The national opinion on Haith.

Haith might not have coached well at Miami. I dunno. I do know his record at miami places his as probably the best coach in Miami history. That doesn't mean he was a good coach there. He was limited in the number of staff he could hire and he wasn't allowed to pay them well at all.

Since he has been at Mizzou I have seen nothing that indicates he is anything but a good coach. He installed a completely new offense for a group of kids that had been together for 3 years already and taught them how to run it perfectly. He installed a defensive philosophy that kept them out of foul trouble and dealt with a 7 man rotation and no height very well. Not to mention the group was divided and dysfunctional when he took them over.

Hell, even Bobby Knight went out of his way to say the coaching Haith did last year was as good as he has ever seen.

This year was going to be most likely a sub .500 season before Haith took over. He turned it into a dang good year by Mizzou standards. He did it with a bunch of transfers and that is hard. Transfers are transfers for a reason. If they were NBA lottery picks at their last schools, they'd still be there. Oriakhi might be the exception to that. He also lost a 1st team preseason all american mid year. How fricking bad did that hurt?

For perspective, if it was easy to win compiling a team full of transfers, wouldn't more coaches be doing it? They don't because it is very hard to get guys to just come in and mesh.

Another thing, he took a group of short players and produced one of the most efficient offenses in the country while playing 4 guards. This year, he has a very big and athletic team, completely changed the offense, and still coached them to being one of the most efficient offenses in the country. If that doesn't scream great coaching, what does?

He is also bringing in talented players. Next year's class might not be huge, but it is full of national level recruits. Plus, I really like NWC, Jankovic and Rosburg.

As he has been doing all of this, he has been fighting a cloud of NCAA violations hanging over his head which appear to be rather bogus. How he wasn't distracted by that is remarkable. He has been under the gun since the day he was hired and went out and won 50 games faster than anyone else in Mizzou history. Right now, his winning % over the last 2 years is in elite company.

Were there some letdowns this year? Sure. I think 99% of that was because Dixon is gone.

I could go on and on.

Is Haith perfect? Hell no. Is he a good coach? Yes. Is he a damn good coach? From what I can see, yes. Is he a great coach? No, not yet.

I think the national perspective mainly comes from ignorance. They just see a coach of a #2 seed who lost and judge him solely on that combined with some close losses due to terrible PG play.

Haith was COY last year. This year, he's the dog. The truth is probably somewhere in between.

I believe Haith is a good coach, but having Ernie Nestor on the staff last year was huge. I think it was Nestor that helped them keep focused in tight games, and late in games. Nestor is a great Xs and Os guy - not a recruiter as much; when they tried to force him into more of a recruiting role, he left.

I believe what we've seen this year i directly tied to his loss. No one else on staff has his strengths. Haith is a good coach, but I would say his strength isn't tough game coaching.

Some of you know I have a good family friend who has coached basketball for years. He isn't Haith's biggest fan, to put it mildly. He's critical of his in-game coaching, and to an extent of his recruiting too. He believes we've recruited some kids that may be good ball players, but not necessarily have good basketball intelligence. That's his concern for Mizzou going forward - inexperience and low basketball IQ. I guess time will tell.

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notsince98

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Sparknotes?

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I could go on and on.

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It appears you did...

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Mizzeaux

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I think this is kind of a one sided way to look at grading how good a coach is. Why? It's all about the money and the odds. It's about the wins, and not accomplishments. I'm sure with all the hype and the number one seeding in last years tourny. Alot of folks probably had them going far in thier brackets. When they lost in the first round, it probably blew up alot of brackets and bets. That would tend to piss off some people with Haith and Mizzou resulting in some bad publicity or comments.

When it comes to bets and money, people tend to ignore accomplishments. It comes down to winning to achieve praise from those people.

I don't put alot of stock in opinions of bettor's when I'm not betting. Haith has accomplished alot in two seasons with little to no recruits. Just hand-me-downs and transfers. Tough job and I think he handled it pretty well.

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That would tend to piss off some people with Haith and Mizzou resulting in some bad publicity

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I think a lot of the media are trying to validate their opinion of Haith from when Alden first hired him. They don't like to eat crow so they repeat the same tripe they spewed out then.

I've always considered him a liability. I was one of the few who didn't get caught up in the moment last year

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I would tend to agree. I think he'd be seen in a much better light if Miami wasn't the Miami they are this year.

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The main reason Miami is so good this year is the same reason Mizzou was good last year. Seniors. Larranaga brought in a great point guard to go with a bunch of Haith's recruits that are now seniors. That doesn't mean that had Haith stayed in Miami that they would be as good as they are with Larranaga. Alot of it has to do with Larkin, the point guard.

But, I do believe that Missouri would have been a totally different team this year if Dixon hadn't "screwed" up.

I think we need to give Haith a couple more years to straighten things out. If he doesn't make improvements, then it is time to move on.

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I figured it made it more about the game itself than anything else. During the tournament more than ever, the wins are what counts. If someone goes and plunks down $100 against Mizzou because of coaching, they likely have some sort of intelligence to believe that's the right thing to do in today's game. Especially if it's considered to be a fairly even game (which is why it's gotten so much talk the last fews days). I figure that's a good way to judge a coach. I'd like to think we have a program where our coach should really only be surpassed by 20-30 coaches, if he's not in the top tier of coaches. One of them shouldn't be Colorado State, in my opinion. I realize he's new to the program and still has the chance to be great given what he's done as a package over the past two years. I also realize you need to win to make that happen, and I hope he does. He's our coach, and I wish nothing but the best for him. That being said, I was just wondering if it's generally thought by most people with an opinion outside of the national media and Missouri that Haith is kind of a bad coach.

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Great thread. Sorry I forgot about this.

I kind of understand what your aiming at. But being there are other factors to winning also that have to be considered. Inconsistent players is a good one. Brown is the posterchild for this. I think alot of things factor into someone betting on a game, but it's also easy to hang the coach instead of talking about the inconsistancies of the players.

Look at Calipari this year. He had some of the same problems Haith had with his players. They didn't listen. What could Haith do with players that did listen and were more consistant and executed his gameplan? I think the truth on Haith will be known within the next couple years as he transitions his recruits into the lineup. If they still choke, then yeh you can definitely point the finger at Haith.

The media is also a powerful tool. Perception is everything. The last two years is a good example. He had to coach someone elses players to a 30 win season. This year he had to coach a bunch of pre-madonas to the same point of choking in the first round of the Tourny.

I still think that the betting line is not the best barometer of the quality of a coach. There is just too much more to it than the wins and losses.