Now that Murry has been there a while I wanted to get your opinions on him as a head coach.

While at UAB he seemed to be a pretty good X & O coach but he was not that good a recruiter and had almost zero dicipline. When he left UAB he said one of his mistakes was lack of dicipline.

Has he improved since being at ETSU? Murry was always a very nice guy and would always lend a hand to young local HS and MS coaches and was a pretty fan friendly guy. I wish him the best.
Allthough it didn't work out at UAB (Mighty tough shoes to fill) we always thought he should have gone away to another school and earn his stripes before coaching at UAB.

Thanks in advance for your opinions.

BTW I hope you bring back Buc Football.

wow.. The Murray Bartow we got is 180 degrees from the one you are talking about. He is a good recruiter but is an awful coach. He regularly and rountinely gets out coached night after night. We have no set offensive plays, can't play defense and he often looks lost on the sidelines.
In short he sucks as a X's and O's coach from whatI have seen.

ATTALLABLAZE Wrote:Now that Murry has been there a while I wanted to get your opinions on him as a head coach.

While at UAB he seemed to be a pretty good X & O coach but he was not that good a recruiter and had almost zero dicipline. When he left UAB he said one of his mistakes was lack of dicipline.

Has he improved since being at ETSU? Murry was always a very nice guy and would always lend a hand to young local HS and MS coaches and was a pretty fan friendly guy. I wish him the best.
Allthough it didn't work out at UAB (Mighty tough shoes to fill) we always thought he should have gone away to another school and earn his stripes before coaching at UAB.

Great question. I'll start with the positives. Most importantly, his players leave ETSU with their degree. Somebody on here can confirm this, but at one point during his tenure we had the highest graduation rate among men's basketball teams in the state. He's brought in good kids and had relatively few discipline problems. When he has had discipline problems, he's dealt with them firmly and appropriately. He dismissed our starting point guard ealier this season, which I thought was a gutsy move.

My main criticisms with Murry have been X's and O's. Our perimeter defense has been our undoing every year with him, with the exception of his first year when we had one of the best defenders in the country. Also, we have struggled mightily with half court offense. It's been virtually nonexistent at times. When we've been 'on' we look unstoppable; when we've been 'off' we've looked awful.

In terms of recruiting, I'd give him a B. He's brought in some outstanding players and I think he's signed another great class; however, he continues to have recruiting classes without frontcourt players. He did sign a 7-footer for the upcoming season, but we really needed two big men.

Personally, I think the program has regressed under Bartow.

Now, is that BECAUSE OF Bartow? I don't know. I tend to think not. The administration has often declined to give him the four years a coach needs on his contract to recruit, and furthermore, when they do renew the thing it's usually months after recruiting season ends. That makes no sense.

As far as X's and O's- I tend to like a coach that plays zone. Bartow's problem seems to be that the Bucs often don't seem to play it well.

I'm okay with him. I think he does do the song and dance bit a bit thick, but sometimes I like the song and dance.

He's hit and miss

RodShaw2 Wrote:wow.. The Murray Bartow we got is 180 degrees from the one you are talking about. He is a good recruiter but is an awful coach. He regularly and rountinely gets out coached night after night. We have no set offensive plays, can't play defense and he often looks lost on the sidelines.
In short he sucks as a X's and O's coach from what I have seen.

Agreed.

Rod pretty much hit he nail on the head, and I've pretty much been 100% anti-Bartow

BUT, after the past A-Sun tourney game against Belmont I'm hopefully that at least defensively Bartow will turn a new leaf and leave the "we aren't good enough to play straight man defense for 40mins" philosophy behind.

Still have a way to go on offense, but hey its a start

I have to agree with everything Rod said about Coach Bartow. I think he is a good guy who recruits relatively well and speaks well and promotes his program well. But the way the Bucs get out-coached on a routine basis is embarassing. The bench coaching is just not there and that is putting a limit on our program right now that can be only marginally helped with good recruiting.

Bartow has had two pretty good defensive teams since he's been here. One was handed to him and the other was the year before last. Although they blew it in that final game against Belmont. I'm still not sure how that happened.

In the few games that I've seen ETSU play with Murry as coach, it seems ya'll like to run a lot. If so, that is completely different from his teams with us. On the recruiting trail, he never even sniffed top 100 players for us except Leandrew Bass and Myran Ransom. But, the ONLY reason they signed with us is b/c we hired their high school coach. Fast forward to our current coach and you'll see that we could very well have a top 1-5 recruiting class next year, if everyone signs like we expect.
I do hope he does well for ya'll, and I hope you make it back to the big dance this year and for many years to come. Who knows, maybe we'll be able to join ya'll.
Good luck!

Blazer-

The term is "Yinz."

Never say "y'all."

"Yinz" is the term. Remember- ALWAYS- "YINZ!"

That is all.

Pitt, I think the proper term is "Youins"

That's a new spelling on me.

I'd also heard "Younz."

One thing I really hate are people who root for the Steelers who aren't Yinzers.

Mobile is right, we ran a more structured offense when he was at UAB and was killed in recruiting by ...............well everyone. He could not recruit the level of player to win at the Great Midwest - C-USA level. It seemed Murry would press all the right buttons and would get beaten by simply better talent. The biggest gripe was his lack of dicipline. Getting arrested for smoking pot brought down a punishment of a guy not starting or missing half a game.

Seems like maybe he is doing better disciplining his players and recruiting an A-Sun caliber player but is running an offense that is different than anything he has ever done.

I hope he does well for you guys, even though he did not work out for us he will always be a Blazer.

Thank you for your opinions and good luck. let's see the Bucs in the NCAAs!

Please don't interrupt my efforts to get people to speak with Pittsburgh accents with something as trivial as the topic the board was created to discuss.

It is just so weird to hear someone talk about Bartow in that way. It is completely opposite of what we have seen at ETSU. He doesn't seem to have a clue on what buttons to push, ETSU usaully seems to have the better atheletes but get beat by a better coached team. How many times last year was ETSU up at the half or even midway though the 2nd quarter by large margins before the other teams coach adjusted and we lost? More times than I can count. Sorry Attalla, but we have never seen anything like the coach you are describing.

R

ATTALLABLAZE Wrote:Mobile is right, we ran a more structured offense when he was at UAB and was killed in recruiting by ...............well everyone. He could not recruit the level of player to win at the Great Midwest - C-USA level. It seemed Murry would press all the right buttons and would get beaten by simply better talent. The biggest gripe was his lack of dicipline. Getting arrested for smoking pot brought down a punishment of a guy not starting or missing half a game.

Seems like maybe he is doing better disciplining his players and recruiting an A-Sun caliber player but is running an offense that is different than anything he has ever done.

I hope he does well for you guys, even though he did not work out for us he will always be a Blazer.

Thank you for your opinions and good luck. let's see the Bucs in the NCAAs!

It takes 4 positive tests for pot to get kicked off Bruce Pearl's team in Knoxville

I'd double check that information on the grad rates under Bartow before too much pronouncement on his academic focus, check the departures and defections. Doesn't help the graduation rate.

and a by the way insertion, Bartow is not the person that initiated bringing Mister back to finish his degree. All of that started under DeChellis but Mister wasn't able to do without a full-time job at the time, glad to see him get the chance to do it, but don't give Bartow the butter for that bread. He just knew better than to mess it up and keep it from happening.

Also, if he gets a star ranking for dropping the F-bomb and the level of profanity used during practice, games, and in the tunnels after the game, he's probably a five-star on that one.

You're saying Mister or Bartow does that? Or both?

Either way, God Bless 'Em!