The Matt Painter scenario that played out last week for Mizzou and Purdue has many sides. Last week I wrote about how good coaches these days are looking for more than a mere cash grab. They are looking at overall fit and commitment from a program beyond being competitive.
Frank Haith left Miami for such a reason. Miami has great natural recruiting right in the area and throughout the state. But the program has no commitment from the athletic department or the fanbase. Haith left in a heartbeat for Missouri. Yes, he got a raise, but he also knew that Mizzou cares about their basketball.
Missouri, though, has not had wide acclaim for the hire. Not from the media. Not from the fans. For the most part, the reaction has been surprise and disappointment from fans. At best it has been a “meh” reaction, and trying to find the possible good.
That’s where the fallacy of aiming high in a coaching search comes into play.
The argument from the Missouri side, when they pursued Matt Painter, was that they should take a shot with him. Aim high and if you don’t get him, well you at least gave it a good shot. No real harm. Maybe even show everyone that you are serious about the program. Then move to a plan B, and more reasonable target.
It never works that way, though. Expectations are raised. No need to be reasonable. Especially when it seemed so close. Instead hope, belief, demanded that Missouri still keep aiming high. Go after Jamie Dixon. Go after some other big target.
That creates just as big a mess. At worst you get the drawn out search that ends in the same point of making the “settling” hire. Maybe not as extreme as the Oregon 39-day odyssey of last year, but NC State’s little mess that culminated with the bland hiring of Mark Gottfried. (Brief aside, I fully expect Miami to stay cheap. Giving the ACC one of the most bland coaching carousel trifectas ever with Brian Gregory to Georgia Tech in there.)
In a way the performance of NC State AD Debbie Yow in blaming Maryland Coach Gary Williams for “sabotaging” her coaching search was brilliant. While it makes clear that the hire of Makr Gottfried was a clear fallback choice — already blatantly obvious — she got NC St. fans putting the blame elsewhere as they defended their own program and rallied around the hire.
The settle for hire, though, is inevitably a disappointment. Forget all that “take a shot for the homerun” talk before. Suddenly it becomes, “how did we sink that low?” Kill the AD. What happened? Why? Because most fans don’t envision missing on their guy. Similar to a GM that never completes a trade, the value of the open job in the eyes of the fans is much higher than the market value.
The basic truth is, if the AD doesn’t get his first choice — and fast — there will be plenty of divisions, recriminations and blame. The honeymoon for the new hire is shorter. Only thing that changes that is winning.
Hmmmmmm. Just envision the outcome if a particular Pitt coach had, um, honeymooned.
Looks like Pitt was the highlight of his coaching tenure.
On a related note, where did all the well placed outrage go over Pederson’s mishandling of the football coaching search?
I can’t believe he’s going to get a mulligan….He hit the first one OB, even if he hit the next one 300 down the middle, he still should lie 3.
But there is no better example of Chas’ point of what happens when you don’t get your initial choice as when than Pederson did at Nebraska. He fired Frank Solich who was pretty successful but didn’t bring the program up to the level that was expected. His initial choice was Houston Nutt at Arkansas at the time who surprised im by not taking his offer. He then courted a couple other higher profile college coaches (ignoring defensive coordinator Bo Pellini) before having to settle on Bill Callahan who was just fired from the Raiders. Thus, the entire Husker fanbase at the time of his hiring pretty much knew that Callahan was a step down from Solich … and that turned out to be the case (which eventually led to Pederon’s firing.)
However let’s remember that Graham may have been one of his top choices the first time around. He “settled” on the other guy because he couldn’t meet the money required to get Graham and/or others. So, did he hit it OOB with the first guy or was he handed a Chinese knockoff instead of a TaylorMade? I’m just saying that it might not have all been Pederson, which is why he was being protected to a degree by Nordenberg during the entire debacle.
I do agree that Graham has to get it done or Pederson may go out with him if not before him.
I bring this up because even though the likes of Oh St, Louisville and Kansas are showing interest, his favorite remains the “hometown” team, and has a good relationship with Brandon Knight. I would think that playing for St Anthony’s will only make him more battled-tested for the BE.
Thorpe has been getting rave review from the local papers ever since becoming a freshman star at Shaler. (just a tidbit on a slow day)
On another topic, Dejuan’ young brother, Greg Blair, just committed to play football for Cincy .. he was defensive MVP for a Jr college in Scranton but was not highly recruited but has decent size, 6-2, 240.
