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Some potential assistant coach names to watch

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TheOriginalCane said:
I didn't say there was a "struggle" at UM's level, but certain porsters have acted like it would be difficult to find a quality candidate with HEAD coaching experience. Somehow, the SEC manages to do it over and over again, and the ACC has been following a troubling recent trend of NOT going in that direction.

However, if you want to focus on UM's "struggle", they certainly did not try very hard to focus on guys with head-coaching experience. They identified MULTIPLE candidates with no head coaching experience, including NBA assistants Chris Quinn and Nick Friedman.

So let's not pretend that Miami looked at 19 head coaches and ONE assistant coach with no head-coaching experience. We were looking at a BUNCH of assistant coaches with no head-coaching experience.

And I've never made the "crazy decision" claim. I've simply criticized Miami's inability to scrutinize its own history and to examine what other comparable P4 schools have done in order to come to the LOGICAL conclusion that we should hire someone with head-coaching experience. And to AT LEAST try that approach for a few weeks before laser-focusing on a bunch of assistant coaches with no head-coaching experience.

Was there a rush? Would we have still been able to land Jai Lucas, say, TODAY...if we had struck out on guys like Will Wade first?

I just don't get the logic or rationale of doing things this way.
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Well Idk how strongly they considered specific guys with prior HC experience. Didn't they hire a search firm for Basektball to help them as well? Maybe they viewed the realistic HC candidates, and just didn't see the upside compared to Lucas'. Idk how strongly the current NBA assistants were viewed compared to other current HC guys at lower programs. Seems to me even though everyone complains about our hirings for HCs, basketball has a pretty strong track record for mens and womens, doesn't it? Its not like it's impossible for people to be 'inept' at like certain sport hiring decision and not at others... We'll see. And it'll most likely all entirely hinge on how successful recruiting is. Honestly I view basketball as entirely an talent acquisition race.

If Lucas consistently gets top recruiting and portal classes imo, I think it's pretty likely to get close to or possibly surpass Coach Ls historic results here, at least when looking at the averages. Under Coach L, we made 6 Tourney appearances in 14 years, so 43% of time. Only have ever made 12 total in school history. He took us to 4 Sweet 16s, 2 Elite 8s, and 1 final 4. Obviously very good results for us given before him we only made a sweet 16 once I believe. But if Lucas is able to put together strong recruiting classes, I think you can just ride talent to making the tourney 50% of the time. Maybe his inexperience could be limiting to making a deep run, at least at first, but, if this is a long-term hire I think it could be quite good.
 
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King of Allapattah said:
I’m not in tune with football side of things, but in basketball just about every major college program in America has hired assistants from the high school ranks. To insinuate that Miami hired Lucas in order to get Moran a job there is wild.
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Of course it is... that is the point...

You know what is also wild --- your football coaching search being rumored to be Mario vs. Keep Manny; baseball hiring JD Arteaga ... Things are stranger than fiction in the University of Miami Athletic Department
 
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Calinative said:
Well Idk how strongly they considered specific guys with prior HC experience. Didn't they hire a search firm for Basektball to help them as well? Maybe they viewed the realistic HC candidates, and just didn't see the upside compared to Lucas'. Idk how strongly the current NBA assistants were viewed compared to other current HC guys at lower programs. Seems to me even though everyone complains about our hirings for HCs, basketball has a pretty strong track record for mens and womens, doesn't it? Its not like it's impossible for people to be 'inept' at like certain sport hiring decision and not at others... We'll see. And it'll most likely all entirely hinge on how successful recruiting is. Honestly I view basketball as entirely an talent acquisition race.

If Lucas consistently gets top recruiting and portal classes imo, I think it's pretty likely to get close to or possibly surpass Coach Ls historic results here, at least when looking at the averages. Under Coach L, we made 6 Tourney appearances in 14 years, so 43% of time. Only have ever made 12 total in school history. He took us to 4 Sweet 16s, 2 Elite 8s, and 1 final 4. Obviously very good results for us given before him we only made a sweet 16 once I believe. But if Lucas is able to put together strong recruiting classes, I think you can just ride talent to making the tourney 50% of the time. Maybe his inexperience could be limiting to making a deep run, at least at first, but, if this is a long-term hire I think it could be quite good.
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WHAT?

---"IDK how strongly they considered specific guys with prior HC experience". Exactly. None of the "prior head coach" candidates were formally interviewed.

---"Didn't they hire a search firm to help them as well?" What? Do you think this is Indeed.com? A search firm enables you to converse with coaches who are under contract (and their agents), but a head-coach search firm doesn't help anyone to identify the best candidates or make the best choices.

---"Maybe they viewed..." I'm not even going to finish that ridiculous sentence. My point was not about "identifying the upside". My point, all along, has been that we need to hire someone WITH HEAD-COACHING EXPERIENCE. We had (or should have had) a prerequisite. Yapping about "identifying the upside of a career assistant coach" has nothing to do with setting a standard for minimum job qualifications and sticking to it.

---"Basketball has a pretty strong track record of hiring, doesn't it?" WHAT? Miami has had FIVE men's basketball coaches in 40 years. And since 1988, we have had TWO women's basketball coaches before Tricia Cullop (Ferne Labati and Katie Meier). In that SAME TIME, we have had SEVEN Athletic Directors. So where does this "strong track record" come from? Which of our SEVEN COMPLETELY DIFFERENT AD's is responsible for all of this awesome hiring of basketball coaches? And more importantly, who was the AD who hired our ONE men's basketball coach in the modern era who had no head-coaching experience? That would be Paul Dee who hired Frank Haith, which did not work out very well.

The point is very simple. Since reinstating the men's program, we have had more overall success (given the massive lifts that were asked of Bill Foster and Leonard Hamilton) with coaches who had prior head-coaching experience. And if you want to broaden the sample size beyond Miami, the SEC is currently experiencing massive success with a batch of coaches WHO HAD PRIOR HEAD-COACHING EXPERIENCE, while the ACC is suffering through a horrific decline with a bunch of schools that chose to hire coaches WITH NO PRIOR HEAD-COACHING EXPERIENCE, Jon Scheyer excepted of course.

It is a huge risk for a P4 basketball program with a recent Final Four appearance to hire a career assistant coach who is not an internal-promotion/longtime-coach-in-waiting. That's just a demonstrable and provable observation, almost rising to the level of a fact. Nobody is saying that the "upside" would not be great. People are just pointing out if Jai Lucas CANNOT convince 5-stars to come to Miami like he was able to do at TEXAS and KENTUCKY and DUKE, then we face a serious threat to his pathway to success at UM. And THAT is a fact.

Can we at least stop making hypothetic excuses for a search process that EARLY ON was laser-focused on one candidate, an assistant coach with no prior head-coaching experience? That is a factual summation of who we hired. Maybe he's got upside, maybe not. Maybe he benefited from working at three great basketball schools and working under a bunch of great coaches. Maybe not. Time will tell.

But there were PLENTY of qualified candidates with HEAD coaching experience. Let's not pretend that Larranaga was some slam-dunk obvious candidate when he was hired. Our AD failed to identify him as a candidate, though the MAS BROTHERS did so after meeting Larranaga at a fantasy basketball camp. Outside of "one Final Four" with George Mason, Coach Larranaga was a career mid-major coach who never seemed destined for an ACC job.

So the UM AD (or CIS porster) arrogance that tries to tell us that there was NOBODY out there with head-coaching experience who had the "upside" to coach Miami is just ridiculous.
 
Angry Ibis said:
Of course it is... that is the point...

You know what is also wild --- your football coaching search being rumored to be Mario vs. Keep Manny; baseball hiring JD Arteaga ... Things are stranger than fiction in the University of Miami Athletic Department
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Pure delusion
 
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TheOriginalCane said:
WHAT?

---"IDK how strongly they considered specific guys with prior HC experience". Exactly. None of the "prior head coach" candidates were formally interviewed.

---"Didn't they hire a search firm to help them as well?" What? Do you think this is Indeed.com? A search firm enables you to converse with coaches who are under contract (and their agents), but a head-coach search firm doesn't help anyone to identify the best candidates or make the best choices.

---"Maybe they viewed..." I'm not even going to finish that ridiculous sentence. My point was not about "identifying the upside". My point, all along, has been that we need to hire someone WITH HEAD-COACHING EXPERIENCE. We had (or should have had) a prerequisite. Yapping about "identifying the upside of a career assistant coach" has nothing to do with setting a standard for minimum job qualifications and sticking to it.

---"Basketball has a pretty strong track record of hiring, doesn't it?" WHAT? Miami has had FIVE men's basketball coaches in 40 years. And since 1988, we have had TWO women's basketball coaches before Tricia Cullop (Ferne Labati and Katie Meier). In that SAME TIME, we have had SEVEN Athletic Directors. So where does this "strong track record" come from? Which of our SEVEN COMPLETELY DIFFERENT AD's is responsible for all of this awesome hiring of basketball coaches? And more importantly, who was the AD who hired our ONE men's basketball coach in the modern era who had no head-coaching experience? That would be Paul Dee who hired Frank Haith, which did not work out very well.

The point is very simple. Since reinstating the men's program, we have had more overall success (given the massive lifts that were asked of Bill Foster and Leonard Hamilton) with coaches who had prior head-coaching experience. And if you want to broaden the sample size beyond Miami, the SEC is currently experiencing massive success with a batch of coaches WHO HAD PRIOR HEAD-COACHING EXPERIENCE, while the ACC is suffering through a horrific decline with a bunch of schools that chose to hire coaches WITH NO PRIOR HEAD-COACHING EXPERIENCE, Jon Scheyer excepted of course.

It is a huge risk for a P4 basketball program with a recent Final Four appearance to hire a career assistant coach who is not an internal-promotion/longtime-coach-in-waiting. That's just a demonstrable and provable observation, almost rising to the level of a fact. Nobody is saying that the "upside" would not be great. People are just pointing out if Jai Lucas CANNOT convince 5-stars to come to Miami like he was able to do at TEXAS and KENTUCKY and DUKE, then we face a serious threat to his pathway to success at UM. And THAT is a fact.

Can we at least stop making hypothetic excuses for a search process that EARLY ON was laser-focused on one candidate, an assistant coach with no prior head-coaching experience? That is a factual summation of who we hired. Maybe he's got upside, maybe not. Maybe he benefited from working at three great basketball schools and working under a bunch of great coaches. Maybe not. Time will tell.

But there were PLENTY of qualified candidates with HEAD coaching experience. Let's not pretend that Larranaga was some slam-dunk obvious candidate when he was hired. Our AD failed to identify him as a candidate, though the MAS BROTHERS did so after meeting Larranaga at a fantasy basketball camp. Outside of "one Final Four" with George Mason, Coach Larranaga was a career mid-major coach who never seemed destined for an ACC job.

So the UM AD (or CIS porster) arrogance that tries to tell us that there was NOBODY out there with head-coaching experience who had the "upside" to coach Miami is just ridiculous.
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Either our hirings go above the AD or they don't. Can't pick and choose which applies to the AD and which applies to the whole upper leadership, especially from Blake James on imo. Are people accusing Rad of being pro-Columbus or people above the AD (given Mario was hired before Rad)? Did any leadership that is still in place have their input on the hirings made prior? Didn't @Peter Ariz say that like one of the top boosters responsible for targetting Lucas was also heavily involved in Coach L too? or did someone else say that....
I'm lookiing at our last MBB hire and last 2 women hires, and think they were good.

We'll see. I agree with your point it'll almost all entirely rest on Lucas' ability to get those 5star types he was getting at Duke/Texas/Kentucky... Which means it may just be all about NIL regardless.... And maybe a cheaper HC contract frees up more to spend on NIL. If you have an overall say $8M budget for basketball, you can choose to give $5M to a HC and then the remaining $3M dividided between players and assistant, or you can get a $2M HC and have $6M divided between players and assistants... type of thing...
 
Calinative said:
Either our hirings go above the AD or they don't. Can't pick and choose which applies to the AD and which applies to the whole upper leadership, especially from Blake James on imo. Are people accusing Rad of being pro-Columbus or people above the AD (given Mario was hired before Rad)? Did any leadership that is still in place have their input on the hirings made prior? Didn't @Peter Ariz say that like one of the top boosters responsible for targetting Lucas was also heavily involved in Coach L too? or did someone else say that....
I'm lookiing at our last MBB hire and last 2 women hires, and think they were good.

We'll see. I agree with your point it'll almost all entirely rest on Lucas' ability to get those 5star types he was getting at Duke/Texas/Kentucky... Which means it may just be all about NIL regardless.... And maybe a cheaper HC contract frees up more to spend on NIL. If you have an overall say $8M budget for basketball, you can choose to give $5M to a HC and then the remaining $3M dividided between players and assistant, or you can get a $2M HC and have $6M divided between players and assistants... type of thing...
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Spot on
 
Calinative said:
Either our hirings go above the AD or they don't. Can't pick and choose which applies to the AD and which applies to the whole upper leadership, especially from Blake James on imo. Are people accusing Rad of being pro-Columbus or people above the AD (given Mario was hired before Rad)? Did any leadership that is still in place have their input on the hirings made prior? Didn't @Peter Ariz say that like one of the top boosters responsible for targetting Lucas was also heavily involved in Coach L too? or did someone else say that....
I'm lookiing at our last MBB hire and last 2 women hires, and think they were good.

We'll see. I agree with your point it'll almost all entirely rest on Lucas' ability to get those 5star types he was getting at Duke/Texas/Kentucky... Which means it may just be all about NIL regardless.... And maybe a cheaper HC contract frees up more to spend on NIL. If you have an overall say $8M budget for basketball, you can choose to give $5M to a HC and then the remaining $3M dividided between players and assistant, or you can get a $2M HC and have $6M divided between players and assistants... type of thing...
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Again...

WHAT IN THE **** ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?

I never once mentioned "the whole upper leadership". That's just something you invented to confuse the issues. Why, I have no idea.

The process. Which was under the control of Dan Radakovich. Was terrible. I don't give two ***** if some booster had more say-so than he should have had. The PROCESS. Of not interviewing head coaches. And focusing on ONE candidate. SUCKED.

It's just that simple. Stick to the subject. Leave "Columbus" out of the discussion. Focus on the ADs. And we've had SEVEN. So to try to create some sort of consistent history on the hiring of basketball coaches is just delusional and weird.

And good lord, stop yapping about women's basketball coaches. It's ri-god****-diculous. Katie Meier was hired in 2005. That is FIVE AD's ago. Just stop.
 
TheOriginalCane said:
Again...

WHAT IN THE **** ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?

I never once mentioned "the whole upper leadership". That's just something you invented to confuse the issues. Why, I have no idea.\

The process. Which was under the control of Dan Radakovich. Was terrible. I don't give two ***** if some booster had more say-so than he should have had. The PROCESS. Of not interviewing head coaches. And focusing on ONE candidate. SUCKED.

It's just that simple. Stick to the subject. Leave "Columbus" out of the discussion.

And good lord, stop yapping about women's basketball coaches. It's just ri-god****-diculous. Katie Meier was hired in 2005. That is FIVE AD's ago. Just stop.
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I was speaking more broadly, not specifically arguing with you. Literally @Angry Ibis has been saying just that... Lol

Again Idk what the exact process was not that guys weren't looked into in detail. I'm fact wasn't it shared that Pitino was like one of the two main finalists? To me that says they did look at HCs.

Ok, five ADs ago. And I'm saying these big hiring decisions are above AD. And ultimately the people that have been in charge financially are all mostly the same. Maybe they have even more power now so it's more reflective of their choices now than back then especially towards the late 90s early 2ks....
 
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Calinative said:
I was speaking more broadly, not specifically arguing with you. Literally @Angry Ibis has been saying just that... Lol

Again Idk what the exact process was not that guys weren't looked into in detail. I'm fact wasn't it shared that Pitino was like one of the two main finalists? To me that says they did look at HCs.

Ok, five ADs ago. And I'm saying these big hiring decisions are above AD. And ultimately the people that have been in charge financially are all mostly the same. Maybe they have even more power now so it's more reflective of their choices now than back then especially towards the late 90s early 2ks....
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Look, @Angry Ibis doesn't know what the **** he is talking about, so I wouldn't go off of what he says. It's just nonstop misery, whatever the Complaint of the Day is, he will repeat it. Repetitively. He knows nothing of value about our athletic program.

I know you make more of an effort than most, so I'll try to be more patient here.

To give an example. I know that we reached out to certain head baseball coaches when we were replacing DiMare. However, due to our history of underspending on baseball, we were turned down flat by multiple good candidates. So I have some frustration about THAT issue, and I have a lot of frustration with hiring Arteaga, but at least I know our STARTING POINT was not J.D. I would have liked to have seen MORE effort after our first talks went nowhere. We were trying to replace DiMare after the season was over, so we didn't have all the time in the world.

The situation with replacing Larranaga was different, though. We had a TON of time after Coach L retired. We were NOT coming off years of decline. We had money to spend. And as you pointed out, we could use a search firm to talk to guys under contract.

And we had time to see how certain situations played out. We could see how Caputo did with GW. We could wait for the coaching carousel to start turning. We could see if certain guys would emerge (McCollum at Drake). Instead, we rushed a hire of an ASSISTANT coach, in our own conference, for the #1 team in the land who would likely be playing into April. Which made us look like a premature ejaculator when Scheyer made his comments. And WHY? Was someone else involved in the "let's hire Jai" contest? Were we trying to make a hire before the Boozer twins committed (this is sarcasm, I already know the answer)?

None of this was necessary. And as for your comment about "these big hiring decisions are above AD", no, that is not correct. Or to put it another way, maybe TODAY we are seeing some changes in who has input, but almost every past hiring that YOU CITE involved the AD as the primary decision-maker. Let's not pretend that "Mario" was some kind of "above the AD" decision. Mario was the most qualified candidate that year AS WELL AS being a UM alum. It didn't require politics to make THAT decision. Now, for JD Arteaga, sure, he was not such an obvious candidate and he certainly should not and would not have gotten the job without UM connections and booster persuasion.

And, hey, I can't complain about the Mas brothers. The last time they suggested a head basketball coach, we hired Larranaga. AND we had a terrible AD at that time who knew nothing about hiring coaches. I may have a lot of problems with how Radakovich is doing his job, but he is definitely better at being an AD than Beta Blake or The Shermanator.
 
Calinative said:
I was speaking more broadly, not specifically arguing with you. Literally @Angry Ibis has been saying just that... Lol

Again Idk what the exact process was not that guys weren't looked into in detail. I'm fact wasn't it shared that Pitino was like one of the two main finalists? To me that says they did look at HCs.

Ok, five ADs ago. And I'm saying these big hiring decisions are above AD. And ultimately the people that have been in charge financially are all mostly the same. Maybe they have even more power now so it's more reflective of their choices now than back then especially towards the late 90s early 2ks....
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What did I do to get people worked up about this time? -- because I threw out something clearly absurd, but also somewhat possible given how our hiring processes at Miami have been?

Our hiring processes at Miami are questionable. Rad is questionable. I threw out the Columbus connection because our hiring processes have been either poor, cheap or Miami bro, it would be believable even if totally absurd -- which it is....

I have heard positive things about Lucas from friends in North Carolina that hate Duke. So for them to give anyone or anything related to Duke credit, it gives me some positive hope around Lucas.

Love all the "Angry Ibis hates everything" story -- losing... that is what I hate --- terrible, cheap, narrow hiring processes that lead to losing is what I hate... so yea, baseball, basketball and choking away the playoffs in football -- yes, I hate those things. Same people defending the JD hiring and Rad, are in this thread changing their tunes, and are now also not happy about the Lucas hiring process.
 
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Angry Ibis said:
What did I get people worked up about this time? -- because I threw out something clearly absurd, but also somewhat possible given how our hiring processes at Miami have been?

Our hiring processes at Miami are questionable. Rad is questionable. I threw out the Columbus connection because our hiring processes have been either poor, cheap or Miami bro, it would be believable even if totally absurd -- which it is....

I have heard positive things about Lucas from friends in North Carolina that hate Duke. So for them to give anyone or anything related to Duke credit, it gives me some positive hope around Lucas.
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We're reportedly doubling our NIL/coaching pool budget, so no. Lucas has no ties to the the Miami area save for recruiting the Boozers so you're off on that as well.
 
JZCane0825 said:
We're reportedly doubling our NIL/coaching pool budget, so no. Lucas has no ties to the the Miami area save for recruiting the Boozers so you're off on that as well.
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So you agree that it would be absurd. You agreed with me all thread. Yet are still arguing about it. You really like Lucas. Could be a great hire.
 
JZCane0825 said:
We're reportedly doubling our NIL/coaching pool budget, so no. Lucas has no ties to the the Miami area save for recruiting the Boozers so you're off on that as well.
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Yes.

And for the record, I'm capable of having two complex thoughts at the same time.

On one hand, we are definitely spending money and hiring a guy with no prior ties to Miami.

On the other hand, we did not do a very good search PROCESS, in terms of transparency, standards, hyper-focus, and timing.

On one hand, I will not raise these issues every day of Lucas's employment.

On the other hand, if things go poorly, I reserve the right to say "I told you so".

It's not that complicated.
 
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