I am not a basketball guy--not even an IMA legend, so can somebody help me out with this:
How does a coach go from winning the conference and winning conference coach of the year twice in a row to being the shittiest basketball coach ever to walk the earth? He had Thybulle and Nowell on those two teams, so are those two just THAT good? A couple of years ago, Hopkins seemed like the greatest hire ever to me as somebody who has no idea what I'm looking at: Made the team fun to watch those first two years, won a lot of games, beat Kansas, damn near beat Gonzaga, got two top-5 players to commit in the same class. What kind of smoke and mirrors were in place preventing me from seeing that it was a sinking ship?
As for McDaniels, to my untrained eye at least, he just wasn't that good. I don't know anything about scapegoating, but his performance on the court wasn't something that would support some kind of conspiracy theory against him. I just looked at his stats from last season, and they ranked each statistic against every player in the conference. He was decently high with rebounds, but the only other statistical category in which he ranked higher than 20th in conference (20th in points per minute) was in ejections, and he was first in conference in that category. As for that being some kind of referee conspiracy, he also committed a shitload of fouls, so there's a pattern there. My memory of him in the times I watched the team before my eyes would start to bleed was that very rarely he would do something spectacular and the commentators would jizz into their mikes, but otherwise he was selfish with the ball and (possibly therefore) was a turnover machine. Not the greatest shooter, not the greatest ball handler, not the greatest defender. Why is it so tragic that a player like that was benched?
Lot of Romar ball gargling going on around here all of a sudden. Maybe that's just Sark > Ty or maybe Basnight signed up?
I am not a basketball guy--not even an IMA legend, so can somebody help me out with this:
How does a coach go from winning the conference and winning conference coach of the year twice in a row to being the shittiest basketball coach ever to walk the earth? He had Thybulle and Nowell on those two teams, so are those two just THAT good? A couple of years ago, Hopkins seemed like the greatest hire ever to me as somebody who has no idea what I'm looking at: Made the team fun to watch those first two years, won a lot of games, beat Kansas, damn near beat Gonzaga, got two top-5 players to commit in the same class. What kind of smoke and mirrors were in place preventing me from seeing that it was a sinking ship?
As for McDaniels, to my untrained eye at least, he just wasn't that good. I don't know anything about scapegoating, but his performance on the court wasn't something that would support some kind of conspiracy theory against him. I just looked at his stats from last season, and they ranked each statistic against every player in the conference. He was decently high with rebounds, but the only other statistical category in which he ranked higher than 20th in conference (20th in points per minute) was in ejections, and he was first in conference in that category. As for that being some kind of referee conspiracy, he also committed a shitload of fouls, so there's a pattern there. My memory of him in the times I watched the team before my eyes would start to bleed was that very rarely he would do something spectacular and the commentators would jizz into their mikes, but otherwise he was selfish with the ball and (possibly therefore) was a turnover machine. Not the greatest shooter, not the greatest ball handler, not the greatest defender. Why is it so tragic that a player like that was benched?
Lot of Romar ball gargling going on around here all of a sudden. Maybe that's just Sark > Ty or maybe Basnight signed up?
Perhaps, LoRo just recruited more talented players than Mike Hopkins has to Montlake coupled with being a better head coach. Mike Hopkins did get what was left of arguably LoRo's best UW recruiting class (Chriss, Murray, Green, Crisp, Dickerson, Thybulle) right as they were maturing into Juniors then Seniors for his first two seasons coaching at the UW. Plus, they all had a chip on their collective shoulders to prove that they weren't the reason that LoRo was fired from his job as stated in various interviews that I read/viewed.
What we do know is that as soon as LoRo's recruits that he counseled not to transfer after his firing left Montlake Mike Hopkins' coaching acumen has been exposed along with his lack of experience of not being able to properly manage a basketball program from recruiting a roster conducive to his style of play and monitoring that roster off of the court (academic suspension, sexual assault allegations). Mike Hopkins seemingly only knows one way to coach, especially on defense, but what is to be expected from a person that spent 22 years as an assistant coach at '2-3 zone defense' Syracuse. Now, four season after being hired Mike Hopkins finds himself in the very position that caused some to want LoRo fired- one and done players leaving the program combined with a young fairly inexperienced roster. Even though LoRo had his roster situation moving forward balanced out with experienced upperclassmen to absorb any potential one and done recruits in the future of the basketball program before his was suddenly fired.
The UW (Jen Cohen) did hire Mike Hopkins from a dirty NCAA sanctioned program in Syracuse (2000-2012) https://www.sbnation.com/college-basketball/2015/3/9/8166543/syracuse-ncaa-scandal-explained-jim-boeheim . Where Mike Hopkins feigned ignorance to NCAA investigators when questioned concerning the particulars even though in his own words he was very involved with the players both on and off of the court. I believe it (academic fraud, failure to enforce drug testing-reporting policy, improper benefits) was described as a loss of institutional control by NCAA investigators in their summary.
Jaden was second on the UW in assists as well as almost every other team statistical category. Jaden's offensive efficiency took a bit of a nosedive once Quade Green was lost for the season. If you care to take the time to look at his stat pre and post Green you might just see that for yourself. Don't forget that the refs call the fouls. And PAC-12 refs have been proven as being biased before word to Ed Rush. Perhaps, some of his turnovers came from trying to make passes to, plays for, his teammates as well? You think?
Revisionist history from you right here as Jaden was a very gifted ball handler for being 6'10. Mike Hopkins even used him to bring the ball up against full court pressure at times. Also, Mike Hopkins used Jaden to defend point guards full court while they brought the ball up court at times last season. As well as, Jaden got a lot of deflections from his position in the 2-3 zone and even played at the guard position in the 2-3 zone last season showing his defensive versatility. Jaden was a very good shot blocker straight on, chase down and from the weak side. Was he perfect? No. But many Freshman struggle a bit adapting to the NCAA game. Don't forget Jaden ended the regular season as the PAC-12 Freshman of the Week after leading the UW to two road victories against the Arizona teams. He should have been named as the PAC-12 Player of the Week as well.
Furthermore, LoRo was promised by Jen Cohen the opportunity to coach out his final season and highly rated incoming recruiting class then have his coaching job evaluated after the season. But he was blindsided by an abrupt firing, led by some wealthy-influential Tyee Club members, that left him in a daze walking around Alaska Airlines Arena as seen in an impromptu interview with KING5 News just after the fact. Those very same Tyee Club members seemingly had a plan in place to bring Mike Hopkins and Syracuse West to Montlake to replace the experienced LoRo with an inexperienced head coach in Mike Hopkins. Thus, a true coaching search was never conducted.
Jen Cohen was reportedly very impressed with Mike Hopkins' pre interview push ups. Lay down with an inexperienced coach from a dirty NCAA sanction program and wake up four seasons later with a basketball program in total unadulterated despair. From first to worst in one season...the only program to accomplish that feat in PAC-10/12 men's basketball history. And with the very real potential of back to back worst PAC-12 seasons it's not looking any better for the near future of the basketball program especially when looking at the lack of incoming HS recruits committing to the UW for 2020 & 2021.
Well here are the three biggest issues of why we have had the quick downturn imo.
1. Others have adjusted to zone so it’s not as efficient. We have failed to make the necessary adjustments in turn.
2. Player development is poor. I can think of a single player in the last 4 years who has shown great improvement. Bey has recently shown flashes and maybe Riley Sorn.
3. His recruiting has not built any depth within the program and dropped off the ledge the last 2 years. As a result, he has turned to transfers, which is fine as long as a coach is able to coach up the players and create on court team unity ala Dana Altman and Mark Few. Hopkins clearly is not capable of this.
4. I’ll add more just cause it’s so easy. His enthusiasm is easy to like at first. I even thought to myself that this guy is easy to like the first time I met him. Unfortunately, this enthusiasm was not equally displayed towards his players. He has no clue how to manage players from Quade Green academics to Timmons jersey issue to Mcdaniels attitude.
5. He had the element of surprise his first two years with the zone and had gods gift to the 2-3 in Thybulle. Combine that with a great one on one player in Nowell to help bail out horrible offensive movement and you have a recipe for success.
6. This is his team with all his players. So it’s clear he cannot create a successful program. What is clear is that he can come in with good players and institute a zone that can stymie teams for a few years. And it didn’t hurt that he had a defensive god on the court. One can have short term success this way. Maybe he should move on to some other conference like the CAA and have success there.
You don’t build a program around chest bumps and a zone.
You build through networking with local talent, appealing to the current crop of players, developing those players, establishing a consistent program where all players are treated equally and by creating a culture where those players will go to battle for you.
It’s like everyone on our team is from France and are waving the white flag...and there is not a damn thing Hopkins can do to change that as he has lost respect from the players, assistant coaches and fans.
Firing the assistants is a nice I'm showing you that I'm really mad and serious about fixing the problem ... but it's one step away from a complete dead person walking situation with the head coach plus you're not going to be able to hire any assistants worth a damn because they are all going to know that they are jumping on the sinking ship.
Moreover, the thing that this year has completely insulated Jen from, and the thing that she's going to put her head in the sand about is the attrition of the season ticket base. I suspect that in a non-COVID environment she was going to lose probably in the range of 25% of season tickets. Next year, she's going to lose probably close to 50% if Hop is back because everybody with a pulse knows that he is pretty much damaged goods at this point combined with people that are going to have NHL season tickets and aren't going to give a shit about going to watch Hop lose by 15.
The one thing that I marginally disagree with is that McDaniels was made an example of last year That's perception. The reality is that his body language was largely terrible and ranks right up there with Tony Wroten for me as least likable Huskies.
Jen won't pull the plug though because not only is Hop her hire, but Wynn is also her hire, and the programs are basically the definition of dreck at this point.
That so called perception is a reality to those within Rotary AAU and the Seattle basketball community. People, players, recruits talk and that's the word on the street courts. Which is why Mike Hopkins won't be getting any more recruits from the Rotary AAU basketball program word to Nolan Hickman (Kentucky), Paolo Banchero (Duke) and Shane Nowell (Arizona).
I saw nothing wrong with Jaden's body language last season. Even when he was benched he enthusiastically cheered on his teammates from the bench which was visible to anyone that followed Husky basketball last season. If by body language you may mean that Jaden didn't run around the court smiling and laughing well he's not a circus clown. Jaden has a relatively moderate subdued demeanor on the court similar to that of Kawhi Leonard.
I actually like what both Tony Wroten Jr and Jaden McDaniels did by choosing the UW over other offers and playing for the UW. I will always support local kids that choose to stay home and play for the UW over other University offers no matter what may happen on the court for better or for worse.
1) Perception is often reality and once you’ve lost that with a core group it’s borderline impossible to get that back
2) Not trying to be an ass, but the AAU community in Seattle has rubbed me wrong for a long time ... there’s an individual selfishness about everybody wanting to get theirs that just doesn’t jive with how I see things
3) Your insinuation of what I consider positive body language is laughable and borderline insulting. My comments regarding Jaden is how often when things weren’t going well for himself he often dropped his head and sulked. Too often he made selfish decisions leading to technicals.
4) I’ve never once made comments not being appreciative or respective of Jaden choosing UW. Everybody has their reasons for things and can understand reasons for leaving early. That said, my opinion is anybody telling him he was ready for the NBA was blowing smoke up his ass. I hope for the best for his NBA career but I don’t have high expectations ... particularly with the situation he’s landed in.
5) For me, I will always call them as I see them and I’m not about blowing smoke up people’s ass. If you aren’t ready you aren’t ready. The truth is hard and not everybody always wants to hear it.
Most instances of truth are mostly based in one's perception as what may seem true to one person may not seem true to another.
America's Capitalistic based society is all about everyone wanting to get theirs...and?
I seen every player on the UW's team get upset during last season and this season at different points even the coaches. If that is sulking so be it. Selfish decisions led to technicals? Many of Jaden's technicals could be easily argued as refs singling him out. The only legit technical in my mind was the one for throwing the ball back at the UCLA player while he was sitting on the bench. The other technicals against Arizona, Montana, Utah, Hawaii, and I can't recall the other technical off the top, were all subjected to referee discretion.
Jaden was more than ready for the NBA and has proven as much in his limited minutes as a rookie for Minnesota. The NBA's wide open game is better suited for his all around skill set on both ends of the court. His NBA future is very bright despite where he landed and barring injuries. And just from my reading the various Minnesota Timberwolves fan forums like Canishoopus the T'Wolves fans are very excited about his NBA future as well. They really like what they have seen from Jaden in limited minutes and some even want him thrown into the regular rotation right now.
Opinions are like a$$holes, everyone has one. The only opinion that matters in most cases like Jaden's is his own. And he thought that he was ready to make the jump to the NBA. He was a first round draft pick and will earn more than $10 million dollars from his four year rookie contract before taxes.
I'll take this point by point ...
At no point am I sitting there saying that perceptions are right or wrong ... reality is that we all see things differently at times and that's ok. Clearly there's reasons people are out on Hop and it's really hard to disagree that his current direction is failing and failing spectacularly.
I guess the question on what you define Capitalism as. There's a big difference between free markets, markets controlled by people vs governments, freedom of labor, ability to have the market define prices, etc. and the thought process that capitalism is all about wanting to get theirs. At its best, capitalism results in parties operating in a manner that results in win-win solutions. In the other, it's about how do you get ahead and often that's at the expense of others.
I'm not really interested in going back to watching games and pulling out clips. I will say that I was a season ticket holder last year and saw multiple games in person and watch as much behavior off the ball as I do on the ball. I will give McDaniels credit that in many respects he worked hard defensively, particularly off the ball, in trying to get steals and blocks. There were times where his desire to accumulate stats came at the expense of proper positioning and therefore hurting the team. Offensively, particularly when he created turnovers, too often I saw the head sulk and slow transition work getting back on defense. I'll also acknowledge that at times he wasn't utilized in his highest and best use offensively (notably after Quade was ineligible). If I had to really describe him as a player after his 1st year, it was that you could see the talent but that that talent was really rough around the edges and needed to work on maturing his game (likely both on and off the court).
Moreover, one of the things that you have to really look at when looking at 1 and done players is what is their work ethic and goals focused on. In some cases, you'll find players that are about developing their skills in the context of the team as that's a critical step in transitioning to the NBA level. In other cases, you'll find guys that are about getting their numbers and their priority is about their draft position versus winning. It's something that I look at in evaluating players whether they are at Washington or elsewhere.
Jaden's proven he's ready for the NBA because of his limited minutes? Are you serious? Dude has played in 5 games and they've all been massive blowout losses (8 minutes in a 36 point loss; 7 minutes in a 23 point loss; 9 minutes in a 21 point loss; 1 minute in a 15 point loss; 12 minutes in a 18 point loss where they were down 30+ entering the 4th quarter). He's at the end of the bench and is playing the most garbage of garbage time minutes. Fan forums are excited? Awesome. Great source. I'd agree that the NBA game is more suited to his skills for a number of reasons. That said, there's a high end maturity that is required on both ends of the court to get major minutes and a lot of that comes from getting reps. For Jaden, those reps were either going to come in college or will likely at some point be in the G league. That's reality. Yep, he got his 1st round money and all of that but he needs reps to prove that he can play in the league and right now there's obviously not a lot of trust that he's ready for that.
And you're right, opinions are like assholes. I've got one of each. I'm never going to sit here and shit on a kid that is able to make life changing $$$ when it comes to getting drafted in the 1st round and achieving a lifelong dream. But let's also be honest and be real that kids all over the place make the decision to declare for the NBA Draft well before they are ready and effectively find themselves out of the league as a very young adult. Most that come into the league don't understand that that $10M that they make on that rookie contract is far less than that when you account for taxes (substantial when factoring in both federal and state taxes ... let's conservatively say that that's going to be in the $4M range) and then you're also going to be paying $$$ out to your agent ... so let's assume that that's in the neighborhood of 3% of his contract and that takes that $10M down another $300K. So after taxes and everything Jaden's looking at let's say $5.5 to $6M remaining. If he's got the right people around them they'd tell him to put that in the bank, accumulate off of it, and keep that effectively untouched so that he can live off of it should his career effectively end at some point. Instead, in many cases, the wrong people are around, investment decisions aren't solid, the $$$ gets spent too quickly in quantities that would suggest that that earning level is continuing indefinitely, and before you know it the $$$ is gone. I hope he's got the right people around him and he's being smart with his contract. But the above reasons are why I'm always a very, very big proponent to any young player about making sure that you're well positioned going into the league that at minimum you should be able to step in as a rotation player and have a path forward to having a realistic reason to secure that 2nd contract. If not, my advice is to always stay in school if you can afford to (obviously understand that family situations vary) and assuming that there are skills that you can continue to develop while in school.
But let's be clear, just because a player says he's ready to go to the NBA doesn't mean that that's the truth at all. You can have that opinion while hoping that someone has success. There's always a balance to be had when it comes to evaluating short-term and long-term horizons.
I am not a basketball guy--not even an IMA legend, so can somebody help me out with this:
How does a coach go from winning the conference and winning conference coach of the year twice in a row to being the shittiest basketball coach ever to walk the earth? He had Thybulle and Nowell on those two teams, so are those two just THAT good? A couple of years ago, Hopkins seemed like the greatest hire ever to me as somebody who has no idea what I'm looking at: Made the team fun to watch those first two years, won a lot of games, beat Kansas, damn near beat Gonzaga, got two top-5 players to commit in the same class. What kind of smoke and mirrors were in place preventing me from seeing that it was a sinking ship?
As for McDaniels, to my untrained eye at least, he just wasn't that good. I don't know anything about scapegoating, but his performance on the court wasn't something that would support some kind of conspiracy theory against him. I just looked at his stats from last season, and they ranked each statistic against every player in the conference. He was decently high with rebounds, but the only other statistical category in which he ranked higher than 20th in conference (20th in points per minute) was in ejections, and he was first in conference in that category. As for that being some kind of referee conspiracy, he also committed a shitload of fouls, so there's a pattern there. My memory of him in the times I watched the team before my eyes would start to bleed was that very rarely he would do something spectacular and the commentators would jizz into their mikes, but otherwise he was selfish with the ball and (possibly therefore) was a turnover machine. Not the greatest shooter, not the greatest ball handler, not the greatest defender. Why is it so tragic that a player like that was benched?
Lot of Romar ball gargling going on around here all of a sudden. Maybe that's just Sark > Ty or maybe Basnight signed up?
Perhaps, LoRo just recruited more talented players than Mike Hopkins has to Montlake coupled with being a better head coach. Mike Hopkins did get what was left of arguably LoRo's best UW recruiting class (Chriss, Murray, Green, Crisp, Dickerson, Thybulle) right as they were maturing into Juniors then Seniors for his first two seasons coaching at the UW. Plus, they all had a chip on their collective shoulders to prove that they weren't the reason that LoRo was fired from his job as stated in various interviews that I read/viewed.
What we do know is that as soon as LoRo's recruits that he counseled not to transfer after his firing left Montlake Mike Hopkins' coaching acumen has been exposed along with his lack of experience of not being able to properly manage a basketball program from recruiting a roster conducive to his style of play and monitoring that roster off of the court (academic suspension, sexual assault allegations). Mike Hopkins seemingly only knows one way to coach, especially on defense, but what is to be expected from a person that spent 22 years as an assistant coach at '2-3 zone defense' Syracuse. Now, four season after being hired Mike Hopkins finds himself in the very position that caused some to want LoRo fired- one and done players leaving the program combined with a young fairly inexperienced roster. Even though LoRo had his roster situation moving forward balanced out with experienced upperclassmen to absorb any potential one and done recruits in the future of the basketball program before his was suddenly fired.
The UW (Jen Cohen) did hire Mike Hopkins from a dirty NCAA sanctioned program in Syracuse (2000-2012) https://www.sbnation.com/college-basketball/2015/3/9/8166543/syracuse-ncaa-scandal-explained-jim-boeheim . Where Mike Hopkins feigned ignorance to NCAA investigators when questioned concerning the particulars even though in his own words he was very involved with the players both on and off of the court. I believe it (academic fraud, failure to enforce drug testing-reporting policy, improper benefits) was described as a loss of institutional control by NCAA investigators in their summary.
Jaden was second on the UW in assists as well as almost every other team statistical category. Jaden's offensive efficiency took a bit of a nosedive once Quade Green was lost for the season. If you care to take the time to look at his stat pre and post Green you might just see that for yourself. Don't forget that the refs call the fouls. And PAC-12 refs have been proven as being biased before word to Ed Rush. Perhaps, some of his turnovers came from trying to make passes to, plays for, his teammates as well? You think?
Revisionist history from you right here as Jaden was a very gifted ball handler for being 6'10. Mike Hopkins even used him to bring the ball up against full court pressure at times. Also, Mike Hopkins used Jaden to defend point guards full court while they brought the ball up court at times last season. As well as, Jaden got a lot of deflections from his position in the 2-3 zone and even played at the guard position in the 2-3 zone last season showing his defensive versatility. Jaden was a very good shot blocker straight on, chase down and from the weak side. Was he perfect? No. But many Freshman struggle a bit adapting to the NCAA game. Don't forget Jaden ended the regular season as the PAC-12 Freshman of the Week after leading the UW to two road victories against the Arizona teams. He should have been named as the PAC-12 Player of the Week as well.
Furthermore, LoRo was promised by Jen Cohen the opportunity to coach out his final season and highly rated incoming recruiting class then have his coaching job evaluated after the season. But he was blindsided by an abrupt firing, led by some wealthy-influential Tyee Club members, that left him in a daze walking around Alaska Airlines Arena as seen in an impromptu interview with KING5 News just after the fact. Those very same Tyee Club members seemingly had a plan in place to bring Mike Hopkins and Syracuse West to Montlake to replace the experienced LoRo with an inexperienced head coach in Mike Hopkins. Thus, a true coaching search was never conducted.
Jen Cohen was reportedly very impressed with Mike Hopkins' pre interview push ups. Lay down with an inexperienced coach from a dirty NCAA sanction program and wake up four seasons later with a basketball program in total unadulterated despair. From first to worst in one season...the only program to accomplish that feat in PAC-10/12 men's basketball history. And with the very real potential of back to back worst PAC-12 seasons it's not looking any better for the near future of the basketball program especially when looking at the lack of incoming HS recruits committing to the UW for 2020 & 2021.
Agree that Hop inherited significant talent from LoRo and to Hop's credit was able to get them in a position to be successful. You make 2 very interesting and relevant points that should be factored in regarding young players maturing into upper class players (very true that you tend to see jumps as players mature) and players having a chip on the shoulder with motivation to prove that they weren't the reason for a coach being fired. Motivation is always good to have on your side.
The last 18 months have really exposed a number of issues with Hop. The academic issue of Quade are really strange when you think about it. There's really no excuse for that taking place with the resources that UW has in the academic area. While there's definitely some egg on Hop for that, there's got to be a ton of accountability put on Quade for not doing his work. Both deserve some significant eye raising. The Naz situation really raises a lot of eyebrows from me. I'll admit that I haven't gone too far down the timeline of who knew what and when but it definitely feels as if there was some burying of the news until you couldn't bury it anymore. In contrast, if you think about how Pete would have handled that situation with the football program you'd expect that any claim with merit would have been met with some kind of removal from the team pending the investigation/outcome. Generally speaking, the surest way to get fired at UW isn't because you're a shitty coach but because you have institutional control issues that will make the University of Washington look bad. Only thing that I can think of is that you're not hearing a lot about this stuff because it's being leveraged as part of the reasoning for firing Hop after this year and doing so with some form of cause to reduce the buyout. This stuff is normally raw meat for the Seattle Times to make the UW look bad.
Quade's suspension torpedoed the team. I will contend that at worst with Quade that UW was a .500 conference team last year. The end result was playing players that weren't capable of playing at the P12 level and asking players to do things that they weren't capable of doing. I've said it elsewhere so I'm not going to belabor but I don't think Jaden per se was singled out by refs. I do think that as he got a reputation for doing stupid shit that led to T's, it put a target on him for officials to look out for. But by and large, I didn't see a lot where I thought that the calls weren't earned or were unfair. Your last part about Freshman needing time to adapt to the college game is definitely true. I think what you really saw from Jaden last year was that he was really a 2-3 year college player instead of a 1 and done. The pressure he put on himself to live up to what I believe to be a predetermined expectation of being a 1 and done led to a lot of his struggles and compounding effect as things went south.
I'm not really going to opine on whether or not Cohen promised LoRo anything other than to say that LoRo missed the NCAA Tournament 6 straight years and had a record at or below .500 in the PAC 12 for 5 straight years. Moreover, as an outside observer, it was very clear that he was feeling the heat and started making staffing, etc. decisions to increase recruiting results that in the past that he had been very vocal about calling out as unethical at best. That more than anything led me into being firmly in the enough was enough category.
As for the decisions to hire Hopkins, I think this is a trend that Jen has in that she's more about making a quick hire than going through a search. It's a dangerous game that can have really negative outcomes. You've mentioned previously Hop's zone and kids not wanting to play that. There's probably some truth to it although the reality is that even in the NBA there's a lot of zone concepts mixed into a man scheme so everything is ultimately a blend. The bigger reality is that the pure zone that Hop and Syracuse play is a terrible match for today's skill set as kids have grown up watching guys like Steph shoot and that skill set is much better than it used to be. To combat that, Hop's zone has extended out and around the 3 point line which effectively opens up everything in the 2 point area. The zone still works great against teams that can't pass or shoot at a decent level ... but against anybody that can do that, they tear UW up. Offensively, Hop's messed up because at the core of his defensive philosophy often comes to recruiting players that fit the defense first and the end result is just not enough guys that have the required offensive skill set to succeed in the way the game is played today. If you have a good passing/shooting team surrounding Stewart last year, you'd be almost impossible to beat because few if any could defend him on the interior 1 on 1. Instead, the lack of shooters made it too easy to sag and collapse.
Jen's got a lot of work to do to unbury this situation and how much the Tyee boosters are willing to pony up to rectify the mistake is huge. My guess is that neither really want to admit their mistake and will go another year unless the scandal issues force the hand of upper campus to come in and take control.
I know multiple Tyee members including my Mom and Dad who won’t give one more penny to the Basketball program at UW as long as Hop is still coach.
They donated enough to get their name on a stupid tunnel at the football stadium and now strictly support the softball and football team. They are far from alone in this matter among the Tyee members.
Unfortunately, the issue with many rich people like my parents and other tyee members is they don’t like to admit when they are wrong. Power and money breed ego and stubbornness. So all those that ponied up for Hopkins won’t go down without a fight regardless of how bad things get.
The feeling at this moment is he gets one more year. This might chanhe if we end up going 2-20 though
I know multiple Tyee members including my Mom and Dad who won’t give one more penny to the Basketball program at UW as long as Hop is still coach.
They donated enough to get their name on a stupid tunnel at the football stadium and now strictly support the softball and football team. They are far from alone in this matter among the Tyee members. The issue with rich people like my parents and other tyee members is they don’t like to admit when they are wrong. Power and money breed ego and stubbornness.
The feeling at this moment is he gets one more year. This might chanhe if we end up going 2-20 though
The women's program being in a comparable state of dreck can't be ignored either ...
I'm not sure that I see Jen making 2 moves in the same year ...
Wynn's the easier of the 2 to buyout from a hold your nose and buy it out ... and she's got her fair share of issues in that program as well.
I could see Jen not realizing how bad the situation with Hop really is and kind of getting caught with her pants down when she realizes the bottom is completely gone with Hop next year.
I know multiple Tyee members including my Mom and Dad who won’t give one more penny to the Basketball program at UW as long as Hop is still coach.
They donated enough to get their name on a stupid tunnel at the football stadium and now strictly support the softball and football team. They are far from alone in this matter among the Tyee members. The issue with rich people like my parents and other tyee members is they don’t like to admit when they are wrong. Power and money breed ego and stubbornness.
The feeling at this moment is he gets one more year. This might chanhe if we end up going 2-20 though
The women's program being in a comparable state of dreck can't be ignored either ...
I'm not sure that I see Jen making 2 moves in the same year ...
Wynn's the easier of the 2 to buyout from a hold your nose and buy it out ... and she's got her fair share of issues in that program as well.
I could see Jen not realizing how bad the situation with Hop really is and kind of getting caught with her pants down when she realizes the bottom is completely gone with Hop next year.
Jaden was second on the UW in assists as well as almost every other team statistical category. Jaden's offensive efficiency took a bit of a nosedive once Quade Green was lost for the season. If you care to take the time to look at his stat pre and post Green you might just see that for yourself. Don't forget that the refs call the fouls. And PAC-12 refs have been proven as being biased before word to Ed Rush. Perhaps, some of his turnovers came from trying to make passes to, plays for, his teammates as well? You think?
Revisionist history from you right here as Jaden was a very gifted ball handler for being 6'10. Mike Hopkins even used him to bring the ball up against full court pressure at times. Also, Mike Hopkins used Jaden to defend point guards full court while they brought the ball up court at times last season. As well as, Jaden got a lot of deflections from his position in the 2-3 zone and even played at the guard position in the 2-3 zone last season showing his defensive versatility. Jaden was a very good shot blocker straight on, chase down and from the weak side. Was he perfect? No. But many Freshman struggle a bit adapting to the NCAA game. Don't forget Jaden ended the regular season as the PAC-12 Freshman of the Week after leading the UW to two road victories against the Arizona teams. He should have been named as the PAC-12 Player of the Week as well.
Basnight? Mrs. McDaniels?
Look, I stated right off the top that I'm just a dumb fan when it comes to basketball. Played a ton of VERY low level pick-up ball decades ago (mostly just me and my brother going at it in the driveway), but never anything organized. I'm the first to admit I don't have a very nuanced opinion, just basic shit that any idiot can observe. Basic shit such as:
1.) I wanted to stab my eyes out every time I had the "pleasure" of watching a LoRo-coached inbounds play. And let's not pretend his offense was some kind of brilliant thing, either. Better than Hopkins, sure, but Sark>Ty.
2.) I didn't enjoy seeing LoRo do shady and pathetic shit like bringing a crappy assistant onto the payroll in order to secure the services of his sons on the team.
3.) I could not figure out how a team could go 2-16 in conference with one of the best college basketball players I've ever watched at point (Fultz lived up to his billing). Hopkins comes in, takes a 2-16 team minus the first overall draft pick but with the addition of a pair of 4-star freshmen guards, and goes 10-8 and beats Kansas, winning conference coach of the year.
It's that last point that has me confused and motivated me to post in this thread. On the surface, that sounds like a pretty damned good coaching job by Hop, but now it's all gone to shit and I didn't get why.
Again, I don't understand the rosy picture being painted of the later LoRo years. Better than current Hopkins? Well fuck yeah, no shit! Anything's better than winless. But it's not like Romar's teams weren't also painful to watch. Looked like completely undisciplined, uncoached ratball. I still have no problem with firing Romar and only regret (with the benefit of hindsight) what we got in return. I'm not some Hopkins supperer--far from it: He should be shitcanned immediately for the nosedive we're seeing. And you make a good point about the off-court failures, which just adds to my feeling that he should be shitcanned. But Hopkins spectacularly flaming out doesn't suddenly make Romar amazing. It's possible for them to both suck.
As for McDaniels, sure seems like it's you who's interested in revisionist history. I was here in many of the game threads to read the collective disappointment at his performance. Hell, BTP's butthole is still a mile wide with how badly he got his shit pushed in on this forum over his prediction of McDaniels being Kevin Durant 2.0 and the team making the Final Four. Being second on the team in assists isn't that impressive when the team is 5-13. And I remember his amazing ball-handling skills for somebody 6'10", but I also remember him losing the ball a lot while trying to use them, hence the hate in the game threads. Whatever; I wasn't trying to trash the guy and I wish him well in the NBA, just saying that his benching never seemed undeserved to me at the time. From the outside looking in, the team wasn't playing well together, and he sure looked like a catalyst for that breakdown, but that's ignorant fan on the outside looking in stuff. To that end, there was a post in the Wam about the team being pissed that Hopkins called out the whole team for fouling too much in an effort to avoid singling out McDaniels (same post that mentioned the Timmins jersey fiasco). That sounds the opposite of throwing McDaniels under the bus.
Whatever. Anti-McDaniels conspiracy or not, Hopkins sucks, has lost the team, can't recruit, and he needs to go. Doesn't make me miss Romar. Or All-American/Final-Four/Kevin-Durant-2.0 McDaniels.
Jaden was second on the UW in assists as well as almost every other team statistical category. Jaden's offensive efficiency took a bit of a nosedive once Quade Green was lost for the season. If you care to take the time to look at his stat pre and post Green you might just see that for yourself. Don't forget that the refs call the fouls. And PAC-12 refs have been proven as being biased before word to Ed Rush. Perhaps, some of his turnovers came from trying to make passes to, plays for, his teammates as well? You think?
Revisionist history from you right here as Jaden was a very gifted ball handler for being 6'10. Mike Hopkins even used him to bring the ball up against full court pressure at times. Also, Mike Hopkins used Jaden to defend point guards full court while they brought the ball up court at times last season. As well as, Jaden got a lot of deflections from his position in the 2-3 zone and even played at the guard position in the 2-3 zone last season showing his defensive versatility. Jaden was a very good shot blocker straight on, chase down and from the weak side. Was he perfect? No. But many Freshman struggle a bit adapting to the NCAA game. Don't forget Jaden ended the regular season as the PAC-12 Freshman of the Week after leading the UW to two road victories against the Arizona teams. He should have been named as the PAC-12 Player of the Week as well.
Basnight? Mrs. McDaniels?
Look, I stated right off the top that I'm just a dumb fan when it comes to basketball. Played a ton of VERY low level pick-up ball decades ago (mostly just me and my brother going at it in the driveway), but never anything organized. I'm the first to admit I don't have a very nuanced opinion, just basic shit that any idiot can observe. Basic shit such as:
1.) I wanted to stab my eyes out every time I had the "pleasure" of watching a LoRo-coached inbounds play. And let's not pretend his offense was some kind of brilliant thing, either. Better than Hopkins, sure, but Sark>Ty.
2.) I didn't enjoy seeing LoRo do shady and pathetic shit like bringing a crappy assistant onto the payroll in order to secure the services of his sons on the team.
3.) I could not figure out how a team could go 2-16 in conference with one of the best college basketball players I've ever watched at point (Fultz lived up to his billing). Hopkins comes in, takes a 2-16 team minus the first overall draft pick but with the addition of a pair of 4-star freshmen guards, and goes 10-8 and beats Kansas, winning conference coach of the year.
It's that last point that has me confused and motivated me to post in this thread. On the surface, that sounds like a pretty damned good coaching job by Hop, but now it's all gone to shit and I didn't get why.
Again, I don't understand the rosy picture being painted of the later LoRo years. Better than current Hopkins? Well fuck yeah, no shit! Anything's better than winless. But it's not like Romar's teams weren't also painful to watch. Looked like completely undisciplined, uncoached ratball. I still have no problem with firing Romar and only regret (with the benefit of hindsight) what we got in return. I'm not some Hopkins supperer--far from it: He should be shitcanned immediately for the nosedive we're seeing. And you make a good point about the off-court failures, which just adds to my feeling that he should be shitcanned. But Hopkins spectacularly flaming out doesn't suddenly make Romar amazing. It's possible for them to both suck.
As for McDaniels, sure seems like it's you who's interested in revisionist history. I was here in many of the game threads to read the collective disappointment at his performance. Hell, BTP's butthole is still a mile wide with how badly he got his shit pushed in on this forum over his prediction of McDaniels being Kevin Durant 2.0 and the team making the Final Four. Being second on the team in assists isn't that impressive when the team is 5-13. And I remember his amazing ball-handling skills for somebody 6'10", but I also remember him losing the ball a lot while trying to use them, hence the hate in the game threads. Whatever; I wasn't trying to trash the guy and I wish him well in the NBA, just saying that his benching never seemed undeserved to me at the time. From the outside looking in, the team wasn't playing well together, and he sure looked like a catalyst for that breakdown, but that's ignorant fan on the outside looking in stuff. To that end, there was a post in the Wam about the team being pissed that Hopkins called out the whole team for fouling too much in an effort to avoid singling out McDaniels (same post that mentioned the Timmins jersey fiasco). That sounds the opposite of throwing McDaniels under the bus.
Whatever. Anti-McDaniels conspiracy or not, Hopkins sucks, has lost the team, can't recruit, and he needs to go. Doesn't make me miss Romar. Or All-American/Final-Four/Kevin-Durant-2.0 McDaniels.
The Throbber hated McDaniels game back when he was at Federal Way.
Ratball is the first thing someone says who isn't very good or near decent at all in hoops. It's also usually a white guy.
I've attended almost every home game since 2003, and found people who couldn't read Romar's offense weren't very imaginative. Romar's offense thrives with a decent to good stretch post or four. Mike Jensen and Darnell Gant are the best examples. This ultimately drew defenders out and opened up lanes. It's why guys like Nate, IT, BRoy, Wroten, were common on the free throw line. Romar ran into issues with his defense, especially when there was an emphasis made on physical defending. His best teams were usually the best defenders. Romar made a lot of mistakes as well, especially in recruiting, but it did appear he was getting his groove back. I noted earlier it wouldn't surprise me if Pepperdine were to beat this team. As for the year with Fultz, that team originally was to have Chris and Murray on it. Both were top 100 guys, maybe even top 50 but no one thought they'd be first round draft picks leading into the season. Those guys with Fultz and you have the makings for a great team.
I'll argue to my death the Wroten year, the team should have been in the tourney. No way that team would have been the 9th best team in the big east, 4th in the WCC, or 5th in the MWC. One free throw Wroten, just one.
If I were AD I'd take a strong look at Scott Nagy.
Jaden was second on the UW in assists as well as almost every other team statistical category. Jaden's offensive efficiency took a bit of a nosedive once Quade Green was lost for the season. If you care to take the time to look at his stat pre and post Green you might just see that for yourself. Don't forget that the refs call the fouls. And PAC-12 refs have been proven as being biased before word to Ed Rush. Perhaps, some of his turnovers came from trying to make passes to, plays for, his teammates as well? You think?
Revisionist history from you right here as Jaden was a very gifted ball handler for being 6'10. Mike Hopkins even used him to bring the ball up against full court pressure at times. Also, Mike Hopkins used Jaden to defend point guards full court while they brought the ball up court at times last season. As well as, Jaden got a lot of deflections from his position in the 2-3 zone and even played at the guard position in the 2-3 zone last season showing his defensive versatility. Jaden was a very good shot blocker straight on, chase down and from the weak side. Was he perfect? No. But many Freshman struggle a bit adapting to the NCAA game. Don't forget Jaden ended the regular season as the PAC-12 Freshman of the Week after leading the UW to two road victories against the Arizona teams. He should have been named as the PAC-12 Player of the Week as well.
Basnight? Mrs. McDaniels?
Look, I stated right off the top that I'm just a dumb fan when it comes to basketball. Played a ton of VERY low level pick-up ball decades ago (mostly just me and my brother going at it in the driveway), but never anything organized. I'm the first to admit I don't have a very nuanced opinion, just basic shit that any idiot can observe. Basic shit such as:
1.) I wanted to stab my eyes out every time I had the "pleasure" of watching a LoRo-coached inbounds play. And let's not pretend his offense was some kind of brilliant thing, either. Better than Hopkins, sure, but Sark>Ty.
2.) I didn't enjoy seeing LoRo do shady and pathetic shit like bringing a crappy assistant onto the payroll in order to secure the services of his sons on the team.
3.) I could not figure out how a team could go 2-16 in conference with one of the best college basketball players I've ever watched at point (Fultz lived up to his billing). Hopkins comes in, takes a 2-16 team minus the first overall draft pick but with the addition of a pair of 4-star freshmen guards, and goes 10-8 and beats Kansas, winning conference coach of the year.
It's that last point that has me confused and motivated me to post in this thread. On the surface, that sounds like a pretty damned good coaching job by Hop, but now it's all gone to shit and I didn't get why.
Again, I don't understand the rosy picture being painted of the later LoRo years. Better than current Hopkins? Well fuck yeah, no shit! Anything's better than winless. But it's not like Romar's teams weren't also painful to watch. Looked like completely undisciplined, uncoached ratball. I still have no problem with firing Romar and only regret (with the benefit of hindsight) what we got in return. I'm not some Hopkins supperer--far from it: He should be shitcanned immediately for the nosedive we're seeing. And you make a good point about the off-court failures, which just adds to my feeling that he should be shitcanned. But Hopkins spectacularly flaming out doesn't suddenly make Romar amazing. It's possible for them to both suck.
As for McDaniels, sure seems like it's you who's interested in revisionist history. I was here in many of the game threads to read the collective disappointment at his performance. Hell, BTP's butthole is still a mile wide with how badly he got his shit pushed in on this forum over his prediction of McDaniels being Kevin Durant 2.0 and the team making the Final Four. Being second on the team in assists isn't that impressive when the team is 5-13. And I remember his amazing ball-handling skills for somebody 6'10", but I also remember him losing the ball a lot while trying to use them, hence the hate in the game threads. Whatever; I wasn't trying to trash the guy and I wish him well in the NBA, just saying that his benching never seemed undeserved to me at the time. From the outside looking in, the team wasn't playing well together, and he sure looked like a catalyst for that breakdown, but that's ignorant fan on the outside looking in stuff. To that end, there was a post in the Wam about the team being pissed that Hopkins called out the whole team for fouling too much in an effort to avoid singling out McDaniels (same post that mentioned the Timmins jersey fiasco). That sounds the opposite of throwing McDaniels under the bus.
Whatever. Anti-McDaniels conspiracy or not, Hopkins sucks, has lost the team, can't recruit, and he needs to go. Doesn't make me miss Romar. Or All-American/Final-Four/Kevin-Durant-2.0 McDaniels.
Where are Mike Hopkins great out of bounds plays that many said he would bring with him? Mr Xs' & Os? Mike Hopkins has no offensive identity. Just give the ball to the best player and everyone else get out of the way. LoRo was going to bring back Ken Bone to run the offense before he was fired in a very cold blooded manner. Ken Bone is now with LoRo at Pepperdine.
LoRo did nothing shady by hiring Michael Porter Sr it was all done within NCAA rules and regulations. LoRo was the Porter brothers Godfather as well. USC hired the Mobley brother's father on their staff. Kansas hired Danny Manny's father who was driving trucks back in the day. And there are many more examples of this that you can look up on your own accord. Want to be a big time program them you have to swim with the sharks if not then hire Mike Hopkins and swim with the guppies. That being posted both Mike Hopkins and Dave Rice have sons on the current UW MBB roster who wouldn't be there if their daddies weren't coaches. Dave Rice's son transferred in from another University when his dad was hired. Dave Rice's brother is a HS coach at a top Las Vegas high school which is why he most likely a big reason why he got an assistant coaching job at the UW as well.
You couldn't figure out how a team could go 2-16 in PAC-12 play? Perhaps, because it was a very young team with one of the youngest rosters in the NCAA at the time. Plus, Markelle Fultz missed plenty of games not to mention that LoRo expected both Dejounte Murray and Marquesse Chriss to be on that team but they unexpectedly left for the NBA after solid Freshman season that caught NBA scouts eyes. Mike Hopkins came in right when LoRo players (Green, Crisp, Dickerson, Thybulle) where maturing into Juniors then Seniors. Plus, they had a collective chip on their shoulders to prove that they weren't the reason that LoRo was fired. That's how. Plus, another LoRo recruit- Jaylen Nowell, led the offense.
What has Mike Hopkins done with his own players that he recruited to play in his system? Mike Hopkins couldn't even properly put together nor monitor a roster in order to have a back up point guard ready to take over for Quade Green who Mike Hopkins knew was in academic jeopardy weeks before he was suspended from the team. His tried Jamal Bey at at point then used Marcus Tsohonis who has to burn his redshirt season at point but Tsohonis is more of a combo guard. Elijah Hardy, a Mike Hopkins recruit who has since transferred, was on the roster at the time and had a season of experience playing in the program but was not given an opportunity until late in the season to get into the rotation sans Green.
The fact is when Jaden was benched the team still played bad. And Jaden was starting the second half of many games which made his benching befuddling in the first place. It was Mike Hopkins trying to show the UW powers that be (Jen Hopkins, Tyee Club, ticket buying fans) that he was in control of the program by scapegoating Jaden. And that's how many in the Seattle basketball community saw it as well. Because of that action Mike Hopkins won't be getting any Rotary AAU players to commit to the UW word to Nolan Hickman, Paolo Banchero & Shane Nowell. Four seasons into Mike Hopkins tenure at the UW and his program is not one that HS recruits with better options want to play for especially Sea-Tac area HS recruits. And it has nothing to do with Will Conroy's recruiting ability. Can't recruit the top local players to a program where the players don't want to play.
Jen Cohen plus some Tyee Club boosters brought this Syracuse West nightmare to Montlake and they need to own it instead of acting like their ish don't stink... Conduct a proper coaching search not a fast food one that makes you throw up four years after the fact. The sooner Mike Hopkins is fired the better but word on the street is that he will get at least another season and the UW MBB assistant coaches may be purged instead. Time will tell.
I am not a basketball guy--not even an IMA legend, so can somebody help me out with this:
How does a coach go from winning the conference and winning conference coach of the year twice in a row to being the shittiest basketball coach ever to walk the earth? He had Thybulle and Nowell on those two teams, so are those two just THAT good? A couple of years ago, Hopkins seemed like the greatest hire ever to me as somebody who has no idea what I'm looking at: Made the team fun to watch those first two years, won a lot of games, beat Kansas, damn near beat Gonzaga, got two top-5 players to commit in the same class. What kind of smoke and mirrors were in place preventing me from seeing that it was a sinking ship?
As for McDaniels, to my untrained eye at least, he just wasn't that good. I don't know anything about scapegoating, but his performance on the court wasn't something that would support some kind of conspiracy theory against him. I just looked at his stats from last season, and they ranked each statistic against every player in the conference. He was decently high with rebounds, but the only other statistical category in which he ranked higher than 20th in conference (20th in points per minute) was in ejections, and he was first in conference in that category. As for that being some kind of referee conspiracy, he also committed a shitload of fouls, so there's a pattern there. My memory of him in the times I watched the team before my eyes would start to bleed was that very rarely he would do something spectacular and the commentators would jizz into their mikes, but otherwise he was selfish with the ball and (possibly therefore) was a turnover machine. Not the greatest shooter, not the greatest ball handler, not the greatest defender. Why is it so tragic that a player like that was benched?
Lot of Romar ball gargling going on around here all of a sudden. Maybe that's just Sark > Ty or maybe Basnight signed up?
Perhaps, LoRo just recruited more talented players than Mike Hopkins has to Montlake coupled with being a better head coach. Mike Hopkins did get what was left of arguably LoRo's best UW recruiting class (Chriss, Murray, Green, Crisp, Dickerson, Thybulle) right as they were maturing into Juniors then Seniors for his first two seasons coaching at the UW. Plus, they all had a chip on their collective shoulders to prove that they weren't the reason that LoRo was fired from his job as stated in various interviews that I read/viewed.
What we do know is that as soon as LoRo's recruits that he counseled not to transfer after his firing left Montlake Mike Hopkins' coaching acumen has been exposed along with his lack of experience of not being able to properly manage a basketball program from recruiting a roster conducive to his style of play and monitoring that roster off of the court (academic suspension, sexual assault allegations). Mike Hopkins seemingly only knows one way to coach, especially on defense, but what is to be expected from a person that spent 22 years as an assistant coach at '2-3 zone defense' Syracuse. Now, four season after being hired Mike Hopkins finds himself in the very position that caused some to want LoRo fired- one and done players leaving the program combined with a young fairly inexperienced roster. Even though LoRo had his roster situation moving forward balanced out with experienced upperclassmen to absorb any potential one and done recruits in the future of the basketball program before his was suddenly fired.
The UW (Jen Cohen) did hire Mike Hopkins from a dirty NCAA sanctioned program in Syracuse (2000-2012) https://www.sbnation.com/college-basketball/2015/3/9/8166543/syracuse-ncaa-scandal-explained-jim-boeheim . Where Mike Hopkins feigned ignorance to NCAA investigators when questioned concerning the particulars even though in his own words he was very involved with the players both on and off of the court. I believe it (academic fraud, failure to enforce drug testing-reporting policy, improper benefits) was described as a loss of institutional control by NCAA investigators in their summary.
Jaden was second on the UW in assists as well as almost every other team statistical category. Jaden's offensive efficiency took a bit of a nosedive once Quade Green was lost for the season. If you care to take the time to look at his stat pre and post Green you might just see that for yourself. Don't forget that the refs call the fouls. And PAC-12 refs have been proven as being biased before word to Ed Rush. Perhaps, some of his turnovers came from trying to make passes to, plays for, his teammates as well? You think?
Revisionist history from you right here as Jaden was a very gifted ball handler for being 6'10. Mike Hopkins even used him to bring the ball up against full court pressure at times. Also, Mike Hopkins used Jaden to defend point guards full court while they brought the ball up court at times last season. As well as, Jaden got a lot of deflections from his position in the 2-3 zone and even played at the guard position in the 2-3 zone last season showing his defensive versatility. Jaden was a very good shot blocker straight on, chase down and from the weak side. Was he perfect? No. But many Freshman struggle a bit adapting to the NCAA game. Don't forget Jaden ended the regular season as the PAC-12 Freshman of the Week after leading the UW to two road victories against the Arizona teams. He should have been named as the PAC-12 Player of the Week as well.
Furthermore, LoRo was promised by Jen Cohen the opportunity to coach out his final season and highly rated incoming recruiting class then have his coaching job evaluated after the season. But he was blindsided by an abrupt firing, led by some wealthy-influential Tyee Club members, that left him in a daze walking around Alaska Airlines Arena as seen in an impromptu interview with KING5 News just after the fact. Those very same Tyee Club members seemingly had a plan in place to bring Mike Hopkins and Syracuse West to Montlake to replace the experienced LoRo with an inexperienced head coach in Mike Hopkins. Thus, a true coaching search was never conducted.
Jen Cohen was reportedly very impressed with Mike Hopkins' pre interview push ups. Lay down with an inexperienced coach from a dirty NCAA sanction program and wake up four seasons later with a basketball program in total unadulterated despair. From first to worst in one season...the only program to accomplish that feat in PAC-10/12 men's basketball history. And with the very real potential of back to back worst PAC-12 seasons it's not looking any better for the near future of the basketball program especially when looking at the lack of incoming HS recruits committing to the UW for 2020 & 2021.
Agree that Hop inherited significant talent from LoRo and to Hop's credit was able to get them in a position to be successful. You make 2 very interesting and relevant points that should be factored in regarding young players maturing into upper class players (very true that you tend to see jumps as players mature) and players having a chip on the shoulder with motivation to prove that they weren't the reason for a coach being fired. Motivation is always good to have on your side.
The last 18 months have really exposed a number of issues with Hop. The academic issue of Quade are really strange when you think about it. There's really no excuse for that taking place with the resources that UW has in the academic area. While there's definitely some egg on Hop for that, there's got to be a ton of accountability put on Quade for not doing his work. Both deserve some significant eye raising. The Naz situation really raises a lot of eyebrows from me. I'll admit that I haven't gone too far down the timeline of who knew what and when but it definitely feels as if there was some burying of the news until you couldn't bury it anymore. In contrast, if you think about how Pete would have handled that situation with the football program you'd expect that any claim with merit would have been met with some kind of removal from the team pending the investigation/outcome. Generally speaking, the surest way to get fired at UW isn't because you're a shitty coach but because you have institutional control issues that will make the University of Washington look bad. Only thing that I can think of is that you're not hearing a lot about this stuff because it's being leveraged as part of the reasoning for firing Hop after this year and doing so with some form of cause to reduce the buyout. This stuff is normally raw meat for the Seattle Times to make the UW look bad.
Quade's suspension torpedoed the team. I will contend that at worst with Quade that UW was a .500 conference team last year. The end result was playing players that weren't capable of playing at the P12 level and asking players to do things that they weren't capable of doing. I've said it elsewhere so I'm not going to belabor but I don't think Jaden per se was singled out by refs. I do think that as he got a reputation for doing stupid shit that led to T's, it put a target on him for officials to look out for. But by and large, I didn't see a lot where I thought that the calls weren't earned or were unfair. Your last part about Freshman needing time to adapt to the college game is definitely true. I think what you really saw from Jaden last year was that he was really a 2-3 year college player instead of a 1 and done. The pressure he put on himself to live up to what I believe to be a predetermined expectation of being a 1 and done led to a lot of his struggles and compounding effect as things went south.
I'm not really going to opine on whether or not Cohen promised LoRo anything other than to say that LoRo missed the NCAA Tournament 6 straight years and had a record at or below .500 in the PAC 12 for 5 straight years. Moreover, as an outside observer, it was very clear that he was feeling the heat and started making staffing, etc. decisions to increase recruiting results that in the past that he had been very vocal about calling out as unethical at best. That more than anything led me into being firmly in the enough was enough category.
As for the decisions to hire Hopkins, I think this is a trend that Jen has in that she's more about making a quick hire than going through a search. It's a dangerous game that can have really negative outcomes. You've mentioned previously Hop's zone and kids not wanting to play that. There's probably some truth to it although the reality is that even in the NBA there's a lot of zone concepts mixed into a man scheme so everything is ultimately a blend. The bigger reality is that the pure zone that Hop and Syracuse play is a terrible match for today's skill set as kids have grown up watching guys like Steph shoot and that skill set is much better than it used to be. To combat that, Hop's zone has extended out and around the 3 point line which effectively opens up everything in the 2 point area. The zone still works great against teams that can't pass or shoot at a decent level ... but against anybody that can do that, they tear UW up. Offensively, Hop's messed up because at the core of his defensive philosophy often comes to recruiting players that fit the defense first and the end result is just not enough guys that have the required offensive skill set to succeed in the way the game is played today. If you have a good passing/shooting team surrounding Stewart last year, you'd be almost impossible to beat because few if any could defend him on the interior 1 on 1. Instead, the lack of shooters made it too easy to sag and collapse.
Jen's got a lot of work to do to unbury this situation and how much the Tyee boosters are willing to pony up to rectify the mistake is huge. My guess is that neither really want to admit their mistake and will go another year unless the scandal issues force the hand of upper campus to come in and take control.
Mike Hopkins knew of Quade's academic situation weeks in advance of Green being suspended and did almost nothing to manage that situation except to burn Marcus Tsohonis' redshirt season. Quade had no issues doing the school work while waiting to become eligible after transferring into the UW from Kentucky. Perhaps all the practices, games, travel left him a bit overwhelmed and he couldn't, didn't get the proper help that he needed.
For those who may not know Quade was born 80% deaf, didn't speak for the first few years of his life, had a stuttering problem as a kid, has auditory hearing implants in both ears, and overcame a learning disability as a kid. Quade is doing just fine this season staying eligible so he must be getting the help that he needed last season this season. That being said Quade could have easily dropped out of school but instead faced and overcame his academic issues which speaks volumes to his character.
Jen Cohen did promise LoRo that he would have the upcoming season to coach out then his job status would be evaluated after the completion of the season. Jen Cohen signed off on the Michael Porter Sr hire as well. My best guess is that some wealthy influential Tyee Club boosters didn't want LoRo to have that potential chance to succeed which would mean that he would be around longer so they persuaded Jen Cohen to fire (buyout) LoRo and then hire Mike Hopkins two days after the fact.
The UW MBB program is dying under Mike Hopkins' leadership. Even in LoRo's worst seasons top HS recruits still wanted to play for the program and that should speak volumes in comparing the two coaches before and after the fact. LoRo was all class and had life long connections throughout the American basketball community. Many parents trusted LoRo enough to send their sons to play for him at the UW despite the UW's less than stellar seasons. Mike Hopkins not so much.
The cost to buyout hop is nothing compared to the lost revenue keeping this circus around. Jen should be fighting for her job, it was a colossal fuck up hiring then extending Hop and everybody in the room knows it. Flash those Booooobs or whatever it takes to get the buyout money.
The cost to buyout hop is nothing compared to the lost revenue keeping this circus around. Jen should be fighting for her job, it was a colossal fuck up hiring then extending Hop and everybody in the room knows it. Flash those Booooobs or whatever it takes to get the buyout money.
LoRo's buyout was 3.2 million. Many have said that Mike Hopkins buyout is 3 million come March 2021...the very wealthy and influential Tyee Club members that got LoRo fired and brought Mike Hopkins to Montlake to replace him need to ante up and make Mike Hopkins an offer that he can't refuse. He doesn't have to go back to Syracuse but he needs to leave Montlake ASAP...
I am not a basketball guy--not even an IMA legend, so can somebody help me out with this:
How does a coach go from winning the conference and winning conference coach of the year twice in a row to being the shittiest basketball coach ever to walk the earth? He had Thybulle and Nowell on those two teams, so are those two just THAT good? A couple of years ago, Hopkins seemed like the greatest hire ever to me as somebody who has no idea what I'm looking at: Made the team fun to watch those first two years, won a lot of games, beat Kansas, damn near beat Gonzaga, got two top-5 players to commit in the same class. What kind of smoke and mirrors were in place preventing me from seeing that it was a sinking ship?
As for McDaniels, to my untrained eye at least, he just wasn't that good. I don't know anything about scapegoating, but his performance on the court wasn't something that would support some kind of conspiracy theory against him. I just looked at his stats from last season, and they ranked each statistic against every player in the conference. He was decently high with rebounds, but the only other statistical category in which he ranked higher than 20th in conference (20th in points per minute) was in ejections, and he was first in conference in that category. As for that being some kind of referee conspiracy, he also committed a shitload of fouls, so there's a pattern there. My memory of him in the times I watched the team before my eyes would start to bleed was that very rarely he would do something spectacular and the commentators would jizz into their mikes, but otherwise he was selfish with the ball and (possibly therefore) was a turnover machine. Not the greatest shooter, not the greatest ball handler, not the greatest defender. Why is it so tragic that a player like that was benched?
Lot of Romar ball gargling going on around here all of a sudden. Maybe that's just Sark > Ty or maybe Basnight signed up?
Perhaps, LoRo just recruited more talented players than Mike Hopkins has to Montlake coupled with being a better head coach. Mike Hopkins did get what was left of arguably LoRo's best UW recruiting class (Chriss, Murray, Green, Crisp, Dickerson, Thybulle) right as they were maturing into Juniors then Seniors for his first two seasons coaching at the UW. Plus, they all had a chip on their collective shoulders to prove that they weren't the reason that LoRo was fired from his job as stated in various interviews that I read/viewed.
What we do know is that as soon as LoRo's recruits that he counseled not to transfer after his firing left Montlake Mike Hopkins' coaching acumen has been exposed along with his lack of experience of not being able to properly manage a basketball program from recruiting a roster conducive to his style of play and monitoring that roster off of the court (academic suspension, sexual assault allegations). Mike Hopkins seemingly only knows one way to coach, especially on defense, but what is to be expected from a person that spent 22 years as an assistant coach at '2-3 zone defense' Syracuse. Now, four season after being hired Mike Hopkins finds himself in the very position that caused some to want LoRo fired- one and done players leaving the program combined with a young fairly inexperienced roster. Even though LoRo had his roster situation moving forward balanced out with experienced upperclassmen to absorb any potential one and done recruits in the future of the basketball program before his was suddenly fired.
The UW (Jen Cohen) did hire Mike Hopkins from a dirty NCAA sanctioned program in Syracuse (2000-2012) https://www.sbnation.com/college-basketball/2015/3/9/8166543/syracuse-ncaa-scandal-explained-jim-boeheim . Where Mike Hopkins feigned ignorance to NCAA investigators when questioned concerning the particulars even though in his own words he was very involved with the players both on and off of the court. I believe it (academic fraud, failure to enforce drug testing-reporting policy, improper benefits) was described as a loss of institutional control by NCAA investigators in their summary.
Jaden was second on the UW in assists as well as almost every other team statistical category. Jaden's offensive efficiency took a bit of a nosedive once Quade Green was lost for the season. If you care to take the time to look at his stat pre and post Green you might just see that for yourself. Don't forget that the refs call the fouls. And PAC-12 refs have been proven as being biased before word to Ed Rush. Perhaps, some of his turnovers came from trying to make passes to, plays for, his teammates as well? You think?
Revisionist history from you right here as Jaden was a very gifted ball handler for being 6'10. Mike Hopkins even used him to bring the ball up against full court pressure at times. Also, Mike Hopkins used Jaden to defend point guards full court while they brought the ball up court at times last season. As well as, Jaden got a lot of deflections from his position in the 2-3 zone and even played at the guard position in the 2-3 zone last season showing his defensive versatility. Jaden was a very good shot blocker straight on, chase down and from the weak side. Was he perfect? No. But many Freshman struggle a bit adapting to the NCAA game. Don't forget Jaden ended the regular season as the PAC-12 Freshman of the Week after leading the UW to two road victories against the Arizona teams. He should have been named as the PAC-12 Player of the Week as well.
Furthermore, LoRo was promised by Jen Cohen the opportunity to coach out his final season and highly rated incoming recruiting class then have his coaching job evaluated after the season. But he was blindsided by an abrupt firing, led by some wealthy-influential Tyee Club members, that left him in a daze walking around Alaska Airlines Arena as seen in an impromptu interview with KING5 News just after the fact. Those very same Tyee Club members seemingly had a plan in place to bring Mike Hopkins and Syracuse West to Montlake to replace the experienced LoRo with an inexperienced head coach in Mike Hopkins. Thus, a true coaching search was never conducted.
Jen Cohen was reportedly very impressed with Mike Hopkins' pre interview push ups. Lay down with an inexperienced coach from a dirty NCAA sanction program and wake up four seasons later with a basketball program in total unadulterated despair. From first to worst in one season...the only program to accomplish that feat in PAC-10/12 men's basketball history. And with the very real potential of back to back worst PAC-12 seasons it's not looking any better for the near future of the basketball program especially when looking at the lack of incoming HS recruits committing to the UW for 2020 & 2021.
Agree that Hop inherited significant talent from LoRo and to Hop's credit was able to get them in a position to be successful. You make 2 very interesting and relevant points that should be factored in regarding young players maturing into upper class players (very true that you tend to see jumps as players mature) and players having a chip on the shoulder with motivation to prove that they weren't the reason for a coach being fired. Motivation is always good to have on your side.
The last 18 months have really exposed a number of issues with Hop. The academic issue of Quade are really strange when you think about it. There's really no excuse for that taking place with the resources that UW has in the academic area. While there's definitely some egg on Hop for that, there's got to be a ton of accountability put on Quade for not doing his work. Both deserve some significant eye raising. The Naz situation really raises a lot of eyebrows from me. I'll admit that I haven't gone too far down the timeline of who knew what and when but it definitely feels as if there was some burying of the news until you couldn't bury it anymore. In contrast, if you think about how Pete would have handled that situation with the football program you'd expect that any claim with merit would have been met with some kind of removal from the team pending the investigation/outcome. Generally speaking, the surest way to get fired at UW isn't because you're a shitty coach but because you have institutional control issues that will make the University of Washington look bad. Only thing that I can think of is that you're not hearing a lot about this stuff because it's being leveraged as part of the reasoning for firing Hop after this year and doing so with some form of cause to reduce the buyout. This stuff is normally raw meat for the Seattle Times to make the UW look bad.
Quade's suspension torpedoed the team. I will contend that at worst with Quade that UW was a .500 conference team last year. The end result was playing players that weren't capable of playing at the P12 level and asking players to do things that they weren't capable of doing. I've said it elsewhere so I'm not going to belabor but I don't think Jaden per se was singled out by refs. I do think that as he got a reputation for doing stupid shit that led to T's, it put a target on him for officials to look out for. But by and large, I didn't see a lot where I thought that the calls weren't earned or were unfair. Your last part about Freshman needing time to adapt to the college game is definitely true. I think what you really saw from Jaden last year was that he was really a 2-3 year college player instead of a 1 and done. The pressure he put on himself to live up to what I believe to be a predetermined expectation of being a 1 and done led to a lot of his struggles and compounding effect as things went south.
I'm not really going to opine on whether or not Cohen promised LoRo anything other than to say that LoRo missed the NCAA Tournament 6 straight years and had a record at or below .500 in the PAC 12 for 5 straight years. Moreover, as an outside observer, it was very clear that he was feeling the heat and started making staffing, etc. decisions to increase recruiting results that in the past that he had been very vocal about calling out as unethical at best. That more than anything led me into being firmly in the enough was enough category.
As for the decisions to hire Hopkins, I think this is a trend that Jen has in that she's more about making a quick hire than going through a search. It's a dangerous game that can have really negative outcomes. You've mentioned previously Hop's zone and kids not wanting to play that. There's probably some truth to it although the reality is that even in the NBA there's a lot of zone concepts mixed into a man scheme so everything is ultimately a blend. The bigger reality is that the pure zone that Hop and Syracuse play is a terrible match for today's skill set as kids have grown up watching guys like Steph shoot and that skill set is much better than it used to be. To combat that, Hop's zone has extended out and around the 3 point line which effectively opens up everything in the 2 point area. The zone still works great against teams that can't pass or shoot at a decent level ... but against anybody that can do that, they tear UW up. Offensively, Hop's messed up because at the core of his defensive philosophy often comes to recruiting players that fit the defense first and the end result is just not enough guys that have the required offensive skill set to succeed in the way the game is played today. If you have a good passing/shooting team surrounding Stewart last year, you'd be almost impossible to beat because few if any could defend him on the interior 1 on 1. Instead, the lack of shooters made it too easy to sag and collapse.
Jen's got a lot of work to do to unbury this situation and how much the Tyee boosters are willing to pony up to rectify the mistake is huge. My guess is that neither really want to admit their mistake and will go another year unless the scandal issues force the hand of upper campus to come in and take control.
Mike Hopkins knew of Quade's academic situation weeks in advance of Green being suspended and did almost nothing to manage that situation except to burn Marcus Tsohonis' redshirt season. Quade had no issues doing the school work while waiting to become eligible after transferring into the UW from Kentucky. Perhaps all the practices, games, travel left him a bit overwhelmed and he couldn't, didn't get the proper help that he needed.
For those who may not know Quade was born 80% deaf, didn't speak for the first few years of his life, had a stuttering problem as a kid, has auditory hearing implants in both ears, and overcame a learning disability as a kid. Quade is doing just fine this season staying eligible so he must be getting the help that he needed last season this season. That being said Quade could have easily dropped out of school but instead faced and overcame his academic issues which speaks volumes to his character.
Jen Cohen did promise LoRo that he would have the upcoming season to coach out then his job status would be evaluated after the completion of the season. Jen Cohen signed off on the Michael Porter Sr hire as well. My best guess is that some wealthy influential Tyee Club boosters didn't want LoRo to have that potential chance to succeed which would mean that he would be around longer so they persuaded Jen Cohen to fire (buyout) LoRo and then hire Mike Hopkins two days after the fact.
The UW MBB program is dying under Mike Hopkins' leadership. Even in LoRo's worst seasons top HS recruits still wanted to play for the program and that should speak volumes in comparing the two coaches before and after the fact. LoRo was all class and had life long connections throughout the American basketball community. Many parents trusted LoRo enough to send their sons to play for him at the UW despite the UW's less than stellar seasons. Mike Hopkins not so much.
Nobody here is advocating for Hop not being fired ... it’s obvious at this point.
As for LoRo, it’s hard for me to feel too much sympathy given 6 straight non NCAA years and 5 straight years at .500 or worse in conference. There’s nothing against the Porter hiring that is against the rules. The issue with the Porter hiring is that for years LoRo talked about how that was something he’d never do and only when his job was on the line did he cave on the topic.
As for Quade, I have the utmost respect for him staying in school. And to be clear, from the outside you don’t know everything. My point was simply that there are significant resources available at UW for athletes tied to academics, so wherever the breakdown was should have been headed off initially.
The cost to buyout hop is nothing compared to the lost revenue keeping this circus around. Jen should be fighting for her job, it was a colossal fuck up hiring then extending Hop and everybody in the room knows it. Flash those Booooobs or whatever it takes to get the buyout money.
My big takeaway from this thread is that Jen is in over her head as an administrator and simply acts on the whims of those with money.
For Roman, after missing the tournament with Murray and Chriss and then missing the tournament with Fultz, there was no reason to believe why Porter would be any different. That being said, Hop clearly sucks and it’s time for him to go.
Comments
How does a coach go from winning the conference and winning conference coach of the year twice in a row to being the shittiest basketball coach ever to walk the earth? He had Thybulle and Nowell on those two teams, so are those two just THAT good? A couple of years ago, Hopkins seemed like the greatest hire ever to me as somebody who has no idea what I'm looking at: Made the team fun to watch those first two years, won a lot of games, beat Kansas, damn near beat Gonzaga, got two top-5 players to commit in the same class. What kind of smoke and mirrors were in place preventing me from seeing that it was a sinking ship?
As for McDaniels, to my untrained eye at least, he just wasn't that good. I don't know anything about scapegoating, but his performance on the court wasn't something that would support some kind of conspiracy theory against him. I just looked at his stats from last season, and they ranked each statistic against every player in the conference. He was decently high with rebounds, but the only other statistical category in which he ranked higher than 20th in conference (20th in points per minute) was in ejections, and he was first in conference in that category. As for that being some kind of referee conspiracy, he also committed a shitload of fouls, so there's a pattern there. My memory of him in the times I watched the team before my eyes would start to bleed was that very rarely he would do something spectacular and the commentators would jizz into their mikes, but otherwise he was selfish with the ball and (possibly therefore) was a turnover machine. Not the greatest shooter, not the greatest ball handler, not the greatest defender. Why is it so tragic that a player like that was benched?
Lot of Romar ball gargling going on around here all of a sudden. Maybe that's just Sark > Ty or maybe Basnight signed up?
What we do know is that as soon as LoRo's recruits that he counseled not to transfer after his firing left Montlake Mike Hopkins' coaching acumen has been exposed along with his lack of experience of not being able to properly manage a basketball program from recruiting a roster conducive to his style of play and monitoring that roster off of the court (academic suspension, sexual assault allegations). Mike Hopkins seemingly only knows one way to coach, especially on defense, but what is to be expected from a person that spent 22 years as an assistant coach at '2-3 zone defense' Syracuse. Now, four season after being hired Mike Hopkins finds himself in the very position that caused some to want LoRo fired- one and done players leaving the program combined with a young fairly inexperienced roster. Even though LoRo had his roster situation moving forward balanced out with experienced upperclassmen to absorb any potential one and done recruits in the future of the basketball program before his was suddenly fired.
The UW (Jen Cohen) did hire Mike Hopkins from a dirty NCAA sanctioned program in Syracuse (2000-2012) https://www.sbnation.com/college-basketball/2015/3/9/8166543/syracuse-ncaa-scandal-explained-jim-boeheim . Where Mike Hopkins feigned ignorance to NCAA investigators when questioned concerning the particulars even though in his own words he was very involved with the players both on and off of the court. I believe it (academic fraud, failure to enforce drug testing-reporting policy, improper benefits) was described as a loss of institutional control by NCAA investigators in their summary.
Jaden was second on the UW in assists as well as almost every other team statistical category. Jaden's offensive efficiency took a bit of a nosedive once Quade Green was lost for the season. If you care to take the time to look at his stat pre and post Green you might just see that for yourself. Don't forget that the refs call the fouls. And PAC-12 refs have been proven as being biased before word to Ed Rush. Perhaps, some of his turnovers came from trying to make passes to, plays for, his teammates as well? You think?
Revisionist history from you right here as Jaden was a very gifted ball handler for being 6'10. Mike Hopkins even used him to bring the ball up against full court pressure at times. Also, Mike Hopkins used Jaden to defend point guards full court while they brought the ball up court at times last season. As well as, Jaden got a lot of deflections from his position in the 2-3 zone and even played at the guard position in the 2-3 zone last season showing his defensive versatility. Jaden was a very good shot blocker straight on, chase down and from the weak side. Was he perfect? No. But many Freshman struggle a bit adapting to the NCAA game. Don't forget Jaden ended the regular season as the PAC-12 Freshman of the Week after leading the UW to two road victories against the Arizona teams. He should have been named as the PAC-12 Player of the Week as well.
Furthermore, LoRo was promised by Jen Cohen the opportunity to coach out his final season and highly rated incoming recruiting class then have his coaching job evaluated after the season. But he was blindsided by an abrupt firing, led by some wealthy-influential Tyee Club members, that left him in a daze walking around Alaska Airlines Arena as seen in an impromptu interview with KING5 News just after the fact. Those very same Tyee Club members seemingly had a plan in place to bring Mike Hopkins and Syracuse West to Montlake to replace the experienced LoRo with an inexperienced head coach in Mike Hopkins. Thus, a true coaching search was never conducted.
Jen Cohen flew to NYC two days after firing LoRo to interview, then hire Mike Hopkins as the new UW men's basketball head coach https://www.syracuse.com/orangebasketball/2017/03/timeline_of_mike_hopkins_hiring_washington_acted_swiftly_to_pluck_sus_coach_in_w.html .
Jen Cohen was reportedly very impressed with Mike Hopkins' pre interview push ups. Lay down with an inexperienced coach from a dirty NCAA sanction program and wake up four seasons later with a basketball program in total unadulterated despair. From first to worst in one season...the only program to accomplish that feat in PAC-10/12 men's basketball history. And with the very real potential of back to back worst PAC-12 seasons it's not looking any better for the near future of the basketball program especially when looking at the lack of incoming HS recruits committing to the UW for 2020 & 2021.
1. Others have adjusted to zone so it’s not as efficient. We have failed to make the necessary adjustments in turn.
2. Player development is poor. I can think of a single player in the last 4 years who has shown great improvement. Bey has recently shown flashes and maybe Riley Sorn.
3. His recruiting has not built any depth within the program and dropped off the ledge the last 2 years. As a result, he has turned to transfers, which is fine as long as a coach is able to coach up the players and create on court team unity ala Dana Altman and Mark Few. Hopkins clearly is not capable of this.
4. I’ll add more just cause it’s so easy. His enthusiasm is easy to like at first. I even thought to myself that this guy is easy to like the first time I met him. Unfortunately, this enthusiasm was not equally displayed towards his players. He has no clue how to manage players from Quade Green academics to Timmons jersey issue to Mcdaniels attitude.
5. He had the element of surprise his first two years with the zone and had gods gift to the 2-3 in Thybulle. Combine that with a great one on one player in Nowell to help bail out horrible offensive movement and you have a recipe for success.
6. This is his team with all his players. So it’s clear he cannot create a successful program. What is clear is that he can come in with good players and institute a zone that can stymie teams for a few years. And it didn’t hurt that he had a defensive god on the court. One can have short term success this way. Maybe he should move on to some other conference like the CAA and have success there.
You don’t build a program around chest bumps and a zone.
You build through networking with local talent, appealing to the current crop of players, developing those players, establishing a consistent program where all players are treated equally and by creating a culture where those players will go to battle for you.
It’s like everyone on our team is from France and are waving the white flag...and there is not a damn thing Hopkins can do to change that as he has lost respect from the players, assistant coaches and fans.
At no point am I sitting there saying that perceptions are right or wrong ... reality is that we all see things differently at times and that's ok. Clearly there's reasons people are out on Hop and it's really hard to disagree that his current direction is failing and failing spectacularly.
I guess the question on what you define Capitalism as. There's a big difference between free markets, markets controlled by people vs governments, freedom of labor, ability to have the market define prices, etc. and the thought process that capitalism is all about wanting to get theirs. At its best, capitalism results in parties operating in a manner that results in win-win solutions. In the other, it's about how do you get ahead and often that's at the expense of others.
I'm not really interested in going back to watching games and pulling out clips. I will say that I was a season ticket holder last year and saw multiple games in person and watch as much behavior off the ball as I do on the ball. I will give McDaniels credit that in many respects he worked hard defensively, particularly off the ball, in trying to get steals and blocks. There were times where his desire to accumulate stats came at the expense of proper positioning and therefore hurting the team. Offensively, particularly when he created turnovers, too often I saw the head sulk and slow transition work getting back on defense. I'll also acknowledge that at times he wasn't utilized in his highest and best use offensively (notably after Quade was ineligible). If I had to really describe him as a player after his 1st year, it was that you could see the talent but that that talent was really rough around the edges and needed to work on maturing his game (likely both on and off the court).
Moreover, one of the things that you have to really look at when looking at 1 and done players is what is their work ethic and goals focused on. In some cases, you'll find players that are about developing their skills in the context of the team as that's a critical step in transitioning to the NBA level. In other cases, you'll find guys that are about getting their numbers and their priority is about their draft position versus winning. It's something that I look at in evaluating players whether they are at Washington or elsewhere.
Jaden's proven he's ready for the NBA because of his limited minutes? Are you serious? Dude has played in 5 games and they've all been massive blowout losses (8 minutes in a 36 point loss; 7 minutes in a 23 point loss; 9 minutes in a 21 point loss; 1 minute in a 15 point loss; 12 minutes in a 18 point loss where they were down 30+ entering the 4th quarter). He's at the end of the bench and is playing the most garbage of garbage time minutes. Fan forums are excited? Awesome. Great source. I'd agree that the NBA game is more suited to his skills for a number of reasons. That said, there's a high end maturity that is required on both ends of the court to get major minutes and a lot of that comes from getting reps. For Jaden, those reps were either going to come in college or will likely at some point be in the G league. That's reality. Yep, he got his 1st round money and all of that but he needs reps to prove that he can play in the league and right now there's obviously not a lot of trust that he's ready for that.
And you're right, opinions are like assholes. I've got one of each. I'm never going to sit here and shit on a kid that is able to make life changing $$$ when it comes to getting drafted in the 1st round and achieving a lifelong dream. But let's also be honest and be real that kids all over the place make the decision to declare for the NBA Draft well before they are ready and effectively find themselves out of the league as a very young adult. Most that come into the league don't understand that that $10M that they make on that rookie contract is far less than that when you account for taxes (substantial when factoring in both federal and state taxes ... let's conservatively say that that's going to be in the $4M range) and then you're also going to be paying $$$ out to your agent ... so let's assume that that's in the neighborhood of 3% of his contract and that takes that $10M down another $300K. So after taxes and everything Jaden's looking at let's say $5.5 to $6M remaining. If he's got the right people around them they'd tell him to put that in the bank, accumulate off of it, and keep that effectively untouched so that he can live off of it should his career effectively end at some point. Instead, in many cases, the wrong people are around, investment decisions aren't solid, the $$$ gets spent too quickly in quantities that would suggest that that earning level is continuing indefinitely, and before you know it the $$$ is gone. I hope he's got the right people around him and he's being smart with his contract. But the above reasons are why I'm always a very, very big proponent to any young player about making sure that you're well positioned going into the league that at minimum you should be able to step in as a rotation player and have a path forward to having a realistic reason to secure that 2nd contract. If not, my advice is to always stay in school if you can afford to (obviously understand that family situations vary) and assuming that there are skills that you can continue to develop while in school.
But let's be clear, just because a player says he's ready to go to the NBA doesn't mean that that's the truth at all. You can have that opinion while hoping that someone has success. There's always a balance to be had when it comes to evaluating short-term and long-term horizons.
The last 18 months have really exposed a number of issues with Hop. The academic issue of Quade are really strange when you think about it. There's really no excuse for that taking place with the resources that UW has in the academic area. While there's definitely some egg on Hop for that, there's got to be a ton of accountability put on Quade for not doing his work. Both deserve some significant eye raising. The Naz situation really raises a lot of eyebrows from me. I'll admit that I haven't gone too far down the timeline of who knew what and when but it definitely feels as if there was some burying of the news until you couldn't bury it anymore. In contrast, if you think about how Pete would have handled that situation with the football program you'd expect that any claim with merit would have been met with some kind of removal from the team pending the investigation/outcome. Generally speaking, the surest way to get fired at UW isn't because you're a shitty coach but because you have institutional control issues that will make the University of Washington look bad. Only thing that I can think of is that you're not hearing a lot about this stuff because it's being leveraged as part of the reasoning for firing Hop after this year and doing so with some form of cause to reduce the buyout. This stuff is normally raw meat for the Seattle Times to make the UW look bad.
Quade's suspension torpedoed the team. I will contend that at worst with Quade that UW was a .500 conference team last year. The end result was playing players that weren't capable of playing at the P12 level and asking players to do things that they weren't capable of doing. I've said it elsewhere so I'm not going to belabor but I don't think Jaden per se was singled out by refs. I do think that as he got a reputation for doing stupid shit that led to T's, it put a target on him for officials to look out for. But by and large, I didn't see a lot where I thought that the calls weren't earned or were unfair. Your last part about Freshman needing time to adapt to the college game is definitely true. I think what you really saw from Jaden last year was that he was really a 2-3 year college player instead of a 1 and done. The pressure he put on himself to live up to what I believe to be a predetermined expectation of being a 1 and done led to a lot of his struggles and compounding effect as things went south.
I'm not really going to opine on whether or not Cohen promised LoRo anything other than to say that LoRo missed the NCAA Tournament 6 straight years and had a record at or below .500 in the PAC 12 for 5 straight years. Moreover, as an outside observer, it was very clear that he was feeling the heat and started making staffing, etc. decisions to increase recruiting results that in the past that he had been very vocal about calling out as unethical at best. That more than anything led me into being firmly in the enough was enough category.
As for the decisions to hire Hopkins, I think this is a trend that Jen has in that she's more about making a quick hire than going through a search. It's a dangerous game that can have really negative outcomes. You've mentioned previously Hop's zone and kids not wanting to play that. There's probably some truth to it although the reality is that even in the NBA there's a lot of zone concepts mixed into a man scheme so everything is ultimately a blend. The bigger reality is that the pure zone that Hop and Syracuse play is a terrible match for today's skill set as kids have grown up watching guys like Steph shoot and that skill set is much better than it used to be. To combat that, Hop's zone has extended out and around the 3 point line which effectively opens up everything in the 2 point area. The zone still works great against teams that can't pass or shoot at a decent level ... but against anybody that can do that, they tear UW up. Offensively, Hop's messed up because at the core of his defensive philosophy often comes to recruiting players that fit the defense first and the end result is just not enough guys that have the required offensive skill set to succeed in the way the game is played today. If you have a good passing/shooting team surrounding Stewart last year, you'd be almost impossible to beat because few if any could defend him on the interior 1 on 1. Instead, the lack of shooters made it too easy to sag and collapse.
Jen's got a lot of work to do to unbury this situation and how much the Tyee boosters are willing to pony up to rectify the mistake is huge. My guess is that neither really want to admit their mistake and will go another year unless the scandal issues force the hand of upper campus to come in and take control.
They donated enough to get their name on a stupid tunnel at the football stadium and now strictly support the softball and football team. They are far from alone in this matter among the Tyee members.
Unfortunately, the issue with many rich people like my parents and other tyee members is they don’t like to admit when they are wrong. Power and money breed ego and stubbornness. So all those that ponied up for Hopkins won’t go down without a fight regardless of how bad things get.
The feeling at this moment is he gets one more year. This might chanhe if we end up going 2-20 though
I'm not sure that I see Jen making 2 moves in the same year ...
Wynn's the easier of the 2 to buyout from a hold your nose and buy it out ... and she's got her fair share of issues in that program as well.
I could see Jen not realizing how bad the situation with Hop really is and kind of getting caught with her pants down when she realizes the bottom is completely gone with Hop next year.
Jen knows exactly how bad it is.
Look, I stated right off the top that I'm just a dumb fan when it comes to basketball. Played a ton of VERY low level pick-up ball decades ago (mostly just me and my brother going at it in the driveway), but never anything organized. I'm the first to admit I don't have a very nuanced opinion, just basic shit that any idiot can observe. Basic shit such as:
1.) I wanted to stab my eyes out every time I had the "pleasure" of watching a LoRo-coached inbounds play. And let's not pretend his offense was some kind of brilliant thing, either. Better than Hopkins, sure, but Sark>Ty.
2.) I didn't enjoy seeing LoRo do shady and pathetic shit like bringing a crappy assistant onto the payroll in order to secure the services of his sons on the team.
3.) I could not figure out how a team could go 2-16 in conference with one of the best college basketball players I've ever watched at point (Fultz lived up to his billing). Hopkins comes in, takes a 2-16 team minus the first overall draft pick but with the addition of a pair of 4-star freshmen guards, and goes 10-8 and beats Kansas, winning conference coach of the year.
It's that last point that has me confused and motivated me to post in this thread. On the surface, that sounds like a pretty damned good coaching job by Hop, but now it's all gone to shit and I didn't get why.
Again, I don't understand the rosy picture being painted of the later LoRo years. Better than current Hopkins? Well fuck yeah, no shit! Anything's better than winless. But it's not like Romar's teams weren't also painful to watch. Looked like completely undisciplined, uncoached ratball. I still have no problem with firing Romar and only regret (with the benefit of hindsight) what we got in return. I'm not some Hopkins supperer--far from it: He should be shitcanned immediately for the nosedive we're seeing. And you make a good point about the off-court failures, which just adds to my feeling that he should be shitcanned. But Hopkins spectacularly flaming out doesn't suddenly make Romar amazing. It's possible for them to both suck.
As for McDaniels, sure seems like it's you who's interested in revisionist history. I was here in many of the game threads to read the collective disappointment at his performance. Hell, BTP's butthole is still a mile wide with how badly he got his shit pushed in on this forum over his prediction of McDaniels being Kevin Durant 2.0 and the team making the Final Four. Being second on the team in assists isn't that impressive when the team is 5-13. And I remember his amazing ball-handling skills for somebody 6'10", but I also remember him losing the ball a lot while trying to use them, hence the hate in the game threads. Whatever; I wasn't trying to trash the guy and I wish him well in the NBA, just saying that his benching never seemed undeserved to me at the time. From the outside looking in, the team wasn't playing well together, and he sure looked like a catalyst for that breakdown, but that's ignorant fan on the outside looking in stuff. To that end, there was a post in the Wam about the team being pissed that Hopkins called out the whole team for fouling too much in an effort to avoid singling out McDaniels (same post that mentioned the Timmins jersey fiasco). That sounds the opposite of throwing McDaniels under the bus.
Whatever. Anti-McDaniels conspiracy or not, Hopkins sucks, has lost the team, can't recruit, and he needs to go. Doesn't make me miss Romar. Or All-American/Final-Four/Kevin-Durant-2.0 McDaniels.
Nothing's changed here.
I've attended almost every home game since 2003, and found people who couldn't read Romar's offense weren't very imaginative. Romar's offense thrives with a decent to good stretch post or four. Mike Jensen and Darnell Gant are the best examples. This ultimately drew defenders out and opened up lanes. It's why guys like Nate, IT, BRoy, Wroten, were common on the free throw line. Romar ran into issues with his defense, especially when there was an emphasis made on physical defending. His best teams were usually the best defenders. Romar made a lot of mistakes as well, especially in recruiting, but it did appear he was getting his groove back. I noted earlier it wouldn't surprise me if Pepperdine were to beat this team. As for the year with Fultz, that team originally was to have Chris and Murray on it. Both were top 100 guys, maybe even top 50 but no one thought they'd be first round draft picks leading into the season. Those guys with Fultz and you have the makings for a great team.
I'll argue to my death the Wroten year, the team should have been in the tourney. No way that team would have been the 9th best team in the big east, 4th in the WCC, or 5th in the MWC. One free throw Wroten, just one.
If I were AD I'd take a strong look at Scott Nagy.
LoRo did nothing shady by hiring Michael Porter Sr it was all done within NCAA rules and regulations. LoRo was the Porter brothers Godfather as well. USC hired the Mobley brother's father on their staff. Kansas hired Danny Manny's father who was driving trucks back in the day. And there are many more examples of this that you can look up on your own accord. Want to be a big time program them you have to swim with the sharks if not then hire Mike Hopkins and swim with the guppies. That being posted both Mike Hopkins and Dave Rice have sons on the current UW MBB roster who wouldn't be there if their daddies weren't coaches. Dave Rice's son transferred in from another University when his dad was hired. Dave Rice's brother is a HS coach at a top Las Vegas high school which is why he most likely a big reason why he got an assistant coaching job at the UW as well.
You couldn't figure out how a team could go 2-16 in PAC-12 play? Perhaps, because it was a very young team with one of the youngest rosters in the NCAA at the time. Plus, Markelle Fultz missed plenty of games not to mention that LoRo expected both Dejounte Murray and Marquesse Chriss to be on that team but they unexpectedly left for the NBA after solid Freshman season that caught NBA scouts eyes. Mike Hopkins came in right when LoRo players (Green, Crisp, Dickerson, Thybulle) where maturing into Juniors then Seniors. Plus, they had a collective chip on their shoulders to prove that they weren't the reason that LoRo was fired. That's how. Plus, another LoRo recruit- Jaylen Nowell, led the offense.
What has Mike Hopkins done with his own players that he recruited to play in his system? Mike Hopkins couldn't even properly put together nor monitor a roster in order to have a back up point guard ready to take over for Quade Green who Mike Hopkins knew was in academic jeopardy weeks before he was suspended from the team. His tried Jamal Bey at at point then used Marcus Tsohonis who has to burn his redshirt season at point but Tsohonis is more of a combo guard. Elijah Hardy, a Mike Hopkins recruit who has since transferred, was on the roster at the time and had a season of experience playing in the program but was not given an opportunity until late in the season to get into the rotation sans Green.
The fact is when Jaden was benched the team still played bad. And Jaden was starting the second half of many games which made his benching befuddling in the first place. It was Mike Hopkins trying to show the UW powers that be (Jen Hopkins, Tyee Club, ticket buying fans) that he was in control of the program by scapegoating Jaden. And that's how many in the Seattle basketball community saw it as well. Because of that action Mike Hopkins won't be getting any Rotary AAU players to commit to the UW word to Nolan Hickman, Paolo Banchero & Shane Nowell. Four seasons into Mike Hopkins tenure at the UW and his program is not one that HS recruits with better options want to play for especially Sea-Tac area HS recruits. And it has nothing to do with Will Conroy's recruiting ability. Can't recruit the top local players to a program where the players don't want to play.
Jen Cohen plus some Tyee Club boosters brought this Syracuse West nightmare to Montlake and they need to own it instead of acting like their ish don't stink... Conduct a proper coaching search not a fast food one that makes you throw up four years after the fact. The sooner Mike Hopkins is fired the better but word on the street is that he will get at least another season and the UW MBB assistant coaches may be purged instead. Time will tell.
For those who may not know Quade was born 80% deaf, didn't speak for the first few years of his life, had a stuttering problem as a kid, has auditory hearing implants in both ears, and overcame a learning disability as a kid. Quade is doing just fine this season staying eligible so he must be getting the help that he needed last season this season. That being said Quade could have easily dropped out of school but instead faced and overcame his academic issues which speaks volumes to his character.
Jen Cohen did promise LoRo that he would have the upcoming season to coach out then his job status would be evaluated after the completion of the season. Jen Cohen signed off on the Michael Porter Sr hire as well. My best guess is that some wealthy influential Tyee Club boosters didn't want LoRo to have that potential chance to succeed which would mean that he would be around longer so they persuaded Jen Cohen to fire (buyout) LoRo and then hire Mike Hopkins two days after the fact.
The UW MBB program is dying under Mike Hopkins' leadership. Even in LoRo's worst seasons top HS recruits still wanted to play for the program and that should speak volumes in comparing the two coaches before and after the fact. LoRo was all class and had life long connections throughout the American basketball community. Many parents trusted LoRo enough to send their sons to play for him at the UW despite the UW's less than stellar seasons. Mike Hopkins not so much.
As for LoRo, it’s hard for me to feel too much sympathy given 6 straight non NCAA years and 5 straight years at .500 or worse in conference. There’s nothing against the Porter hiring that is against the rules. The issue with the Porter hiring is that for years LoRo talked about how that was something he’d never do and only when his job was on the line did he cave on the topic.
As for Quade, I have the utmost respect for him staying in school. And to be clear, from the outside you don’t know everything. My point was simply that there are significant resources available at UW for athletes tied to academics, so wherever the breakdown was should have been headed off initially.