(04-09-2019 12:31 PM)CardinalBlackTrojan Wrote:  With the splashy hires of Rob Lanier at Georgia State and Scott Cross at Troy, and then the App State hiring a quick winner in Dustin Kerns... to along with the rest of the good coaches in the Sun Belt like Cliff Ellis, Mark Byington, Chris Ogden, Bob Marlin, Danny Kaspar, and Keith Richards...

We may have ourselves quite the basketball league soon.

Wait! What? Balado isn't on this list? Well huh.

(04-09-2019 01:35 PM)EigenEagle Wrote:  

(04-09-2019 01:20 PM)GSUALUM17 Wrote:  All college basketball experts: "Lanier is a great coach and recruiter, GSU or Buffalo would be lucky to have him"

All Tennessee fans: "dont let Coach Lanier leave. We want him to take over after Rick Barnes."

Georgia southern fans: "Lanier who?"

Most every head coaching hire comes highly recommended. And being a highly-regarded assistant doesn't make you a good head coach.

Very true. I think what you can take away from his 4 years as a head coach is that he can coach talent. He got to the NCAA Tourney in year 1, and a 21 win 2nd round NIT in year two. Then the wheels came off. He was also 33 years old when he took the Siena job. I would say he didn't know how to be a head coach yet. Didn't recruit well enough and it shows in his last two years.

Joe Torre in his for job as manager with the Mets was fired after 5 seasons. He never won more than 70 games. 15 years later, he is managing the Yankees. Bobby Cox had only 1 winning season his 1st managing stint with the Braves.

I am not saying Lanier is about to become one of the best head coaches in basketball, but something has to be said for youth and inexperience. He may very well be a bust, but signs would point at how he has grown as a coach. A lot of UT Alum are already talking about they hope he will return as a head coach. Am I ready to crown best coach hire ever? No. But do I think he is the same guy at 50 that he was at 33? Nope.

(04-09-2019 08:58 PM)chiefsfan Wrote:  I wasn't impressed with either GSU or Troy's hires. I think App did well, but they have more to lose. Lanier was not impressive at Siena, and it strikes me as GSU going for the "coach with a high rated son who plays basketball route" Admittedly, Vol fans love him, but that doesn't really mean much. Everyone loves the top assistant.

Troy, frankly, made the Cross hire too quick. They seemed settled from the beginning that they were going to hire a guy without a single NCAA Berth. despite having the best team in the Sun Belt for several years. It felt like Troy trying to prove that UTA made a mistake more than Troy going for the best fit for the program.

Just a minor correction. Cross took UTA to their only NCAA tourney in 2008 when we were still in the Southland.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

(04-09-2019 08:58 PM)chiefsfan Wrote:  Troy, frankly, made the Cross hire too quick. They seemed settled from the beginning that they were going to hire a guy without a single NCAA Berth. despite having the best team in the Sun Belt for several years. It felt like Troy trying to prove that UTA made a mistake more than Troy going for the best fit for the program.

He's a head coach that has proven he can win big at this level and was the greatest head coach UTA has ever had.

Look at it this way: Let's say there is a coach available that:

* Is young and in his 40's.
* Has D1 head coaching experience.
* Only had 3 losing seasons in 12 years as coach.
* Took his team to the NCAA's once, NIT twice, and CIT twice.
* Made it to the Quarterfinals of the CIT
* Made it to the Quarterfinals of the NIT
* Beat a Top 15 AP-ranked program (#11 St. Mary's).
* Had three wins over P5 programs (Ohio State, Texas, Oklahoma).
* Had multiple wins over mid-major perennial powers (Memphis, Wichita State, New Mexico State, BYU...) .
* Won three conference titles.
* In last three years as coach, had 20+ win seasons each year.
* Had a 2nd-Round NBA draft pick.

Don't you think Arkansas State would probably go after a guy with this kind of resume as well? He's a young, proven head coach that was fired despite having three of most successful seasons UTA has ever seen in his last three years there.

It was only going to be a matter of time until someone got him. Might as well have been Troy, right? I doubt most would think it was too quick of a hire.

Gotta disagree with you chiefsfan. IMO Cross was the best hire of the three.

Insight into what kind of coach Lanier is. Patient communicator. A players' coach.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.tenness...3175486002
When he was with Barnes at Texas, Lanier said Longhorns players called him “the translator.” It is no different, and no less valuable, at Tennessee.

"Coach Barnes says what he feels,” Turner said. “And then Coach Lanier comes in and kind of explains the message you didn’t hear. Sometimes you hear how (Barnes) is saying it but not what he’s trying to say.”

But when they share the floor in front of this team, the effectiveness of their partnership is easy to see. The Carolina crackle of Barnes’ 64-year-old voice gives more edge to his words. Lanier, 50, smooths it out, some New York City in his vowels (though he grew up in Buffalo). Barnes cuts right to the bone; Lanier proceeds with patience and anecdotes.

(04-09-2019 05:05 PM)07pantheralum Wrote:  

(04-09-2019 01:25 PM)MissouriStateBears Wrote:  Rob Lanier sucks. He interviewed for our position last year. We dodged a bullet.

Thanks for sharing your opinion from the perspective of a fan of Missouri State, basketball powerhouse. Your program hasn't been to the NCAAs since '99, before the school changed its name from that laughable directional BS. Can't do squat in a league that now no longer has Creighton or Wichita State. Your coach whom was fired a year ago went 106-121 in seven years. Here's your records from this season until the last time you had a decent team. Worth noting that not once in the last eight years have you finished above .500 in both overall and conference record.

16-16, 4th
18-15, 7th
17-16, 6th (last year of Wichita State)
13-19, 7th
11-20, 8th
20-13, 4th (still just 9-9 in conference)
11-22, 9th (last year of Creighton)
16-16, 6th

in 2010-11, you were good at 26-9, 15-3 (1st) but couldn’t close the deal in the conference championship game=(

Your program is steaming hot garbage. Ours is STILL rising. Rob Lanier dodged a bullet in passing on swMizzouST, not the other way around. No coach in his right mind would choose your program over ours.

Thanks for stopping by. Talk when your program actually does anything worth noticing. As it stands, your program is bordering on low-major in what's now a middling mid-major league.

Paul Lusk sucks and was horrible coach. We got a good one now in Dana Ford and are going to be the favorites to win the Valley this upcoming season. So it worked out.

Hope for your sake Lanier is a good coach other than being Rick Barnes right hand man. You fail at Siena, you aren't very good. That is the east's stepping stone program to a bigger job. Top facility, good support, no real excuses not to win there if you can coach. We vetted him out and it wasn't good. You could have made a better hire especially with some of the names that were floated out there. But best of luck to you.

(04-10-2019 07:47 PM)MissouriStateBears Wrote:  

(04-09-2019 05:05 PM)07pantheralum Wrote:  

(04-09-2019 01:25 PM)MissouriStateBears Wrote:  Rob Lanier sucks. He interviewed for our position last year. We dodged a bullet.

Thanks for sharing your opinion from the perspective of a fan of Missouri State, basketball powerhouse. Your program hasn't been to the NCAAs since '99, before the school changed its name from that laughable directional BS. Can't do squat in a league that now no longer has Creighton or Wichita State. Your coach whom was fired a year ago went 106-121 in seven years. Here's your records from this season until the last time you had a decent team. Worth noting that not once in the last eight years have you finished above .500 in both overall and conference record.

16-16, 4th
18-15, 7th
17-16, 6th (last year of Wichita State)
13-19, 7th
11-20, 8th
20-13, 4th (still just 9-9 in conference)
11-22, 9th (last year of Creighton)
16-16, 6th

in 2010-11, you were good at 26-9, 15-3 (1st) but couldn’t close the deal in the conference championship game=(

Your program is steaming hot garbage. Ours is STILL rising. Rob Lanier dodged a bullet in passing on swMizzouST, not the other way around. No coach in his right mind would choose your program over ours.

Thanks for stopping by. Talk when your program actually does anything worth noticing. As it stands, your program is bordering on low-major in what's now a middling mid-major league.

Paul Lusk sucks and was horrible coach. We got a good one now in Dana Ford and are going to be the favorites to win the Valley this upcoming season. So it worked out.

Hope for your sake Lanier is a good coach other than being Rick Barnes right hand man. You fail at Siena, you aren't very good. That is the east's stepping stone program to a bigger job. Top facility, good support, no real excuses not to win there if you can coach. We vetted him out and it wasn't good. You could have made a better hire especially with some of the names that were floated out there. But best of luck to you.

You took a guy that did nothing significant at Tennessee State, and had an overall losing record there... fourth year at Tennessee State, and he went 15-15.

(04-10-2019 09:36 PM)CardinalBlackTrojan Wrote:  

(04-10-2019 07:47 PM)MissouriStateBears Wrote:  

(04-09-2019 05:05 PM)07pantheralum Wrote:  

(04-09-2019 01:25 PM)MissouriStateBears Wrote:  Rob Lanier sucks. He interviewed for our position last year. We dodged a bullet.

Thanks for sharing your opinion from the perspective of a fan of Missouri State, basketball powerhouse. Your program hasn't been to the NCAAs since '99, before the school changed its name from that laughable directional BS. Can't do squat in a league that now no longer has Creighton or Wichita State. Your coach whom was fired a year ago went 106-121 in seven years. Here's your records from this season until the last time you had a decent team. Worth noting that not once in the last eight years have you finished above .500 in both overall and conference record.

16-16, 4th
18-15, 7th
17-16, 6th (last year of Wichita State)
13-19, 7th
11-20, 8th
20-13, 4th (still just 9-9 in conference)
11-22, 9th (last year of Creighton)
16-16, 6th

in 2010-11, you were good at 26-9, 15-3 (1st) but couldn’t close the deal in the conference championship game=(

Your program is steaming hot garbage. Ours is STILL rising. Rob Lanier dodged a bullet in passing on swMizzouST, not the other way around. No coach in his right mind would choose your program over ours.

Thanks for stopping by. Talk when your program actually does anything worth noticing. As it stands, your program is bordering on low-major in what's now a middling mid-major league.

Paul Lusk sucks and was horrible coach. We got a good one now in Dana Ford and are going to be the favorites to win the Valley this upcoming season. So it worked out.

Hope for your sake Lanier is a good coach other than being Rick Barnes right hand man. You fail at Siena, you aren't very good. That is the east's stepping stone program to a bigger job. Top facility, good support, no real excuses not to win there if you can coach. We vetted him out and it wasn't good. You could have made a better hire especially with some of the names that were floated out there. But best of luck to you.

You took a guy that did nothing significant at Tennessee State, and had an overall losing record there... fourth year at Tennessee State, and he went 15-15.

Tennessee State is a bad, bad tough job. He was the only coach since 1996 to have 3 straight seasons above .500 there. He led them to 20 wins for only the 2nd time in their Division 1. Expectations are little different there than say Missouri State or App State or Siena or Troy or Arkansas State etc.

If you get fired from a mid-major program without moving up to a better job, you aren't that good of a coach. Few exceptions like anything, but not many. I've seen it over too many times.

(04-10-2019 12:14 PM)CardinalBlackTrojan Wrote:  

(04-09-2019 08:58 PM)chiefsfan Wrote:  Troy, frankly, made the Cross hire too quick. They seemed settled from the beginning that they were going to hire a guy without a single NCAA Berth. despite having the best team in the Sun Belt for several years. It felt like Troy trying to prove that UTA made a mistake more than Troy going for the best fit for the program.

He's a head coach that has proven he can win big at this level and was the greatest head coach UTA has ever had.

Look at it this way: Let's say there is a coach available that:

* Is young and in his 40's.
* Has D1 head coaching experience.
* Only had 3 losing seasons in 12 years as coach.
* Took his team to the NCAA's once, NIT twice, and CIT twice.
* Made it to the Quarterfinals of the CIT
* Made it to the Quarterfinals of the NIT
* Beat a Top 15 AP-ranked program (#11 St. Mary's).
* Had three wins over P5 programs (Ohio State, Texas, Oklahoma).
* Had multiple wins over mid-major perennial powers (Memphis, Wichita State, New Mexico State, BYU...) .
* Won three conference titles.
* In last three years as coach, had 20+ win seasons each year.
* Had a 2nd-Round NBA draft pick.

Don't you think Arkansas State would probably go after a guy with this kind of resume as well? He's a young, proven head coach that was fired despite having three of most successful seasons UTA has ever seen in his last three years there.

It was only going to be a matter of time until someone got him. Might as well have been Troy, right? I doubt most would think it was too quick of a hire.

I don’t think any of us pretend to have a clue where we’d hire. Honestly I don’t think we’d hire cross. I don’t feel Mohajir would be comfortable taking someone another league school just fired, even if they’ve had more success than we ever did. Too many things can go wrong

(04-09-2019 12:54 PM)EigenEagle Wrote:  I'm underwhelmed with the hires by State and App.

Kerns is an okay hire I guess, though he seems kind fo an unknown. He's worked only in the SoCon and Big South with 2 seasons as a HC.

Lanier has a career losing head-coaching record, and if I'm a State fan that's concerning. He's got an impressive list of places he's worked as an assistant but so does our former head coach Charlton Young (now at Florida State), who was awful as a head coach.

Kerns is exactly what we need right now. A young guy without a ton of experience that is hungry to win, and shown he has been able to do it elsewhere.

I think Kerns pretty much preemptively saying he doesn't want to be at Wofford is a good sign.

(04-09-2019 12:31 PM)CardinalBlackTrojan Wrote:  With the splashy hires of Rob Lanier at Georgia State and Scott Cross at Troy, and then the App State hiring a quick winner in Dustin Kerns... to along with the rest of the good coaches in the Sun Belt like Cliff Ellis, Mark Byington, Chris Ogden, Bob Marlin, Danny Kaspar, and Keith Richards...

We may have ourselves quite the basketball league soon.

I see that you conveniently left out Richie Riley at South. He should have the Jags ready for the SBC next year, as they had a fairly decent year with the talent left over from the Matthew Graves era.

Making the teams in the conference more competitive with each other won't help unless we start scheduling better out of conference. Except for UTA our ooc scheduling has traditionally been crap.

(04-12-2019 06:45 AM)Vobserver Wrote:  Making the teams in the conference more competitive with each other won't help unless we start scheduling better out of conference. Except for UTA our ooc scheduling has traditionally been crap.

South Alabama will be hosting Final Four participant Auburn next year.
Hopefully this time the Jaguars will be more competitive with two of the best returning player in the conference (Josh Ajayi and Trhae Mitchell) to go along with four transfers that were sitting out this year.

I always thought Georgia State normally had a couple big name opponents, but I could be wrong. Overall though it doesn't matter if you have a tough schedule if you don't win any of those games. Honestly though I think if the Sun Belt conference puts more money into basketball they could easily find itself as one of the top midmajor basketball conferences.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

(04-12-2019 10:05 AM)grumpdoggMav Wrote:  I always thought Georgia State normally had a couple big name opponents, but I could be wrong. Overall though it doesn't matter if you have a tough schedule if you don't win any of those games. Honestly though I think if the Sun Belt conference puts more money into basketball they could easily find itself as one of the top midmajor basketball conferences.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

This season we played St. Bonaventure, Creighton, Georgia, Alabama, Tulane, and Kansas State (picking these schools because they all were in multibid conferences, well, A10, but generally...), and we beat St. Bonaventure, Georgia, Alabama, and Tulane.

(04-10-2019 09:59 PM)MissouriStateBears Wrote:  

(04-10-2019 09:36 PM)CardinalBlackTrojan Wrote:  

(04-10-2019 07:47 PM)MissouriStateBears Wrote:  

(04-09-2019 05:05 PM)07pantheralum Wrote:  

(04-09-2019 01:25 PM)MissouriStateBears Wrote:  Rob Lanier sucks. He interviewed for our position last year. We dodged a bullet.

Thanks for sharing your opinion from the perspective of a fan of Missouri State, basketball powerhouse. Your program hasn't been to the NCAAs since '99, before the school changed its name from that laughable directional BS. Can't do squat in a league that now no longer has Creighton or Wichita State. Your coach whom was fired a year ago went 106-121 in seven years. Here's your records from this season until the last time you had a decent team. Worth noting that not once in the last eight years have you finished above .500 in both overall and conference record.

16-16, 4th
18-15, 7th
17-16, 6th (last year of Wichita State)
13-19, 7th
11-20, 8th
20-13, 4th (still just 9-9 in conference)
11-22, 9th (last year of Creighton)
16-16, 6th

in 2010-11, you were good at 26-9, 15-3 (1st) but couldn’t close the deal in the conference championship game=(

Your program is steaming hot garbage. Ours is STILL rising. Rob Lanier dodged a bullet in passing on swMizzouST, not the other way around. No coach in his right mind would choose your program over ours.

Thanks for stopping by. Talk when your program actually does anything worth noticing. As it stands, your program is bordering on low-major in what's now a middling mid-major league.

Paul Lusk sucks and was horrible coach. We got a good one now in Dana Ford and are going to be the favorites to win the Valley this upcoming season. So it worked out.

Hope for your sake Lanier is a good coach other than being Rick Barnes right hand man. You fail at Siena, you aren't very good. That is the east's stepping stone program to a bigger job. Top facility, good support, no real excuses not to win there if you can coach. We vetted him out and it wasn't good. You could have made a better hire especially with some of the names that were floated out there. But best of luck to you.

You took a guy that did nothing significant at Tennessee State, and had an overall losing record there... fourth year at Tennessee State, and he went 15-15.

Tennessee State is a bad, bad tough job. He was the only coach since 1996 to have 3 straight seasons above .500 there. He led them to 20 wins for only the 2nd time in their Division 1. Expectations are little different there than say Missouri State or App State or Siena or Troy or Arkansas State etc.

If you get fired from a mid-major program without moving up to a better job, you aren't that good of a coach. Few exceptions like anything, but not many. I've seen it over too many times.

Three straight seasons above .500? Better than Missouri State has done in decades. Seems like a lateral move for him.

(04-12-2019 10:01 AM)AtlantaJag Wrote:  

(04-12-2019 06:45 AM)Vobserver Wrote:  Making the teams in the conference more competitive with each other won't help unless we start scheduling better out of conference. Except for UTA our ooc scheduling has traditionally been crap.

South Alabama will be hosting Final Four participant Auburn next year.
Hopefully this time the Jaguars will be more competitive with two of the best returning player in the conference (Josh Ajayi and Trhae Mitchell) to go along with four transfers that were sitting out this year.

Final Four, Schminal Four. We host a CIT Quarterfinalist this year!

(04-10-2019 10:10 PM)chiefsfan Wrote:  

(04-10-2019 12:14 PM)CardinalBlackTrojan Wrote:  

(04-09-2019 08:58 PM)chiefsfan Wrote:  Troy, frankly, made the Cross hire too quick. They seemed settled from the beginning that they were going to hire a guy without a single NCAA Berth. despite having the best team in the Sun Belt for several years. It felt like Troy trying to prove that UTA made a mistake more than Troy going for the best fit for the program.

He's a head coach that has proven he can win big at this level and was the greatest head coach UTA has ever had.

Look at it this way: Let's say there is a coach available that:

* Is young and in his 40's.
* Has D1 head coaching experience.
* Only had 3 losing seasons in 12 years as coach.
* Took his team to the NCAA's once, NIT twice, and CIT twice.
* Made it to the Quarterfinals of the CIT
* Made it to the Quarterfinals of the NIT
* Beat a Top 15 AP-ranked program (#11 St. Mary's).
* Had three wins over P5 programs (Ohio State, Texas, Oklahoma).
* Had multiple wins over mid-major perennial powers (Memphis, Wichita State, New Mexico State, BYU...) .
* Won three conference titles.
* In last three years as coach, had 20+ win seasons each year.
* Had a 2nd-Round NBA draft pick.

Don't you think Arkansas State would probably go after a guy with this kind of resume as well? He's a young, proven head coach that was fired despite having three of most successful seasons UTA has ever seen in his last three years there.

It was only going to be a matter of time until someone got him. Might as well have been Troy, right? I doubt most would think it was too quick of a hire.

I don’t think any of us pretend to have a clue where we’d hire. Honestly I don’t think we’d hire cross. I don’t feel Mohajir would be comfortable taking someone another league school just fired, even if they’ve had more success than we ever did. Too many things can go wrong

cross is a pretty sound coach and got a lot out of the talent he was able to recruit. only in recent years did he have a good facility to play in and a full complement of staff. he built a solid program at a school that isnt very sports focused and I think a place like Troy that is the only game in town and has a more dedicated following will be a better program by having him. I am actually surprised he didnt move upward instead of laterally but he is a guy that likes the close knit family type setting. I think it wont be long that Troy folks will think they got a good deal.