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Username Post: Fans, coaches and teams
Dr. V 
PhD Student
Posts: 1536

Reg: 11-21-04
03-12-18 05:09 PM - Post#252528    
    In response to cc66

I did not try to exculpate the coaching staff from any responsibility for the season. I was reacting to some of what I consider off the reservation comments about our coaches.

In all normal circumstances (normal in the sense that the new coach doesn't turn out to be an alcoholic or molester), a new basketball coach gets 3-5 years to show what he can do. I don't know how this coaching staff will turn out, but it's ridiculous to claim, as some here have done, that anyone can tell that our coaching staff won't succeed. You have to have your own players, which means you need 2-3 recruiting years, because those will fit more into what you like to do and because sometimes players from a prior regime think they know more than they actually do and are a little less amenable to guidance.

Predicting who will turn out to be a successful D1 coach in basketball or football is very, very difficult. Perhaps the only decently predictive factor is experience as a head coach on the D1 level and success on that level. I've been following CU basketball and football since 1971 and have seen innumerable coaches come and go both in basketball and football, and we know how that turned out. We're not going to pay somebody $2 or $3 million to come and coach for us. We hired someone who has D1 head coaching experience and unusual success at his previous venue. I'm optimistic that he will find a way to be successful because I want our program to succeed and because he has a record of prior success. Am I certain of success? Of course not. But there is certainly no well-grounded basis for some of the extreme comments claiming knowledge that there won't be success.

Any comparisons with Bagnoli are misplaced. He is near to being unique in terms of the record of success that he had at Penn as an Ivy coach. If I recall correctly, he won 11 titles in 20 years or something like that. In all my years, there are only two football coaches that have stood head and shoulders above all of the other Ivy coaches, Bagnoli and Cozza, and I think that although Bagnoli obviously had good players, I think, and our Penn friends can correct me if I'm wrong, that Cozza had a larger number of very good players than Bagnoli had. So Bagnoli, or his assistants, can today come into a recruit's house and give him and his parents a unique message: come play for us and you'll have a chance to play for a head coach who has won 11 championships. That we got Bagnoli was an extraordinary fluke of several timings coming together in a way that for once worked out great for us. There is not going to be any other new coach who is going to be in a similar position for us.

Did we over perform at times? Yes. Harvard had 3 ESPN top 100 kids on the floor against us, yet we beat them. I know that Princeton was tired from its 3 OTs plus trip from Ithaca, but on paper (recruiting rankings) they have significantly more talent yet we thrashed them. Penn has more talent, yet we played them close and tough until we collapsed at the end. Why did that happen? Was it because of some coaching shortcoming on our part or because Penn just executed and we didn't? And because, among other things, Penn had what many or most good teams have, which is good senior leadership.

The two games that were a real disappointment were the losses to Brown and Dartmouth, and the coaches must bear some responsibility for them. At Brown Smith drove into 3 defenders trying to score while Stefanini was waving his arms on the wing with no one near him. Bad play design? Bad judgment on the court? I don't know, but we should have won. At Dartmouth we came out flat. Deflated by the loss of Meisner? Trying to avoid coming out too tight? I don't know, but whatever it was, it didn't work, and the coaches have to take at least some responsibility for that, and I presume that they do in terms of analyzing what worked/didn't work this season.
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