http://www.mlive.com/broncos/index.ssf/2...etbal.html
Quote:The West Division’s recent woes have hurt the league as a whole and — beyond the loss of big-time talents over the last decade due the nationalization of recruiting through the summer AAU season — the problems can be traced to three bollixed decisions by simple-minded and greedy administrators: The firings of coach Stan Joplin at Toledo in 2008, Rob Judson at Northern Illinois in 2007 and Tim Buckley at Ball State in 2006.
Quote:Judson won the Northern Illinois’ only division title — ever — in 2006, but a year later was fired because he hadn’t taken a program with zero history and crumbs for a fan base to the heights NIU’s administration thought it belonged.
“Toledo, with Northern, with Ball State, those are programs that had, had some success during the previous coaching staffs,” said Western Michigan coach Steve Hawkins, who’s in his eighth season as head coach after spending three at WMU as an assistant. “They have a bad year, maybe two, maybe there’s a personality conflict in there, and you just say, ‘Time to make a change.’ It didn’t always work.”
That is the first person I can remember arguing Stan Joplin didn't deserve to be fired.
NIU should have kept a coach who went 74-101 just because he won a weak MAC West in 2005 with a 17-11 record? We were so great that year that we got knocked out of the MAC Tourney by Toledo in our first game.
This is the same coach who couldn't keep the best players he recruited and went 7-23 in his last season at NIU. It was obvious that our program was regressing and not improving. Not the sign of a program on the right track in a coach's sixth season. It set our program way back when he knew he was going to get fired and brought in a bunch of JUCO players who did not belong in D-1 his last season.
I agree that the Ricardo Patton hire has not worked out, but Patton had nothing to work with when coming on and he has had the same problem as Judson with many of our best and most experienced players transferring.
I do agree with his overall assessment that the MAC's problem has been instability, but NIU made the right move by getting rid of Judson. Unfortunately, we didn't make the right hire.
Part of the instability is because bad coaches are getting fired... because they're bad.
(01-10-2011 10:33 AM)OZoner Wrote: [ -> ]Part of the instability is because bad coaches are getting fired... because they're bad.
Joplin's record could hardly be considered bad. His chief sin was not making the NCAAs. He had some exceptional players and some pretty good years.
Yeah, but it had clearly fallen apart by the end. The point-shaving scandal probably did a lot of damage.
(01-10-2011 11:54 AM)OZoner Wrote: [ -> ]Yeah, but it had clearly fallen apart by the end. The point-shaving scandal probably did a lot of damage.
If by the end you mean his last year -OK. The year before that he won the MAC. Bad coaches usually don't do that unless they inherit someone else's incredible talent that they can't even mess up. Scandal may have hurt but was, I think, a convevient excuse to let him go- NCAA bugaboo had een floating around for years. When eh didn't get it with the best team of his career the handwriting ws on the wall.
I'm OK where we are now but Cross did more to destroy the program in two years than Joplin did in his career.
Oh, for sure, but the article didn't mention Cross. If I remember correctly, Joplin had to have that regular-season championship to keep his job. It seemed like his head was on the chopping block for a while.
jop didn't get along that great with some of the brass in the athletic dept, which shouldn't have been a surprise since he was among the lowest paid coaches in the league, had lousy marketing and admin support and was undermined on a few things even though he was a UT grad, former player, one of the mac's winningest coaches and had the highest grad rates in the league.
the thing with Jop as H2O states is that the program seemed stuck at the marginal NIT level and every time we had a team that looked NCAA worthy we lost the big game or had a key player unexpectedly leave.
folks who knew joplin generally really liked him. he had a lot of admirers in the media and was a pretty accessible, down to earth and likeable professional. no one considered him to be the next coming of john wooden, but he is a great example for the article in that he ran a winning program that graduated kids but got run off. now, buckley was a bit of an arse on the occasions i crossed paths with him, but also seemed to get a lousy shake w ball st. judson was not particularly good but patton makes him seem better in retrospect.
the piece missing is that the MAC is a public school league in the heart of a region which is cutting public ed on many levels. cities like toledo now don't even fund jv athletics, older quality faculty are being eased out and bought out, neighborhoods around campuses are stagnant or struggling in many cases. it should not be surprising that places/schools which are better funded and supported are passing up the mac.
I would take Judson over Patton right now.