TheDMV

Willard is clearly a good coach, having been the only guy who could make Hall relevant over the last couple of decades. And in 2 of his first 3 years at Maryland, he’s had top 25 teams in Pom. So I don’t think it’s fair to say he’s worse right now. still, yeah, my view is Turgeon was run out way too quickly and he’s a much better coach than the casual fan realizes. It’s really not easy to go 7-8 seasons in a row without a single bad team. That takes coaching chops. Dolson seems to get that.

Yeah I mean I can promise you all this isn’t true.

At least three discussions relating to the job now, most recently with the search firm, not IU directly.

Wait you really don’t know how Pom works do you I digress. The point is that Pope made a lot of sense for UK, and so they didn’t have to go beyond him.

How’s that relevant to a Pom rating? It’s all opponent adjusted data.

But the admin did! And the fans were clearly wrong about him…

simply because 1) I know there have been discussions and 2) I’m genuinely curious/ confused by the reaction to sharing that news.

Pope was UK’s version of dusty may, except with a longer (and better overall at that time) track record at a bigger program than dusty. Pope had three top 20 Pom teams in 5 seasons at BYU. So yeah, that was kind of an easy decision after the home run swings said no, and an easy decision for him too Kelsey had just made the tournament in 3 out of 4 seasons from lowly Winthrop and Charleston - that’s extremely tough to do, and I’d say if he was still at Charleston this year, he would absolutely be among the top targets for IU

UK and UL had better options who happened to be available and looking last cycle. There’s no question that if this search happened last year, IU would’ve hired Dusty in two seconds and it never gets to a discussion with the next level down in candidates.

The tournament is pretty random, though, and a much worse measure of coaches by itself than looking at the performance of teams across a whole season. Overweighting tournament performance for coach searches is how IU ended up with Archie — none of his teams at Dayton were actually very good if you look under the hood (KenPom).

Just a question for you all: Is the significant negativity for Mark T mostly about his personality or results in the court, or some of both? If it’s the latter, it’s worth pointing out in his last 7 seasons at Maryland, his very worst team was the 2017-2018 squad, a team that went 19-13, finished 39 in KenPom, and probably should’ve been in the tournament. That was the *worst* team. In his four years at Texas A&M, he was dancing every season. So if you consider that and then add in that IU offers better NIL and other resources, is it really that crazy for Dolson to think he’d be successful at IU? again, just worth keeping an open mind. It’s a lot harder to hire away coaches who are having success than fans think.

I’ve been pretty clear about that. Random personal connection to someone close to Mark (I live in DMV area), and Mark has talked to IU about the HC job on more than one occasion. Where’s he at on the list, don’t know. Mark doesn’t even know. But there’s some level of interest. Keep an open mind. It’s hard to get people to leave good jobs.

No

At a minimum I can tell him this isn’t true.

So he’s reading the board. If you guys think this is a bit, that’s fine, I get it. I have no idea how I’d prove I’m not that person (open to ideas if you’ve got them). Bu really just wanted to make the point I made in my previous post: best to stay open minded about who’s hired. Just because it didn’t work out forever in one place doesn’t mean it can’t work out well here.

Don’t you think it could just be that he read the board or heard the same thing? You guys really think I’m ant wright? haha

Ah ok. Maybe he knows people in Mark’s orbit too, hell if I know. Funny to think he may just be reading this board.

Is this an inside joke/ board hazing thing for new guys or ?

Just a recommendation that everyone keep an open mind about the potential of whoever is hired, regardless of how you may initially react to it.

The sooner everyone accepts that there’s a super real possibility of this job going to Mark T, the better.

Certainly not true.

Will now know soon how significant the interest in mark is.

Very close with Roy Williams.

Eye emoji. Just everyone promise me an apology if it comes to be.

Sorry to disappoint, but I’m not a twitter guy. I do wonder if he actually heard this independently as well or if he’s just perusing this place.