OT: UCLA coaching search is...not going well
For all the people complaining about Beilein again, let the UCLA basketball coaching search be a reminder that the grass is not always greener. One of the true bluebloods of college basketball and in the top 5 of schools that are easiest to recruit at.
Apparently they've already been rebuffed by their top guys (don't know who exactly they approached but some names thrown out there are Tony Bennett, John Calipari, Chris Beard, Matt Painter, Buzz Williams, and Billy Donovan).
They're now down to a top 2 of Mick Cronin and Jamie Dixon, neither of which are elite coaching talents. I think Dixon made it to the Elite 8 once and his Pitt teams (IIRC) tended to flame out early in the NCAAs. Funny enough, he was also an assistant under Ben Howland at Pitt, who was fired from UCLA before Alford took over the job. Dixon has an $8m buyout at basketball powerhouse TCU.
Cronin seems to make the tourney every year, get a win, and then go home. He's been to one sweet 16.
There's also talk of Shaka Smart being a candidate, which would have me laughing (only to stop me from crying) if I were a UCLA fan. Probably the most overrated coach of the last 20 years. Smart has been nipping at Alford's heels as the champ of "Doing Less with More" for the last 4 years.
How to send a blue blood into irrelevancy.
Ucla has been more or less irrelevant for the last decade. They had one good year with Ball but didn't even do anything great with him. Last truly good UCLA team was with Love and Westbrook and even they didn't win a title. Crazy
Mostly because Howland didn't put Westbrook on Rose in that final four game for reasons yet to be understood.
I meant that making a string of bad hires is how great programs fall. Howland was obviously great there for a few years and then fell to only good and fell out of grace. Alford was fine, but not up to their standards. If this hire is worse than Alford, they risk future generations not really caring about UCLA basketball at all.
Reads a lot like how important the Harbaugh hire was here. We couldn't afford to settle for anyone else.
Current generations already don't care about UCLA basketball. They have terrible attendance did so even when they were a good team with Lonzo.
Programs like Michigan football are having attendance issues. Imagine a team playing in a world class city with a million other things to do and brutal traffic on the way to games.
I don't know about that, the game against Michigan that year was pretty packed and the atmosphere was awesome.
I couldn't imagine being a fan of a program that used to be a powerhouse and is now typically irrelevant. Must suck
Indiana says hi.
So does M football.
#12, #10, and #14 AP finishes with two NY6 bowl appearances in the last three years isn't where the team wants the program to be, but it's not remotely irrelevant.
I think we of all people know exactly "how to send a blue blood into irrelevancy".
sad truth. Adidas just was never the right logo - no brand alignment
I still wear all my Adidas shirts though. The Nike dri-fit shirts are uncomfortable IMO.
Too soon.
Hoke looks better here than I remember him looking.
You lift me up, Dr.
It sort of looks like there is a dandelion seed head on top of his headset. That's probably an old Albanian omen of doom - if only we had spotted the signs earlier.
So what does the term "blue blood" program even mean these days? Seriously.
Not trying to nitpick here but in the past 10 seasons, they have been to the Sweet Sixteen three times and won their conference once. One time. That conference being the mighty PAC 12 with a heavy dose of sarcasm.
I don't think UCLA is necessarily a bad team but I also don't put them up there with the Dukes, KUs, UKs, UNCs, MSUs of the world based on recent success going 10 years back. I honestly don't think they would make a 2nd tier "blue blood" with UM, Nova, Cuse, Zaga.
Reggie Miller not being considered at his alma mater? I would contribute to his UCLA salary fund if it meant not ever having to listen to him again as a color commentator.
UCLA might have to swallow their pride and pluck a younger coach from a mid-major.
Except Alabama grabbed the really good one in Nate Oats already.
I think they need to go after a high potential assistant, something/anything to avoid the mediocre high major coach carousel that they started by hiring Alford.
Chris Beard. Book it.
I really hope so.
Chris Beard would be at the top of my list for sure unless he’s waiting for the Texas job.
UCLA should give him whatever he wants.
Is the Texas hoops job that prestigious? They've only been to three Final Fours and just one (2003) since 1947. I guess he is a UT alum but he also spent 10 years at TTU as an assistant.
Bobby Hurley did all the heavy lifting at UB. And he is backing it up at ASU. Oats may be a good coach, but I think it is far from a sure thing at this point.
Wonder who the front runner is for the Duke job (whenever that opens up). There are a couple out there and the other Duke guys might get a look at UCLA before the end of the search.
Hmmm...Bobby Hurley might be an option. Name recognition, already located out west, took ASU to the tourney after a few years of increasing the program's pulse.
Coach K is 72. Bobby might stay put at ASU until the job opens up at Duke.
It's gon' be interesting to see who follows Coach K. I assume they'll choose someone with a strong Coach K lineage. The current crop of ex-Duke player HC's haven't really lit the world on fire, but Wojo @ Marquette and Hurley @ ASU have made recent noise. Dawkins @ UCF/Stanford and Amaker @ Harvard/UM/Seton Hall - two absolute Coach K favorites - haven't had sustained success at higher profile institutions, but have had hiccups of success. Collins @ Northwestern made the NCAA tourney, so at least he has that going for him. I'm missing a few others (Quin Snyder? His Mizzou tenure was a mixed bag, but he IS an NBA HC). Plus Capel (OU/VCU), Brand, and Sheyer are currently on the Duke bench.
It will be interesting.
Capel actually just finished his first season as the head man at Pitt.
When he's fired he'll return to the Duke bench.
bootlegger, great idea. gofundmereggieneverspeakagain
?
poor ucla...
Probably a lot of Texas donors pleading with UCLA to save them from the Shaka Smart Experiment.
Not sure why UCLA would be interested in a 92 year old singer as a basketball coach.
He does put on a great show for a man of his age though.
Yeah and he left his heart in San Francisco... he doesn't give a shit about LA.
Why would any of those coaches (the "top options" at least) be interested in going to UCLA? It would be a considerable step down for them. I'm sure UCLA could probably offer more money, but it wouldn't be worth it to go from an established successful program to UCLA who hasn't been good in a decade. Did they really think they had a shot at Calipari or Bennett?
Did they really think they had a shot at Calipari or Bennett?
I'm guessing yes, they did, and that delusion runs rampant in Westwood.
Lol they might as well go after Coach K while they're at it.
coaches jump ship for what we might consider to be the wrong reasons literally every single off-season. i seem to recall tom izzo very seriously considering a job with the cavaliers a few seasons back.
we can joke about ucla being lousy, and they are at the moment - but they have a gigantic crapload of money and as much prestige as any other program you can name. almost all of these guys have big enough egos to think they can be the ones to return ucla to dominance.
You’re crazy if you think UCLA mean nothing to coaches. It’s still a big ticket program with money, resources, exposure, and massive recruiting potential. And oh yeah, it’s in sunny LA as opposed to some redneck backwater like Lubbock. People said the same thing about the football team, which has struggled for much longer, and they still land Brian Kelly and huge recruits. They don’t land a guy like Cal because UCLA, being a state school with some fiscal restraint, won’t pay him 10 million a year. If they had matched, you think a guy like Cal would rather be in fucking Lexington, Ky than LA?
Realistically have a shot? No.
But what did they have to lose for trying? It’s like MJ said, you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. They has to at least test the waters and see if there was some kind of interest.
Fred Hoiberg turned them down for Nebraska.
Let that sink in.
It's all about the toilets in Lincoln.
Tim still hasn't flushed the damn toilet.
I'm all for making them look dumb for this search, but I don't think Hoiberg was ever a serious candidate for them the way he was for Nebraska.
Did he, though? I never heard one thing about him regarding any job other than Nebraska.
I don't know where you heard that Hoiberg turned down UCLA.
There's been a lot of speculation on UCLA's coaching search, very little actual information. Some of the speculation makes little sense, perhaps based on their fan writers having an inflated view of the appeal of the job. Hoiberg's name was tossed around because he was available. Was there any reason to think he was actually near the top of UCLA's wish list. Some of the names rumored to be weren't and still aren't available. Chris Beard and Tony Bennett aren't going to talk to other schools now.
I wonder how real the interest in Calipari was? I wouldn't put it past him to inflate it for a new contract.
Tony Bennett seems unrealistic from both ends. His style of play would be very unpopular in LA. He'd have to win big there and soon. It's hard to see why he'd leave UVA.
Chris Beard is a Texas guy whose dream job might be the Longhorns. How long before that opens up?
the tony bennett style might not inspire the westwood "faithful" (and i use that term advisedly), but i can at least see why he'd go there. virginia is a great job, but you're never going to be the lead dog in that conference, at least not until coach ratface fakes another back injury and ol' roy goes "aw shucksing" through one final, slurping press conference and off into the sunset.
the pac-12 is a complete tire fire right now - it wouldn't take that much to get them to 30 wins in a hurry.
as to texas and chris beard - texas has proven they are not averse to running someone off, no matter the cost. if you say "when will that open" i say "right this minute."
Eh.....Tony Bennett doesn't care about becoming the lead dog in a conference. What he cares about is a place where the culture allows him to build the program in his image. He will not ever go to Los Angeles, and the UCLA fanbase does not get that.
oh, i don't think he ever would do it - as you say, i don't think he cares about being famous outside of charlottesville, or making a pile of money, or any of that stuff. he just wants to win basketball games. i love the guy, and i hope he never leaves there. he's a perfect fit.
but i can see how and why ucla thinks they'd have a shot. they don't actually have one, but in los angelese self-delusion knows no bounds.
Think part of the issue with Beard(Bennett was never going to go there) is UCLA is, for some bizarre reason, unwilling to wait until after the Final Four. Same way that they lost out on Marshall when he made the Final Four and then panicked and hired Alford.
Problem is for them they assumed they'd be able to pull a Chip Kelly level hire when Chip Kelly essentially fell into their laps(and based off of last season's recruiting disaster that may not be what they hoped for either) and that caused them to pass on good coaches who were available earlier. I also think they thought they'd be able to talk to Bennett earlier in the tournament.