A-10 lead assistant coaches

[Eight Legger]

I went through and looked at the lead assistant coach at each A-10 men's basketball program, and here is what I found. Draw your own conclusions. I've drawn mine.

Davidson
8 years of experience as assistant at Emory, Davidson (he is McKillop's son)

Dayton
17 years of experience as assistant at Christian Brothers U, Notre Dame, Ohio U, Butler, Ohio State

Duquesne
20+ years of experience as assistant at Sacred Heard, St. Bonaventure, Siena, Seton Hall, head coach at St. Francis

Fordham
14+ years of experience in HS (as head coach he was 100 games over .500), assistant coach at Duquesne, Eastern Kentucky

George Mason
13+ years of experience as assistant coach at Williams College, Rider, Bucknell (recruited two NBA draft picks, one at Rider and one at Bucknell)

George Washington
13+ years of experience as assistant coach at Maryland, Vermont, GW

Lasalle
29 years of experience – 17 as assistant coach at Rhode Island, Wagner, St. Joseph’s, 12 years as head coach at Marist and JMU

UMass
18 years of experience as assistant at Florida, Towson, Northeastern, UMass

Rhode Island
20 years of experience – 10 as an AAU coach and high school coach, 10 as an assistant coach at Georgetown, Pitt, Rutgers and Rhode Island

Richmond
14 years of experience – 2 as JV head coach and varsity assistant in HS, one as assistant coach at Alabama-Huntsville, 11 as assistant coach at Richmond

St. Bonaventure
22 years of experience as assistant coach at Merrimack College, UNH, Robert Morris, Siena, Central Connecticut State and St. Bonaventure

St. Joseph’s
19 years of experience – 2 as a high school assistant, 17 as an assistant coach at St. Joseph’s

St. Louis
15 years of experience as an assistant coach at UAB, Maine, Chicago State, East Tennessee State, Lasalle

VCU
11+ years of experience – 8 as head coach of Queens University of Charlotte, 2 as assistant at Chattanooga, 1 as an assistant at VCU

 

[PASpider]

Wow

 

[MolivaManiac]

How good were the high school jv teams though?

 

[97spiderfan]

i bet he recruited the hell out of some 6th graders for that JV squad.

 

[MrTbone]

One consideration is that our last two asst HCs moved on to be a HC and a P5 asst. I think that actually says something complimentary about our asst HCs.

I wouldn't formulate that much of an opinion on this data personally, I know people who have 25 years of experience at differing employers that have bounced around because their talent is mediocre.

 

[SFspidur]

But it's also about the diversity of experiences and perspectives these others have gained over their years. Ours has basically been right by Mooney's side since day one.

 

[LongTimeLurkerFirstTimePoster]

my conclusion is your time would have been better served enjoying this nice spring day.

 

[MrTbone]

For the record, I did not mean to defend the lack of diversity within our coaching staff, I think that's an issue. I simply meant that I have zero context to understand the comparables' experience. A guy who has been at 6 places over 22 years for example may not be a positive.

 

[SFspidur]

We're hiring a new DOBO...who's moving on?

http://hoopdirt.com/job/director-of-mens-basketball-operations-university-of-richmond-full-time/

 

[MolivaManiac]

We're hiring a new DOBO...who's moving on?

http://hoopdirt.com/job/director-of-mens-basketball-operations-university-of-richmond-full-time/

That's got Trey Davis or Deion Taylor written all over it.

 

[Eight Legger]

my conclusion is your time would have been better served enjoying this nice spring day.

It took me 15 minutes to pull this information together. I spent 6 hours outside with my kid today.

 

[Eight Legger]

Vegas thinks Ryan Butler is moving to Campbell, because, well, that's pretty much the way this works.

 

[64Spider]

Could this possibly lead to us hiring an assistant coach that has experience outside of the Mooney regime?

 

[spiderman]

Could this possibly lead to us hiring an assistant coach that has experience outside of the Mooney regime?

for a DOBO job, lol?

 

[64Spider]

for a DOBO job, lol?

o

Didn't we do something like that with Kim Lewis? Opens a spot. Maybe move some others around or add additional assistant.

 

[Eight Legger]

Too bad we're not hiring for an actual assistant instead of another DOBO. I think it's pretty impressive that Dr. G at Lasalle was able to bring in a successful head coach like Matt Brady to be his top assistant. That's a hire I wouldn't have minded seeing us make. But I guess Lasalle is a much more desirable program than we are these days. They also just got Savon Goodman, the Arizona State grad transfer, to go along with their three other P5 transfers who will become eligible this year. They're ahead of us already. Sad.

 

[SFspidur]

They're ahead of us already. Sad.

How much does number of P5 transfers count toward the conference standings?

La Salle is still a mess.

 

[fan2011]

Too bad we're not hiring for an actual assistant instead of another DOBO. I think it's pretty impressive that Dr. G at Lasalle was able to bring in a successful head coach like Matt Brady to be his top assistant. That's a hire I wouldn't have minded seeing us make. But I guess Lasalle is a much more desirable program than we are these days. They also just got Savon Goodman, the Arizona State grad transfer, to go along with their three other P5 transfers who will become eligible this year. They're ahead of us already. Sad.

La Salle just had a 9 win season and last place A10 finish. In no world would anyone say they are ahead of us as a program. I know these are just hollow words on a message board, but I am pretty confident they will finish behind us again next season.

Also, Goodman was kicked out of UNLV for stealing and suspended at ASU for violating team rules. He is a pretty good basketball player, but not the kind of player I would want in our program.

 

[Ulla1]

If any of you had ever been to Lasalle, you would have a very different opinion. OSC

 

[Eight Legger]

Lasalle is a hellhole with a high school gymnasium. That's my point. Their starting 5 will be more talented than ours. They also have a Sweet 16 more recently than we've been the NCAAs. They also just attracted a better assistant coach than we have ever had under Mooney, save for Hartman. Also sad.

 

[SpiderK]

If any of you had ever been to Lasalle, you would have a very different opinion. OSC

It's in the most dangerous dump city east of Chicago, Detroit and Flint.

 

[fan2011]

Lasalle is a hellhole with a high school gymnasium. That's my point. Their starting 5 will be more talented than ours. They also have a Sweet 16 more recently than we've been the NCAAs. They also just attracted a better assistant coach than we have ever had under Mooney, save for Hartman. Also sad.

Just because they scraped up the dregs of the P5 to form a team doesn't mean the players will be more talented. There is a reason those players ended up at La Salle...

 

[Ulla1]

2011, you are right. Just like there is a reason players end up at vdu. OSC

 

[Eight Legger]

We'll see. Those guys are not the dregs of the P5, either. Most knowledgeable college basketball reporters are picking Lasalle to make the NCAAs. Can't say the same of us, unfortunately.

 

[fan2011]

We'll see. Those guys are not the dregs of the P5, either. Most knowledgeable college basketball reporters are picking Lasalle to make the NCAAs. Can't say the same of us, unfortunately.

That would be a most impressive turn-around. I will be following their season more closely next year to see how it works out, it is a very interesting experiment.

Edit: In my spoiler below I have outlined why I don't think La Salle will be successful with the players they have transferring in.

Spoiler: Analysis

My quick player evaluation is a two-pronged approach. The quickest evaluation is to simply look at kenpom's offensive rating for the players. La Salle had two transfers play for them last year, Price and Roberts. We can see how their offensive rating compares before they were at La Salle and during their time at La Salle.

Price went from 99.9 to 95.9
Roberts went from 106.0 to 101.0

We can see that both payers became less efficient at La Salle, should we expect this to happen to the other transfers as well? I am not sure, but there is no reason to suspect any of the transfers will have their offensive rating increase at La Salle. Here are the offensive ratings for the other transfers:

Savon Goodman: 100.4 (average)
Demetrius Henry: 85.9 (bad)
Pookie: 84.5 (bad)
BJ Johnson: 67.8 (unbelievably bad)

for comparison here is what some of our players looked like last year:

TJ: 115.4
SDJ: 111.3
TD: 99.2

La Salle is going to really struggle on offense next year.

The other way I quickly evaluate players is by looking at a combination of how good their team was and how much time they played on their team. If their team was good and they played a lot of minutes they are probably a good player. If their team was bad and they played few minutes they were probably a pretty bad player. Out of all the teams these transfers are coming from, not a single one made the NCAAs or the NIT when the transfers were on the team. Goodman was 7th on his team in minutes, option 7, for a team that didn't even make the NIT. BJ Johnson was option 8 for a team that didn't even make the NIT. Demetrius Henry was option 8 for a team that didn't make the NIT. Pookie was option 9 for a team that didn't make the NIT.

All these players were stuck deep on the bench for teams that were not good enough to make the post season. I am really struggling to understand why anyone would think that taking some of the worst players from teams not capable of making the NIT would result in a team capable of making the NCAAs.

 

[Eight Legger]

It would be impressive, but it's not like they will be relying on the same players they had last year. That's the whole point. They're bringing in four new starting players who have never played for them before. And their one remaining starter is Price. He's a pretty good player in his own right. So I guess I don't really think of it as a turnaround, since it would be all different players, for the most part.

 

[fan2011]

It would be impressive, but it's not like they will be relying on the same players they had last year. That's the whole point. They're bringing in four new starting players who have never played for them before. And their one remaining starter is Price. He's a pretty good player in his own right. So I guess I don't really think of it as a turnaround, since it would be all different players, for the most part.

Read my spoiler above for why I think the new players will not be good. They truly are the dregs of the P5.

 

[97spiderfan]

The overriding point is LaSalle is a university on the verge of bankruptcy, in a crime ridden area of Philly, that plays in a crappy high school gym, but despite all of that the good doctor is able to bring in an assistant coach with a decade plus of D-1 head coaching experience and get a bunch of BCS transfers.

meanwhile we have to send our lead assistant coach off to watch guys who are already committed and has zero experience outside of his time with Mooney and despite all of our immense advantages over a program like LaSalle we can't beg a BCS transfer to take one our 2 open slots.

Why can't Mooney get an assistant coach like Brady, especially since it is pretty well established that at least one of them can't recruit for crap. If Mooney was invested in change he would have made a move like that in a heartbeat, unfortunately he is more invested in loyalty than leadership.

 

[fan2011]

The overriding point is LaSalle is a university on the verge of bankruptcy, in a crime ridden area of Philly, that plays in a crappy high school gym, but despite all of that the good doctor is able to bring in an assistant coach with a decade plus of D-1 head coaching experience and get a bunch of BCS transfers.

meanwhile we have to send our lead assistant coach off to watch guys who are already committed and has zero experience outside of his time with Mooney and despite all of our immense advantages over a program like LaSalle we can't beg a BCS transfer to take one our 2 open slots.

Why can't Mooney get an assistant coach like Brady, especially since it is pretty well established that at least one of them can't recruit for crap. If Mooney was invested in change he would have made a move like that in a heartbeat, unfortunately he is more invested in loyalty than leadership.

Wood came from a P5 school, so half of Mooney's transfers have been from P5 schools... I highly doubt Mooney would want the most of the players that La Salle will have next year, not many schools did which is why they are playing for La Salle. I really don't care that they played for P5 schools before they transferred, that doesn't automatically make them good or desirable players. They were all deep bench players on bad teams.

I know even less about assistant coaching than I do about player evaluation (which is basically nothing to begin with) so I can't offer much of an opinion on the assistant coaching situation. I have heard speculation that Brady was brought in to be the next head coach at La Salle should Dr. G fail this year.

 

[Eight Legger]

Read my spoiler above for why I think the new players will not be good. They truly are the dregs of the P5.

I did read it, and we'll just have to agree to disagree. Your statistical analysis also had Marshall Wood pegged as a terrible three-point shooter prior to last season, because it was based on a very small sample size that he accrued in very limited minutes at Virginia Tech. And that's the same case with most of the stats accrued by these three transfers.

 

[fan2011]

I did read it, and we'll just have to agree to disagree. Your statistical analysis also had Marshall Wood pegged as a terrible three-point shooter prior to last season, because it was based on a very small sample size that he accrued in very limited minutes at Virginia Tech. And that's the same case with most of the stats accrued by these three transfers.

Good points. How about we make a fun little bet? If La Salle finishes ahead of us next year you can choose my profile picture for the following year. If La Salle finishes behind Richmond I get to choose yours.

 

[MolivaManiac]

Why can't Mooney get an assistant coach like Brady, especially since it is pretty well established that at least one of them can't recruit for crap. If Mooney was invested in change he would have made a move like that in a heartbeat, unfortunately he is more invested in loyalty than leadership.

Agree 100%. 2 points to add:

1- Mooney obviously has a high opinion of Brady since he complimented him in an article after his firing. Plus he lost to him the last 2 years.
2- There's no way that Lasalle pays assistant coaches more than we do.

If Chris was serious about making changes, he would have added a guy like Brady to his staff. He's not.

 

[97spiderfan]

Interesting that the debate now centers around not whether we will finish ahead of vcu or Dayton but rather LaSalle.

 

[fan2011]

Interesting that the debate now centers around not whether we will finish ahead of vcu or Dayton but rather LaSalle.

I agree, it is ridiculous that it is even being suggested, which is why I made the bet.

 

[Eight Legger]

I'll take the bet. I didn't really start this to argue that we were not going to be a good team next year, because I think we have the possibility of being a good team. My point with the LaSalle comparison was that somehow Lasalle is able to attract players and coaches that either we can't attract or haven't made the effort to attract, but who I think could help our program.

 

[gospidersgo]

Do you think any of La Salle's starting five would qualify here academically?

 

[Ulla1]

Do you think any of La Salle's starting five would qualify here academically?

No. OSC

 

[Eight Legger]

I really don't know or care. We compete in the same league with them and 12 other teams, however, and I'm beyond sick of the academic crutch some of us like to fall back on all the time. Either we are intentionally sabotaging our own ability to recruit good players, in which case we should move down to a lower league, or we are not, in which case we should be able to recruit good players every year. Or we know that we are working with a slight disadvantage and should be better after 11 years of dealing with, and overcoming, that disadvantage.

 

[MrTbone]

I'm somewhere in the middle on this. We aren't getting into the partial qualifier game anytime soon but we do seem to be gun shy recruiting guys who gave borderline academics. That's just facts folks. UR doesn't hide student athletes from legit coursework to my knowledge. That said, I don't buy that we can't find transfers who can succeed here.

 

[LongTimeLurkerFirstTimePoster]

MM: - There's no way that Lasalle pays assistant coaches more than we do.

JMU is paying Brady this year. Not sure what he was making-lets say $350k. JMU is on the hook for that amount, less anything he makes at new job. LaSalle can pay him anything-because he still clearing $350k one way or another.

If he is such a good coach, two questions. 1.) Why has JMU tried to get ride of him for years ( I believe it is because he wouldn't move to H'Burg who could blame) and 2.) WHy wasn't he scooped up to be a HC somewhere else?