(03-22-2020 03:10 PM)JMUNation Wrote: Splash this splash that. You guys are beyond ridiculous. Anyone with any sense reads your posts and rolls their eyes. Your answer to everything is spend more money. As if that guarantees anything.
The list of coaches interviewed was pretty dang good and about what any reasonable person could expect. JT III? If he was so great, he would have been hired by a P5 long ago. Pitino? Really? You want him banging hookers on a restaurant table in Harrisonburg? You folks blow me away with your posts. What in the world are you thinking?
There was never going to be a splash hire. Many of us close to the university told you this over and over but you kept posting about how you wanted washed up BIG names. You kept posting about how JMU should spend $1 million on a name hire with multiple NCAA tournament appearances. That guy isn’t coming to JMU!!!!!!! How on earth could you ever expect he would? If you were that coach, would you? I sure as hell wouldn’t.
Can we just move on and support the hire and hope like hell he isn’t another Dean Keener?
Pretty bold and blanket statement with a hint of sanctimony to boot, but I'll play.
Perhaps some of the posters were hoping we would be more like UAB in our thinking. That would be the UAB of Conference USA, a basketball conference barely better than the CAA. The same UAB that ranks 55 spots lower than us in football. The same UAB who has made it known they want to be considered should the AAC expand.
Maybe people were thinking that making a statement hire like they did would catch the attention of the AAC. That is exactly what UAB had in mind and was a major criteria in their search for a new coach.
They somehow managed to get a former SEC coach who had a winning percentage of .611 at Cincinnati & Ole Miss. He was 51% in conference play. 9 years of 20 wins or more. 2 NCAA appearances and 7 NIT appearances (two Semis). Maybe he couldn't get Ole Miss to the level their alums wanted, but he has the chops & credentials to position UAB to where they need to be.
UAB was paying their previous coach 450k. I'm sure they had to up the ante to pry Kennedy from his cushy ESPN/SEC Network gig. (And yes, I'm fully aware he was an alum).
Here's a few quotes from AL.com:
"The hope is to be in position for a play at the American Athletic Conference when conference realignment comes around."
"In an instant, the Blazers are relevant again, and fun, and an attractive brand for fans and TV."
"Kennedy to UAB should be viewed as nothing less than a great sign of things to come for UAB athletics. What a slam dunk hire for UAB athletic director Mark Ingram and UAB President Dr. Ray Watts."
"With Kennedy at UAB, the Blazers now have the recruiting power to go up against the staffs of Auburn and Alabama"
"This is how a university makes a statement to the world of collegiate athletics"
If our goal really is to join the AAC, I feel we missed an opportunity to make a statement hire. Something commensurate with the opening of a 90 million dollar arena. Something that would have generated quotes similar to the above.
Now I know some people will say we don't have the money, but UAB is not exactly Harvard. Our athletic budget is significantly larger than theirs, even after backing out the debt servicing for the Stadium. And our annual athletic giving is close. We were around 4.5 million, UAB was at 5.5 million.
It get really old when people say we don't have the money. I firmly believe we could, and would, ratchet up athletic contributions if there was any direction coming from our athletic dept. We should have already said 5 years ago that we need to increase our giving % to X amount "to position ourselves for any possible opportunities". Then maybe we could have had the necessary war chest for a splash hire. The expectation that we are staying in the CAA will only produce CAA level giving.
It "seems" like we would move to FBS if we could obtain an invite from the AAC-our theoretical perfect conference- well how do we get there?
We have G5 quality facilities. We have a G5 level football program (with 22 less scholarships mind you) and draw better than almost everyone in the bottom 3 FBS conferences. We have top level sports nationally in several other sports as well. We will be newly classified as a National University. What we don't have, is a good basketball program, and that is what would be desperately needed to get noticed. It's a huge wart on our nose.
Just wish we could have been more creative, more outside the box thinking. Hire a name guy who was out of coaching-like a Kennedy, JTIII, a Greenberg or other such guys I'm not thinking of. Hire a successful retired coach, even with the understanding that it would only be for a few years if so desired. Someone who could get us in the living rooms we currently can't get into. Someone who could call in favors to get us an exciting schedule. Someone who could hit the ground running and jumpstart us. Hell, even if those guys weren't top Xs and Os guys in the P5s, they'd be able to dominate the CAA simply relying on superior recruits.
For me personally, this particular hire was crucial for upward mobility. Realignment will come in mid 2020s and we need to be ready before the trickle down starts. Also felt real excitement for the new arena was a must. Just felt extra money spent now, could position us (as best we could) for the upcoming realignment.
The top team in CAA basketball is only middle of the road in the AAC. We need to dominate our conference. We can't just win the tournament once every 4 years and expect that to enhance our resume for AAC consideration. In many ways, we've already hit our ceiling in the sports we excel at. That's what the CAA does to you.
We may very well have made a good hire with our new coach-time will tell. And I'll be optimistic and support him. But I feel it needed to be a homerun if we truly have designs on the AAC. I wanted to feel what UAB is feeling now.
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Investment in men’s hoops???
