I just think the attitude is to show up and grind and fight until the end. Reload, and do it all over again next season. Kids, always have a chance to do better with fan support but yeah, PSU game was tough to watch. Still some basketball to be played, so Claw, Scratch.
Of course, I agree that the goal of AD is to get the best coaches that he can for the University and the Players, but more importantly to give them all the support required to compete at the level expected by the AD and the fan base. No coach is "the Greatest", they have to grow into that and rarely does "A guy" change a program, but the right combination or people do and that includes the AD and his staff which is an integral part of the product we see on the floor. I think Nebraskans have focused too hard on coaches over the years, and not the "support or lack there of" that their AD's and AD staff provide them. The coaches come and go, and the results are trending down across NU sports, the ONE constant is core staff of AD people that have been around for this whole mess for decades and yet keep their jobs or get promoted.
NU IMO has a "rusty frame" with a awesome engine (Frost), a great super charger (Cook), and solid working wheels (others), the undercarriage is weak, failing and structurally compromised. However with a new paint job (AD) no one ask the questions of the inner-workings and yet we scratch our head at the why the car breaks down year after year.
It takes more than a COACH. I have said before TM "knew he had to win, or he was gone" so that is his reality, but just thinking a hire is going to make it all better or change 50 years of average basketball....well that is non-sense. Look at the root causes and you are closer to fixing problems.
I know you have an opinion on this, and some is based on your first hand experience inside, but a fair amount is based on your core belief in what you do. I get that, I'm sure there are areas of impact you could have to create positives. Should we invest in that? Maybe, probably, but it is an investment, and there is a finite amount of those resources, be it financial, time, or simply the buy in from the athletes, there are limits.
You also tend to contend that we can't have expectations that a coach can do it all, that the AD and admin are going to have to be fully involved to be successful. Beyond giving a thumbs up to you and your services, where exactly have they failed to get Miles the components he needs to be successful? Win or lose, Miles is pretty much set for life financially. The assistant coach's salaries are solid, not spectacular, but definitely decent. The facilities have been called some of the best in the conference. Strength and nutrition, hard to argue those are lacking. And while they aren't directly involved in getting people into the arena, we do spend some substantial marketing dollars to promote season ticket sales for all of those sellouts. Has Miles been prohibited from taking transfers? Has he been prohibited from looking at JUCOs? How about coaching clinics, is he not allowed to attend those, to in theory, learn from others? Is our scheduling not attractive for recruits? Beyond not having you participate, or someone with similar skills, I'm missing how they are hamstringing our program from being successful.
Here's the main rub for me. I played ball. I had a great time, was lucky enough to be in a successful program. I had coaches who won a ton of games. We did that with some pretty crappy facilities, no racks of nice new balls, not taking great trips to Europe or the Bahamas, not attracting amazing amounts of highly rated talent, not having strength coach or nutritionist. And oddly, though I knew the AD, and I could easily stop by his office and say 'hi' anytime, he didn't have any direct influence on the day to day operations of the basketball team.
My coach, who I'll be absolutely honest, wasn't a great 'on the fly, game changer'. He didn't dial up some great trick play, or call some trendy defense, that ever won us a game. What he did was create a system. We had a solid offense we could run in our sleep. It didn't create one option, or two, it created opportunities for just about every player, and because of that we didn't have 1 or 2 guys you could focus on stopping, you had to play defense on everyone. Here was a guy who won hundreds of games, but every year he'd go to at least one coaching clinic...and not to teach, but to learn. He took sports psychology classes of every kind, and taught coaching as well. What's funny is, we could all but sleepwalk our way to a conference title most years, yet he did things every year to make himself better, so he could make our team and the program better. He didn't bring in the messenger to deliver the message, he learned the message and brought it to us, and delivered it as the head coach.
Miles makes $2.25 million a year. Even if the admins wouldn't pay for it, why wouldn't he do all he could to make himself better? I don't know, maybe he does, maybe he's out there trying to learn more about X & O strategies, and what makes the modern athlete tick, but we aren't seeing that on the court. And that's a huge issue for me. He's a guy with 20+ years of head coaching experience, yet would you ever say he looks like a confident, analytical mentor on the sidelines? Honestly, his mannerisms and facial expressions remind me of our High School JV coaches, who were generally coaching because they were males and hoped to make a couple of more bucks in their paycheck, and might be, might be, at least sort of familiar with the sport. That's not the image that has players oozing with confidence.
There is another poster who is pretty familiar with Miles, and after hearing how he tries to structure a team, I'm not surprised he roller coasters from season to season. He doesn't build a system, he tries to build a leader. You don't build an alpha, you don't put all your eggs in one basket. You can have a star, but you can't have a team if all you focus on is the star, because some years you have a star that shines, and some years you don't. If you don't have a strong system and balance, you fail. Tim's coaching flaws haven't been addressed in 20+ years, and frankly, suggesting those flaws are somehow the responsibility of the Admin would be seen as deflection if they came from most people. The fact you are suggesting the Admin carries some of this burden feels a little more like applying for a job than addressing the real issue.
And for the record, I like what you do, I admire your enthusiasm and confidence, but in this case I think you are suggesting a fix that isn't what's causing the machine to sputter.
