re: Tony Barbee has been fired

Yea I remember watching them in CUSA when good Memphis or UAB teams would go play there, they maybe get 200 people it looked like.

On a good night.

SMU has seemed to commit themselves to athletics again, they all shied away from it after the death penalty.

They go out and hire a good FB coach and pay him well.

They go out and hire a HOF basketball coach and pay him whatever he wants.

There are few schools who would outbid SMU for a coach they want, SMU has some boosters with money willing to spend on athletics...

I don't think they are looking for a top tier football program right now, more of a competitive program that makes a bowl every year.

Yes, any school can invest and build a good basketball program by hiring the right coach for their program and doing whatever is needed to support him in the process.

In the SEC, however, most programs feel threatened by a having a good basketball program, feel as if it it takes away resources that could/should be used on football.

Few top coaches are going to go to a basketball second school unless they have ties to the school or are waiting for a basketball first job.

Top talent are not going to go to a basketball second school when they can go to a basketball first school instead.

This is the real reason for many SEC teams struggles in basketball, plenty of better basketball first opportunities exist elsewhere for the coach and the players.

The name of the conference these basketball first schools are at doesn't matter, the name of the jersey doesn't matter, because of the tourney deciding the champion, a mighty SEC school could come calling for a coach like Gregg Marshall and he would only return the call to 2-3 of them. He is at a basketball first school, a basketball first school willing and able to pay competitively...

Both of those guys were given time to do something, as well as the support to do something.

They also do not instantly get thrown on the hotseat for a bad year or a couple bad years after a senior group leaves the program, a year or two with when the players are sophs/juniors their programs start trending up again.

The SEC is severely behind the Big10, Big12, and PAC12 schools in that the schools in those conferences see the value of having good football and basketball programs.

SEC schools are still in the lets hire a mid/low major coach and hope for the best, only 3 are willing to pay and go get an established coach for basketball like Michigan did with Beliene for example.

Football opening? Back up the brinks truck.

Basketball opening? Here is 800k and subscription to the cheese of the month club.

Sloan into Kruger into Donovan, helped, even though BD has clearly shown HOF chops that suggest he could/would have done the same without the transitioned upward momentum..

Taylor, Miller, Williams, Ayers, OBrien, all uitilizing one America's largest enrollments/endowments University, from a northern base and exploding C-Bus city, with OSU's deep lore of 1940s and 1960s Hoops prowess under Olsen & Taylor, helped establish the up-and-coming ace HC that is Matta to take it back to the very top.

OSU, I view as a third return to former heights in a 100 years span.

Fla, I give say Donovan, like a Spurrier, more credit than OSU's HCs, in building something that hadn't ever been there before, or to such degrees..even if Galen Hall, Pell, Sloan, Kruger, even Bowden & Schnellenberger, and Jimmy Johnson, Ron Fraser,etc..had shown what the now populous Sunshine State was truly capable of.

What a bummer. Really thought Barbee was going to turn the program around. I was a student in the 80's and was at least used to a few good years. I really want to see our basketball program competitive again.

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Watch him end up on Cal's staff when Antigua eventually leaves.

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Can he coach defense? Grab him now JJ, before it's too late. You need at least one coach on your staff that can actually X/O coach.

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I want Larry Brown who's out at SMU right now.

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Brown is 73 and in a great position at SMU. There is no way he would go to Auburn.

GOOD.

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But, knew your SI cover 1999/2000 team was gonna collapse under lofty expectations.

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had porter not been suspended, things might've closed out differently... that team had a halftime lead in the 2nd round of the NCAAT with #2 seeded Iowa State... what might've been.

same goes for the team a couple years later who lost by 3 in the sweet 16 to evenutal champs syracuse (in freaking up state NY no less... it might as well been the carrier dome).

we will eventually get it figured out...