Tuesday, April 1, 2008

A Comparison of Coaches

Both coaches played D1 ball at nationally known universities. Both coaches have dads who are long time, well respected coaches.

Coach A
2 yr Big 12 Conference record of 13-19
Overall record of 39-29
Big 12 postseason record 3-2

Coach B
2 yr Big 12 Conference record of 15-17
Overall record of 39-27
Big 12 postseason record 2-2

Coach A agreed to resign on Tuesday, after Boone State agreed to pay him like he was still working there.
Coach B agreed to a $300,000/yr raise and a contract extension last week.

I wasn't terribly impressed with Sutton, but two years seems like a really short time. I think when you get in a situation of a bad hire, there's no good way out. Clearly T Boone felt like it wasn't going to get better. Or maybe he caught Sean using his golf clubs.

Conversely, this whole head coach designate thing is a crock.Didn't work well at DePaul in the 80s. Didn't appear to be headed the right direction at Okie State. Still up in the air in Lubbock. Arizona canned their head coach in waiting today. Has it worked anywhere that anyone can think of?

The attention will now turn to who the next coach will be. That will be interesting. Sutton was coming off of a huge scandal at Kentucky with admitted alcohol abuse during his tenure there, and one year later was coaching at Oklahoma State. It's not like they hired Coach K away from Duke. At the time, Sutton was closer to Kelvin Sampson present status (embarrassed out of a job) than hot coaching commodity.

So, where will they go? Bill Self is not accepting a demotion to coach at his alma mater. Fairly good bet Scott Sutton won't leave ORU to go work for the school that fired his brother (thought that would create some interesting family dynamics). I don't think Roy Williams is looking to come back to the Big 12. Kelvin Sampson is fairly radioactive at this point.

Oklahoma State is a school with a very solid history the past 20 years. Dare i say it, but for the past 15 years, their program has had much more success than the Sooners. IMO, in D-1 college hoops, you don't go get an assistant at a big school (see Horned Frogs, TCU), you go one of two routes 1) experienced coach looking to get 'back in the game' or 2) get a up and coming guy from a smaller D1 school. I'd recommend 2. You could call upon Sean Miller at Xavier, but apparently it's a steep asking price. Go call the dude coaching Winthrop, or Belmont. Call Jeff Jones at American. Or the dude that succeeded Capel at VCU. Call George Mason's coach. Call Davidon's coach. Call the chap that led UT Arlington to a bid for the first time in 40 years. If you want their names, go to a real site. It's late. I'm puting far too much time into a rivals problems.

2 comments:

duncansooner said...

Dare i say it, but for the past 15 years, their program has had much more success than the Sooners.

Only if the NCAA tourney is your only barometer. Actually OU has had MORE success in the conference than OSU.

HeadThief said...

brduren - excellent point. The Sooners do have more big 12 championships. I was referring to the NCAA measurement. The underperformance in the tourney by Sampson's squads (and Billy's teams were disappointing a couple of times as well) was what I was referring to.

Thanks for stopping by and posting.