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I’ll tell you what, if I ever get my butt in some serious deep water – I want UNC’s lawyer.
This has got to be one of the most incredible infractions in the history of college athletics, and it sure feels like they are going to get off totally unscathed.
The Louisville guys have got to be kicking themselves for admitting anything and self imposing the one year post season ban. Now the NCAA is after them again saying, “Hey, you admitted guilt (saving us a ton of work btw), now we get to decide on the penalty.”
I have to believe that case studies will be written for law schools about how this lawyer (or probably team of lawyers) pulled off this magic trick.
Unbelievable.Its good that there is a lot of excitement for the Keatts hire. Some are a little overboard I think, but that may reflect equal parts relief that we did it so much cleaner than the previous two, and excitement over Keatts’ potential.
Definitely a better HC record than Les Robinson. Les had more experience, but not nearly as much success.
As I pointed out earlier, he has a resume similar to Sendek’s. (Pitino protege, 3 years HC experience) But better.
But thank heavens he has college HC experience, unlike Sid.
And he got his degree six years before taking our job, much better than the six weeks (ish) with Sid.
He’s an offense first coach, similar to Gott. (and that served us well for 4 years)
And he’s not coming from the broadcast booth after a very sketchy exit from Alabama like Gott.So, based on that admittedly simplistic analysis, on paper the best Wolfpack coaching hire since Valvano. Reason for optimism.
In my opinion, he’s said all the right stuff so far. Now we wait and see if he can deliver on the court. We’ll get some early indicators next year, but really won’t be able to make a final judgement on what we have for a few years.
GO PACK
Funny that no one has mentioned the similarity between Keatts resume and Sendek’s.
Both highly thought of Patino assistants, both successful 3 year HC at one mid level school. Keatts fared a little better in his league, Herb finished 3rd, 2nd, and first his three years. However his one trip to the NCAAT he beat AZ, and took UVA to OT, before losing.
The only real difference is Herb did only one year as HS asst coach, Keatts did 10 at the helm of a major HS.
Interesting coincidence.Of all the comments he made, his personal focus on player development was the part that resonated for me. Not entrusting that to the assistant coaches, that’s a really good thing. When you can go into a recruit’s home and look him in the eye and tell him, “I personally will help you get better.” That is powerful.
As much as I hate Roy, that is a trademark of their program. The players get better.
I love to hear comments like, “this is what we do” and “this is who we are.” That’s program building stuff.
I give him an A+ for his first day. But, you’d expect every new coach to win the introductory press conference.
Folks, we’ve truly made a statement with this hire.
I read the resumes of probably 10 (or more) of those we assumed were candidates, Keatts had the weakest resume by far. Not even close. I think he has half the experience of his closest competitor.
I also believe – and this may be relevant – that he was the least expensive of that assumed list of candidates.So, what statement did we make?
1) We are not able to attract talent at the level we thought (hoped?) we could. Either they turned us down, or we didn’t even try.
2) We are cheap. We are not willing to invest the money needed to attract the best.
3) We sure didn’t need to spend $90k on a search firm. We could have walked to Wilmington.And what is the deal with Keatts? It says he played basketball 4 years at D3 Ferrum college – but didn’t get his degree (from Marshall) until he was 39 years old – just before he was hired at Louisville. Sound a little like Sid getting that last second degree before coming back to Raleigh?
Is that why he was a high school coach for 10 years? (even though he was a great one?) No degree?
I, for one, am totally discouraged. I thought this was the chance to elevate the program, not start over with a ‘well, let’s take a shot at another up and comer and hope he doesn’t crash and burn‘ guy.
I think we now know our place in the basketball world.
It’s going to take a while to get over this one.
Pack Pride on Twitter
“NC State has confirmed that Mark Gottfried has been fired as head coach. He will coach the rest of the season.”I’m going, but not sure I’ll make it past half time if it goes as badly south as the one at their place.
There’s no recovering from this death spiral.
1. We aren’t going to beat UNC. (“but we beat Duke”) We happened to catch Duke without their coach, on an off night. They contributed to the loss as much as we contributed to the win.
2. We are 14/12 with five games left. (“so we only have to win two for a winning regular season”) The two we have the remotest shot at winning are on the road – where we don’t win this year. The other three are UNC, UVA, and ND – front page headlines type upsets. It seems we are guaranteed another losing season.
3. So, we have to run the table at the ACCT to make the NCAAT. There are not ANY three, or four, teams in the ACC that you could line up (much less the murderer’s row we are likely to face) that we could beat on consecutive nights. We just aren’t that tough.Mark your calendars, by March 12 it will be over.And we’ll be in coaching search hell.
One of the (several) things our alma mater has always been terrible at is managing the media. Here we go again.
I don’t see how this getting out can be a good thing. Although, if true, I do salute Yow for moving aggressively. We need to do this well, and do it fast. The longer it lingers, the more likely we are to hire another TV guy. (Vitale??? LOL)
I have to believe that Yow is livid over this and scorching the place to figure out who leaked. Unfortunately, considering she has to consult with the guys holding the purse strings, the WPC elite (maybe the same), and probably some in between types – like agents and/or recruiting services – lots of potential candidates to spill the beans.Hoping for an upgrade.
Fascinating topic.
Just think how that would impact the NCAAT if that became a common practice.“Hey, I proved myself during the regular season, not going to risk injury against these better teams playing with higher stakes.”
My guess is, it would influence how NBA folks saw you and might make some teams think you aren’t a team player. And that does matter to some of them.
But on the flip side, if most of the best players did it, then it wouldn’t have any impact at all on the NBA’s perception.
PS – As for David Thompson, I saw him play many nights too. Clearly the best player on the court every night. But, and I think it an important but, the quality of the players now is so much better than 40 years ago that it is really impossible to compare. Would DT of the 70s be a star in 2017, no doubt about it. He had the skills and the athleticism to excel in any era. Would he equal his stats from the 70s, I think that is harder to answer.
Duke, the Cavs and the Heels all went down today.
Let’s get one up guys, we’ll certainly need it later.JasonP – It’s exam week, not as much available practice time as regular weeks. Hope you are right and we deliver a thrashing, but if not, that will be the excuse.
This is the most interesting thing I have read on any Wolfpack blog in a long time. Great job. And thanks for the time you put into it.
I can only conclude that at the end of the day, as the captain of the ship, Gott must not be putting in the practice time on defense. We just added another couple of coaches who have been around, with Early, Lutz, and Shroyer we have former head coaches. These guys HAVE TO KNOW THIS STUFF. This isn’t top secret stuff that only a few coaches know. They are either not able to teach it to the players, or aren’t putting enough time into it. And not only that, Yow is a basketball coach and she knows what good defense is as well.
I like Gott, and appreciate the fact that the program is in better shape than in a long while, but PLAY SOME FREAKING DEFENSE!!What about a ‘3 strikes you’re out’ policy. Miss three in a row, can’t renew in that section next season. Next man up. (debate the exact number (3,4,5…) amongst yourselves)
Slowly but surely, the bowl gets filled with people that will show up most nights. Volume / crowd intensity increases, regain or improve the home court advantage.Primewolf – I’m hearing there are still season tix available.
Ironic thing about our “basketball school.” We’re selling all the football season tickets and packing C-F for a 6-7 win team – certainly no one is expecting a league or national championship football team.
But the basketball team, with two possible NBA lottery picks, with a good chance at a post season appearance, and at least a lot better chance to win every night than last year’s team – can’t sell all the season tickets – and always has an embarrassing number of empty seats no matter who we play.Hearing rumors that Kapita is not going to be cleared to play at all this season. But still just rumors on both international guys.
Reading all the ACC Media basketball press, beginning to sound a little like football. We’ll be a lot better, but may not make the huge leap we hope for. The ACC is going to be so strong this year, it’s going to be rough to get the quality wins we need for high ranking. Especially since the OOC schedule is light. Still seeing this as a NCAAT team, but every game’s going to be brutal after the beginning of the year.
Unbelievable turnaround.
From ‘is this the beginning of the end’ of the Gottfried reign, to considering the possibility of being a team ranked in the preseason in the course of a few weeks is more than even the most optimistic could have imagined.
Again, Gottfried seems to be working an angle that I hadn’t thought about. Getting players to re-classify. He did it last year with Mav, and looks to be trying this year as well. To recruit against the blues, that’s what he has to do. It’s going to take creativity until we establish a pattern of success that we can sell incoming recruits.Good stuff guys.
At the caravan last night, Gott said this class isn’t finished. So maybe we’ll pick up a player or two that will stick around a while.
The dream would be a solid backups / players to develop at PG and a big.Great for the guys, very happy for the team.
I wonder if players today get jazzed about this sort of thing?
I loved that basketball game!! That was a terrific, well played game by two really good teams. Exactly what you’d hope the championship game would be.
And the ending could not have been any better.
It seems to me this is the worst abuse in history, just because it went on so long and affected so many players. So, from that perspective, it’s hard to imagine the NCAA being able to get away with a minor punishment.
But there is no doubt that UNC is one of the premier programs in college bball, they are rich, and are throwing everything they have at surviving this – I keep thinking about a murder trial in which we all felt pretty confident he did it, but “the glove didn’t fit.” I’m worried they will buy their way out of appropriate punishment.Would love to be proven wrong.
