems like the first 3 or 4 years is the most successful period a coach has at a school. I have always felt like there is a certain advantage a new coach has. There is a freshness and energy in a new program, and a coach can sell recruits (assuming he is a good recruiter, of course) on his vision and dreams with nothing on the record to contradict them. That window is obviously closed now for Whitford...wouldn't be too hard to negatively recruit against him. A 17 game losing streak is a hard thing to explain away.
I'll admit that I have a personal grudge against the "supportive", "patient" fans. I blame them for the loss of six years of my BSU basketball fan life. Namely years 4-6 of Buckley and years 4-6 of Taylor. AD's and administrations are naturally reluctant to admit a mistake in hiring, so they rely on these "supportive" fans to watch their backs. And the BSU "supportive" fans did not let them down. They brought up every imaginable lame excuse for both Buckley and Taylor as their dismal tenures drug through the years. My congratulations to them for their patience.
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Post by williamtsherman on Oct 15, 2015 11:36:50 GMT -6
Just to be clear, and because I am basically a soft-hearted person, I am not absolutely demanding a winning record to remain in support of Whitford. .
IF either Moses or Teague show clear signs of developing into a high-quality MAC big man. (Notice I say showing clear signs of developing, not that they have to dominate this year) OR Whitford signs someone who has an HS/AAU track record suggesting he will develop into a high-quality MAC big man. THEN I would likely be in favor of letting things ride for another year at least.
. If neither of the above things happens, then I would need to see that he can somehow scheme to consistently win with an unbalanced roster. Of course, I'm very doubtful of that possibility, but willing to watch and learn.
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Post by bsu0 on Oct 15, 2015 11:55:45 GMT -6
The powers that pulled the strings at Duke could have said he won with recruits other than his own and now two years in he can't win...Fire him. They did not. What you said about many great coaches win from the beginning is true. I went through many and found a few others (Guy Lewis@Houston 31-46, 592 wins and Lew Henson @ Illinois 41-43, 776 wins are examples of the first three year records that are not stellar). I truly believe that to give a coach only two years is cruel and unusual punishment and banned by the Constitution. The worst of the many ramifications of such a contract would be the recruiters from competing schools. ''How can you want to play for a coach whose contract is only TWO YEARS !! The administration doesn't have any faith in him, why should you?'' There are very few coaches that would sign such a contract. One way around this, give him a longer contract and if it does not work out fire him and pay him off. Where does the money come from? This can get expensive if you don't make the correct decisions and is probably why Ball State kept a few coaches longer than they should have. It is ALWAYS a crap shoot when you hire a new coach, which is why the administration should pay more attention who they hire as ADs...don't they hire the majority of the head coaches?
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Post by lmills72 on Oct 15, 2015 12:13:27 GMT -6
Just to be clear, and because I am basically a soft-hearted person, I am not absolutely demanding a winning record to remain in support of Whitford. To "remain in support of Whitford" wouldn't you have to be in support of Whitford in the first place? As far as I can tell you are basically neutral to unsupportive of Whitford, based on his won/loss record and recruiting shortfalls. I can't really argue with you on those points; just wondering if I've missed all those supportive posts (or is the fact that you haven't actually called for his firing yet to be viewed as supportive? Everything is relative, I guess.). I think it's also worth noting that while posters on this board might be viewed as being overly patient with coaches and making excuses for them, I don't recall Whitford making excuses or asking for patience, which is one reason I kinda like him. Of course, I don't devour every word he says or commit it to memory, so maybe he has. If he has a crappy year this year and whines about it, I imagine I'll gravitate toward the unsupportive side without much resistance. In terms of successful vs. unsuccessful coaches, let's also consider the institution's role. It's a pretty narrow view to say that a coach succeeds or fails all on his own. Certainly some coaches are dynamic enough that they can rise above bad administrators, a bad administration and a lackluster brand. Most, I would say, are not. So, it's not just the coach but the situation they are in. You blame the "supportive fans" for some of the Buckely/Taylor years, but perhaps it's not so much blindly supportive fans that sway administrators as it is bad administrators in general and institutions without resources to attract coaches with a better likelihood of success. I don't know where Ball State actually is in that regard these days, but it's certainly easy to argue that we have not been in a good place in the not-to-distant past.
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Post by williamtsherman on Oct 15, 2015 12:33:47 GMT -6
I'll give you Guy Lewis. So, that's one example found out of a hundred coaches in probably around 300 coaching stops at various schools. The others won early. That's an overwhelming set of evidence
Lou Henson did have a winning record his first year, and was close the next two.
I'm not saying your cumulative record the first three years has to be winning, I'm saying you have to win at least one season your first three years to show you can do it. And all these coaches always did...except Guy Lewis. Lewis lost his first three years 1956-58, and then had 28 non-losing seasons in a row. Hats off to him. But when you have to go back to the Eisenhower administration to disprove a trend...you have proved the trend.
Actually, what someone should be arguing is that my standard is too lenient. After all, Buckley won two out of his first three seasons and Taylor won in his third. But Buckley inherited multiple NBA and near NBA players from Ray McCallum, and Taylor took advantage of a historically weak MAC West and anemic non-conf schedule. So an addendum to the Sherman Three Year Rule is that you should take a close look at any winning seaons to be sure they are legit proof of competence.
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Post by williamtsherman on Oct 15, 2015 12:42:43 GMT -6
Mills - I was completely enamored with Whitford upon his hiring. Of course I knew enough to take a wait-and-see attitude also, but I really really liked what I knew about him. Maybe some remember me making a post quoting Whitney Houston lyrics "AND IIIIIIIII-EEEE-IIIIIII WILL-A ALWAYS LOVE YOUUUUUUUUUU" You can't get much more supportive than that.
I was especially hopeful, with his background in high-level recruiting, that he woud soon sign a HS or transfer dominating big man. Sigh.
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Post by bsu0 on Oct 15, 2015 14:22:59 GMT -6
General, I said you were correct in most cases!...BUT...In this day and age a new coach has to be given more than a couple of years. It is just a essential that a new coach has a four or five year contract to show new recruits he will be around for a while. That is why I advocate time and thought in the hiring of ADs. There are very few programs that have run of the mill ADs that have great coaches and many times that is over looked. When we had lousy ADs (and we have had our share) we had lousy coaching hires.
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Post by williamtsherman on Oct 15, 2015 14:54:55 GMT -6
"It is just a essential that a new coach has a four or five year contract to show new recruits he will be around for a while."
If you find yourself having that sort of conversation about your coach, that's one good way to know you have a dud on your hands.
I have never liked that line of reasoning. If you are winning, you don't need a long contract to convince anyone you won't be fired because winners don't get fired. If you are ever to the point where your record is bad enough that you need a long contract to reassure recruits, then you should probably just be fired and the contract only makes it more expensive and painful. Why commit a bunch of money to convince recruits a loser is not a loser. Will that fool them?
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Post by 00hmh on Oct 15, 2015 15:29:32 GMT -6
As a "general" rule I think we will be able to tell a lot after 3 years, so I don't disagree so with Sherman, especially about a general principle of letting coaches play out a 5 year contract. I hope we never see that combination of circumstances again that led to a long tenure for Taylor without much success.
Here's where I think there are problems with Sherman's Law of 3 years.
Mostly, it fails to take into account the state of the Program when a coach takes over. I like the odds of a new coach being a winner after or even before 3 years if he replaces a successful coach who moves on to another top program, and leaves the cupboard relatively full. Hunsaker might be an example. I don't like his rule when the program is deep in the hole. And, I don't like it when we choose to hire an unproven coach in his first head coaching job. That is a tough job! For experienced coaches with a track record it is much easier to succeed, and if it's not working the situation is clear sooner.
The best argument for 3 years is that usually, if a disaster, we can tell it. If we have a high degree of success we usually we can tell we did the right thing. Lose the coach to another job, though. But in most cases it is not so clear. The 4th year is probably the decision year. The soft-hearted Sherman above says as much!
A practical problem with the rule as a stated policy is that it makes it very hard to hire the next coach when you use it. Well, unless we pay very good money for a proven coach. Budget issues are the reason we got a first time coach, one with promise and potential but not one paid all that well. We offered a 5 year contract and a chance to develop a team, not 3 years and out at that pay.
The data (from a very cool website) presented is not very convincing on any of these points. It really doesn't say how many great coaches would win here, or say much at all about making a close decision. It probably shows most great coaches didn't find themselves often in that kind of situation. The data did not show what happened in tough jobs or how long it took for a very good coach to win. It is a tenuous conclusion, not well supported by the data, to say a good coach should always win in 3 years. Not much good in predicting year 4 of this coach.
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Post by bsu0 on Oct 15, 2015 16:06:10 GMT -6
If you as a coach sign a short term contract , it may be an indication YOU do not want to be there long. How long was Majerus (sausage eater) in Muncie? A short term contract raises questions on either side.
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Post by 00hmh on Oct 15, 2015 16:10:42 GMT -6
I'm not saying your cumulative record the first three years has to be winning, I'm saying you have to win at least one season your first three years to show you can do it.... Actually, what someone should be arguing is that my standard is too lenient. After all, Buckley won two out of his first three seasons and Taylor won in his third. But Buckley inherited multiple NBA and near NBA players from Ray McCallum, and Taylor took advantage of a historically weak MAC West and anemic non-conf schedule. So an addendum to the Sherman Three Year Rule is that you should take a close look at any winning seaons to be sure they are legit proof of competence. I am not sure Guy Lewis was really an exception exactly. Lots of coaches who MIGHT have had later success just never get a chance. He was lucky! That's what is wrong with looking at that data and trying to draw conclusions about coaching quality judged on first jobs. I like your argument about leniency, and about evaluating Buckley. He also had the problem that he was not all that adept at the administrative and PR part of a head coaching job. Much better assistant, probably. Taylor is an exceptional case, hard to judge that decision since no rule really applies well for him. Easy to say too long in the job, but some reasons for that happening. We really dealt with dumpster fire, there. I never have seen a program destroyed so fast and so many problems for the AD and coach. We had a relatively new AD, a President making big changes everywhere on campus, accusations of racism, disastrous PR by the coach not to be named, a very tight budget after football problems, and other issues not even related to the usual transition problems in a coaching change and rebuild. Very hard to put him on a short leash, then some exceptional circumstances extended his time, I think. Wins and losses just may not have been the only or even the main consideration in his tenure. I understand all that and can give some leeway for that decision by Administration.
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