Time to Clean House

While I understand and empathize with wanting more NCs and FFs, I have only to look 200 miles to the north in Lincoln NE to see the foolishness of firing a high quality winning coach solely because he has not delivered on those titles. So unless you can guarantee me that Jay Wright us coming through those doors to take over, I’m voting for keeping Self.

I am not against shaking up the coaching staff, especially if it can be shown that Kurtis actually did something wrong as opposed to simply discussing that a recruit THAT THE NCAA QUICKLY CLEARED TO PLAY FOR SOMEONE ELSE was asking for $$$ plus other stuff.

As to shoe companies being boosters... yeah, go ahead and formalize that can of worms.

Just for grins, since most RCBers may soon check out given KU's departure, why don't we collectively and objectively just explore what kind of coaching talent out there might presumably be in the mix should we ever need to address it.*

* (Note, this is strictly and purely as a hypothetical scenario in which Coach Self were to leave - which I believe is a distinctly remote possibility and likely only comes into play if the Infractions Referral Committee's conclusions are more personally damning than what we can imagine)

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If we were to do so, I think we have to ensure that we first account for age (since we would doubtfully choose anyone much older than Bill - so there would be long-term stability). And I think we also need to be realistic and take out of contention those who are deeply ensconced in their programs and happen to just love it where they are.

With that in mind, I would submit that the following clearly would not be part of the list: Izzo (older than Self and loves Sparty), Jay Wright (loves Philly and is Self's age), Coach K (duh), Williams (duh), Cal (yuck, and Self's age), and Mark Few (he *is* Gonzaga, and loves the Pacific Northwest).

So, given that, I would ask: Who out there is as solid and steady as Self, or has his relatively assured similar winning pedigree upside?

And that is not a rhetorical question. I'll withhold taking a stab at answering it personally for now and let others weigh in first, owing to the wisdom of this crowd.

Let's give it an objective shot, see what the data reveals, and then discuss how palatable such options would really be. And again, this is purely hypothetical - if things go to hell in a hand basket or an LKF_HAWK gets the AD job). A black swan scenario, if you will, just to judge the state of comparative coaching talent that is out there and perhaps gettable in such an instance.

PS: Corpus, if you care to weigh in, you might even throw in some statistical W-L backing for your notional Top 5/10 if the worst did happen and we had a vacancy...

Konza, I like your idea, but I'm going to wait to see if Corpus has any data for us. I know that when Roy left in 2003 I was up in the air about who to hire, had no idea about the field, and have been pleased with the results of that hire.

In the interim, I will copy here the results of this post verbatim, as it fits here perhaps even better than it does in its original thread...

The NCAA Tournament, which our beloved Phog Allen helped to found, was first played in 1939.

Phog had the chance to make 18 of them from 1939 through 1956, his last season at the helm. The field was much smaller then and thus much harder to make, and Phog only got his Jayhawks into 4 of them. During that period he had 16 years of overall winning records, but just 12 years of conference winning records. His teams finished first 9 times, 2nd twice, 3rd 3 times, 5th twice and 6th twice. If those seasons were played during the last 18 years instead of 1939-56, he would most likely have made the NCAAT 11, possibly as many as 14 times.

Instead Phog made just 4 trips in 18 years, 3 times made the Final Four (only required 1 win in 1940) and won it all (winning 4 games) once.

YR(Field size) Result
1940(8 ) - Runner up to Indiana
1942(8 ) - lost in first round
1952(16) - NC v St John’s
1953(22) - Runner up to Indiana

Phog never got to coach Wilt, and I’m as certain as one can be in retrospect that the 1957 team would have won it all with Phog in charge instead of Dick Harp. By all accounts everyone agrees that Dick was a nice guy, but not the coach that Phog was.

Today it is much easier to make the field as since 1985 64 teams (68 today) get invited. The bad part of that is teams must win 6 games instead of 4 to win it all.

Bill has never failed to get his Kansas teams into the NCAAT during the past 18 straight years. In comparison to Phog’s last 18, Bill earned 15 conference titles, two 2nd places and a 3rd place finish.

His blue blood peers at UNC, UK and Duke have failed to make the NCAAT in that period. Calipari has missed the NCAAT three times in that time (once with Memphis), had 1 more FF appearance (including his 2008 FF with Memphis), but the same # of titles. K has missed the NCAAT once, has the same # of FFs but 1 more title than Bill in that period. Roy has missed the NCAAT once with UNC, has 2 more FF appearances, and won 3 titles in those 5 FF appearances. In terms of titles, he’s the tops starting with AY2003-04.

Jay Wright (368 days older than Bill, born December 23, 1961) has 2 of Villanova’s 3 titles. In the last 18 years, he has 7 conference titles, 15 NCAA appearances (missed twice), 3 FFs and 2 titles, and is still dancing this NCAAT.

Be unhappy that Bill has not had more success at KANSAS, but be realistic— nobody better is coming through those AFH doors anytime soon because he is, with all his postseason shortcomings, still one of the best in the game.

Get this NCAA stuff settled and we will be fine.

No need to include stats - names are fine. (I only mentioned stats for Corpus, because he’s our guru there)

Let’s see what the list winds up bearing, and then we can review it.

LKF_HAWK wrote: Here is a list, again I don’t have the time to do the stats and you won’t get HOF’er for HOF’er Again no guarantees in life

1. Brad Stevens - Celtics Coach, look at what he did with Butler..does he leave the NBA
2. Porter Moser - Loyola
3. Wes Miller - UNC Greensboro
4. Travis Steele/Will Wade
5.Former player say Haase/Vaughn/Miles

1. Stevens recently on record (like last week IIRC) that he is not leaving Boston, period, it's a great situation for him.

2-4. no idea, but would hazard a guess any of them would have better bonafides than 5.

5. No. Love them all, but no. Jerod has not had the greatest coaching record (1 winning conference season in his 5 years at Stanford). Both Vaughn (Nets) and Miles (D League) have had limited coaching experience in the pros, and nothing to indicate they can run a high level college program in their work experience since graduating.

You say you’re thinking someone like Roy, you cite Juwan Howard (whose assistant background is all in the pros at Miami, not learning the college job)... yet your off the cuff, in the heat of the moment suggestions are all established coaches except for JV and Aaron. None of them fit your restated criteria.

Bob Frederick found Roy, who coached HS for 5 years before joining the staff at UNC for 10 years, because Smith recommended Roy as an alternative to Smith taking the KU job. Even so, it was the longest of shots.

Where is the information market for us to examine to even reasonably discuss assistant coach promotional hires? There is a reason most programs try to bring in experienced coaches.

I would love for Kansas to find another Roy when Self leaves, but I doubt it very much.

Adding on to my thoughts -- but not a replacement for Bill in the near future addendum.

I can readily see Kurtis Townsend not being with us much longer.

I would love to see Self hire a younger assistant to potentially groom as his eventual replacement, much as TTS did with Roy -- although I would hope he would stay with KU the whole time until Bill steps down so that we don't do to some other school what the tarred ones did to us.

Crazy thought - maybe Marcus Garrett? He's often described as another coach on the floor, knowing just what Bill is thinking.
In that regard, I know Aaron or Jacque would fit that mold as well. However, they are both West Coasters, and Marcus isn't, being from Dallas. Just spitballing, seeing if anything sticks...

NotOstertag wrote: Playing off the Garrett idea, why not Mitch Lightfoot.

Granted he's going to be a player next year, but who better to groom? Some reasons why (going from memory here, so stats might be a little off):

>Played 15 years at KU - knows the program and system
>Will graduate next year at the age of 37 with 9 PHDs - ready to transition into coaching
>Literally bleeds Crimson and Blue, totally dedicated to KU since he was a kid

Despite his age, I don't think he plans to retire anytime soon after he's done playing. I say bring him on as an assistant, let Self continue to mentor him, and in 4 or 5 years he'll be ready to take over. Granted, he'll be close to 80 at that point, but maybe we can get a couple years out of him.