Coaching bits Day 4
"Some definite Ed Cooley buzz" per Brian Snow. Supposedly he and Warde are buddies so that makes him a candidate. His offenses are brutal and I mean BRUTAL. He's never had a top 25 kenpom offense and the last four years they have ranked 164, 100, 101, and 92 on O. He would also probably offer the least amount of continuity among the rumored candidates. HARD PASS.
Oh Howard:
Juwan Howard tells me #Michigan has retained Turnkey Sports for its coaching search. Howard has spoken with them and has been informed that Wolverines AD Warde Manuel is very interested in speaking with him.
— Jordan Schultz (@Schultz_Report) May 17, 2019
Maybe by this time next week Warde will get around to actually speaking with a candidate. Not like recruits aren't making decisions and assistants aren't getting interviewed or anything.
Also per Snow the guy at Turnkey running the search is close to Billy Donovan who highly recommended Shaka Smart. Would be a great recruiter but would need a strong support staff and assistants around him.
Tick tock.
I don't think the Hackett comparison is fair. Hackett one job and it was very obvious what it was. He didn't need to vet anyone unless he missed on job one.
Hackett had more than one job...he also negotiated out massive Nike deal.
He means in term of the coaching search. Being an AD is less difficult when your task is "hire the obviously guy who wants to come here."
Hackett hired Korn/Ferry search firm to hire Harbaugh. These firms are not hired to "find" the next coach. They are hired to vet candidates and ensure there is nothing "under the mattress" that could cause harm to the university of backfire as soon as they are hired. Athletic departments are not equipped to do this kind of vetting, hence the search firms.
It's the process for any large company when they hire for an executive level position.
Hackett absolutely did hire a search firm. He talked about it at a press conference early in the process, but he didn't identify them.
Africa is the new yacht?
Hackett did use a firm to back channel Harbaugh, Korn/Ferry International.
Hackett did and so does every big time AD. Also you have no idea what’s going on or what Warde has done. I don’t love or hate Warde, and I don’t have any ties to him. Though I do have ties to others in the AD as it relates to basketball. Warde has been working on this longer than that last week. He knew Beilein was 90% likely to leave so he already was vetting candidates. Which surprise! Can be done while he’s in Africa. They reached out to Donovan which I have said multiple times. Donovan expects to get another NBA job even if he’s let go with the Thunder. It would have taken close to 8 million or more to get him to consider leaving. Juwan will get an interview and that has been in the works for a while. Marshall was never a serious candidate for various reasons.
You can't vet candidates overnight. The last 72 hours, Turnkey has probably vetted 20 to 25 guys and are currently wrapping up the process. Now reaching out to those who "pass" to gauge interest before Warde reaches out. This is exactly how they should be processing things, as to not look like a complete s*itshow like UCLA.
I'm guessing direct contact/interviews with Warde begin this weekend and we have a coach by the middle of next week.
Anybody who expects to vet, talk to, and hire a coach in less than a week, has never hired somebody at a high level position before.
Can't they vet and talk or interview contemporaneously?
I mean it's not like you pulled these guys off the street. I'm sure Howard was vetted before being hired by Miami. You'd still want to vet maybe have a couple things going at the same time.
I have helped vet candidates for a Fortune 500 company. You CANNOT do it overnight. Even in a rushed situation, you need a couple of days to acquire the requisite information. If Turnkey has vetted them previously, than yes, the process is much faster.
You would be shocked what you find when you vet people thoroughly. Some universities turn a blind eye to certain things, Michigan definitely would not.
This.
hiring a top flight c-suite exec in less than a month, let alone six months, is a miracle.
One takeaway from your post is I'm realizing that I do NOT want to be vetted.
Also, thanks for your informed input.
Depending on who has used Turnkey recently, they probably have a ton of info on these coaches already. Some may be fully vetted from the UCLA search already (if they used Turnkey). Or Turnkey just buys that info from whatever group UCLA used. Shouldn't be that hard, but I imagine interviews should have started by now.
I agree on this. I know the whole idea of "go slow to go fast" is frustrating and annoying in the go slow part of it, but I think it's necessary. Getting this right is way more important than getting it fast. You don't want to end up with a George O'Leary at ND, Greg Schiano at Tennessee, or a Steve Masiello at USF situation.
OSU hired Chris Holtman in 4 days. I think the problem is that the second Beilein told Warde he was having discussions about leaving he should have started the process of vetting future coaches and or trying to dissuade Beilein from leaving. Instead he went to Africa and when he got back Beilein had taken the Cavs job the next day. To me that's disorganization at best and an incompetent clusterfuck at worst.
If Billy Donovan had been interested, we would have hired him in 4 days. The fact that he's been reached out to means he was one of the 1st candidates vetted, passed, and contacted. If he had been interested, he would have been announced already.
Holtmann was very interested in OSU.
OSU fired their coach, meaning they were able to be ahead of the game from a prep standpoint (it's harder to have your next girlfriend lined up when you're the one getting dumped, even if you kind of saw it coming). And we also could have gotten a coach in 4 days if we were doing this a month ago. It's wild to me how many details people choose to ignore so that their opinion is justified.
OSU did not fire their coach. If they were going to fire Matta they would have done it in March or April before candidates like Archie Miller got picked over not the second week of June. Matta stepped down because he was dealing with complications from surgery that left him with drop foot. And if you followed their search you would know they were turned down by a bunch of guys. At one point it looked like Doug McDermott had accepted the job but he reneged and they had to go back to their pool of candidates and ultimately settled on Holtman. It's wild to me how fast and loose people play with the facts around here to fit their ideas into a narrative.
Then just be negative about everything. You (and others) are making this blog an awful place.
*Greg McDermott, not Doug
"It's wild to me how fast and loose people play with the facts around here to fit their ideas into a narrative."
This describes exactly what you do on this blog daily Maizen.
Do you think OSU does a deep dive into people's backgrounds to make sure that they're on the up and up? Of course not.
Holtmann is on the up and up. He's a good man and a heck of a coach. Wish he had stayed at Butler a couple more years to be an option for UM now.
You are fucking ridiculous what if the list went Stevens, Donovan, Howard for coaching candidates? They reached out in the first few days gauged interest and got no's from the top 2. Howard is interviewing for the Timberwolves right now so if they want to interview him they have to wait a couple of days. You are arguing they should hire someone quickly rather than wait to get the right guy?
Established coaches aren't coming in for a long interview process. If you bring in someone like Steve Prohm you are hiring him or not within a day of that interview, if you want Howard more you have to wait.
Cant vet them overnight, correct.. however, when Warde knew since last year, that Beilein has good chance of leaving... one would think he'd have a very short list of prospects, and contact their agents and gauge interest. Michigan is a plum job... one of the better ones.. and to have to farm it out like this... it can set up the program for weakness, if the collective public percieves that nobody wants the job. Don Canham did it the right way, none of this search firm shit.
Is it a plum job though? You're following the best bball coach Michigan has ever had at a school where football is king, you are inheriting a disintegrating recruiting class and, unlike virtually every D1 school in America, you're not allowed to even think about bending the rules in recruiting.
I used to think it was. Beilein quiting it makes me rethink that assumption.
Warde has been unfairly (IMO) criticized for a lot of things regarding this transition. Beilein wanted to climb the final rung of the basketball coach career ladder and try the NBA. Warde wasn't going to keep him here.
However, you're critique is absolutely fair. Why weren't potential candidates vetted last year? And if they were, why is it taking so long to vet them again? That's Warde's big failing I think. Although I don't know if it matters how quickly we hire someone at this stage. As long as the hire takes place within a month of Beilein leaving, I don't think it matters whether it's a week or four weeks.
The more I hear about the potentials, the more I think it should be either Howard or Saddi. I wouldn't hire Smart or Cooley. There has to be a reason Prohm isn't being mentioned, perhaps he didn't pass the vetting phase?
You don’t hire search firms and vet candidates with a coach hired
I think a lot of people are misunderstanding what a search firm would do here, just based on the name. Warde doesn't need them to find candidates. That he can do on his own. He wants them to vet candidates and to assess their level of interest.
The vetting process has been royally screwed by a few ADs. How about Schiano to Tennessee? We're talking about spending $20M on a contract. Maybe $100k for a search firm to help. I think it's foolish to leave that to the AD.
Assessing interest and setting up interviews has been a clown show for some jobs too. Keeping it quiet by using an intermediary alone is worth the money when you need to act fast. Using a search firm should keep things moving quickly.
Now if Warde had one candidate in mind, I think that would be different. But asking him to do a thorough, organized and fast search of 5+ candidates on his own is asking for trouble. And to what end, to save .05% of the contract?
Curious to see what would pop up under Pitino’s mattress.
G-Strings and envelopes full of $100 bills
"Curious to see what would pop up under Pitino’s mattress."
Something wet and sticky.
Honestly at this point give me Howard preferably, but I'd also be fine with Smart. Most importantly I just want to retain Yaklich
Here are some better uses of your time:
https://www.moviefone.com/showtimes/ann-arbor-mi/48104/theaters/
match.com
Just promote Yaklich already If you can’t get one of the top five elites.
Its safe and likely prevents what feels like potential mediocrity or total disaster. Yaklich will probably end running an awesome program.
This makes a lot of sense.
There is nothing safe about hiring Yaklich. The idea he would run an awesome program is based on conjecture and hope. Beilein has Saadi and Jordan above Yaklich in terms of who he thinks should be head coach but I'm sure we all know better.
Did he tell you that?
Yaklich: Tireless work effort, attention to detail, motivational, good recruiter, connects with the kids, instills discipline, quick study, learned under Beilein, well respected, top defense remains intact, knows the team, knows the recruits, knows Michigan, student of the game, understands the statistical values, probably stays for a decade.
Seems relatively safe compared to some of the discussions we are hearing.
I choose to believe this news means Juwan is the top candidate.
Yes, I understand the candidates that are currently head coaches would not post a tweet like that.
I choose to hope you are right!
Worrying about losing one or at most two recruits because the process takes a few extra days is remarkably shortsighted. I like the methodical approach. This is a huge decision and Brad Stevens ain’t walking through that door.
Methodical is fine, as long as Warde hires the best guy. If Michigan hires a dud and loses both recruits then you've set the program back some years. That's the concern I have and sounds like many others here, as well.
Even if someone is hired right now, there is no guarantee that the coach and assistants/recruits will mesh. So, why not take the time and find the right coach?
Exactly. This is the next several years (maybe more) of the program, and 1-2 recruits (who may not stay regardless) should have next to zero impact on who we hire.
Let's go with the former NBA player. It's done wonders for Memphis, who now has the #1 recruiting class.
The bagmen are strong with Memphis. It sounds like they are reigniting Calipari’s old ways. Not that Memphis isn’t a beautiful destination for a 5* player and all.