Coaching Carousel (Basketball)
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This picture answers the question of who but opens up a slew of other ones
This guy must be preparing new boots for Jim to entice him to walk away.
BillyBob1
- Champaign
Crocodile Dundee? He will kill it having that knife during recruiting.
I guess they made a "strong-@#! offer"?
OrangeBlue98
Iowa is not in a great spot right now (LvilleILL1)
- Des Moines, IA
What he did is all legal now.
Not really, it's just there's no point in that kind of under-the-table arrangement anymore due to NIL. Doesn't mean it's "legal."
And more importantly it was illegal when he did it, and he knew that to be the case.
ginabackes00
CrazedUIFan
I can see this. Recruiting has always been a drain on coaches - which is why many jumped to the NBA and NFL. Now you have to recruit 13 players every year, not just the 4 or so opening you expected. They are crazy well paid, but it has to be exhausting, and at some point, overwhelming. Football even more so.
He had 2 seniors on his last year at George Mason. By his logic he abandoned 13 players.
Bowling Green had 3 seniors. Abandonded 12 players there.
Hypocrisy.
I suspect the real truth is that Miami doesn't have the $$$ to compete in basketball. Despite making a Final Four, Larranaga was paid under $3mm/year. Eight players jumping into the portal in order to make more money also ought to suggest that Miami didn't have enough to pay them market. That, combined with their terrible 4-8 start to this season, plus his age, wasn't helping recruiting for next season.
sbillini
- st petersburg, fl
These hot takes are getting tired.
- the guy switched jobs two times in almost 40 years. Using your logic, the 25 players he “abandoned” in those almost 40 years negates the literally hundreds he’s helped.
- let’s keep stretching your (imo flawed logic) a little further - “abandoning” maybe 5% or less of his players in his entire career. How many head coaches have these kids had in their career. Maybe 6? 10? So “abandoning” just one coach makes them “worse” than Jim L.
- while money was probably part of the driver, more opportunity to win game was likely a large, if not primary, driver. How many kids these days leave to win more? Especially after just being to a final 4? If so most don’t. It’s primarily money or playing time.
At the end of the day, the game has changed drastically and it’s the Wild West. It’s a poorly structured professonal league right now. Understandable if a guy that’s already at the tail end of his career doesn’t want to deal with that
It's tiresome for a multimillionaire to whine about the job he's paid generational wealth to do becoming more fair for employees.
It's also tiresome for those that insist on carrying coaches' water because... why again?!?
It's certainly not because it's hurting our teams (see: first elite 8 in 20 yrs, revenue sports all ranked) and despite the hand wringing the majority of the kids are better off.
It's certainly not because these guys are tactical geniuses where the game is lost. 100 coaches will jump at the job and there's nothing Larranaga (or anyone else retiring in a tantrum) did that will be deeply missed or not easily emulated.
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sbillini
- st petersburg, fl
the guy said the game has changed so dramatically that he doesn’t want to deal with it at age 70something. That sounds perfectly reasonable to me…I can’t seem to understand why anyone would thino otherwise.
If you’re gonna give a highly respected, by all appearances a stand up guy that has probably positively impacted more lives than you and I ever will combined, a hard time and accuse him of “abandoning” his players cuz he thinks that using the same old cliche arguments that have been circling around to justify paying players, then yes…that’s tired
lstewart53x3
- Scottsdale, Arizona
I’ll tell you what, if I’m an up and comer, this stuff fires me up. The old guard might be too tired to put up with it, but all I’d see is less competition and more opportunity.
$$$ means more than life…as we’ve decided in this country so hard to pin things on these kids doing what’s best for themselves NOW.
Leaving 12 games into a season is bad when anyone does it, particularly when you use things that were true at the beginning of the season as an excuse for it (age, wage, employee structure, etc.)
The arguments are only cliche because they're true and have been for the decades since coaches started making millions more than their employees.
I'm sure there are plenty of 'highly respected', 'stand up' University of Miami employees who have helped more people than either of us...or those that can retire quietly without trashing the thing that made them respected and wealthy.
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How many coaches take jobs for less money to win more?
Kalen DeBoer took the University of Washington football team to the national championship game...and then immediately left to take a job at Bama. His salary increased from 4.2 million/yr to over $10 million/yr, but I'm sure that had nothing to do with it.
Coaches have been making millions for 20, 30 years. Where was all this hand wringing about money ruining the sport when football and basketball coaches became the highest paid public employees in pretty much every state?
Agree 100 percent.
OrangeBlue98
Iowa is not in a great spot right now (LvilleILL1)
- Des Moines, IA
My comment was more of a dig at the state of college basketball in that what should have placed Will Wade in Bruce Pearl levels of basketball purgatory is pretty much table stakes in today’s world of college basketball.
I’m all about players being paid while attending school and using their name, image, and likeness to generate income. But the college system isn’t close to that. NIL was meant for a player to make money for being in a TV commercial, endorsing a shoe, being able to run a camp for kids and be paid for it, etc. That’s not what we are seeing. I don’t really know what the right structure for college sports is. But I am pretty sure this isn’t it.
sbillini
- st petersburg, fl
I agree that leaving mid season is probably not the best look. I also haven’t seen that it was solely his decision. Not like they’ve had the best 1.5 years. And again, 2 “abandonments” in almost 40 years doesn’t scream that this guy isn’t thoughtful in his decisions.
Let’s be clear here, I’m not against athletes getting paid. Fine, go for it. And I do agree that the money is unfairly concentrated at the top of DIAs (though I apparently have unpopular opinions on how that should be fixed that I won’t get into here)
what I think is confusing is this apparently clear cut, obvious notion that athletes have been getting screwed for 20, 30, 40, pick you number years when nobody was forcing these athletes to do it in the first place yet they still did it. There was obviously some value they were getting out of it, but the debate on what that value was doesn’t seem to matter in some circles.
And saying a coach was “trashing” a system or is a hypocrite when all he was saying it’s changed too much and he doesn’t feel like dealing with it in the twilight of his career, just makes it look like to at side of the argument is overly defensive.
sbillini
- st petersburg, fl
Oh, and on the notion of these coaches are overpaid, if you really had an issue with it and really thought it was unfair, you could fix that really quickly in one simple way - stop watching/attending. That would solve the problem real quick. Yet, here we are, so obviously none of us on this board have that much of an issue with it.
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