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On Saturday, I had the opportunity to see UNC-W versus Elon in person. For those that have never been to Elon’s Alumni Gym, it’s, shall we say, cozy. You get a lot of opportunity to see things up close. Actually, it’s a pretty fun place to watch a game, despite the fact that they are a bunch of Duke wannabees.
Having seen UNC-W lose to William and Mary earlier this season on TV, and having some questions about their style, I tried to use this opportunity to assess their team and their coach, Kevin Keatts, who no doubt has been successful in his tenure in Wilmington and by all accounts is an honorable man who runs a great program.
I came away, by and large, unimpressed.
Keatts has put together an outstanding roster of athletic basketball talent. It quickly became apparent during the course of the game that this talent is carrying the team. They have guys that can shoot 3’s and do it very well. It was actually refreshing to see some 3’s raining down with regularity. But, to be honest, the 3’s were being jacked up quickly without much thought of running an offense. I felt they were too quick to try to get a score and neglected working the ball.
Having said that, the defense was a major concern. Consistently, UNC-W guys were getting beat off the dribble by–well, Elon guys that shouldn’t be beating them off the dribble. Way too many layups. Help defense was bad.
This game was on TV and I’m sure some posters here saw it. I am interested to hear their thoughts.
Elon is right around .500 in record and, going into today, UNC-W had lost 4 games all year (now 5). Between this and the William and Mary game, I’m not sure Keatts is the coach for us.
He is not the coach for us.
I agree to an extent.
I know some posters have said this but its true. If we make a change (still not convinced Deb has the balls) and we cannot hire Archie Miller who is an alum, with his wife who is an alum, whose parents live a couple of hours from Raleigh and we basically would double his salary then we need to purge the entire athletic dept. If it has gotten so bad perception wise, operationally, or whatever then we need, no have to make massive changes. In no bizarro world should we not be able to hire Archie Miller.
Give him a 7-10 year deal, give him input on the next AD and load it with incentives.
This ought to be good for some serious venting and flaming…..but consider this…
We “HAD” Shaka Smart. Shaka was considered as THE prize catch from the Atlantic 10….much as Archie has taken over THAT role now. VCU is 3 time larger than Dayton….
Remember, we HAD Shaka…It was his hormone charged PG wife that killed the deal. No SPECULATION. Pure facts. His agent/attorneys and our ours spent all night in Richmond hammering out his “LOI”. Then around noon, his wife said..”I ain’t going”. Shaka languished around Richmond for a few years….
AT UT, his first year 20 – 13 or .606 and 11 – 7 in conference. Gott’s first year 25 – 13 or 0.658 and 9 & 7 in Conference
Shaka, this year, his second, is 10 – 15 or .400 and 4 – 8 in conference.
Gott’s second year was 23 – 12 or .658 and 11 – 7 in conference.YES, after the second year….it has been a a death spiral. BUT, my point….Shaka was considered to be THE NEW and UPCOMING COY. He was pursued each year and each year VCU called on more of the alumni to prostitute their wives and daughters to pay his NEXT Salary increase….which is what has happened at Dayton.
Don’t know if Shaka will recover nor do I know what his talent pool was compared to ours. BUT, the results are NOT what we would have wanted….and we would be griping MORE and MORE.
This is NO, ABSOLUTELY NO defense of where we are now…nor might it be an “indicator” of what Archie would do.
All it is a historical review of WHAT HAPPENED….and a comment that we need to do a THOROUGH evaluation of WHOM we hire. Shaka SURE LOOKED GOOD and he had all the moves and personality. The EYES of Texas are upon him now and it ain’t, at least this year, a pretty sight….
It PROBABLY will take a $3 Million Buyout for Archie to get out of his contract….based on the typical ratio of Guaranteed to Total pay. YES, we can probably double his Salary…. YES, it will cost us an additional $2.5 Million to get rid of Gottfried. We also need to kick in another Million PER YEAR to upgrade the Assistants salaries.
Changing coaches, which I am TOTALLY IN FAVOR OF, will NOT be a petty cash deal. We need to make sure that we have the BEST qualified candidate(s) NOT the sentimental favorites…
^ I see your point I really do, but I think at this juncture of our program I would say for the bulk of us its “MILLER OR BUST”.
If we hire someone in the same mold as gott and then arch goes to say OSU and does awesome things we would never recover from that. Never.
I say to Deb or whoever is making the call get Arch is what most certainly we want. If he fails he fails but at least we gave him a try,
Personally I think he is a slam dunk. His teams play crazy tight defense and that is a hallmark staple of any good/great program. Shaka to your point is/was a more run and shoot fast based style. My feeble basketball brain tells me you can run down and tire out your VCU rivals but in a p5 conference the athletes are too good for that.
I am bumping this, not in the interest of self-promotion, but to make one thing clear:
I really, really hope that I was completely off-base and completely wrong in my assessment that was the genesis of this thread.
His teams play crazy tight defense and that is a hallmark staple of any good/great program.
Well.. this is demonstrably false.
As was stated unequivocally in February, he is not the coach for us. Buckle in for a few crap years, fellers.
I think I may have mentioned this at some point, maybe not.
But, I have no shame in admitting I may have, and most probably have, egg on my face. And, possibly, it’s time to eat crow.
I started this thread in all sincerity. I didn’t like what I saw from UNCW at Elon. But, I’m not an expert.
Nor should I ever claim to be.
I am firmly on the Kevin Keatts train and hope we will stick with this guy. He does look like a winner.
Crow is actually pretty good when gutted and defeathered properly and baked in butter.
Lot of crow to go around. I’m still glad that:
– Gott is gone
– We didn’t hire Will Wade. He had “Yow hire” written all over him.
– We ended up with Keatts. I will fully admit I thought Archie was our best bet but it was clear that wasn’t happening. When it wasn’t though, Keatts was by far the best fit.“Ending up” with Keatts is actually the signature achievement of AD Yow. If you think Keatts is actually good now…. wait. He will go further this year than you think. I don’t want to get ahead and talk about the future.
What a difference a year makes. Maybe we don’t make the dance this year, maybe we do, BUT it’s gonna be fun. The pack will become the team no one wants to play.
Smarter than the average bear
Clearly, he’s showing he is one heck of a coach. To have us in position (or at least) close to a tourney bid at this juncture is evidence of just how good he has been. I’m very pleased with the way this team is playing together on both ends of the floor. Let’s see how he second half of the conference season goes. But his first year is already a resounding success with now four really high quality wins (and more to come).
I thought it was a good hire as well as I’d watched a number of his games at Wilmington and knew of his Hargrave experience. Archie had a great resume, was an alum, and the stars seemed aligned, but Keatts wanted to be here. That worked with me.
This may end up as Yow’s best move as AD at State. If so, I’ll happily give her a mulligan on Gott (as much as I HATED that hire).
Provided we do not stink it up the rest of the year and get to at least 9 wins, we are in the tourney with the 4 top 25 (3 top 10) wins. Keatts comment that team “wasn’t as talented as most Acc teams” may be best motivation out there for these guys. Smart coaching move there.
unx is 16-6 and ranked 10th in nation. 5-4 in the ACC. 0-2 vs. Top ten, 2-3 vs. Top 25.
NCSU is 15-7 and not ranked in nation. 5-4 in he ACC. 3-1 vs. Top ten, 4-2 vs. Top 25.
Rome wasn’t built in a day so don’t go around self fellating until there are a few seasons under the belt.
Also Rome wasn’t wrecked in a day but it’s demise was much quicker than its rise mainly due to unlimited immigration.
And another damn thing, the heals are having to play by regular rules so they main gain the feet of clay most folks must have unless you are State and in that case it would be mud.
When the Geico caveman is one of your best that ain’t saying much.
McCallum
unx is 16-6 and ranked 10th in nation. 5-4 in the ACC. 0-2 vs. Top ten, 2-3 vs. Top 25.
NCSU is 15-7 and not ranked in nation. 5-4 in he ACC. 3-1 vs. Top ten, 4-2 vs. Top 25.
This perfectly highlights why scheduling is so important. Our OOC schedule is killing us in every ranking. We also have two terrible losses vs. UNC-G and Northern Iowa, and, without looking, I assume UNC has no losses close to that.
We can only hope that Keatts felt he needed a weak schedule in his first season given the roster he inherited, but will upgrade it in future seasons. That is one thing Gott was very good at.
Here are a couple of accomplishments I have seen posted elsewhere.
1. Winning at Pitt and at UNC in back to back games is the first time state has won back to back ACC road games since 1987.
2. This season is the third in program history in which we have beaten UNC and Duke when both were ranked in the top 10. The other two times were 1988-89 and 1990-91.
So, not since Coach V had either of these things been accomplished. IMO those facts are impressive and provide reasons to believe that Keatts is the real deal.
We also have two terrible losses vs. UNC-G and Northern Iowa, and, without looking, I assume UNC has no losses close to that.
You’re sort of right, UNCG and Northern Iowa are both rated much higher than Wofford.
Carolina has lost to Wofford and VT.
No idea why you mentioned VT here as if that was a bad loss. That is a quadrant 1 game as of today, at least based on realtimerpi.com. Here are UNC’s losses:
#28 Michigan State at neutral site
#109 Wofford at home
#31 FSU on road
#1 UVA on road
#72 VT on road
#62 NC State at homeHere are State’s losses:
#135 Northern Iowa at neutral site
#13 Tennessee at neutral site
#85 UNC-G at home
#6 Clemson on road
#77 Notre Dame on road
#1 UVA on road
#16 Miami at homeI did not realize UNC-G has such a strong RPI, so that loss isn’t as bad as I thought when I first posted about it. Bottom line, we have one more loss and the worst loss.
And the quality of our quadrant 1 wins is weighed down by all of our quadrant 4 games. Consider:
Quad 1: State 4-4, UNC 4-4
Quad 2: State 0-1, UNC 5-1
Quad 3: State 4-2, UNC 5-1
Quad 4: State 7-0, UNC 2-0It is those quadrant 4 games that are killing us – 7 home games against teams ranked 255+. Meanwhile, UNC only played 2 quadrant 4 games, against #197 WCU at home and #217 Portland at neutral site.
All of my RPIs are from realtimerpi.com.
You’re sort of right, UNCG and Northern Iowa are both rated much higher than Wofford.
What source are you citing? Interesting to see significant differences between it and realtimerpi.com. Regardless, I assume the differences are not particularly significant in the big picture.
UNCG, while a game we should not have lost, is not a resume killer. I specifically didn’t mention them earlier (maybe in another thread) because I think they’ll end up in the NCAA tournament. The N. Iowa one stings though, not so much due to the RPI hit from them, but because they don’t pass the eye test, and it robbed us a chance to play Villanova (which would have helped our SOS even in a loss).
What is hurting us though as we all know is the OOC schedule. We have the top line wins, but didn’t have the base. I am sure if I were Keatts and looking at the Battle for Atlantis (and a real chance of walking out of there 0-3), a BiG game and the ACC, I would have wanted an OOC schedule that would have allowed me to install my system, establish a culture of defending the home court and build some sort of confidence and momentum. I get it, but it may bite us.
Regardless, if we are actually having this discussion at the end of the year, then that is a wonderful problem to have. I thought the high water line for this team was 3 OOC losses, .500 in league play and squarely on the bubble. I thought that because we did have a couple of good pieces (Yurt, Markell) and I had that much faith in the coaching. We may get there, and if so that would be amazing.
One thing our teams have really struggled with in the past is focusing on the task at hand after a big win. We have seen it so many times with HWSNBN, Sid and Gott. We’ll think a huge upset where we played lights out (and Freeman’s 7-7 was exactly that), only to return hard to the norm the very next game. It’s like the guys go back to campus and hear how great they are and let up.
I’m looking for killer instinct this coming Saturday. ND embarrassed us last time. They are reeling. Jump on them early. Lose to ND and we could easily go 0-3 over 8 days and lose much of our momentum. We will learn as much about Keatts from what happens against ND as we hope we learned against UNC.
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