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(01-27-2010 01:37 PM)Memphis Blazer Wrote:  

(01-27-2010 11:09 AM)BAMANBLAZERFAN Wrote:  I have not heard any statement from Davis that he WANTS to go anywhere else.

Being willing to interview and pack up and move to Pullman Washington for the Washington STate job is a pretty strong statement that he wanted to go somewhere else.


I want a coach who is hungry, but happy at UAB. If Davis isn't happy, I would have no problems with him leaving, as long as he leaves the program in better shape than he found it. Last year, that answer would have been no. This year, it may be better, but I would have to wait until the end of the season.

The question is: What will UAB do if we continue along the line the team is going and at the end of the season, CUSA Coach of the Year starts getting offers. How hard is UAB going to work to keep him? Are they going to pony up? I frankly don't know what I would do in Mackin's shoes.

I agree. We've let 18-2 cloud our memories. Mike Davis was disloyal to this program in a way that defied belief. He tried to leverage a high school kid into what he perceived as a better job (and anybody who doesn't believe that's what he was doing is simply willfully blind) without any regard for what it might do to this program. It didn't work. Then he tried to leave anyway because repairing the damage he'd done to this program was going to be hard work. In the middle of all that, he lost half his team to grade issues, which is on him.

Some people try to compare him to Mike Anderson and refer to our most recent coach as "Suitcase Mike." There's no arguing Anderson was always looking for something bigger. But the difference between Mike Anderson and Mike Davis, as I've argued repeatedly, is Mike Anderson dramatically improved this program over where it was when he arrived. In contrast, if Mike Davis had gotten his way, this program would have been systematically destroyed last spring. And Anderson was not disloyal, except in the sense we would always like to believe "once a Blazer, always a Blazer." He fulfilled his end of the bargain; we just didn't like it that he left. Davis was not fulfilling his end of the bargain at the end of the 2008-2009 season.

And now here we are. Forget basketball; Davis recovered as well as I've ever seen anybody recover at anything. But history should be a lesson. Will he do it again if given the opportunity? I don't know; maybe he learned something in the midst of the chaos. But if you're Brian Mackin, you can't reward this season on the heels of what happened less than a year ago...you just can't. Davis has to prove not only his value as a basketball coach (which is no longer in doubt, in my opinion) but his loyalty to the program. He would need to convince me (if I'm Mackin) that he won't do anything again like what happened last year. If he wants to look at other jobs, that's fine. But be straight with me; don't try to con me into giving a kid a conditional LOI because you want to use him to get a top-tier job.

So no extension and raise this year no matter what happens. Maybe we reward him next year, if he proves loyalty by committing to us after a good year this year. If he gets mad about not getting an extension after this season, so be it. Truthfully, I'd like for him to stick around, which is something I wasn't saying in October. But if he doesn't, I'd be fine giving Donnie Marsh a shot at the head job or some hot, young assistant or whatever is best at the time. I'm a Davis supporter now, tentatively...but let's face it, he's not Bill Self.

As Santayana said, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." And hell...this all just happened. It's barely "the past."

The big extension was after his second season.. the year Delaney got injured and Vaden took over and had his best season.. i guess the school thought it was so amazing that he made it to the NIT 2nd round and they had to reward him with this extension.. I don't know what to think about Davis. At the beginning of this year, I hated him. I almost wanted us to have an absolutely terrible season just so we would have justifiable cause to fire him. However, this season has gone the completely other direction. I guess I would say let's see how we finish this year, how he does next year, and how he handles any potential offseason job offers (to judge his loyalty and if he has changed at all) - before we decide to give him all these praises and another potential massive contract extension THIS offseason..

(01-27-2010 01:23 PM)amsterdam1702 Wrote:  

(01-27-2010 10:18 AM)dragonbreath Wrote:  Mike Davis really has turned a new leaf this season it seems with a focus on academics, study halls, and is really in the minds of his players at this very moment. This team has really come togethor to make this a special season compared to the debacle last year.
Is this Davis's last year on his contract? And if renewed, which should be, for how long and what salary increase?
I guess it comes down to how we do in post season play.

Davis signed what I believe was a 5 year extension after last season. So after this year he has 4 more on his contract unless someone wants to pay us big money.

I think the extension came two years ago, not last season.