Your “Carolina Sucks” Game Thread.

[BassPacker]

There’s a few things that “most” seem to agree with here about our basketball program…

(1) Gott is a good recruiter but not so much a good in game coach. He has elevated the program but has perhaps reached a ceiling.
(2) The talent level on this years team is one of the best overall in years. Without mass exodus, which history shows there will be some transfers and this season, one and done, the program could be in the best shape overall in years.
(3) Yow has not made some good moves, hires and extensions regarding the basketball program. Perhaps in general for all top tier sports. Yow and Gott has too much of a personal relationship that possibly influences change. Time for her to retire.
(4) Our facilities and resources are as good, maybe better, than most P5 programs.
(5) A new coach, fill in the blank here, seems to be the solution, barring any miracle play and upward direction this team suddenly goes, is wanted…..needed…..required.
(6) A new AD will happen, time table dependent on results, administration, retirement. A new AD should make any new hires, specially for basketball.
(7) Archie Miller would be a good candidate as new coach. He is a former player with head coaching experience and a proven record.

Most arm chair coaches and/or long time donors here are in agreement Miller could be a good hire, right? Would most be in agreement to allow Yow to hire the next coach if Miller was the choice? Say a closed door agreement was done? I understand that’s easier said than done, specially with her ties to Gott and retirement coming.
But if the choice was obvious, no search process needed, the candidate available, is there any reason our current AD should not be allowed not make it happen? I can see a coach like Miller perhaps not being as eager to come not knowing who his boss will be, but if Yow could do it with a smooth transition, should “other” variables be overlooked?

[wolfpack92owen]

ryebread wrote:

BjD: Amen brother. One has to also question why she was allowed to sign a coach with certain red flags to the type of contract that she did. Seriously, who is going to buy out Gott?

I asked this in 2015 when he got that raise and ext. With the friendship and agents intertwined on the surface it looks shady as hell. I dont get the need to lock him and reward him after a sweet 16 especially after underachieving during the season. Doesnt he get bonuses built into his contract that serve as “rewards”?

Just doesnt make sense as nobody was plucking gott from us

[wolfpack92owen]

Tau837 wrote:

ryebread wrote:

You seem to take issue with my posts, so what’s your opinion?

I don’t take issue with them. I enjoy them because they are generally articulate and informed, and you provide a lot of substance for discussion. Not the case with everyone who posts here (perhaps including myself).

2. Looking back over his tenure, IMO it is clear that Gott is better than all of our coaches since V, although that is a low bar. It is equally clear he isn’t as good as V, Sloan, et al. I think he has raised the standing of the program, which could potentially bear on my last point below.

Personally I think Herb was better here than gott. The last five years anyway

[VaWolf82]

wolfpack92owen wrote:

Personally I think Herb was better here than gott. The last five years anyway

Let’s just call them “roughly equivalent” and not debate this point.

[wolfpack92owen]

VaWolf82 wrote:

wolfpack92owen wrote:

Personally I think Herb was better here than gott. The last five years anyway

Let’s just call them “roughly equivalent” and not debate this point.

Fair enough, its a stupid argument anyway.

[Tau837]

VaWolf82 wrote:

wolfpack92owen wrote:

Personally I think Herb was better here than gott. The last five years anyway

Let’s just call them “roughly equivalent” and not debate this point.

Agreed, because there is no debate. LMAO.

[bill.onthebeach]

Let it out fellas… Let it all out!!!

Cleansing the souls of many….

#NCSU-North Carolina's #1 FOOTBALL school!

[ryebread]

Bass: You nailed it with points 1-7. I absolutely agree with all of those.

To answer your question, I’d be tickled to death if Yow could make an Arch move happen. I don’t have faith that she’d fire Gott or be able to manage that transition, but if she can, then fantastic. Frankly that’d be the best possible outcome as it would avoid an ugly divorce with Yow — who has done a lot of good things.

Tau: I agree with you entirely on points 1-4. It seems like we’re more similar in thinking than different.

Where we seemingly don’t agree is on item #5. I tend to think that NC State fans have “battered spouse syndrome” when it comes to our men’s basketball program. We are so focused on UNC and Duke (part of the very few Elites) and the delta, that we fail to recognize how good our job actually is. We tend to undersell it, and then accept lesser results.

I really would invite you to take the Pepsi challenge. Go and find 25 men’s college basketball jobs that:
– Pay their head coach more
– Pay their assistants what we pay
– Have higher average attendance
– Have newer/nicer arena
– Have an on campus practice facility
– Have Nike or Adidas clearly pushing kids their way (check our correlation of elite signings with Adidas kids)
– Have S&C facilities and budget as good as we do, and have basketball as their primary S&C focus
– Have a brand value higher
Now find 25 jobs that have all of those things together. Those are the jobs that are better than NC State, with respect to the “inputs.” I think you will find very few.

A great example right down the road of a program that doesn’t have those things, but that is out performing us is UVA. Another would be Miami. Another would be FSU. Common denominator there? Better coaches.

As to why we’ve hired poorly, I think you can look no further than the AD. I suspect we’ve all had job offers where the job looks great, pays well/more, is interesting and has what we want but we don’t trust or have a good feeling about the hiring manager. We end up not taking that job. I recently turned one of those down and it was due to the hiring manager. The hiring manager may not be the most important aspect of a job, but it is the one thing that can clearly cause people to turn a job down.

Now look at our hiring managers. Fowler’s buffoonery was well documented. Cal recently said as much in a radio piece.

Yow came out with big talk and later decided that GW had sabotaged her. She clearly mis-managed the end game because she though she had Shaka Smart inked, signaled too early to the other candidates so they all publicly backed out within 24 hours. Then when Smart didn’t come in, she was in big trouble, thus “the email” came out. Those other candidates that backed out (e.g. Cronin) would have all been good hires and better than Gott. Good people were clearly interested, but she botched it. Again, it’s back to that hiring manager.

[Whiteshoes67]

Have to agree with ryebread on this one, Tau. As much as I respect VaWolf’s opinions, #5 about the perception of our program and its resources, and the impact on coaching searches, is just bologna.

I’ve said it multiple times on here, and I know it from personal sources, closely tied to Greg Marshall. He wanted this job at least twice, maybe 3 times. I’ll repeat it. HE WANTED THIS JOB. First time, he wasn’t offered. Second time, he was offered, and was close to taking it. He’s said as much in public. The reason he didn’t take it are more complicated, but one factor in that, undoubtedly was Yow’s handling of it. Smart was offered first, not Marshall. Marshall knew this. He ain’t nobody’s second choice. Nobody. He was also offered after losing to Smart in very poorly seeded first round 5/12 matchup, or 3/14 matchup, in which case both teams were underseeded and should’ve never played in a first round game. Yow went after the hot name based on tournament results, and ignored a longer track record of success. I’m never a fan of this hiring method…the hot newcomer. Give me tried and true.

[Whiteshoes67]

I’d also add that when Gottfried was hired, it was also widely known that his teams often played inconsistently, were bad on defense, had spurts typically in every game where focus was missing, and would lay plenty of eggs. There were plenty of pieces written in the national media and plenty of discussion on the boards.

What he said upon his hiring was that he learned in his time away from the game, and some of us hoped that with our resources and tradition, and his time off, he might be able to put it together. But when pushed on that question, he never really said what he learned. He quipped something along the lines of, “The teams with the most talent win.” That’s his motto. It isn’t preparation, hardwork, committment to detail or defense. It’s outscore your opponent, hope you shoot it 50% or better, and out-talent them.

I was impressed with the second half of the conference season during Year 1, and the tournament results, and for that reason excited about the future, with a highly touted recruiting class coming in Year 2, and the nucleus of the previous season’s class returning. But early in Year 2, I knew he hadn’t really grown as a coach in his time away from the game. It was clear. Most folks attributed it to the knuckleheads on the roster, the transfer of Deshawn Painter, graduation of C. J. Williams and Alex Johnson, but I never bought it.

He can win any night but a consistent program builder, a guy who’s going to position you well, he isn’t. His teams will generally improve, and most here seem to cite that as a reason for optimism. Why? Barring lack of injuries, etc..don’t most teams improve? Of course they do. That’s no reason for celebration. His problem is that his teams aren’t fundamentally sound in numerous areas, seem underprepared, and are never ready to play early in the year. That’s not how you position yourselves consistently for late season success.

[13OT]

Yow isn’t going to do ANYTHING but hang around long enough to pad her retirement. She’s making way too much money to quit now. Why should she? We haven’t even reached the point yet of either Doeren or Gott having to have a confidence statement from the AD, not that I’m aware of, so they aren’t likely leaving anytime soon. So the real question as to when things will EVER get better here is when will Yow leave?

Apparently when she gets ready to go, and I see no signs whatsoever that she’s any closer to being ready than Wolfpack football and basketball are any closer to marked improvement.

[Tau837]

ryebread wrote:

Tau: I agree with you entirely on points 1-4. It seems like we’re more similar in thinking than different.

Perhaps the primary difference on the points other than #5 is that you seem to have your mind made up that Gott should be fired at the end of the season barring an unexpected level of success this season, which you defined as elite 8 run, ACC championship, and/or top 4 finish in ACC regular season. I am not so decided and think we should just let the season play out and then make a decision. Maybe we’ll arrive at the same conclusion, but that is not a given.

ryebread wrote:

I really would invite you to take the Pepsi challenge. Go and find 25 men’s college basketball jobs that…

I would be very interested in being able to assemble all of that data for all P5 and Big East programs to see where State slots in, but I don’t know where to find all such data, and I’m not sure it is publicly available.

I do know that the 2014-15 athletic expenditures for State ranked #45 among all division I programs. That info is located at USA Today, but there is no detailed breakdown, so it is impossible to subrank the basketball expenditures, and I assume some of the schools ranked higher spent more on football, meaning State’s basketball expenditures should be higher.

This is also further complicated in that those expenditures may or may not account for related booster club expenditures or third party expenditures (e.g., compensation to coaches from apparel deals, media deals, etc.).

I also don’t believe all criteria are equal in your list, with some dwarfing others. And there are likely criteria missing that would matter to prospective candidates. For example, place to live/cost of living/weather, caliber of conference/competition, recruiting base/competition, status of roster and incoming recruits, etc. Many of these would be favorable for State but also favorable for other jobs. One person may love Raleigh, another may prefer other settings. Etc.

The AD, athletic department structure, quality and involvement of the booster club, the chancellor, and whoever else the MBB head coach has to deal with also all matter a lot. By your own admission, adding some of all of that into your criteria list seems to have been the biggest factor that has resulted in two disappointing searches. As of today, how much has that stuff changed? When will it change to be more of a positive?

Taking it all together, if Yow remains at the end of the season, why would we expect significantly different results if we have another coaching search then?

[McCallum]

Stop going, stop caring, stop giving.

Until people simply walk away nothing will ever change in Raleigh.

It must be destroyed first then built*.

McCallum

*I’m not sure much was there to begin with thus the term built.

[Author]

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