I don’t have a prediction I just want them to be on the bubble every single year and the years they get in they’re knocked out by teams that run a real offense
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The UmHoops Forum absolute loathing of Ed Cooley, is one of the weirder things
He seems like a nice guy? A somewhat marginally above avaerage coach? Seems to have adapted well to the current trajectory of college hoops?
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That bald spot is what ruins everyone’s opinion of him.
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I mean it obviously has deep roots in the coaching search and the seasons by Cooley prior to that
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Yeah it’s the coaching search…but what did he do to make people not like him other than find his offense boring? I don’t think he did anything?
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I don’t understand either.
There’s a definite trend where die hard fans revolt at teams/players/coaches that get unnecessary positive media attention. Cooley got a lot of buzz during the coaching search as a “good idea” and more informed people kept being frustrated that he is a mediocre coach who runs a boring system.
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Cooley became an infinitely more valuable coach after the portal broke open IMO. He has been very very good at roster building since.
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Cooley is fine, but people love to call people out as overrated. Same way with Rick Barnes in March or whatever else. I think the fact that he’s so media friendly with some louder media personalities only adds to the quote un quote backlash.
The fact that he was almost Michigan’s coach also plays a part in that around here, naturally.
He’s a fine coach who is going to finish somewhere like 35th to 60th most years.
He’s been around the block enough to run a program and get guys. The best thing you can do in this business is survive and he definitely seems to know how to do that.
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Nice pickup for the Gators
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I’ve cooled off my feelings on Cooley, for at least two reasons:
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He’s now closing in on being worth the hype, whereas he was not when Warde was reportedly interested.
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Under Santa Ono there’s now precedent for someone higher in the foodchain than Warde to have meaningful involvement when deciding who the coach is going to be. I’m still not comfortable with what’s going on and we don’t know how Ono would be involved in a search vis-a-vis negotiations to retain a coach, but Warde is a known and Ono+Warde is at least somewhat unknown. But Ono has a degree of enthusiasm and a background that involves sports at other schools, and that to me can’t be taken as anything other than positive.
He still hasn’t had a top 25 KenPom team in 12 years at Providence, FWIW. 
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And if I’m not mistaken you do that at Illinois and they hang a banner.
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Wow, huge pull to keep him away from Pitino. Florida was generally extremely mediocre even with Castleton so that’s not great for Golden, but I’ve liked a lot of his moves
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I liked a lot of his portal moves last year too, and somehow they weren’t very good. Feel like maybe it needs some time to marinate there.
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Oh I should’ve clarified my feeling about Cooley not doing well have everything to do with Georgetown not being an “it” program like they think they are. Georgetown is a dumpster fire imo and I don’t think Cooley will be able to pull it out. He’s a good coach and seems like an awesome person fwiw
But also this a little too. Don’t think Cooley is good enough of a coach to bring Georgetown to the level of national championship competitors
I think he’ll get Georgetown to the same level providence was at and probably not do much of anything else
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Will Richard 
Ed Cooley’s magic trick was doing the exact same at Providence as everybody else they just put his team in the tournament. Going 5 for 5 during a stretch where you did better than this year’s Michigan team once to KenPom is an incredible bit.
He finally had a good offense this year and it’s not because they actually made the ball go in the basket. He just made sure they played volleyball. And his defense took an enormous step backward to do it.
Being likable isn’t being an impressive coach but that wasn’t gonna stop Warde.
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I think Harbaugh is the only coach who reports to the President, not the AD. I think that predates Warde. I could be wrong but I think football contracts states that he reports to the President.
Also, the fans feeling towards Warde is kind of weird considering they don’t know what goes into being the AD. Yes, Football is the most public sports the fans notice about the AD. Warde is considered to be one of the best AD in the country by his own peers in the athletic department in the country. My old boss has nothing but great things to say about Warde because she used to work alongside him when Warde was at UConn with the AAC.
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Huge if true – genuinely. Very interesting and thank you for mentioning it. Maybe that speaks to process in a way that would be different for basketball.
I don’t know everything that goes into being an AD but I know enough about what goes into heading large institutions, and especially about the communications function, to be absolutely 100% rock-solid certain that Warde is demonstrably bad at several parts of the job. A critical mass of parts, IMO. Without question there are surely elements of it he’s good at. You can’t get to where he’s at without having some core competencies, and most people are a mix of strengths and weaknesses. But I’ve seen enough of the things my own professional experience and the public record allow me to evaluate to know what I need to know.
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