Calipari: Barbee is "Coach of the Year"

Auburn's a tough BBall job. The Admin has finally turned a corner and recognizes we need to change but its not going to happen overnight. I'm not sure Barbee is the guy for the job but he's who we have, best to support him and pray for the best, at least during the season.

Conspiracy to keep us down

Good to know Barbee has an assistant coaching job waiting on him next year.

frick that guy.

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Calipari: Barbee is "Coach of the Year"

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FWIW, Barbee is NOT a bad coach...at all. This is his problem....

Willy Kouassi
Bernard Morena
Cedric McAfee
Varez Ward
Jordan Price
Shaq Johnson
Chris Griffin
Brian Greene Jr
Sharief Adamu
Luke Cothron
Ronald Delph
Shawn Kemp
Josh Langford

All either were dismissed, transferred, or never made it to Auburn.

That list would be a Top 25 team, EASY.

You forgot Jerome Seagers by the way. He cost is two players by driving away BGreeneJr then leaving after spending just a summer in Auburn

While Barbee has his issues with poor attrition he is doing good this season overall given the straight jecket he's in by being AU's coach.

Per JGT, Auburn is prohibited from recruiting kids who have any relationship with Mark Komara. Heruns the Southeast Elite AAU program. Most players from this state have a relationship with Komara, which means AU has to go elsewhere to sign players for the most part. The NCAA in 2003 deemed him a representative of Auburn's interests and imposed a short-term ban on Auburn's ability to work with him. That lasted two or three years. Auburn stil voluntarily imposed an indefinite ban on anything dealing with Komara. As most of you know AAU ball is the lifeblood for college basketball recruiting for the most part.

Also per JGT, Shoe companies play a huge role in basketball player development. They run big camps (the adidas ABCD camp; the NIke EYB camps) and work to gain an affiliation with the kids. Nike and adidas rule this world. Under Armour is not a factor in the basketball world. They went all in on football during their rise to prominence. So there are very few kids out there who are "Under Armour kids." They're mostly Nike and adidas kids. So they get steered to programs that are aligned with Nike and adidas. Kentucky, Syracuse, Stanford, Oregon, Ohio State, Creighton, Butler are all Nike schools. Barbee is a Nike guy and knows these people well, but he's hamstrung by working for a UA school. Auburn has the option of giving the basketball team a separate apparel deal with another company but there is pressure for Auburn to stick with UA for all sports. AU will lose a lot of money if it were to let basketball have an aparel deal with a different company.

Conclusion from JGT's info. We just need to accept Auburn will not have a quality basketball program given the Komara ban and apparel sitch no matter who the coach is until those things change. So even though Barbee has contributed with himself with over attrition overall he is doing a good job given the completely chitty hand he is dealt. He has brought in better talent than most coaches would given his sitch. I'm not a Barbee lover but at this point there is no point pushing for Barbee to be fired because we will be pushing for a new coach every 3 or 4 years no matter who the coach is anf given the apparel sitch. The only way our basketball can become quality in the long term is, AU releasing it's Komara ban and or Under Armor making a strong push in basketball.

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that's all well and good, but it doesn't explain why his team has no composure in pressure situations. I lay that at his feet.

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Some yes but ADT's Chris Weber brain fart from Wednesday is on ADT, not Barbee IMO. Even an 8 year old kid would know the game was tied instead of thinking his team was down and not foul with under 40 seconds left.

There's always World Wide Wes, I'm sure he'd lend a helping hand if he could. I'm sorry but I'm just not buying the line that the apparel and AAU situation is holding us back. As noted above, Auburn has played both Kentucky and Florida close until late in the game. The talent is there. The facilities are new. Fan support is lackluster but would improve with a decent product.

Barbee is the weakest link at this point. Honestly, if Cal thinks he's so great I'm sure he'll welcome him back to Kentucky with open arms. Barbee can use the time to rehabilitate his image and land somewhere outside of the dead end that is SEC basketball. Because if we're being honest we should question the sanity of any basketball coach that wants to work for a school not named Florida and/or Kentucky unless he's doing it for free football tickets