doreknox wrote: Vandy1Fan, you make some excellent points. I agree with most of what you wrote but would like to discuss one or two ponts. 

Be to honest, we have never been the type of program where we reload every year and stay consistantly in the top 25. Stallings seven year run is the best in school history regarding having solid teams. We did rebuild somewhat in Taylor's freshman year but we were not horrible. As far back as I can remember (1973-74 team), we've been good, then bad, then good for a couple of years, then bad again. C.M. struggled for several years. Fogler had two great years and two pretty fair ones. VBK had one decent season.

Say what you will, I think the up and down records are historically caused by recruiting.  Our high academic standards either eliminate or scare off many recruits.   Stallings does seem able to identify talent but we keep finishing second. If he brought in a stud recruiter who can close, this would definitely help him. I do believe he can coach them to success.

We are missing all those pieces you mentioned, but I do think we will have an improved PG and shooters available next year. If Jeter continues to blossom and Jones is the stud he is supposed to be, our inside game will be better. Bright will have another year of experience, too.  Also, I actually believe this team is faster than others that I remember.

Still, good observations and an excellent post.

UF May be a good program to look at.....They never had a reload team until Coach Billy arrived and now they reload EVERY year. CKS has known for several years that he would be needing a legit SEC center to replace Fez and he has failed to reload. I have 2 words .......Shaka Smart

I thought about Florida too. Long term SEC coach. Magical success with two consecutive NCAA titles. But then look what happened:


2008-No NCAA. Semifinal loss in NIT to UMass.
2009-No NCAA. Quarterfinal loss in NIT to Penn State.
2010-First round loss in NCAA to BYU.
2011-Elite Eight run until Butler took them down.
2012-Elite Eight loss to Louisville.

They don't reload every year.  That looks like a pattern of outstanding success followed by a markedly less successful run and then a return to excellence, but not as good as what they did before. I have no idea what the Gator fanbase was saying after the loss to BYU but I suspect they had concerns similar to what is expressed on this board.

Why would any program be exempt from such a pattern of performance?

The question is, does any fan reading this board buy into holding programs to standards that only Wooden and Rupp have actually achieved? I get that no one here has insisted on the string of championships those guys pulled off but if you aren't demanding that then how do you decide where to draw the line on what variance is acceptable? I believe CKS would be the first to say he has not accomplished what he has hoped to. I bet even Wooden would have said the same. Perfect is the enemy of good.

Yeah, they had a couple of down years.  BUT, they didn't have a disasterous year in which there was absolutely no hope of a winning season, now or in the forseeable future.  There's down, and then there's rock bottom, where we are now.  In all the discussion of even good programs having to rebuild and reload, nobody seems to have found any programs who have fallen to the ineptness being shown by the Commodores.

cjdore wrote:

I have 2 words .......Shaka Smart

Can we PLEASE, just once and for all, posit and accept the fact that our next coach, whether we get one next year or 20 years from now, will NOT be Shaka Smart or Brad Stevens?  There's a difference between raising expectations and pipe dreams.  The view some have voiced saying we should reload and be a top 20 team virtually every year is raising expectations.  But if Shaka Smart or Brad Stevens were leaving their respective jobs for a position like ours, they would have already done it.  Period.

PeteFox wrote:  BUT, they didn't have a disasterous year in which there was absolutely no hope of a winning season, now or in the forseeable future.  

Personally, I am not only hoping for, but am expecting and would be surprised if we did not, have a winning season NEXT YEAR.  Just sayin'.

mathknapp wrote:
  The view some have voiced saying we should reload and be a top 20 team virtually every year is raising expectations.  But if Shaka Smart or Brad Stevens were leaving their respective jobs for a position like ours, they would have already done it.  Period.

I reject any "wish list" as being out of the question.  That includes the two you named plus Gregg Marshall, and especially Steve Prohm who won 31 games in one season while making 200k/year plus other great potential candidates.



NOTE: This post does not address or "take sides" in the topic of retaining or not retaining the current coaching staff of any sport at Vanderbilt University or at any other school or entity, collegiate or professional.
 

cjdore wrote:

doreknox wrote: Vandy1Fan, you make some excellent points. I agree with most of what you wrote but would like to discuss one or two ponts. 

Be to honest, we have never been the type of program where we reload every year and stay consistantly in the top 25. Stallings seven year run is the best in school history regarding having solid teams. We did rebuild somewhat in Taylor's freshman year but we were not horrible. As far back as I can remember (1973-74 team), we've been good, then bad, then good for a couple of years, then bad again. C.M. struggled for several years. Fogler had two great years and two pretty fair ones. VBK had one decent season.

Say what you will, I think the up and down records are historically caused by recruiting.  Our high academic standards either eliminate or scare off many recruits.   Stallings does seem able to identify talent but we keep finishing second. If he brought in a stud recruiter who can close, this would definitely help him. I do believe he can coach them to success.

We are missing all those pieces you mentioned, but I do think we will have an improved PG and shooters available next year. If Jeter continues to blossom and Jones is the stud he is supposed to be, our inside game will be better. Bright will have another year of experience, too.  Also, I actually believe this team is faster than others that I remember.

Still, good observations and an excellent post.

UF May be a good program to look at.....They never had a reload team until Coach Billy arrived and now they reload EVERY year. CKS has known for several years that he would be needing a legit SEC center to replace Fez and he has failed to reload. I have 2 words .......Shaka Smart

Florida has a HOF coach, but guys like that just aren't a dime a dozen.  There are maybe 5 guys like that in the entire country, so you almost have to get lucky to get one. 

I'm not saying I don't want to win championships, but there is a high risk and a high probability that the next coach, whomever it is, will have less success than Stallings.  If we got Shaka Smart, sign me up.  But remember Stallings was a very successful mid-major coach himself and almost every other team in the league has plucked a hotshot coach from mid major schools in the past 15 years only to fire them for losing.

Commodoredave1 wrote:

  If we got Shaka Smart, sign me up.  But remember Stallings was a very successful mid-major coach himself

He made the dance 2 years out of six at Illinois St. which is not horrible.  Did you know his record was 7-11 in the MVC the year he was hired here?  Not exactly like Prohm's 31-2 season last year or Gregg Marshall sitting at 18-2 this year. 

I'm not taking sides, but there are many people who think we've maxed out what can be done with CKS here.  There must be some sort of reasoning behind their views.  They all don't post here but there are quite a few you see on twitter these days.



NOTE: This post does not address or "take sides" in the topic of retaining or not retaining the current coaching staff of any sport at Vanderbilt University or at any other school or entity, collegiate or professional.

bhoyal wrote:

Commodoredave1 wrote:

  If we got Shaka Smart, sign me up.  But remember Stallings was a very successful mid-major coach himself

He made the dance 2 years out of six at Illinois St. which is not horrible.  Did you know his record was 7-11 in the MVC the year he was hired here?  Not exactly like Prohm's 31-2 season last year or Gregg Marshall sitting at 18-2 this year. 

I'm not taking sides, but there are many people who think we've maxed out what can be done with CKS here.  There must be some sort of reasoning behind their views.  They all don't post here but there are quite a few you see on twitter these days.



NOTE: This post does not address or "take sides" in the topic of retaining or not retaining the current coaching staff of any sport at Vanderbilt University or at any other school or entity, collegiate or professional.

I just love the disclaimer in which the writer attempts to override what he/she just wrote:   

"...there are many people who think we've maxed out what can be done with CKS here. There must be some sort of reasoning behind their views. They all don't post here but there are quite a few you see on twitter these days."    

That sure looks to me like taking sides.     The use of the word "many" is vague.   For example, it could refer to 1%, 10% or 40% of this person's friends.   It does not necessarily mean that a large number of Vandy's fans want Stallings gone.

As I recall, that disclaimer first appeared when that writer was blatant in attempting to push Stallings out.   It seemed to try to deflect what the writer was posting:   Oh what I write is not what I really mean.   I am just an innocent bystander, just reporting what I hear.

PeteFox wrote: Yeah, they had a couple of down years.  BUT, they didn't have a disasterous year in which there was absolutely no hope of a winning season, now or in the forseeable future.  There's down, and then there's rock bottom, where we are now.  In all the discussion of even good programs having to rebuild and reload, nobody seems to have found any programs who have fallen to the ineptness being shown by the Commodores.

Jesus, are you kidding me with this? Do you even watch college basketball? And did you watch Vanderbilt football at any time between 1984 and 2010? We're 8-10, not 0-18. We didn't return a single player who averaged 15 minutes a game from last year's team. Our only upperclassmen are two juniors who are only this year getting their first real opportunities to play significant minutes. Our roster is three scholarships light because CKS didn't want a repeat of last year's mass exodus in 2016. And yet we've won nearly half our games against a tough schedule. It's not ideal. It's not what I want. But it's neither inept nor an embarrassment. It's not even the most precipitous fall in the conference this year. Look at Mississippi State, who were a perennial contender and they're both terrible and trying to make everyone forget their moral and judgmental lapses of the last two years.

Comments like this one, however? Different story.

It is not wrong to think that Vanderbilt should reload, but it's incredibly naive.  You can count on two hands the number of schools in the entire that reload year after year.  In the SEC, there are maybe two schools that can make that claim (Kentucky and Florida), though Florida misses the NCAA Tournament from time-to-time and Kentucky is far from a shoe-in this year.  Vandy has never in its history been a school that reloads year-after-year - or at least not since integration.  

Personally, I'm not pleased with this season, but I'm not surprised either.  I'm a lot more disappointed that last year's team could not be Wisconsin than in anything I've seen on the court this year.  I see the potential in this team, and I like the pieces coming in next year (albeit only one of whom has proven anything at the college level).  My expectation is that we should have a winning SEC record next season.  After that, I expect we should be back in the Tournament by the following year.  Once we're in the Tournament, I expect to win at least one game, but recognize it's a crapshoot. 

As for the long-term, I think Vanderbilt will compete for and retain the best coaching talent based on loyalty.  There is a reason guys like Shaka Smart and Brad Stevens are increasingly staying at mid-major schools.  Just ask Jeff Capel and Dan Monson.  It's also the reason I think we've been able to retain Corbin and stand a chance of retaining Franklin.  When it becomes clear that Stallings is leaving - ideally on his own terms - then I would love to see Vanderbilt put a succession plan in place before his final season (both for recruiting and continuity for the guys already in the program).  Stallings should leave Vanderbilt as the winningest coach in school history after at least 15 seasons in Nashville.  Ideally, the prospect of that kind of support and longevity while competing in the SEC will help us lure a top young coach to Vanderbilt to succeed Stallings.  The last thing I want to see is for us to become a revolving door for head coaches like some of the other schools in the conference.  With the exception of Kentucky, that's largely been a recipe for disaster for the league's other schools.

Dore 2004, what you said, especially the line about being more disappointed with losing to Wisconsin last year than anything that's happened this year.

Dore2004 wrote:  With the exception of Kentucky, that's largely been a recipe for disaster for the league's other schools.

Even for UK it is a mixed bag, and coaching changes are a stressful time.  The Eddie Sutton era was clearly a mixed bag.  While I think they are crazy, UK fans were never happy with Tubby Smith, and Billy Gillespie was (by UK standards) an unmitigated disaster both on and off the court.

The only thing that saves UK is that success breeds success -- because they are UK and because they have won National Titles in the past, they are a destination that other high-profile coaches want to get to.  UK can potentially poach a coach from a sweet 16 BCS conference team.  Heck, UK has on at least 3 occasions convinced a coach to leave a school he has taken to the Final Four to come coach in Lexington.  Vandy simply can't do that.  Not unless we dust off some of our endowment at any rate.