Hewitt on the Mike and Mike show at 8 AM

[GMUgemini]

With only 2 rounds in the NBA draft I am not sure that would not work. Teams would essentially waste a draft pick. Of course they sometimes do that intentionally with overseas players to buy a year or two on the salary, but they retain the rights for some time. Baseball has so many rounds of picks that you can bury a pick late.

If the D League becomes a true minor league system I would guess the draft would expand into more rounds.

 

[gmujim92]

With only 2 rounds in the NBA draft I am not sure that would not work. Teams would essentially waste a draft pick. Of course they sometimes do that intentionally with overseas players to buy a year or two on the salary, but they retain the rights for some time. Baseball has so many rounds of picks that you can bury a pick late.

The NBA Draft used to have many more rounds. If they ever formalized an agreement with the D-league as a true domestic minor league basketball system, they could go back to drafting 7-8 rounds and teams could retain players' rights for a certain number of years under "minor league" deals.

That would take away some of the risk of drafting a kid who opts to go to college, but certainly not all of it.

 

[Washingtonian]

Here is the entire radio interview: http://espn.go.com/espnradio/play?id=10554681

 

[gmubrian]

Agree here gmutom. When I have talked to him in the past about the problems with the program he has been pretty open admitting that the coaching staff and players aren't on the same page in many cases and that sometimes convincing an 18 year old to listen is harder than you think.

Again, more blaming the players. If I hear this excuse (that the guys are just kids) one more time, I think my head might explode. They act like we are the only team that has 18 year old kids on it. It must be in the official talking points because everyone I have talked to close to the program gives me that same line. The successful coaches don't seem to have any trouble convincing 18 year old kids to listen.

 

[Pablo]

Again, more blaming the players. If I hear this excuse (that the guys are just kids) one more time, I think my head might explode. They act like we are the only team that has 18 year old kids on it. It must be in the official talking points because everyone I have talked to close to the program gives me that same line. The successful coaches don't seem to have any trouble convincing 18 year old kids to listen.

After Jim Larranaga's first season here, I told him that I was very happy with the direction of the program. But, I told him that I considered him a defensive coach and was expecting even better team defense. His response was that it's not easy to convince kids to play defense.

 

[gmujim92]

After Jim Larranaga's first season here, I told him that I was very happy with the direction of the program. But, I told him that I considered him a defensive coach and was expecting even better team defense. His response was that it's not easy to convince kids to play defense.

That's why college basketball coaches make six- and seven-figure salaries. If it was easy to convince teenage knuckleheads to do something that isn't much fun, they'd all get paid like toll takers.

 

[GSII]

Agree here gmutom. When I have talked to him in the past about the problems with the program he has been pretty open admitting that the coaching staff and players aren't on the same page in many cases and that sometimes convincing an 18 year old to listen is harder than you think.

Cop out. Always someone else's fault. It's his job to get everyone on the same page.

 

[GSII]

After Jim Larranaga's first season here, I told him that I was very happy with the direction of the program. But, I told him that I considered him a defensive coach and was expecting even better team defense. His response was that it's not easy to convince kids to play defense.

Pablo,
He said the same thing to me mid year of his first year. But he was talking about Westheads' guys.

 

[sigmanorm]

Cop out. Always someone else's fault. It's his job to get everyone on the same page.

Agree it is his job, my point was he was upfront with the fact that he was having trouble getting the message across. That is part of the problem

 

[sigmanorm]

Again, more blaming the players. If I hear this excuse (that the guys are just kids) one more time, I think my head might explode. They act like we are the only team that has 18 year old kids on it. It must be in the official talking points because everyone I have talked to close to the program gives me that same line. The successful coaches don't seem to have any trouble convincing 18 year old kids to listen.

Agree that it is a problem. I was just stating that he was upfront about the fact he can't get the message across. That in fact IS the problem. He can convince them in their living room to come play for him, but then can't sell the approach....or more importantly, doesn't have an approach and the kids are doing what they learned in HS.

 

[Pablo]

Pablo,
He said the same thing to me mid year of his first year. But he was talking about Westheads' guys.

I seriously doubt he was referring to George Evans (who Westhead recruited) & Ahmad Dorsett (who played 1 season for Westhead), both of whom were outstanding defenders.

 

[Pikapppatri8]

Hewitt would excel as a realtor or car salesman. Seems to have the traits that would work well with those kinds of sales.

No matter how bad of a coach he is, he isnt the type that would give the public a wrong image so thats good for us in regards to image. But personally I dont care if my coach is the spawn of satan, a terrorist or a hot head and intense.....just win baby.

You Rang?????

 

[GMUgemini]

You Rang?????

He would never get away with the same shenanigans he did while coach at Indiana today. No way.

 

[gmubrian]

Agree that it is a problem. I was just stating that he was upfront about the fact he can't get the message across.

This is the crux of the whole problem and why I have zero hope for Hewitt. If he was looking at himself and saying that he needs to find a better way to communicate, or needs to do something differently to get through to the kids, then I would have hope and would much more patient with him. That is why I had hope for the start because he said he had learned from his mistakes.

Unfortunately, he seems to always put the blame on the kids in some manner. Well, I hate to break it to him, if he can't get through to a group of 18 -22 year old kids now, that is never going to change. They are always going to be that way. Maybe a different line of work is in order.

Anybody I have ever worked with that has always looked for external reasons/excuses has always been completely worthless. If you never look into the mirror to find the problem, you will never improve yourself.

 

[patriot2000]

Maybe we could replace TOC with PH?

Hey, this could solve a few problems. Force TOC to retire, and promote PH. Then you can work a deal where instead of buying him out, you pay him his coaching salary to be AD. And, let the boards hire the next coach so PH and TOC are not responsible for the hire.

 

[Five Two]

On 570AM during the drive home, Dan Lebatard had on the Van Gundy brothers and Tom Izzo discussing this topic. JVG did mention that Hewitt called him immediately after his comments the other night. Izzo mentioned that he had served on a committee with Hewitt and they generally agreed on this topic.

 

[gmutom]

Contrary to the belief of some, it's not out of the ordinary for a coach in a press conference to point out things his team didn't do well after a loss (especially when they are prompted by a reporter). That's not blaming the players, it's mentioning specific things that proved to be the difference in the game (such as the offensive rebounds we gave up against GW Sunday).

While I have said in this very space that it would be nice on occasion for Hewitt to fall on the sword when something he does doesn't work (like pressing, rotations and defensive schemes) — especially since he is ultimately responsible for all of our losses — many of his comments about our team or players are tame when compared to some of these other comments I found.

[Disclaimer: I am not comparing Hewitt to these coaches in terms of ability or wins but more to what all coaches say in press conferences.]

Duke Coach Mike Krzyewski after loss to Michigan State:

We were not worthy of our jerseys, our Duke jerseys, in the first half.

Kansas Coach Bill Self after loss to TCU:

If we could start three guys, we'd start three guys. Because I don't really know who deserves to start. You have got to start five. We're not individually a team of great players. We have one guy who is super talented. And we have a bunch of nice players. We have allowed everybody the opportunity to believe they can beat us. And they should. We have opened up that floodgate.

UNC Coach Roy Williams after loss to Texas:

Tonight it was just, ‘Do you want to go get the basketball or do you want to stand there and let somebody else?

Syracuse Coach Jim Boeheim after loss to Georgia Tech:

Somebody else has to score. For us to be good, somebody else has to get it going.

Florida Coach Billy Donovan after loss to Richmond:

Obviously, what I’m saying to them is not getting through to them. [My players had] “a lack of respect for the scouting report and understanding what we got to do to take away what they do well.

Texas Coach Rick Barnes after loss to Kansas State:

We need our whole team to play. Tonight we had about three or four guys that didn’t do their job. Our post guys weren’t as aggressive as they needed to be.

Michigan State Coach Tom Izzo after loss to Nebraska:

(I’m) very disappointed. We did not play with a sense of urgency from the opening tip, losing that, to the first play missing a three and letting them get going.

Cincinnati Coach Mick Cronin after loss to Kentucky:

I got my disappointments, but at the end of the day we didn’t get the job done down the stretch. Defensively we didn’t get the job done; we had a three point lead and gave up two layups. That was our watershed moment.

Wisconsin Coach Bo Ryan after loss to Minnesota.

We have not had the post presence defensively. Some of it is due to maybe lack of foot speed, lack of recognition. The idea is, you can't give up one thing and then turn around and shut that off and then give up something else

 

[gmubrian]

Wow, Tom, where to start with that one...

First we were not talking about a press conference where he was blaming the kids as you suggest. The quote was from a personal conversation that sigmanorm had and I have had the same experience as well and I get the same thing from others close to the team. It is almost like there is a memo going around telling people that they should just say it is a bunch of kids that don't listen. That is blaming the players and there is no other way to spin it.

Those coaches you quoted repeatedly say "we" which includes the person speaking. They do single out individuals in some of them, which negates the we,

Those are for the most part, very successful coaches, describing a single loss. Hewitt is describing a complete meltdown of a season and when states that 18 year old kids don't listen do what you tell them. Well, if it were an occasional game, that is one thing, but to say that is the problem with the whole season, then it his fault for not being able to reach them over the entire season. That is the very definition of the job of coaching.

I'll give him one thing. He is a master of snow jobbing the guys and even the fans and others. He repeatedly blames them for not doing what he tells them, and they seem to be 100% loyal to him. If only he could figure out how to coach them at the same level, then we would not be having this conversation. We would be worried about what our seed in the tournament was going to be.

Very few coaches that have teams that have bottomed out save their jobs by blaming the kids for being 18 years old because that can't be fixed. They might, however, prove they can fix the problem if they looked at themselves, figured out what they could do better and pointed that out. Might not work, but the former approach never works for long.

Also, Tom Izzo and Bo Ryan must be twins since they used the exact same words...

 

[gmutom]

Brian, all coaches think what they are doing is right, or they would change what they are doing. That's why when they are talking at press conferences — or to fans like you and sigmanorm — they almost always focus on things the players are not doing right (which is why I used my press conferences examples above).

I wish more than anything that Hewitt could sometimes see what we see as fans, because it does get frustrating when he continues to do the same things over and over again with the belief that they will finally work.

My defense of Hewitt here is not that he isn't stubborn (he is) or even that he's a great coach (he's not). But I do disagree with your claim that he is trying to job the administration, fans and his players by pointing out what the players need to improve upon.

He may very well be in denial about some of the problems with this team, but I assure you it's not some malicious plot to put one over on everybody and save his job. It's ultimately his job to ensure they are playing well, and I'm sure the people determine his fate are well aware of that.

(PS: Thanks for pointing out the double quote. I fixed Bo Ryan's.)

 

[Patriotfan49]

I dont think Brian was intending to imply Hewitt is a con artist and has succsessfully impersonated a coach...(though the arguement could be made lol) to all those involved. I think he was just more hitting on the fact when push comes to shove, the accountability more often then not is put on the players by Hewitt. While that is all and good, and some times true.....for him to never really own upto his own shortcomings is weak.

We are all stubborn...but as a coach its a kiss of death. Hewitt has proven time and time again he is what he is, and no matter what he wont drastically change things in order to accomplish more wins. He would rather harp on the players, and revert to his "tried and true" system because it "works" on paper or his mind. Thats an awful midnset to have as a coach, and usually is one that caps your career as the head man.

Sometimes watching Mason I swear Im watching a Mike Singletary and Jimmy Raye coached team. Run, Run, Run, Punt....repeat. Were a "power running teams" so dammit we will run the ball 3 times then punt. The press, his switch defense, the ineffective offense.....he will ride those things to his grave no matter how bad they actually work. Granted that is his coaching basis.....but no wonder his results are what they are. Unless you have something like Shaka's press that has proven it works.....you have to adapt and adjust or you fall behind very fast.