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Post by 00hmh on Oct 15, 2015 16:12:38 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. Oh so true. But. Majerus was a lot more than a sausage eater. I remember him more for those trips to QLs...
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Post by Deleted on Oct 16, 2015 6:41:54 GMT -6
"Mostly, it fails to take into account the state of the Program when a coach takes over."
What, Ball State has digressed since Taylor left.
"I understand all that and can give some leeway for that decision by Administration."
The past administration was the dumpster fire, they made one terrible decision after another, so why would you give them leeway. We can discuss Taylor being allowed to overstay and may disagree on the subject, but Jo Ann and her BOT goofballs and "professional" hires should have been run years earlier. It took two instances of criminal investment fraud before the BOT was finally restructured and Jo Ann was encouraged to leave.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 16, 2015 6:43:09 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. Oh so true. But. Majerus was a lot more than a sausage eater. I remember him more for those trips to QLs... Ball State will always lose their coach if a major conference comes calling. The contract is irrelevant.
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Post by universityjim on Oct 16, 2015 7:17:20 GMT -6
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.c I'm not sure we don't need to give coach a little extra time due to just how bad things had become. 1. I think the Ronnie Thompson racism claim hurt (and still might be hurting us today) regardless of the truth. 2. The university has (until this year) shown little to no support of the basketball program financially. How much would you want to play at a school that covered up broken scoreboards rather than replace them, covers up large sections of seating because they have no hope to draw a decent crowd, and has to send maintenance guys onto the floor at halftime of games to nail down boards that are coming up on an obviously worn out floor. 3. Our fans, which used to be a positive, are now a negative. We've gone from averaging 6K per game to 2K per game. Most of those people are the truly loyal (and growing ever older) fans who don't have it in them to scream and yell and be excited at basketball games like they did when they were younger. Worthen Arena is like a funeral home on game day. The pep band even doesn't want to be there, and often isn't. Not a real wonderful recruiting environment. We've got a new AD, we've sunk some money into the arena and replaced scoreboards, added a beautiful video board array, replaced the worn out floor, and a new basketball practice facility is on the way. All of that should help recruiting. I feel like all we need is a spark for this thing to take off again. One thing that does disturb me however. My nephew is a coach at a high school here in Indiana that regularly produces high level basketball recruits. He tells me that he has been contacted about recruits by every Big 10 coach, every MAC coach, and every D1 basketball coach in the state of Indiana, except Ball State. Seems weird.
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Post by 00hmh on Oct 16, 2015 7:44:45 GMT -6
"Mostly, it fails to take into account the state of the Program when a coach takes over." What, Ball State has digressed since Taylor left. "I understand all that and can give some leeway for that decision by Administration." The past administration was the dumpster fire, they made one terrible decision after another, so why would you give them leeway. We can discuss Taylor being allowed to overstay and may disagree on the subject, but Jo Ann and her BOT goofballs and "professional" hires should have been run years earlier. It took two instances of criminal investment fraud before the BOT was finally restructured and Jo Ann was encouraged to leave. Wait a minute. My post was about the decisions made by that administration about the sports programs only, and specifically about retaining Taylor for an extra year. And it was grudging sympathy, not any high accolades. You and I seem to agree that there is room to disagree a on that. The choice of President and decisions about a lot of other things is another debate entirely. Where we disagree is that BSU has "digressed" (if you mean gone downhill) in basketball. We have suffered losses on the court, and the record is worse than his last year. But if you take the team at the end of this year and compare it to the team at the end of Taylor's last year, that is not close to true. It will have taken three years (probably too long to please the General), but at the end of this year, looking ahead a year, we are MUCH better. We will have better athletes, better basketball players, better recruiting program, a coach on the sidelines with a little fire, an offense that doesn't put us to sleep, defense that doesn't rely on holding the ball to keep the score low. Most important, we now have very good prospects to be highly competitive in the MAC, maybe only one player short at most of being at the top. That year after Jones and Randy graduated, what did anyone think the Program was going to do the next year? Not much reason for optimism at all. Anyone who thinks that now is just not looking at the potential we have.
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Post by 00hmh on Oct 16, 2015 7:49:34 GMT -6
"Mostly, it fails to take into account the state of the Program when a coach takes over." What, Ball State has digressed since Taylor left. "I understand all that and can give some leeway for that decision by Administration." The past administration was the dumpster fire, they made one terrible decision after another, so why would you give them leeway. We can discuss Taylor being allowed to overstay and may disagree on the subject, but Jo Ann and her BOT goofballs and "professional" hires should have been run years earlier. It took two instances of criminal investment fraud before the BOT was finally restructured and Jo Ann was encouraged to leave. Let's look at the argument about Taylor for a minute and about mistakes made by athletic administration. I'll defend some those actions. The decision to hire the coach not to be named was a disaster. The football program had disintegrated. Budget was an issue both years, but nobody gives the administration much leeway for those decisions (except maybe the AD was less to blame than higher administration, trustees). What happened with replacing the football coach was not a mistake. But it cost a lot of money. What happened AFTER the basketball coach not to be named had destroyed good relationships with about everyone involved with our basketball program from high school coaches to faculty to other coaches to donors and to fans, now that was the problem where I have some sympathy. Firing the coach was clearly not a mistake. Hiring a young black coach was not a mistake. Hiring on the cheap to replace that basketball coach arguably was a mistake, and yet again not the AD and maybe not even the President's mistake. I have mixed feeling, even some sympathy, given the budget situation and the cost of athletics. Where I have the most sympathy is in regards to the matter of the 3 year rule as applied to this very unusual case. Retaining the coach with a mediocre record, even extending his contract a year was where I think we were over a barrel with no good choice. So that last question is whether we can we fault administration too much for thinking that Taylor might finally have some mild success. And whether it was a mistake to think that success would tide them over an extra year and save them some money. It looked like BSU would be a pretty fair team that year. Not a huge mistake. What makes this all so painful for us as fans, was that the class with Jones and Randy looked right up through preseason of their senior year to be year where the pain was going to be bearable...We still would have hated the listless offense and the deadpan demeanor on the sideline and have the more serious complaint that recruiting was not very good. But, still we were through the storm damage created by Hurricane Randy and the focus would have been on the right things and 6 years would have been time enough to move on and fire him then.
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Post by ruffledfeathers on Oct 16, 2015 8:14:38 GMT -6
Bingo! A fish rots from the head.
RF
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Post by Deleted on Oct 16, 2015 8:53:21 GMT -6
"Mostly, it fails to take into account the state of the Program when a coach takes over." What, Ball State has digressed since Taylor left. "I understand all that and can give some leeway for that decision by Administration." The past administration was the dumpster fire, they made one terrible decision after another, so why would you give them leeway. We can discuss Taylor being allowed to overstay and may disagree on the subject, but Jo Ann and her BOT goofballs and "professional" hires should have been run years earlier. It took two instances of criminal investment fraud before the BOT was finally restructured and Jo Ann was encouraged to leave. Let's look at the argument about Taylor for a minute and about mistakes made by athletic administration. I'll defend some those actions. The decision to hire the coach not to be named was a disaster. The football program had disintegrated. Budget was an issue both years, but nobody gives the administration much leeway for those decisions (except maybe the AD was less to blame than higher administration, trustees). What happened with replacing the football coach was not a mistake. But it cost a lot of money. What happened AFTER the basketball coach not to be named had destroyed good relationships with about everyone involved with our basketball program from high school coaches to faculty to other coaches to donors and to fans, now that was the problem where I have some sympathy. Firing the coach was clearly not a mistake. Hiring a young black coach was not a mistake. Hiring on the cheap to replace that basketball coach arguably was a mistake, and yet again not the AD and maybe not even the President's mistake. I have mixed feeling, even some sympathy, given the budget situation and the cost of athletics. Where I have the most sympathy is in regards to the matter of the 3 year rule as applied to this very unusual case. Retaining the coach with a mediocre record, even extending his contract a year was where I think we were over a barrel with no good choice. So that last question is whether we can we fault administration too much for thinking that Taylor might finally have some mild success. And whether it was a mistake to think that success would tide them over an extra year and save them some money. It looked like BSU would be a pretty fair team that year. Not a huge mistake. What makes this all so painful for us as fans, was that the class with Jones and Randy looked right up through preseason of their senior year to be year where the pain was going to be bearable...We still would have hated the listless offense and the deadpan demeanor on the sideline and have the more serious complaint that recruiting was not very good. But, still we were through the storm damage created by Hurricane Randy and the focus would have been on the right things and 6 years would have been time enough to move on and fire him then. Oh please you keep making the ridiculous argument that Ball State's situation was overtly "unusual" when compared to others. The truth is it wasn't, and it was evident by his third year that Taylor's hire was a reach at best. His record at Lehigh was rather mundane, so his leash should have been short to begin with.
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Post by 00hmh on Oct 16, 2015 9:05:23 GMT -6
The past administration was the dumpster fire, they made one terrible decision after another, so why would you give them leeway....Jo Ann and her BOT goofballs and "professional" hires should have been run years earlier. It took two instances of criminal investment fraud before the BOT was finally restructured and Jo Ann was encouraged to leave. That's a debate which I was not addressing. I am not very happy with where higher education is going, and am no fan of how the way the University is run has changed. Most of the problems are not unique to our particular cast of characters. No question our last President had a personality and style and process of top down decision making that created friction. But, I am not sure we will see a lot of difference in outcomes with a kinder gentler, warmer personality who preaches service leadership and distributed authority. The President and BOT are creatures of the Governor and state government. Budget and outcomes are dictated from outside BSU. BSU has been under pressure to do more with less money, and like most mid level universities across the country that is having an impact on the sports programs. Every such institution now is running scared and using mostly the same "best practices" which involve more administration, more "professional" searches and hires. The combination of "best practice," outside accreditation, and legislative meddling supposedly to improve accountability and efficiency, these are the things that give any President little choice but to make the same kind of decisions. Besides that, in looking at the dumpster fire, we need to also recognize that the President had some success, too. Probably rates as highly successful in dealing with the legislature, creating and improving the BSU brand, making campus a better environment. More money has been raised. There are mixed results with the emphasis on national recognition and PR success. This has meant highlighting and building on small high quality programs with low enrollment at the expense of programs and faculty to serve a large number of students in bread and butter classes and programs. That means change in the emphasis for faculty and staff and arguably taken away from some of things that made BSU different, notably the one on one, small class environment which depended on faculty time for students. Change in emphasis means faculty now do more research, spend more time working on external projects. They teach online, never meeting some students. Many of these changes are things are not in our control at all. Budget is tight. Construction projects are easier to fund, you borrow money or use gifts from donors. Cutting tuition and state budget has less impact. The budget process has hurt BSU, it has rewarded 4 year graduation as a metric and STEM degrees. Outside accreditation and legislative mandates rule academic choices. Spending on sports is not favored in this environment, and now heavily influenced by revenue generated. It's not the President who creates those constraints.
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Post by 00hmh on Oct 16, 2015 9:41:18 GMT -6
Oh please you keep making the ridiculous argument that Ball State's situation was overtly "unusual" when compared to others. The truth is it wasn't, and it was evident by his third year that Taylor's hire was a reach at best. His record at Lehigh was rather mundane, so his leash should have been short to begin with. Ridiculous? Your best point may be one you overlook, that maybe we shouldn't have hired him. That short leash thing was trickier than you are giving credit for. The money issues in the buyout? On top of football buyout? Revenue down. Emphasis on the football program spending. Racial issues created by the previous coach. You don't think a short leash and taking on the expense of it was a little harder call? Nobody disagrees that there were reasons to want more and to pull the plug. But, it's just not so clear choice as you say. Give Taylor a little credit, too. He had calmed the waters a bit, actually won some games. He had repaired some of the harm done by those racial issues. Nobody has ever said he didn't do a good job in some areas. It's probably about getting what we pay for. We probably didn't spend enough to hire the replacement for the coach not to be named and it cost us in the long run. I know it was a crisis situation and the search had to be done in a rush, and the Ball State coaching job at the time we hired him was no prize. We may have had to overpay to get a lot better coach. No good coach would have come here without getting a premium, and we hired on a shoestring.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 16, 2015 10:30:25 GMT -6
Oh please you keep making the ridiculous argument that Ball State's situation was overtly "unusual" when compared to others. The truth is it wasn't, and it was evident by his third year that Taylor's hire was a reach at best. His record at Lehigh was rather mundane, so his leash should have been short to begin with. Ridiculous? Your best point may be one you overlook, that maybe we shouldn't have hired him. That short leash thing was trickier than you are giving credit for. The money issues in the buyout? On top of football buyout? Revenue down. Emphasis on the football program spending. Racial issues created by the previous coach. You don't think a short leash and taking on the expense of it was a little harder call? Nobody disagrees that there were reasons to want more and to pull the plug. But, it's just not so clear choice as you say. Give Taylor a little credit, too. He had calmed the waters a bit, actually won some games. He had repaired some of the harm done by those racial issues. Nobody has ever said he didn't do a good job in some areas. It's probably about getting what we pay for. We probably didn't spend enough to hire the replacement for the coach not to be named and it cost us in the long run. I know it was a crisis situation and the search had to be done in a rush, and the Ball State coaching job at the time we hired him was no prize. We may have had to overpay to get a lot better coach. No good coach would have come here without getting a premium, and we hired on a shoestring. You keep talking about the past administration as if they were children that should be allowed a multitude of poor decisions and unprofessional behavior. They created the mess that was Ronnie Thompson, then followed it up with another reach. It had little to do with money, and much more to do with arrogance, stupidity, and misplaced bravado. You could have given that group a seven figure budget and between Jo Ann, Roy Budd, and Hollis Hughes they still would have screwed it all up. Placing fault on state funding models, especially considering the number of private colleges who seem to have little trouble making quality hiring decisions, is damn funny.
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Post by 00hmh on Oct 16, 2015 12:11:12 GMT -6
You keep talking about the past administration as if they were children that should be allowed a multitude of poor decisions and unprofessional behavior. They created the mess that was Ronnie Thompson, then followed it up with another reach. It had little to do with money, and much more to do with arrogance, stupidity, and misplaced bravado. You could have given that group a seven figure budget and between Jo Ann, Roy Budd, and Hollis Hughes they still would have screwed it all up. Placing fault on state funding models, especially considering the number of private colleges who seem to have little trouble making quality hiring decisions, is damn funny. Damned funny to say tight budgets matter? What's damned funny is comparing us to private schools that "have little trouble." I am not sure there are any. Private colleges colleges with D1 basketball programs have a great deal of trouble hiring where they have the same size budget as we do. Private schools have NOT had a major source of their funding cut. They depend on tuition which they can raise and endowment, while we have a much greater portion of our budget outside our control. We can't raise tuition without the legislature responding and we just don't have endowment to cover the bulk of our budget. if expenses go up, we have less flexibility. For some data where we can compare private and public schools see: ope.ed.gov/athletics/GetOneInstitutionData.aspxThis data is using numbers where the allocation is by gender, and there are additional numbers in each budget not allocated by gender. Compare us to Xavier. With many fewer students, but without football in their athletic budget, in a season where they spend say 5 mil+ on men's basketball, we spend maybe 2 mil. (same season, 6mil on football). They spend 83K per participant athlete in basketball, we spend 18K. They spend 5 or 6 times in game day expenses as we do. They spend a total budget of 16mil+ on sports. We spend 25mil+ On sports other than basketball and football both schools spend about 2 mil. On women's sports not that much difference. On all men's sports they spend 7 mil+ we spend 10mil+(including that relatively big chunk for football) We have a larger amount "not allocated by gender" which represents administrative expenses and other expenses allocated to the athletic department. There are additional dollars not allocated to the department, but providing maintenance of parking and buildings that have mixed academic and athletics use. Yeah, Xavier wins the battle hiring basketball coaches...but no trouble? A fair comparison? Not with the budget they have. You don't even want to talk about schools like Notre Dame or Vanderbilt or big schools. Dayton? About the same story as Xavier in terms of budget. Where Dayton or Xavier count revenue from men's basketball at 10 or 11 million, and produce a net revenue stream for other athletics teams, we produce about 2 million and need to count student fees... Our entire men's athletics revenue is 10 mil, a huge part of that student fees allocated to football... Whether stupid arrogance and bravado was part of the reason the President and BOT screwed it up on the basket with this budget, or not, budget matters.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 16, 2015 12:27:19 GMT -6
"Damned funny to say tight budgets matter?"
I never said or even insinuated budgets don't matter. Damn................Let's go ahead and start that board for people who can't read.
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Post by rusty on Oct 16, 2015 12:33:14 GMT -6
Well there goes my optimism before the season starts. The last few years I can see how a Cub fan feels. Wonder if recent Cubs luck can rub off on the Cards this season.
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Post by 00hmh on Oct 16, 2015 14:10:58 GMT -6
"Damned funny to say tight budgets matter?" I never said or even insinuated budgets don't matter. Damn................Let's go ahead and start that board for people who can't read. Sure you did. You said that you thought budget models being a cause of our funding problems was damned funny. But they do cause a budget cut for us. The budget models hurt Ball State and create loss of state money and makes other cuts hurt even worse, and is very certainly one cause of our pinched budget. You compared budgets to private schools. The difference with those private schools turns out to be budget. Most of my post was about comparing state and private budgets and how we operate on a short budget. Since budget, you now say does matter, and the models produce the budget, then you have to consider those models. No private school gets any kind of state budget cut, no private school has to face cuts to achieve an arbitrary standard for graduation rate and STEM degrees. Private schools don't have to answer to legislatures when they raise tuition if they do have a cost increase. Budget models count a lot if budget as you now agree counts. Create a board for those who can't read and you will have to join it.
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