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Dan = Doc. It is time…

W-S HerdFan

W-S HerdFan

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First off, love Dan & everything he has contributed to basketball @ Marshall. As a player he was a dynamic part of some damn good teams. He has always been a great ambassador for his alma meter. And now he has led the Herd as the coach, achieving our 1st ever NCAA tourney win. Having said all of that, it’s pretty clear this season is headed south. Hopefully he will recognize that he has done what he can & it is time for a new head man.
 
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W-S HerdFan said:
First off, love Dan & everything he has contributed to basketball @ Marshall. As a player he was a dynamic part of some damn good teams. He has always been a great ambassador for his alma meter. And now he has led the Herd as the coach, achieving our 1st ever NCAA tourney win. Having said all of that, it’s pretty clear this season is headed south. Hopefully he will recognize that he has done what he can & it is time for a new head man.
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Bring in Gay Elmore. :p
 
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IMHO, not that it matters today, but Dan’s and Doc’s treatment by the MU fanbase could not have been more different. IMHO, our basketball fanbase skews yet even older, and is chock full of people, like DD, who don’t understand what has happened to southern West Virginia, to Huntington, and to college basketball since the late 60s. They, and DD, still long for the days when there were only about 200 DI teams and out recruiting Joe Retton at the WVSSAC tournament was a pathway to success.

The DD act, which is some combination of revisionist nostalgia about some never was era; “Dan-alitics” which is shooting 3 with no one set up for a rebound because it might just go it and its worth 50% more than a layup; a bunch of no-star WVians and a bunch of no-star Eastern Europeans; goofy slogans like “304 Boys” and “Hillbilly Ball” (which come combined with throwback logos and uniforms from 1967); and totally ignoring the regular season in the hope of a hot streak, has worn thin. Finally.

The reality is that this IS a weak conference. There are at least a third of this league that makes a token effort at the sport and thus plenty of cheap wins out there. The fact is that the winner of the league will get seeded about 13th. That is what it is. Weak. There for the taking.

The next step? Either get a young coach and see what he can do or try to rehab somebody like WKU and UAB have. With the crazy travel and token effort teams of CUSA gone soon, recruiting should be easier.
 
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DD's trajectory look vastly different 3 years ago... Coming off the first NCAA tourney win, with a roster that looked like it would be competitive for the next few years, fans re-energized, etc.

But I agree now that it is time to look in a different direction. The hype, slogans, gimmicks, only works when you back it up, and we haven't in three years.

We have a guy in Kimsey that is projected to be at the end of the first round, beginning of the second round, in many NBA mocks this year. And we have put very little around him... OAK shows flashes but is inconsistent, George is a 5th year senior that would be a bench shooter on a good team, Taylor is okay but not great at PG, Byers is all over the map from game to game, and our big European guys neither play like big guys (rebound and defend the paint) or typical stretch Euros that can knock down 3's, so they don't offer much.

Time for a refresh... Be it Hamilton, or some other young up and coming assistant coach looking for a head job.
 
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raleighherdfan said:
Let’s just start at the beginning….Dans and Docs treatment of the fan base could not have been more different.
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Yes. Doc was so hostile towards the fans. That's just garbage talk and piling on. If Doc had won several championships no one would care.

I couldn't care any less what the HC thinks about me. They're not my friend. I don't worship them. They're employees hired to do a job. Win. Dan doesn't win enough so who cares if he yucks it up with his Danites and wears cool t-shirts under his jacket.
 
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BleedsGreen33 said:
I couldn't care any less what the HC thinks about me. They're not my friend. I don't worship them. They're employees hired to do a job. Win. Dan doesn't win enough so who cares if he yucks it up with his Danites and wears cool t-shirts under his jacket.
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That’s where you are exactly wrong. This isn’t a pro sport…yet. A college football coaches job is to build a relationship with the fans and former players. And the fact that he didn’t win more than one conference championship made it worse.
My guess would be that a college coach would also have obligations in his contract related to those community relations and booster building. It’s essential for the survival and growth of a program.
 
How sad to be so fixated on a long gone football coach that you must attack him in a basketball thread.
 
BleedsGreen33 said:
Yes. Doc was so hostile towards the fans. That's just garbage talk and piling on. If Doc had won several championships no one would care.

I couldn't care any less what the HC thinks about me. They're not my friend. I don't worship them. They're employees hired to do a job. Win. Dan doesn't win enough so who cares if he yucks it up with his Danites and wears cool t-shirts under his jacket.
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Doc has never been a media guy. He just focused on football and coaching. Of course it made some more hostile towards him because he didn't sugarcoat things.
Dan's always been a media guy, which gave him a hell of a cushion in terms of needing to win (also, family on the MU BoG ensuring his contract would be renewed). Fans gave him a pass...oh and the being a SoM and former player himself helped too.

I have said for a while, Doc and Dan were almost the same kind of person in terms of their coaching starts...Doc made the title game in 2013, won it in 2014 (year 4). He also kept MU competitive after in 2015, just sucks they played the greatest 2 years in wku football history. The disaster of 2016 and foolishness in wanting to fire him without giving him a chance to re-build, and he did and went bowling the following years...and won CoY in 2020.

Dan made the title game in year 3, won it in year 4, kept it up for a year with the CIT, then completely fell off the rails.
Difference is, a single bad year (2016) with Doc, was recovered in the subsequent years...Dan hasn't seemed to do that.
Of course the fools who believe conference titles are the end all be all (lets just not mention how many schools all over the NCAA, moved up who hadn't won a title in the last decade or so) forget its about the consistency of your program and with a program like MU who doesn't enjoy being top dog in their state (Boise) or has insane amounts of money (Cincy) or has a large enrollment (ucf), you have to take what you can get.
Very few G5's can say they'd had the 10 year consistency MU had...lots of money spent and lost with 2 year HC's who barely got 3 wins a season. If mediocrity is finishing 2nd in your division, then I couldn't imagine what you use to describe ODU or Charlotte (who've finished worse than we have and have no conference titles...same with USM, who hadn't won really anything since Fedora left)...but yet are heading to one of the better G5's right now.

Dan's got his work cut out for him and he isn't exactly winning the fans over anymore.
Of course, the fans had such a low bar set for him that they didn't believe they'd ever need to raise it since a literal team with a pulse was more than what we had...and now they're stuck with it.

But hey, the fans on here kept talking about "Oh how fun the b-ball team LOOKS, as opposed to winning games." "By gosh darn that son of a biscuit sure made a ton of 3 pointers against us tonight, but gee golly were they fun to watch!"
Don't kid yourselves, plenty of you wanted to be entertained over a team winning, which shows just how low the bar has been set for basketball, and just how far they are from reaching it.
 
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Flaws in Danny's recruiting impetus/strategy are definitely coming home to roost. He has emphasized in State recruiting and certainly no one can argue against that, . . . to an extent! It's been tried before, including by another former Herd player turned Head Coach who was from Mullen, with MIXED results. Certainly, recruiting locally has a lot of advantages, and recruiting contiguous States up and to 3 or maybe even 4 hours from Huntington is smart for several reasons, including hopefully helping expand and grow the fan base, as well as broaden the area in which MU could be more successful in recruiting potential new students.

That said, you can't build a program basing your recruiting mainly on WV. Just not enough legit D1 quality talent produced year in and year out in a State with declining to stagnant population and dropping public school enrollment. Maybe you can have success doing such recruiting if you are a state basketball head coach at a Mountain East school!

So let's look at at Danny's recruiting otherwise. Got team leaders from Ohio (Kinsey) and KY (Taylor) which fits in with the above re: regional recruiting. Post Penava, however, the over emphasis on recruiting projects, particularly tall projects from Eastern Europe who supposedly can be "developed" has to rate as a pretty resounding "fail", maybe close to an epic fail. Right now, if you check the team roster, we have THREE roster players from something called the "Hoosec School", apparently a private school somewhere in New York! Anybody tell me if they know of any quality player from that NY school currently on a good D1 program elsewhere here in the 21-22 season! I don't think Hoosec rates up there next to DeMatha in terms of producing top notch D1 basketball talent year after year, do you? Danny has several new and young players from the last couple of recruiting classes who he is apparently "high" on and says they will be good with time and development. Yet, here in YEAR EIGHT we've certainly seen, and heard, that before! So what should we expect, a highly successful breakout in CUSA and/or SBC basketball by Marshall in year Nine, . . . year Ten, . . ., etc., etc.
 
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The decision that we need to make, going forward in the SBC, is just what we want to be. I read a lot of comparisons between football and basketball, and statements about “similar accomplishments”.

Really?

I do not see our basketball team, under this coach, Huck, or anyone else, as ever being close in accomplishment to what we have done in football. Our best year, in a weak league, we made the NCAA tournament and won a game from a 13 seed. Make the tournament four more times and win six more games and we are even with Morehead State. Our current NCAA history is the same as Alcorn State’s.

THAT is the same as being one of the elite 140 I-A football programs, and consistently (under multiple coaches, including the current one) making bowl games?

I just don’t think so. Our football program has been on a higher level than basketball since JD’s times. Today it is on a far higher level.

So, the question. Just what, in an SBC that isn’t exactly that much in basketball either, do we demand? Is “entertainment” and making the tournament, what, once a decade or so, getting seeded 14th or so (the typical SBC seed) enough? When I look at the SBC, in basketball, I see a lot of small arenas, in small towns, and not a lot of banners.

IMHO, we should EXPECT to be in the top three or four in the SBC, every single year. Expcet.
 
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They don’t need to fire DD until they have an AD, the new AD needs to bring in their guy, otherwise we are setting the next guy up for failure.
 
oldeherd said:
Flaws in Danny's recruiting impetus/strategy are definitely coming home to roost. He has emphasized in State recruiting and certainly no one can argue against that, . . . to an extent! It's been tried before, including by another former Herd player turned Head Coach who was from Mullen, with MIXED results. Certainly, recruiting locally has a lot of advantages, and recruiting contiguous States up and to 3 or maybe even 4 hours from Huntington is smart for several reasons, including hopefully helping expand and grow the fan base, as well as broaden the area in which MU could be more successful in recruiting potential new students.

That said, you can't build a program basing your recruiting mainly on WV. Just not enough legit D1 quality talent produced year in and year out in a State with declining to stagnant population and dropping public school enrollment. Maybe you can have success doing such recruiting if you are a state basketball head coach at a Mountain East school!

So let's look at at Danny's recruiting otherwise. Got team leaders from Ohio (Kinsey) and KY (Taylor) which fits in with the above re: regional recruiting. Post Penava, however, the over emphasis on recruiting projects, particularly tall projects from Eastern Europe who supposedly can be "developed" has to rate as a pretty resounding "fail", maybe close to an epic fail. Right now, if you check the team roster, we have THREE roster players from something called the "Hoosec School", apparently a private school somewhere in New York! Anybody tell me if they know of any quality player from that NY school currently on a good D1 program elsewhere here in the 21-22 season! I don't think Hoosec rates up there next to DeMatha in terms of producing top notch D1 basketball talent year after year, do you? Danny has several new and young players from the last couple of recruiting classes who he is apparently "high" on and says they will be good with time and development. Yet, here in YEAR EIGHT we've certainly seen, and heard, that before! So what should we expect, a highly successful breakout in CUSA and/or SBC basketball by Marshall in year Nine, . . . year Ten, . . ., etc., etc.
Click to expand...

Thing is, Dan can find good athletes to fit the need, but he can't coach them to their levels of potential. Minus a select few, who were already pretty talented, has Dan actually made better before they left.
But therein lies a huge difference between the G5 and P5, you need a HC in the G5 who is very X's and O's oriented, smart and resourceful with what they have.
P5's not so much from mid to upper levels. Lower levels, yes, but you can still stack talent and hope for a good season.
 
GoHerdMarshallYes said:
Thing is, Dan can find good athletes to fit the need, but he can't coach them to their levels of potential. Minus a select few, who were already pretty talented, has Dan actually made better before they left.
But therein lies a huge difference between the G5 and P5, you need a HC in the G5 who is very X's and O's oriented, smart and resourceful with what they have.
P5's not so much from mid to upper levels. Lower levels, yes, but you can still stack talent and hope for a good season.
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Dan could get better recruits. He's just lazy. That was proven with Luke Frampton. Kid was 45 mins down the road and Dan attended barely if any of the workouts that were being held for coaches. However the Davidson(or wherever he went) HC came to just about everyone of them.
 
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- The next AD will answer to the powers that be, including JJ.

- DD will be here until he retires to become an “ambassador” at the Greenbrier.

- This ain’t a bad job, going forward. The SBC travel is a lot better, and the league is actually a little easier than CUSA, as hard as it is to believe that. A young guy with a vision could do worse.
 
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GoHerdMarshallYes said:
Doc has never been a media guy. He just focused on football and coaching. Of course it made some more hostile towards him because he didn't sugarcoat things.
Dan's always been a media guy, which gave him a hell of a cushion in terms of needing to win (also, family on the MU BoG ensuring his contract would be renewed). Fans gave him a pass...oh and the being a SoM and former player himself helped too.

I have said for a while, Doc and Dan were almost the same kind of person in terms of their coaching starts...Doc made the title game in 2013, won it in 2014 (year 4). He also kept MU competitive after in 2015, just sucks they played the greatest 2 years in wku football history. The disaster of 2016 and foolishness in wanting to fire him without giving him a chance to re-build, and he did and went bowling the following years...and won CoY in 2020.

Dan made the title game in year 3, won it in year 4, kept it up for a year with the CIT, then completely fell off the rails.
Difference is, a single bad year (2016) with Doc, was recovered in the subsequent years...Dan hasn't seemed to do that.
Of course the fools who believe conference titles are the end all be all (lets just not mention how many schools all over the NCAA, moved up who hadn't won a title in the last decade or so) forget its about the consistency of your program and with a program like MU who doesn't enjoy being top dog in their state (Boise) or has insane amounts of money (Cincy) or has a large enrollment (ucf), you have to take what you can get.
Very few G5's can say they'd had the 10 year consistency MU had...lots of money spent and lost with 2 year HC's who barely got 3 wins a season. If mediocrity is finishing 2nd in your division, then I couldn't imagine what you use to describe ODU or Charlotte (who've finished worse than we have and have no conference titles...same with USM, who hadn't won really anything since Fedora left)...but yet are heading to one of the better G5's right now.

Dan's got his work cut out for him and he isn't exactly winning the fans over anymore.
Of course, the fans had such a low bar set for him that they didn't believe they'd ever need to raise it since a literal team with a pulse was more than what we had...and now they're stuck with it.

But hey, the fans on here kept talking about "Oh how fun the b-ball team LOOKS, as opposed to winning games." "By gosh darn that son of a biscuit sure made a ton of 3 pointers against us tonight, but gee golly were they fun to watch!"
Don't kid yourselves, plenty of you wanted to be entertained over a team winning, which shows just how low the bar has been set for basketball, and just how far they are from reaching it.
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Certainly not defending D'Antoni, but how does having a relative on the BOG assure him contract renewal?
If the BOG was involved in anyway, the relative would need to recuse from the discussion and or decision making. Highly doubtful the relative had any influence on D'Antoni's contract extension.
 
Herd1972 said:
Certainly not defending D'Antoni, but how does having a relative on the BOG assure him contract renewal?
If the BOG was involved in anyway, the relative would need to recuse from the discussion and or decision making. Highly doubtful the relative had any influence on D'Antoni's contract extension.
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Rumors are Dan got his sister and two of his buddies on the BOG. I don't know the ins and outs or even how true it is, but allegedly Dan's been attempting to stack the deck in his favor for financial resources. Once again that's just the rumor. One such rumor that someone in particular brings up on the regular who is supposed to be a trusted source of information.

This came up during the football HC search and reared it's head again during the discussions about going to the SBC.

Also it's called politics. No one is recusing themselves.
 
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BleedsGreen33 said:
Rumors are Dan got his sister and two of his buddies on the BOG. I don't know the ins and outs or even how true it is, but allegedly Dan's been attempting to stack the deck in his favor for financial resources. Once again that's just the rumor. One such rumor that someone in particular brings up on the regular who is supposed to be a trusted source of information.

This came up during the football HC search and reared it's head again during the discussions about going to the SBC.

Also it's called politics. No one is recusing themselves.
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How do you know that? If that "someone in particular" is a trusted source, they would have reported this to authorities or if afraid to do that, as an anonymous source to someone in the media. Not aware of the "two of his buddies", but I can be certain Dan's sister would have been recused from any such discussion or decision!
 
Herd1972 said:
How do you know that? If that "someone in particular" is a trusted source, they would have reported this to authorities or if afraid to do that, as an anonymous source to someone in the media. Not aware of the "two of his buddies", but I can be certain Dan's sister would have been recused from any such discussion or decision!
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Reported what to the authorities? Good old boy politics? Lol. Nepotism runs wild in WV and even more so in spots period.
 
This is an embarrassment. No excuse for this. Either we can’t recruit shooters or can’t help them improve.
 
BleedsGreen33 said:
Rumors are Dan got his sister and two of his buddies on the BOG. I don't know the ins and outs or even how true it is, but allegedly Dan's been attempting to stack the deck in his favor for financial resources. Once again that's just the rumor. One such rumor that someone in particular brings up on the regular who is supposed to be a trusted source of information.

This came up during the football HC search and reared it's head again during the discussions about going to the SBC.

Also it's called politics. No one is recusing themselves.
Click to expand...

And people think I'm somehow wrong about the MU BoG having tremendous favor for some over others.
Its politics and its petty but its everywhere.
Plus, she influencing others to keep him means she votes in favor of their wants.
 
Lets just put it this way...

Doc was 3-9 in 2016 and EVERYONE in the damn state was calling for his head including JJ...except the 2 most important factors, MU AD and MU President supported retaining him.
Now, those 3 are gone...
DD is doing worse than he's ever done...no calls for firing him from the MU BoG or outrage from JJ or anything...and the 2, well 1 new MU president and (I guess) 1 acting AD, haven't said a thing.
 
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