(04-05-2021 11:35 PM)DFW HOYA Wrote:  Every era has these kind of coaching decisions. For example...

Georgetown in 1972:
- Had not made the NCAA Tournament since 1943
- One NIT appearance since 1953
- Did not fund a full time coaching position until 1967
- Had three wins that season

Georgetown hired:
- A 30 year old high school coach with no college experience
- None of his assistants had coached in college before

This is the only example cited in this thread so far that challenges Baylor’s starting point and beats out Scott Drew for how far John Thompson raised the program - floor to ceiling.

Billy Donovan at Florida was another one. It was a bottom dweller in the SEC forever, and took more than 70 years to make their first-ever NCAA tournament.

Florida had a bit of success under Lon Kruger, but like Baylor, it was a program that had its fair share of scandals and controversy and needed someone to clean up the issues of the past (Vernon Maxwell) and in fact, they had their two NCAA appearances from 1988 and 1989 wiped off the books.

Donovan won back-to-back national titles in 2006 and 2007 - which was the last time a school won back-to-back titles. He's been an NBA head coach since leaving Florida.

I still have a hard time thinking Scott Drew is even in the top 10 at this point. We've had plenty of flashes in the pan that burned out. Plus you never can tell if a school is doing things on the up and up in college basketball. There have been plenty of schools that were great for a time (UNLV under Tarkanian for instance) but once the NCAA finally got around to investigating them, you found out they were fielding semi-professional teams.

(04-06-2021 06:50 PM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  

(04-05-2021 11:35 PM)DFW HOYA Wrote:  Every era has these kind of coaching decisions. For example...

Georgetown in 1972:
- Had not made the NCAA Tournament since 1943
- One NIT appearance since 1953
- Did not fund a full time coaching position until 1967
- Had three wins that season

Georgetown hired:
- A 30 year old high school coach with no college experience
- None of his assistants had coached in college before

This is the only example cited in this thread so far that challenges Baylor’s starting point and beats out Scott Drew for how far John Thompson raised the program - floor to ceiling.

Team wins 81 games in ten seasons without a winning record.

New coach with no prior head coaching experience gets team going after three seasons and takes team to five straight tournaments with two 3-seeds, two 2-seeds, and a 1-seed. Final Four, Elite 8, and a Sweet 16. No first round losses. 193-71 in eight seasons. AP high of #1 in two different seasons.

This one is a sort of “what could have been.” Guess?

(04-06-2021 09:52 PM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote:  Billy Donovan at Florida was another one. It was a bottom dweller in the SEC forever, and took more than 70 years to make their first-ever NCAA tournament.

Florida had a bit of success under Lon Kruger, but like Baylor, it was a program that had its fair share of scandals and controversy and needed someone to clean up the issues of the past (Vernon Maxwell) and in fact, they had their two NCAA appearances from 1988 and 1989 wiped off the books.

Donovan won back-to-back national titles in 2006 and 2007 - which was the last time a school won back-to-back titles. He's been an NBA head coach since leaving Florida.

I still have a hard time thinking Scott Drew is even in the top 10 at this point. We've had plenty of flashes in the pan that burned out. Plus you never can tell if a school is doing things on the up and up in college basketball. There have been plenty of schools that were great for a time (UNLV under Tarkanian for instance) but once the NCAA finally got around to investigating them, you found out they were fielding semi-professional teams.

Florida was in the Final 4 3 years before Donovan took over.

Coaches like Thompson and Drew started with nothing - no one had proven they could win at those schools. They were “make the impossible possible” coaches.

(04-07-2021 12:00 AM)esayem Wrote:  

(04-06-2021 06:50 PM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  

(04-05-2021 11:35 PM)DFW HOYA Wrote:  Every era has these kind of coaching decisions. For example...

Georgetown in 1972:
- Had not made the NCAA Tournament since 1943
- One NIT appearance since 1953
- Did not fund a full time coaching position until 1967
- Had three wins that season

Georgetown hired:
- A 30 year old high school coach with no college experience
- None of his assistants had coached in college before

This is the only example cited in this thread so far that challenges Baylor’s starting point and beats out Scott Drew for how far John Thompson raised the program - floor to ceiling.

Team wins 81 games in ten seasons without a winning record.

New coach with no prior head coaching experience gets team going after three seasons and takes team to five straight tournaments with two 3-seeds, two 2-seeds, and a 1-seed. Final Four, Elite 8, and a Sweet 16. No first round losses. 193-71 in eight seasons. AP high of #1 in two different seasons.

This one is a sort of “what could have been.” Guess?

Calipari. Great example. He’s in the Thompson/Drew conversation.

UMass had just 1 NCAA appearance in its history - 30 years ago.

The greatest coaching hire ever was John Wooden at UCLA. When he took over, UCLA had only had two winning seasons in the the previous 17 seasons. As head coach at UCLA, he had 25 consecutive winning seasons and won ten national championships. He never had a losing season as head coach at UCLA.

BobCat: it took him, what 12-15 years to win a title? He wouldn't get that leash today.

(04-07-2021 12:46 AM)Erictelevision Wrote:  BobCat: it took him, what 12-15 years to win a title? He wouldn't get that leash today.

It took him 16 years to win a title. It took Drew 18 years. Wooden went 285-125 in his first 15 seasons, and won 10 championships in the next 12 years. Wooden coached 27 seasons at UCLA and had 27 consecutive winning seasons. Before Wooden took the job, they had 2 winning seasons in the previous 17 seasons.

Would he get that leash today?

(04-07-2021 01:16 AM)Erictelevision Wrote:  Would he get that leash today?

He had led UCLA to 15 consecutive winning seasons before he won his first championship, an average record of 19-8 per season. He was already the greatest basketball coach in UCLA history before he won his first championship. In 2017-2018, Baylor went 19-15 and did not make the tournament. Should Drew have been fired?

(04-06-2021 05:30 PM)Wahoowa84 Wrote:  

(04-06-2021 05:00 PM)virgosports Wrote:  

(04-06-2021 04:38 PM)ken d Wrote:  

(04-06-2021 01:32 PM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  

(04-06-2021 01:20 PM)ken d Wrote:  Basketball history is a long time. G.O.A.T.? Might be a bit of an exaggeration, don't you think?

Not GOAT.

Best hire for where the program started (no NCAA's in 15 years, 1 NCAA in 53 years, near death penalty, intra-team murder) and where the program ended up (national champions).

That makes it the best hire in Baylor basketball history, not college basketball history. It turned out to be a great hire. We don't need to make it more than it is.

Whom woukd you think is (are) better hires? Or are best unexpectedly successful hire ?

There are so many great basketball coaches that have elevated their programs to sustained higher levels. Just from the ACC and Big East...

UNC - Dean Smith
Duke - Mike Krzyzewski
Syracuse - Jim Boeheim
Georgetown- John Thompson Jr
UConn - Jim Calhoun
DePaul - Ray Meyers

What Drew and Baylor accomplished is impressive, but best hire in history is going way too far.

I guess we could say that this thread is the greatest example of hyperbole in the history of the world.

(04-06-2021 09:55 AM)Gamecock Wrote:  He's up there for sure. Let's see what he does from here.

Pro for Scott Drew: Chip Gaines is going to be bag manning that Magnolia Network cash to the players faster than you can say “shiplap.” Con: Chip Gaines can barely walk and chew gum at the same time and will surely get caught. Pro: the NCAA won’t punish Baylor for any of the horrible things it has done.

(04-07-2021 06:55 AM)ken d Wrote:  I guess we could say that this thread is the greatest example of hyperbole in the history of the world.

No, you're still misreading the thread. You're conflating "best hire" with "most accomplished coach". Far different things.

It's much easier and more common to (1) build a champion at a school with loads of history and (2) hire a coach at a school that was just in the Final 4, won the national championship, etc.

It's magnitudes more difficult to win a national championship and hire a national champion coach at a school with zero history with this as the current situation:

Quote:- Had not made the NCAA Tournament since 1988
- Had made 1 NCAA Tournament since 1950
- Had a murder within the team where one player killed another player
- Was considered for the death penalty by the NCAA for repeated violations

As another poster put it:

(04-05-2021 11:11 PM)Nittany_Bearcat Wrote:  What sort of odds would you have gotten in August 2003 as regards "Scott Drew, the new Baylor hire, will lead them to a National Championship some day"?

I don't think it's hyperbolic to say the odds would have been on the order of 1 million to 1.

John Thompson and John Wooden are the only examples given so far that challenge what Drew inherited and surpass his success.

Well Arizona just fired their coach. So they may as well make the second best hire in college basketball history and hire Scott Drew (Baylor gets to be #1 because they hired him first).

(04-05-2021 11:19 PM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  Far as I can tell, the AD who made quite possibly the best hire ever, Tom Stanton, resigned that summer and vanished into obscurity.

Stanton was gone prior to Drew. A search committee made the hire IIRC

(04-05-2021 11:39 PM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote:  I'm not sure if you can make that claim off 1 year. Let's see if he can maintain that success. There have been some programs in recent years to get to the Final Four from programs facing even higher odds than Baylor - and what have they done since their Final Fours? Baylor had some issues but they're still a Big 12 program and plenty of schools from that conference have made it to the Final Four recently (Texas Tech was in the most recent championship before tonight). And Baylor has won plenty of national titles in other sports in recent years so it's not like that school is a sports black hole. They still have an administration that wants them to succeed in sports, and a conference affiliation which allows them to recruit with much bigger schools.

If you want to look back a bit, people like John Thompson at Georgetown, Ray Meyer at Depaul and Louie Carneseca at St. John's had amazing success at inner-city schools that have pretty much gone back to mid-level success after they left.

Look over the past decade. He’s been very good even prior to this year with consistent winning and several deep runs.

(04-07-2021 01:10 AM)SoCalBobcat78 Wrote:  

(04-07-2021 12:46 AM)Erictelevision Wrote:  BobCat: it took him, what 12-15 years to win a title? He wouldn't get that leash today.

It took him 16 years to win a title. It took Drew 18 years. Wooden went 285-125 in his first 15 seasons, and won 10 championships in the next 12 years. Wooden coached 27 seasons at UCLA and had 27 consecutive winning seasons. Before Wooden took the job, they had 2 winning seasons in the previous 17 seasons.

Wooden also didn’t have sanctions and a scandal marring his first few years.

Drew walked into a dumpster fire.

Four years to build up
Then went to the dance
Then runner up in NIT
Then two elite 8’s in three years
Then won NIT
And hasn’t missed the tourney yet

He’s won a rounding error under 70% of his games after the slow start due to the situation he inherited.

Dude can coach.

After he wins 9 more in a row we can talk about him being a better hire than Wooden

(04-07-2021 04:03 PM)1845 Bear Wrote:  

(04-05-2021 11:19 PM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  Far as I can tell, the AD who made quite possibly the best hire ever, Tom Stanton, resigned that summer and vanished into obscurity.

Stanton was gone prior to Drew. A search committee made the hire IIRC

Thanks for the info. Looked up the date Stanton resigned and it said August 2003 and I assumed Scott Drew was hired in March/April. Forgot Dave Bliss wouldn’t have been fired until the summer because the murder was in the offseason.