The unofficial online home for fans of the UAB Blazers. Part of Collegiate Sports Nation (CSN).

(03-28-2016 01:18 AM)Memphis Blazer Wrote:  

(03-28-2016 01:12 AM)ranger1386b Wrote:  I want a very good coach who can recruit and who can consistently get us into the tournament, and whose character honors that of Coach Bartow. I dont care if its Ehsan or not.

Its ridiculous to paint this hire as Ehsan or fail. He may very well be our best option, but Im equally prepared to believe there are better coaches also interested.

Agree 100%

Me too... stinks to frame this as "anybody but Ehsan is evidence of a massive conspiracy to screw over the fanbase". I like several of the names being thrown out... Ehsan, Person, TJ Cleveland, etc and would be happy with any of them.

Remember that feeling over the next 2 to 3 years should a majority of the team depart & fans decide to not come out & see Ingram's selection.

I don't know who would be the best choice, but hiring a coach to simply keep players from transferring is bush league. I would think we are better than that. If Ehsan is the best candidate, all things considered, great. If not, move on. I also agree with others, our defense and intensity were not all that great with Haase. Wasn't totally thrilled with our offense either. If Ehsan shares Haase's philosophy very closely, I would be very skeptical.

& potentially not building on what you have could also be considered bush league.
The fans have been reluctant to show up the last season and a half due to Watts.
Giving them another reason to not show up may guarantee they won't.

I just don't believe many fans would tolerate 2 to 3 years of rebuilding here.

Ehsan has 11 years experience as assistant coach.

Dropping to hire someone with 2 years of it instead would be a major mistake IMO.

All of this while there are future conference affiliations to consider. A strong hoops program helps & weak one will not.

(03-28-2016 10:23 AM)bartowfan Wrote:  

(03-28-2016 01:18 AM)Memphis Blazer Wrote:  

(03-28-2016 01:12 AM)ranger1386b Wrote:  I want a very good coach who can recruit and who can consistently get us into the tournament, and whose character honors that of Coach Bartow. I dont care if its Ehsan or not.

Its ridiculous to paint this hire as Ehsan or fail. He may very well be our best option, but Im equally prepared to believe there are better coaches also interested.

Agree 100%

Me too... stinks to frame this as "anybody but Ehsan is evidence of a massive conspiracy to screw over the fanbase". I like several of the names being thrown out... Ehsan, Person, TJ Cleveland, etc and would be happy with any of them.

Actually Framed in my first post as : If you want to see this core group of players advance for the next two years, and the future is as bright as it has been in a decade, then Ehsan is the man.

If you want to rebuild, then do nothing or continue poking holes in this thread, and pick this thread apart.

(03-28-2016 10:43 AM)the_blazerman Wrote:  & potentially not building on what you have could also be considered bush league.
The fans have been reluctant to show up the last season and a half due to Watts.
Giving them another reason to not show up may guarantee they won't.

I just don't believe many fans would tolerate 2 to 3 years of rebuilding here.

Ehsan has 11 years experience as assistant coach.

Dropping to hire someone with 2 years of it instead would be a major mistake IMO.

All of this while there are future conference affiliations to consider. A strong hoops program helps & weak one will not.

Watts wasn't the reason fans weren't showing up. That was just normal for UAB basketball. If a guy like Forbes wants to come, I don't see how you hire Ehsan over him.

^ agree with Phil.

(03-28-2016 10:46 AM)Blazer88 Wrote:  

(03-28-2016 10:43 AM)the_blazerman Wrote:  & potentially not building on what you have could also be considered bush league.
The fans have been reluctant to show up the last season and a half due to Watts.
Giving them another reason to not show up may guarantee they won't.

I just don't believe many fans would tolerate 2 to 3 years of rebuilding here.

Ehsan has 11 years experience as assistant coach.

Dropping to hire someone with 2 years of it instead would be a major mistake IMO.

All of this while there are future conference affiliations to consider. A strong hoops program helps & weak one will not.

Watts wasn't the reason fans weren't showing up. That was just normal for UAB basketball. If a guy like Forbes wants to come, I don't see how you hire Ehsan over him.

I disagree on the attendance. Many didn't want to have anything to do with UAB due to Watts. Attendance sucked worse than normal because of him.

Forbes seems like a great candidate compared to others that have been mentioned.

I'll let Ingram & the committee decide that choice.

I would like someone to tell me what Ehsan brings to the table aside from keeping players from transferring. I honestly don't know. What are his philosophies and strengths? Do you really think it is a given that there will be a mass exodus if Ehsan is not hired? They may love the new coach and he would have a chance to sell himself to the players.

Mark Ingram has done nothing whatsoever to make me feel good about him managing this hire. I simply don't trust him to pull this off, and the last thing we need is a Callaway/McGee hire in hoops. I think he will go after an SEC retread with name recognition instead of making a smart hire of a smart young coach on the rise. That will be a safe hire for Ingram in the short term maybe, but I think it will be a huge risk in terms of the team's success. Rob is a very qualified young coach, he recruited and knows these players, and the fact that they are willing to go to the mat for him speaks volumes about the esteem they hold him in. They are signed to the school and committed, that kind of saber rattling is the only card they hold. Listen to them!

Hiring him frees up money that can be used to help build football, which long term is the cash cow. We need strength in both MBB and football to keep butts in seats and ticket money coming in. There is going to be another wave of conference moves, and it is imperative that we are ready for that to happen in the next two to five years. I don't know when it comes, but there are too many rough edges in the P5 as currently structured for it not to happen. We were left behind last time. We can't afford it again.

Rob can recruit, he represents stability, and will calm the waters around the team. I think it's important that if you are in favor of hiring Rob that you make your voice heard early in the process. I had some reservations about that, I didn't want to push on Ingram for fear that he would fight it reflexively, but having had some time to think about it I think that the time to say something is before the momentum starts to hire someone else.

Eshan played PG at UC Davis and went from a graduate assistant at Maryland to be interim coach 6 years later when Williams retired.

The attendance for UAB basketball has sucked since I've been a fan, which has been since 2003. Watts has little to do with our attendance struggles. It sucked before him and will probably continue to after him, unfortunately. That said, he certainly didn't help things. I also acknowledge the attendance was trending up with haase. However, you can't tell me our attendance problems are all because of watts.

I also agree that it's dumb to frame this as a "ehsan or nothing" argument. Choose the best candidate for UAB.

What is difficult to swallow is some here are suggesting the players are committed to the coach and not UAB.
I believe we explored the difference in players committing to the coach instead of UAB, some of the same posters, feigned anger at and labeled XCMD many negative things because players were willing to commit to XCMD and not UAB.
Well double standards aside, some here are saying our current roster may have many defections unless Eshan is kept as the coach..
I am OKAY with any player transferring. I don't believe the players should be held to a different standard then the person who sold UAB to them.
Again if its Eshan good let's get behind him, if it's someone else,let's get behind him and support him.
Be a fan of UAB and not a Coach.

Attendance this year 4900, last year 3200. Year before that 3700.

& last year's attendance was highly inflated due to Watts not wanting it to appear anyhow related to his football decision.

(03-28-2016 12:06 PM)the_blazerman Wrote:  Attendance this year 4900, last year 3200. Year before that 3700.

& last year's attendance was highly inflated due to Watts not wanting it to appear anyhow related to his football decision.

Well we also started winning this year, and had a terrible record the years before.

So it sucked in a year when we were decent with Chad Frazier, and was worse in a year when we were terrible the first half of the season. How is watts totally responsible for that? Like I said, our bball attendance has been bad ever since I've been a fan. We've had multiple teams that should've had bartow packed out every night.

(03-28-2016 12:09 PM)Blazer88 Wrote:  

(03-28-2016 12:06 PM)the_blazerman Wrote:  Attendance this year 4900, last year 3200. Year before that 3700.

& last year's attendance was highly inflated due to Watts not wanting it to appear anyhow related to his football decision.

Well we also started winning this year, and had a terrible record the years before.

Correct.

So you are saying that winning helps attendance, therefore it would be to our advantage to keep winning the next year or two otherwise attendance would drop.

(03-28-2016 12:12 PM)the_blazerman Wrote:  So you are saying that winning helps attendance, therefore it would be to our advantage to keep winning the next year or two otherwise attendance would drop.

I've also observed that winning is highly correlated with attendance.

I miss the CMA days when Bartow was full every night (heavy sarcasm intended)