Since most SFN readers have a little more experience and ‘gray hair’ than the readers at other blogs, I thought most of you might ‘enjoy’ a quick stroll down memory lane!! I can’t believe that it has been EIGHT years since HWSNBN flew the RBC for other pastures.
In case you missed it, after advancing to his second NCAA Tournament in eight years, Arizona State extended the coaching contract of one Herb Sendek for two more years.
Arizona State has agreed to contract extensions for men’s basketball coach Herb Sendek and women’s coach Charli Turner Thorne, a person familiar with the deals told The Associated Press. The person spoke Monday on condition of anonymity because the deals have not been announced.
Sendek’s extension would run through the 2018-19 season. His current contract goes through 2016, with an annual salary of $1.2 million.
Sendek, 51, led the Sun Devils to a 21-12 record last season and back into the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2009. He is 141-121 in eight seasons and was the Pac-10 coach of the year in 2009-10.
Ah, yes!! “Coach of the Year”…as Lee Fowler would tell you (as he told all of our un-sports-educated big donors back in the day, ‘nobody fires someone who has ever been coach of the year’.
For some scary parallels to poor performance versus peers and also check out this article from today.
Recruiting top talent becomes a chicken and egg phenomenon because to win, a coach needs to recruit, and to recruit, a coach needs to win. It’s also difficult chasing some of these players because the best of the best typically only play one season of college ball before declaring for the NBA draft.
Sendek hasn’t won enough at ASU to land the big players, though getting Howard is a nice start. In the Pac-12, only Oregon State and Utah have fewer NCAA tournament appearances than ASU since Sendek arrived.
Additionally, one of the other concerns about Sendek’s tenure is the transfer epidemic. Just this offseason, ASU players Brandan Kearney (Detroit), Calaen Robinson (Portland State) and Egor Koulechov (Rice) moved on to other schools.
However, reviewing ESPN insider Jeff Goodman’s annual college basketball transfer lists, ASU’s had the second-most players (nine) in the Pac-12 depart for other schools in the last three years.
[snip]
The Phoenix area may never fully embrace Sendek unless he does something big, like make an Elite Eight. It’s a front-runner town with six professional sports teams and a large transplant population base.
To be a consistent winner, which the fans can get behind, he’ll have to recruit better players. But the best players mainly want to attend the best programs. ASU has to hope that last year’s NCAA tournament appearance was enough to change recruits’ perspectives.
So…now that the announcement has been made how do you think the couple of dozen Arizona State basketball fans out there are feeling? Well, tell me if any of any of this sounds familiar? It gives me the shakes it is so friggin eerie. I could grab a hundred quotes from that thread, but I think this one succinctly says it all:
As an Arizona fan, this is great news.
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