Good afternoon, BU Hoops Board. I hope everyone is having a wonderful Sunday and is hunkered down for the incoming snowstorm. I'm loaded up on Bud Light, bread, eggs, and lunch meat. Anyways... Curious to hear the board's thoughts for the open Assistant coach Position. (Assuming that we will be filling it this offseason) Do we look inside the BU bubble (Ron, Kam, Barlow, etc.), or do we look outside the box. I think this will be a very important hire for LaVall. We seem to have some decent structures in place recruiting wise, so I think this hire should be X/O's based. Who is a realistic hire that would help our in-game planning? Curious to hear the board's thoughts.
Dawgs2014 or Dakich. Take your pick. Both are self proclaimed basketball experts. The bar has already been set low with Kampen and Omar. Can only get better from here. Go Dawgs!
In a perfect world LaVall’s 3 assistant coaches would be Tim Miles, Thomas Jackson, & Matthew Graves. Also under consideration Darnell Archey, Alex Barlow, Ron Nored, Dane Fife, & Andrew Dakich.
I had to open this thread to clear it from my "new posts"...I am dumber for it... The original question is legit. Then as the alts appear, it gets bad...
ButlerNut, as a “well-known member,” I really value your opinion on what you believe needs to change with the coaching staff. Or do you think the staff is completely fine and doesn’t need change? I think you’re just waiting to see what changes occur/don’t occur and then you will agree with those decisions. Aka the “Butler faithful” approach. You can’t state your opinion or criticize the program too much because your cronies on this board might not consider you a true fan.
Is there any reason to think Vergollo and Shunnar won't have the interim tags removed at the end of the season for the jobs they're currently doing?
I ultimately have to trust Barry Collier, LaVall and whoever else has input into these coaching staff decisions. But the fact that Vergollo was an assistant for LJ at UWM but was not brought over in that capacity to start at Butler gives me pause. Does anyone have insight into how he's grown since coming to Butler, and especially in this past season in his interim position?
It’s kind of like fraternities, the individual needs the fraternity more than the fraternity needs the individual. Too many people on this board are more concerned about being accepted as part of the “club” than actually having an opinion that may be critical of the Butler basketball program.
As we all know, BU loves it’s own and loyalty runs deep. Having said that, I can’t see the interim tag coming off of Will. Which will be interesting as I don’t see how you can move back down the bench. As to Jay, my guess is BU was a very temporary stop. If I were king I’d take Meyer’s salary, add in Shunnar’s and somehow find more $$ to pay an experienced AC. If you think you need to keep Will then make up some new title (a little more $$) and have him be the DOBO and analyst. Turn Jay loose.
Butler does indeed "love its own." But is there anything more "un-Butler-like" than the product being put on the floor for the majority of the past 4 years? An x's and o's guy (and a defensive coach, too) is needed, but unless Collier has a "job responsibilities" conversation with L.J., would the hire even matter? I think L.J. believes he's doing fine. It's just lack of effort by the players. Hey, whatever happened to the 8-8-8 offense he brought with him from Milwaukee? Another gem.
I mean if the season ended today, the average kenpom finish under Lavall would be 57.75. If you took the average kenpom finish from 2011-2014, where we went to a final four and had Brad Stevens as a coach for three of those seasons, our average KP finish was 73.25. It’s almost like there’s something causing our fans to disproportionately hate Lavall that’s got nothing to do with basketball. Sent from my iPhone using Butler Hoops
I'd push back on that a little bit. Do you remember the harsh criticism that Holt got on this board? I sure do. And he accomplished more than LaVall has... Sure there are some bad apples here, as there are anywhere you go on the internet and in life. There's no doubting that. But I tend to believe the overall frustration as a fan base would be largely the same regardless the race of the head coach. It's our nature as fans to want more. To be better. To elevate ourselves as a program. And when it looks like we are slipping, and becoming further and further removed from our past successes, and capitalizing on that success, people get frustrated. No matter what the head coach looks like.
If all else fails, play the race card. Right out of the "Radical Left Playbook." I assume that you exchanged Valentine Day cards with AOC, Pelosi, Schumer and Schiff this year? The fact of the matter is LaVall is a terrible coach. Did you watch the Georgetown game on Saturday? Please stop with the race baiting. This is a basketball forum. If you want to pursue those views then hit up CNN or MSNBC.
Didn't they do this with Kampen back when Holtmann took over for Miller? Elevated for the season from Grad Assistant/DOBO/something like that to Assistant Coach, then they created the analyst role after they made Holtmann official and he brought in Pedon?
They did, but I think the situations were pretty different. Kampen was only a year from graduation at that point. Vergollo has been in coaching for 11 years now, including two one-year stints as an assistant coach prior to this season and he came to Butler with LaVall four years ago, presumably with the expectation that he'd get a chance to move up when there was an opening. I don't see LJ demoting him now.
Yeah I think this is totally valid. Holt did get crazy amounts of criticism-but I don’t recall the same amount of “we need to replace Lavall” or “Lavall is basically in dereliction of his job responsibilities” type of commentary. The sentiment is the same but the rhetoric is harsher. What people seem to not appreciate is that there is nothing at all unprecedented about the stretch of basketball we’re seeing. We knew this year was going to be a challenge, yet people are responding to it as if we have this years results with last years roster. What people seem to not appreciate is that with the exception of the Holtmann teams, this four year stretch with Lavall is pretty similar to virtually any other four year stretch of Butler basketball we’ve ever had. People talk about Lavall needing to give new comers a chance to make mistakes all the time, but now when he finally is, everyone is acting like he needs to be fired. If fans want to avoid feeling like we’re avoiding falling further away from our past successes, we need to be honest with ourselves about what our past actually was. Sent from my iPhone using Butler Hoops
Come on man. Criticism of ken Pom finishes over three years of Brad and one of BMill with four years of KenPom finishes under Lavall (in an attempt to demonstrate that what we’re seeing right now is not unprecedented in Butler Basketball) is a comparison of the two coaches? You’re smart enough to have just the small amount of nuance necessary to understand how many variables make your comment totally ludicrous. Sent from my iPhone using Butler Hoops
