It was like watching a baby bird die this season. I think our programs for men and women's basketball is suffering as a result of our conference affiliation. Every program in the conference has an urban population to draw from but us. With the lack of notoriety the ASun exudes, how does State get the urban black athlete or matter of fact any good urban athlete to come to a rural enviornment with less then a 10% minority population? Bottom line is that we have to get out of the ASun.

Bartow needs to come up with an agenda for basketball and Kemp needs to be shown the door. Second thought, Bartow needs to follow Kemp. There is nothing in the stable so why prolong the agony?

It's a great question, but you talk about recruiting black athletes and you want to get rid of a black coach?
Comparing Bartow and Kemp are apples and oranges as far as their situations. Coach Kemp has yet to have repeated off court issues involving her players, Bartow has. Kemp has always conducted herself with class and doesn't shy away from taking responsibility from the struggles, Bartow throws players under the bus, makes excuses and even one time blamed the frickin' fans. And don't get me started on his wife who is quick to question any fan who dares question the great Murry Bartow with the rhetoric of "How many games have you coached?" Spoken like a true groupie cheerleader.
I'll offer you a hypothetical scenario for the women's program. Say around the time the program was riding high, some players were brought in as freshman by an assistant that on paper seemed like a great idea at the time, good grades, good enough players, etc... They get to campus and for whatever the reason they don't work, whether it be due to homesickness, not as good as advertised, perhaps they are a bad apple, or maybe just can't make the grades. And yes, that's possible, look at the ACT scores within the state of Tennessee alone and then tell me that the majority of our high schoolers are prepared to succeed in college. Think about locker rooms, and how one bad apple can really screw up a locker room (See Vince Young). It's just a thought hypothetically speaking, and when it comes down to it when the struggles were happening, especially on Karen's side, did she really have the direction/leadership from her direct boss to design a plan of corrective action? I don't think there's a single person on this board that will say that either of the bosses - Dave Mullins or Barbie Breedlove were competent enough to give either coach the assistance/support they need to get better, specifically on the women's side. Hell, Barbie's record as a coach was the 2nd worst in the HISTORY of Appalachian's program. How can a coach who went 52-89 in five seasons after following a coach won 236 games there. In short, Barbie Breedlove ran App's women's program INTO THE GROUND.
Even the best coaches have people above them who can advise them to get better, Karen's boss was one of the worst coaches probably in the modern history of Division I, and that's without going into the infamous bus incident that led to Barbie's midseason "leave" at App due to "stress."
Murry I do believe should be gone, he's allowed drug dealers to stick around, dudes who assaulted their girlfriends, etc... I don't think there's anyone who can say that the women's program hasn't been ran with class and dignity.
All this said, I also believe she knows that the results on the court will have to improve, but I would like to see Karen get one more year.
Plus, you can't let a female minority coach go and keep the white male who's had multiple off court issues and just lost more games than any men's coach in program history. Plus, we'd get eaten alive on the recruiting trail firing the one black head coach at the school. Just some things to think about.

(03-08-2013 11:42 AM)Buccaneerlover Wrote:  I'll offer you a hypothetical scenario for the women's program. Say around the time the program was riding high, some players were brought in as freshman by an assistant that on paper seemed like a great idea at the time, good grades, good enough players, etc... They get to campus and for whatever the reason they don't work, whether it be due to homesickness, not as good as advertised, perhaps they are a bad apple, or maybe just can't make the grades.

Oh look another Blame everything on Rodney English post by Lover.
Man we get along about most stuff but you and this deal with English is just way over the top. As I said before the years immediately following English leaving was the most successful run in ETSU's women's basketball history. So if he did bring in players then they must have been pretty good because Kemp won an awfully lot with them. But none of the players on the roster this year or last year had anything to do with English, hell they were in Elementary or Middle School when he left.

Just help me out with the timeline Lover.
English is an assistant coach for 3 years, he leaves in June 2006.
2006-07 the team goes 20-12 and makes the NIT
2007-08 the team goes 21-12 and makes the NCAA
2008-09 the team goes 20-11 and makes the NCAA
2009-10 the team goes 23-9 and makes the NCAA
2010-11 the teams goes 19-12
So English has been officallly gone 5 years ANY player he had anything to do with even if they redshirted
would be gone now.
Team goes 103-56 with an NIT and 3 NCAA berths.
2011-12 the team goes 8-22
2012-13 the team goes 8-18

I don't understand how you can blame the last two years on English.
Just explain how a coach who has been gone 7 years can be at fault for
the last two years being bad.

(03-08-2013 11:42 AM)Buccaneerlover Wrote:  Plus, you can't let a female minority coach go and keep the white male who's had multiple off court issues and just lost more games than any men's coach in program history. Plus, we'd get eaten alive on the recruiting trail firing the one black head coach at the school. Just some things to think about.

You actually just suggested an 18 year old kid is going to care what happens to a female basketball coach. If you're right, I don't for one second think you are, etsu doesn't want the whiny little bastard anyway. Such a recruit would be problematic beyond calculation.

For the record as I have stated before, I don't care about Kemp, fire her keep I am not going to a women's game either way, don't care.

Once we get football on track and get rid of Bartow I might care. But right now the important things are Football/men's basketball, get those in order and then worry about Kemp and Skole and whoever else.

Yes, having minority coaches to 17 year old BLACK KIDS in a predominantly WHITE area makes a big damn difference. If it didn't there wouldn't be so much stink about hiring black coaches.
And yea I didn't directly mention Rodney by name, but it's not just the stuff that he was involved in, there are other factors involved with it. Like I said, the writing on the wall was there that the program was slipping, where was Barbie to help Coach Kemp get things back on track? Oh yea, she couldn't! She was 52-89 as a head basketball coach. Even Pat Summit had Joan Cronin to bounce ideas off of, and I'd like to think that with a guy like Sander around, who is responsible for Anthony Grant, Shaka Smart and Jeff Capel, that he probably could assist in getting the program back in the right direction without making a change, as long as Coach Kemp is willing to listen. I don't believe Bartow would be willing to listen, after all he's Gene Bartow's son and coached with Bob Knight, he must know everything.
Also, just to make this clear, here's why it won't happen.
1. ETSU simply cannot afford financially to start football, fire two coaches and hire two.
2. You cannot fire one of the two female head coaches in women's athletics, let alone the ONLY BLACK HEAD COACH AT THE UNIVERSITY, especially when the female softball coach was fired after only two years and replaced with a white male. ETSU will get their ass sued off.
3. No coach in their right mind would take a job while an interim athletic director is in place, or atleast one that isn't worth a crap. That is a FACT, not an opinion, that's personal knowledge of how the coaching game works. Would you take a job if you didn't know who your boss was going to be longterm?
4. With the conference affiliation situation the way it is, why would you make the change now? The reality of the situation is ETSU will be in the Atlantic Sun for one more season unless something really drastic happens. You have two coaches with multi-year deals left that are GUARANTEED, so why not wait another year, then you have the transition of new coaches, new conference, permanent A.D. in place.
5. we've all said this before, that eventually ETSU would recruit to the level of its' conference. Bartow and Kemp have, and it's because we don't have football. I'll just be point blank about it, it's incredibly difficult to convince a 17 year old black girl to commit to a school that doesn't have black male students outside the few on the basketball team! Karen got lucky when she pulled those girls she made the run with a few years back.
And yes Gold, I am exactly right about how kids think these days, and that goes from actual conversations with actual high school athletes and their decisions on going to college. I have on more than one occasion asked male and female student athletes if it matters and with the black kids it makes a HUGE DIFFERENCE within the program.
I'll say this to be very clear, everyone on this board can piss and moan, complain and do whatever about the coaches, but there WILL NOT be coaching changes in the two highest profile positions at ETSU this season barring someone privately going to Noland/Sander, handing them 500,000 dollars U.S. and saying fire them both. I will also say that things may look one way on the surface in a program, but could be something completely different behind the walls.

(03-08-2013 02:58 PM)Buccaneerlover Wrote:  Yes, having minority coaches to 17 year old BLACK KIDS in a predominantly WHITE area makes a big damn difference.

I'm just curious if Rod Spin will now attack you for saying this the way he used to do so with me when I spoke about race and the area.

I mean carry on, it's an interesting topic, but I'm just sayin'.

Rod and I agree on just about everything, we just don't on the direction of the women's program. Karen knows she needs to win more games, but has anyone thought that Dr. Sander might just be able to help with that? He was pretty damn good at VCU, especially as an administrator. Anthony Grant should send him 100,000 dollars every year.
And yea, minority enrollment is a HUGE problem that creates a recruiting disadvantage for ETSU, especially when recruiting black female athletes. It's a tough conversation to have because everyone is so PC, but seriously think about it, how many black women to you see with white men? It's becoming more common, but it's still not as common as the other way around. Football will help that.
Plus, it's common sense that black athletes like to have black coaches around. It provides an extra level of comfort that white people can't understand, and I won't even pretend to.

I am going to toss this thread in another direction. why not recruit local?
4 teams from this area made it the state tournament in Tennessee
Science Hill
Elizabethton
Cloudland
Hampton

and in Virginia
Gate City
Castlewood
Clintwood
Patrick Henry
Richlands
All made it the State tournament.

Oh this should be good.

BTW sarcasm. I understand what Lover is saying but it seems like
having a coach who wins would be helpful in recruiting.

Sorry I couldn't resist, just seems like that is always the answer, "recruit local".

Science Hill's girls are nationally ranked. Those girls are getting calls.
I remember honestly when you could recruit local and get competitive players. In middle Tennessee they could recruit, Nissan, Amazon, healthcare, Government Motors, the military, etc... have brought in a SLEW of athletic kids.
And Karen was winning, coaches have struggles from time to time then get back on track. And that's just it, even when Kemp was winning it was more and more difficult to convince kids to play in the A-Sun without football.

(03-08-2013 03:17 PM)Buccaneerlover Wrote:  Rod and I agree on just about everything, we just don't on the direction of the women's program.

I will ignore the stereotypes you laid out in a comical attempt to be enlightened and just highlight this for the rest of the board.

It's not really stereotypes. It's not to say that interracial relationships don't happen because clearly they do, but the reality of it all that's just how it is and it does have a negative impact.

Lover, you clearly love Kemp for reasons unknown, but the other schools in the ASun are recruiting a better team than Kemp without having football so why can't she? No one is suggesting she build a ranked team, just compete in the ASun. No school has football in the conference (outside of Jacksonville), so that is a moot point. Name one legitimate reason she shouldn't be in the top half of the conference? I don't even think she has to win championships to secure her job, but 8th place in the league and she is trending downward and you blame Barbie Breedlove? Administrators don't develop coaches. Coaches are supposed to get the job done on their own. And you think Sander developed Capel, Grant, and Smart? I'm going out on a limb here, but I'm going to say that Jeff Capels mentor was likely his dad and maybe Coach K, and Grant and Smart were groomed by Billy Donovan, not Larry Sander. And if no coach would take the women's job because Sanders is a temporary AD, why would a football coach take the job, or a men's coach assuming Bartow was fired? Kemp should be judged on her performance, not on Barbie Breedloves winning percentage.

1. The minidome.
2. Recruiting to Johnson City vs. the beach.

I'm not saying Kemp should be judged on her boss, but every great coach has a boss that can advise them or atleast throw ideas off of. Kemp's boss was one of the worst basketball coaches in the history of Appalachian State. She got fired. ETSU gave her a promotion and more money.
Kemp will get another year, and so will Bartow.

Don't fool yourself, fatty arbuckle, minority coaches are not hired for the children. You're reaching quite a lot to suggest a 17 year old male kid is going to concern himself with a womens basketball coach.

(03-08-2013 11:03 PM)Buccaneerlover Wrote:  2. Recruiting to Johnson City vs. the beach.

Wait a minute. What about the wonders of Unaka Mountain?

(03-08-2013 11:03 PM)Buccaneerlover Wrote:  1. The minidome.
2. Recruiting to Johnson City vs. the beach.

I'm not saying Kemp should be judged on her boss, but every great coach has a boss that can advise them or atleast throw ideas off of. Kemp's boss was one of the worst basketball coaches in the history of Appalachian State. She got fired. ETSU gave her a promotion and more money.
Kemp will get another year, and so will Bartow.

Those two reasons also exist for the men's program and I don't see anyone suggesting that Bartow shouldn't be in the top half of the conference because of it. In fact, most believe ETSU should be winning championships on the men's side with that same dome and that same city.

And what exactly is Kemp not receiving from the administration that would help her win? A coach needs one thing from the administration - support. Kemp has that in spades. Barbie thinks she walks on water and they have given her the financial resources to be successful.

I do agree that Bartow and Kemp will keep their jobs, but I think that's mostly about resources with the addition of football. Also, am I the only one who doesn't think Sander should be hiring/firing coaches at all if there is going to be a new AD in July? What new AD wants to walk into a situation with the possibility of new coaches with new contracts for the most visible sports without having made those hiring decisions? Shouldn't a new AD be the biggest priority for the dept right now?

You've lost your damn mind and have NO IDEA what you are talking about. Period. You're so off base it's not even funny.
And to your last paragraph, I've been saying that all along, nobody wants to hear that on here. I'd rather sacrifice in the short term for long term gains. We got one more year left in this rathole conference.
I also don't believe a new A.D. will be in place by July 1, the job hasn't even been listed.