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bearcat jeff

bearcat jeff

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I was thinking about coaches like Josh Pastner who seem to be able to recruit top talent and yet do nothing with it. Why do you think top 100 recruits continue to go to play for coaches like this?

Are there other coaches you'd through in that mix? Maybe Jamie Dixon? I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on this.
 
Pastner is always the first that comes to mind for me, but I have 4 others: Mike Anderson at Arkansas, Andy Kennedy of Ole Miss, Scott Drew at Baylor, and Rick Barnes at Texas.
 
Who is the coach at Purdue? Matt Painter? That guy rode the coattails of Gene Keady and hasn't done anything at Purdue all while pulling in a couple Top 100 type players nearly every year.

Also, how can we forget the poster child for this (after Pastner).....wait for it.....STEVE LAVIN!! Thinking of his hair and the nickname for Pitino (slick Rick), how about Slick Dick for Lavin?
 
JasonS said:
Who is the coach at Purdue? Matt Painter? That guy rode the coattails of Gene Keady and hasn't done anything at Purdue all while pulling in a couple Top 100 type players nearly every year.

Also, how can we forget the poster child for this (after Pastner).....wait for it.....STEVE LAVIN!! Thinking of his hair and the nickname for Pitino (slick Rick), how about Slick Dick for Lavin?
Click to expand...

Good point, I always forget about Lavin.
 
In the now defunct Big East (as we knew it).......I always thought JTIII kind of underachieved. Steve Lavin, of course.

I'm in the minority, but I don't think Calipari can coach strategically. I think he just gets the top talent and let's them go play.
 
mplebanon said:
In the now defunct Big East (as we knew it).......I always thought JTIII kind of underachieved. Steve Lavin, of course.

I'm in the minority, but I don't think Calipari can coach strategically. I think he just gets the top talent and let's them go play.
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There's something to this with Calipari but I think it is because of the system he runs. It isn't heavy on X's and O's. It is basically predicated on having guards that can get in the lane and either score or dish to the bigs or perimeter shooters. This offense only works when you have guards (especially PGs) who can beat their man off the dribble. When you think about Cal's recent guards, you can see why he has been successful.

I do think the guy is a better X's and O's coach than some give him credit for but it's hard to prove either way because he doesn't have to go there based on the talent he has.
 
cincycpaw said:
So he just forgot how to coach at Illinois?

And I guess making a national championship game isn't very good.
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He won with somebody else's talent. He always recruited well, but never did very well with his own players. Here are his records his last 5 years at Illinois:
07-08:16-19
08-09:24-10
09-10:21-15
10-11:20-14
11-12:17-15

That's pretty pedestrian for the talent that he had.
 
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bearcat jeff said:
I was thinking about coaches like Josh Pastner who seem to be able to recruit top talent and yet do nothing with it. Why do you think top 100 recruits continue to go to play for coaches like this?

Are there other coaches you'd through in that mix? Maybe Jamie Dixon? I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on this.
Click to expand...

Josh Pastner has been the head coach at Memphis for 4 seasons. His teams have never lost more than 10 games in a season. In those 4 years he's gone to the NCAA's 3 times. I'm not saying the guy is good or bad, just saying that for someone who trumps up Mick Cronin like he's the 2nd coming of John Wooden you're slamming a guy who has accomplished much more in his first 4 years with Memphis than Mick did in his first 4 years here. And they both walked into fairly similar situations.
 
UCBearcats said:
Josh Pastner has been the head coach at Memphis for 4 seasons. His teams have never lost more than 10 games in a season. In those 4 years he's gone to the NCAA's 3 times. I'm not saying the guy is good or bad, just saying that for someone who trumps up Mick Cronin like he's the 2nd coming of John Wooden you're slamming a guy who has accomplished much more in his first 4 years with Memphis than Mick did in his first 4 years here. And they both walked into fairly similar situations.
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I sure would hope Memphis wouldnt lose more than 10 games a year. They didnt even play 10 good teams a year. So making the tournament isnt anything they should celebrate when its expected of them to win the conference by multiple games every year

Mick got thrown into the Toughest conference in basketball. So IMO thats not even close to the same situation
 
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UCBearcats said:
Josh Pastner has been the head coach at Memphis for 4 seasons. His teams have never lost more than 10 games in a season. In those 4 years he's gone to the NCAA's 3 times. I'm not saying the guy is good or bad, just saying that for someone who trumps up Mick Cronin like he's the 2nd coming of John Wooden you're slamming a guy who has accomplished much more in his first 4 years with Memphis than Mick did in his first 4 years here. And they both walked into fairly similar situations.
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Comical. They came into similar situations? Pastner came into conference USA. Cronin came into the Big East. Pastner came to Memphis to replace John Calipari with a full roster of sophomores, juniors, and seniors of a team that just went to the sweet 16 and recently had been to a national championship. Cronin had Cedric Mcgowan and Ron Allen. That's it. Two players, one was a juco and the other came from an NAIA school. To say that their situations were similar is lazy and stupid.
 
JackBauer151 said:
Comical. They came into similar situations? Pastner came into conference USA. Cronin came into the Big East. Pastner came to Memphis to replace John Calipari with a full roster of sophomores, juniors, and seniors of a team that just went to the sweet 16 and recently had been to a national championship. Cronin had Cedric Mcgowan and Ron Allen. That's it. Two players, one was a juco and the other came from an NAIA school. To say that their situations were similar is lazy and stupid.
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Yeah, you're right, it was lazy and stupid on my part. I forgot to mention that Mick didn't have any NCAA sanctions when he came here.

On one hand there's Mick, who we are constantly making excuses for and who everyone pretends is doing a better job than he really is. On the other hand you have Josh Pastner who's been to 3 NCAA's in 4 seasons yet he's being used as the example of a coach who underachieves?

It's comical really, Mick goes to the NCAA's and he's a God and everyone argues that fans should just be happy with that because we're little old UC and we're not a big deal. Yet here's a guy who's at Memphis and has been to 3 NCAA's in his first 4 years and the same people who make the Mick argument are calling him an underachiever?

I do love it though, the delusional posters on this board keep me entertained.
 
UCBearcats said:
Yeah, you're right, it was lazy and stupid on my part. I forgot to mention that Mick didn't have any NCAA sanctions when he came here.

On one hand there's Mick, who we are constantly making excuses for and who everyone pretends is doing a better job than he really is. On the other hand you have Josh Pastner who's been to 3 NCAA's in 4 seasons yet he's being used as the example of a coach who underachieves?

It's comical really, Mick goes to the NCAA's and he's a God and everyone argues that fans should just be happy with that because we're little old UC and we're not a big deal. Yet here's a guy who's at Memphis and has been to 3 NCAA's in his first 4 years and the same people who make the Mick argument are calling him an underachiever?

I do love it though, the delusional posters on this board keep me entertained.
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Once again the situations are not similar. The big east was America's best conference. If you have no players it's not going to be easy to win in that league. That might be out of your league intellectually to understand but it remains a fact. When you have a full roster of decent players in a bad conference it will be much easier to win. Yes Pastner did go to 3 out 4 NCAA's but he only has one win vs St. Mary and it was by 2. Cronin has 3 and had to rebuild a program from scratch while Pasnter got to ride the coattails of Cal.
 
JackBauer151 said:
Once again the situations are not similar. The big east was America's best conference. If you have no players it's not going to be easy to win in that league. That might be out of your league intellectually to understand but it remains a fact. When you have a full roster of decent players in a bad conference it will be much easier to win. Yes Pastner did go to 3 out 4 NCAA's but he only has one win vs St. Mary and it was by 2. Cronin has 3 and had to rebuild a program from scratch while Pasnter got to ride the coattails of Cal.
Click to expand...

So if Mick doesn't absolutely dominate the AAC then he's a terrible coach? Is that what I'm hearing from you right now??

The simple fact of the matter is that Josh Pastner is a young coach with an excellent resume. Getting top 15 recruiting classes to play for you is a big accomplishment in it's own right. He's been to 3 NCAA's in the last 4 years. You can belittle his accomplishments all you want and make excuses for Mick's but at the end of the day for someone to hold Mick up on a pedestal and use Josh Pastner as an example of failure is a complete and utter joke.
 
First of all I wasnt the one who said anything about Pastner or his accomplishments. You made the comparison that Pastner and Cronin inherited similar situations. That is 150% FALSE. It's not a matter of opinion. It is factually incorrect. Jeff's original point was that Pastner gets top talent and has been unable to achieve what you would expect when someone gets nationally ranked classes. He was wondering why do you think he is able to continue to get top talent without results in the postseason. I think it's a fair question. As far as Cronin goes I think he has done a great job. The program has been rebuilt. 3 consecutive NCAA trips, a sweet 16, top 25 recruiting class (Including a top 25 player), rise in attendance and has been ranked in the top 25 at some point in each of the last 4 years. I think we see an upward trend here. We are not poor little UC. We are UC and we are back and Im damn excited about it. Cronin is a huge reason why and think he deserves credit for the work he has done and should be held accountable for continued growth.
 
UCBearcats said:
Yeah, you're right, it was lazy and stupid on my part. I forgot to mention that Mick didn't have any NCAA sanctions when he came here.

On one hand there's Mick, who we are constantly making excuses for and who everyone pretends is doing a better job than he really is. On the other hand you have Josh Pastner who's been to 3 NCAA's in 4 seasons yet he's being used as the example of a coach who underachieves?

It's comical really, Mick goes to the NCAA's and he's a God and everyone argues that fans should just be happy with that because we're little old UC and we're not a big deal. Yet here's a guy who's at Memphis and has been to 3 NCAA's in his first 4 years and the same people who make the Mick argument are calling him an underachiever?

I do love it though, the delusional posters on this board keep me entertained.
Click to expand...

The talent Pastner has had at Memphis has been absolutely ridiculous. Credit his recruiting and the fact that the talent pool in Memphis has been superior to pretty much any other city in the country. That said, he has consistently underperformed with that talent. It's hard to argue otherwise. We all know you hate Cronin but arguing for Pastner here doesn't make your point for Cronin, it just means you don't have much of a clue about college basketball. The fact that you cite similar situations pretty much seals the deal. And it's really cool and all that Pastner hasn't had more than 10 losses if it weren't for the fact that they were in CUSA and there wasn't one other good team in that league.
 

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