Interesting article in the Sun-Sentinel about the 1972 Florida State team's NCAA Championship game vs. John Wooden's UCLA dynasty (with Bill Walton). Durham talks about being a 34 year old coach going up against Adolph Rupp's Kentucky Wildcats in the semi-finals. They also had to beat Dave Winfield's Minnesota squad in the Elite 8.
The article also mentions that Hugh's squad was all-black which resulted in several inappropriate comments by Rupp. Overall, it's an interesting read.
It's also a good reminder that UGA has attracted "big name" coaches in the past. Hugh had won 200+ games and been to the NCAA Finals with FSU. Tubby had back to back Sweet 16s at Tulsa, and he tutored under the hottest coach in America (Pitino). Harrick was also a big time hire.
In other words, when our program isn't in absolute shambles like it was in 2003...we have the ability to attract big name coaches. If Felton works out, that would be ideal. If he doesn't, we do have the proven ability to attract hot coaches. Especially with the new practice facility and a stable roster full of mostly SEC caliber players.
PWD
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9 comments:
As it regards attracting big-name coaches, I'm pretty sure that we had all but hired John Wooden himself back in the day, only to have him back out when he was told he wouldn't be allowed to recruit or play black players here.
Sure glad we made such an enlightened and forward thinking stand. Otherwise it would likely be UGA, and not UK that is the perceived top of the hoops heap in the SEC. Whew...that would have been, like, way too much pressure.
RC - He interviewed with Wally Butts in the late-40s. And that's true. In fairness, no school in the South integrated for another 20-25 years.
In other words, it wasn't just us. Not that it makes it ok.
BTW -- UCLA waited 15 years for Wooden to make the Final Four. And their patience paid off nicely. He won 10 of the next 12 national titles. Amazing.
Something about your article makes me want to defend CDF. That is, the basic premise that we can get good coaches and the pretty clear implication that CDF doesn't fall in that category. My recollection is that Felton was a pretty hot commodity at Western Kentucky, somewhat successful (okay maybe not sweet 16 successful) and more importantly, he had a clean reputation to go along with his success. The team has improved every year since he came after the houscleaning and I think yolu ought to just back off him a little bit. I am not syaing that if you criticize a coach - or anyone for that matter - that the terrorists have won, but you need to be a little more reasonable in your perspective, imo.
"implication that CDF doesn't fall in that category."
I think he's done enough to deserve a contract extension and a modest pay raise. I said that before he got those things.
I also don't think we could've done better than Felton in 2003 when we went looking.
And I've said on numerous occassions that he's brought desperately needed stability to the program. AND if we continue to make progress, then he should be continually rewarded.
But if we don't make progress...well, stability without progress is stagnation.
Let's face reality here. He's been coaching for 9 or 10 years. He's never won an NCAA Tourney game, and he's never coached a team ranked in the Top 25 for even a single week.
Basically, I'm not sure if he is or isn't Mr. Right. But he's definitely Mr. Right Now.
If he's Mr. Right long term...great. If not, we can certainly attract someone a lot more in demand than a guy with his current resume.
I can't see how that's bashing. I think that's just being pragmatic.
My idea of bashing and being negative...folks that want to keep him because they don't think we can do better. I think that's bashing the quality of our program, and I think that is much more destructive and fatalistic than questioning the long term viability of our coach.
PWD
While I was extremely excited to get Felton when we did, there was at least one more accomplished coach who wanted to come here very badly at that time- Tim FLoyd, who flat turned down Clemson's offer because he wanted to wait our process out, and later obviously ended up at USC, to a good deal of success. In hindsight, that's the hire I wish we'd made.
Fairly or not, Floyd has a reputation for sidling right up to the line on players he recruits, but to my knowledge hasn't been caught crossing it. I think at the time we made our hire, coming out of the mess Harrick left us, we just couldn't risk Floyd getting caught on our watch.
I still support Felton, but the fact is it doesn't take as long to build a basketball program as it does football. I know he inherited a mess, and it's rough sledding in our neighborhood, but he should be farther along, imho. The thing that concerns me the most is the apparent lack of player development. Much like our WR's in football, our players don't seem to get much better than they were when they got here.
RC. I'm not sure that's right. Gaines has improved as much as player ever has in the 35 years I've followed the program, in only three years. Levi Stukes improved greatly. Woodbury played inside in high school, and he's improved. Mercer seemed to be settling in just before his injury. Singleton has improved greatly, it's just that he was so raw he's still not very good, at least on offense.
Now, Newman and Bliss? Not so much, but that was a case of taking guys no one else wanted, and as high major players, they just weren't very improvable. Although they are better than they were as freshmen.
Billy Humphrey, the jury is still out.
So, I would say that of they guys who were legitimate high major prospects, a good number have improved.
I'm with Stick on this one. Gaines, Woodbury and Mercer are big success stories. Hell, Newman is a succes story.
3 years ago, did you think he'd hit back to back to back threes to beat ARK in Bud Walton or score 16 vs. UK in Rupp?
John Wooden couldn't make Bliss a franchise player. Especially not with his bad back. He's a walkon playing Center in the SEC. What do you expect?
I've got no beef with player development.
My beef is with the offense.
I am not a big basketball fan, and I definately do not know all the numbers, but I think Felton has done a pretty good job. If I'm not mistaken, a couple of years ago he only had six or eight scholarship players. If a football program had it's scholarships cut in half, how long would it take to get the program back in the top 25 (which UGA basketball should have been the week before the Tenn loss)? How long would you give a football coach who began his tenure with forty-five scholarship players?
You don't need 13 players in b-ball. You need 7 or 8 good ones.
I'm extremely sympathetic to the situation he found, and I'm very appreciative of the work he's done stabilizing the program.
But at some point. You need an offense.
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