Do we need a recruiter?
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Mooney and Gipe were the ones seen in the vid who showed up to give Smith the closing pitch.
Bizjack tagged both MoJo and Gipe (and Stokes) in his tweet about his visit.
Kaiser tagged MoJo in his tweet about his offer.
Bizjack tagged both MoJo and Gipe (and Stokes) in his tweet about his visit.
Kaiser tagged MoJo in his tweet about his offer.
I don't know how to say this sensitively, but here goes. Gipe looks like he should be selling me a set of knives or is riding his bike around on Mormon mission trying to recruit you.
Hell yes, we need a recruiter, that is what Mojo was. We need a guy who has a little pizazz and Mojo brought some diversity to our staff. And before you roll your eyes about that word, look at who we are recruiting, yes that matters.
Hell yes, we need a recruiter, that is what Mojo was. We need a guy who has a little pizazz and Mojo brought some diversity to our staff. And before you roll your eyes about that word, look at who we are recruiting, yes that matters.
8legs1dream
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I have said similar things about Gipe. I don't want him to be our main anything on the staff honestly.
having a problem with Gipe's looks is ridiculous. either he's good at his job or he isn't, and they say he is.
if anyone here knows for sure that MoJo is a tremendous recruiter, please speak up. maybe he is. he just didn't have much time here to prove anything.
I'm not big on the concept of "recruiter". I want somone personable and honest with great basketball knowledge who loves UR. I'm not looking for a used car salesman to try to convince a kid UR is best for him if it's not. just be sincere and hard working. build relationships and trust.
if anyone here knows for sure that MoJo is a tremendous recruiter, please speak up. maybe he is. he just didn't have much time here to prove anything.
I'm not big on the concept of "recruiter". I want somone personable and honest with great basketball knowledge who loves UR. I'm not looking for a used car salesman to try to convince a kid UR is best for him if it's not. just be sincere and hard working. build relationships and trust.
??? Are you okay? If you want a black man on staff, then say that. Gipe looks like an assistant coach and that’s what he is.
Look at the guys he had at GW. A few turned out to be NBA players and overseas guys and a few were miss. JUST LIKE ALL RECRUITING.
Gipe obviously is not ready to be the lead recruiter for an A10 program – he hasn't even been a full-time assistant coach for us yet. Thomas is our lead recruiter at this moment in time, I'm sure.
I want an experienced guy as our lead recruiter – meaning high-level experience as a recruiter and ideally experience playing the game at the D1 level, too. Gipe doesn't fit the bill there. Thomas does.
As for who we should hire into this role: in a perfect world, I personally would like to find a Black coach who checks these boxes better than any other candidate. I suspect Mooney does, too. Just look at some of the guys he has had in a key recruiting role historically: Hartman, Jenkins, Lewis, MoJo.
I'm not suggesting that a white guy who never played D1 basketball can't be a great recruiter, or that Mooney should just hire any under-qualified Black coach instead of a better-qualified coach of another race. But but I am saying that when you are recruiting primarily Black players, yes, the makeup of your staff does matter, for a variety of reasons.
I'd say the same of any organization or business, too. If your leadership is homogeneous, I've got questions to ask.
I want an experienced guy as our lead recruiter – meaning high-level experience as a recruiter and ideally experience playing the game at the D1 level, too. Gipe doesn't fit the bill there. Thomas does.
As for who we should hire into this role: in a perfect world, I personally would like to find a Black coach who checks these boxes better than any other candidate. I suspect Mooney does, too. Just look at some of the guys he has had in a key recruiting role historically: Hartman, Jenkins, Lewis, MoJo.
I'm not suggesting that a white guy who never played D1 basketball can't be a great recruiter, or that Mooney should just hire any under-qualified Black coach instead of a better-qualified coach of another race. But but I am saying that when you are recruiting primarily Black players, yes, the makeup of your staff does matter, for a variety of reasons.
I'd say the same of any organization or business, too. If your leadership is homogeneous, I've got questions to ask.
I really wonder what happened with Kevin Anderson at Liberty. maybe he just decided not to coach any more?
I think he's a guy who'd do well in the living room ... his history with the program and coach, plus playing some professionally.
I think he's a guy who'd do well in the living room ... his history with the program and coach, plus playing some professionally.
Just spend 30 minutes trying to figure out any Kevin Anderson update. No changes to his linkedin or twitter profiles so not sure .. only a few recent tweets. Mystery continues ....
I mean, I think so and yeah that is what I said. Further, our lead assistant coach needs to be someone with either extensive D-1 assistant coaching experience or a former D-1 head coach. Mooney can not poach a former player or promote from within on this hire. That person needs to a gifted recruiter who can go out and speak and appeal to high school recruits (and other college recruits).
Hopefully, the Mojo experience showed him what happened when you do that. We had Mojo and Hovde, both are guys that walk into a room and command your attention. Is Gipe able to do that?
I’m going to go out on a limb here and speculate that most of you really know nothing about Gipe. He seemed to earn the respect of the team, including Gilyard and others, which has to be the primary reason he was promoted.
Also, take a look at the recent trends for coaching in most sports — you want talented people, not just ex-athletes.
Also, take a look at the recent trends for coaching in most sports — you want talented people, not just ex-athletes.
It was 100% serious based on recent photo/Twitter evidence, but yes, things may have changed with Thomas getting settled in.
Let's keep in mind it is June. I don't think it is that easy to just go grab a top assistant from another program at this time. Has to work for both us and them. Maybe a guy from a lesser conference would want to move up, but something tells me several of you would just be disappointed and criticize the hire if that happened.
Like Sman said, how do we know this? He was here for 1 year, from May 21 to May 22. Do we even know if he landed anyone for us during this time? I like Mojo and was glad we had him here, but I just don't think we have any evidence that screams great recruiter. I'm pretty sure we will be fine with whoever we have as assistants. Many of you have questioned our assistants for several years now, yet we have recruited extremely well the last 5 or 6 years.
?? Which is kind of why I included that we could maybe get someone from a lower conference, just like Butler did.
We didn’t even see anybody mojo recruited here to play? None of those guys who played were got by him? So I’m confused what makes you assume he’s an expert recruiter or better yet what recruiting even entails these days..
Agreed. Diversity is something important, beneficial, and something Mooney will do, but to say Gipe does not look the part does not mean he can’t get the job done… Just simply unfair to say
We did just land three really good transfers and got a highly rated high school guard. Fair to assume MoJo was heavily involved with all four..
We need to make sure our coaching staff is as diverse as our players. It is a no brainer. May be Gipe can recruit.
The best salesman does not always look All American or fit the mold, but can sell ice cubes to an Eskimo. But
players and their parents like a coaching staff that they can relate to. Maybe we need a coach from Canada.
The best salesman does not always look All American or fit the mold, but can sell ice cubes to an Eskimo. But
players and their parents like a coaching staff that they can relate to. Maybe we need a coach from Canada.
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Why assume he would have been any more involved than Mooney, or any of the other coaches? Quinn mentioned style of play and TJ and Grant. Seems like Mooney would be the one to sell him on that, instead of a coach who had been with us for 1 year. Bigelow actually mentioned Mooney after announcing: “I watched a lot of film, a lot of games,” he said. “Coach [Mooney] showed me a lot of clips of how I will be played, and it was kind of a no-brainer for me.” Roche: “I think for me, it was the best basketball fit,” Roche said. “I thought that the way Coach Mooney runs the offense and runs the team was something that fits me, fits my play style and also the way the locker room environment is. I felt like it fit my personality really well.”
Seems strange you would assume Mojo would be "heavily" involved in all 3 of the transfers and Smith. Why? Maybe he was involved, but to assume heavily? Why? With transfers, you don't have a lot of time to recruit them, so you better have your head coach doing most of the recruiting, and it certainly looks like we did just that with these guys.
I love what Quinn said here:
“I think, talking to a lot of the guys, I think that everybody has the same idea of spin the block: we want to win this thing again,” Quinn said. “And you know, getting me, Isaiah, Jason and the new guys, we want to be a part of that championship experience.”
Let's not turn this into a "Hey, we won't miss that guy at all" thread. All I said was that he was likely heavily involved, not that Mooney and others weren't involved.
Is there a correlation between just landing our best recruiting class in years and the fact that Mojo was on staff? You have to think so, we weren't landing guys like Roche and Quinn and the new Top 150 freshman recruit prior to his being on staff. The freshman specifically mentioned Mojo when he committed.
It also doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that Mooney is not the best salesman in the world, we have listened to his interviews for the past 2 decades now, we know how he comes across (bland, vanilla). Nothing wrong with that, he has other strengths, but to counteract that you really need someone who can bring fire and energy into your program and into recruiting. Hovde and Mojo were that fire and energy.
It also doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that Mooney is not the best salesman in the world, we have listened to his interviews for the past 2 decades now, we know how he comes across (bland, vanilla). Nothing wrong with that, he has other strengths, but to counteract that you really need someone who can bring fire and energy into your program and into recruiting. Hovde and Mojo were that fire and energy.
More likely a result of other causes: (1) Spiders just made tournament, (2) more transfers in the portal, (3) several starters and two other players left freeing up the ability to market starter slots available, and (4) an awesome mascot / modern practice facilities.
These are much more observable than your speculation that Mojo was important. In my own professional experience, I also tend to be less involved in recruiting / hiring decisions if I think there’s a possibility I will leave in the near future.
Well all of our assistants left, so who do you suppose was recruiting everyone, Mooney all by himself? I'm sure he didn't have anything else to do...
No doubt. When it comes to the transfer portal, you better have your head coach being the main guy recruiting them because every other team's head coach will be all over them. And, obviously, Mooney was the key with all 3 transfers. The season was over. Why wouldn't the head coach be the main guy? Or, look at it this way.... Should we send Mooney to talk to them, or a guy in Mojo who was thinking about leaving here, and probably thinking about Michigan State and other places to go?
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What else did he have to do that was more important than getting the transfers in here?
The CEO of McDonald's doesn't oversee the entire company, handle payroll, answer the phones,do the dishes and make all the hamburgers. I'm just saying that the idea that Mooney and Mooney alone identified, reached out to and traveled to meet with the three transfers we got (not to mention the others we didn't) AND also was solely responsible for recruiting and signing Smith seems a bit far-fetched, no?
Uh. You went from saying Mojo was "heavily involved" to now saying Mooney didn't do all this by himself. It's okay to take an "L" sometimes. You seem to have a hard time doing that. Like with Bones. You just keep on and on when proven wrong.
Come on dude, stop making this complicated. I don't even care this much about this topic. Yes, I believed and STILL believe MoJo was heavily involved in recruiting players to our team. How was I "proven wrong" here – by your assertion that Mooney was the only guy recruiting and signing four players? Lol, ok.
My comment above was not me changing my statements, it was simply me responding to your question about Mooney's involvement.
And feel free to defend VCU players all you'd like. I said Bones was not worth a lottery pick and would not be a lottery pick, and he wasn't and he wasn't. He seems like he's a nice NBA player – good for him.
My comment above was not me changing my statements, it was simply me responding to your question about Mooney's involvement.
And feel free to defend VCU players all you'd like. I said Bones was not worth a lottery pick and would not be a lottery pick, and he wasn't and he wasn't. He seems like he's a nice NBA player – good for him.
I'm sure assistant were involved, particularly in identifying who we would target.
we have no info that I'm aware of that MoJo was involved in recruiting the transfers or Smith for that matter.
as SF pointed out, MoJo was involved in recruiting Bizjack and Kaiser though.
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