sleuth
Freshman Member
Posts: 55
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Post by sleuth on Mar 14, 2014 8:45:27 GMT -6
1. Craig Smith 2. TJ Otselberger 3. Ryan Miller
Each one of these guys would be a great hire. I know nothing about any of these guys other than what I have read on here. I just put them in order of what I feel is the most impressive resume (from what I read on here). No matter what happens it is gonna be an exciting day for coyote athletics. The only thing I fear is that with a big name guy coming in here, we are gonna expect him to turn this team into and instant conference champ. With a new coach it may take a year before we see that kind of success (I hope Im wrong and its sooner).
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Post by Yote 53 on Mar 14, 2014 9:03:11 GMT -6
I think USD fans are experienced enough in dealing with program transitions that the new coach will be given ample time to turn things around.
On that note, I am expecting big things out of the football program this fall. We were close last year. It's now Year 3.
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Post by yoteforever on Mar 14, 2014 9:03:13 GMT -6
Newyote, please understand I'm not arguing with you. You apparently have strong feelings for Coach Miller, and that's great. A lot of people do. My point, which if won't retract, is his history. Maybe there is absolutely nothing in it, and to some degree you might be right that it isn't fair to have him guilty by association, but in the world of athletics, it all has to be considered. You have twice stated he was offered positions by UCLA when Alford went west. If you know this to be fact, I accept your position. However, I will tell you, my connections say he wasn't offered the job out there, and obviously I can't prove that so I would make it a mute point. I personally have had a business dealing with Alford, and he's less than honorable. ( that's a nice way to say he's never going to do business with me again ). Steve Alford has some very questionable practices. You raise Richard Pitino as offering him a job. That may very well be. I have no clue. What I said was he had an association with JohnCalipari, and I think that speaks for itself. Coch Miller very well may be a great guy, and at the end of the day, a great he hire for USD, but there is no question some hard questions that would have to be asked. Regarding Coach Smith, I'm not sure what position to take. It appears that he is once heck of a guy. I have nothing that would alter that. The only thing I would says that he has worked for only one coach, Tim Miles. And they have done a great job wherever they went. Right now, on the national scene, Tim Miles is the flavor of the day. He's the hot coach. Time will tell if he stays the hot coach, but I get just a wee bit nervous on complete newcomers to the scene. Just a wee bit. It looks like potentially a good hire, I can't argue that. Lastly, TJ Otzelberger is a name. He has coached for three coaches. Greg McDermott, whose son will be player of the year at creighton. TJ started at Iowa State with McDermott. Secondly, Fred Hoiberg. Probably enough said there. Was an All-American player at Iowa State in the 90's. Was and Academic All-American at Iowa State, played pro ball, worked in front offices oft he NBA, and has unquestionable charecter. Ranked about 16th this year,a nd had player of the year Melvin Ejim. Melvin was TJ's recruit. This year TJ worked for Coach Romar at Washington. I know little about him except he has the reputation of high charecter. If this indeed is our selection of candidates, and rumor has it it is, I think 2 oft he three stand out, and one of those two stand out a little more than the other. A little. If this is how it played out, it appears we are getting a good coach. Craig's Profile: www.huskers.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=100&ATCLID=205435851He has been a head coach at the NAIA level with Mayville State for several years and was National Coach of the Year. Do you like the success that NDSU has had? Saul Phillips, spent his time under Miles and has very comparable D1 experience to Craig (although I will concede he spent all of his other years with Bo Ryan). Craig is constantly praised by Miles as a vital part of the building success they have had and, just yesterday on Jim Rome, Miles may have had a slip of the tongue and said "he is going to be a great head coach." I understand the fear of a guy that has been with one coach for too long (see: Joey James), but he has been at 3 different schools at 3 different levels. In each place they took a dumpster fire of a program and turned it around into an NCAA Tournament team. I sort of get the comment that Miles is the "hot coach" right now or flavor of the day, but I think that is a little shallow. It isn't like this is his first major success. He turned NDSU into the team that became Summit champs in their first year of eligibility. He took a team of 4 scholarship players at CSU and turned them into back-to-back tournament teams. He is poised to get Nebraska back to the tourney for the first time since 1998 and with a single victory in the tourney would effectively become the most successful coach in Nebraska basketball history. Craig is the right-hand man. He is the organized guy, he is the primary scout and game planner, he is a solid recruiter and he is the "technical" coach of all the assistants. The other guys are there almost exclusively to recruit. Cuz, I'm not trying to be shallow. I gave credit to Coach Miles and his staff. Coach Smith appears to be a heck of a candidate. And truthfully I'm not trying to minimize the success Coach Miles has had this year, and a good deal of it because of Coach Smith I'm positive. I'm just saying if you turn back the calendar one year, would the name Coach Miles be as recognizable? I truthfully hadn't heard of him till he took the Nebraska job 2 years ago. And when you listen to him do interviews he is awesome, CAPITAL A. But my question is is Coach Smith awesome? I get he can coach, scout, and organize. But you even admitted the others did the recruiting. We need an uptick in talent, period. If he can recruit, or hire someone that can, awesome. I can flip it and say TJ is a great recruiter, excellent scouting reports, but can he coach? That's a fair question to ask. Same one I asked of a Smith, just flipped around. My guess is Smith can recruit and TJ can coach. Right now,we need players. Period. Eddie, we are on the same team. We are going to have a great coach one way or another. I think it will come out in the interview process, and that's where my trust of Herbster lies. He's a bb guy. His gut will tell him. great discussions tho.
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Post by Yotes on Mar 14, 2014 9:15:37 GMT -6
Craig Smith does have some head coaching experience, and was national coach of the year at his level, but it was Mayville State. So I don't know how much that is really worth.
I am thinking that Smith or TJ would both be home runs. I'd rather have Smith, as he has worked extensively under a coach that I think will be one of the best for years to come and does have the smidgen of head coaching experience, but TJ is not far behind.
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Post by moneyball on Mar 14, 2014 9:36:47 GMT -6
& Ryan Miller also actually played for Tim Miles when miles was an assistant at NSU...Miles was the one that recruited Miller
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sleuth
Freshman Member
Posts: 55
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Post by sleuth on Mar 14, 2014 10:52:09 GMT -6
I understand that recruiting is a huge deal but besides playing bad on the road, we were really competitive this year. Its not like we were getting blown out by 30 every night? A new coaching philosophy may be the step it takes to get this team over the hump? We were also a really young team. Im not making excuses but this team wasn't a bad one, just needed a little more time and a little more coaching. No one can deny that this years team was MUCH more competitive than any team boots brought through transition. All three of he guys that have been mentioned will have a profound impact on this program one way or another.
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Post by GoYotes on Mar 14, 2014 11:42:20 GMT -6
All 4 have the potential to take the Yotes to a more competitive level. A good way for Ryan Miller to move to the top of the list would be to convince his cousin to join the women's team as she would look much better in red that blue and yellow.
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Post by newyote on Mar 14, 2014 12:04:20 GMT -6
mbd.scout.com/mb.aspx?s=6&f=2775&t=12732423&p=1I did some research and found this. Here is a little more on what auburn fans think of miller. This is a pretty impressive endorsement from fans who were upset with the head coach. Also interesting that Ryan's had such great success recruiting success at auburn even though had major limitations with aau teams since they're under armour. At least we are in a good position to hire a very qualified candidate no matter who we select.
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Post by flashtaco on Mar 14, 2014 13:11:14 GMT -6
MrAugustana - thanks for the info and I appreciate your posting. I like TT and think he is a heck of a coach, recruiter and person. I only ask the following question because USD has had the same asked about our "resurgence" in football prior to the move up to FCS. As an Augustana fan, how much of the uptick in MBB success can be attributed to the fact that NDSU/SDSU/UNC all left the NCC immediately prior to TT's tenure and USD/UND left in 2008? I realize he has had success in the NSIC and such conference is no slouch but haven't the former NCC members of the NCIS (Duluth, MSUM, St.Cloud State and Augustana) pretty much ruled that conference? I believe in football that is the case. Is it the same in MBB? I also don't know how the regional tournaments work anymore but hasn't there been a change in the selection criteria and number of conferences per region and essentially 5-6 teams from the NCIS typically make the NCAA tournament? Please don't take this as a slam against TT as I think he is a good coach and should be in the mix for the head coaching job at USD. I think he would be a solid choice as are the others listed above.
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Post by mraugustana on Mar 14, 2014 14:37:38 GMT -6
MrAugustana - thanks for the info and I appreciate your posting. I like TT and think he is a heck of a coach, recruiter and person. I only ask the following question because USD has had the same asked about our "resurgence" in football prior to the move up to FCS. As an Augustana fan, how much of the uptick in MBB success can be attributed to the fact that NDSU/SDSU/UNC all left the NCC immediately prior to TT's tenure and USD/UND left in 2008? I realize he has had success in the NSIC and such conference is no slouch but haven't the former NCC members of the NCIS (Duluth, MSUM, St.Cloud State and Augustana) pretty much ruled that conference? I believe in football that is the case. Is it the same in MBB? I also don't know how the regional tournaments work anymore but hasn't there been a change in the selection criteria and number of conferences per region and essentially 5-6 teams from the NCIS typically make the NCAA tournament? Please don't take this as a slam against TT as I think he is a good coach and should be in the mix for the head coaching job at USD. I think he would be a solid choice as are the others listed above. That's actually a really good question. Well, actually there are a number of good questions in there, so I'll try to answer them as I'm able. The first thing I'd say is that it's certainly a possibility that part of Augie's resurgence came as a result of those teams leaving, but I think Billeter was showing a substantial amount of progress even before USD/UND left. I don't know who does or doesn't realize it, but Augie was a doormat in the NCC when Billeter arrived. They hadn't had a winning conference record in 17 seasons and hadn't made an NCAA Tournament since 1989. And I can assure you, it was a miserable time to be an Augie fan. He essentially resuscitated and revitalized our corpse of a program and I think the Vikes would have eventually been competitive in the NCC whether or not that first big three (NDSU/SDSU/UNC) had left. Even those last couple of years when USD--a power D2 program by anyone's standards--was still in the NCC, Augie went 3-1 against them, and I believe the Yotes were #1 in the country a few different times during that stretch. I know it's just a few games and it doesn't suddenly make Augie the best team in the world, but it's not like those wins for Augie were unthinkable, once-in-a-lifetime upsets. At that point, the Vikes were consistently competitive against a team that was the #1 D2 team in the country. So to think that they couldn't have been competing against the likes of NDSU/SDSU, etc. during that time if those schools had stayed D2 is a bit of a stretch to me. Another thing I figured I'd look up, based on your question about the competition level in the NSIC, is Billeter's record at NDSU. I'm not particularly familiar with his time there, as I'm not an NDSU fan by any means, but according to the NDSU media guide, Billeter has the highest winning percentage out of any coach in program history since 1922. Granted, Tim Miles was coaching during the D1 transition, which is a challenge, and Saul Phillips is now coaching at the D1 level, which presents different challenges too, but regardless, Billeter was winning at NDSU during what people would arguably consider the height of the NCC's prominence as a D2 conference. Also, according to the media guide, the Bison tied for 1st in the NCC in Billeter's third year and either earned 2nd outright or tied for 2nd in three of his other four seasons, so it's not like it was a fluke season when they did win the conference. He put together some competitive teams back then against pretty stiff competition. I know, I know, it's still just D2 basketball, but hopefully at least some people get the point I'm making in regards to your question about coaching against a higher level of competition. Another thing I'd consider--which we've discussed about a thousand times over on the D2 message board--is that, while the competition level may have changed with USD/SDSU/etc. leaving, it has also presented different challenges, particularly with recruiting. As Nate Wolters said in his huge ESPN article a few years ago, his final choices were down to Augie and SDSU, and he ultimately decided he wanted to play D1. Had those schools still been D2, it seems pretty likely that Nate would've ended up at Augie (I know, coulda, woulda shoulda... I'm just trying to make a point). As everyone knows, a player like that can change a program, but having to deal with the regional programs going D1 makes it a lot tougher to get those could-be-D1 kids to come play at the D2 level. I think that's one of the reasons Billeter has been pushing so hard for Augie to go D1. As he's said in several interviews, Augie would have some really nice D1 advantages in this region (one of the only small, private D1s in the area, good sized city, etc.) and wouldn't be competing for those more talented/athletic kids who simply have their hearts set on playing D1 basketball. Augie still get some of those kids from time to time, like Zach Huisken, who had offers from USD, SDSU, Drake, and UNI and Dan Jansen, who had an offer from UNO, but it continues to get harder, especially as programs like NDSU and SDSU gain more recognition for reaching the Big Dance. It's amazing how many times I hear about kids that schools like Augie, Winona, etc. are recruiting and then they have this huge summer on the AAU circuit and before you know it, they're committed at one of the regional mid-majors like SDSU. Like I said, that's only going to continue to happen as schools like that continue to improve their programs and gain respect. To answer your other question, in general, yes, the former NCC schools (minus Duluth) have been at the top of the NSIC rankings most years. Winona State is really the only consistent non-NCC school to be competing for a Top 3-4 finish in the standings each year. As far as the Regional goes, we're actually in a bigger region now, which I think is sort of the opposite of the point you're making/asking about. We now have a 3-conference region, and two of those are big D2 conferences with 16 teams in the NSIC and 14 in the MIAA, as well as an 11-team conference in the GAC, which makes for a 41-team Central Region, and only the top 8 make it, not counting any auto-qualifiers who win their conference tourney (so the only guaranteed way to make the Regional is either winning your conference tournament or finishing in the top 5 out of 41). This year, only two NSIC schools (Mankato and Winona) made the Regional, so definitely not the 5-6 you were thinking of. There have been past years when 4-5 NSIC schools have made it, but it's become a lot harder since the regional realignment. In the past 7 years, Augie has only not made it twice, and as I've mentioned a couple of times, this was a very odd year for the program after losing multiple starters to injury and personal issues right before the season started. Anyway, I appreciate the questions, and definitely didn't take any of it as a slam (although I do appreciate you clarifying that it wasn't a slam). As an Augie fan, it's kind of fun to reflect on how the program has changed since those miserable doormat days. Hope those of you who are anti-Billeter don't mind me answering flashtaco's questions. Just figured it would be ok since I was asked directly.
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Post by crudeyote on Mar 14, 2014 15:19:08 GMT -6
I think its fair to assume that Smith can coach, recruit, game prep, make the popcorn and drive the bus. Mayville St was 1-27 in 03-04. ONE and TWENTY SEVEN. Smith comes in and goes 17-13 with a trip to the national tournament in his first season as head coach. Season #2 goes 28-6, wins the conference, makes it to the elite eight of the national tourney. Season #3 goes 27-9, wins the conference again, NATIONAL RUNNERS-UP, NATIONAL COACH OF THE YEAR. If he did this at Mayville, with, what I assume are pretty minimal resources, just think what he can do here. Mayville North Dakota is a very nice, rural community. It's not Rapid City, Spearfish, Madison, Bismarck or Minot. Those are the teams Mayville beat in the DAC - My point is, if you can recruit good players to Mayville ND - you can recruit good players anywhere. That team that NDSU had in 09 that played Kansas had some fantastic players on it. If my math is correct those players would have been seniors in HS in 03-04, which mean that Smith would have played a part in getting them to Fargo. I don't buy into the "yeah, but that's at the NAIA level." If you can do it at a lower level, you can certainly do it at our place.
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Post by notkiotees on Mar 14, 2014 18:32:28 GMT -6
After the move to D1, I heard our former FB coach (Ed) say truthfully but crudely that we were "shopping in a different meat market". If recruiting connections are important in a new coach I would guess (maybe incorrectly)that Billiter hasn't been hanging out in the same gyms as the other three guys.
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Post by flashtaco on Mar 14, 2014 19:49:11 GMT -6
After the move to D1, I heard our former FB coach (Ed) say truthfully but crudely that we were "shopping in a different meat market". If recruiting connections are important in a new coach I would guess (maybe incorrectly)that Billiter hasn't been hanging out in the same gyms as the other three guys. Look at the rosters of NDSU SDSU (the most consistent teams in the conference) and UNO (in my mind has surpassed USD) and tell me what pattern you see. TT can recruit the same area with the best of them. Heck, he got a few guys to commit to his program over Boots and James. I am not saying that TT is better than the above named proposed candidates but dismissing his credentials and abilities is overdone
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Post by Cousin Eddie on Mar 15, 2014 8:19:32 GMT -6
After the move to D1, I heard our former FB coach (Ed) say truthfully but crudely that we were "shopping in a different meat market". If recruiting connections are important in a new coach I would guess (maybe incorrectly)that Billiter hasn't been hanging out in the same gyms as the other three guys. Look at the rosters of NDSU SDSU (the most consistent teams in the conference) and UNO (in my mind has surpassed USD) and tell me what pattern you see. TT can recruit the same area with the best of them. Heck, he got a few guys to commit to his program over Boots and James. I am not saying that TT is better than the above named proposed candidates but dismissing his credentials and abilities is overdone Why TT? Wouldn't it be TB?
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Post by flashtaco on Mar 15, 2014 8:28:19 GMT -6
Texas Tom
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