Smith has been to 2 NCAA tournaments as a head coach (both first round exits). That’s not bad. He also went to one as an assistant to Tim Miles (also a first round exit). He has good experience. He’s never had what you could really consider a signature win or an amazing season.
He is what he is - a decent candidate but not the kind of guy who is going to make the rest of the Pac-12 nervous. To be fair, of people on our list, probably only Moser makes the rest of the conference nervous.
Musselman, of course, spent a long time coaching in the NBA before arriving at Nevada. At Nevada, he managed to land top 40 recruiting classes, spent a lot of time ranked in the top 25, and made it to the Sweet Sixteen.
This list was really fun to compile for the memories. Stephen F Austin? UAB? Murray St? Took me back repeatedly to various cinderellas in the tournament. And then to see that those guys didn’t succeed in their next job really hammers home how much of a crapshoot this all is.
I’ll take 15 out of 50 over less than 5 percent any day.
Neither Musselman nor Smith should be extremely criticized for failing to get out the NCAA first round while in the MWC. NCAA culture shock is not unusual for lesser talented MWC teams. Only Utah has had much NCAA tournament success from the MWC. Nevada made the Sweet 16 once a long time ago. We wanted their coach but got Giacoletti instead.
Signature win. I hate that term. But Smith beating no1 seed in the NCAA tournament San Diego State last season in the MWC championship game was not that? What about winning the MWC tournament the year before after tying Musselman for the regular season title?!
Numbers are so interesting in sports. You have baseball that has been almost completely hacked by data analysis. In most other sports, the trick is trying to tease meaning out of impossibly small data sets (no better example than football ranking algorithms).
Obviously, big data has not cracked the code on coaching hires yet.
That’s a good way of describing it in about 90 percent of the cases, it is. The trick is to find the right coach at the right time with the right fit. In 10 percent of the cases, it seems like there’s a candidate that seems to rise above the competition – like Rick Majerus or Urban Meyer – while they were at tiny schools, they were able to immediately turn dog crap into diamonds – and they just had “it” at the moment in time “it” was needed. I just don’t see that person out there right now. So, I’m hopeful we’ll find the right guy-time-fit candidate. My gut tells me it’s either AJ or JB. I think AJ has the edge.
I wouldn’t be upset about Smith, but, I wouldn’t be pumped either.
That was his point. Rare as hen’s teeth. The rest are posers but big money keeps getting thrown their way until they have enough to not care or be found out.
In all transparency, I work for an investment firm; currently serving as the CEO of a portfolio company, and previously the CEO of a couple of other companies. Have been in the boardroom of Fortune 50/100 companies. Saw a lot of good stuff. Also saw a lot of BS.
Clearly, he would not have made the tournament without Queta, but, as Seattle accurately said “just having a good player does not guarantee a good team”. Some coaching still has to take place. Still, there’s no way we’re having this conversation if Queta had gone pro last year.
You know after taking a harder look at Smith, I’m coming around on him. He’s young but has done some nice things. In my mind, he’s definately worth interviewing, and would probably work out nicely if AJ and JB take a pass. With his name his wife and kids would blend right into the community.
However, the big drawback is the recruiting aspect of college ball. This is where a coach’s career is made. Is USC in the sweet sixteen because Enfield suddenly learned how to coach? NO! It’s because he [paid] recruited the likely #1 draft pick and his brother. End of story. Larry could outcoach Enfield in Old Maid, but he couldn’t recruit the NBA draft’s #1 overall (who could to Utah?). Jensen isn’t going to either, but the ability to pull an Andre Miller or Kyle Kuzma or Tom Chambers once in a while will be key.
That is why the ideal combo would be Alex as head coach, Johnnie Bryant as asst. It will never happen. I’d be in favor of Johnnie too as head coach. He apparently has great recruiting skills (notwithstanding the bad review posted on this august website for his teaching of Econ), but I’d be worried if he has the head coaching skills.
And the rub of it all is, I’m not sure who much a good recruiter gets you at a place like Utah. The Ed Orgeron of hoops couldn’t convince Evan Mobley to come to Utah. Our great basketball success story involves beating an Arizona team that was STACKED, just because their coach couldn’t adjust to a triangle and two; then beating a North Carolina team with two HOFers because we had a quasi-HOFer point guard and they couldn’t figure out how to make a foul shot.
Basically, I think the “genius” of our coach becomes the recruiting pitch–if Alex is as good as they say he is, the results will manifest themselves and the semi-elite recruits will follow.
