Danny Manning Fired

Hard to believe that this hasn't been posted yet.

www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/sto...-coach-danny-manning

Yeah, pretty quiet without sports. Of course everyone at KU would love to have him back, but I don't see it yet. I think he'll land a gig at a mid-major as head coach rather than coming home and waiting in the wings for Self to retire.

Danny knows that he'll be a frontrunner for the KU job someday (barring some kind of disaster on his end of things). I'm guessing that it's probably more valuable for him to run a program and continue to gain that experience before he comes back to KU.

Of course, this assumes that he's our heir apparent (which I assume). Wondering if anybody disagrees with this assumption and would love to hear the counter argument of either why KU wouldn't give Danny the HC job someday, or why Danny wouldn't want the gig.

I guess I'll take the contrarian view and say that Danny is not on the short list and not on the list at all. There are seriously only two players who can rival Danny for pedigree as a player at KU and those two are named Lovellette and Chamberlain. And all three are right in the thick of it. Danny is as KU as anyone ever. But his elite (super elite) status as a player at KU and his apparent decent stint as a coach at Kansas is not enough to fill a completely different role as Head Coach. Then when you consider his record as a head coach, it is more likely he will land a gig at a non-elite school or mid-major. My guess is Danny was loved by the admin and major donors of WFU because he is such a quality person. But when replacing Larry Brown, Roy Williams and Bill Self, you need no less than an elite head coach. I do not even think that if Self left today that Danny should be considered for the job. He is like Gale Sayers or John Hadl. He will forever be welcome to be part of KU but just not as head coach. I have not given much thought to who I would go for to replace Self, but both Turgeon and Haase would be higher on my list simply because they have proven their chops as head coaches. Turgeon is just about as old as Self so that would probably be a no-go. And even as much as I love Haase and as much success as he has had, I am not sure his head coaching yet rises to the level that you would want for KU. I think you would go for an assistant who trained under a great coach. That seems to be the best recipe for success. I used to think that Jacque Vaughn would be the next coach but he has settled more in the NBA realm. Rex Walters never established himself as an elite coach and Tad Boyle the same. Although Tad has done a very nice job at Colorado, but he is the same age as Self. My guess is you would want someone in the 35-45 range who trained under at least one elite coach for an extended period and has wither shown great promise as a head coach already or is widely considered the next star coach. It would definitely be nice to have KU connections. But to me, that is a distant second to having elite, HOF coaching ability. I hope Self decides to stay another 10-12 years. My sleeper is Mitch Lightfoot. I would love to see Mitch go straight onto the staff after graduating, work his way up to the assistant coach and take over when Self retires. But that would have to be at least 12 years from now. Marcus Garrett would be another possibility if he decides coaching is his gig.

Thanks for taking the contrary stance, Cprpus. It kind of reflects my "logic" side of my brain when thinking about it. From an emotional side, there's no doubt that it would be great to have Danny at the helm someday. Next to Self, he's probably the most liked guy in Lawrence. On the other hand, if his name was Joe Smith and he hadn't attended KU, his resume doesn't scream "blue blood eligible" coach.

Two contrary points to your contrary points:
1.) Who the heck was this Bill Self guy when he came to town? Ok, Bill had done well at Tulsa and Illinois, but for a lot of fans, he was kind of an unknown quantity and he turned out to be a fairly decent coach.

2.) KU isn't Wake. Walking into KU you have way more resources at your disposal than almost anywhere, and you're carrying a huge reputation with you. KU could hire a trained squirrel as a head coach and at least for a season or two, you'd still be signing top 100 recruits (slight exaggeration). The point is, walking into KU gives a guy a bit more of a "grace period" knowing that all of your games are nationally televised and you're going to play in front of sell out crowds everywhere you go. Is it THAT easy? Probably not, but it sure is a lot easier than it would be in all but about half a dozen other programs.

Also good points on the age issue. Self and Manning are essentially the same vintage. They'll probably both want to retire around the same time, so unless Bill retired early and Manning decided to coach a long time, the odds of having a long-time coach are kind of slim.

I absolutely LOVE the idea of Mitch Lightfoot, btw. How cool would it be to see Self take Mitch under his wing and groom him for the next 10 years before doing a handoff?!? Of course I have no idea if Mitch wants to do it, whether he'd be any good at it, or what other 10,000 variables could bump that off the tracks. Nevertheless, Mitch has certainly cemented a spot on the "will never have to pay for his own beer in a Lawrence bar" list.

Okay, I'll throw out a few I haven't seen mentioned yet:
- Jeff Boschee. Good KU player pedigree and has a very good HC record at Missouri Southern (Div II). He's about 10 years younger then Self so he might be seasoned enough by the time Self retires to takeover.
- Aaron Miles. Great KU player pedigree, professional playing experience and coaching experience. He also served on a couple of college staffs. He led the Warriors G League team pretty deep into the play-offs and then was promoted. 10+ years younger then Self.
- Brett Ballard. Nice KU player pedigree. Good head coaching record at lower division schools. Assistant on some D-1 staffs. About 10 years younger then Self.

In response to NotO as to who the hell was Bill Self. Well, first, he trained under Larry Brown and Eddie Sutton. Two HOF’ers or at least should be. He showed radical improvement at Oral Roberts, Tulsa and Illinois. He had Illinois at the top. He showed he could recruit great players and more importantly he was a winning coach, demonstrably and unequivocally. He was considered one of the if not the next big time coach. As to bklynhawk, I did think of Boschee and Ballard. I actually met Brett on a number of occasions and I always thought he would be a great option. My reservation is he maybe is too nice of a guy and second, has he really proven his chops as a D1 head coach? But from a standpoint of representing the university and having the respect of people, Brett Ballard is simply stated, an outstanding person. I am a huge fan. Boschee has not really recruited in the D1 world. Not sure if that may be a problem. Aaron Miles I did not think of, but like Vaughn, he seems to have put his roots in the NBA. But my guess is that Aaron is a great coach. He was a heady PG.

Seems like the last HBC coach to play at KU was Dick Harp. Odds are the next one comes from outside the family.

Good luck to Danny, He'll land on his feet. My guess as a big man coach in the NBA.

https://imgur.com/pInrabm

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Applicant for KU HC job . . . . .


RC

Brother Bay....the link on my iPad isn’t hot. Anyone else having problems. I’m up for something humorous!

If it’s just me....never mind.




WSG

Won't work for me either, and it's my post!!!

It was just a picture of a squirrel water skiing,

--RC

Now that's funny. I don't care who you are.