OT - Ohio State reportedly offers HC position to Creighton's Greg McDermott
Things move fast. The meeting tonight between Gene Smith and Creighton's McDermott apparently concluded with Smith offer the latter the position according to ESPN:
Ohio State has offered job to Creighton’s Greg McDermott, source told ESPN. Two sides met tonight.
— Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanESPN) June 8, 2017
Part of me wonders if McDermott will even accept the position.
I know it is far-fetch to think McDermott will turn down the offer. However, Creighton just brought in their best recruiting class in a long time with three top-110 recruits, and they return their leading scorer in G Marcus Foster. Creighton was looking pretty good last year (18-1 and a top-10 ranking, IIRC) until they lost Maurice Watson Jr. partway way through the season.
How so?! Because his last name isn't Miller?! He coaches at Creighton for Pete's sake. Look at the squad he had last season. (Also, Creighton was quite an injured themselves by half-way through the season...POY "candidate" got hurt) He's done well and I think is a good in-game coach etc.. The recruiting chops are questionable but at Ohio St. who knows, he may be able to pull some good talent. Maybe it isn't sexy but don't be surprised to see a team that plays good basketball quite soon.
Also the reason we got Trey Burke.
Aaron Craft played 15 years of College Basketball and he went out like that. smh.
I keep watching this, hoping he'll pull the trigger. That shit is about to be swatted back into little gym-rat clown-face.
I'm ok with this. Don't think he's bad but not a home run.
Cool. As long as YOU are OK with it...
You're telling me they struck out on Donovan, Stevens, Popovich, Krzyzewski, and Hoiberg? I'm shocked!
In all seriousness, this is an underwhelming hire for them. Outside of the years when his son played, he's been pretty mediocre. So unless he has another future lottery pick son currently in high school, it's hard to see how this turns them into anything more than a middle of the pack Big Ten team. Which I'm totally ok with.
I wasn't expecting them to get an elite level coach, but a guy like Chris Mack would've made way more sense to me and, based on the reports, it sounds like they didn't even go after him. Whatever, I'm happy this is what OSU decided to do.
OU's case is different. They had an elite coach and opted to hire his assistant for continuity's sake. This is something that is not uncommon for successful programs, like when Moeller took over for Bo, and I think we're all hoping that when Harbaugh retires in 30 years, his assistant coach steps in and keeps things rolling.
Dr. Naismith just wasn't up to the task I guess. Well, they tried. Tho with Bobby Knight and John Wooden as asstnts, it was worth a try.
Hard to be intidmated by a coach who has never made it past the Round of 32.
Underwhelming hire if true. Greg's best success came with his son, and they still did not go very far with that talented team.
His hire at Iowa State was odd; he wasn't some shooting star at Northern Iowa.
If Thad wanted to keep coaching or at least one year, pushing him out the door for Greg McDermott is beyond stupid.
My twitter is blowing up right now with people demanding Gene Smith remove himself from the search. The firing of Motta wasnt terribly popular (yes, he was fired) and offering McDermott the job is really pissing them off.
I love it.
I could not be more depressed over the unfathomable FAILURE this #OSU hoops coaching search appears to be
— Bruce Hooley (@BHOOLZ) June 8, 2017
How about those Dubs?
Fun game for 45 minutes. Last three? Not so much.
This is the first real test for Smith. He didn't hire Matta. He "oversaw" the "tressel" disaster. urban happened to walk through the door to bail him out of that mess. Now, he's canning their best b-ball coach in forever(?). With the timing of it, he certainly put himself in a bad position, not that I have any sympathy for him. I can understand osu fans being pissed. Not only did they like matta, but deep down they might know that this might be the point in time that smith gets exposed for the clown he is. Boy, does all this sound familiar?
McDermott is .500-ish in 11 seasons at Creighton, right? I think it was Tony Gerdeman at the Ozone who pointed out he's had six winning seasons there, but without his son on the team, only two. I guess if you go by the record, that is kind of an underwhelming hire, but then I don't know what OSU's strategy is here - ostensibly, it is to be an average team.
Even though the Matta era ended not with a bang, but rather a whispered cat fart, he's probably the best hoops coach in OSU history and a hard act to top. Pretty much anyone they got would've been a palpable downgrade, at least at the outset. When Urban Meyer is forced to resign after a viral video emerges of him killing five hookers at BGSU, his replacement is almost certainly going to be a downgrade. It's what happens when you follow a very good coach. It's not because Ohio State is waving the surrender flag and accepting mediocrity - it's because if there was a clearly better and feasible choice they'd run at him.
Brad Stevens wasn't walking through that door. There's almost never a sure thing in sports and time will tell whether McDermott can hack it in the crucicle that's OSU sports. There's a good chance that he could very well be their Brian Ellerbee; let's just hope he's not their hoops version of Tressel.
Fair enough to only have one thread on this. That said... LOL, Rejected!
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Matta's retirement was voluntary. OSU didn't "get rid" of him.