Ben McCollum

[Lebowski 3,051]

1 hour ago, AH1971 said:

I think its the fact that he doesn't heavily value the 3 point line and almost completely ignores fast break/transition opportunities. That is a tough sell to a lot of recruits, especially high end ones that aspire to play in the NBA. It worked at places like Wisconsin and Virginia as those schools historically struggle in recruiting. Obviously Tony Bennett and Bo Ryan eventually had tournament breakthroughs, but both and Tony Bennett in particular, are widely known for their tournament struggles. 

At McCollum's current pace and if he continues to succeed like he is, every point guard on the planet will consider playing for him. He already coached a point guard that was fortunate enough to play in the NBA for one season and is currently professionally playing in France. His current point guard is a junior D2 transfer and folks will learn about him in the tournament. His system is centered around the point guard. The last three national titles (76, 81, 87) IU won had arguably the best point guards in the country on the court. All three of those point guards were smart, played solid defense, made free throws, and came to play every single game. Also, it's safe to say every national champion had one of the best point guards in the country on the team. This dates as far back to Wooden to Izzo to Coach K to Wright etc. College basketball is a point guard game and has been for decades. If he were at a school like IU he will have his fair share of choices on who he wants to run his system. Because folks like Isiah Thomas call these recruits. NIL will help along the way. IU has resources college coaches desire. Recruiting players will not be an issue for this coach if he were at IU. 

[AH1971 2,356]

11 minutes ago, Lebowski said:

At McCollum's current pace and if he continues to succeed like he is, every point guard on the planet will consider playing for him. He already coached a point guard that was fortunate enough to play in the NBA for one season and is currently professionally playing in France. His current point guard is a junior D2 transfer and folks will learn about him in the tournament. His system is centered around the point guard. The last three national titles (76, 81, 87) IU won had arguably the best point guards in the country on the court. All three of those point guards were smart, played solid defense, made free throws, and came to play every single game. Also, it's safe to say every national champion had one of the best point guards in the country on the team. This dates as far back to Wooden to Izzo to Coach K to Wright etc. College basketball is a point guard game and has been for decades. If he were at a school like IU he will have his fair share of choices on who he wants to run his system. Because folks like Isiah Thomas call these recruits. NIL will help along the way. IU has resources college coaches desire. Recruiting players will not be an issue for this coach if he were at IU. 

That's nothing more than wishful thinking. 

[Lebowski 3,051]

39 minutes ago, AH1971 said:

That's nothing more than wishful thinking. 

Read the first part of the sentence where I made that claim. Trust me, if that is true, you'll eat crow. 

[AH1971 2,356]

1 minute ago, Lebowski said:

Read the first part of the sentence where I made that claim. Trust me, if that is true, you'll eat crow. 

I read it. I was being nice when I said it was wishful thinking at best. 

[Lebowski 3,051]

Just now, AH1971 said:

I read it. I was being nice when I said it was wishful thinking at best. 

I understand. If he continues to have success, you'll eat crow. His school will be considered Point Guard U and the Tony Parker's of the world will want to be coached by him.

[Henryville Hoosier 1,160]

He wins, Google him  

[Old Friend 8,582]

6 hours ago, Hornsby said:

Not disputing his record concerned about only a one year d1 track record to look at. Wes Miller was the hottest thing since sliced bread and is failing at cinn. It's a very risky hire imo. Then again starting to look like he may be the best we can get

 

Sent from my SM-A146U using Tapatalk

 

 

 

I guess we won't know until we know but McCollum has won everywhere and at a high level for many years.  I'm not as inclined to compare him to Wes Miller.  Miller was at UNC Greensboro for 10 seasons, and won just 58% of his games and his first 5 years were dog sh*t (60-82 in a bad league).  My concern about McCollum is whether or not he can adapt to and recruit to a bigger, more athletic league.  His deliberate style and slow pace would drive people crazy VERY quickly if he didn't win, and I don't mean win like Woodson.  I mean win 23-25+ games and be in the conversation for conference title every season.

 

[Old Friend 8,582]

2 hours ago, AH1971 said:

I think its the fact that he doesn't heavily value the 3 point line and almost completely ignores fast break/transition opportunities. That is a tough sell to a lot of recruits, especially high end ones that aspire to play in the NBA. It worked at places like Wisconsin and Virginia as those schools historically struggle in recruiting. Obviously Tony Bennett and Bo Ryan eventually had tournament breakthroughs, but both and Tony Bennett in particular, are widely known for their tournament struggles. 

 

Unless he has a perfect roster, this will have to be adjusted for in the Big Ten.  Every player at every position is bigger, faster, and more athletic than he deals with now.  I think he would acknowledge that.  His current style at Drake with that kind of player would likely have a record similar to Northwestern in the Big Ten.   You're spot on re: recruits and as I said above, unless he wins big, the slow style would drive people crazy very quickly.

[Demo 22,042]

https://archive.is/lG8gw
 

Don’t know if this has been posted, but in case it hasn’t.

[Home Jersey 13,196]

19 minutes ago, Demo said:

https://archive.is/lG8gw
 

Don’t know if this has been posted, but in case it hasn’t.

Thank you for posting this. Sharing a few excerpts for posterity

 

They are 159-8 over the last five seasons, the best record during that time of any team at any level — men’s or women’s. McCollum’s 2019-2020 team recorded the highest offensive efficiency (114.6) in the 16 years of Synergy’s database, which tracks college basketball at all levels. For comparison’s sake, the best Division I offense during that time was Villanova’s 2017-18 national championship team that posted a 110.0 efficiency.

This summer at a recruiting event, Texas A&M’s Buzz Williams was asked for the best X’s and O’s guys in the game right now. He mentioned McCollum, whom he has never met. After Mark Adams got the head coaching job at Texas Tech this spring, he set up a call with McCollum. “Boy, he is very impressive,” Adams says. “He’s doing some game-changing things with ball screens and their different angles. My son thinks he’ll be in the NBA someday.”

Marquette coach Shaka Smart heard about the 40-year-old McCollum from a coaching buddy and looked up Northwest Missouri State’s numbers on Synergy. The stats were so eye-poppingly off the charts that he had a hard time believing it was real before he watched the tape. Smart emailed McCollum at the beginning of the pandemic, connected over Zoom and was even more blown away after he got to know him. “He really, really understands culture and what goes into winning from a people standpoint,” Smart says. “Then he’s a great coach on both ends of the floor. And like the way that they play, you can tell he teaches guys and helps guys grow in how to play as opposed to little parts of the offense or parts of the defense. He teaches them to understand how to put it all together.”

 

His favorite books is “Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t.” It’s the Bible of his program. One of the staples of the book is that you’re only as good as the people you surround yourself with.

“I’ve learned to understand that I’m not that special,” he says. “And so once you kind of get over yourself and realize the importance lies in everybody else around you, then you get pretty good.”

 

It’s a Tuesday in August, and Hudgins is sprinting around the 3-point line in the Bearcats’ practice gym draining 3s. He’s just hit 16 in one minute. 

If the 6-foot Hudgins wanted, he could be practicing right now at a place like the University of Kansas in a multi-million dollar complex while living in an apartment that would make a trust fund kid jealous. Instead, he plays in relative obscurity in Maryville, a town of less than 12,000 people located about halfway between Kansas City and Omaha, Neb. Hudgins has put up make-believe numbers in three seasons — 19.3 points per game, 50.3 percent shooting from 3 (on 531 attempts) and better than a 3-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio. Two years ago, he scored 27 points in a four-point loss to Duke during an exhibition game at Cameron Indoor.

“He could play for anyone in the country,” Smart says of Hudgins. “He is an all-conference point guard maybe in every league in the country. But if not, in 90 percent of the leagues in the country. I mean, that kid is really, really good.”

Hudgins is fully aware of the possibilities. He’s from Manhattan, Kan., and he hears it from friends back home and when he goes to play in Kansas City with the area’s other best players who play at high-major spots across the country.

You should transfer and go big, they tell him.

His thought process: They had their chance.

“I feel like I’m improving with Coach Mac,” he says. “I don’t feel like I’ve plateaued with my game here. He gives me great advice. He knows the game very well. I’m still learning to this day. I’m still hungry to learn. I just feel great here. I feel like I’m still improving.”

Every point guard who has started for McCollum before Hudgins is playing professionally overseas. Two of those players were 5-8 and 5-9. But McCollum, 5-11 himself, embraces the little guy and trusts his eyes. He spotted Hudgins at a summer tournament in Lawrence, Kan., at an event littered with D-1 coaches. Hudgins didn’t put up big numbers, but McCollum saw enough to pique his interest. Then later that summer he went to watch him play a pickup game at Kansas State’s rec center. He was playing well, and then somebody pissed him off. “He just went to work on this kid defensively and offensively,” McCollum says. “That’s all I needed to see.”

The way Hudgins remembers it is that during the workout, which was attended by several other D-2 coaches as well, he had been scoring pretty easily but was also settling for some mid-range fadeaways. McCollum pulled him aside and asked him, “What are you doing? You can go get a layup every time. Why aren’t you scoring on them every time?”

“None of the other coaches said anything,” Hudgins says. “They were just clapping. He was different.”

 

McCollum learns a lot from watching EuroLeague basketball. Unlike the NBA, EuroLeague doesn’t have illegal defense, so the defenses look more like college, where you can plant help defenders in the paint. He will introduce different tactics and concepts to his players from his film study, but it’s ultimately their instincts that dictate where each possession ends up. For instance, in the play above, his players initially were running a Spain action, saw that the defense cheated and quickly countered.

“Coaches will ask me, what do you do offensively? Well, the defense is going to tell you the answer,” McCollum says. “Your players are making those decisions rather than the coach. And so they play as free as they possibly can with their movements, meaning it’s not point A to point B. They’re not always looking over their shoulder at their coach.”

 

Three years ago, Grant McCasland had just finished his first year at North Texas when he went to a college coach symposium weekend. It was there that McCasland met McCollum. McCasland was in the beginning stages of a rebuild, and he was excited at what he’d accomplished offensively that year. He took over a team that ranked 315th in adjusted offensive efficiency, and he got the Mean Green to 162nd in Year One. He asked for McCollum’s feedback. 

“You’re really easy to guard and predictable, and this offense isn’t any good,” McCollum told him after watching the tape.

McCasland was staggered by the verbal haymaker, and he went home to study McCollum’s offense so he could find a retort. His approach had to have some holes, he thought. McCollum’s offense defied the modern principle that playing with pace equals efficiency, but the results justified his beliefs. “He scores in the half court, but he scores more points than anybody that tries to play fast,” McCasland says. “He just is against the grain in so many ways. He orchestrates an offense that has elite precision but with ultimate freedom, which is the greatest compliment of a disciplined team.”

A year later after experimenting with some different offenses, McCasland went back to McCollum and asked for help adopting the Bearcat way. His team made a monstrous jump from 265th in adjusted offensive efficiency to 34th and won Conference USA. This past season North Texas won the C-USA  automatic bid and upset Purdue in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament.

“He changed the trajectory of our program in a lot of ways,” McCasland says.

McCasland’s boss at North Texas is Wren Baker, who was Northwest Missouri State’s athletic director from 2011 to 2013. Baker says he’s fielded a half-dozen calls from Division I ADs asking about McCollum, but neither the interest nor the stature of school has prompted McCollum to seriously consider leaving Maryville for a higher level yet. Baker is asked if McCollum would succeed at Division I.

“Oh, he’d kill it,” Baker says. “He could coach anywhere. I mean anywhere. Any league, any level, the highest of levels. He is that good.”

[newcastle12 10]

I would prefer someone with a lot more power 5 proven experience. But it's starting to seem that the desire of coaches to coach here has been greatly exaggerated.  So with that in mind, I've softened on this idea.  Maybe he's the next great young coach.  Worse case scenario, if you can keep the meddling out of the program, you have a better shot after his run if it doesn't work out.  

 

But it could be a home run hire.

[8bucks 7,140]

Someone mentioned that guys like May would ask McCollum for ideas. Anyone know where that was sourced from 

[Home Jersey 13,196]

Just now, 8bucks said:

Someone mentioned that guys like May would ask McCollum for ideas. Anyone know where that was sourced from 

The above article/excerpt speaks to McCasland and Shaka reaching out to him. 

This video is about Dusty/McCasland.

 

[cybergates 505]

52 minutes ago, Home Jersey said:

Thank you for posting this. Sharing a few excerpts for posterity

 

They are 159-8 over the last five seasons, the best record during that time of any team at any level — men’s or women’s. McCollum’s 2019-2020 team recorded the highest offensive efficiency (114.6) in the 16 years of Synergy’s database, which tracks college basketball at all levels. For comparison’s sake, the best Division I offense during that time was Villanova’s 2017-18 national championship team that posted a 110.0 efficiency.

This summer at a recruiting event, Texas A&M’s Buzz Williams was asked for the best X’s and O’s guys in the game right now. He mentioned McCollum, whom he has never met. After Mark Adams got the head coaching job at Texas Tech this spring, he set up a call with McCollum. “Boy, he is very impressive,” Adams says. “He’s doing some game-changing things with ball screens and their different angles. My son thinks he’ll be in the NBA someday.”

Marquette coach Shaka Smart heard about the 40-year-old McCollum from a coaching buddy and looked up Northwest Missouri State’s numbers on Synergy. The stats were so eye-poppingly off the charts that he had a hard time believing it was real before he watched the tape. Smart emailed McCollum at the beginning of the pandemic, connected over Zoom and was even more blown away after he got to know him. “He really, really understands culture and what goes into winning from a people standpoint,” Smart says. “Then he’s a great coach on both ends of the floor. And like the way that they play, you can tell he teaches guys and helps guys grow in how to play as opposed to little parts of the offense or parts of the defense. He teaches them to understand how to put it all together.”

 

His favorite books is “Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t.” It’s the Bible of his program. One of the staples of the book is that you’re only as good as the people you surround yourself with.

“I’ve learned to understand that I’m not that special,” he says. “And so once you kind of get over yourself and realize the importance lies in everybody else around you, then you get pretty good.”

 

It’s a Tuesday in August, and Hudgins is sprinting around the 3-point line in the Bearcats’ practice gym draining 3s. He’s just hit 16 in one minute. 

If the 6-foot Hudgins wanted, he could be practicing right now at a place like the University of Kansas in a multi-million dollar complex while living in an apartment that would make a trust fund kid jealous. Instead, he plays in relative obscurity in Maryville, a town of less than 12,000 people located about halfway between Kansas City and Omaha, Neb. Hudgins has put up make-believe numbers in three seasons — 19.3 points per game, 50.3 percent shooting from 3 (on 531 attempts) and better than a 3-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio. Two years ago, he scored 27 points in a four-point loss to Duke during an exhibition game at Cameron Indoor.

“He could play for anyone in the country,” Smart says of Hudgins. “He is an all-conference point guard maybe in every league in the country. But if not, in 90 percent of the leagues in the country. I mean, that kid is really, really good.”

Hudgins is fully aware of the possibilities. He’s from Manhattan, Kan., and he hears it from friends back home and when he goes to play in Kansas City with the area’s other best players who play at high-major spots across the country.

You should transfer and go big, they tell him.

His thought process: They had their chance.

“I feel like I’m improving with Coach Mac,” he says. “I don’t feel like I’ve plateaued with my game here. He gives me great advice. He knows the game very well. I’m still learning to this day. I’m still hungry to learn. I just feel great here. I feel like I’m still improving.”

Every point guard who has started for McCollum before Hudgins is playing professionally overseas. Two of those players were 5-8 and 5-9. But McCollum, 5-11 himself, embraces the little guy and trusts his eyes. He spotted Hudgins at a summer tournament in Lawrence, Kan., at an event littered with D-1 coaches. Hudgins didn’t put up big numbers, but McCollum saw enough to pique his interest. Then later that summer he went to watch him play a pickup game at Kansas State’s rec center. He was playing well, and then somebody pissed him off. “He just went to work on this kid defensively and offensively,” McCollum says. “That’s all I needed to see.”

The way Hudgins remembers it is that during the workout, which was attended by several other D-2 coaches as well, he had been scoring pretty easily but was also settling for some mid-range fadeaways. McCollum pulled him aside and asked him, “What are you doing? You can go get a layup every time. Why aren’t you scoring on them every time?”

“None of the other coaches said anything,” Hudgins says. “They were just clapping. He was different.”

 

McCollum learns a lot from watching EuroLeague basketball. Unlike the NBA, EuroLeague doesn’t have illegal defense, so the defenses look more like college, where you can plant help defenders in the paint. He will introduce different tactics and concepts to his players from his film study, but it’s ultimately their instincts that dictate where each possession ends up. For instance, in the play above, his players initially were running a Spain action, saw that the defense cheated and quickly countered.

“Coaches will ask me, what do you do offensively? Well, the defense is going to tell you the answer,” McCollum says. “Your players are making those decisions rather than the coach. And so they play as free as they possibly can with their movements, meaning it’s not point A to point B. They’re not always looking over their shoulder at their coach.”

 

Three years ago, Grant McCasland had just finished his first year at North Texas when he went to a college coach symposium weekend. It was there that McCasland met McCollum. McCasland was in the beginning stages of a rebuild, and he was excited at what he’d accomplished offensively that year. He took over a team that ranked 315th in adjusted offensive efficiency, and he got the Mean Green to 162nd in Year One. He asked for McCollum’s feedback. 

“You’re really easy to guard and predictable, and this offense isn’t any good,” McCollum told him after watching the tape.

McCasland was staggered by the verbal haymaker, and he went home to study McCollum’s offense so he could find a retort. His approach had to have some holes, he thought. McCollum’s offense defied the modern principle that playing with pace equals efficiency, but the results justified his beliefs. “He scores in the half court, but he scores more points than anybody that tries to play fast,” McCasland says. “He just is against the grain in so many ways. He orchestrates an offense that has elite precision but with ultimate freedom, which is the greatest compliment of a disciplined team.”

A year later after experimenting with some different offenses, McCasland went back to McCollum and asked for help adopting the Bearcat way. His team made a monstrous jump from 265th in adjusted offensive efficiency to 34th and won Conference USA. This past season North Texas won the C-USA  automatic bid and upset Purdue in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament.

“He changed the trajectory of our program in a lot of ways,” McCasland says.

McCasland’s boss at North Texas is Wren Baker, who was Northwest Missouri State’s athletic director from 2011 to 2013. Baker says he’s fielded a half-dozen calls from Division I ADs asking about McCollum, but neither the interest nor the stature of school has prompted McCollum to seriously consider leaving Maryville for a higher level yet. Baker is asked if McCollum would succeed at Division I.

“Oh, he’d kill it,” Baker says. “He could coach anywhere. I mean anywhere. Any league, any level, the highest of levels. He is that good.”

How badass is this...

“You’re really easy to guard and predictable, and this offense isn’t any good,” McCollum told him after watching the tape.

McCasland was staggered by the verbal haymaker, and he went home to study McCollum’s offense so he could find a retort. His approach had to have some holes, he thought. McCollum’s offense defied the modern principle that playing with pace equals efficiency, but the results justified his beliefs.

[go iu bb 8,107]

Anyone have a shot diagram from a Drake game?

[cybergates 505]

21 minutes ago, Home Jersey said:

The above article/excerpt speaks to McCasland and Shaka reaching out to him. 

This video is about Dusty/McCasland.

 

OK, I'm sold. I watched a game earlier this year and was entertained, but the two things @Home Jersey just posted have me all aboard the McCollum train. 

To me these things are eerily similar to what came out about what Ainge was saying about Stevens (while at Butler) before he decided to pursue him. 

To me, the point of hiring a coach isn't to win the press conference. It isn't to have success in year 1 or any specific year for that matter. The point of hiring a coach is to get the person you think would have the best career at your school. I understand this is subjective forecasting and extremely difficult.

If McCollum's the guy, go get him. 

[Home Jersey 13,196]

3 minutes ago, go iu bb said:

Anyone have a shot diagram from a Drake game?

vs Southern Illinois in MVC quarterfinal - 25/57 (43.9%) 7/23 3PT

vs. Belmont in MVC semifinal - 17/44 (38.6%) 4/19 3PT

vs Bradley in MVC championship - 21/46 (45.7%) 6/15 3PT 

[8bucks 7,140]

45 minutes ago, Home Jersey said:

The above article/excerpt speaks to McCasland and Shaka reaching out to him. 

This video is about Dusty/McCasland.

 

Well if you didn’t hide that huge post just above mine in plain sight it would have been easier to find lol 

Really intriguing prospect for sure. If he isn’t snatched up this round he won’t be there next time. BS may be better but at one point BS was an unproven guy as well. 

[str8baller 6,744]

32 minutes ago, cybergates said:

McCollum’s offense defied the modern principle that playing with pace equals efficiency,

I mean…I hope that’s the author editorializing and not something McCollum said because it is really dumb and easily disproven by a cursory scan through Kenpom. 

[cybergates 505]

3 minutes ago, str8baller said:

I mean…I hope that’s the author editorializing and not something McCollum said because it is really dumb and easily disproven by a cursory scan through Kenpom. 

Definitely not McCollum who said that. Either the author or McCasland. I read it as the author trying to speak for McCasland.