What kind of coaching staff is good enough?

[Biggus Piggus]

Let's look at some good teams in college basketball + who's on the roster of assistants.

I'll take Illinois, North Carolina, Connecticut, Kentucky, Arizona, Oklahoma and Utah.

Illinois
Wayne McClain--wildly successful coach of Peoria Manuel HS.  Hired by Bill Self to provide in-state connection.
Jay Price--10-year assistant to Gene Keady.
Tracy Webster--starred at Wisconsin, coached as assistant at Ball State and Purdue.

North Carolina
Joe Holladay--starred at OU, 13-year coach of Jenks, Okla., HS, coached 10 years under Roy Williams at Kansas.
Steve Robinson--former head coach of Florida State and Tulsa, worked under Williams for seven years at Kansas.
C.B. McGrath--played for Williams at KU, coached under him at KU.

Connecticut
George Blaney--22-year head coach at Holy Cross, also three years at Seton Hall.  Played a year in the NBA.
Tom Moore--head coach for five years at D-III Worcester State.  Has been with Jim Calhoun for 11 years.
Andre LeFleur--former star guard at Northeastern, first year of coaching after 11-year overseas pro career.

Kentucky
David Hobbs--former head coach of Alabama, before that an assistant under Wimp Sanderson.
Reggie Hanson--former UK star, played international ball for nine years.
Scott Rigot--former assistant at South Carolina, Hawaii, UAB, head coach of Spartanburg Methodist CC and had a record of 158-35.

Arizona
Jim Rosborough--worked 10 seasons under Lute Olson at Iowa, has 16 years with him at Tucson, former head coach of Northern Illinois.
Rodney Tention--starred at San Francisco, former head coach of D-II College of Notre Dame.
Josh Pastner--former Houston Hoops AAU head coach, was a walk-on at Arizona.

Oklahoma
Bob Hoffman--former head coach of Texas-Pan American and NAIA Oklahoma Baptist.
Ray McCallum--former head coach of Houston and Ball State, former assistant at Wisconsin, starred as a player at Ball State.  Native of West Memphis.
Bennie Seltzer--starred as a player for Kelvin Sampson at Washington State, played and coached international ball.

Utah
Randy Rahe--former assistant at Utah State, Colorado, Denver, Colorado State.
Marty Wilson--former assistant at UC-Santa Barbara, San Diego and Pepperdine.
Mike Score--former assistant at Eastern Washington and powerful Southeastern (Iowa) CC.

[Biggus Piggus]

Yeah, a little better than Boudreaux, Flaska and Taliaferro, huh.

I did this same exercise back in 2000 when Nolan came under heat the first time.  It was obvious Nolan's coaching staff was vastly inferior to those at other high-major schools.  His problem was being so unconventional + defensive about it.  Then we hired another coach who brought in a group of yes men.  Yack.  Talk about a buzz kill.

[Lanny]

How about this......on a much smaller scale

Sidney Moncreif, Porter Moser, Steve Sheilds........Moncried was horribe, left Ualr after the first year and Porter turned the Ualr team around.  Porter leaves and Steve Sheilds moves up and Ualr wins the East division in their conference Sheilds first two years.

Not saying Ualr is anywhere near the class of Arkansas yet the assistants did a better job than the head coach.  Does Arkansas have anyone on staff that is better or could do a better job?

[Biggus Piggus]

Note how Sampson snapped up Ray McCallum after Houston fired him.  Texas A&M's former coach, Melvin Watkins, was not on the market long.  He's working for Quin Snyder at Mizzou.

Among the interesting names on the fired list this year:

Shawn Finney, ex-Tulane, worked for Tubby Smith before.
Sidney Green, ex-Florida Atlantic.  He was a good player at UNLV and in the NBA.
Bill Herrion, ex-East Carolina and Drexel.  All his ties are in the Northeast, though.
Steve Lappas, ex-UMass and Villanova.  Another Yankee.

Tim Floyd already snapped up San Jose State ex Phil Johnson.  I wonder what Henry Bibby is doing.  Pete Gillen's probably too rich.

It would be nice to get someone with SEC area ties, but Heath probably thinks he can take care of the recruiting.

Buzz Peterson took his million-dollar buyout in a lump sum, which probably means he wants to work again soon.  Question is whether he wants a head coaching job.  Lots of them open.

[tophawg19]

do you think there is really someone out there who could make enough difference at this time toreally help the team next year ?

[Biggus Piggus]

Scott Edgar was the lead assistant, and he was good.

[Jim Harris]

Scott Edgar was the lead assistant, and he was good.

Scott Edgar had left after the 1991 season to coach at Murray State. Brad Dunn came aboard in 1991-92. Nolan had the same top two coaches, Anderson and Dunn, for the rest of his time at Arkansas, including 1994-95.

[Biggus Piggus]

Scott Edgar was the lead assistant, and he was good.

Scott Edgar had left after the 1991 season to coach at Murray State. Brad Dunn came aboard in 1991-92. Nolan had the same top two coaches, Anderson and Dunn, for the rest of his time at Arkansas, including 1994-95.

That's right.  I was really, really tired when I typed that.

[tophawg19]

Where is brad dunn ? did he go to U.A B with mike a .

[Biggus Piggus]

Scott Edgar was the lead assistant, and he was good.

Scott Edgar had left after the 1991 season to coach at Murray State. Brad Dunn came aboard in 1991-92. Nolan had the same top two coaches, Anderson and Dunn, for the rest of his time at Arkansas, including 1994-95.

That's right. I was really, really tired when I typed that.

I guess this blows your theory out of the water. It was a nice long post though and I'm sure you had fun looking all that up.

Don't know where you get that.  There's a CURRENT trend of head coaching hiring highly experienced veterans as assistants.  Our coaching staff has not looked competitive for a very long time.  If you think Heath is as good a coach as Nolan and can go it on his own for a few years (and after a few years even Nolan fell on his face without a good staff to help him recruit and develop), then maybe you're right.  Of course you're not.

Nolan built up his program with two good assistants, Scott Edgar and Andy Stoglin, who went on to become head coaches.  The main problems with Nolan's staff over his latter years was it was packed with yes men + he had nobody on hand who could recruit/coach big men.  It also did not help that everyone on his staff had been there for 10+ years, nobody who had come in fresh and ready to work the burnout schedule that it takes these days to succeed at recruiting.  Nolan did not adjust his staff as the recruiting rules and landscape (with so many early exits to the pros) changed dramatically.

Now, the way Nolan was letting the program slowly slide was not as bad as what we have seen since he left.  Mike Anderson obviously was a much better coach than the haters claimed he was.  But we fell off the pinnacle and weren't gonna get back up there.  Nolan probably would have saved his job had he refreshed his staff in 2000 when Broyles asked him to.

Brad Dunn, BTW, is selling ads for Clay Henry.

[tophawg19]

Did Dunn just quit or was there no offers .he has ben to the final4 and won a championship .