Turgeon Makes Big Hire

[mcdukie]

Maryland's new coach has hired Dalonte Hill from Kansas State as his assistant. Hill was one of the top paid assistant coaches at KSt and is responsible for bring Beasley to the school. He is connected with the AAU power DC Assault (Quinn Cook and Nolan Smith to name a few) and gives Maryland instant credibility in the DC area, something they didn't have under Gary Williams. The recruiting wars in the DC area could get interesting.

[CDu]

Maryland's new coach has hired Dalonte Hill from Kansas State as his assistant. Hill was one of the top paid assistant coaches at KSt and is responsible for bring Beasley to the school. He is connected with the AAU power DC Assault (Quinn Cook and Nolan Smith to name a few) and gives Maryland instant credibility in the DC area, something they didn't have under Gary Williams. The recruiting wars in the DC area could get interesting.

That is very interesting. The DC area is a real hotbed for talent. It was nice that Williams wasn't a great recruiter. If Turgeon's staff can start landing some of that top talent from the DC/Baltimore area, Maryland could re-emerge quickly.

[superdave]

Maryland's new coach has hired Dalonte Hill from Kansas State as his assistant. Hill was one of the top paid assistant coaches at KSt and is responsible for bring Beasley to the school. He is connected with the AAU power DC Assault (Quinn Cook and Nolan Smith to name a few) and gives Maryland instant credibility in the DC area, something they didn't have under Gary Williams. The recruiting wars in the DC area could get interesting.

This sounds good for Maryland and the ACC. I hope he's a good guy and does not practice some of the things Coach Gary and the ACC frown upon. Anyone know of his reputation?

[TexHawk]

This sounds good for Maryland and the ACC. I hope he's a good guy and does not practice some of the things Coach Gary and the ACC frown upon. Anyone know of his reputation?
His rep comes from Michael Beasley and Wally Judge. One was the best player in the country in his only season. The other quit the team halfway through his sophomore year. The other studs... Bill Walker and Jacob Pullen were more Huggins/Martin guys.

Other than that, he sits on the bench and stares better than any assistant coach I've ever seen.

[superdave]

His rep comes from Michael Beasley and Wally Judge. One was the best player in the country in his only season. The other quit the team halfway through his sophomore year. The other studs... Bill Walker and Jacob Pullen were more Huggins/Martin guys.

Other than that, he sits on the bench and stares better than any assistant coach I've ever seen.

I guess the most polite way to say this is that recruiting in the ACC is very different than the Big 12 or SEC. Standards, ethics...you name it. Also, Coach Gary refused to play by the rules of a lot of AAU types and had a reputation for saying no. Coach Gary missed out on Rudy Gay (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/12/AR2009021202299.html)because of this.

So I am wondering what this hire says about Turgeon? Is he savvy or pushing the envelope? Will he follow in the Gary Williams tradition or might he follow in the Jim Calhoun tradition?

[theAlaskanBear]

I guess the most polite way to say this is that recruiting in the ACC is very different than the Big 12 or SEC. Standards, ethics...you name it. Also, Coach Gary refused to play by the rules of a lot of AAU types and had a reputation for saying no. Coach Gary missed out on Rudy Gay (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/12/AR2009021202299.html)because of this.

So I am wondering what this hire says about Turgeon? Is he savvy or pushing the envelope? Will he follow in the Gary Williams tradition or might he follow in the Jim Calhoun tradition?

It's not necessarily an either/or. He doesn't have to be a Jim Calhoun to be a more active recruiter than Gary Williams.

[Reilly]

Thanks for posting that Washington Post article. Very interesting. $420K for an assistant! I like the good old days when Larry Brown would just hire Danny Manning's father ...

John Thompson's DC radio show is often a befuddled fog of nonsense, but yesterday the old coach was fired up and speaking from the heart: he was basically taking the same stance that Gary Williams takes in the newspaper account, saying he can't deal with the kids and handlers today, and he kept saying if he were coaching today, "I'd be playing the managers" [b/c he wouldn't do what it took to get the 'players'].

[Reilly]

One oddity about the Post article: it goes into great detail about Curtis Malone of DC assault (h.s. career, police record, Gary Williams's feelings), and quotes him as saying he's talked to Coach K 10 times in the past 18 months ... yet I didn't see where the article mentions that he is married to Nolan Smith's mom. The article was published during Nolan's sophomore year.

http://www.dcassault.org/Curtis.html