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St Pete’s..

The Purple Knight

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Dec 24, 2020
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How’d you like to have Shaheem Halloway as your coach? He has his kids playing to 110% of their potential. Knocked off Kentucky as -18 pt underdog. Post game: “We don’t play scared and I don’t get nervous”.
 
How’d you like to have Shaheem Halloway as your coach? He has his kids playing to 110% of their potential. Knocked off Kentucky as -18 pt underdog. Post game: “We don’t play scared and I don’t get nervous”.
Hire this man!

…in 1-3 years thanks to CCC’s guaranteed contract.
 
I watched a few minutes here and there and, after, the entire last 5 minutes and OT. St. Francis was incredibly impressive. The opposite on NU in pressure time. It did not matter it was the biggest of stages, it did not matter it was KY on the other side. They were poised, calm, cool, collected. Very, very impressive.

I know nothing about Shaheem Halloway. Just looked it up and he is 45, was an assistant for Kevin Willard, now with 4 years as a HC. I will probably remember, for a long time, what he said last night after the game, after being asked if he was nervous: nervous? why? this is basketball. In the context of Ukraine and all, that sounded poignant to me.

Anyway, I think this post illustrates how we all tend to get enthralled with shiny new things. This guy is one more to add to McMahon (wow, was Murray State's offense impressive last night, can't remember seeing so much movement and so many options of where to go to on offense in a long time), McCasland, Gates, Medved, Linder (wow, did he shit the bed against IN), etc, etc, etc.

Probably all fine coaches. But I would be much more excited by an older established guy. The last 3 successful B1G coaches, hired from the outside, from schools that you believe NU could entice someone from, were Underwood, McCaffery and Piekell. I am going to ignore Underwood as he is getting top recruits. The other two aren't. And built very impressive teams. Players from both IA and RU have ranking lowers than those from NU.

McCaffery came from Siena (when he was 50), without any P6 experience. Piekell came from Stony Brook (when he was 48), with close to zero P6 experience (a very short assistant stint at UConn). What they both share is talent to find recruits, even in the 300's in the rankings, that they can develop and turn into very valuable players. Where does that talent comes from? I don't have an answer, but assume a fair amount of experience, years on the recruiting trail, have something to do with it.

In the end this is a very uninformed opinion. I don't see the teams these coaches lead often. Nor do I know their history well at all. I know I could not care less if you can beat KY in the tournament, one shining moment anyone can have, that's the beauty of March. I care if you can build competitive teams consistently. Instinctively, I would be more excited if NU went after John Becker or Scott Nagy.
 
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... I think this post illustrates how we all tend to get enthralled with shiny new things. This guy is one more to add to McMahon (wow, was Murray State's offense impressive last night, can't remember seeing so much movement and so many options of where to go to on offense in a long time), McCasland, Gates, Medved, Linder (wow, did he shit the bed against IN), etc, etc, etc.

,,, one shining moment anyone can have, that's the beauty of March. I care if you can build competitive teams consistently.
I appreciate this thoughtful response. Especially the idea of consistent success. Obviously, that's the challenge at NU (and most places). It's not just a matter of bringing in another body. That's WAY too simplistic for NU. This isn't simply an Xs and Os problem.

Several of the board's flavors of the month dropped yesterday to pretty mid-level teams. If you can't differentiate your team against other mid-majors or pretty average B10 teams and you haven't done it consistently over a couple years, that doesn't translate well to night in and night out at the next level.

If I must be dragged to a mid-major coach kicking and screaming, East Bay's guy, Todd Golden has been consistently competitive against P6 teams.

Let me also climb into the time machine. The flavor of the month here for the Collins search was Dave Paulsen, the Bucknell coach at the time. I'll let everybody look up how he fared, moving from the Patriot League to George Mason in the A10 - a nice conference, but ...

Of course, we had that group who lusted for more Carmody. We saw how he all but bombed in the Patriot League.

My personal favorite is the constant comparisons to Hall of Fame coaches or top 20 coaches. You let me know when NU has a chance to get one.

And I've said my pet peave in the past: No one who doesn't have some type of substantial P6 experience. For instance, Grant McCasland was a Scott Drew assistant for five years.

The point is history (again) tells you the NU gig isn't as easy as anyone can come in here and do it. The path not taken also demonstrates that time ... and time and time and time again.

Yes, it's time for Collins to go. But I hope there are a couple smart NU basketball alums in Gragg's ear to help him understand that it's not just another body that will improve on this.
 
I appreciate this thoughtful response. Especially the idea of consistent success. Obviously, that's the challenge at NU (and most places). It's not just a matter of bringing in another body. That's WAY too simplistic for NU. This isn't simply an Xs and Os problem.

Several of the board's flavors of the month dropped yesterday to pretty mid-level teams. If you can't differentiate your team against other mid-majors or pretty average B10 teams and you haven't done it consistently over a couple years, that doesn't translate well to night in and night out at the next level.

If I must be dragged to a mid-major coach kicking and screaming, East Bay's guy, Todd Golden has been consistently competitive against P6 teams.

Let me also climb into the time machine. The flavor of the month here for the Collins search was Dave Paulsen, the Bucknell coach at the time. I'll let everybody look up how he fared, moving from the Patriot League to George Mason in the A10 - a nice conference, but ...

Of course, we had that group who lusted for more Carmody. We saw how he all but bombed in the Patriot League.

My personal favorite is the constant comparisons to Hall of Fame coaches or top 20 coaches. You let me know when NU has a chance to get one.

And I've said my pet peave in the past: No one who doesn't have some type of substantial P6 experience. For instance, Grant McCasland was a Scott Drew assistant for five years.

The point is history (again) tells you the NU gig isn't as easy as anyone can come in here and do it. The path not taken also demonstrates that time ... and time and time and time again.

Yes, it's time for Collins to go. But I hope there are a couple smart NU basketball alums in Gragg's ear to help him understand that it's not just another body that will improve on this.
The reason I suggested Davenport & the reason I will defend Carmody to my last breath is because there was a strategy involved that didn't depend on out recruiting a bunch of schools that have stronger programs (better history, more fans, more players in NBA, etc., etc.). I don't see any realistic scenario where we start recruiting better than MSU, Mich, ILL, OSU, IND, WI, IA and Purdue on a consistent basis (I'm being generous by not including Minny & MD). Therefore, we better be doing something different schematically than these other teams. Sure, if all falls into place where a few guys vastly outplay their high school ranking (BMac, Lindsey, Pardon), maybe you have an outlier season. More likely, NU trying to compete doing the same things everyone else is doing results in what we've seen every year of Collins, minus the tournament year.

As Mick told Rocky when preparing for Clubber Lang, "You can't stand toe to toe with this guy or he'll deposit you up on Mars."
 
How’d you like to have Shaheem Halloway as your coach? He has his kids playing to 110% of their potential. Knocked off Kentucky as -18 pt underdog. Post game: “We don’t play scared and I don’t get nervous”.
same type of things said about Collins when we made the tourney.
 
I wouldn't place a bet on Underwood now that his bag men - Antingua and Chin - ran off to slime it up with Cal at Kentucky.
Pretty happy with Frazier and Anderson. Don’t need “bag men” with the NIL in place.

Recruiting is better than ever and Underwood is a hell of a coach.
 
Pretty happy with Frazier and Anderson. Don’t need “bag men” with the NIL in place.

Recruiting is better than ever and Underwood is a hell of a coach.
He's gonna have to coach 'em up at the half cause they are stinking up the joint right now.......
 
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