dot do you know if money limitations were an issue at all? ie we weren’t going higher than 5-6/yr for anyone?
Really? You think Nate Oats would turn down Alabama and a big raise waiting to see if Beilein would leave? A lot of us were expecting him to stay around five more years. And what assurance would he ever have had that Warde would have hired him? Making that promise a year ago would have been ridiculous.
I think you know it’s a mistake to assume that we know who was on Warde’s list of candidates. The names that were made public were the coaches who wanted them out there. Dot mentioned that a couple of candidates would want their interviews kept secret
Warde might have had a few names that got snapped up before Beilein left, say Buzz Williams. Not much he could have done about that. Ultimately the public list was not overly impressive. UCLA showed it’s not easy to attract big name coaches. Unless Warde signed a highly improbable coach like Wright or Donovan, many fans would have been unimpressed with the list of candidates.
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I’m sympathetic to these questions, but if the answer is that Warde had a list, then there’s not much left. Beyond Prohm* and Oats, who else would you insert in a tier between the highly-sought-after coaches and the people we went after? Bacon makes the helpful point in the DetNews today that most of those sought-after guys still had question marks where corruption was concerned, btw. . .
I found Warde annoyingly defensive at the presser, and chewed on that for a few days after defending him pretty strenuously here and at mgoblog during the stretch leading to the hire. In the end I came to feel I might not be crazy about his personal style, but we’re still less than three weeks from his hiring by the Cavs and everything is in place; between Howard, Martinelli, Sanderson, and Washington, I’m satisfied with what’s been accomplished.
EDIT: One thing that hasn’t been discussed–that I have seen–is that if Poole, Iggy, and/or Charles HAD remained behind the job might have been an easier sell. If Billy Donovan could have glanced at the roster and said, “Okay, I can take this team to the Final Four next year,” he might have found the position more appealing. Instead, it’s more or less an inside-out rebuild. The closest thing I could see to guaranteed success would have been Beard, maybe?
*I thought I had read that feelers were put out to Prohm?
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Why would he have passed up Alabama on the chance that the Michigan job might open up and he would have a shot? A year ago, Oates was not quite the rising star that he is now after this past season, either.
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I’m concluding that unless a lot of qualified people turned down the opportunity to interview for the job (which, I suppose, is possible), the candidates who emerged were not very strong. One explanation for that would be that Warde was caught off guard by JB’s move and had to scramble at the last minute, but you’re saying that’s not the case.
At a minimum, I would think you could find someone who has enjoyed a relatively high level of success coaching in a major conference. None of our final candidates have achieved that. Even guys like Ben Howland and Bruce Weber have taken UCLA and Illinois to the championship game (and in the case of Howland, three trips to the Final Four). I’m not saying those guys necessarily merited an interview (though both are doing pretty well at Mississippi State and K-State, not exactly easy places to win), but they both have a far superior resume to any of the college coaches Warde considered (or at least, the ones who were publicly disclosed).
Of course, I have no idea what occurred behind the scenes. But I certainly would have thought some better candidates would have emerged, and especially if I knew we had a long time to prepare.
And I’d extend the same criticism to Bill Martin, who knew Lloyd wanted to retire after the 2006 season, and knew it was coming after the 2007 season. That search was a debacle as well.
I kinda disagree - they knocked out Arizona in the tourney last year and that was a real eye opener. And he’s got Michigan ties. If, after JB did not get the Pistons’ job, Warde had put some serious thought into a list of young, really up and coming coaches, Oats would have to be pretty high on that list.
I’d also say Gregg Marshall would have been my top target by a mile. He’s been super successful at Wichita State.
No I don’t know. What I do know is they floated the job to a number of “high profile” coaches who indicated that they weren’t interested enough to even talk money.
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I have not read anywhere that Prohm was considered.
I also don’t agree this is anything close to resembling a rebuild.
The Big Ten does not look particularly imposing next year. MSU has a better roster than we do, but beyond that, the only team I’d maybe put ahead of us in terms of talent is OSU. (I guess perhaps Maryland and Indiana deserve some consideration, but man both of those teams had terrible coaching this year).
Simpson and Teske are seniors, and stars defensively. Livers is ready to break out. And I think Castleton and Johns are, too. We definitely need someone to step up in the backcourt among DDJ, Brooks, and Bajema. And let’s see if we can add Wilson or Wagner. That would really help.
I’d rather have Howard than Oats anyways. Both come with risks, albeit that Howard has more, but I believe Juwan’s upside to be much higher. If everything clicks for Juwan and he hauls in a top 5-10 class in 2020 then I don’t see how we’d be worse off than we’d have been with Oats.
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in that case, Beilein would’ve stayed as well.
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To be fair, Bill Martin thought that he had Les Miles in the bag, and Rich Rod was considered a great hire at the time. It was in a dramatic fashion that Rich Rod lost his last regular season game to sent Les to the national title game, and himself to AA.
The Brandon search that ended up with Hoke was a total fumble.
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I don’t know about “much higher,” Oats is a pretty good recruiter and he’s proven himself as a coach.
With that said, I’m pretty excited about Juwan. I think he can achieve big things here.
Bill Martin never offered the job to Les, either time. We could have pretty easily had him either time if we wanted him.
The second time, Brandon sent his assistant to meet with Harbaugh, who said he “wasn’t feeling the love” from us and took the 49ers job instead.
Incidentally, because of this very example, I’d actually be curious to know the details of how we approached the top tier candidates for our job. Did we make a pitch to anyone…“show the love”…or did we just inquire about their interest through the search firm? I still genuinely doubt we get any of the Donovan types even if Warde had put on the full court press (pun!), but it would be interesting to know. Note this is not meant to be a criticism…I will really enjoy cheering for Juwan.
The only candidate I can see whose answer would have been changed by a more advanced time-table is Nate Oats, and I’m not really convinced that we would have hired him over Howard anyway.
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Bill Martin was waiting for LSU’s season to be over. Same happened when Hackett waited on Harbaugh. Had WVU went to the championship game that year, we would’ve had Les instead of Rich Rod.
Well I stepped away for a few hours and 40+ posts later it looks like we did decide to fully get back into this conversation. I’m not sure what the point is. We have a new coach/staff. Time to move on.
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And a coach who could be a home run and assistants who are going to be top flight. A lot to be excited about.
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Actually, I’ve hacked a lot of accounts lately! Look at all the verbosity that has suddenly appeared on this forum! 
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I, for one, approve of you becoming supreme overlord of the board.
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