Geno Auriemma

[ksimp112]

Last night Auriemma won his 900th game as a college coach. Amazing accomplishment and I could see him passing Pat Summitt down the road.

I am just curious and would like to hear others opinions, on what kind of coach he would be if he was coaching men's basketball and not women's?

Not trying to criticize anyone or any gender of sport, but it would just be interesting to wonder what sort of men's coach he would be.

I am sure he would be successful, but would he have top team year in and year out? Just wonderswhat others think of this scenario?

[Kfanarmy]

Last night Auriemma won his 900th game as a college coach. Amazing accomplishment and I could see him passing Pat Summitt down the road.

I am just curious and would like to hear others opinions, on what kind of coach he would be if he was coaching men's basketball and not women's?

Not trying to criticize anyone or any gender of sport, but it would just be interesting to wonder what sort of men's coach he would be.

I am sure he would be successful, but would he have top team year in and year out? Just wonderswhat others think of this scenario?

an interesting point to ponder, but I think the two jobs are different enough that success at one does not necessarily promise success at the other. The monetary pressures, recruiting competition, parity, athleticism and fanatacism, etc. make the jobs different enough. I suspect he would be successful, but how successful? I also think it most appropriate to laud the most wins in WBB and MBB seperately without trying to lump them together or compare them.

[BlueDevilBrowns]

an interesting point to ponder, but I think the two jobs are different enough that success at one does not necessarily promise success at the other. The monetary pressures, recruiting competition, parity, athleticism and fanatacism, etc. make the jobs different enough. I suspect he would be successful, but how successful? I also think it most appropriate to laud the most wins in WBB and MBB seperately without trying to lump them together or compare them.

Agreed. WBB and MBB are somewhat different sports. Like open-wheel racing and NASCAR.

I don't see anyone comparing records from the WNBA with the NBA? Or the WTA and the ATP?

Why the need to do so with NCAAB is something I've never agreed with.

[BigWayne]

The main difference as it relates to Geno's ability to dominate his environment has nothing to do with skill level, style of play, gender or his players, etc. It has to do with the nature of the NCAA D1 Women's game in terms of how few elite teams there are and the ability of the top teams to attract all of the top talent. There are many NCAA sports that share this characteristic. Take a look at Men's and Women's Tennis or Volleyball and you will see a similar situation where a handful of schools have won 90% of the championships.

[Reisen]

The main difference as it relates to Geno's ability to dominate his environment has nothing to do with skill level, style of play, gender or his players, etc. It has to do with the nature of the NCAA D1 Women's game in terms of how few elite teams there are and the ability of the top teams to attract all of the top talent. There are many NCAA sports that share this characteristic. Take a look at Men's and Women's Tennis or Volleyball and you will see a similar situation where a handful of schools have won 90% of the championships.

I sort of agree, but largely disagree. Your point is valid, but it has everything to do with skill level, players, and gender.

Generally, in sports with huge disparities in skill level, you see a few teams dominating. There simply aren't that many superstar players every year in women's college basketball, which allows a handful of schools to snap them up. The difference between a dominant women's college player and the average player on a mediocre team is just amazing, which is why you have so many lopsided scores.

Compare that to men's college basketball, where even your average players on average teams are still quite good, elite athletes, etc. There is way more parity, and the 150th ranked recruit can play on the same court as the 5th recruit without being run off it (as we see when Duke loses to teams like Mercer). Same goes for football, where a Cutcliffe at Duke can win with 2 star recruits against players many, many hundreds of spots higher in recruiting rankings.

This happens across many sports, but is primarily concentrated in women's sports where there are fewer overall numbers of elite athletes or elite players. Women's soccer, women's golf, women's volleyball, women's tennis.

This is actually a great thing for those of us with daughters. I tried to walk on to Duke's soccer team my freshman year when it was ranked #1, and despite having a solid background in ODP, I stood no chance. I expect my son will be athletic and play sports, but see virtually no chance of him sacrificing enough in other areas to put in the training required to be a D1 team sport athlete. On the flip side, my family is close with a number of Duke women's golfers, and with the right coaching, there is a very real chance my 4 year old daughter could one day get offered a golf scholarship.

You see the same thing in men's sports where there is a smaller pool of players, either due to players skipping college all together, or because the sport is not as popular.

All this is to say that Geno's accomplishment, while still great, is not in the slightest comparable to K's. Yes, you still have to build the program, but once you do, maintaining it is nowhere near as challenging as what K has done at Duke.

[BigWayne]

I agree with your detailed skill analysis. My comment, which was not a specific on that point, was in reference to skill level difference vs. Men's BB as it relates to coaching performance. I agree the skill levels of the overall population can create the effects you mention.

[Reisen]

I agree with your detailed skill analysis. My comment, which was not a specific on that point, was in reference to skill level difference vs. Men's BB as it relates to coaching performance. I agree the skill levels of the overall population can create the effects you mention.

Ahh, gotcha. I knew I was partially agreeing with you, but now I'm fully agreeing with you :-).

[jasoninchina]

Generally, in sports with huge disparities in skill level, you see a few teams dominating. There simply aren't that many superstar players every year in women's college basketball, which allows a handful of schools to snap them up. The difference between a dominant women's college player and the average player on a mediocre team is just amazing, which is why you have so many lopsided scores.

Compare that to men's college basketball, where even your average players on average teams are still quite good, elite athletes, etc. There is way more parity, and the 150th ranked recruit can play on the same court as the 5th recruit without being run off it (as we see when Duke loses to teams like Mercer). Same goes for football, where a Cutcliffe at Duke can win with 2 star recruits against players many, many hundreds of spots higher in recruiting rankings.

This happens across many sports, but is primarily concentrated in women's sports where there are fewer overall numbers of elite athletes or elite players. Women's soccer, women's golf, women's volleyball, women's tennis.

All this is to say that Geno's accomplishment, while still great, is not in the slightest comparable to K's. Yes, you still have to build the program, but once you do, maintaining it is nowhere near as challenging as what K has done at Duke.

I agree with everything you said here. I would like to add that in women's basketball, even elite players stay for four years. Of course in the men's game, the elite players usually leave after 1 or 2 years. Thus, because of the factors you mentioned and the one I mentioned, it is much easier to be elite every year in women's basketball as compared to the men's game.

[Reisen]

I agree with everything you said here. I would like to add that in women's basketball, even elite players stay for four years. Of course in the men's game, the elite players usually leave after 1 or 2 years. Thus, because of the factors you mentioned and the one I mentioned, it is much easier to be elite every year in women's basketball as compared to the men's game.

Yeah, that's a great point. Keeping a Diana Taurasi for 4 years just magnifies the competitive imbalance.

[Billy Dat]

I think the thread got derailed pretty quickly. Geno is an absolute monster coach. As I have aged as a Duke fan and K has been rewriting the record book, I find it less and less necessary to qualify him against others or vice-versa. He's great. Geno is great. I don't think what Geno has accomplished pales next to K. The key to both is amazing consistent achievement at the highest of levels over time. That is not easy in any venue, whether the players are male or female. I tip my hate to Geno, the dude is the greatest ever in his field and he shows zero signs of slowing down. Plus, he's a complete character with very little filter which I find highly entertaining, even when he's taking shots at Duke.

[uh_no]

I tip my hate to Geno

oops :)

I've watched this thread and figured i'd toss in.

I've watched the women's game for many years, especially uconn basketball. The first thing I say is it's silly to try to compare women's and men's basketball. K is at the top of his domain, and geno of his. They're the best at what they do....having any sort of "who's more best" is just silly. We could argue the relative worth of championships in different sports....and the consensus may be that 9 women's < 4 men's....but then you look at other sports...do john Mcdonnell's 42 xc/track and field championships stack up? who knows. I personally don't think it's an argument worth having.

Geno is a hell of a basketball mind. Watching the way his teams play offense is beautiful....the amount that they end up with wide open shots is incredible, the motion, the unselfishness, the backdoor cuts...not to say that the men's game is "all iso all the time," but there is certainly much more breaking the defense down off the dribble, which while a useful tool, I find much less appealing than ball movement. I can understand a point guard breaking another guys ankles, but when I watch geno's team, They end up with an open shot, and I'm as befuddled as the defense. I have to rewind to figure out how they managed to get so open. My favorite anecdote is that after Uconn beat up on UNC in a big 1-2 matchup in the dean dome some 4-5 years ago, roy williams called geno in to help work on some of the offensive sets. Not to get into a duke/unc battle, but a highly respected men's coach has a respect enough to bring geno in to work on offense. That speaks wonders IMO.

It stems from Geno's stubborn insistence on how the game should be played. It takes time to master, though skills or physicality certainly provide some leeway with the youngins. It's this that I think ultimately makes it doomed to fail in the men's game.

1) most of the top players don't stick around for 4 years
2) players most often have at least SOME eye on shining as an individual....to eschew all that in order to play such a different flavor of basketball would not be appealing to most guys in the mens game.
3) there's too much "other stuff"...dealing with AAU coaches during recruiting, dealing with off the court issues (like players stealing laptops, for instance), dealing with guys going pro early and building teams around that, dealing with guys who THINK they ought to be going pro early but aren't actually good enough

In the end it seems most of what he wants to do is see his vision of the game realized on the court, and coaching in the position he does allows him to do that with less extra fluff (he doesn't even really deal with off the court stuff at uconn...chris dailey does). So in the end, it's not that I don't think his basketball system couldn't be successful with guys, just that the current realities in the men's game prevent it.

Aside from that, He is an excellent player developer. People talk about how "uconn gets all the talent" and to some degree, they do get a lot of really stinkin' good players. What often gets glossed over, though, is a lot of other teams have monster classes as well, and don't have near the success uconn does. Further, some of uconn's stars were not highly touted, and BECAME stars because of Geno's coaching.

Examples of other great teams that never had geno's success:
ND with skyler diggins and her all american cohorts....no titles
Baylor with Griner...probably the best women's college player ever. Along with one of the best PGs in the country. one title was a huge underachievement for them
Stanford has had monster teams for years, and won some titles, but still not the success of uconn
Duke...some crazy good classes, and some players considered beasts, like E-will

Examples of uconn players that developed into really great pieces:
Maria Conlon
Stephanie Dolson
kelly faris


So part of it is uconn does get great players (Taurasi, Moore, Stewart, KML...etc), but he also gets the most out of the players he has. Almost always winning titles when he ought (really 2001 and 2011 are probably the only titles he should have won but didn't).

Good for him. He's in a position where he makes more money than most men's coaches....he'd be in the top 20 for all of D1, he wins, and he'll be remembered as a great basketball mind, and the best that ever was in women's ball.

[Mike Corey]

Winning and losing aside, he'd still likely be a pottymouth pottymouth pottymouth.