Thanks for clarifying. I just wasn’t sure how McKinley Wright made it so we will never be able to recruit in Minnesota.
ISU Coaching Poll
- Thread starter Gunnerclone
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Thanks for clarifying. I just wasn’t sure how McKinley Wright made it so we will never be able to recruit in Minnesota.
Huh? SDSU tied for their league regular season title last year and is tied for first this year as well, that is with Jenkins and Grill, who would be their two best players not in the program. Both were p6-ish players that would be in Brookings today if TJ were still there. He brought plenty of talent there. I think any critique of his coaching is fair, he def lacks experience but recruiting is something he's proven he can do, specifically he's proven he can do it at ISU. Any comparison between TJ and Steve is ignoring their careers before they got HC jobs. TJ was recruiting to the big 12/Pac 12 for a decade while Prohm was recruiting kids to Centenary and SE Louisiana.
Is it just me that is worried that TJ is a Steve Prohm clone? Great recruiter of talent but average to below average in the x's and o's?
I concur with the defense idea. I loved watching TF and LE teams shut down the big-name players or totally frustrate an opponent.
One thing you touch on here is the idea of "culture." That's one aspect that CSP has trouble with. Every year it's been "we don't have an identity ...yet." In the past, it usually shows up late January, February, or March. That's the wrong approach, in my eyes. We should know our identity the first day we hit the court and just get better at it over the season. You know what you're getting with WV and KU, for example.
If TJ brings in great recruits who play 4 years instead of 1 or 2, it’s still an upgrade.
Obviously the 1 or 2 year players are great, and I’m in no way saying we don’t want them. But we need a base first. We aren’t quite a blue blood who can bring in several 1 or 2 year players every year.
I agree.
And this isn’t an excuse or justification but Prohm brought in Tyrese thinking he’d be that 4 year guy. Everyone thought he’d be a 4 year guy. Tyrese being a 4 year guy wouldn’t have saved the job. But it’s not like they signed him thinking he’d only play a year and a half.
Totally agreed, and that is a great point. I think CBB is showing that more than ever this year continuity, not top recruits is the name of the game. And maybe he hasn't been in a position long enough to look at no fault of his own, but what has TJ done to show us he is capable of that so far in his career?
I think that plus the fact that that next recruiting class so far has been a big miss has really hurt. Imagine if Haliburton was here and he had two guys out of the next class that were legit Big 12 players. It is crazy to think that of the previous 3 classes starting with the Wigginton class, that there are only 2 guys currently on the team: Conditt and Jackson.
The others either went pro (Wigginton, THT, Haliburton) or transferred (Lewis, Griffin, Leach, Anderson and Grill). And a lot of the transfers that he got to try and patch things up, simply haven't been good enough.
Fair point, but TJ didn't coach those players at SDSU the last couple years so we'll never know if TJ would have had equal or better record as the current coach.
I have no doubt TJ can recruit players, as you said he did a great job at ISU. I would just prefer that ISU hire a coach that has been at his school so we could see a 4 year cycle of a potential head coach recruiting and coaching a program.
I have said before, I would have no issue of ISU hiring TJ as Jamie Pollard knows TJ personally from his 7ish years as an assistant with the Cyclones.
As an outside observer I just like Smith's resume and the eye test of his teams play.
Floundering might be harsh, but he certainly isn't thriving. I'd love to pass on TJ this go-round, see how this UNLV thing plays out over a longer stretch. I want to see that he can build before he gets this job. If he's available the next time we enter the coaching carousel and he's done well, THEN offer him the job.
I like the way his teams play as well but his longest tenure at a job is 4 years. So he's got a similar HC history with about half of TJ's assistant experience. So I'm not sure how he checks that box for you. I feel like that makes his resume weaker than TJ.
It's one of the wives tales that spread like wild fire on this site. Right up there with Katie Prohm despising her existence in Ames, IA.
It's too risky then. They need someone who has shown that they can create and build, then sustain. TJ isn't that. Smith might be.
I am worried. Aside from X's and O's, can he establish a culture? Can he develop three-star recruits or is he just going to recruit over them with other three-star recruits each year?
Let’s see:
McDermott: built and sustained UNI success. Came to ISU, failure. Never even MADE THE NCAA TOURNEY.
Fred: never coached before, didn’t sustain any success because he’d never coached before. Came to ISU, changed the game, a great run at ISU with titles and sweet 16’s.
It's a crapshoot regardless! TJ could come here and could suck or he could put us right back on the map. We could hire Craig Smith and he could instill an awesome culture and we start winning or he could suck and we've wasted another 4-5 years.
Sure. That worked once. I'd rather bank on some concrete evidence than roll that dice again. That's just me. I want them to bring in someone tough, someone with a little hard-nosed grind-it-out mentality. McDermott wasn't even that. He was a big teddy bear.
Agree with this. Also, a minor detail, but the MWC is a better conference than the MVC. McDermott also grew up an Iowa fan so probably never felt comfortable in Ames. Not everyone can be Danny Mac
