calumnus said:
HKBear97! said:
Big C said:
HKBear97! said:
Big C said:
HKBear97! said:
Big C said:
These "death" analogies are way off base, IMO. There's no coming back from death, but if we commit to the practice facility we get a solid coach, we're back in it. Heck, we do one of those and it's a start (and one helps with the other).
This is absolutely not a hopeless situation, although it does take a pretty significant investment.
This is college sports. The ONLY thing we need is a good coach. Tedford (early years Tedford, not late) took an absolute mess of a program and made it exciting again. You can do that even faster in basketball with the right hire. Do that and everything else will come to fruition.
Where we stand now, coaches who might be the "right hire" look at us and see the only school in the conference without a practice facility. They don't even bother to interview. We're trying to compete with one hand tied behind our back. Check that... we're not really trying to compete.
Then they are not the "right hire". This program is an opportunity to build something. Great school, great location, fairly strong basketball tradition. We've heard there's a plan in place for a practice facility, so there is support there provided a leader comes in to take it to the next level. If a coach can't see the potential then they clearly are not the "right hire."
You and I love Cal, but prospective coaches might not see it as we do. This might be why the candidates list hasn't looked too impressive, the past few times we've been hiring.
The last two hires (Wyking and Fox) say more about the one doing the hiring than the interest list.
Exactly. Jason Kidd, currently HC of the Dallas Mavericks, was a "special assistant" for the Lakers at the time and told a reporter Cal was the only college job he was interested in. Eric Musselman lobbied hard for the Cal job. Mike Montgomery was already a Hall of Famer and could have taken almost any job in the country, but took Cal. Cuonzo Martin had just taken Tennessee to the Sweet 16 when he took the Cal job, and we had no plans for a dedicated practice facility then.
Besides, we are talking about promoting a coach from someplace like Montana, Portland, Cleveland State or USF. We pay $millions more than those places. Talk about Cal being undesirable for a coach like that is ridiculous.
Which is it? Your first paragraph, where we supposedly get all these great candidates?
Or your second, where we need to hire from Montana, Portland, Cleveland State and USF?
Jason Kidd: People say things to reporters. Let's revisit when he takes the job.
Montgomery: Fifteen years ago, we weren't as undesirable. Also he wasn't coaching when we hired him.
Martin: Cal was a halfway desirable place to be after Montgomery. It's because of the way we treated Cuonzo Martin that we are now not very desirable.
The practice facility thing has only become an issue in the past ten years, as everybody else in our conference has one now and we don't. Look at the candidate list we ourselves have drawn up: Mostly people in lesser jobs who have a Cal connection. What does that tell you when "we pay $millions more than those places" and yet that is our pool?
I'll believe Cal is a desirable place to coach basketball when we can attract coaches who are currently employed at a job that pays at least 65% of what we would pay them.
