I know the simple answer is win more games, but that seems to be an issue that hasn't been addressed for quite some time.
What would it take for the Penn State men's basketball team to ever be a real B1G contender?
- Thread starter Jerademan74
- Start date
I know this was only meant as a half joke. Being located in an extremely rural part of the state does not create a comfort zone for many inner-city kids who tend to be the better basketball players. If that sounds racist, it is not meant to be, it is just a fact!
I am just not going to go thru life pretending that we have not made it all the way to the Sweet Sixteen in my lifetime.
What it takes is some good players who are coached up to their potential and who play to their potential.
In addition, the games they play have to be officiated fairly and consistently. Good luck with this part of it.
Simple solutions to complex problems - all it will take is getting 7-8 really good basketball players. In any given year we have 40-50 really good football players, so getting 7-8 basketball players is very doable. Plenty of kids on the football team are from inner city families. They choose to come to PSU in spite if the rural campus setting.
Big Name coach. Regarding location, football players come to Penn State. I remember Dick Harter coaching and I think the team had strong winning percentages. Nomad Larry Brown pops up at SMU and they are in the tournament..
That would help to be a contender for 1 year only, as a dominant inside player would be a one-and-done in today's world.....
All it would take is 3 years for them to be a contender if recruiting keeps increasing on the current slope. That's a big IF.
$$$$$$ for big name coach or a Richard a Pitino rising star type coach. It starts with an AD that EXPECTS a Top 20 hoops program yearly. Hire Tom Jurich from U of L and he might like that challenge. Believe me my fellow alums who follow UNC, nova, Maryland, etc. would jump on board State's rising program.
Bottom line is dramatically improve recruiting. I've pulled info in the past, but basically it had nothing to do with coaching up the players we have traditionally had. It's that the players we've traditionally had were so far below the level of everyone in the conference. When we did well, it was because we got a few below the radar players and coached them up. Parkhill had us moving in the right direction, then we went back to the stone ages.
Someone posted this today on the PennStateHoops board. There is a site called Recruiting Services Consensus Index that basically compiles rankings from various recruiting services. They have put together the top 100 recruits each year going back to 1998. The chart below shows all of the B1G schools and the number of recruits signed from those lists in that period of time.
Michigan State 35
Ohio State 34
Indiana 30
Illinois 27
Maryland 27
Michigan 26
Purdue 14
Wisconsin 14
Iowa 13
Rutgers 12
Minnesota 10
Nebraska 4
Northwestern 1
Penn State 1
The one player on the list was Jeff Brooks out of Kentucky, and he ended up not meeting his potential until his senior year. Some of our best players in recent years, like Battle, Cornley, Frazier, etc. we're not in the list coming out of high school.
I think the list speaks for itself. But it also is why recruiting is such a challenge, and why Chambers gets a pass for not turning around the program immediately in terms of wins. He's showing yearly improvement in the recruiting classes he's bringing in, but understand how large the talent gap was.
It's also why no big name coach would touch the job.
The chart doesn't even show the full story. We rarely won recruiting battles for players who had offers from mid majors, let alone majors. We were getting players with offers from St Mary's. Players from Philly wouldn't even talk to the coaches, our rep was so bad. Getting Newbill to transfer was huge, and gave us some credibility. That and Chambers Nova experience and connections made.
Someone posted this today on the PennStateHoops board. There is a site called Recruiting Services Consensus Index that basically compiles rankings from various recruiting services. They have put together the top 100 recruits each year going back to 1998. The chart below shows all of the B1G schools and the number of recruits signed from those lists in that period of time.
Michigan State 35
Ohio State 34
Indiana 30
Illinois 27
Maryland 27
Michigan 26
Purdue 14
Wisconsin 14
Iowa 13
Rutgers 12
Minnesota 10
Nebraska 4
Northwestern 1
Penn State 1
The one player on the list was Jeff Brooks out of Kentucky, and he ended up not meeting his potential until his senior year. Some of our best players in recent years, like Battle, Cornley, Frazier, etc. we're not in the list coming out of high school.
I think the list speaks for itself. But it also is why recruiting is such a challenge, and why Chambers gets a pass for not turning around the program immediately in terms of wins. He's showing yearly improvement in the recruiting classes he's bringing in, but understand how large the talent gap was.
It's also why no big name coach would touch the job.
The chart doesn't even show the full story. We rarely won recruiting battles for players who had offers from mid majors, let alone majors. We were getting players with offers from St Mary's. Players from Philly wouldn't even talk to the coaches, our rep was so bad. Getting Newbill to transfer was huge, and gave us some credibility. That and Chambers Nova experience and connections made.
Stay the course with the current coach, but insist that he hire an absolutely great set of assistants (and give him money to do so)
Changing coaches again is probably not the answer for us. After the inevitable transfers and growing pains, it just sets you back four years. The idea of a "big name coach" is not a slam dunk for two reasons: a) that strategy doesn't always work much better, b) if you go into the search looking for a "big name coach" and strike out, you are screwed and just set yourself back four years. It's not like football, where we could strike out in the middle of a scandal and still land Bill O'Brien from the NFL. It's like we could strike out and end up with another Ed DeChellis. At least with Chambers, if he ever does get the win going, it seems like he'd be able to ramp the recruiting up to a very high level very quickly. Considering where we've been I'd just stick with that and give him what he needs to get it done.
Changing coaches again is probably not the answer for us. After the inevitable transfers and growing pains, it just sets you back four years. The idea of a "big name coach" is not a slam dunk for two reasons: a) that strategy doesn't always work much better, b) if you go into the search looking for a "big name coach" and strike out, you are screwed and just set yourself back four years. It's not like football, where we could strike out in the middle of a scandal and still land Bill O'Brien from the NFL. It's like we could strike out and end up with another Ed DeChellis. At least with Chambers, if he ever does get the win going, it seems like he'd be able to ramp the recruiting up to a very high level very quickly. Considering where we've been I'd just stick with that and give him what he needs to get it done.
I was being a bit facetious with my other post, but here is reality for a great program like Maryland. What is Penn State's reality, in comparison? http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/12/AR2009021202299.html
A big name coach and pouring down $$$ still aren't going to make fans come to the games.
If I'm a recruit, would I rather play in front of 6500 at the BJC or in front of 17000 at the Kohl center?
The built in advantage of 107k we have for football we don't have for basketball. Even when we were 4-7 in football, 100000 plus still showed up. Players like Williams and King noticed that. Even when we are half decent in basketball, we have trouble filling half the BJC. Recruits notice that too.
If I'm a recruit, would I rather play in front of 6500 at the BJC or in front of 17000 at the Kohl center?
The built in advantage of 107k we have for football we don't have for basketball. Even when we were 4-7 in football, 100000 plus still showed up. Players like Williams and King noticed that. Even when we are half decent in basketball, we have trouble filling half the BJC. Recruits notice that too.
Maryland is NOT a great program. The Terps last F4 was a long time ago. Better than average yes, but not great!
I don't really know what to say about that. It's an article from more than six years ago; Gary Williams was completely opposed to AAU, and I think he was somewhat over the top in his absolute rejection of it, but even with his views he won a national championship, and after that routinely made it to the NCAA tournament and advanced. I think most of us would be happy with routinely going to the NCAA tournament and only occasionally advancing. Maryland fans expected him to go to the Elite 8 and farther every season. It will be ages before the bar is that high at PSU.
I do not know the quality of coaching we have......but this goes back to the 70's, when a young coach named Jim Valvano wanted the head MBB position, and PSU chose another candidate. Jim was coaching at Iona, and running camps in the Poconos. Jim had the contacts and ability to develop a pipeline from NYC to PSU........unfortunately those players ended up at NCS.....and the rest is history. Hopefully Patrick will develop his own source of players.
This pretty much sums it up. Throw in that they also passed on Bobby Knight when he applied, and once decided to hang onto Jerry Dunn instead of hiring Jay Wright, because Dunn achieved a completely meaningless upset of a top 5 team on Thursday of the Big Ten tournament. Our program has been held back by idiot administrators, and this dominates every other factor. Say what you want about Barbour, but I don't think she will make intentionally stupid decisions that hold back our men's basketball program. Not sure I can say that about certain of her predecessors.
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I agree about Barbour. I think she's the first one to actually believe we can be good in both football and basketball, and isn't content to let the program turn a profit while languishing in wins because of the B1G contract.
I also suspect, and this could just be me, that the whole AAU scene has scared the bejesus out of PSU in the past.
Hindsight is 20/20, but how many other programs have passed on so many good coaches who went on to be great coaches? It's like we're snakebit. LOL Of course, the other question is, would those coaches have turned PSU into a power, or would the administration and other factors stymied them, and possibly their careers. Does anyone know who Jimmy V is if he goes to Penn State?
I also suspect, and this could just be me, that the whole AAU scene has scared the bejesus out of PSU in the past.
Hindsight is 20/20, but how many other programs have passed on so many good coaches who went on to be great coaches? It's like we're snakebit. LOL Of course, the other question is, would those coaches have turned PSU into a power, or would the administration and other factors stymied them, and possibly their careers. Does anyone know who Jimmy V is if he goes to Penn State?
Forget the nonsense that we need a big name couch! Forget the nonsense that we need a new arena! We have a very competent coach in Pat Chambers and good assistants. What we need we have no control over; getting people to drive 80+ miles to watch games in the winter over mountains.
How many of the commenters drive from Harrisburg, Lancaster, York, Hazleton, Wilkes-Barre, Scranton, Erie, Altoona, Johnstown, etc. to watch the games? If the majority of you do not answer "YES", then you have your answer on why PSU has mediocre men's BB.
How many of the commenters drive from Harrisburg, Lancaster, York, Hazleton, Wilkes-Barre, Scranton, Erie, Altoona, Johnstown, etc. to watch the games? If the majority of you do not answer "YES", then you have your answer on why PSU has mediocre men's BB.
I agree that the public doesnt come to enough games but more so is to why the students dont come. Wednesday in January with 6 inches of snow on the ground, I cant expect 7K to drive up 22 or 322 for a game, but I can expect 5K students come. Get the kids to the games.....
The point is, he had already won the national championship doing it the right way, but was NOT going to do it the new way, which was greasing guys like Curtis Malone to send players his way. It is not an irrelevant article today, In fact, it is what happens all the time today. Hell, we have a high school with an AAU guy sitting on its bench. Basketball recruiting is a dirty business.
Even if Gary Williams was being honest in his assessment that his entire decline was due to him supposedly "taking the high road" with the AAU (while mysteriously this did not matter at all in 2002), the Maryland program was still competing at a level that PSU would be thrilled with.
If you want to buy what he was selling, go right ahead. Keep in mind that he was a guy who was under heat for missing on local recruits, and his job was on thin ice, and he decided to blame anything but himself.
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I can't argue that coming several miles through tough terrain in the winter is undesirable when the product on the court is mediocre. Put a winning team on the court and people will come; including alumni, local fans and students!
