PonyFans.com

For some reason I could not post a reply of the last topic but all this talk about a name coach is just silly. There is no name coach who would take the SMU job. To secure a name coach, there must be an importance attached to basketball by the students and alums of a University. SMU has so few basketball fans that no name coach would even consider the job. We have no basketball tradition, no fans, an uneven recruiting bias and mediocre facilities at best. Calipari, Pitino etc would not even consider SMU even if we offered them $2 million per year. Yes- They would make more money but they know they would not be as successful and the gamble to their careers would be substantial. If they did't win immediately, they would play in front of a whopping (let's use Diamond M's estimate)1500 people. Wow, gosh and golly. Only about 1/2 of the big high schools play in front of more people. Yes- Dallas would come out if we were contenders for the national championship but we won't be because of recruiting restrictions and the fact that we can't offer a great basketball player out of high school the same things that Duke, KU, UK, Indy, Maryland, Wake, GA Tech, Arkansas, LSU, OU, ...uh you get the idea. One of those things they offer is playing in front of a crowd that supports them. Listen to the remarks of John Lucas after transferring from Baylor to Okie St. Kids want to play before crowds and and on national TV. Get real about the SMU job. We've got little to offer except a good ediucation and those athletes who care about their education can find one just as good in a lot of other places. Again, no name coach would consider this job so before you fire Dement, you better think over what we are likely to get. If we win against the competition we play, we still won't draw 3000 Mustang fans so winning will not cure all. We are reaching a point in SMU sports that we don't like. No one seems to care except for a few hundred or at best a few thousand people and the future of athletics at SMU is in doubt..

We'll just have to take that risk b/c he ain't gonna get an extension next year and it can't get much worse unless it's SMU football.

This is the low point of the history of SMU major athletics.

<small>[ 01-16-2004, 11:52 AM: Message edited by: Pony_Fan ]</small>

You don't need a name coach. You need a coach that can coach. If he happens to have a name that he earned so much the better. Your argument,or anyones, that a name coach is needed is short sighted. It implies that the only good coaches are name coaches and that they are already taken or fired because of something they have done or not done.

Since Calipari and attendence are mentioned in the same post, what do you think that U Mass attendence was prior to Calipari taking over (no name at that point)? SQUAT and talk about an academic environment in a podunk town, ever been to Amherst? Guess what brought folks out. Hard nosed, competitive, intelligent basketball. A guy named Camby didn't hurt either, but he didn't just wander on to the court there any more than Hop wandered on to Moody. They busted butt and they won. Calipari's rep was never squeeky clean, even as an assistant at Pitt. so that is another story, but bottom line, you don't have to be a name. You have to be able to recruit and to teach. Fans will come out to see a good product, here, Amherst, anywhere.

I see our talent level to be better than what we are producing. Coaches are a pretty selfconfident bunch and when they look at SMU's cupboard, they don't see bare, they see opportunity to win early without having to rebuild. Some of you will be suprised at who will be interested, assuming that the job opens. It won't be slim pickings.

You know Mike Jarvis might very well consider an SMU offer. He has a young family. We don't care where he recruits as long as he lands some good players. If he lands even half the talent he landed at St. Johns, we'd be in contention in CUSA year in and year out. He is a great bench coach. He knows in 2005 we join CUSA, so he will get to go east now and then. He's led American U., GW, and St. Johns to the dance. He got fired because St. Johns wanted more New York players on the team. There are probably others out there who would be very interested.

No, I don't think SMU can land a "name coach." And we absolutely have to do something about Moody. I know the emphasis is on football, but we can't just ignore basketball. If we did do some facility upgrades (and they can be done- Moody and Cameron Indoor look alot alike- Duke refurbished CIS and added extra facilities, we don't need an enormodome), SMU does have a lot to offer a young, aggressive coach now. While our admissions situation isn't perfect, it is much, much better. SMU sits in a hotbed of Bball talent. There's Dallas. There's a good education. There's the student body (ies?). The new league is an improvement. A good young coach who can recruit locally can make SMU into a solid basketball school, and rebuild excitement around the program. But it will take work- we need new facilities. The Admin needs to be seen as supportive again. And we need to sell the school locally again, something we have only recently seen modest success in.

Old Pony...I fear senility is creeping in. No tradition? Maybe not in the sense of UCLA, Kansas or ACC schools...but have you forgotten the Doc Hayes era? We flat our dominated the SWC (8 SWC championship teams over a 13 yr period) and Moody once rocked in support of this team. That bball enthusiasm carried over into the Bob Prewitt era and was rekindled briefly under Dave Bliss (we will put an asterisk by that).

I agree with those who say we could recapture the bball magic more readily than building a dominant football program...but it's obvious Moody needs a major facelift. The talk of new locker rooms, wider/brighter concourse, the possibility of luxury seating and a private club along with returning more student to courtside seats sounds good to me. Wish I had a few extra million to donate to jump start that campaign. We can easily afford to lose 1000-1500 seats to renovation of Moody. Just like a 25k crowd looks good in Ford, 5-6000 would look great in a 7500 seat Moody.

Yes - OP has senility. In fact all of us who were there in the Doc Hayes era are troubled by the same senility. When you point to success a MERE 30 years ago, that tells you that probably anyone under the age of 40 can't remember it. Also a problem when the conference you dominated wasn't considered very good in basketball and is now extinct. Yes the SWC got better in b'bsll in the 80's and 90's but that was't when we were any good.
We have no tradition known to anyone under 40 or outside of the old SWC-How's that? Say what you may, Dallas isn't NYC or Philly when it comes to putting out b'ball players- it isn't Memphis or Chicago either.

DFW is one of the top metroplexes in the nation in putting out top BB talent. PERIOD. ALL sources confirm that. SMU just doesn't get the top talent. Give me Chris Bosh, Derron Williams, Bracey Wright, Ike Diougu and LaMarcus Aldridge and you can can go find any All-Star team you want and DFW would give them all they want.

<small>[ 01-17-2004, 12:14 PM: Message edited by: Stallion ]</small>

When Bliss arrived at SMU, he said his goal was to compete for at least ONE of the top guys in Dallas every year and that doing so would allow us to build a tip 25 team. Reggie Pink and Carl Wright were among his 1st signees that helped turn the program around. Dallas has plenty of talented H.S. players. They just dont want to play their college ball in fron of SMU's loyal 1500 fans (too many of us are over 40).

I can't say for sure, but it's also tough to recruit most of the top kids if you are recruiting by the rules. Bliss didn't have that problem in his days at SMU.

Stallion- I'm sure that you have stats to back up that Dallas is a top basketball city. Better than NYC, Chicago, Philly, LA and Memphis. Please cite your source though instead of naming 5 players. I believe you'll find more guys from these cities on top b'ball schools across the country.