(04-07-2015 07:19 PM)oolongtea Wrote:  [quote='temchugh' pid='11962939' dateline='1428446766']
When was the last time that an assistant coach left Rice to take a D1 head coach position?

2014 - Women's Tennis assistant coach Younis Limam accepts head coaching job at Syracuse.

David Pierce to SHSU as head baseball coach.

(04-07-2015 05:45 PM)Brookes Owl Wrote:  I'll pile on here. Good fortune/good luck are not phrases commonly associated with Rice athletics. I assume the successful outcome here is because our AD is paying attention, thinking ahead, and is able to mobilize resources when he needs them.

I think you have hit on the key difference here with JK vs other previous Rice ADs.

(04-07-2015 05:26 PM)75src Wrote:  We had one thing to offer that VCU could not offer in that it was Rhoades who built the program here whereas at VCU he would have just been continuing Smart's work. I agree that he probably wanted to continue his work at building Rice and he will look better once he finishes that by making us a winner

Yes.

If he goes to VCU he gets paid a lot. But on the odd chance that things go backwards, he would be toast.

given our starting point, he doesn't have to take Rice as far as Shaka took VCU in order to get P5 megabucks. If he gets us to the dance (first time in 45 years) and knocks off 1, maybe 2 decent OOC opponents, then TAMU or TTech or VaTech or Wake Forest or....will come knocking.

This reminds me a bit of Watson Brown. The road not traveled for Watson would have been to stay at Rice and try to build it. He left here before any real achievements were made (other than recruiting some great people), and when he crapped out at Vandy he was done as a big time head coaching candidate.

Watson wanted to go back to Vandy because he had played there. Rhoades would get our gratitude just by getting us to the NCAAs. I see the last coach who got us to the NCAAs in 1970 every once in a while at basketball and baseball games.

(04-07-2015 08:03 PM)MemOwl Wrote:  

(04-07-2015 05:26 PM)75src Wrote:  We had one thing to offer that VCU could not offer in that it was Rhoades who built the program here whereas at VCU he would have just been continuing Smart's work. I agree that he probably wanted to continue his work at building Rice and he will look better once he finishes that by making us a winner

Yes.

If he goes to VCU he gets paid a lot. But on the odd chance that things go backwards, he would be toast.

given our starting point, he doesn't have to take Rice as far as Shaka took VCU in order to get P5 megabucks. If he gets us to the dance (first time in 45 years) and knocks off 1, maybe 2 decent OOC opponents, then TAMU or TTech or VaTech or Wake Forest or....will come knocking.

This reminds me a bit of Watson Brown. The road not traveled for Watson would have been to stay at Rice and try to build it. He left here before any real achievements were made (other than recruiting some great people), and when he crapped out at Vandy he was done as a big time head coaching candidate.

(04-07-2015 06:25 PM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote:  When Scott Thompson went to Wichita State, I believe Grey Giovanine went to Lamar the same year? We had other assistants on Scott's staff who became head coaches but non D1, and possibly not straight from Rice (like Willis Wilson who was at Rice and then Stanford as an assistant before he was named the head coach at Rice).

I don't believe any of Willis' assistants ever became head coaches outside of Trent Johnson (who was another who went to Stanford after Rice and then suddenly got several head coaching positions - Nevada, LSU and TCU.

Thought it would be interesting to look up whatever happened to Scott Thompson's Rice coaching tree. Here it is, enjoy.


Grey Giovanine went to Wichita State with Coach Thompson when he did not get the Rice head coach job given to Wilson instead. Giovanine was Thompson's recommendation to be his replacement, but of course Wilson was an alum who had previously played at Rice. Giovanine had a 80-85 record in his five years at Lamar from 1993-1999.

He has been the Head Coach at Augustana (Rock Island, Ill.) College since 1999. Over the last 16 years he earned Illinois Basketball Coaches Association NCAA Division III “Coach of the Year” honors in 2002, 2003, from 2006-08, in 2011 and again in 2015.

Entering his 17th year at the helm of Augustana Vikings men’s basketball, head coach Grey Giovanine has firmly established his program as one of the best in all of NCAA Division III. The 2015 Basketball Times National Coach of the Year after leading the 2014-15 Vikings to a 27-5 record and an appearance in the NCAA Division III championship game, he has compiled a record of 311-121 (.720) in his first 16 seasons. His win total is just three shy of the 314 that Jim Borcherding put up from 1969-84 as Augustana’s all-time winningest coach.


Tom Billeter is also the Head Coach of Augustana Men's basketball (NCAA Div. II). Tom Billeter, the all-time winningest men’s basketball coach in Augustana College (Sioux Falls, SD) history with a record of 182-138, enters his 13th season as the head coach of the Vikings in 2015-16 and is chasing another milestone. Billeter owns a career record of 310-191 after picking up his career 300th victory this past season.

In five seasons as the head coach at North Dakota State University Bison, Billeter compiled a 97-50 record. During his tenure the Bison posted four consecutive 20-win seasons and earned four straight appearances in the NCAA Division II Tournament. Following a five-year run at NDSU, Billeter spent the 1997-98 season at St. John’s (N.Y.), where he served under head coach Fran Fraschilla and helped the Red Storm to a 22-10 record. Billeter then began a five-year run at Texas A&M under head coach Melvin Watkins.

Billeter began his coaching career at the University of Arizona, where he worked two seasons (1985-1987) alongside legendary coach Lute Olson. During his stint in Arizona, Billeter coached Sean Elliott (NBA), Steve Kerr (NBA), Tom Tolbert (NBA), Jud Buechler (NBA) and Kenny Lofton (MLB). He then moved to Rice, where he served as an assistant coach from 1987 to 1992. The Owls won 20 games in 1991-92, the first 20-win season since 1953-54. Rice narrowly missed being awarded berths in the NCAA and NIT tournaments. While at Rice, Billeter coached the Owls’ star center, Brent Scott (NBA).


Dan Kelly has been the Head Coach of S.P. Waltrip High Rams Boy's Basketball in Houston, TX since 2005 where he compiled a 113-117 record through this past 2014-15 season. He also teaches P.E. to grades 9-12 at Waltrip. Interesting to note that Coach Kelly has sent some players to both UHouston and Texas A&M in recent years.


Todd Smith has been Athletic Director and head Men's Basketball Coach since 2008 for the University of St. Thomas Celts in Houston, TX

After a 4-year playing career at Valparaiso University and 18 years as an assistant coach at Rice under Willis Wilson, Coach Smith had the opportunity to lead his own program at St. Thomas. In his five years at UST, Smith has a career record of 81-66. Smith resides in Pearland, Texas, with his wife Ketti and four children


Willis Thomas Wilson, Jr. is the head coach of the Texas A&M–Corpus Christi Islanders men's basketball team where he has gone 50-77 in his four season through 2014-15, where his team finished in second place in the Southland Conference and went to the second round of the CIT Tournament in the postseason beating FGCU in the first round and losing to Kent State in the second round. He previously served an assistant coach for the Memphis Tigers basketball team. Prior to that, Wilson was head coach of the college basketball team at Rice University for 16 seasons. As head coach at Rice, Wilson had a win/loss record of 219-246.

A former basketball letter winner and 1982 graduate from Rice, Wilson served as an assistant at Rice in the 1980s and as an assistant at Stanford University in 1991. He became head coach at Rice in 1992. During his sixteen years as head coach at Rice, Wilson became winningest coach in Rice basketball history. After a 3-27 record in 2007-2008, then Rice Athletics Director Chris Del Conte announced on March 14, 2008 that Wilson would not be retained for the next season. He was replaced by Ben Braun, who was replaced by Mike Rhoades in 2014-15.


Former Rice Head Men's Basketball Coach Scott Thompson is currently the Associate Vice President of Development, Athletics, and Campaign Initiatives at the University of Florida Development and Alumni Affairs in the Gainesville, Florida area since September 2014. He had been previously been Executive Director of the Jonsson Cancer Center Foundation/UCLA, Senior Director of Regional Development at the University of Arizona Foundation, Director of Development of the University of Arizona Cancer Center, NCAA Basketball Analyst at Sporting News Radio, National Board Member of Coaches vs. Cancer, Head Men's Basketball Coach at Cornell University, Wichita State University and at Rice.

(04-07-2015 08:46 PM)75src Wrote:  Watson wanted to go back to Vandy because he had played there. Rhoades would get our gratitude just by getting us to the NCAAs. I see the last coach who got us to the NCAAs in 1970 every once in a while at basketball and baseball games.

If Coach Rhoades gets us into the NCAAs, I would certainly hope that he would receive considerably more gratitude than did the last coach who got us to the NCAAs.

It was a terrible personnel decision when Knodel was dumped in 1974 to bring in Polk. We dropped to I think a 5 win season. One reason was that Polk would not play the seniors (Carroll and Moriaty) enough. Polk never came close to a winning season for us. Another bad decision in 1976 was dumping Conover and bringing in Homer Rice in football. It was the same mistake about getting rid of a coach who is loyal to Rice and bringing in someone who should have been retired instead of being hired by Rice.

(04-07-2015 10:02 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(04-07-2015 08:46 PM)75src Wrote:  Watson wanted to go back to Vandy because he had played there. Rhoades would get our gratitude just by getting us to the NCAAs. I see the last coach who got us to the NCAAs in 1970 every once in a while at basketball and baseball games.

If Coach Rhoades gets us into the NCAAs, I would certainly hope that he would receive considerably more gratitude than did the last coach who got us to the NCAAs.

The terrible decisions made by the athletic administration regarding Knodel started a lot earlier than 1974.

Hope to see more moments like this next season:




Was listening on the radio half a country away, so first time I actually got to see it.

And Todd Smith's St. Thomas team beat Braun's Rice team a couple of years ago.

(04-08-2015 10:11 PM)GoodOwl Wrote:  Hope to see more moments like this next season:




Was listening on the radio half a country away, so first time I actually got to see it.

Buzzer went off at about 0.5 sec to go.
Also, he released the ball before crossing the arc... So should it have been worth 4 points?!!!