DMN: SMU Meets With Doherty

[SMU Football Blog]

If you think that the ND ties are strong with Matt, you are stupid as well. He was there for three years and left on bad terms.

Doherty was only at ND one year.

[GrapevineMustang]

DBB:
I was kidding.

[SMU Football Blog]

DBB:
I was kidding.

Kidding is not allowed these days on the basketball board.

[Duke Blue Blood]

Grapevine,

The championship was partially due to Doh's recruiting, but man he is a bad XO coach.

Some people on here are serious when they say some VERY stupid things. I will assume for now that you are sane.

DBB

[SMU Football Blog]

Grapevine,

The championship was partially due to Doh's recruiting, but man he is a bad XO coach.

Some people on here are serious when they say some VERY stupid things. I will assume for now that you are sane.

DBB

I don't recall the issue ever being his x's and o's. Everything I have ever read said it was his temperment. Some of the stuff I have read on his temperment is pretty extreme. That and his arrogance is what I have always understood to be the reason he got canned.

[BigEasyPony]

Doherty would be a great hire. I was on record 2 years ago in saying that SMU should have hired him then. Well, we didn't, but apparently he's interested enough to come to campus and interview and make the higher ups at FAU not happy.

Doherty would be a great HC for SMU. He's got some baggage, but in case you haven't noticed all of these guys do and if they don't then that means they are an assistant coach at some school. I think Doherty is hungry to prove his doubters wrong and the only quuestion mark would be his propensity to "move around." If Orsini can get over that and the timing is good then we should hire him. He can coach and he can recruit. I'm tired of losing and I am willing to give Doherty a shot at helping us get back to the big dance. Hiring Doherty will also require SMU to make a larger institutional committment to the basketball team which is a very good thing. Hiring a young assistant will not require SMU to make the same commitment so for that reason alone I am willing to give Doherty a shot at rehabilitating his career as well as the fortunes of our moribund basketball program.

[93Mustang]

Nothing like a Dookie to enlighten us dumb Texans on college hoops. Unlike Pete Gaudet who got hung out to dry by your prince of a coach when things went bad, former players and coaches supported Doherty after the player revolt. Moreover, a Dookie arguing shady tactics is laughable when you look at incidents like the Laettner chest stomping (no punishment by Coach Krybaby) and the 2005 Wake game when Krybaby started walkons to hack Chris Paul and then argue every call - class.

Believe it or not, others who post here know a little about ACC hoops and some even know the truth about your beloved Dook. Great press Dook's getting these days, by the way.

Doherty is an accomplished coach. He has coached at the highest level with some of the greatest coaches around, and he brings us credibility. As I stated above, he has some taint, but last I checked our program was in the toilet, so it's time we take a risk. Get over your Dook brainwashing and look at this candidate objectively.

[PonyTime]

Lets see . . . a few teams who have hired coaches with Baggage . . .

Fresno State (Tark)
Texas Tech (Knight)
Oklahoma State (Sutton)
TCU (Tubbs)
N. Mexico (Bliss)

They all managed to take their teams to the NCAA tourney shortly following their hire - I believe that there are probably 20+ tourney appearances between these guys - following their departures from their previous programs that they were most noted for.

Of course, most of these schools had to deal with the baggage at some point (Bliss, Sutton, Tark, etc).

[jkflamebo]

93mustang is the only one puttin up some solid sensible posts. i agree with u on all levels, lets get doherty in here.

[MustangIcon]

I am not sure why so many people are down on Doherty here. Lets review:

We fired our previous coach who when we hired him had NO head coaching experience and was not the top assistant at his school when he took over at SMU. In 2 seasons his overall record with SMU was below .500.

Fast forward to our coaching search in which many people claimed we could not gain interest from candidates other than the "new hot assistant of the moment" or "95 yr old highschool coach". Doherty has coached AND WON at ND, UNC and now FAU.

1. His first season at ND and FAU resulted in a 13 win increase total from their records the season previous to him taking over. That is damn good.

2. He has the ability to recruit. Granted being an assistant at Kansas or head coach at UNC it is not near the challenge that recruiting is at SMU, but noone can say he isn't capable.

3. He WILL bring exposure to the program. His press conference would be the biggest event in SMU bball since Hopkins signing. The only difference is Hopkins signing wasn't a national event. It was news localy, but Doherty would have us on ESPN and every other network. I am not a "I hate the DMN, they screw us over by lack of coverage guy" but noone can deny that national publicity is a good thing.

4. People are worried he will come to SMU, win some games, then leave for a better job. I agree with you. He will. Doherty knows if he comes here he MUST win to ever get back to a big time program. Do you think that won't motivate him? No big time programs are looking for guys who go coach at a nothing school like SMU and fail. He must succeed. And he will. After that we then are charged with replacing a coach at a program who has a solid foundation, has a buzz about it and just lost a high profile coach. We all the sudden become a rather desireable job.

I just don't see why people are so down on the guy. Yes he had a bad run in with his players at UNC. Hopefully he has overcome that and his apologies for it are genuine. Other than that and the fact that he's white and it will upset our beloved highschool coaches, what is wrong with him as a choice?

And a suggestion. What if we hired a coach who brought on a DISD head coach onto his staff? I would think a lot of DISD coaches would love the chance and that would bring us the beolved street cred and DISD sucking upness that some think we need.

[abezontar]

I think the thing that needs to be a concern when considering Doherty is that if he did have problems with his players at UNC, and they refused to play for him and thus he was fired what's to say that the same thing won't happen here? Some of the kids we have now quit on Dement, so we fired Dement. Now there is a rumor (and remember it is completely a rumor we have no proof about their justifications for doing what they did) that a player or players didn't like Tubbs, and worked the system to get him fired.

Now I know we aren't UNC, but what is to say he won't have the same problem with our players and big time donors (assuming that the rumor is true)?

[friarwolf]

Right now, I would kill to have a coach leaving us to go to a more well regarded program because he was successful here. In fact give me the 10 years Tulsa had when it rolled from Richardson to Tubby to Self.

[MustangIcon]

I agree frair. If they are moving on to bigger and better things it means their tenure here would have been a success. Thats a great thing. Then other good coaches see that success and would like to come here as well. I do not see it as a bad thing.

Abe, he did have problems with his players. But he has experienced that in his career now. Maybe he has learned from his mistakes? Also, I have heard nothing regarding problems with him and his players at FAU. Also, I think players at any program like SMU would be thrilled to have a proven winner and big time head coach come in. They think to themselves "Hey, this guy knows what he is doing, he is a winner, I respect him." Unlike our previous hires of no real acclaim.

[NickSMU17]

This guy seems like a step in the right direction for SMU, a name coach who has had some success and can hopefully bring in some decent recruits. When we fired Dement, we would have all begged for a guy like this to take over the program, and now b/c some pre-madonna college players at UNC didn't like him, we don't want him. This is a big step for SMU, when have we ever even brought in a coach with national name recognition?

Even if we don't hire this guy I like the approach, it is what we should have done a long time ago. Orsini is starting to look like the real deal.

[EastStang]

Agreeing to an interview and taking the job are two different things. That said, CUSA would be a step up from where he's coaching now and he would be a decent hire. But I don't want to hear any complaints that Dallas area recruits aren't coming here if we hire him. Because clearly, he won't get in the door.