I'm not sure if this is a good hire or not. I thought for sure that Marquette would have been able to find a bigger named coach, or some proven hot young coach.

Link

Recruiting is a big part of success so hopefully his tradition of quality recruiting will continue. His head coaching skills will be put to the test.

Wow, he does not have much head coaching experience etc. I would think the recent success would have them do a national search and then hire Buzz if he was still the best candidate. For UC playing them I am thrilled at the choice!

Maybe someday Providence will hire a coach.

I think MU tried to get a bigger name, but I don't think they were wowed by who they could get. Crean had been saying that Williams was a high-major caliber coach to anyone who would listen all season. Billy Gillespie was extremely complimentary of their time together at Texas A&M. Williams was responsible for 3 of the 4 recruits for MU for 2008, and the 2009 commitment. The players seemed excited at the press conference today. Very positive interviews. I think transfers will be at a minimum, but we may lose a recruit. Game coaching is uncertain, but he has a veteran group next year, so that should help. Time will tell.

What happen with Lon Kruger at UNLV. I mean MU is a national program , has great facilities and plays a BE schedule I would think they would have had better option then this. This reminds me of the WVU football hiire why not spend the $$ and get a name coach from another BCS school?

PusherT Wrote:What happen with Lon Kruger at UNLV. I mean MU is a national program , has great facilities and plays a BE schedule I would think they would have had better option then this. This reminds me of the WVU football hiire why not spend the $$ and get a name coach from another BCS school?

Why not spend the dollars on a top notch staff? That's what WVU did, and it just might work.

PusherT Wrote:What happen with Lon Kruger at UNLV. I mean MU is a national program , has great facilities and plays a BE schedule I would think they would have had better option then this. This reminds me of the WVU football hiire why not spend the $$ and get a name coach from another BCS school?

Couple things about WVU football and Billy Stewart...

A) Don Nehlen is the only football coach in the last 40 yrs or so that has been the head man at WVU that was not a coach or player at WVU prior to that time....Traditionally the University has like to hire our own

B) I don't know anyone who could have done a better job thus far then Stewart. He saved the recruiting class from a near disaster after the RR think. People don't realize that not only did RR leave, but he tried like hell to get any WVU recruit of any quality to UM too. Stewart did a great job plugging the holes so to speak. He also hired a great staff. Billy may be the lowest paid HC in the BE right now, but his football staff is the highest paid....and that has really started to pay dividends in recruiting

Jackson

MUAvalanche Wrote:I think MU tried to get a bigger name, but I don't think they were wowed by who they could get.

I don't know anything about Williams to form an opinion, but I expected I bigger name.

MUAvalanche, how much was Marquette willing to pay for a coach? Were other coaches perhaps not wowed by what MU wanted to pay? (I really don't know).

I think Travis Ford from UMass would have been a nice hire.

PusherT Wrote:What happen with Lon Kruger at UNLV. I mean MU is a national program , has great facilities and plays a BE schedule I would think they would have had better option then this. This reminds me of the WVU football hiire why not spend the $$ and get a name coach from another BCS school?

MU is a better job than UNLV?

Maybe, I just don't see it besides conference affliation.

Vegas has been doing pretty decent against the big boys lately. MU usually "underachieves" in the minds of MU alumni.

Maybe I'm wrong, I just don't see it.

CardHouse Wrote:I don't know anything about Williams to form an opinion, but I expected I bigger name.

MUAvalanche, how much was Marquette willing to pay for a coach? Were other coaches perhaps not wowed by what MU wanted to pay? (I really don't know).

I think Travis Ford from UMass would have been a nice hire.

I believe MU was willing to pay alot for the right coach. MU now recognizes the importance of the men's basketball program to the University, something that was lost on them in the 80s and 90s. Reports had MU pursuing Tony Bennett, Sean Miller, Anthony Grant, Bob McKillop and Paul Hewitt. Other names mentioned as expressing interest in the MU job were Fran McCaffery, Jim Les and Bruce Webber. One radio station in Milwaukee said MU offered $2 million to Bennett. MU felt Williams was the best recruiter of the group that was ultimately interested.

The article below talks about the decision a little bit.

http://blogs.jsonline.com/muhoops/archiv...-buzz.aspx

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal online
"More buzz about Buzz
By Don Walker
Wednesday, Apr 9 2008, 09:40 AM
While the decision to hire Buzz Williams was an Athletic Department decision, there were at least three influential backers of the program who played a role.

Those three are Boston Celtics coach Doc Rivers, a former star for Marquette; former Marquette star and former Milwaukee Brewers president Ulice Payne Jr.; and John Bergstrom, a prominent auto dealer in the state. All three had a role in advising Athletic Director Steve Cottingham.

The three worked by consulting with other people around the country, talking to head coaches, officials in the Big East Conference, and other prominent alumni.

What they concluded was that, in order to succeed in the highly competitive Big East, recruiting outweighed coaching. With that in mind, that led many to recommend Williams, who, though lacking in head coaching experience, knew how to recruit.

An athletic department source said Mike Tranghese, the commissioner of the Big East Conference, made it clear to Cottingham and others that it was important for Marquette to continue to be competitive in the Big East. To that end, the same source said the the Big East provided contact numbers and other information to Marquette in order to allow them to reach potential candidates."

MUAvalanche Wrote:

CardHouse Wrote:I don't know anything about Williams to form an opinion, but I expected I bigger name.

MUAvalanche, how much was Marquette willing to pay for a coach? Were other coaches perhaps not wowed by what MU wanted to pay? (I really don't know).

I think Travis Ford from UMass would have been a nice hire.

What they concluded was that, in order to succeed in the highly competitive Big East, recruiting outweighed coaching.

Dave Wannstedt says "Now that’s what I’m talking about".

Thanks for the info on the situation Avalanche.

CardHouse Wrote:Dave Wannstedt says "Now that’s what I’m talking about".

My fears exactly.

Why did he leave his head coaching job at New Orleans after only one season to be an assistant at Marquette?

StillJonesing Wrote:Why did he leave his head coaching job at New Orleans after only one season to be an assistant at Marquette?

There's a lot of conjecture about that. Supposedly Williams didn't have a good vibe about where UNO was heading athletically since it was still recovering from Hurricane Katrina. The team he coached played some early season home games in Tyler, TX at UT-Tyler, and played their Sun Belt home games at the Human Performance Center which only seats 1200 vs. Lakefront Arena seating 10K.

UNO is expected to finally move back into Lakefront next year.

Williams replaced Monte Towe, who left explicitly because of uncertainty at UNO to take an asst. job at NC State.

MUAvalanche Wrote:

CardHouse Wrote:I don't know anything about Williams to form an opinion, but I expected I bigger name.

MUAvalanche, how much was Marquette willing to pay for a coach? Were other coaches perhaps not wowed by what MU wanted to pay? (I really don't know).

I think Travis Ford from UMass would have been a nice hire.

I believe MU was willing to pay alot for the right coach. MU now recognizes the importance of the men's basketball program to the University, something that was lost on them in the 80s and 90s. Reports had MU pursuing Tony Bennett, Sean Miller, Anthony Grant, Bob McKillop and Paul Hewitt. Other names mentioned as expressing interest in the MU job were Fran McCaffery, Jim Les and Bruce Webber. One radio station in Milwaukee said MU offered $2 million to Bennett. MU felt Williams was the best recruiter of the group that was ultimately interested.

The article below talks about the decision a little bit.

http://blogs.jsonline.com/muhoops/archiv...-buzz.aspx

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal online
"More buzz about Buzz
By Don Walker
Wednesday, Apr 9 2008, 09:40 AM
While the decision to hire Buzz Williams was an Athletic Department decision, there were at least three influential backers of the program who played a role.

Those three are Boston Celtics coach Doc Rivers, a former star for Marquette; former Marquette star and former Milwaukee Brewers president Ulice Payne Jr.; and John Bergstrom, a prominent auto dealer in the state. All three had a role in advising Athletic Director Steve Cottingham.

The three worked by consulting with other people around the country, talking to head coaches, officials in the Big East Conference, and other prominent alumni.

What they concluded was that, in order to succeed in the highly competitive Big East, recruiting outweighed coaching. With that in mind, that led many to recommend Williams, who, though lacking in head coaching experience, knew how to recruit.

An athletic department source said Mike Tranghese, the commissioner of the Big East Conference, made it clear to Cottingham and others that it was important for Marquette to continue to be competitive in the Big East. To that end, the same source said the the Big East provided contact numbers and other information to Marquette in order to allow them to reach potential candidates."

Doc Rivers kid plays at GTown. I love how he plays such a big role at MU. This guy is a rookie, he will be very special if he doesn't get destroyed taking on a program like MU in the Big East will little coaching expierence.

mattsarz Wrote:

StillJonesing Wrote:Why did he leave his head coaching job at New Orleans after only one season to be an assistant at Marquette?

There's a lot of conjecture about that. Supposedly Williams didn't have a good vibe about where UNO was heading athletically since it was still recovering from Hurricane Katrina. The team he coached played some early season home games in Tyler, TX at UT-Tyler, and played their Sun Belt home games at the Human Performance Center which only seats 1200 vs. Lakefront Arena seating 10K.

UNO is expected to finally move back into Lakefront next year.

Williams replaced Monte Towe, who left explicitly because of uncertainty at UNO to take an asst. job at NC State.

Thanks. Whatever the reason it sure paid off.