Y’all crazy. A coach with 0 personality that can’t recruit would never be in The Big 10. And yes he might have made the tourney his last year there but declaring 3-4 more in a row is just stupid
Yes, if he matched his win total of the previous season (11-7), which would have most likely placed them at 5th again and 24-9 overall last year, it wouldn’t have been surprising if they gave him a look. I mean, this is Penn State basketball we’re talking about, not UVA or Michigan State.
They went to the tournament twice after he left with his same recruits and won the regular season every single year (2015-2019). He also does have personality. He’s got a pretty dry sense of humor. I don’t find it personally attractive, but he’s not a block of wood at all.
Have you been to State College, PA before in the winter? Do you know what their games are like? It would be like putting Mason on top a mountain in the Shanandoah Mountains and saying all right, go out there and recruit. My dads side of the family is from western PA. My entire family went to Penn State. My dad tried to get me to go there. One of my uncles still lives in State College to this day (he doesn’t care about basketball), my other uncle was a star basketball player on his HS team, went to Penn State and even he doesn’t give a crap about Penn State men’s basketball (he’s a fan of UMD). Trying to get someone like Schmidt to take that job: good luck. (edit: now watch Schmidt take the job and make me look like an idiot. Not the first time).
Reminds of someone...who may or may not be on this board....that was notorious for hitting the local bars in Fairfax about an hour before closing instead of DC. One could argue quality of the nightly conquests....but one could not argue the volume. Sometimes it's good to know what conference level you should be playing in....
It’s really forwards. Outside of AJ Wilson, it’s insane how few forwards who were A10 material have said they’d come here. Our guards have been all right overall (Otis, Grayer, Kier, Greene, Miller, Boyd, XJ — we will see about Frazier, Polite, and Dady) but good god look at the 4 and 5 spots. It’s inexplicable. And it’s still happening in 2021 with only two guys total to compete with for time! Zaakir Williamson looking at Malik Henry and Josh Oduro and saying, eh, I’d rather play in lake effect snow to my eyeballs in Buffalo.
My brother went to Penn St and I grew up going to the Larry Johnson and Courtney Brown day and age of football games... State College is awesome. (their local airport is not though... thought I was dying each time I landed in the 25 seat planes) Been to Penn St more than I can count during my college years too. Think I have a plaque at the Sigma Chi house even though I didn't attend school there nor was I a Sigma Chi... Nobody attends their basketball games if that is what you are trying to convey with your family history post. My brother supports their football and hockey teams as a donor (PSU hockey is new to D1 but is absolutely awesome to watch.... seen them once in Boston). But I just wouldn't die on that hill that Paulsen even makes their 20 man short list... I think that is extremely crazy to infer. Edit and much like football they started poaching pretty good DMV prospects during the end of their current coaches regime... PA is a tough area to recruit from because anyone worth a P5 is being recruited heavily by Villanova or other great schools that poach the Philly talent.
Yes. My uncle who lives there became a diehard hockey guy the second they got a team. He has season tickets for football and hockey. My dad is football and wrestling. He dragged me up there way too often to see Penn State football games trying to get me to go there (but let me say when you drag your kid from Miami to Harrisburg to State College in late November, don’t expect them to be happy about it). Yes. Succeeding at Penn State is not going to be easy. And their hires historically have not been very ambitious. And no, I don’t think he will even be contacted for the job, not right now, not after the last two seasons here.
My point is Bucknell was the dominant program in the Patriot when DP left and Mason was down in the dregs with Fordham when he came here. Much easier to convince high-level Patriot kids to go to school in Lewisburg than to beat out A-10 schools for highly-touted recruits in Fairfax.
No it’s not. Nathan Davis won the PL regular-season title with DP’s recruits in 2015, ‘16, ‘17 and ‘18. No reason at all DP wouldn’t have done that well too.
https://hoopdirt.com/penn-state-mens-basketball-coaching-search-odds/: 18/1 Mark Schmidt 22/1 Keith Dambrot 30/1 Mike Rhoades 32/1 Chris Mooney I'm guessing that if Dave Paulsen had stayed at Bucknell, he would be at or near the top of the list.