New head coach search
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- WeedKillinCat
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Re: New head coach search
Hire the best candidate regardless...
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Re: New head coach search
Huse was born and raised in Missoula and played for MT TechBozoneCat wrote: ↑Wed Mar 27, 2019 12:45 pmCompletely agree with every single thing in this post.ilovethecats wrote: ↑Wed Mar 27, 2019 11:48 amNo doubt you worded this this way after much thought. I'd say I completely disagree.phantom wrote: ↑Wed Mar 27, 2019 11:23 amI hope Danny Sprinkle is the choice. As a Montana kid, he'll get the benefit of the doubt if things aren't going as well as people hope during a season, which is most likely going to happen at some point. As I have maintained, the key to Montana State growing is going to be slow, steady growth.
Guys like Fish and Huse were not given the benefit of the doubt because they weren't from Montana. In fact, I'd go ahead and maintain that they DID get the benefit of the doubt throughout their tenure. Had I been the AD neither one of them would have been coaching as long as they did.
I understand your take that MSU is a lousy job and no coach will have success here. And if they do have a sliver of success it won't be after years of trying. So we MSU basketball fans should just be content and happy to watch mediocre ball and never compete for conference titles. But I just refuse to think that way.
I'm so tired of the mentality that football is this huge powerhouse with national championship aspirations and hoops is the stupid little brother uncapable of success. I don't understand why fans shouldn't expect our basketball teams to be successful. And to be clear, no one is sitting here saying we need to be the next Gonzaga or should be as good as a blue blood. But come on. We shouldn't expect to beat the Griz? We shouldn't expect to win a regular season title? We shouldn't expect to win our conference tourney more than once in 25 years?! I completely disagree.
To take this a step farther, I'll say that my biggest fear with hiring Sprinkle is that he WON'T be successful. I'd feel terrible if that was the case. He's an all-time great at MSU. To see his legacy tarnished would bother me. And despite what you think, if he has identical success as Huse or even Fish in the same amount of years they were given....his seat will also be hot. As it should be.
I simply do not believe that Bozeman Montana and MSU is such an impossible place to recruit to and for coaches to have success that we shouldn't expect to ever be competitive in a very average Big Sky conference.
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Re: New head coach search
Exactly. I should have worded that differently to separate the two. He also worked for MSU before becoming head coach. If anything that proves my point even more. Phantom is a Fish guy and I respect that. I always hate to see a person fired because it goes beyond athletics. A guy lost his job and that blows. I wish him nothing but the best going forward.Grizaddict wrote: ↑Wed Mar 27, 2019 1:57 pmHuse was born and raised in Missoula and played for MT TechBozoneCat wrote: ↑Wed Mar 27, 2019 12:45 pmCompletely agree with every single thing in this post.ilovethecats wrote: ↑Wed Mar 27, 2019 11:48 amNo doubt you worded this this way after much thought. I'd say I completely disagree.phantom wrote: ↑Wed Mar 27, 2019 11:23 amI hope Danny Sprinkle is the choice. As a Montana kid, he'll get the benefit of the doubt if things aren't going as well as people hope during a season, which is most likely going to happen at some point. As I have maintained, the key to Montana State growing is going to be slow, steady growth.
Guys like Fish and Huse were not given the benefit of the doubt because they weren't from Montana. In fact, I'd go ahead and maintain that they DID get the benefit of the doubt throughout their tenure. Had I been the AD neither one of them would have been coaching as long as they did.
I understand your take that MSU is a lousy job and no coach will have success here. And if they do have a sliver of success it won't be after years of trying. So we MSU basketball fans should just be content and happy to watch mediocre ball and never compete for conference titles. But I just refuse to think that way.
I'm so tired of the mentality that football is this huge powerhouse with national championship aspirations and hoops is the stupid little brother uncapable of success. I don't understand why fans shouldn't expect our basketball teams to be successful. And to be clear, no one is sitting here saying we need to be the next Gonzaga or should be as good as a blue blood. But come on. We shouldn't expect to beat the Griz? We shouldn't expect to win a regular season title? We shouldn't expect to win our conference tourney more than once in 25 years?! I completely disagree.
To take this a step farther, I'll say that my biggest fear with hiring Sprinkle is that he WON'T be successful. I'd feel terrible if that was the case. He's an all-time great at MSU. To see his legacy tarnished would bother me. And despite what you think, if he has identical success as Huse or even Fish in the same amount of years they were given....his seat will also be hot. As it should be.
I simply do not believe that Bozeman Montana and MSU is such an impossible place to recruit to and for coaches to have success that we shouldn't expect to ever be competitive in a very average Big Sky conference.
But I'm also not going to sugarcoat it. He did not do well here. Either did Huse. One was from Montana and the other wasn't. Both were judged by the jobs they did, and their wins and losses....and NOT where they happened to come from.
To suggest that if Sprinkle is hired he'll get some sort of special treatment because he's alumni is silly. If he wins he'll stay. If we continue to suck, never win a regular season title, and never go to the dance he'll be asked to move on as well. Just like any other job on the planet where basic expectations are not met.
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Re: New head coach search
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Re: New head coach search
Define "the best Candidate" please! Because if you have some magic formula that 100% (hell I would settle for 66%) pick the best candidate for a coaching job, you and I need to start our own "Search Firm" and we will be millionaires before 2022!
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Re: New head coach search
Colter, in the article you wrote, you stated "Here is a look at the names Skyline Sports has confirmed as expressing direct interest in the UM head coaching position."
Come on, you are a better journalist than to make that faux pas!
Come on, you are a better journalist than to make that faux pas!
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Re: New head coach search
Cal State Fullerton's associate head coach has taken the job at Cal Poly SLO. Danny Sprinkle has a team that did not finish at .500 this year and this will inspire Bobcat nation how?
- Helcat72
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Re: New head coach search
Explain and give sources please!homeytennis wrote: ↑Wed Mar 27, 2019 9:52 pmCal State Fullerton's associate head coach has taken the job at Cal Poly SLO. Danny Sprinkle has a team that did not finish at .500 this year and this will inspire Bobcat nation how?
Ok, answered my own question....it wasn't Sprinkle, it was John Smith......a likely name!
Last edited by Helcat72 on Wed Mar 27, 2019 11:17 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: New head coach search
Damnit! I copy and pasted that exact same entry point line from the Bobby Hauck, Griz football coaching search story so that I phrased it the exact same. But I forgot to change the most important part! Corrected now, thanks for telling me!!!
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- Helcat72
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Re: New head coach search
Gosh, and I thought you sat at a keyboard every waking minute typing your stories. Another myth busted! I guess just chasing down the stories is a full time job!Colter_Nuanez wrote: ↑Wed Mar 27, 2019 10:59 pmDamnit! I copy and pasted that exact same entry point line from the Bobby Hauck, Griz football coaching search story so that I phrased it the exact same. But I forgot to change the most important part! Corrected now, thanks for telling me!!!
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Re: New head coach search
I don't think Montana State is a lousy job, I just think to have long term success, it needs to be built. Building isn't an easy process and progress isn't linear. You have to have a guy that if times are tough, the fan base will stay behind. Sprinkle is held in high regard before he comes in. While that won't get him "special treatment", it will get him the benefit of the doubt with some of the vocal fan base. Yes, Fish is a friend. The program is in better shape, as long as everyone stays than when Fish took over and that will help the next coach. I'd like to see Montana State continue to grow. I'm still going to follow the program. I won't watch as many games as the past four years, but that's more because Tyler is gone than the coaching change. I'll still wear my Montana State Bobcats basketball sweatshirt ... and I'll still be around here. I love to talk hoops regardless.ilovethecats wrote: ↑Wed Mar 27, 2019 2:16 pmExactly. I should have worded that differently to separate the two. He also worked for MSU before becoming head coach. If anything that proves my point even more. Phantom is a Fish guy and I respect that. I always hate to see a person fired because it goes beyond athletics. A guy lost his job and that blows. I wish him nothing but the best going forward.Grizaddict wrote: ↑Wed Mar 27, 2019 1:57 pmHuse was born and raised in Missoula and played for MT TechBozoneCat wrote: ↑Wed Mar 27, 2019 12:45 pmCompletely agree with every single thing in this post.ilovethecats wrote: ↑Wed Mar 27, 2019 11:48 amNo doubt you worded this this way after much thought. I'd say I completely disagree.phantom wrote: ↑Wed Mar 27, 2019 11:23 amI hope Danny Sprinkle is the choice. As a Montana kid, he'll get the benefit of the doubt if things aren't going as well as people hope during a season, which is most likely going to happen at some point. As I have maintained, the key to Montana State growing is going to be slow, steady growth.
Guys like Fish and Huse were not given the benefit of the doubt because they weren't from Montana. In fact, I'd go ahead and maintain that they DID get the benefit of the doubt throughout their tenure. Had I been the AD neither one of them would have been coaching as long as they did.
I understand your take that MSU is a lousy job and no coach will have success here. And if they do have a sliver of success it won't be after years of trying. So we MSU basketball fans should just be content and happy to watch mediocre ball and never compete for conference titles. But I just refuse to think that way.
I'm so tired of the mentality that football is this huge powerhouse with national championship aspirations and hoops is the stupid little brother uncapable of success. I don't understand why fans shouldn't expect our basketball teams to be successful. And to be clear, no one is sitting here saying we need to be the next Gonzaga or should be as good as a blue blood. But come on. We shouldn't expect to beat the Griz? We shouldn't expect to win a regular season title? We shouldn't expect to win our conference tourney more than once in 25 years?! I completely disagree.
To take this a step farther, I'll say that my biggest fear with hiring Sprinkle is that he WON'T be successful. I'd feel terrible if that was the case. He's an all-time great at MSU. To see his legacy tarnished would bother me. And despite what you think, if he has identical success as Huse or even Fish in the same amount of years they were given....his seat will also be hot. As it should be.
I simply do not believe that Bozeman Montana and MSU is such an impossible place to recruit to and for coaches to have success that we shouldn't expect to ever be competitive in a very average Big Sky conference.
But I'm also not going to sugarcoat it. He did not do well here. Either did Huse. One was from Montana and the other wasn't. Both were judged by the jobs they did, and their wins and losses....and NOT where they happened to come from.
To suggest that if Sprinkle is hired he'll get some sort of special treatment because he's alumni is silly. If he wins he'll stay. If we continue to suck, never win a regular season title, and never go to the dance he'll be asked to move on as well. Just like any other job on the planet where basic expectations are not met.
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Re: New head coach search
I find it interesting how schools fire and hire. Look at Alabama. They fired their coach and hired a new guy like two days later.
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Re: New head coach search
They have a money printing press called football gate and television receipts. The SEC television broadcasts of hoops probably brings in a tad bit more than the Big Sky contract does. Different world.
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Re: New head coach search
I agree with much of this as I often do with your posts. And I agree that Fish likely left the program in a better state than what he inherited. But I think we can both agree that is a very low bar and not one that is really saying much. I think the simple truth is that both Huse and Fish just didn't get it done.phantom wrote: ↑Thu Mar 28, 2019 6:53 amI don't think Montana State is a lousy job, I just think to have long term success, it needs to be built. Building isn't an easy process and progress isn't linear. You have to have a guy that if times are tough, the fan base will stay behind. Sprinkle is held in high regard before he comes in. While that won't get him "special treatment", it will get him the benefit of the doubt with some of the vocal fan base. Yes, Fish is a friend. The program is in better shape, as long as everyone stays than when Fish took over and that will help the next coach. I'd like to see Montana State continue to grow. I'm still going to follow the program. I won't watch as many games as the past four years, but that's more because Tyler is gone than the coaching change. I'll still wear my Montana State Bobcats basketball sweatshirt ... and I'll still be around here. I love to talk hoops regardless.ilovethecats wrote: ↑Wed Mar 27, 2019 2:16 pmExactly. I should have worded that differently to separate the two. He also worked for MSU before becoming head coach. If anything that proves my point even more. Phantom is a Fish guy and I respect that. I always hate to see a person fired because it goes beyond athletics. A guy lost his job and that blows. I wish him nothing but the best going forward.Grizaddict wrote: ↑Wed Mar 27, 2019 1:57 pmHuse was born and raised in Missoula and played for MT TechBozoneCat wrote: ↑Wed Mar 27, 2019 12:45 pmCompletely agree with every single thing in this post.ilovethecats wrote: ↑Wed Mar 27, 2019 11:48 amNo doubt you worded this this way after much thought. I'd say I completely disagree.phantom wrote: ↑Wed Mar 27, 2019 11:23 amI hope Danny Sprinkle is the choice. As a Montana kid, he'll get the benefit of the doubt if things aren't going as well as people hope during a season, which is most likely going to happen at some point. As I have maintained, the key to Montana State growing is going to be slow, steady growth.
Guys like Fish and Huse were not given the benefit of the doubt because they weren't from Montana. In fact, I'd go ahead and maintain that they DID get the benefit of the doubt throughout their tenure. Had I been the AD neither one of them would have been coaching as long as they did.
I understand your take that MSU is a lousy job and no coach will have success here. And if they do have a sliver of success it won't be after years of trying. So we MSU basketball fans should just be content and happy to watch mediocre ball and never compete for conference titles. But I just refuse to think that way.
I'm so tired of the mentality that football is this huge powerhouse with national championship aspirations and hoops is the stupid little brother uncapable of success. I don't understand why fans shouldn't expect our basketball teams to be successful. And to be clear, no one is sitting here saying we need to be the next Gonzaga or should be as good as a blue blood. But come on. We shouldn't expect to beat the Griz? We shouldn't expect to win a regular season title? We shouldn't expect to win our conference tourney more than once in 25 years?! I completely disagree.
To take this a step farther, I'll say that my biggest fear with hiring Sprinkle is that he WON'T be successful. I'd feel terrible if that was the case. He's an all-time great at MSU. To see his legacy tarnished would bother me. And despite what you think, if he has identical success as Huse or even Fish in the same amount of years they were given....his seat will also be hot. As it should be.
I simply do not believe that Bozeman Montana and MSU is such an impossible place to recruit to and for coaches to have success that we shouldn't expect to ever be competitive in a very average Big Sky conference.
But I'm also not going to sugarcoat it. He did not do well here. Either did Huse. One was from Montana and the other wasn't. Both were judged by the jobs they did, and their wins and losses....and NOT where they happened to come from.
To suggest that if Sprinkle is hired he'll get some sort of special treatment because he's alumni is silly. If he wins he'll stay. If we continue to suck, never win a regular season title, and never go to the dance he'll be asked to move on as well. Just like any other job on the planet where basic expectations are not met.
I totally get the job that we ask these guys to do is very difficult. I consider myself a pretty patient person when it regards to sports and coaches and whatnot. I too find that many fanbases are unrealistic in their expectations and timelines of success. But I don't believe that ours is one of those fanbases. I think our expectations of this program are way lower than I'd like to see personally. As I suggested, should we not expect to beat the Griz? Sure, every 2-3 years we might beat them once but to me that's not enough.
Is it really expecting too much of a coach to think that after 4-5 years we should be competing for regular season titles? I'm sorry but this is the Big Sky conference! Competing to be 1-3 in this league every now and again I think should be pretty realistic.
Should we really find it normal to go 20+ years before we represent this league in the dance? Obviously that was an issue before Huse and Fish and it's why they parted ways with Mick. I fully believe had we retained Mick at that time we would have had way more success than we've had without him. Which again...is a very low bar.
Mick didn't have a losing record in any of his last three seasons. Huse had a losing season his last four seasons and Fish had a losing record his last two seasons. Huse was given a way-to-long 8 years and Fish had 5 years. My personal opinion is that in THIS league, if you can't even flirt with being a top 3-4 team after 5+ seasons you might not be the right guy?
But as I said Fish left us better than Huse did. But Huse had one non-losing season (15-15) in 8 tries. Fish had one non-losing season (16-16) in five tries. I just can't think that as a fanbase we're expecting too much to think these results can and should be better.
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Re: New head coach search
I am biased, but I see MSU as a premier institution in the BSC. Premier in academics and premier in sports. That used to be and should be our expectations. We are a unique institution and we should expect and strive to be the leader in all forms of academic and athletic success. Maybe alum at schools like ISU feel the same way, but I doubt it.
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Re: New head coach search
If you look at history of Lady Griz when Coach Selvig was there, they won something like 18 conference titles, on the men’s side they have a great coaching tree. Randy Rahe at Weber State is an institution and the rest of the Big Sky is very talented. So yes playing for a championship every 3-4 years might be asking a lot.
I do believe that Coach Fish was doing a good job of identifying talent that could compete and excel in the Big Sky. He did better than most in that regard, but probably made too many first time head coach mistakes. I did think he was getting better each year.
I think going forward we need a Coach Kramer type coach to come in ...by this I mean to take a program and make that big jump to a top team in the conference and establish necessary excitement/funding for men’s basketball on a consistent basis.
Hopefully we find the right coach to yank our program forward this time around
I do believe that Coach Fish was doing a good job of identifying talent that could compete and excel in the Big Sky. He did better than most in that regard, but probably made too many first time head coach mistakes. I did think he was getting better each year.
I think going forward we need a Coach Kramer type coach to come in ...by this I mean to take a program and make that big jump to a top team in the conference and establish necessary excitement/funding for men’s basketball on a consistent basis.
Hopefully we find the right coach to yank our program forward this time around
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Re: New head coach search
It is undeniable that Fish has a great eye for talent that we can actually land at Montana State. I don't think people understand how difficult that is. But I think that was actually part of his undoing. You bring in maybe the most talented player the Cats have ever had and you STILL can't vie for regular season titles or even a win in our tourney (yes we finally got one) and I think it looks very bad.bpcats20 wrote: ↑Thu Mar 28, 2019 7:19 pmIf you look at history of Lady Griz when Coach Selvig was there, they won something like 18 conference titles, on the men’s side they have a great coaching tree. Randy Rahe at Weber State is an institution and the rest of the Big Sky is very talented. So yes playing for a championship every 3-4 years might be asking a lot.
I do believe that Coach Fish was doing a good job of identifying talent that could compete and excel in the Big Sky. He did better than most in that regard, but probably made too many first time head coach mistakes. I did think he was getting better each year.
I think going forward we need a Coach Kramer type coach to come in ...by this I mean to take a program and make that big jump to a top team in the conference and establish necessary excitement/funding for men’s basketball on a consistent basis.
Hopefully we find the right coach to yank our program forward this time around
And love it or hate it, fair or unfair, in this state you're ALWAYS going to be compared to what the school in Missoula is doing. And what they are doing is dominating this league in basketball. Coaches move on to bigger and better things and they simply fill that void with another stud coach before he too goes on to bigger and better things. It's the most coveted job in the conference and has been forever. So to see that kind of success a couple hundred miles up the road, and watch our complete lack of success here...I think that creates added pressure. Like I said, it's probably not fair. But it's how it is. We need a coach in here who understands that.
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Re: New head coach search
I'll be the first to admit I don't follow BB outside of the Big Sky but based on the pool of candidates it would seem the best by far are Sprinkle based on his Cat playing days (outstanding) and Looney, based on his excellent coaching record. Hard to find coaches at any level who in14 seasons have 11 with 20 wins or more, been in their respective tournaments 10 times and are playing in their national championship this year. The rest of the field IMO leaves a lot to be desired.
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Re: New head coach search
I totally agree about slow steady growth! As much as Fish probably underperformed I can't help but wonder if he didn't have enough time. Patience at the mid-major level is a huge virtue. I have noticed that the mid-major coaches in the NCAA tournament this year have been at their schools for 8+ years. It takes time to build a winner!phantom wrote: ↑Wed Mar 27, 2019 11:23 amI hope Danny Sprinkle is the choice. As a Montana kid, he'll get the benefit of the doubt if things aren't going as well as people hope during a season, which is most likely going to happen at some point. As I have maintained, the key to Montana State growing is going to be slow, steady growth.