@DOTMAN is there still a mystery candidate?
Indeed. Doesnât mean I want him for my team. Big Ten is a different beast than Big East. I Can like coaches that wouldnât succeed at Michigan lol.
while cooleyâs offenses havenât been great, i do agree his W/L record has been impressive at all his stops
Just wondered what you liked about Cooley, other than an uptick in recent recruiting?
Basically what the pros are of him. Class act. Holds kids accountable. Great in press conferences and kids will go to war for him. Good recruiter.
Who were you expecting? These are pretty typical names that move to a Michigan-level job each year. Chris Holtman, Archie Miller, Kevin Keatts, Mike White direct from La TechâŚwould Shaka, Nate Oates or Bobby Hurley have made anyone feel any better? I guess Buzz Williams would have been nice, but timing kicked us there.
It generally ends up being a crapshoot anyways
Do you feel his xâs and oâs are universally weak, or could he potentially evolve going forward?
I have no idea. Iâll let Warde decide that. If heâs the guy Iâll be behind him no matter what but personal preference is Smart or Howard.
Yes, slightly.
Random thought and itâs just that but I think another issue in terms of why Michiganâs coaching search has been underwhelming is because so many of the coaches in todayâs game donât want to come to Michigan because theyâd have to likely be extremely clean. For many coaches, thatâs like doing their job with a arm tied behind their backs. I think itâs telling at the same time that only a few coaches have actually stepped forward showing serious interest in the job. That is just a theory I thought of earlier today but I thought it wasnât too outlandish. Combine with that the fact that the timing of the job opening is about as bad as can be, Michiganâs athletic department clearly making basketball take a backseat to football and what appears to be Michiganâs AD having weird âboxes to checkâ and it leaves Michigan where they are in terms of the options.
I think thereâs a lot of truth to this. In that context, one could actually say that weâre lucky to have Juwan Howard in a âreadyâ state to make the next step. Thatâs a fairly rare situational state.
Was going to sayâthe race thing is sticky, but in a sport where 18% or so of coaches are people of color, itâs not insanely out of place to note that it would be great if a great Black coach could be found for Michigan. If itâs a person of serious appeal it would also be dumb not to acknowledge that it could be a bonus as you sit in many kidsâ living rooms.
We have no idea what the search firm did or what âbiasesâ they did/didnât bring to the process. Just because people worked together at a past stop doesnât mean they got along. Just because Cooley is on the list doesnât mean the search firm put him on the list â Michigan could have handed the search firm a list and asked them to vet the candidates.
Usually a search firm allows a school a certain plausible deniability over contacts with coaches. Perhaps that what Michigan used the firm for here? A third party to gauge interest from candidates working another job, while also running background checks to make sure the Athletic Department wouldnât be blindsided by something in a candidateâs past.
We can speculate on how this group of 3 came together, but we donât really know what happened behind the scenes.
For example, I liked Dononvan as a candidate â but some people in this thread mentioned he had a checkered past with NCAA RulesâŚwhat if (hypothetically) the search firm vetted him and found some merit to accusations lobbed at Donovan in the past?
Itâs most likely all the search firm did was present data to Michigan and let Warde cut the list down from there.
I donât know, I think itâs just hard to land an established coach in general. When Urban Meyer resigned, OSU replaced him with a rookie. Day may be promising, but thatâs objectively a step down for them. The established guys are mostly happy where they are already.
I think Michigan fans are under estimating Cooley. He would be a strong hire IMO. That said, I would probably still favor Howard over Cooley.
I think he is the surest thing not to tank this thing. I will say that
WellâŚ
Says the deal is worth $6 million.
A year? Canât believe thatâs true unless he gets a signing bonus and the base salary is closer to $3-4 million. Because that is a massive overpay.
So weâre going to call off the Juwan interview tomorrow? Seems a bit fishy. Maybe a leverage play?
God I hope this is a troll job