OT: Shaka Smart to Marquette EDIT: Not so fast, my friend!
March 24th, 2014 at 10:40 PM ^
So he turned down the UCLA job a few years back for what then?
March 24th, 2014 at 10:51 PM ^
The Marquette job. Lol it's right there in the title.
March 24th, 2014 at 10:57 PM ^
Oh there it is, thank you.
March 25th, 2014 at 12:12 AM ^
March 24th, 2014 at 11:48 PM ^
Is a no-win job disguised as prestigious job. There is no winning enough for that job. They still expect Wooden success without paying for facilities, etc. They just expect it because they're UCLA. Three consecutive final fours: not enough. 25 wins and winning the PAC-10: fired.
Harrick, Laven, Howland, none were successful enough. Nothing less than national championships is enough for UCLA. It's not a job I would want. And while Alford is doing quite well this year, give him a couple "bad" years and he'll be out the door too.
March 25th, 2014 at 12:36 AM ^
I'll take issue with that statement, the fan base loved Howland until his bad recruiting and poor roster management made for an untenable situation, he also could not recruit Southern California as he had burned all of his bridges with the local high school and AAU programs, at a certain point it just wasn't going to work anymore. The ESPN narrative of impossible to please fans is bullshit. They won 25 games and the PAC-12 last year, sure. But the league was down and Minnesota took care of them in the tourney. There just wasn't a future there anymore for him. As for Lavin, the less said the better.
March 25th, 2014 at 12:55 AM ^
UCLA lost to Minnesota only after one of their best players, Jordan Adams, was injured in the title game of the Pac 12 tournament (a game they won thanks to 11 late points from Adams). Kyle Anderson was a Howland recruit. Both of those guys were 1st team all-conference this year as sophomores. Most fanbases would love that sort of "untenable situation". LaVine committted to Howland early and came close to going to UW after he got fired. The Wear twins were brought on board from UNC by Howland. The guy went to 3 Final Fours in 10 seasons and left behind a very good team. And that is without Shabazz Muhammad who left early for the draft after last season.
The fanbase threw a hissy fit because they weren't winning at a higher level than even the most elite programs in the country. Just like the poster above pointed out.
Steve Lavin went to the Elite Eight in his first season and the Sweet Sixteen in four of the next five seasons. He had one shitty year and got fired, yet you're acting like he pissed on somebody's rug. UCLA fans are batshit crazy.
Howland recruited good players, but he also brought in guys like Jerime Anderson, Drew Gordan, J'mison Morgan and Reeves Nelson who destroyed the program.
There were fights in practice, hazing, drug use and whatever else they wanted to do because Howland didn't stop them.
had solid success in the tourney but living in Cali during the 90's and early 2000's, most people felt he underacheived with the talent he had during the regular season. They won the Pac-10 in his first year. After that he lost at least 6 games in conference play every year except one.
Howland's locker room was a hot mess.
Did you actually watch them play last year? They were an unwatchable mess that were bailed out time and again by Muhammed and Anderson's talent and the development of Travis Wear. Hell Mark Titus specifically took time in one of his columns to point out how bad the coaching looked to be during the UCLA-Arizona game last year.
Howland had a great stretch and he built a strong program that was doing good things, but the cracks were starting to show even during the final four runs. Basically in his last final four run he took a team with Darren Collison, Russel Westbrook, Richard Mbah a Moute, Kevin Love, and Josh Shipley and managed to lose to Derrick Rose, mostly because he wouldn't put Westbrook on Rose. The years after that he had a ton of transfers and guys leaving for the NBA who weren't ready and the common theme seemed to be for most of those players that they wanted to get the hell out of UCLA and stop playing for Howland. Combined with him burning bridges to recruit Southern California, basically being unable to recruit a point guard after Jerime Anderson, and running off half the players he recruited(Tony Parker was getting ready to leave until Alford was hired). The wheels were off and the run was over, the only question was when. It was time for Howland to go and it mostly came from his roster mismanagement. There are still debates about him in UCLA circles, much like there is over a certain Arizona football coach here, but the prevailing sentiment is that it was time for him to go.
Lavin, made tourney runs but the team always looked disjointed during the regular season and Baron Davis was quoted at one point as saying, "Imagine what we could do if we had a coach." during a sweet sixteen run.
Bruins Nation is a terrible respresentation for UCLA fans as a whole, and almost any reasonable fan of UCLA avoids the place like the plague. Just like we shouldn't be judged by the MLive posters and Sparty shouldn;t be judged by the RCMB crowd(although it's funto do so).
March 25th, 2014 at 12:39 AM ^
Did your friend say "think your great" or "think you're great" because that makes all the difference as to whether your friend is truly a dumb guy.
:)
Without paying for facilities? Pauley Pavilion just completed a 136-million dollar rennovation.
would be a pretty pleasant start. Smart sat on his tuffet a bit too long.
March 24th, 2014 at 10:40 PM ^
March 25th, 2014 at 12:07 AM ^
I think it was wise to turn down UCLA because no coach can control their boosters but have to suffer the consequences when they get caught paying players. Marquette might not be as high on the food chain as some think Smart could climb, but it is a good place for now.
He will have an opportunity to win more games there and go deeper in the NCAA. Since neither Illinois nor DePaul seems to be able to dominate Chicago's fertile recruiting ground, Smart will have plenty of opportunities to get some very good players.
March 24th, 2014 at 10:41 PM ^
March 24th, 2014 at 10:53 PM ^
March 24th, 2014 at 11:19 PM ^
Virginia fancies itself a commonwealth rather than a state, so VCU is actually a good-sized state university, about 3x the size of Marquette.
March 24th, 2014 at 11:32 PM ^
The Big East is a shell of what it once was. It's essentially a mid major conference now. Is this list of teams really that impressive anymore - Marquette, Villanova, Depaul, St. Johns, Seton Hall, Providence, Creighton, Xavier, Georgetown and Butler??
We'll see how Creighton does without McDermott. Butler took a big step back in the first year Stevens has been gone. IMO, this is a lateral move and a head scratcher considering some of the jobs Smart was rumored to have a chance at but turned down.
March 24th, 2014 at 11:38 PM ^
March 24th, 2014 at 10:42 PM ^
He has been offered many high profile jobs recently, and he decides on Marquette? I'm perplexed.
March 24th, 2014 at 10:46 PM ^
Maybe Marquette just really put on the full court press.
March 24th, 2014 at 10:42 PM ^
March 24th, 2014 at 10:43 PM ^
March 24th, 2014 at 10:49 PM ^
Stopped there on the way back to Pittsburgh from vacation in Myrtle Beach on Friday. Food was pretty good and the beer selection was quite solid. Don't spend much time at all in Virginia, so it was nice to see a lot of VA micros available to sample.
March 24th, 2014 at 10:44 PM ^
March 25th, 2014 at 12:20 AM ^
March 24th, 2014 at 10:45 PM ^
March 24th, 2014 at 10:50 PM ^
Not sure Marquette is that great of a job. Their coach just left to take the Virginia Tech job. Virginia Tech basketball.
March 24th, 2014 at 10:46 PM ^
March 24th, 2014 at 10:51 PM ^
Shaka's star has worn off in my opinion. His 'Havoc' was shredded by us last March and he bowed out in the first round this year. He has been living off a Final Four appearance from what seems like forever ago. I think he realizes this is his last chance to go to a 'power conference', although the new Big East sucks in my opinion (spare me the kenpom talk). Keep in mind he is from Wisconsin as well.
March 24th, 2014 at 10:48 PM ^
Kansas is behind this.
March 24th, 2014 at 11:10 PM ^
March 24th, 2014 at 10:51 PM ^
March 24th, 2014 at 10:50 PM ^
I had the same reaction until I was reminded he's from WI. That makes sense and I'm sure it's a done deal.
That you can go home again.
March 24th, 2014 at 10:53 PM ^
Shaka is from Milwaukee, and the expectations will be significantly lower than UCLA. I think it is a great move for him, and I am happy for him. We went to college together, and I think that he is one of the finest people that I have ever met.