Very glad at how magnanimous Juwan was last summer when three transfers went out the door, and he spoke glowingly of them. Maybe he feels like Gard does, but there’s no need to tell reporters that.
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Barely played this last year at Xavier but if you’re curious his brother is a top 10 2023 recruit. Seems like Hoiberg has a type…
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As long as coaches–and everyone else, for that matter–is leaping from opportunity to opportunity, ‘maximizing their earning potential,’ etc., keeping the kids from doing it (that is, the people who supply the product and spectacle) only looks like hypocrisy. And the guys in suits tsk-tsking. . .
You’d think more of the old guard would have absorbed this by now, but I suppose they’ve quite invested in the old thinking. Still, you look at a guy like Gard and wonder–honestly–what would attract a kid to play for him.
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This recruiting model doesn’t feel like a great advertisement for the program. We have nothing to offer except a bonus scholarship for your brother.
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definitely “good stuff” from Gard indeed.
Surprise: garbage coach has garbage take!
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Missed out on the older Christopher brother unfortunately
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I think it is possible to feel the way Gard does AND be supportive of player empowerment/movement. That’s how I would describe myself actually.
I want the players to have the option of making their own choice on their future and if it isn’t where they are currently, find a better place. However, even at the youth level I see kids jumping from team to team constantly trying to find the elusive “greener grass”. There will always be adversity and challenges no matter where you go. Deciding whether the ones you’re facing now are worth overcoming or avoiding is life’s great challenge - for all of us.
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There’s no doubt that it’s frustrating for coaches, and undermines stability, too. There’s also no doubt that it’s the logic of the system.
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I think it’s tough because what Gard said is basically true. It is good for people to have resilience, and to see things through, in general. The problem is, as you point out, that isn’t necessarily opposed to players being able to choose to transfer. While those things are related to each other, it’s not really true that a kid wanting to transfer always shows a lack of resilience.
There are tons of reasons someone may want to transfer. A guy like DJ Carton isn’t a quitter because he had to take care of his mental health. A guy like Charles Matthews isn’t a quitter because he wanted to play more minutes. A guy like Duncan Robinson isn’t a quitter because he wanted to play on a higher level of competition.
You only get a few years in college. Why on Earth should you spend it waiting around in a situation that isn’t working? Because Greg Gard thinks you need to learn a life lesson? I would argue no.
(Also coaches leave for better jobs all the time. Obviously. Cmon Greg, get over it.)
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I expect him to take a moral stand and never accept a transfer ever again. I support you in this Greg Gard!
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Maybe he’s just mad because he had to wait around for so long at Wisconsin before he got the job he wanted? Seems likely
I think there’s a balance to be had here. I’ve seen, for example, parents jump their kids from school to school as their kids continues to have behavior problems and they choose to change circumstances instead of addressing it. It can definitely be a problem in sports, especially with overbearing people attached to players telling them they’re better than they are. A one-time free transfer rule seems like a good permanent solution, IMO. Make sure people aren’t just fleeing every time the grass seems greener.
But, realistically, there are also situations where, in college sports, a program and a player turn out to be a poor match, and people on both sides are well-served by players transferring to a place that works well for them. The program gets a spot to give to someone who is a good fit, and the player gets to go to a place that is a good fit.
Even happens in lower divisions. UMD’s basketball team (whom I am a fan of, in some contrast to their hockey team) is Division 2 and not a power, but since Justin Wieck became the coach has seen some transfer churn every year. Sometimes it’s a legacy guy like Alex Illiakanen, whom many of you will remember as a bit player at Wisconsin, grad transferring in for grad school and a year of starter’s minutes. Or it’s the backup PG last year behind a senior, Hunter Plamann, a great ball-handler but a poor shooter, reading the roster tea leaves, playing hard while he’s here, and gracefully transferring to a place where he’s a better fit.
Transfers like Colin Castleton seem like good moves for everybody. We’re obviously better at the 5 than we were last year, and he is playing much better in a system that suits his needs. Seems like a no-lose situation.
I think we should also accept that there are times where a guy knows pretty early on he’s going to transfer, but he goes to practice and plays hard and does everything the team needs him to while he’s there, and he’s a part of the team and everyone respects what’s going on. Think of Brandon Peters his last year here–everyone knew he was gone from the first snap of the season. But he was still on the field every time a ball was rolled out, doing the work.
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People do need to build resilience and learn to deal with adversity. But it should not up to a coach or the NCAA when and where this lesson needs to be learned. Coaches are allowed to make decisions for themselves, so should players. If they are leaving for the wrong reasons, chances are they will suffer the consequences of that. If they are leaving for the right reasons, same deal.
Yeah, my daughter’s on her second high school coach through no fault of her own and her team and coach were just a disorganized mess this fall, really wasting a year in which colleges were beginning to look at players like her. Now another high school is wooing, and we are quite up in the air, thinking how poorly it might look from without. You’re taking chances anyway. . . but little moralizing speeches clearly no longer cut it, IMO. Any dullard can come up with, “It’s good to stick with things yaddayadda,” and no one is going to disagree with them.
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A big part of it for me comes down to people assuming they know the situation that a certain player is in. There’s just no way to fully understand another person’s life, especially a stranger, even if we do happen to watch them on tv regularly.
Also, it’s worth remembering that these decisions are risky. A lot of times a transfer can turn out badly. It’s pretty easy to see something that didn’t work, and then apply hindsight to it. These decisions have a ton of gray area, even for people who are making them, let alone for us long distance observers.
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This is one of the major reasons Andy Katz’s rant against Kobe King on television made me really dislike him. To just tee off on a dude because he transferred from your buddy Greg Gard’s program when you have no clue what he’s going through or what’s going on in his head is just pathetic. King isn’t even playing major basketball anymore, there were clearly behind the scene things going on.
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I’m glad we can all come together and agree that Greg Gard is, what did @BigBoutros say? A dung beetle?
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Shockingly apt. And I know from dung beetles.
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Huh.
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Flailing. Publicly now. No one at IU can be happy that something like that gets out. When middleweight coaches are turning you down, ‘blueblood’ or not. . . Wonder if the John Beileins of this world are sniffing around the job and seeing that a lot of the planking is rotten? Appeasing a fanbase of baying hounds seems daunting enough by itself.
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