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View Full Version : Is the ACC better without subpar coaches?



moonpie23
02-19-2012, 08:44 PM
gaudio
pernell
haith
skinner
sendek
hewitt
williams
leitao

Devilsfan
02-19-2012, 08:49 PM
Not yet. How was K his first season in the league? Williams and one other will be very hard to replace, but State's new coach is the real deal, IMO.

roywhite
02-19-2012, 08:51 PM
gaudio
pernell
haith
skinner
sendek
hewitt
williams
leitao

Overall, yes.

Sendek was a good, if boring, coach; Skinner had some good teams, and Gary Williams was a real battler.
Frank Haith---he must be doing something right at Mizzou.
But, yes, overall, I think the ACC has upgraded it's coaches, and should again return to pre-eminence over the next few years. (even before figuring in Syracuse and Pitt).

DukieInBrasil
02-19-2012, 08:55 PM
Tough one.
Definitely not Sendek, he was a good coach there and they still aren't as good as when he was there, although Gottleib may end up being better than Herb.
Gaudio got the short end of the stick, and it's too early to tell with Bzdelik.
Hewitt, yes.
The situation at MD has the potential to improve as it seemed that Gary had run out of steam.
Miami is about the same without Haith, although what Haith is doing at Mizzou is awesome.
Pernell, yes.
Skinner also got a harsh deal, and BC is mos def worse this year than they woulda been, but i think they'll be better off in the long run without him.

Bob Green
02-19-2012, 08:55 PM
(even before figuring in Syracuse and Pitt).

You're guilty of assuming the addition of Syracuse and Pitt is a positive. I'm not convinced.

DukieInBrasil
02-19-2012, 08:59 PM
You're guilty of assuming the addition of Syracuse and Pitt is a positive. I'm not convinced.
That's a silly thing to say. Syracuse is a great program and Boeheim is a great coach. Total positive.
Jamie Dixon has built a very nice program at Pitt and is primed to keep them in contention for a long time. Total positive.
Now, if you're talking about aesthetic appeal of the ACC being in NY and PA, well, we broke that barrier long ago by bringing BC in (which was not a positive imo).
I loved the 9-team round robin ACC, but we ain't getting that back anytime soon....

Bob Green
02-19-2012, 09:04 PM
That's a silly thing to say.

I don't think it is silly at all. There are lots of intangibles and zero guarantees.

OldPhiKap
02-19-2012, 09:06 PM
gaudio
pernell
haith
skinner
sendek
hewitt
williams
leitao

Wake -- about even
Clemson -- about even
Miami -- about even
BC -- better now
State -- better now
GT -- much better now
Virginia -- better now
Syracuse, Pitt -- raise the level of coaching in the league.

Newton_14
02-19-2012, 09:54 PM
Wake -- about even
Clemson -- about even
Miami -- about even
BC -- better now
State -- better now
GT -- much better now
Virginia -- better now
Syracuse, Pitt -- raise the level of coaching in the league.

I see it differently actually..
Wake- Worse but Gaudio was not a good coach. under performed with mucho talent
Clemson- better now. very bright future
Miami- Much better
BC-Short term worse, long term better (Skinner basically stopped recruiting)
State- much better now
GT- much better now
UVA- much better now
Syracuse/Pitt- 2 top notch coaches and programs imo

theAlaskanBear
02-19-2012, 09:54 PM
I miss Oliver Purnell. His teams struggled in conference but I think Clemson reached its ceiling under him. Bennett, Gottfried are clearly better than their predecessors. I think Turgeon will ultimately make Maryland more consistent than when Gary Williams was there. Williams was a great coach and competitor, but he clearly didn't recruit enough to be a consistent force in the ACC.

Skinner had some solid teams at BC and it remains to be seen if that move was an improvement.
GTech will be better...notorious underachieving for Hewitts teams.
Miami remains to be seen.

And of course you are adding a legend in Boeheim, and Dixon at Pitt has a very solid program. It's going to be a tough conference in a couple of years when the new coaches get some recruiting done.

lotusland
02-19-2012, 10:08 PM
Purnell was a good coach and he recruited well at Clemson. They are not better at this point but time will tell.

miramar
02-19-2012, 10:10 PM
Miami- Much better


While other posters seem to think that Haith/Larranaga is a wash, IMHO the early returns at Miami are quite positive. UM should finish with a winning record in the ACC, which I think Haith only did once.

Haith is probably the national coach of the year at Missouri, but he never showed that in Coral Gables.

Verga3
02-19-2012, 10:13 PM
gaudio
pernell
haith
skinner
sendek
hewitt
williams
leitao

I think everyone is better now and in the future but Wake and Miami.

OldPhiKap
02-19-2012, 10:16 PM
williams

Carolina was better with Dean. Just go to IC and ask.

uh_no
02-19-2012, 10:18 PM
On Boeheim: remember that he is 68, and there is no guarantee he will be a coach at syracuse that long in the future.

He seems plenty healthy, like K, but he's 3 years older than K, and depending on how long it takes pitt and cuse to get out of the big east (is the ACC willing to pony up the bucks like the Big12 did?) He might only coach in the ACC for a couple of years.

Now, he could coach til he's 80, and more power to him. We just have to remember, he is a few years closer to those retirement questions than is K, and might even decide he wants out at 70.

Anyone have any insight as to what his plans are?

sagegrouse
02-19-2012, 10:33 PM
gaudio
pernell
haith
skinner
sendek
hewitt
williams
leitao

Different from some of the above answers.

Gaudio -- I don't know, even though Gaudio was probably one of the two worst coaches in the ACC.
Pernell -- probably not, but I thought Pernell was really good.
Haith -- Larranaga will do better in Miami than Haith did or would have -- yes.
Skinner -- Donahue will be terrific.
Sendek -- Long gone; too tough a question; Gottfried is clearly better than Lowe.
Hewitt -- Probably, although Gregory seems a bit superficial.
G. Williams -- Probably not, although I expect Turgeon to consistently have Md in the top half of the ACC; Gary is in the HOF.
Leitao -- Tempted to say, "Who?" The questions answers itself. Bennett is really good; Leitao was a disaster.

sagegrouse

msdukie
02-19-2012, 10:46 PM
The ACC was better with 8 teams.

ice-9
02-21-2012, 08:17 AM
Haith is probably the national coach of the year at Missouri, but he never showed that in Coral Gables.

Does anyone know what's driving this? Haith's before and after in Miami and Missouri is pretty stark.

COYS
02-21-2012, 09:40 AM
Does anyone know what's driving this? Haith's before and after in Miami and Missouri is pretty stark.

Well, he moved to a much easier conference and no longer has to slog through the killer ACC schedule =).

rsvman
02-21-2012, 09:54 AM
NC State and Virginia benefitted the most from the coaching changes, IMO.

Jderf
02-21-2012, 10:05 AM
Does anyone know what's driving this? Haith's before and after in Miami and Missouri is pretty stark.

I have been wondering this ALL season. What happened that suddenly turned him into a "supercoach?" I don't really know the fine details with Missouri, but from what I understand, nobody was expecting them to have this kind of success. And in a few of the quotes I've seen, Haith seems just as surprised as everybody else.

PackMan97
02-21-2012, 10:07 AM
Tough one.
Definitely not Sendek, he was a good coach there and they still aren't as good as when he was there, although Gottleib may end up being better than Herb.

Gottleib???

Sendek was serviceable coach, he was not a good coach. Good coaches can get off the NCAA bubble. Good coaches can get past the first weekend of the NCAA more than once in their career. Good coaches can win games of importance (Carolina, Duke or an ACC Championship game of which Sendek had three cracks). Given Sendek's results out in the desert, it's very clear that NC State was the key to his success, not that Sendek was the key to State's success. The fact that a horrible coach (Lowe) was able to recruit as good or better than Sendek only reinforces this point.

I don't wish Sendek ill will, but not let's make him out to actually be a good ACC coach. Herb Sendek's best season with State would be considered a bad season for Coach K and Roy Williams. Never once did Sendek lose fewer then 10 games a season. Never did he win more than 11 games ACC games. Heck, Gottfried in his FIRST season has a chance to give NC State our second or third best regular season (both overall and in the ACC) in 20 years. Were Sendek a good coach, you couldn't say that. It's not as if State has done anything other than beat up on the lesser teams in the ACC.

/rant

davekay1971
02-21-2012, 10:22 AM
Gottleib???


Yeah, man. Doug is going to be an even better coach than he was a player. He was a genius on the court, a genius working for ESPN, and he'll be a genius on the sidelines. State's lucky to have him! :D

In all seriousness, I take a brighter view of Sendek than you, but still think it was about time for he and State to part ways. Sendek was a good coach, but not a great one. Under him, particularly his last 5 years, State was a good team, but not a great one. Given his recruiting limitations and his style of play, State was unlikely to compete for ACC championships, Final Fours, and was unlikely to surpass Duke or Carolina. He doesn't have to have been a bad coach to justify State, or State's fans, wanting to look in a different direction. To stick with Sendek, State would have had to be satisfied with being good, but not as good as their neighbors. I wouldn't want Duke to be satisfied with that, and I don't blame the State, or the State fans, for being dissatisfied with that either.

PackMan97
02-21-2012, 10:45 AM
Sendek was a good coach, but not a great one. Under him, particularly his last 5 years, State was a good team, but not a great one.

If Sendek were a good coach, he wouldn't be having the struggles he's having in a horrid Pac-12. The fact is that Sendek benefited being in the ACC and at NC State. Remove those advantages and we see the result.

I don't mean to diminish Sendek's 5 straight NCAA's, which is indeed the most in school history. That is an achievement but it's his only achievement. There was only one season in which we were not a bubble team going into the ACC tourney.

Sendek just didn't connect with fans or with players. The coach I'd compare him to the most, personality wise, would be Dave Odum. That said, Dave had a lot of really good years at Wake including a pair of ACC titles, three trips to the S16 and one to the EE. I would consider Odum a good, but not great coach.

Dev11
02-21-2012, 10:49 AM
Given his recruiting limitations

Personal limitations or inherent limitations at State? I'd say the limitations at State are pretty minimal. You can recruit the ACC hotbeds (DC, Atlanta), you get to sell playing against top programs every year, and let's be honest, the academic requirements aren't what they are at Duke. You also play in a professional-sized arena for a fan base that is starving for success. Sounds like an attractive place to play basketball.

FerryFor50
02-21-2012, 10:59 AM
I see it differently actually..
Wake- Worse but Gaudio was not a good coach. under performed with mucho talent
Clemson- better now. very bright future
Miami- Much better
BC-Short term worse, long term better (Skinner basically stopped recruiting)
State- much better now
GT- much better now
UVA- much better now
Syracuse/Pitt- 2 top notch coaches and programs imo

Wake - better now; Gaudio coaching on the laurels of a great recruiting class by Skip Prosser. Now THAT was the real loss, when Skip died.
Clemson - better
Miami - better, plus Haith was tied to the scandal at UM: http://www.cbssports.com/mcc/blogs/entry/26283066/31355941
BC - tons better than Skinner
State - Way better now. Sendek was overrated and drove off some of his better players (such as Adam Harrington, Damien Wilkins) and inexplicably banished Tim Wells to the bench his senior year. You can see from Sendek's job at Arizona State how bad he is (once James Harden left, look what happened)
GT - better now; even though Hewitt led them to the NCAA championship game, he was terrible after that
UVA - much better now
Syracuse/Pitt - not looking forward to playing them every year

RockyMtDevil
02-21-2012, 11:46 AM
We are definitely more stable, but much like the teams, there is a great disparity between the top echelon and the rest of the league, which is not so when you compare the coaching tree in the Big Ten and Big East, where the top tier is not as off the charts, but the middle of the pack has some very solid if not very good coaches leading to a sound, stable program.

Comparing the conferences, we do however stack up much better today and moving forward than we have in quite some time.

ACC Big East Big 10
K Calhoun Izzo
roy Pitino Mata
Boehiem Huggins Tubby
Dixon Thompson Ryan
Bennet Brey Painter
Hamilton Wright Belein
Gottfired Lavin Crean (?)
Williams

davekay1971
02-21-2012, 01:06 PM
Personal limitations or inherent limitations at State? I'd say the limitations at State are pretty minimal. You can recruit the ACC hotbeds (DC, Atlanta), you get to sell playing against top programs every year, and let's be honest, the academic requirements aren't what they are at Duke. You also play in a professional-sized arena for a fan base that is starving for success. Sounds like an attractive place to play basketball.

Personal limitations. For all the reasons you noted, plus history that competes with any in the country AND great in-state talent pools, NC State, as a school, is a great place to recruit to.

Matches
02-21-2012, 01:41 PM
Sendek just didn't connect with fans or with players. The coach I'd compare him to the most, personality wise, would be Dave Odum. That said, Dave had a lot of really good years at Wake including a pair of ACC titles, three trips to the S16 and one to the EE. I would consider Odum a good, but not great coach.

Great comparison. If Odom hadn't stumbled across Tim Duncan (which was a major fluke - no one, including Odom, had any inkling of what Duncan would become), his career path would look a LOT like Herb's. Both were competent coaches but neither was much more than that.