The Official Fire Dave Paulsen Thread
- Thread starter Leesburg Chankenstank III
- Start date
P
PoorManProfit
Spectator
Agreed. The coach isn't going anywhere and fast except world record status on quantity of Diet Mountain Dews guzzled.
No particular point to my post, and analysis is surface level at best, but, the name Ben Howland popped into my head recently. At one point, it was rumored that he had been considering the Mason job before the Mississippi State job opened up. I don't know if we were ever really in the running, but I took a quick look at their situation wondering what a comparison looks like.
Mississippi State hasn't been to the tournament since 2009. Mason went as recently as 2011. I don't know that they were as big of a dumpster fire as we were, but they hired Rick Ray a year after we hired the Virus and he proceeded to take them to the bottom of the SEC.
They seem to have been on a similar trajectory as ours with their rebuild until this year went awry for us. Like us, they returned most of last year's team which performed pretty well (ours exceeded expectations they made a deep run in the NIT). This year, they are 7-1, 5-0 at home, currently 6th in the AP poll and, obviously, expected to make the tournament, if not higher achievements.
Howland, arguably, one of the best coaches ever in college basketball based on his accomplishments, has struggled his first couple years in the rebuild at Mississippi state so his success has not been instantaneous. Now, given our unexpected start to the season, our paths have diverged a little bit, but I don't think all hope is lost with Paulsen.
Mississippi State hasn't been to the tournament since 2009. Mason went as recently as 2011. I don't know that they were as big of a dumpster fire as we were, but they hired Rick Ray a year after we hired the Virus and he proceeded to take them to the bottom of the SEC.
They seem to have been on a similar trajectory as ours with their rebuild until this year went awry for us. Like us, they returned most of last year's team which performed pretty well (ours exceeded expectations they made a deep run in the NIT). This year, they are 7-1, 5-0 at home, currently 6th in the AP poll and, obviously, expected to make the tournament, if not higher achievements.
Howland, arguably, one of the best coaches ever in college basketball based on his accomplishments, has struggled his first couple years in the rebuild at Mississippi state so his success has not been instantaneous. Now, given our unexpected start to the season, our paths have diverged a little bit, but I don't think all hope is lost with Paulsen.
Brian,
Thats a good comparison. But I would look deeper and compare recruiting. Did Howland recruit guys that belonged in D2 when he first got there? Or more accurate, did he recruit guys that didn't belong at that level conference wise. The bottom line here is Paulsen can't recruit and is also showing signs he can't manage the roster when he actually has depth. Curious to know how Howland grew his team.
Thats a good comparison. But I would look deeper and compare recruiting. Did Howland recruit guys that belonged in D2 when he first got there? Or more accurate, did he recruit guys that didn't belong at that level conference wise. The bottom line here is Paulsen can't recruit and is also showing signs he can't manage the roster when he actually has depth. Curious to know how Howland grew his team.
GS,
Those are probably my two biggest concerns with Paulsen as well, but I don't know, yet, if they are legitimate. I will say that I don't consider roster management (who is on the roster) the concern, but maybe managing rotations which I think is what you were referring to. Both are only only recent concerns, and, if I am honest with myself, only because of the apparent meltdown (relative to elevated expectations) to start this season. At the end of last season they were not big concerns at all. I can cut him some slack that he was planning this season around Reuter and that hasn't even come close to panning out. I can understand a little, also, a hesitancy on DP's part to abandon the Reuter as the anchor as quickly as others might have suggested. Add the Grayer, Oits and Marr situations (which DP may have some levels of responsibility for), and maybe our rotations are not really the concern.
On recruiting, I don't know how closely we can compare Mason/Paulsen with Mississippi State/Howland. First, I don't think they were as big a dumpster fire as we were. Second, Howland's name recognition and the fact that he was coming from a bigger program probably help him to land higher level recruits, on a relative basis, than DP. We seemed to be having discipline problems and rumored academic problems at the end of the Virus era, whereas Mississippi State did not seem to have the same concerns on top of being just plain awful. So, I can excuse the lack of keeping holdovers and the first several years of recruiting needing to start small and grow. So how do our latest recruiting classes look? I use my measure what were the competing offers (are the schools in conference above, equivalent or below the A10) and not how they are presently performing as that would be cheating for this analysis:
Current sophmore class:
Gonar Marr-Nebraska, Iowa State, UNI and others-Above average
Javon Green-Chattanooga, Coastal Carolina, Denver and others-Slightly below average
Greg Calixte-St Bonaventure, UAB, Toledo, UNCW,DePaul-Above average
Overal: Above average
Current freshman class:
Jordan Miller-Can't find other offers. Significantly below average
Jamal Hartwell-Hostra. Below average
JDS-Iona, Old Dominion, Quinnipiac, UT-Rio Grande, and Drexel. Slightly below average
Overall: Below average
Next year's recruiting class:
Oduro-competing-UMass and PSU. Above average.
Xavier Johnson-Columbia. Below average
Overall: A little above average
Not scientific, and also no obvious trend, but not as bad as I thought it might be when I started. I don't know if there is too much to be concerned about on the recruiting front yet. I leave the possibility open that he finds the occasional diamond in the rough that others have missed.
I also leave open the possibility that I may be rationalizing away some red flags...
Winning the recruiting battle in conference does not equal above average recruiting.
Not impressed with beating Penn State in the recruiting battle either. The last time they went to the real tourney was 2011. NIT championships are lame.
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By George.
Starter
What from this season would suggest that we are detail oriented? The unforced turnovers, getting beat on the glass and missing defensive assignments would prove the opposite. Is this another mischaracterization of DP like when people claimed he was solely a pack line defensive guy or that he was a small ball coach? (now runs full court D and recruited Reuter) I’m sure the coaches at NC St, Nevada and Providence don’t enforce the details of the game like DP.....smh
You undersold some talent that left us. Maybe you don’t care about them, which is fine, but some of us do. DPs most talented player continues to be Marquis...another Hewitt guy.
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Cooley at Providence is 10x the recruiter, motivator and coach than DP.. Musselman is too at Nevada
Quentin Daniels
Hall of Famer
Please enjoy this dramatic reenactment of DJ3 and PMP repeatedly liking each others posts.
I consider more than just one season, which can be an outlier in either positive or negative ways. Duh.
Shit, those guys were available and Edwards didn’t hire one of them? What a bozo. He should be fired immediately.
None of the candidates we were seriously considering have set the basketball world on fire. Moton has done nothing. Mrs Turner has done okay. Young Cuban Man is still an assistant.Shit, those guys were available and Edwards didn’t hire one of them? What a bozo. He should be fired immediately.
Maybe Shaka will soon be available.
I'll admit it - that is a wildly exciting idea, but preferably happens after consecutive NCAA appearances and Paulsen is poached to replace Shaka at Texas.
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The mistake was not hiring Lonergan and hiring the Virus. That's the one that set this whole thing in motion. Would have turned out better for all parties.
By George.
Starter
We also are giving him a pass on his first season right? Can we judge him on last season which was riddled with bad losses and buzzer beater wins..? I’m sorry, is the outlier his 1 winning season?
Just curious, where do you get your info on DP? Do you chat with him? Have an inside source? Do you base your conclusions on the eye test?
People throw out DP coaching traits constantly and are often wrong, starting to wonder where this info comes from.. What screams attention to detail about his tenure here? Not even claiming you’re wrong just not sure how it’s different than any other coach. You’d assume a guy who fine combs through everything would have known from watching Jarred for a year, that he was not a top 5 player in the A10....not currently even remotely close. I feel like because DP demanded his players ran to him at his first ever open scrimmage here, we all bought into his style.
Most college coaches are detail oriented, that’s how they got the job. That’s usually the separator. What a miserable excuse for why DP couldn’t contain talented players. Yes, player turnover is common with new coaches but ya hope he can keep at least 1 promising young guy. How does everyone form their opinions of DP? It’s tough because he continues to prove us all wrong. I’d say, I know him pretty well and I’m still searching to find his identity.
- Bryan
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I don’t know DP personally but do communicate occasionally with people who could be classified as insiders.
I talk far more often to people I’ve gotten to know in basketball circles — if you are a halfway decent reporter, you build up a lot of contacts over 20 years — and I have never heard from anyone who thinks DP is anything but an excellent teacher of the game who demands excellence from his players on the court, in the classroom and in the community.
I know this will make me sound like a douche, and I don’t mean to, but the fact that you think “most” coaches are detail-oriented made me chuckle when I read it.
Based on long experience dealing with a variety of coaches, I’d say the vast majority of college and pro coaches are control freaks. There’s a subtle, yet significant difference between that and being the type of coach who cares deeply about his players practicing, playing, studying and generally living their lives in a way that will help them become successful adults.
That is what I mean by detail-oriented and believe me when I say “most” coaches aren’t that. Many of them care only about their own success and either climbing to a better job or keeping the one they have — period. They only value their players to the extent that they help toward that objective.
It goes so far beyond helping up a teammate after he takes a charge or sprinting on and off the court. DP emphasized those teaching points early when he was rebuilding a broken program culture that was seriously lacking in accountability.
You think you’ll ever see one of our players sitting on the bench flipping through a cell phone during a game or cutting up during a blowout loss? Those are just two glaring examples. There are a million other less obvious things that go into building a healthy program with young men who are both good players and good people.
I, like many people, am mystified by the undisciplined, uninspired play we have seen from our veteran guys for long stretches of our first 10 games. Mainly because when DP came to Fairfax he was known as a blue-collar coach whose teams played hard and didn’t do stupid stuff to beat themselves.
I was frankly worried in the early going that he was too intense and would wear on guys. Maybe he has and they’ve started tuning him out? Maybe it’s simply that some guys we were counting on are either injured or aren’t performing up to their capabilities. Who the hell knows?
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