Maroon Nation

g-- wrote: ↑Tue Jun 18, 2019 12:29 am I agree with everything you’ve said except for one thing. EKU will not be the worst basketball program among eight division I teams in the state this year. Hamilton has managed to pull in the best recruiting class since Neubauer was here. Add them to the good recruits he brought in last year and the future looks very bright.

Yes. And to add to that, while team quality can vary from cycle to cycle, no one in their right mind is trading our program's overall situation for Morehead's.

But as I said in another thread, I do think Bellarmine is going to be very successful. Recruiting the "just under the power conference radar" kids out of Louisville just got a lot tougher.

Also, no one is disputing that we didn't make the best AD hire. I think smart money was on the guy from Coppin State from the very beginning. I don't think Loch has been all bad, but I don't think he was the best candidate either.

Also, are we ignoring the biggest reason Neubauer split when he did? The getting was good. He was coming off the top two win-total seasons in school history, and that particular run was coming to a close. He did well to survive the loss of all of those terrific seniors in 2014 because he still had Walden, Stutz, and Knipp coming back. Now they were gone too. The cupboard was bare in terms of anyone who had proven a darn thing on the floor for us.*

*Of course he did have Hawkins becoming eligible and Mayo coming in, but that's a lot of uncertainty considering they were your two best players.

g-- wrote: ↑Sun Jun 16, 2019 11:16 pm True Neubauer may have left no matter what. Did the AD offer Neubauer what he paid McHale - I don’t know. But for me the importance of that line of thinking is in a comment you made – “we missed with McHale.”

We had a new AD who it seems was more interested in McHale’s fast talking than his basketball knowledge. I remember the host of the McHale basketball TV show laughing at the gibberish McHale spit at the players in a time-out during a game. McHale's pep talk literally made no sense at all in any context what so ever.

Going from Neubauer to McHale was a major setback for the program.

I have no idea about the particular timeout speech you're referring to, but that's at best a 30-second snapshot of a coach. Let's not act like he didn't have a decent resume. He worked under Rick Pitino twice, and was the top assistant for both Kevin Willard and Richard Pitino. Quite frankly, other than specifically being a head coach somewhere his resume itself is better than AWH's. Now, that doesn't mean he's a better coach (he's pretty clearly not), but it wasn't an insane hire. It didn't work out, but sometimes that happens.

I will say I've continued to wonder what might have happened if we'd hired the other finalist with McHale. He was the guy who was the interim head coach at Cincinnati when Mick Cronin was out with his health issues. On the same note, I'll have a close eye of Greg Gary at Mercer over the next few years as well.

EKU05 wrote: ↑Tue Jun 25, 2019 4:30 pm....I will say I've continued to wonder what might have happened if we'd hired the other finalist with McHale. He was the guy who was the interim head coach at Cincinnati when Mick Cronin was out with his health issues....

Larry Davis? He was fired from
Cincinnati last year over a 2017 Federal assault case from an incident while he was flying. He’d have never been on that plane had you guys hired him.....

smidge34 wrote: ↑Tue Jun 25, 2019 7:34 pm

EKU05 wrote: ↑Tue Jun 25, 2019 4:30 pm....I will say I've continued to wonder what might have happened if we'd hired the other finalist with McHale. He was the guy who was the interim head coach at Cincinnati when Mick Cronin was out with his health issues....

Larry Davis? He was fired from
Cincinnati last year over a 2017 Federal assault case from an incident while he was flying. He’d have never been on that plane had you guys hired him.....

He removed himself from consideration for the EKU job

dmr55 wrote: ↑Tue Jun 25, 2019 9:32 pm

smidge34 wrote: ↑Tue Jun 25, 2019 7:34 pm

EKU05 wrote: ↑Tue Jun 25, 2019 4:30 pm....I will say I've continued to wonder what might have happened if we'd hired the other finalist with McHale. He was the guy who was the interim head coach at Cincinnati when Mick Cronin was out with his health issues....

Larry Davis? He was fired from
Cincinnati last year over a 2017 Federal assault case from an incident while he was flying. He’d have never been on that plane had you guys hired him.....

He removed himself from consideration for the EKU job

Officially yes, but that often happens when it appears things aren't going your direction.