The NCAA coaching carousel (Part I): The true story of receiving nine lives

(Part I)

When Tim Floyd was hired earlier today as the new head coach of the UTEP Basketball Program, I did not bat an eye. My head did not spin, and my body did not begin to shake. No longer can the world of college basketball surprise me anymore when hearing the news of coaches being hired and hired and hired again.

The question still remains: how many times must a coach screw up before he never gets another opportunity to do it again. In the wonderful world of college basketball, that question undeniably has no answer.

Floyd, by his own admission, is "not very good at [coaching]." Yes those are his words after being fired from his New Orleans Hornets gig. Floyd's time in the NBA left him with a career record of 93-235. Yet after mild success with Iowa State, New Orleans (the University) & Idaho, the Southern California Trojans selected Floyd to replace departed head man Rick Majerus who left after just five days on the job.

Maybe big ol' Ricky knew what was going on at USC. Or maybe he just plain didn't like those In N Out burgers in SoCal, but the bright lights of ESPN grabbed him, and just like that Floyd received another opportunity. Yet after a couple of mediocre seasons in Southern California, the questions began to mount for Floyd who was overseeing a program that would be done in by runners and illegalities that most likely occur at a vast number of high-major programs.

There is the naive person who will claim that Floyd had no knowledge of these happenings, and there is the overly critical approach that states Floyd knew everything that was taking place between one Rodney Guillory and another Ovinton J'anthony Mayo. The truth most likely lies somewhere in-between, but it made USC's inept athletic director Mike Garrett force Floyd to resign in June of 2009. Comically enough, Floyd cited "a loss of enthusiasm for coaching" as the reason for his resignation.

For those keeping score, the firing from USC became the third of Floyd's career; one that features 16 seasons as a college coach without advancing a team past the Sweet 16. When you combine that mediocrity with his supposed lack of enthusiasm to coach and his admission that he just isn't good at the darn coaching thing, well one might assume that good ol' Timmy was just about done coaching this sport.

Yet, this isn't the real world.

This isn't Wall Street where one mistake could land you blacklisted from any investment firm in the country. This isn't the Government where a wrong move could put you in jail. This is college basketball, where an admonished drunk who has been arrested three times for DUI's has become the front runner to take over at Houston University, a program that just removed its former coach who's had his fair share of allegation and scandal as well.



Maybe Floyd is the answer? Perhaps he will continue the success left by the now departed Tony Barbee, and keep the Miners right atop Conference-USA (they lose no one from a team that went 26-7). But maybe the more important question is: does he deserve the chance to do so?


Part II will come out later this week chronicling another recently hired College Basketball Coach

Cristal, Lady Gaga, Jay Z, Perry the Upset Slut and the Case for Keeping March Madness at 65

What makes the big dance so special? Pretend it’s the greatest party of your life that you would have no business attending otherwise. Let’s say you are invited to spend New Years with Jay-Z, Beyonce, Lady Gaga, Bono, LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, and a host of other characters that anyone who reads this blog is not nearly cool enough to hang out with. Now imagine you RSVP, a driver comes and picks you up from the airport—that’s right, your so damn awesome a score of mega celebrities paid for you to fly to LA’s most exclusive club first class so you could get wasted on with them on Cristal (Note: I’m not sure if this is how you properly spell Cristal, Chrystal Crystal, Khrystal, because I’ve never nor will I likely ever drink it). Anyway the party is everything you hoped for; it is a historic moment in the timeline that is your existence. You converse with LeBron and Jay-Z about the 2010 free agent period. You make out sloppily with Lady Gaga in the corner while Tiger Woods yells, “this dude is like a young me, before my entire legacy unraveled!!!” You think Lady Gaga really likes you, she seems to lead you on, but rebuffs your effort to have her accompany you back to your suite in the really nice hotel your staying in that puts chocolate mint candies on the pillow. (THAT DAMN POKER FACE!!!!)

This is the greatest night of your life, but you earned your right to go to the party of the century. You busted your ass all season long, played a ridiculously hard non-conference schedule, took shit from Joe Lunardi, who looks like an elf and has never played more than five seconds of basketball without reaching for an inhaler. You took care of business in the conference season, sure there were a couple of questionable losses, but those were on the road. Seriously, road games are hard. You did reasonably well against the RPI top 50 and beat Kansas State in the Trojan Condoms Aruba Preseason Slam Jam. That’s a damn good win, especially when you count the Frank Martin scariness factor. Anyway, you go to the Big Dance win in the first round game, but get bounced in the second by the two seed. It’s ok. Evan Turner is superhuman.

The following year you make it back, but now the party isn’t so exclusive. There aren’t just 65 special guests along with the host of celebrity invites; there are almost one hundred of you. You can’t find Jay-Z, or anyone else worth talking to because the super exclusive club is too crowded. You can’t move. It’s overkill. It’s not fun. Why even come? The party last year was so perfect, now your rewarded with some overcrowded crap. What is this NBA? Are we inviting everyone to the playoffs? Is this fourth grade recess where we have to let everyone play? Do we all get participation awards? (Note: Participation awards are for losers, if you are proud of receiving a participation award kill yourself. Seriously.) Half of these teams had sub .500 conference records. You don’t want to party with them. Fucking losers. They belong at home.

The point is there is a feeling of exclusivity and accomplishment in making the field of 65. When you invite 96 teams the tournament is cheapened. You can say true basketball fans want more teams, more games to watch, an extension of the unofficial holiday that is March Madness. True college hoops junkies want the best competition to be on the floor. They want to see upsets and when they do happen for them to actually mean something. They don’t want the field to be watered down. I don’t want to have the 15-2 match be corrupted because the 15 now has to play 17-14 UConn and may likely not make it to the real first round at all. Now there is no official format for this theoretical expansion so you can’t make up formats that would give berth to different scenarios, but expansion just turns the tournament into a clusterfuck of mediocrity. I know proponents of expansion (Perry, see his previous blog post below) say they watch the tournament to see upsets, not who wins the championship and I understand that idea. However if you make the tournament so large to force the upsets it cheapens the upset. You’re an upset slut Perry!! You should have to work for the upset. Pursue it. Take it out to dinner. Get to know it. You can’t just have a ton of extra teams show up and try to force glass slippers onto their feet.

Now I know some people say expansion would kill the NIT and they have a point, but I’m not taking that angle because the NIT sucks and I don’t watch it now with 65 teams. However the conference tournaments would die. The week before selection Sunday is so super fantastic. We get to listen to Raftery Bilas and Shulman at 1 pm on a Friday or on the deuce you can check out Baylor, Texas A&M and the Knight Musberger sweater brigade. This year we have seen teams like Minnesota, Notre Dame, even Rhode Island when they beat St. Louis play with a sense of urgency, intensity that brought their level of play to a new level. This quality of basketball would disappear in the conference tournaments would disappear because any team with a legitimate chance of making an unexpected run to play themselves into the tournament in the Big East or Big Ten would be in the field of 96 already. I don’t want college basketball to turn into the NBA where we have teams dog it for two thirds of the regular season and just play hard at the end. If it aint broke don’t fix it. March Madness rules. Simply making it is something special for many schools. March Madness is so great it makes the gayest award ever mean something. The big dance is the greatest party in the world. Why? Because we’d all kill to just get a participation award. If there were 96 teams I wouldn’t want it.

Also filling out the bracket would be killer. We’d all have to go to kinkos and get special elongated paper just to fit all the teams on.

Lebron, Boy Bands, and Basketball

Much speculation has been made over the past year over where Lebron James will head in the summer of 2010. Will he stay in Cleveland? Will he play in New York? Will he challenge the Monstars in an intergalactic rematch to prove once and for all he can stretch his arm farther than Michael Jordan and is therefore a better player? Quite honestly, people won’t stop speculating on where he will goes until he finally makes his decision, so we at Half Jewish Sports can only join hypothesizing how this free agency madhouse of a summer will all turn out. While teams and corporate sponsors can throw buckets of money his way and make his the most highly marketed and recognizable athlete of all time, the best thing for Lebron could do for career is stay in Cleveland, where he could win multiple championships around a core of players that has been brought together for one reason, the ultimate boy band of basketball.

Yes, I just referred to the Cleveland Cavaliers as a boy band. Boy bands are extremely similar to basketball teams than one normally assumes. Most obviously, any decent boy band has 5 members by definition (I firmly believe that the parents of the Hanson children ruined their son’s chances of success by not producing 2 more male children). Instead of a one hit wonder MMMbop could have launched an extremely successful music career. Consider the 5 boy band members the starters and the random backup dancers and etc to be their bench. In every boy band and NBA team, there is a tough one/enforcer (think Chris Andersen or A.J. of the Backstreet Boys). In addition, boy bands put us on a show that makes us cheer, makes teenager girls scream in desire, and most importantly, makes us wonder how great they can truly be before imploding into complete disarray and self destruction within an 18 month time frame. (Obvious similarities Kobe/Shaq and David Ruffin being so coked out he gets kicked out of the Temptations…the greatest boy band of all time).

While these other characteristics are similar to other NBA teams, none is more similar to the Cavs than the star member every boy band must have to make it big. You know, the one who makes the girls scream even louder, the one who works the crowd even more, and the one who could possibly become bigger than the band itself. Instant examples that come to mind, Michael of the Jackson 5, Justin of NSYNC, and of course Lebron of the Cavs. While the other members of the team/band may be important to the success of the star there, everyone around the stars knows they wouldn’t be anything without him.
And of course, one may say, “Jackson and Timberlake had incredible solo careers, if they can do it with their teams, why can’t Lebron go solo and be just as big as he is now if not even BIGGER. Of course, there is the obvious risk involved. For every JT, there is a Nick Lachey who thinks they are good as JT only to accomplish nothing else with their career except a stupid short lived marriage/reality show with Jessica Simpson. Of course, if Lebron leaves Cleveland, he won’t be alone on the court. But the team who brings him in will likely have to throw so much money at him that he will have little to no talent around him minus 1 more big name. Picture a boy band with only 3 members, and maybe 1 or 2 backup dancers, they may be able to do a few cool dance moves every once in a while, but no way in hell would you rather go see that band as opposed to an NSYNC or New Kids on the Block in their prime.

The fact is this Cavs team has created and is committed to giving Lebron a supporting cast than can compete and win championships on a year in/year out basis. There is a very little chance than this scenario can be recreated in another city/team. Even if he is paired with a Wade or a Bosh, either star combined would take up about half the team payroll, leaving very little money to give them 3 other decent members in their new dream team of a boy band. I want Lebron to succeed. I want him to win enough championships to get in the greatest player of all time and I only see that scenario happening if Lebron stays in Cleveland. As great as Justin Timberlake’s solo career has been, no one will ever convince me that he will ever make better music than he did with NSYNC on the No String Attached album (Go find it, I Know the majority of you have this album) Hopefully Lebron decided to be the star of a great boy band instead of a solo artist, and that is what will make him larger than life.

The Case for 96

Tell me why someone who loves college basketball and especially loves March Madness would not want to see an extra round of games. You cannot give me a real reason. "It would destroy the integrity of the tournament!" I was unaware there was any integrity. I watch these games to see upsets or to see my own bracket succeed. I personally have no ties to any college basketball team, other than GW, but I am realist when I say that we will never be a perennial tournament team. Unless something were to happen that could change that. Something along the lines of increasing the tournament teams from 65 to 96. If you go to this school and count yourself as one of the seven fans of this basketball team, then you should, without a doubt, be a fan of a larger tournament. I personally have now seen three seasons of GW basketball without a single conference tournament win. And I don't expect to see them be one of the top 65 teams next year. But 96? I actually do think that they could reach that level. They could have this year if some of the games in conference play went a little differently. Am I being selfish for wanting to see my college basketball team, the only college sports team that I actually care about, be just a little more successful? Maybe, but I don't think so. Because if that makes me selfish, that makes every other fan who roots for a team that is not one of the best consistently.

When a team from a smaller conference makes the tournament, the conference gets a certain amount of money and distributes it throughout the conference. The more teams from a conference that make it, the more money the teams get. Tell me how that can be a bad thing. We all know that there are a very select few teams that have a chance to win the tournament in any given year. And that isn't very interesting. I and many others are far more interested in seeing the first two rounds and the upsets that go with it. So if we were to give the top 32 teams (or 31 conference champions plus the best seeded team that did not win their tournament) a bye into the second round and have 33-96 play each other, you would basically be creating an extra game in the first weekend. You would be weeding out the "contenders" from the "pretenders" in the tournament. None of these teams have a chance to win. But you could say that about most teams in the current 65. The point is, they get a chance to play their way into the tournament. You'd still have upsets and when a team like George Mason makes it to the Final Four (admittedly not a very likely scenario) it would be even more of an accomplishment.

This is about fairness, and yes, about money. The increased money for schools and conferences that would not normally get a chance would be a welcome benefit for schools like the A-10 and GW. And as a GW fan, I really cannot complain. The best schools would be uneffected, the lesser schools would get a chance and everyone would get to see extra tournament basketball. I say, once again, tell me where the problem is?

Today's show 3/4

We once again bring you an absolutely jam-packed show on this 4th of March. We will have Deadpsin.com's Drew Magary (AKA Balls Deep) with us at 4:10 this afternoon. We also will be joined by Chris DiSano of (College Chalktalk) in the second hour to talk A-10 hoops, and we will be joined for a second straight week, by D.C.'s favorite bartender (K-Mart) to discuss his Terps stunning the Blue Devils last night.

All of this, plus we will breakdown GW's stunning loss to St. Joe's last night, talk NCAA bubble teams & even touch upon the NFL combine and Spring Training.

Make sure you tune in from 4-6 PM cause you won't want to miss the show here on WRGW (gwradio.com)!