Dave Sez

A new horror flick opening in Raleigh, "Sendek--The Revenge of Herb!"

OBTW--looks like Capel's timing in taking the OU job was off just a bit... But, would he realistically have been in the hunt at State? I hope he does well.

Continuing the irony theme, wouldn't it be ironic if he puts everything together at OU, and is the most successful Dookie player to become a head coach? Yet, he did not apprentice at Coach K's knee. The evil empire crumbles!

Judging by my prodigious output, have you figured it's spring break in Virginia Beach?

Ed-Hoo wrote:

OBTW--looks like Capel's timing in taking the OU job was off just a bit... But, would he realistically have been in the hunt at State? I hope he does well.

I think Oklahoma might be a better fit for him at this point. He's pretty young to have the kind of pressure the State job would put on him. If he were at State and hit a rough patch, I think his Duke heritage (and brother's UNC heritage) would be used against him.

At Oklahoma, as long as football is winning, they really don't care what the basketball team does.

Ed-Hoo wrote:

Continuing the irony theme, wouldn't it be ironic if he puts everything together at OU, and is the most successful Dookie player to become a head coach? Yet, he did not apprentice at Coach K's knee. The evil empire crumbles!

And he (and Collins and Wojo too) was on that awful '95 Duke team as well. I find it odd that that team - Duke's worst in decades would produce so many coaches.

Ed-Hoo wrote:

Judging by my prodigious output, have you figured it's spring break in Virginia Beach?

Are you a teacher?

U. S. History to 1877 for sixth graders... They especially love my lesson on "Geography of the Colonies and the ACC." I use it as a pretext for keeping the tube on in the classroom during tournament Friday...

I've got some interesting kids--a budding second baseman who beat out an eighth grader twice his size; a good sized, athletic attackman (club team--no lacrosse in the public schools); a female surfer, soccer player, and novice lacrosse player; and a hock, spit, ptooey Tech fan who is already a keen analyst and correctly picked Florida from the opening weekend. I usually have to wait a couple of years to watch former students compete in basketball and football--after they put on pounds and inches.

It's an interesting career after 25 years in the Navy.

If THAT isn't bad enough, take a look at what Andy Katz wrote about the whole situation on ESPN...

Man, that's gotta be tough for those NCST fans.

Super Jew wrote:

If THAT isn't bad enough, take a look at what Andy Katz wrote about the whole situation on ESPN... Man, that's gotta be tough for those NCST fans.

Are you talking about his blog entry saying that Fowler can't afford a third miss? If so, I don't think it was that bad. I think Katz is probably right. It hurts to be publicly spurned.

Nice name, by the way. Hope you had a good Passover.

Dave, this blog sucks. Get another hobby.

I'm talking about where Katz learned that Calipari turned down the NCST job because it was competition based. (Link Below)

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=2406574

As a big fan of UNC (and remembering our recent coaching searches), I wish NCST can get the best coach they can get, but I can just see them getting Brady and wishing after a couple of years (and recruiting classes) that they hired Gregg Marshall or Bobby Lutz.

Oh, and I had an amazing Passover, thanks for asking. (I'm towards the end stretch of spending 9 months in Israel, so it is really easy to keep Kosher for Passover)

Hurb Sendek wrote:

Dave, this blog sucks. Get another hobby.

I'm thinking of taking up kickboxing. It's the sport of the future.

Super Jew wrote:

I'm talking about where Katz learned that Calipari turned down the NCST job because it was competition based. (Link Below) http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=2406574 As a big fan of UNC (and remembering our recent coaching searches), I wish NCST can get the best coach they can get, but I can just see them getting Brady and wishing after a couple of years (and recruiting classes) that they hired Gregg Marshall or Bobby Lutz.

I hadn't seen that Katz article. I wish he had expounded on that, because it's quite a claim that Calipari was afraid that he couldn't compete with Duke and UNC. Maybe it is a realistic fear (not many programs can hang with Duke and Carolina), but not one I'd expect to hear from a top-flight coach.

I agree that Brady would be a bad choice. He hasn't proven to me that he can actually coach. Frank Haith would be even worse. He has proven to me that he can't coach. You could make a solid argument that his Miami team this year was more talented than NC State, but yet they missed the tourney. Hopefully Lee Fowler's not that stupid.

The scrutiny level permitted to the general public during the search by an NCAA Division 1 Public University for a basketball coach can give a misleading appearance to the public that simple inquiries to another coach at a similar institution is an outright rejection. In private business we would never know who was being contacted. State is offering a job that the majority of hungry future champion coaches would jump at if offered. State seems like they don't want a coach with any unknown qualities and want one with a proven track record. It's a hot job, alot of pay and perks and alot of loyal fans if you can recruit and win alot of games and go at least .500 with Carolina and Duke and Wake Forest. The Pack needs to focus on 2 or 3 coaches they really want and hire the best PR group to sell the job; this should have been done or set in place in March. Then, you'd have three candidates who wanted the job and who knew State was courting other coaches. By now they'd have their coach and maybe still have Chris Wright. Wright should be a priority for State along with the coach because he'll make most coaches look good for 3-4 years.

HoopRu wrote:

... It's a hot job, alot of pay and perks and alot of loyal fans if you can recruit and win alot of games and go at least .500 with Carolina and Duke and Wake Forest. ...

See, I think that might well be the key reason why it seems to be more difficult than folks expected. While coaches all have a lot of confidence in themselves, the impression out there is that if you don't go .500 against those schools (and nobody does), then the fans will quickly turn on you. That's the perception, accurate or not, of why Sendek was pushed out (even though he wasn't really pushed out).

UConn is probably the only program in the country that can boast a near .500 record against those teams in recent years.

It seemed as if the Pack had been competitive against the other former "Big Four" schools in recent years. Using the winning percentage ".500" was meant to convey the desire of most university sports fans and athletic (program) supporters that the basketball program compete and have a chance to win against even the strongest teams in the league. I confess I am a Wake Fan, bred on humility; and long ago learned to savor rare victories over "Carolina," and the other "Big Four" schools. I don't hold Coach Prosser to a .500 rule (as if he should care what I thought) hoping instead that he fields a competitive squad each year, makes good coaching decisions and gets everything out of his players. Coach Sendek's tenure has reminded me a bit of Coach Odom's decade at Wake: solid, but seldom hitting the high notes, with an occasional bitter aftertaste. Unfortunately, Coach Sendek's base was (and is) swollen with boomers who are old enough to have witnessed lightning strike twice in 1974 and most improbably in 1983, and who want that bottle opened again. (I hope for both he and his family that his departure will be very fortunate.) He didn't have to win a championship to win most fans' support, but he did have to strongly suggest with post-season showings that State could have won it all every few years. It appears sometimes that the post-season and the recruiting wars are what many fans talk about the most and not which team won what game during the regular season. I thought Coach Sendek was a pretty fair recruiter and both he and his program would have appealed to me as a parent of a recruit. But his teams seldom hit the high notes in post-season play. The new State coach will have to work with the same base of fans, who will remember the coach each year by how far the team went in post-season play and how competitive the team was during the year. These same fans will expect the team to show up in the national polls and have a reasonable chance to win the NCAA Tournament every few years by winning a few games in the Tournament.

That's a very solid analysis of the situation. I agree and I think comparisons to Dave Odom are fair, although I think Odom had a bit more success.

I apologize for dragging this out, but I wholeheartedly agree with your comment about Coach Odom whom I think is a very good coach. Odom was a step up for Wake, just as Sendek was for State. Odom was more seasoned and more verbal than Sendek (while at Wake.) Sendek is in my opinion a very good teacher as is Odom, but over the years Odom appeared to excel in creativity with his players. I have seen very few coaches turn a team around like Odom did plugging unknown Ervin Murray in at point guard and switching Robert O'Kelly to off guard in 1999 and 2000 in the wake of Duncan's massive departure. Wake never did have a season as bad as the Doherty implosion in 2001-2002, and Sendek never had a season that I would call a disaster. Odom and his career at Wake definitely strolled in the limelight, albeit briefly, with Tim Duncan, Randolph Childress and Rodney Rogers. But the Deacs never could load enough talent on the same team to beat the rest of the country. The limelight never shone on the Wolfpack which was bereft of starpower both in the team and in the coach (during the Sendek era.) How many State players are in the NBA versus Wake Forest? (rhetorical) I think that is the difference between Sendek's State teams and his ACC rivals. And why he could never win the hearts of so many alumni.

Another good post. It's interesting to think of State's position right now being similar to where Wake was when Odom left (like Sendek, left mostly of his own accord). A program on the rise, after a long period of mediocrity, but having plateaued. Can State find their Prosser, who can take them that next step?

Of course, Prosser hasn't proven that he can take that step forward and then stay there. Right now, it's looking like the answer is no.