Yep, you could say the same things about the football program, before James Franklin.

The head coach DOES make a huge difference.  Stallings' seeming lack of desire to sell the strengths of the Vanderbilt education, the SEC ,and Nashville, as well as his lack of willingness to publicly promote the program is killing the basketball tradition, such as it is, at VU.

PeteFox wrote: Yep, you could say the same things about the football program, before James Franklin.

The head coach DOES make a huge difference.  Stallings' seeming lack of desire to sell the strengths of the Vanderbilt education, the SEC ,and Nashville, as well as his lack of willingness to publicly promote the program is killing the basketball tradition, such as it is, at VU.

I'm not going to get drawn back into the Stallings debate. 

I will concede that yes, the head coach does make a difference.  I will concede that yes, there are better recruiters than Stallings out there.  I will not concede that Stallings is a bad recruiter.  I will not concede that we could be confident of "trading up" instead of "trading down" if we decided to replace the coach.

In comparing basketball to football though, reread what I said about academics.  In football, players have to attend the college for 3 years before being drafted (or, I guess the rule is "be three years out of high school", which is almost the same thing).  Even at that, it is relatively uncommon for college players to leave after only 3 years.  Also, the nature of football is that only in special circumstances does a single high level player really control the fate of a team (and at that, almost always the player is an elite, near-Heisman QB or RB).  In basketball, almost all of the elite players leave after 1 or 2 years in college, and a single player can possibly mean 6 or 7 (or more) wins to a team versus if that player was not available.  For example, if Kemba Walker tears an ACL a few years ago, UConn would have struggled to make the NIT as opposed to winning a national title.  I shudder to think of what Matt Frieje's sweet 16 team would have done if Matt wasn't there that year.  Basketball is a game VERY HIGHLY influenced by a small number of elite players, who are likely predisposed to not caring about their college education since they don't plan on being around long enough to finish it.  Football is a little different.

PeteFox wrote: Yep, you could say the same things about the football program, before James Franklin.

The head coach DOES make a huge difference.  Stallings' seeming lack of desire to sell the strengths of the Vanderbilt education, the SEC ,and Nashville, as well as his lack of willingness to publicly promote the program is killing the basketball tradition, such as it is, at VU.

Looking at ESPN's Top 300 list of football recruits, which shows Vanderbilt's highest commitment is listed as #174, it looks like football at Vanderbilt DOES have the same problem described by mathknapp, i.e., being appealing to some very very good football players, but not the football equivalent of one-and-dones, despite James Franklin's overtly passionate approach to recruiting.

I don't think the numbers like that are comparable. Football has about 25 starting positions to fill, and 85 scholarships. Basketball has 5 and 13.

So #175 in football would be maybe top fifty in BB?

The proof is in the pudding, and BB is really hurting for talent right now.

We have a top 50 PF/C in Damian Jones that has signed a LOI for 2013.  How does that pudding taste?

PeteFox wrote: I don't think the numbers like that are comparable. Football has about 25 starting positions to fill, and 85 scholarships. Basketball has 5 and 13.

So #175 in football would be maybe top fifty in BB?

The proof is in the pudding, and BB is really hurting for talent right now.

Delicious.  Now if we had 4 or 5 more like him.......

PeteFox wrote: Delicious.  Now if we had 4 or 5 more like him.......

Man, does that comment ever seem different when taken out of context!

PeteFox wrote: Yep, you could say the same things about the football program, before James Franklin.

The head coach DOES make a huge difference.  Stallings' seeming lack of desire to sell the strengths of the Vanderbilt education, the SEC ,and Nashville, as well as his lack of willingness to publicly promote the program is killing the basketball tradition, such as it is, at VU.

I'm not going to say right now at this moment that I specifically agree or disagree with your post, but you do make several very good points.



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.

Even my syracuse orangeman don't do that. This is a pointless argument and has spawned numerous threads. It must be the lack of patience in today's society, everyone sees the winner, and forget everyone else is the loser. You turn on a golf tournament on Sunday and see 10-15 guys that are playing well, when half the field was sent home after Friday.
  As I, and others, who the see cup half-full. Be patient, I think another year, and Mcclellen, Jones and another year of experience/strength/conditioning, we're going to be a bubble team next year, and within a player of going back to the tourney. Again, this year is an aberration