Orsini

[hoopmanx]

OH yeah, heard through the grapevine that Hurley & Orsini are oil & water. No way they could co-exist. Heard it from two separate coaches, and I'm not sure what it means exactly, but the industry knows the mob boss ain't a roundball scientist

[Hoop Fan]

Never seen SMU hire a coach quickly. Yeah, i don't want to lose the '12 kids either but who are we kidding, they know he is gone. Tell them the same thing you tell the current freshman, hold on til we name a coach, and then you can make your decision. Nothing is different as far as recruits if we do it now or 14 days from now. There is no mystery left about Doh, no shadow of doubt.

As for the players liking Doh just not the system, i won't debate whether they like him or not, the point is they've quit on him as a leader. 28 points in a game, 7 straight league losses. The TCU game was an abberation because the players played for pride in a rivalry game. Otherwise, this is ugly. No real good can come from Doh finishing this. Especially once you tell the freshman they don't have to listen to Doh. Don't tell the freshman he is going to be gone in two weeks, thats weird, just end it, let the healing begin and let the players feel some love for playing hard the rest of the way.

[smubrooks]

I have zero intention of ever setting foot in Moody again as long as Doh is the coach. If you fire Doh today I will be at every home game the rest of the way supporting the players win or lose!

[StallionsModelT]

Orsini risks losing anyone who even remotely cares about SMU basketball if he doesn't do something fast. If we go into next season with Matt Doherty as our head coach I cringe to think what the attendance figures will be. Not to mention the message that sends. Yeah you can lose at a historic rate for six out of seven years at SMU!

The job will be even more difficult to sell after next season once Doh digs this thing even further into the grave.

[SMUer]

Why haven't we even hired our offensive line coach 'officially'? Can we do anything in an expedited manner? Seriously. You see other coaches put together entire quality staffs in literally 24-36 hours in some cases, and it takes us two months to let him finish his Matlock DVD collection and come to work. Maybe I'm missing facts.

[gostangs]

Relax. "Things" are underway.

Not sure how you can criticize Orsini - he has been a magician around here - with this one exception - and I grant you its a big one.

In Orsini i trust.

[CoxBizGrad]

Orsini has only worked his magic on the football side for which I am very appreciative. He's mishandled nearly everything on the basketball side of the house. It has been a travesty of errors resulting in deserate times and embarassment. Time for some corrective action Steve O.

[BrianTinBigD]

Damn those long haired English hooligans and their catchy music!!!

[CoxBizGrad]

I hope Orsini is having dinner at Mr. Miller's home tonight. Orsini has no power to make the decision to fire Doherty, but he can lobby the moneymen and convince them to give him permission and $s.

[mustangbill67]

I have zero intention of ever setting foot in Moody again as long as Doh is the coach. If you fire Doh today I will be at every home game the rest of the way supporting the players win or lose!

All the guys that go to all the games win or lose will not miss you nor will the players. How many games have you actually been to this season? Have season tickets?

[PoconoPony]

I really like Orsini and think he has generally done a great job particularly with the financial nightmare situation he inherited at SMU. Facilities have been built, alums rounded up and brought back into the sports programs....etc. I believe that his single biggest mistake was the 2 year extention to Doh's contract. It appreared clear to most observers that Doh was a mess and would never be able to pull the program together. I understand the spin was to save recruiting, give him just a little more time and what ever, but it may have been Doh's contacts, cultivations and connections that were really in play and needed several more years to come to fruition. I think Orsini does fully understand that Doh simply cannot game coach ( reason for certain recent assistants being brought in), that his kids are not coached up, that his temper and short leash caused kids to play up tight and were afraid to perform and that he had no system of offense or defense and everything else you care to mention. It may further appear that he allowed the influential $$$$ alums to call the shots protecting Doh, but there is strong possibility that Orsini may have masterfully exploited the use of Doh and his connections and considered him to be a huge $$$ generating resource. Doh has contributed significantly in getting great facilities built (golf, basketball, tennis), remodeled (football lockers/scoreboards-Moody, Ford) and/or scheduled for remodeling (Moody). Orsini's 2 year gamble may now be at the end, or as far as he can go, with what Doh brings to the table as a fund raising asset or resource. Now he can no longer afford to exploit those Doh cultivated resources and must make real program decisions. ( It should not take more than 4 years to turn around a basketball program as you can be highly competitive with 2 really good players and 6 solid roll players assuming they are properly coached and run a system commensurate with their skill sets. ) Unfortunately, the basketball program has fallen too far below acceptable levels for Orsini wait another year to make fundamental changes in the program. Maybe Doh could be retained as a fund raiser, but the basketball program deserves a real coach who will need next season to get ready for the Big East or SMU will be the laughing stock of the new league.

[gostangs]

Dude. Try a new paragraph, or maybe just an indention!

[Bergermeister]

Why haven't we even hired our offensive line coach 'officially'?

He's hired... officially. Announcement February 25. Relax.

[Pony81]

PoconoPony you are absolutely correct.

Doh and Orsini did a great job improving facilities and raising the visibility of the program

I still can't believe we are in the Big East. The BB schedule is going to be amazing and I intend to buy season tickets - even though I'm not a huge BB fan

[EastStang]

Even if we suck and play three schools for the blind and deaf OOC, once we're in the Big East, we're going to have a pretty amazing hoops schedule. Georgetown, Louisville, St. Johns, Villanova, Marquette, Cincy, DePaul, Providence, Houston, Memphis. Its sort of like spending the season advertising your opponents like the Mavs used to have to do. We need to have a team worth watching. A low scoring 47-28 game won't pack an arena even if we were to win some of those games.