RC?

RC and Surely.

Cal left it on two elite eights, a championship game, and a sweet sixteen.

He left a roster with five or six top hundred players.

The Memphis brand was as strong as it ever was.

Cal left and people were pissed he was gone.

Past left and people wanted a parade. I don't want to say "nuke the program leaving" if you nuked the program before you left.

(04-16-2016 11:51 AM)Sundanceuiuc Wrote:  RC?

For all the being out of his airport picking mind, RC hired Cal and Fuente.

Talent wise it is similar.

The brand is much worse for recruiting, but we don't have the stink of NCAA sanctions on us.

Basketball is not football, it can turn on a dime.

So, bottom line, I don't think it matters.

To me, it's Cal by a landslide. Just look at who was interested in the job when he left (basically no one) which may not be Cal's fault, but it's the state we were in, vs our options post Josh. Also, Cal made a conscious effort to burn the place down as he was leaving once he knew he was out the door. Josh was just incompetent but I don't think there was malice.

Finally, Cal left the stench of an NCAA investigation behind. Also, the brand was in better shape of course, but I was surprised that the national media considered the job to be as good as it is when Josh left, I half expected us to get the same treatment that Houston might get if there job were suddenly open, but that's not what happened. A number of national media types described the job as top 25 caliber, and a place you can win big.

When we were going to bowl games, Cal delayed any improvements to the football program. Everything was focused on basketball. Kept the letter of inquiry under wraps. Cal, by far.

(04-16-2016 09:43 AM)tigerjamesc Wrote:  

(04-16-2016 09:40 AM)macgar32 Wrote:  

(04-16-2016 09:33 AM)Brother Bluto Wrote:  

(04-16-2016 09:29 AM)midtowncowboy Wrote:  

(04-16-2016 09:25 AM)TruthBomb Wrote:  I will vote for josh. He left tubby with nothing but holes to fill and the Memphis brand has little national relevance at this point.

How many first team all conference and All Amercian candidates did Cal leave JP?

That being said, no doubt the program is not where it was when Cal left. Not even close.

Not sure if Tubby can get it back to where Cal had it, I'm not sure many could, but I think we will have a great program under Tubby.

Dedric, Martin, Marshall, KJ coming off an Achilles , Randall , Markel

Vs

Spoon, Kemp, Coleman, Mack, Sallie, Niles

A team full of guys that haven't sniffed an NIT vs a team full of guys with NCAA experience

Hmmmmmm

Talent level is about the same if we are looking at HS rankings.

I would also say that players that tubby is inheriting have more experience at being primary players as josh inherited role players.

Now the Memphis brand was in 100% better shape when josh took over

The tie breaker is the rep hit we took by probation. Cal nuked more by a hair

I agree. Now, if we'd given Josh the 9 years we gave Cal, I think Josh could have passed Cal in this battle. Lol

(04-16-2016 09:40 AM)macgar32 Wrote:  

(04-16-2016 09:33 AM)Brother Bluto Wrote:  

(04-16-2016 09:29 AM)midtowncowboy Wrote:  

(04-16-2016 09:25 AM)TruthBomb Wrote:  I will vote for josh. He left tubby with nothing but holes to fill and the Memphis brand has little national relevance at this point.

How many first team all conference and All Amercian candidates did Cal leave JP?

That being said, no doubt the program is not where it was when Cal left. Not even close.

Not sure if Tubby can get it back to where Cal had it, I'm not sure many could, but I think we will have a great program under Tubby.

Dedric, Martin, Marshall, KJ coming off an Achilles , Randall , Markel

Vs

Spoon, Kemp, Coleman, Mack, Sallie, Niles

A team full of guys that haven't sniffed an NIT vs a team full of guys with NCAA experience

Hmmmmmm

Talent level is about the same if we are looking at HS rankings.

I would also say that players that tubby is inheriting have more experience at being primary players as josh inherited role players.

Now the Memphis brand was in 100% better shape when josh took over

Pretty much my thoughts. The talent is similar. Experience on one, and winning on the other, kind of offset. National relevance was much higher with Cal. But the probation thing was also part of the brand that Cal left us with.

I think the coach search was much better this time around. Partly because of the Admin and partly because coaches didn't want to follow Cal in a probation situation. I get it that RC took the lazy way out and didn't extend the search. But I don't think there were the guys knocking on our door that time.

So I think it's pretty close to even. Some were saying a month ago that JP had nuked the program and it would be 4-5 years after he leaves before we're back to relevance. I think the national hype we've gotten with the Tubby hire has been positive, and think we'll be making noise much sooner than 4 years.

When Cal left, we got stuck with Josh.

Josh left, we got Tubby

Josh may have improved the program

(04-16-2016 10:02 PM)tigerjamesc Wrote:  When Cal left, we got stuck with Josh.

Josh left, we got Tubby

Josh may have improved the program

So assuming Tubby does great things here.

Will we have trouble hiring someone after Tubby?

I never got the whole thing about nobody wanted to follow Cal.

We have more holes to fill than we did when Cal left, but our program has a much better reputation among potential conference suitors than when Cal left.

(04-16-2016 10:13 PM)Cotten Wrote:  We have more holes to fill than we did when Cal left, but our program has a much better reputation among potential conference suitors than when Cal left.

I think we'll be fine. We have some talent still here, and Tubby doesn't need high rated recruiting classes. Heck, we didn't do anything with those classes anyways.

(04-16-2016 10:11 PM)John44932 Wrote:  

(04-16-2016 10:02 PM)tigerjamesc Wrote:  When Cal left, we got stuck with Josh.

Josh left, we got Tubby

Josh may have improved the program

So assuming Tubby does great things here.

Will we have trouble hiring someone after Tubby?

I never got the whole thing about nobody wanted to follow Cal.

Cal was a cult of personality, he won here because of him, not because of Memphis. We were just the vehicle. Coaches weren't sure if you could win here without Cal's persona (and connections), especially so because his leaving left a huge void, so no one wanted to take what they perceived to be a big risk of failure. Add into it the landscape of college athletics at the time, an environment that looked like there would be have's and have not's. It certainly appeared at that time that we were more likely to be in the latter group.

(04-16-2016 10:56 PM)NigelTufnel Wrote:  

(04-16-2016 10:11 PM)John44932 Wrote:  

(04-16-2016 10:02 PM)tigerjamesc Wrote:  When Cal left, we got stuck with Josh.

Josh left, we got Tubby

Josh may have improved the program

So assuming Tubby does great things here.

Will we have trouble hiring someone after Tubby?

I never got the whole thing about nobody wanted to follow Cal.

Cal was a cult of personality, he won here because of him, not because of Memphis. We were just the vehicle. Coaches weren't sure if you could win here without Cal's persona (and connections), especially so because his leaving left a huge void, so no one wanted to take what they perceived to be a big risk of failure. Add into it the landscape of college athletics at the time, an environment that looked like there would be have's and have not's. It certainly appeared at that time that we were more likely to be in the latter group.

RC Johnson was the AD, Shirley was the prez, and the program was under NCAA investigation enough said. Next question.

(04-16-2016 08:23 PM)NigelTufnel Wrote:  To me, it's Cal by a landslide. Just look at who was interested in the job when he left (basically no one) which may not be Cal's fault, but it's the state we were in, vs our options post Josh. Also, Cal made a conscious effort to burn the place down as he was leaving once he knew he was out the door. Josh was just incompetent but I don't think there was malice.

Finally, Cal left the stench of an NCAA investigation behind. Also, the brand was in better shape of course, but I was surprised that the national media considered the job to be as good as it is when Josh left, I half expected us to get the same treatment that Houston might get if there job were suddenly open, but that's not what happened. A number of national media types described the job as top 25 caliber, and a place you can win big.

This. Cal had an inexplicable desire to burn the place down, and we were looking Busch League in the coach search. Give Pastner this - he took the job that few wanted, and, though he proved to be inept, he wanted to prove himself. Sure, he ran the program down (much like Tic), but he did it without leaving a stain of corruption... AND he left on good terms. We got Tubby in his wake. Was Tubby interested after Cal left? No, because the coaching community knew that Cal wanted this place to burn. Cal's maliciousness makes him the hands-down winner in this particular contest.

No one is mentioning Cal taking a big recruiting class away from memphis and to uk.

(04-17-2016 03:14 AM)roachman48 Wrote:  No one is mentioning Cal taking a big recruiting class away from memphis and to uk.

Nor did they say anything about Cal talking to our top returning big man AFTER he took the UK job and telling him to enter NBA draft. Did not see Pastner pulling a Taggart with Dedric.

(04-16-2016 10:11 PM)John44932 Wrote:  

(04-16-2016 10:02 PM)tigerjamesc Wrote:  When Cal left, we got stuck with Josh.

Josh left, we got Tubby

Josh may have improved the program

So assuming Tubby does great things here.

Will we have trouble hiring someone after Tubby?

I never got the whole thing about nobody wanted to follow Cal.

Even though the NCAA investigation was launched in May, word had apparently gotten around that we were about to get nailed. Note the quote from Luther Topps in this article:

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketba...id=4210798

Luther Topps, who coached Rose's AAU team, told the Chicago Sun-Times he's known about the NCAA's investigation for several weeks and said he thinks the NCAA believes a former high school teammate of Rose's took the SAT for Rose.

We were notorious as a rogue program when Calipari left. And nobody wanted to be the one to have to come in and clean it up.

I've heard that no high level program is truly clean, and Pastner even had a couple of compliance problems, but nothing on the scale of Furgate, which was discussed at length on St. Louis radio one afternoon as an example of how corrupt our program was.

The university needed to set that image aside for a while, and Coach Pastner, flaws and all, was probably the best person to do that. Even though I have nightmares that involve seeing him hold up his 14 sign, I appreciate the part he played in moving the university past that.

Today, we're in the situation where we have a freshman all-American returning on the team, a new coach with a national title ring, and we still have a great fan base that will flock back in droves if the can see a winning product.

It could be a whole lot worse.

(04-17-2016 03:48 AM)ncrdbl1 Wrote:  

(04-17-2016 03:14 AM)roachman48 Wrote:  No one is mentioning Cal taking a big recruiting class away from memphis and to uk.

Nor did they say anything about Cal talking to our top returning big man AFTER he took the UK job and telling him to enter NBA draft. Did not see Pastner pulling a Taggart with Dedric.

Maybe he did. Dedric entered the draft.