This could be ladder material, if not a bracelet
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This could be ladder material, if not a bracelet
An effort will be made. Whitman is a clever guy, he's not going to get tunnel vision.
You don't think a lot of that had to do with the AD, Thomas? He had a reputation at U of Cinci. BKelly probably wore out the treads on his tires burning out from Cincinnati to ND.
TownieMatt
CU Expat
- Chicago
I totally agree with this assessment. If you want to directly compare Counzo with Keatts you hit it on the head:
Counzo: Lower risk, lower potential reward
Keatts: Higher risk, higher potential reward
Given how attractive a high floor is right now, I would be fine with Counzo, especially because I think Counzo would be able to hit the ground running on the recruiting trail. Keatts is the more intriguing option to me based on how successful he's been in his short HC career, but it might take him a bit longer to get things going.
I think the problem with the Keady tree is that the system approach is essentially based on these factors:
1. Use the clock on offense to get good shots. Use stifling defense to force bad shots on the other end. Limit transition buckets. View basketball as fundamentally a game of tempo control. The winning team will generally have better quality possessions and make the opponent uncomfortable. Grind teams down: frustrate them and disrupt the continuity of their offensive sets.
2. Play with a lot of physicality. The refs can't call a foul on every play.
3. Get shots within the protected area by exploiting frontline mismatches and attacking the paint with cutters. Use screens and extra passes to free up open shooters for higher percentage looks from 3pt range.
This is all totally strategically viable, but if you get a lot of fouls called and have an off night shooting, it leads to a lot of ugly 53-49 contests. A Keadyball team will lose games it shouldn't and win games it shouldn't. Either way, there will be close, grind-it-out games. Actually, the same is true of Tony Bennett's style. And probably Mony Williams (since his teams shoot very few threes and focus on suffocating defense). I think Cuonzo will be able to win a ton of B1G games (esp. if he's recruiting at a high level and has a talent advantage most nights), but there will plenty of frustrating performances and ugly/slow basketball.
I'm biased toward a style that emphasizes fast play, transition offense, shooting lots of 3-pointers, generating lots of steals, and basically daring the opponent to try to outgun you. Think GS Warriors or Houston Rockets. More possessions than your opponent + greater points/shot. I don't care if they score 110, as long as we score 115. I know lots of people disagree and/or don't think it works in the Big Ten.
I think either style can win. I fear the Keady approach will lead to lots of super talented teams who somehow go 23-12 and lose in the second round despite having multiple NBA guys on the roster.
1. Use the clock on offense to get good shots. Use stifling defense to force bad shots on the other end. Limit transition buckets. View basketball as fundamentally a game of tempo control. The winning team will generally have better quality possessions and make the opponent uncomfortable. Grind teams down: frustrate them and disrupt the continuity of their offensive sets.
2. Play with a lot of physicality. The refs can't call a foul on every play.
3. Get shots within the protected area by exploiting frontline mismatches and attacking the paint with cutters. Use screens and extra passes to free up open shooters for higher percentage looks from 3pt range.
This is all totally strategically viable, but if you get a lot of fouls called and have an off night shooting, it leads to a lot of ugly 53-49 contests. A Keadyball team will lose games it shouldn't and win games it shouldn't. Either way, there will be close, grind-it-out games. Actually, the same is true of Tony Bennett's style. And probably Mony Williams (since his teams shoot very few threes and focus on suffocating defense). I think Cuonzo will be able to win a ton of B1G games (esp. if he's recruiting at a high level and has a talent advantage most nights), but there will plenty of frustrating performances and ugly/slow basketball.
I'm biased toward a style that emphasizes fast play, transition offense, shooting lots of 3-pointers, generating lots of steals, and basically daring the opponent to try to outgun you. Think GS Warriors or Houston Rockets. More possessions than your opponent + greater points/shot. I don't care if they score 110, as long as we score 115. I know lots of people disagree and/or don't think it works in the Big Ten.
I think either style can win. I fear the Keady approach will lead to lots of super talented teams who somehow go 23-12 and lose in the second round despite having multiple NBA guys on the roster.
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Exactly and quite frankly, time is no luxury for this program. Students/fans/alumni wants results ASAP, not 3 years from now, which is exactly why Keatts is not the fit for this program. Sorry to break it to some folks around here. In the mean time, State Farm will sell only 9,000 seats per game, fans will become disinterested, and Keatts will have already lost ground on the legitimacy of his new position.
A lot are forgetting that the CAA lost 3 of its perennial top teams in George Mason (2013), Old Dominion (2013), VCU (2012) conveniently right before Keatts took over the job. Georgia St even did alright in the tournament and they left in 2013. The CAA is not what it used to be.
mattcoldagelli
- The Transfer Portal with Do Not Contact Tag
Really interested in hearing your acceptable hire list.
It was a joke my dude :thumb:
Please see elsewhere on this board for 250,000 words worth of my thoughts on the Mike Thomas era. (Who am I kidding, it's probably way more than that)
Cliffs Notes: I am certain to be happier in March 2017 than I was in March 2012.
Illiniwek06
- N of I-80
I do not get this argument at all. Why do people assume it would take Keatts three years to get results versus zero for Cuonzo?
Ron Guenther's criteria included Final Four experience. That's why we got Kruger, who took Florida there before we hired him. Not sure Mike Thomas had any fixed criteria, other than apparently coming from non-power 5 conference with a likelihood of completely flaming out. Does anybody know Whitman's criteria? I'll hang up and listen.
Exactly, and where would UNC-Wilmington be if VCU was still in that conference? Can anyone spell: N...I...T....Just because you dominate within a cupcake conference doesn't mean you are the savior. Brad Underwood is an exception to that rule because I think everyone could tell clearly that his teams at SFA had a defensive-minded focus on pressing all the time.
Say it as many times as you like, it's still fatally flawed reasoning.
Why do you assume that he will get the results quickly? What makes you believe that to be the case?
What the what?
When you take a team in any league from the cellar to the NCAA tournament in 2 out of your first 3 years (I'm already counting this one), it's an accomplishment. Everyone starts somewhere, and if you could build the ideal base of your college basketball coaches resume, it'd look exactly like Keatts does.
We're all making assumptions, because we're not Josh Whitman or a select handful of people that actually know anything about this search (and there's not even an official search yet). The good thing is, no matter how many names we cross off the list in this forum, it doesn't me anything because we don't have any influence whatsoever.
Josh Whitman is the man that will lead us to the promised land. He is our fearless leader. He, and he alone will make the (HYPE) trains run on time.
Whatever the overall level of results Keatts may or may not achieve, there is no roster-independent reason to think Year 3 would be better than Year 1, relative to Cuonzo Martin.
In English, you don't have to wait for Keatts' best. There's not some big learning curve that he has and Cuonzo doesn't.
The fact that he took a 9-23 team to a 64-26 (and counting) record immediately. Come on man keep up.
This too. 9-23 to a conference championship with leftover players.
I only see this being true if Keatts must win first here to recruit successfully here. I personally don't think that would be the case, but obviously don't have any insight.
I imagine kids would be willing to play for him at least as much as they are for Groce.
Illiniwek06
- N of I-80
I'm not asserting that he will or won't, but it seems as if people are presenting "amount of time to turn program around" as a positive for Cuonzo and a negative for Keatts. My point is that I'm not following that thought process.
In a lower level conference that just lost VCU, George Mason, and ODU within the last 5 years? Any respectable coach could do that. There's a difference between being a respectable coach and a savior. He's not the savior, I can assure you of that. What Jim Larranaga did was way more impressive considering that he took Mason to a final 4 and did so while beating the likes of ODU and VCU, who were perennial mid major powers on a yearly basis to get to that point.
Ditto.
It's going to be Cuonzo Martin.
If a guy with a very impressive pedigree walks onto a AA minor league roster and hits 50 bombs and swipes 30 bases you don't say "yea but it's just the minor leagues" you say "get that man on the big league roster, now!"
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