Sandy Barbour has just fired Coquese Washington after a 12-18 season at Penn State. It's back east and Sandy was a big LG fan.

Have also noticed that Penn State signed the #18 recruiting class in the nation last November. If no one drops out with the coaching change, this is going to be a good opportunity for somebody.

When I saw the news, I too thought of the Barbour connection. It's that time of the year already, when jobs come open, and re-shuffling starts among the coaching ranks.

pearbear said:

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When I saw the news, I too thought of the Barbour connection. It's that time of the year already, when jobs come open, and re-shuffling starts among the coaching ranks.

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It would be a good time for LG to bail for her sake. We return one starter that is at best the fourth best player and one starter that she takes out as soon as she can. We won't have a strong team for years if ever.

An article says that Barbour is going to use a search firm, so this process will likely take awhile and involve multiple candidates.

Penn State is facing the same kind of choice that may confront Knowlton some day. After finishing 12th in the Big Ten (there are now 14 teams in the conference), do you want to pay a large salary to a well-known coach and try to climb all of the way back up the ladder; but at major financial risk if you fail to do so. Or do you want to go younger and cheaper, temporarily dropping your title/first division aspirations, unless you do happen to catch lightning in a bottle with a younger coach. This kind of decision will be a lot easier for Penn State if they have some major donors for women's basketball.

GATC said:

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It would be a good time for LG to bail for her sake.

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I could be wrong but Lindsay seems to like coaching at Cal. If she's homesick for the East Coast I haven't heard about it.

Quote:

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We return one starter that is at best the fourth best player and one starter that she takes out as soon as she can. We won't have a strong team for years if ever.

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My view of next season's roster:

Kianna Smith, JR PG/SG: 2-year starter, Pac-12 All-Freshman, top-50 recruit, McD AA.
Jaelyn Brown, SR F/W: 1-year starter, Pac-12 All Freshman HM, top-50 recruit.
CJ West, SR C: 3-year contributor, top-100 recruit.
Kenzie Forbes SO PG/SG/W, 1-year contributor, top-50 recruit, McD AA.
Alaysia Styles, JR F: 2-year contributor, top-100 recruit.
Mi'Cole Cayton, RS-JR PG/SG: 1/2 year starter, top-100 recruit

Unknowns:
Sara Anastasieska, RS-SR SG:
Cailyn Crocker, FR PG: top-100 HS
Chen Yue, RS-SR C:
Lauren Fields, FR SG:
Jazlen Green, FR SG:
Evelien Schipholt, FR F:

Unknown unknowns:
more recruits?

IMHO if Mi'Cole is healthy and one or two of the freshies can play we'll be OK. Possibly worse offensively but better defensively than this season. I wouldn't expect to finish in the top half of the Pac-12. Future seasons will depend on future recruiting, which is hard to predict especially with the constraints at Cal.

You will need to add Chen to that list. We are going to need a back-up center to deal with the kind of size that is coming into the conference. Alternatively, we could go really small. However, even OSU finally had to give up on that strategy this year and had to use Grmyk, who is pretty bad. And CJ's injury issues would also call for limiting her minutes to something reasonable.

If LG is going to continue here, she really does need to bring in a new assistant who can help install some less post-centric offensive concepts.

annarborbear said:

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You will need to add Chen to that list. We are going to need a back-up center to deal with the kind of size that is coming into the conference. Alternatively, we could go really small. However, even OSU finally had to give up on that strategy this year and had to use Grmyk, who is pretty bad.

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You're right, fixed it. I consider her an unknown since I haven't seen much so far.

Sandy also once hired Joanne Boyle and she is available. However, Joanne last ended up making $700,000 a year at Virginia for less than championship performance. So if Sandy is willing and able to pay a lot, she may be willing to pay even more than that to shoot higher.

I just looked, Joanne lost more than 50% of her conference games and never finished higher than 6th in the ACC. So she is probably not who Sandy is looking for this time.

stu said:

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GATC said:

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It would be a good time for LG to bail for her sake.

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I could be wrong but Lindsay seems to like coaching at Cal. If she's homesick for the East Coast I haven't heard about it.

Quote:

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We return one starter that is at best the fourth best player and one starter that she takes out as soon as she can. We won't have a strong team for years if ever.

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My view of next season's roster:

Kianna Smith, JR PG/SG: 2-year starter, Pac-12 All-Freshman, top-50 recruit, McD AA.
Jaelyn Brown, SR F/W: 1-year starter, Pac-12 All Freshman HM, top-50 recruit.
CJ West, SR C: 3-year contributor, top-100 recruit.
Kenzie Forbes SO PG/SG/W, 1-year contributor, top-50 recruit, McD AA.
Alaysia Styles, JR F: 2-year contributor, top-100 recruit.
Mi'Cole Cayton, RS-JR PG/SG: 1/2 year starter, top-100 recruit

Unknowns:
Sara Anastasieska, RS-SR SG:
Cailyn Crocker, FR PG: top-100 HS
Chen Yue, RS-SR C:
Lauren Fields, FR SG:
Jazlen Green, FR SG:
Evelien Schipholt, FR F:

Unknown unknowns:
more recruits?

IMHO if Mi'Cole is healthy and one or two of the freshies can play we'll be OK. Possibly worse offensively but better defensively than this season. I wouldn't expect to finish in the top half of the Pac-12. Future seasons will depend on future recruiting, which is hard to predict especially with the constraints at Cal.

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Penn State would still be a long ways from where she is from, but they probably have the money to get her if they wanted her.
Counting on Mi'Cole after everything she has been through seems like a long shot at best.

I'm still kind of surprised that most of you posters on the woman's board seem to want Lindsay gone. She still less than a decade removed from a conference Championship's I and a final four appearance. I know Cal fans are never happy no matter what but who would you want to replace her that's the major question?

I know I'm replying to myself but I like Jennifer gross of UC Davis but wouldn't this just be a replay of when we hired Lindsay Gottlieb from UC Santa Barbara we're basically replacing one big West Coast with another.

who would you want to replace her

Someone better. She hasn't got the Bears back to a Sweet Sixteen, never mind the Final Four, since her second year and she has a very poor recruiting class coming in while two starting guards and the best player in the team's history are leaving. Things promise to get worse. I don't believe you need a stack of names ready before canning a coach, there's plenty out there and that's what a search committee is for. That said, she has two years left on her contract and has built up a lot of good will so I imagine she'll be around at least for next season.

Ccajon2 said:

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I'm still kind of surprised that most of you posters on the woman's board seem to want Lindsay gone. She still less than a decade removed from a conference Championship's I and a final four appearance. I know Cal fans are never happy no matter what but who would you want to replace her that's the major question?

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Saying most posters here want her gone is an exaggeration. There are a select few who have made such sentiments known. As a frequent poster here, I'm not in that crowd.

The real question is "Who would be better?"

That's true in any business -- can you upgrade your operation by bringing in someone new? And there is a cost in firing someone, aside from financial, if they are competent. And since no employee is perfect, then "competent" includes some failings in some aspects of job performance.

So yes, Lindsay isn't the perfect employee. But who out there would be better? And how sure are you that they would be better?

I have always made the case that we have big-time program expenses, including $1.5 million in coaching salaries, with below average results - an average 7th place finish in the conference over the past four years; and with what now looks like diminishing success in recruiting. Our program now requires an annual subsidy of over $3 million. Attendance has increased only marginally, and annual ticket revenue is only $145,000, due to low ticket prices and lots of discounts and freebies. No major donors have been identified to help support the program. So we are at a crossroads: Do we want to continue this level of financial commitment with average and now likely even worse performance results? Or could we achieve the same results with a lower paid, younger coaching staff working on an incentive based contract like at Arizona? I don't see Knowlton spending more money to buy out Lindsay. So it is a financial decision that will be made two years from now.

Quote:

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The real question is "Who would be better?"

That's true in any business -- can you upgrade your operation by bringing in someone new? And there is a cost in firing someone, aside from financial, if they are competent. And since no employee is perfect, then "competent" includes some failings in some aspects of job performance.

So yes, Lindsay isn't the perfect employee. But who out there would be better? And how sure are you that they would be better?

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Again, you do not hold on to an employee out of fear you can't find anyone better. Fans are entitled to call for dismissal of an under achieving coach without obligation to have a successor lined up, that's what search committees are for. Before firing Dykes I doubt that Williams hesitated thinking "but who will I replace him with?"
Nor did Barbour wonder who would step in for Tedford once she canned him. How often is fired coach replaced the next day? Doesn't happen. But as I stated above this is probably moot because it is unlikely Cal can afford to eat the last two years of LG's contract.

SFCALBear72 said:

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Saying most posters here want her gone is an exaggeration. There are a select few who have made such sentiments known. As a frequent poster here, I'm not in that crowd.

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Don't feed the trolls. This was a troll thread to begin with, and not surprisingly the trolls are coming out to pump it along.

Ignore and move on. Debating them is pointless.

Ccajon2 said:

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I'm still kind of surprised that most of you posters on the woman's board seem to want Lindsay gone. She still less than a decade removed from a conference Championship's I and a final four appearance. I know Cal fans are never happy no matter what but who would you want to replace her that's the major question?

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I like LG, but, like most posters here, I am concerned about the trajectory of Cal WBB program. We finished in the 7th Place in the Pac-12 this year although we had once in a decade talent of KA. Next year, without Seniors KA, AT, Recee and others, does not look promising. Our recruiting appears to be sub-par compared to most of the Pac-12. OU, LSJU, UCLA, ASU, OSU, USC and even UofA and UU seem to be doing considerably better than us. The only programs that we appear to be ahead of are lowly WSU, CU and maybe UW (although, UW seems to be turning things around).

Next year will tell a lot about how good a coach and recruiter LG is. A top three finish and extend LG's contract. A second three finish and wait and see. A third three finish and need to consider what to do after the last remaining year of her contract. And, a bottom three finish and it is time for a change.

Yes, success of six or seven years ago is great, but, sorry, college coaching is a tough business and it is all about what have you done lately and what recruits have you signed up to make the future look more promising.

Go Bears!

P.S. I feel the turning points for LG were when she lost out on that super-star shooting guard from San Diego's Country Day HS around six years ago (we came in second to UW) , then SI from East Bay three years ago (were we ever seriously in the running for her?) and got no legitimate 4 or 5 in the last four years after KA and no legitimate super-stars elsewhere. Where are the recruiting dividends of the Final Four success other than KA?

calbear80 said:

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Ccajon2 said:

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I'm still kind of surprised that most of you posters on the woman's board seem to want Lindsay gone. She still less than a decade removed from a conference Championship's I and a final four appearance. I know Cal fans are never happy no matter what but who would you want to replace her that's the major question?

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I like LG, but, like most posters here, I am concerned about the trajectory of Cal WBB program. We finished in the 7th Place in the Pac-12 this year although we had once in a decade talent of KA. Next year, without Seniors KA, AT, Recee and others, does not look promising. Our recruiting appears to be sub-par compared to most of the Pac-12. OU, LSJU, UCLA, ASU, OSU, USC and even UofA and UU seem to be doing considerably better than us. The only programs that we appear to be ahead of are lowly WSU, CU and maybe UW (although, UW seems to be turning things around).

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+1 But again, anyone who is critical of LG as a coach (despite truly loving her as a Cal representative) is... a troll!!

Well, to say no superstars is a bit of hyperbole. From Mackenzie Forbes official bio:

High School/Club Ball: 2018 McDonald's All American Won the 2018 McDonald's All America Three-point contest 2018 Jordan Brand Classic All-American ESPN HoopGurlz five-star prospect with a scout grade of 97 (out of 100)No. 4 wing and No. 22 player overall according to Prospects NationFirst Team MaxPreps All-California as a seniorThree-time SFL MVP at Folsom High School Three-time First Team All-Sacramento

International: Invited to camp with USA Basketball during the summer of 2018 for Under-18 National Team Trials

USChas not been in the NCAA's in the last 5 years. Cal has been in it 4 of the last five years.

Here are the facts.

I agree with Clay that hiring a new coach doesn't always bring a good change. Ask Washington.

If you belong to the Pac 12 you have to have a woman's basketball team.

Bring in the Bay Area, the most expensive place in the USA, you will have to pay more for a coach.

Just bringing in any old coach could mean a last place finish like our men's team. They sure saved money with that coach. How many here want that to happen?

The people to ask are the ones who attend the games. They are the ones fronting the money.

No matter who we hire, we are going to lose money. Stanford loses money. Almost all women's programs lose money. They don't draw as well. Their tickets cost less, and their TV contract is less. The big donors come from Men's BBall and Football.

The big question might be ,do we want to stay in the Pac 12 conference.

annarborbear said:

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When making an argument, it is usually good to use some actual facts. Here is another way to look at it:

1. When Cynthia Cooper resigned at USC under pressure for lack of performance, she had finished an average of 7th place over four years with a combined conference record of 29-43. LG's own record over the past four years has been an average 7th place finish with a combined conference record of 30-42.

2. During the past four years, Cori Close at a comparable public institution, UCLA, has had an average 3.5 finish in the conference, with a combined conference record of 53-19.

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Can you please top your trolling, annarborbear?

The Close numbers really stand out. The many recruiting battles of 2014 were won by CC and the record shows. Obviously Green did not pan out as we all originally thought...

wvitbear said:

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USChas not been in the NCAA's in the last 5 years. Cal has been in it 4 of the last five years.

Here are the facts.

I agree with Clay that hiring a new coach doesn't always bring a good change. Ask Washington.

If you belong to the Pac 12 you have to have a woman's basketball team.

Bring in the Bay Area, the most expensive place in the USA, you will have to pay more for a coach.

Just bringing in any old coach could mean a last place finish like our men's team. They sure saved money with that coach. How many here want that to happen?

The people to ask are the ones who attend the games. They are the ones fronting the money.

No matter who we hire, we are going to lose money. Stanford loses money. Almost all women's programs lose money. They don't draw as well. Their tickets cost less, and their TV contract is less. The big donors come from Men's BBall and Football.

The big question might be ,do we want to stay in the Pac 12 conference.

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You have to look at this in the context of our entire athletic department. Since the football stadium project, we are losing big dollars in the department, and the University has to reduce the huge subsidy that has developed. Since we went big-time in women's basketball expenses, our annual loss in the sport has increased from $1 million to $3 million. To cover that subsidy, at our current revenue of $7 a ticket, you would need average attendance of over 30,000. Or, if ticket holders want to subsidize it upfront as you suggest, we would need to increase season ticket prices from $150 to $5,000. Obviously, that is not realistic, and we are going to have to lose money to keep the sport. However, other programs that have made big-time expense commitments have at least done one or more of the following:

1. Hire a coach who can consistently achieve a higher than 7th place average finish in the conference, and who does not go out in the second round of the PAC12 tournament and in a subsequent wipe-out loss to a Baylor or a Notre Dame in the second round of the NCAA's.
2. Create enough buzz around a program that attendance increases to 5000-7000 as has occurred at the Oregon schools; and/or
3. Find some major donors (no, buying a $150 season ticket Is not enough). Both the Stanford head coach and associate head coaching positions are endowed. The UCLA head coaching position is endowed.

I also think to pay what we are paying a coach at a public university does have to include some specific performance targets and accountabilities. I just don't see how anybody can argue against that. So what should those expectations be? And if you really want to continue these kinds of losses, where are the donations?

By the way, I like how Washington played in the PAC12 tournament. They have a very good recruiting class coming in, and their new coach is operating under an incentive-laden contract.

Big Give is tomorrow! Support Cal WBB!!

Support our student-athletes!!

The difference is that LG inherited a strong team from Mark French at UCSB and did progressively worse. Jen Gross took over from Sandy Simpson and has done as well if not better. I believe she just won her 3rd conference coach of the year award.

letsski said:

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The difference is that LG inherited a strong team from Mark French at UCSB and did progressively worse. Jen Gross took over from Sandy Simpson and has done as well if not better. I believe she just won her 3rd conference coach of the year award.

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She is signed at Davis through 2024. But is a good example of the kind of good young coaches who are out there. Would be fun to watch a Princeton-style offense after what we have been watching in recent years.

wvitbear said:

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I agree with Clay that hiring a new coach doesn't always bring a good change. Ask Washington.

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Not sure Washington is a good example. Mike Neighbors left for his dream job - he wasn't forced out. Plum and Osafor graduates. Ari McDonald transfers, Romeo gets injured. One could say Jody Wynn did a pretty decent job under the circumstances. I was impressed with Wynn when her Long Beach State team beat us with a bunch of no names.

So here's a question for those who remain LG supporters: Where do you think we will finish in the conference next year, and will you be satisfied with that and why? Looking at who is leaving, who Is coming back, new players who have been recruited, injury situations, and the quality of the other coaches in the league, I will be surprised if we are picked any higher than eighth in the coaches pre-season poll. In your opinion, will that be good enough to want to continue with the status quo? Is there any point at which you would actuallly want to make a change? Or should this be a lifetime position similar to Tara?

GATC said:

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wvitbear said:

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I agree with Clay that hiring a new coach doesn't always bring a good change. Ask Washington.

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Not sure Washington is a good example. Mike Neighbors left for his dream job - he wasn't forced out. Plum and Osafor graduates. Ari McDonald transfers, Romeo gets injured. One could say Jody Wynn did a pretty decent job under the circumstances. I was impressed with Wynn when her Long Beach State team beat us with a bunch of no names.

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I agree. Far too early to write off Wynn. She has proven herself to be an excellent coach. Give her some time to actually get her own recruits then watch out. Much like Utah, I think Huskies will be a team to watch out for again once she gets her own recruits.

Looking back on this year, I took a look at the various polls taken during the season. At the end of week 7, we were ranked #14 in the country in the national coaches poll, and #13 in the country in the AP poll. By the end of the season, we didn't get a single vote in either poll. Waiting to see the revised rankings on our recruiting class.

if LG leaves do you elevate Smith?

annarborbear said:

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Looking back on this year, I took a look at the various polls taken during the season. At the end of week 7, we were ranked #14 in the country in the national coaches poll, and #13 in the country in the AP poll. By the end of the season, we didn't get a single vote in either poll. Waiting to see the revised rankings on our recruiting class.

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We're talented enough to be #13 or #14. The Pac-12 coaches who know our players the best voted us to be 4th in a very tough conference. We got the most out of one player but sacrificed the rest of the team to do it.

GATC said:

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We got the most out of one player but sacrificed the rest of the team to do it.

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I think the problem was our guards didn't provide the defense and rebounding we needed to meet expectations. I'm sure a healthy Mi'Cole would have improved that situation. Perhaps playing Mo more would have helped but we'll never know.

She should go.