The concern about TJ is you see guy at Cleveland State in year 2 get his team to the NCAA tourney, TJ's team finishes in the bottom half the league.I think the concern about TJ is people wanting some “excitement” in a coaching search. If Georges Niang was in the mix message board fans would be creaming themselves with excitement.
A guy like Gates, takes a team that had no more than 12 wins in the previous 4 years before he got there and year 2 they are in the tourney. Not that ISU has a shot at him.
There are similiarities between TJ and Prohm
Prohm also took over a great situation in his gig prior to coming to ISU
Murray State's had no less than 16 wins the previous 5 years before Prohm took over and the last 2 years had huge win totals
TJ great situation at SDSU
SDSU had no less than 19 wins 5 years prior to TJ getting there and had multiple 20 win seasons in those 5 years
Moving on to new job
Prohm did well with Fred's guys and was a peaks and valley guy in recruiting, but I believe at least 4 guys Steve brought in are playing the NBA or NBA D-League.
But Steve was never a great X's and O's guys he won when there was an NBA caliber point guard on the floor.
TJ well kind of early, UNLV is a program with lots of tradition. Prior to 2017-2018 season under the old coach UNLV procured a top 25 recruiting class. That year UNLV won 20 games, the following year they won 17 old coach fired and the keys were give to TJ.
Obviously UNLV has high expectations. TJ had lots of guys transfer out and in his first year . But he still had reminents of that very good class. First year they went on a nice little run at the end of the year, to finish above .500. Reminded me of the ISU run at the Big 12 tourney a few years back. UNLV lost round 1 MW tourney. Even if they won of course Covid would have shut them down after that.
Year 2 when they had their point guard, in Jan. prior to that they lost 4 in the Maui invitational, which include the likes of Montana State who is like 11-9 on the year and Davidson who is a good mid major. Much of the win total was fattened up with teams with records of single digit and were ISU caliber or below. They played St Katherine's a school that did not exist before 2011, and has an enrollment of less than 500 I believe. So you can use the point guard excuse but the fact is when he played they were not great
So I see comparisons between Prohm and TJ, and that has me concerned. It has nothing to do with the excitement factor, it has more to do with TJ not yet showing he could turn a program around and showing success under more challenging situations
Other than some people having a few beers with TJ and being buddy buddy with some locals what is it on his current resume that screams success at ISU, cuz right now it is too similar to Prohm's resume in my mind.
In the end if they hire him, I will certainly want him to have the highest success at ISU and he will be my teams coach.
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