What level of faith do you have in Warde Manuel to not screw this up?
Will he open up the checkbook and hire a Tier 1 coach or will he go cheap and cite ethics as the reason. I'm tired of hearing about "culture fit" quite frankly because Michigan's basketball culture is winning, not having a nice guy as a head coach. I have a bad feeling this is going to be similar to the lacrosse search which may have ended with a decent coach but by all accounts was a disaster throughout according to those inside the lacrosse world. The fact that Porter Moser's name is anywhere near this search is a sick joke in and of itself. According to Sam Webb Warde is not even showing interest in Billy Donovan even though Webb has a source that says they would have a legit shot at him if they did. This is trending towards being a massive disappointment. We don't pay recruits so we better pony up and pay for a coach otherwise what the hell is a the point in operating an AD with a $185 million dollar revenue stream.
I didn't mean to almost exactly quote you in the very next comment, but our words are nearly the same.
You just have many more of them.
I think it is unfair to state the level of faith in Warde either way at this point.
What is fair to say that most of us are going to look at this choice - and the resulting success or failure - as framing the success or failure of his entire tenure to this point and beyond.
I'm cautiously pessimistic that Warde will make the right decision.
Warde will not hire a guy who has made 1 Tournament in 13 years and has a career losing conference record. If I was to bet, I would say we half-ass kick the tires on the big names (Beard, Mack, Few, Donovan) and then settle on Yaklich.
Dream scenario? We throw all the money at Few and sell him on being able to recruit closer to home and keep some overseas connections. Few is an incredible offensive coach. If we were able to land him and keep Yaklich, we might end up in even better shape. Few had a Beilein knack to find diamonds in the rough, while also being able to pull a 5 star every couple years
Mark Few has literally spent his entire life in the Pacific Northwest. He grew up in Oregon, went to college in Oregon, and started coaching at Gonzaga up in Spokane WA soon after graduating from Oregon. He's got four kids, the oldest of whom is probably in their mid-20s, so it's highly likely they're still living at home or living nearby.
He's undoubtedly turned down attractive offers from other programs across the country, and he ain't coming here.
I saw the Sam Webb update as well about Manual not even contacting Donovan and I'm losing a bit of faith. I have this feeling it's gonna be disappointing hire from Manuel's inner circle
Just so we are accurate, Warde won't be calling any candidates until the search firm vets them as interested. So after a day, its not surprising that Warde hasn't contacted anyone.
Also, I very nervous about Warde and this hire. He got out negotiated against the ND AD on the scheduling situation.
If this doesn't turn out the way it should, I've seen this blog end the athletic director's career pretty damn quick.
which is awesome.
What if Billy Donovan expressed to Michigan through his agent that he hates recruiting and wouldn't be interested if Michigan weren't willing to go under the table and join the bagman brigade?
You'd never hear about it and it would immediately remove Donovan from consideration without contact.
And you'd fire Warde Manuel for being ethical.
(And by "you", I don't mean just 1201, I mean every ignorant dipshit in this thread who thinks they know better than the fucking AD who has been doing this job at the major college level for 15 years. Shut the fuck up.)
In that case, Warde would report that there was contact with Donovan and interest is not mutual. No harm done and no removal of Warde.
If nothing else, he needs to make that phone call.
Warde wouldn't report shit. You think Warde Manuel is going to send you a daily rundown of his efforts?
I'll save you the trouble. Billy Donovan is not going to be the coach here. I don't know that, obviously, but he's currently the head coach of the Thunder. It's probably not happening. When Manuel's at the press conference introducing whomever the next coach is, whether or not Billy Donovan got a phone call will be the most irrelevant detail on the planet and you'll never know anyway.
I swear, pretty much every Michigan sport I can think of is rolling right now (including basketball, we're only losing guys because we've been so good) and we're going to fire the AD because he didn't contact an NBA coach who was last seen in the college ranks bagging his way to SEC titles. Sounds rational.
gawd, this is just. so. message board. it's the message-boardiest!
so we should be getting some sort of daily / hourly update on who he's talked to? should he also give us a daily thermometer on every candidate's level of interest?
"first, i'd like to thank everyone for coming to my first press conference of the day. this morning i called parker moser, and he's at 80% interest, as you can see in this chart. our own interest in him is at 20%, however, so it's unclear where we will land on him. let's move on to billy donovan. as you can see in today's coaching search media update, we contacted him, and..."
Do you really think that coaches that pay players don't recruit? John Calipari is one of the most fervent recruiters out there. Very rarely can players actually be "bought". I heard from a friend of mine in the know that Clemson outbid everyone for Zion. Yet he took a smaller amount from Duke. Granted, Nike very well may have pushed him there, but the point is, there's no "buying" players. 95% of big time college basketball pays players. You still need to be a great recruiter.
The biggest mistake he is about to make is trying to find a clone of JB.
Exactly. There is only one John Beilein. He needs to go out and hire the best coach, not a replica of the guy he's trying to replace.
One of the most disingenuous posters of all time has the audacity to not only question the person who’s replacing the very person he wanted fired. He’s leading the charge against the person who’s actually in charge of it! I’ll take a hard pass the next time I see the numbers 1021. There’s little to no good that can come out of one of his idiotic, hater posts!
Who the fuck is 1021?
Oh, wait... You crapped all over me for auto-correct misspelling 'Manuel', and you cannot even type 1201 correctly. You, sir, are a rage-filled imitation of that purple faced people eater in South Bend.
Poor fella try Dyslexic. I do know that I at least have one follow(er). Try reading it again, 1021! Go slowly from right to left! I cannot believe you actually replied to that. And I’m mad? Hilarious!
You’re just as backwards as he is, 1021! Lol!
Your posting style is very familiar.
I have no problem with another "clean, nice guy" coach. Beilein made it work, so obviously it can be done.
Beilein also won everywhere he went. Took three different schools to the NCAA tournament before he came to Michigan.
Being a clean, nice guy will only get you so far. I'm a clean, nice guy, but if I can't coach worth a damn, I'll run the program into the ground and undo everything Beilein has built in the last decade.
You misread my comment to mean that "clean, nice guy" as the only job requirement. Obviously professional competency is also a requirement (and is implied). The two are not mutually exclusive, despite what other people say about "today's game."
TBD, he didn't screw up the hockey hire. Some of you will say that hire was tee'd up for him and all he had to do was not screw it up. Well, he didn't screw it up, and he made a good hire with Pearson. Several of Manuel's predecessors had football HC candidates tee'd up for them (DB with Harbaugh in 2010, and Martin with Les Miles in '07), and those asshats found a way to screw it up. So I'm giving Warde the benefit of the doubt for now.
But if the rumors about Manuel not wanting to pursue Donovan are true, then my confidence level is maybe 4 or 5 out of 10. Unless you definitively know that he is not interested and will not want to come here, why not just make the phone call and see what happens?
If he lets Porter Moser walk up to the podium, though, he will have effectively signed his own resignation. I get that you're having to make a hire at the worst possible time, but Manuel would be selling this program WOEFULLY short if he hired him.
Right, Ohio State and Matta split in June, and they still pulled a pretty clearly excellent coach. And it isn't like they have way more money than Michigan does and their football is even farther ahead of basketball than is the case at Michigan.
Michigan shouldn't be hiring a guy with one tourney appearance in 15 seasons and no conference finish higher than 5th until the last couple years. There's a whole swath of guys between the Stevens/Donovan level and someone like Moser.
If Manuel does not contact Donovan he is not doing his job. Make Donovan a great offer and see if he accepts. Our program would not skip a beat with Donovan. My confidence level is zero if someone like Donovan is not even in consideration. I hope Manuel hires a top notch coach or gives it to Yaklich.
Michigan's basketball culture is winning, not having a nice guy as a head coach.
Huh. So we're just pretending the last twelve years didn't even happen?
I haven't made up my mind about Warde as an AD yet. He keeps a low profile which is good most of the time. He seems to be a competent administrator, but there are a lot of people that can do that. I don't get the impression he'll ever be a leader or statesman in the college athletics world though, sort of like Canham was. Also, I don't know if he's made any difficult decisions yet. This will certainly be his biggest as Michigan AD. We'll know a lot more after this search.
The number of genius coaches with integrity is surpassing small to begin with; getting one on short notice is. . . tougher. So we can revise expectations downward to begin with.
There is a small core of posters who don't care if the next coach is clean (who I have no respect for). But I don't see a bunch of brilliant guys with integrity on anyone's shortlist, either. A large additional subset of the fanbase is therefore likely to be disappointed.
Warde has not demonstrated a lot of gumption to date--not only have some of the coaching searches elicited frustration, but the Florida gymnastics hire was a debacle (if blessedly short-lived).
Especially if they're not going for Juwan or Billy Donovan (who may or may not be clean), my only real hope is that they pluck some still young but brilliant basketball mind from obscurity and endure the howls from the fanbase while he establishes himself.
I don't see Warde having those kind of [gumptions]. And I don't see how the hire, under these conditions, is likely to look like a slam dunk to anyone. Nothing is guaranteed anyhow, and we're probably going to be sweating this one out for a couple of years.
High probabilty this is the end of something anywhere near as great as Beilein established.
P.S. This is likely the one that Warde is remembered by.
Billy Donovan isnt clean. Mike Kryzyzewski isnt clean. John Calipari, Roy Williams, Bill Self, Jay Wright, Archie Miller, Sean Miller, Tom Izzo, Jim Boeheim, Will Wade, Bruce Pearl, Chris Beard, Chris Holtmann, all of them. Theyre all dirty. It's what college sports is, I've been around them close enough and long enough to tell you it's all there on the surface. I can promise you Porter Moser isnt clean. John Beilein and mike Brey may be about it, so if getting a coach thats clean is important to you, it'll never happen for as long as the NCAA is stupidly making it illegal to pay players. Now if having a coach smart enough to cheat and let the fan base think he's clean as a whistle is important, now were talking.
He'll hire Kevin Ollie
Last time he did that his school won a National Championship.
Why is contacting or not contacting Billy Donovan at this juncture the litmus test for whether WM is conducting this coaching search properly? From my understanding the AD is using a search firm and will be vetting interest first, then offers will be formulated. I’m sure WM is sharing all that he knows about all the possible candidates with the search firm and they’ll make their recommendations.
Chill out!
50/50.
I have great fate in him. I worked with him when he was at UConn. He is as competitive as any of our coaches. We wants to win. He is not going to call anybody within 24 or 48 hours of getting the news that JB is leaving. That was not his style at UConn and is not now.
Given my prior experience with him, this is my best guess as to what is happening. He has a "list" of people but wants them totally vetted. The search firm is going to do that. The search firm will add to that list. Coaches' agents have been contacting him and they are being told to go through the search firm. Perhaps this weekend he will start filtering down the list and contacting some agents.
You people are miserable... If you think we are just going to find another combination of success and ethics like John freaking Beilein, I suggest you look behind your pet unicorn.
Also - Everyone wants Donovan, including probably Warde Manual. Why in the hell would ANY coach from the NBA go back to college basketball for ANY program? College basketball is a dumpster fire right now with the one-and-dones, the scandal-ridden recruiting process, the fact that every player who thinks he might get drafted leaves just as he is ready to blossom into a great college player. As good a job as Michigan is, it is still a college basketball job, and because of that the odds of getting Billy Donovan are next to zero.
You idiot armchair experts want to get your pitchforks ready if Manual doesn't hire Donovan. Go do your fantasy football draft research and leave the hiring of college coaches to people that have actually done it before. And if Warde COULD pull a rabbit out of a hat and get him, you jackasses would say it was handed to him on a silver platter anyway. In your eyes, the guy can't win.
Dumbasses.
You're absolutely correct on the fact that JB is a unicorn in his ethics.
Donovan would come back because he's essentially a lame duck NBA head coach that has no job security, and he could get a similar contract with more security, more roster control, more benefits, and more support. He'd be able to pick his next career path, rather than wait for Russell Westbrook to decide Donovan is fired.
EDIT: meant to reply to another post.
I hope he gets it right the AD. Go Blue!
i'll answer your question with another question: what the hell do you know about running an athletic department?
and i'll answer that question: nothing. you don't know jack shit. so stop with the pre-emptive bitching. for once.
I have little faith in Warde. Give me Jim.
I'm not sure what he's done here at UM to warrant any faith. We'll see
Zero confidence. Michigan Basketball is cheap. We’ve never opened up our pocketbooks. Billy Donovan is my number 1 choice and I think He’d do well at Michigan.
If your info is correct, the search is not off to the best start. We may not get our top choices but we should aim for the top and that includes Donovan. Moser's record suggests he is a decent coach but not a good or great one either. We deserve a great coach. Beilein's record didn't necessarily indicate he was the elite coach he proved to be (mainly because of where he coached) but his winning percentage was much better than Moser's(about .64 compared to 0.52) He was clearly a good coach with elite potential at the right spot.
We need to have proven coaches like Donovan or maybe Marshall at the top of our list and then those with elite potential right below them (maybe Howard, etc.) if we strike out on those at the top. I would prefer taking chance on Yaklich instead of somebody like Moser who's basically proven to be fairly mediocre. I won't be disappointed as long as we aim for the best.
lots of smoke about Donovan's questionable recruiting practices on other sites. Al Horford and Anthony Roberson are two in particular being mentioned.
If he hires Juwon Howard then he should be fired immediately. That's a non-starter.
This AD has made nothing but stellar moves thus far. Vegas has Rick Portino as the 2nd most likely candidate and I fully trust Warde not to make that move. Billy Donovan is probably on everyone's short list. Chris Beard is too expensive and not proven over time. Beyond that it's a tough job/sell to get a recognized name in here. Trusting in Warde and his checkbook.
The primary and, possibly, sole reason Brandon didn't hire Harbaugh was Brandon's ego. Brandon could never stomach a FB coach who was more popular than him, totally outspoken, and whom Brandon could not control. He, therefore, went with the safe pick of lapdog Hoke, who would not even complain when Brandon insisted on attending team meetings. Brandon has the same personality as Trump -- must be the center of attention all the time; cannot brook any dissent; and will not permit himself to be outshone by any subordinate. No politics -- just an accurate personality analysis.