THAT'S WHAT I'VE SAID ALL ALONG. YOU DON'T CALL OUT YOUR PLAYERS IN PUBLIC LIKE HE DID. I lost all respect for McDormat after that as I think the players did.
THAT'S WHAT I'VE SAID ALL ALONG. YOU DON'T CALL OUT YOUR PLAYERS IN PUBLIC LIKE HE DID. I lost all respect for McDormat after that as I think the players did.
First of all, I disagree about the "thug players" thing. Being a thug doesn't mean you ******* suck at basketball or can't play as a team. Look at the NBA, and stars and tell me there's no thugs there and tell me they didn't play well in college. Allen Iverson is a complete thug. That's no excuse for anything. This begs the question too. What players on our team were thugs? The only one remotely close I can think of is Mike Taylor, but he's really not one. He stole medicine from Cub Foods. That doesn't make you a thug. Curtis Stinson was a bigger thug than anyone on GMac's teams, and even he wasn't a huge thug.
Listen, Creighton is 10-1 so far this year with wins over Northwestern (decent team), San Diego State (good), and Nebraska (pretty good). Other than that, they haven't beaten anyone who is specifically good. The combined record of teams Creighton has beaten this year is 62-61 and the record of the team Creighton lost to is 9-3.
Why am I bringing this up? Because it's the same thing that happened at ISU. McDermott could beat the teams he was supposed to. I could argue above that Northwestern, San Diego State, and Nebraska are all teams that while are good, are easily beatable. It's not like Creighton is beating Michigan State or UNC or Duke or Syracuse or anyone like that.
My opinion is that GMac is an OK coach, but nothing overly special. What happened at ISU is that he got beat at his own job, which is coaching. He was in over his head versus most of the other coaches in the Big 12. There's a reason the only teams we only ever beat in his tenure were the bottom of the barrel like Nebraska and Colorado. We weren't overly athletic, which is why we played more half court offense (and for GMac's ineptness). He forgot that the other coaches in the Big 12 actually know how to defend a half court, and their superior athletes overtook ours after awhile and ran over us for the most part. He kept his half court style game recruiting players who weren't used to playing it, and when they were taught it, they didn't "get it" as well as say a guy from a town of 10,000 people in Iowa who is used to playing a half court offense (i.e. probably 75% of his UNI players).
Also, about 1 in every 3 players to ever play for him either quit the team or quit basketball all together. That says a lot about what else was going on. From what players said, he was a bastard and they were afraid to do anything wrong. When you're afraid to do anything wrong, you're going to do more wrong than more right usually. Yeah, coaches tear down their players, but they give them confidence at the same time. I don't think GMac did that at the same time. There's two ways of telling a player they've been sucking. One is just saying they suck and the other is saying it in a way which lets them know they can play better. People who blame Wes Johnson for leaving are complete idiots IMO and have no idea what went on.
I am not sold on him being a great coach just because Creighton is 10-1 against teams with a combined record of about .500. They are decent this year and will probably make the NCAA tournament, but don't expect anything amazing to happen with them. That doesn't make you an amazing coach in my book.
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With no coaching,, Morgan had more success than the over coaching McD. I had the feeling that the only time he talked to his players was during the game.
FIFY
There is a lot of truth here....RECRUITING is 90+ % of coaching at this level. This staff has done a good job with that so far, even with no recent success to sell.
As far as the OP goes, God speed, but it is fairly apparent that you didn't watch a lot of UNI basketball when mac was the coach there.
And it seems to be conveniently forgotten in the cya presser and the villification of KIDS in an effort to deflect blame from mac's bi polar nature...Brackins, DG, etc. all kept in contact with WJ, and called him their friend the whole time.
He was a captain at Syracuse, for a team that was a 1 seed in the tourney. He was called a great teammate by Boeheim, so I would probably try to use another example.
Also, when a coach is "blindsided" by a transfer, well, that is not a ringing endorsement for the way that he communicates and treats players.
As far as Creighton goes, Fact: he had two all conference players returning, in the pg, and the pf from last year. Lawson (I think) was a preseason player of the year as well.
Fact: they had a transfer from Rutgers (ironically) Echinique, that is widely believed to have the most pro potential in the conference, aside from Dougie.
Fact: taking Dougie from UNI, hurt UNI greatly last year, especially when O'Rear went down. Dougie was freshman of the year, and newcomer as well (I think). He is the best player in that league, no question. It will be interesting to see what happens when he graduates.
He walked in to a situation that was much better than he left here. Can you imagine a Greg McDermott coached Iowa State team last year? No players, no recruiting for a lame duck coach. It was pretty damn close to being a death penalty situation that Freddie walked into. That would have totally slammed the door on any type of quick recovery....
It is also funny, when you go back through the mac threads at the end of his time here, the same people are on here trying to rewrite history. It's like reading fb threads about mccarney....
Irony? Put Creighton and ISU on the court together and Creighton probably kicks the crappy out of ISU. But McD still can't coach...
Bottom line? He's a good coach that was a bad fit at ISU, and now that he's at a place he's comfortable at he's starting to kick the crap out of opponents. I'm not saying I'm not glad he's gone, but as of right now CFH isn't giving me a lot of confidence that he's going to get it done at ISU either.
Bottom Bottom Line:
I am thinking without his son and the decent crop of players he inherited AND no longer playing in the Missouri Valley Conference we are seeing what a great coach he is. The stellar 9-11 and 0-7 in Big East play says it all. Even with the NCAA player of the year on his team they could not get past the Round of 32.
CFH not getting it done, since imposing his own system and players he has not failed to win 11 or more Big 12 Games (G-mac won 6 his first year with Morgan's players and never sniffed more than 4 every depressing year after that.) Fred won 12 conference games during this season you originally made this post.
Yes I will admit I dislike Coach Mac vehemently and I will tell you why. He did something far worse than lose at Iowa State. He destroyed interest in Iowa State Basketball from the outside and inside of the program. There were no magical defeats of true goliath teams, GMac's brand of Hilton Magic involved finding ways to lose to UNI, Drake and South Dakota State!!! His only victory over a ranked team being a fluke road win at K-State. The type of basketball played being slow and boring with 1500 set offensive plays that amounted to a 61 ppg average. Players clearly did not want to play for him and it was rats leaving a sinking ship all four horrible years he was here.
Johnny Orr had two seasons he finished above .500 in conference play. But his teams were exciting to watch and could pull off big upsets at home, even during their rebuilding years. They also consistently made the post season.
Keep singing his prasies all you like and enjoy watching Creighton as they go down the same path he led Iowa State down for four depressing years. Even Lynn Nance had a winning freaking season!!
Thank you CFH for giving us the team we grew up with and loved and for bringing the magic back to Hilton. Thank you for the exciting style of play, for making Hilton rock, for making Kansas sweat bullets every time they play us and for most of all making it impossible to wait for the next Iowa State game!!!!
Call me crazy but I'd rank that among worst victories. Worst victories, how could a victory be bad one asks? Well that one over KSU showed the talent Iowa State had but never could wield. At the time I remember we dreaded it because it meant another year with GMAC, before the Creighton Miracle.
Wasn't Wesley more suited for Wayne Morgan's zone principles than he ever was for McDermott's system? Plus he was injured and some speculated that Coach Mac didn't think he was as injured as bad and was just not working hard...either way it created an animosity between the two. He also was unlucky with key guys getting injured or leaving...he's a good guy but just could never get momentum in a tough Big 12
That's the wonderful thing about ISU basketball...no matter the question, the answer is Hoiberg.
To be successful as a Coach you have to genuinely believe that yourself, the school, and players can succeed. I don't think Greg ever felt that way in Ames. Didn't seem to like ISU much, himself less, and the players least. He was a great at UNI, and should have stayed there. He honestly loved that program and its identity. Never liked ISU and the players that you need to play with to win at that level.
Can he Coach x's and o's? Yes, but his issues are personnel management.
Can he Coach x's and o's? Yes, but his issues are personnel management.
If the next couple of years trend like this year, it will look like his assistant Jacobson was the glue that made it work at UNI.
I guess this wasn't a bad thing to say at the time but looks awful now. It's amazing what happens when your NBA 1st rounder leaves.
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I pretty much still endorse this post. We traded up by bringing in a coach with ZERO experience at any level. Creighton had a good run during Doug's four years, but they have come out flat this year. If the current trendlines continue, we will be adding a bronze statue of the Creighton AD right next to Johnny Orr in Hilton.
I've always thought that too. His heart stayed in Cedar Falls. The one time he managed to beat UNI he was basically apologetic about it.
As much as I like to claim the ol "Kicked in the Nuts!" thing about being an ISU fan, there are a couple of things along the way that make me think, maybe it's not really what I think and in the end, we were lucky they went the way they did. Especially the McDermott thing. Imagine if he'd have gotten Harrison Barnes and his son to both come to ISU. We 'd have had a pretty decent 4 years, but in the end, would probably have meant a longer time trying to be able to get rid of the guy as he just drove the program down even further then he left it at the time.
I was ****** about HB, I was ****** his son wasn't coming here either, but in the end, it was actually the best thing for ISU basketball.
I was ****** about HB, I was ****** his son wasn't coming here either, but in the end, it was actually the best thing for ISU basketball.
