At least from my perspective, the term “rat ball” has been tied to disorganized random play that has each of the players seemingly doing their own things.
While I would agree that it’s not the most flattering of terms (I tend to call disorganized teams “roll the ball out” in describing actual teams) I have never seen the term used in a manner that is racially motivated. Now, if we’re talking about using it to describe either players or pickup games that suck and aren’t worth the time playing in? Yep ... that’s an accurate application.
Reality is that regardless of offense run, if you don’t have the players you’re going to suck regardless.
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.
So you are saying that Romar couldn’t adapt his offense to the players on his team?
I agree
Coaches don’t always get the recruits they want so they must switch up some offensive and defensive philosophies in order to maximize the talents of their team.
Romar failed to do that his last few years and Hopkins is looks like a retard trying to learn physics
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.
The major difference is that those teams that you mentioned above were among the youngest teams in the entire NCAA.
The potential Porter team had a solid cast of upperclassmen (Dickerson, Crisp, Green, Thybulle) leading it while Michael Porter Jr, Jaylen Nowell, Daejon Davis, Blake Harris, Mamoudou Diarra would just have to fit in and play while not worrying about leading the team. As well as, Jontay Porter reclassified and would have been added to that 2017 UW basketball recruiting class.
Also, LoRo had his recruiting and roster set up in such a manner that he would have experienced upperclassmen leading the team for the near future which would help to alleviate the loss of any potential one and done recruits before it was all taken away from him.
Now, Mike Hopkins finds himself if the very same predicament that led some very influential Tyee Club boosters to call for LoRo to be fired while being paid more money per season than LoRo was to led the UW MBB program. More money, more problems...from first to worst to worst.
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.
LoRo was the Godfather to the Porter kids...a fact that is often overlooked by those people who try to throw dirt on LoRo for hiring Michael Porter Sr which Jen Cohen signed off on. They were, are family.
LoRo, who is allowed to change his mind, recognized that if you want to swim with the sharks you have to be a shark can't be a Guppie or you will get eaten up. Use every means within the NCAA guidelines to improve your program and compete.
Both Mike Hopkins and Dave Rice currently have sons on the UW roster who wouldn't be there if their daddies weren't coaches.
Btw- the term 'rat ball' is used to describe African-American basketball players just as the term 'street ball' is by people criticizing their on court play from my experience...
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.
So you are saying that Romar couldn’t adapt his offense to the players on his team?
I agree
Coaches don’t always get the recruits they want so they must switch up some offensive and defensive philosophies in order to maximize the talents of their team.
Romar failed to do that his last few years and Hopkins is looks like a retard trying to learn physics
I feel the biggest mistake Romar made was the Aaron Gordon class. He put all his eggs in that class, the buzz were all those west coast kids were coming to UW, then poof, nothing. Romar had some bad luck, and I also feel Romar's attempt at a high post offense was not ideal (would have worked great with the Spencer Hawes Jon Brockman team). Romar talked about cool jackets a lot and I feel he got caught with his own. Really things were looking up. The other guy I think they truly missed on was Tyrese Breshers. I kind of thought of him as a more athletic Jamal Williams. Ultimately my opinion is Dejounte and Criss leaving early were the death nail.
At least from my perspective, the term “rat ball” has been tied to disorganized random play that has each of the players seemingly doing their own things.
While I would agree that it’s not the most flattering of terms (I tend to call disorganized teams “roll the ball out” in describing actual teams) I have never seen the term used in a manner that is racially motivated. Now, if we’re talking about using it to describe either players or pickup games that suck and aren’t worth the time playing in? Yep ... that’s an accurate application.
Reality is that regardless of offense run, if you don’t have the players you’re going to suck regardless.
Literally everyone I've heard use 'rat ball' or 'roll the ball out' were white, and Gonzaga fans. It's kind of funny because that's what Gonzaga does in the WCC on almost a nightly basis. I've never heard a decent player once say either. Agreed on the right players.
At least from my perspective, the term “rat ball” has been tied to disorganized random play that has each of the players seemingly doing their own things.
While I would agree that it’s not the most flattering of terms (I tend to call disorganized teams “roll the ball out” in describing actual teams) I have never seen the term used in a manner that is racially motivated. Now, if we’re talking about using it to describe either players or pickup games that suck and aren’t worth the time playing in? Yep ... that’s an accurate application.
Reality is that regardless of offense run, if you don’t have the players you’re going to suck regardless.
Literally everyone I've heard use 'rat ball' or 'roll the ball out' were white, and Gonzaga fans. It's kind of funny because that's what Gonzaga does in the WCC on almost a nightly basis. I've never heard a decent player once say either. Agreed on the right players.
Seriously? I'm at Hardcore Husky, so of course I'm white. I used the term "rat ball" because I read it right here on this very forum to describe Romar's offensive strategy. What in the actual fuck does that have to do with race? I'm no basketball strategist--as pointed out twice now--but I know when I'm watching a bunch of retards trying to fuck a doorknob--call it whatever you want if you don't want to be triggered. I've watched like three Gonzaga games because the Huskies tend to play them. What's that got to do with anything?
Let my try and sum up what I'm reading from one or two in this thread: Hopkins is a disaster and should be fired, which makes Romar totally awesome. Sure, Romar missed the tourney six straight years, lost 16 conference games with the #1 overall pick at point (and playing like it), but that's excusable because reasons. Romar hiring an unqualified assistant because his kids are good at basketball is excusable because they're his godsons (what member of this forum didn't know that?), other schools do it to, and our kindergarten teachers were all full of shit when they pointed out that multiple wrongs don't make a right.
Throughout this whole thread I've been struggling to understand why it's so impossible that BOTH of them could suck and needed/need to be fired. Romar>Hopkins is the new Sark>Ty.
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.
LoRo was the Godfather to the Porter kids...a fact that is often overlooked by those people who try to throw dirt on LoRo for hiring Michael Porter Sr which Jen Cohen signed off on. They were, are family.
LoRo, who is allowed to change his mind, recognized that if you want to swim with the sharks you have to be a shark can't be a Guppie or you will get eaten up. Use every means within the NCAA guidelines to improve your program and compete.
Both Mike Hopkins and Dave Rice currently have sons on the UW roster who wouldn't be there if their daddies weren't coaches.
Btw- the term 'rat ball' is used to describe African-American basketball players just as the term 'street ball' is by people criticizing their on court play from my experience...
How is LoRo being the godfather to the Porter’s relevant at all? I’m not saying that I’m against the notion at all (the NCAA is a messy business and anybody that thinks football is dirty would be shocked at how dirty basketball is ... it makes football look like child’s play) ... I’m saying LoRo was and used that logic as a talking point when it came to explaining not getting a certain player (see James Harden) or results. So if you want me to buy that logic, then you can’t switch course and then not have me hold you to results.
The sons for Hopkins and Rice are walk ons to the best of my understanding ... if they had scholarships it’d be nepotism at its finest
I’m not going to say that you’re experiences aren’t valid because I can’t speak to that ... but at least as a UW student that was NEVER in the vernacular when it came to any African American players. The term would have been used to describe the B (or lower) games and largely reflections on athletic ability.
How is LoRo being the godfather to the Porter’s relevant at all? I’m not saying that I’m against the notion at all (the NCAA is a messy business and anybody that thinks football is dirty would be shocked at how dirty basketball is ... it makes football look like child’s play) ... I’m saying LoRo was and used that logic as a talking point when it came to explaining not getting a certain player (see James Harden) or results. So if you want me to buy that logic, then you can’t switch course and then not have me hold you to results.
The sons for Hopkins and Rice are walk ons to the best of my understanding ... if they had scholarships it’d be nepotism at its finest
I’m not going to say that you’re experiences aren’t valid because I can’t speak to that ... but at least as a UW student that was NEVER in the vernacular when it came to any African American players. The term would have been used to describe the B (or lower) games and largely reflections on athletic ability.
Both NCAA football and basketball are dirty. I don't know how one would quantify one being dirty than the other as they both have coaches, programs, boosters who use unscrupulous measures to secure recruits and there are far more players recruited onto a football team than onto a basketball team.
They both (Mike Hopkins' & Dave Rice's sons) were able to walk on at the UW because their daddies are the head and assistant coaches- that's nepotism right there. If they were more talented then they would have received a scholarship. Like I posted before Dave Rice's son transferred from another University into the UW when his dad became a UW assistant basketball coach. Being a walk on makes it somehow ok compared to the Porter brothers situation, huh?
Urban Dictionary was founded by a Caucasian guy Aaron Peckham. Every time I hear the term 'rat ball' it is used in a negative way to describe African American basketball players especially on the AAU and NCAA levels.
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.
Unlike the men's basketball program the women's basketball program has a highly touted top 25 (16th) ranked recruiting class coming to Montlake for 2021-22 season. They have something to build upon for the future.
While Mike Hopkins can't even get local UW legacy HS recruits to commit to the UW but at least he has Scoonie Penn's son who enrolled early...and Jackson Grant from Olympia HS who if he's watching this season's team play may just reconsider his UW commitment.
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.
Shut the fuck up. Romar sucks and Hopkins sucks far worse than anyone could have ever imagined. No additional analysis needed.
At least from my perspective, the term “rat ball” has been tied to disorganized random play that has each of the players seemingly doing their own things.
While I would agree that it’s not the most flattering of terms (I tend to call disorganized teams “roll the ball out” in describing actual teams) I have never seen the term used in a manner that is racially motivated. Now, if we’re talking about using it to describe either players or pickup games that suck and aren’t worth the time playing in? Yep ... that’s an accurate application.
Reality is that regardless of offense run, if you don’t have the players you’re going to suck regardless.
Literally everyone I've heard use 'rat ball' or 'roll the ball out' were white, and Gonzaga fans. It's kind of funny because that's what Gonzaga does in the WCC on almost a nightly basis. I've never heard a decent player once say either. Agreed on the right players.
Gonzaga does play a ton of free form (rat ball for the white boyz out there). They have their secondary break and usually run a ball screen/dribble hand off then pop a guy to the 3.
From there on, it's a free for all. High talent plus high basketball IQ allows them to do that. Few didn't always used to be that way. He's figured out less is more. They still run crazy good stuff out of timeouts but that's not their style at all.
Shut the fuck up. Romar sucks and Hopkins sucks far worse than anyone could have ever imagined. No additional analysis needed.
Funny how some cowardly people talk with embolden internet courage while safely hidden behind a keyboard and computer screen because I know for a certified fact that you would not say that to my face.
Shut the fuck up. Romar sucks and Hopkins sucks far worse than anyone could have ever imagined. No additional analysis needed.
Funny how some cowardly people talk with embolden internet courage while safely hidden behind a keyboard and computer screen because I know for a certified fact that you would not say that to my face.
To rephrase, it’s easier to see it getting much worse.
Meanwhile, the question framing the Huskies’ season has changed. At first, when they got blown out both by powerhouse Baylor and middling Big West squad UC Riverside, followed shortly by an ignominious loss to Montana of the Big Sky, the apt query was: “Can Mike Hopkins figure out a way to turn this around?”
But now, as the blowouts mount, with no end in sight, a new question must be asked: “Can Hopkins survive this debacle?”
He might, indeed, but not necessarily by virtue of merit. The Huskies are in the process of one of the worst seasons not just in school history, but conference history. They stand 1-10 as I write this, with an almost certain defeat coming Saturday against Pac-12-leading UCLA. Their lone win was over Seattle University, which has been followed by seven consecutive losses. The previous worst Husky season, the lamentable 5-22 mark in Bob Bender’s first season as coach in 1993-94, is in real danger of being surpassed.
That’s the clinical summation, but it’s actually worse than that. Seven of the Huskies’ 10 defeats have been by 10 points or more, four by 20 points or more, and one by 34 (to No. 2 Baylor). They have given up 80 points or more in five consecutive games — an indictment of a coach who built his reputation as a practitioner of Jim Boeheim’s diabolical Syracuse zone defense.
If you need further evidence of that fact, consider that they rank 321st in the country (out of 338 Division I schools) in defensive rebounds per game (22.55), 330th in rebounding margin (minus-9 per game), 318th in assist/turnover ratio, 286th in scoring defense (76.5 points allowed per game), 307th in scoring offense (63.7) and 320th in scoring margin (minus-12).
The Huskies sit 228th in the country in RPI (right behind 0-6 Alcorn State), 158th in ESPN’s College Basketball Power Index (right behind Montana, which is 2-3 in the Big Sky), 154th in the Sagarin Rankings and 147th in the Pomeroy Rankings.
They are, to put it bluntly, one of the very worst basketball teams in the country this season, by any measure. But this is a case where your eyes tell the story most succinctly. They look woefully overmatched in every aspect of the game, almost every time on the court.
Hopkins certainly earned some patience with his first two seasons at Washington, which resulted in a pair of Pac-12 Coach of the Year awards. But that reservoir of goodwill is evaporating rapidly — which is painful to say about a stand-up guy who once seemed to have an unlimited future in Hec-Ed.
In fact, the burning question that fans fretted over early in his tenure was whether Hopkins would be lured back to his alma mater, Syracuse, when his mentor Boeheim — now 76 — finally retires. Hopkins, after all, was once the officially designated coach-in-waiting at Syracuse, until Husky athletic director Jen Cohen brought him to Washington mere days after firing Lorenzo Romar.
Romar got the boot after a 9-22 season — a record that this version of the Huskies would no doubt eagerly settle for. Romar, in turn, got the job after Bender was fired following an 11-18 season in 2001-02, and Romar produced six NCAA tournament appearances — but none in his final six years.
Cohen had to wrestle with whether the rut the Husky program had fallen into under Romar justified paying the $3.2 million buyout of his contract. She ultimately decided affirmatively.
But the question facing her now is more daunting. Partly to ensure that Hopkins wouldn’t bolt to Syracuse or anywhere else, Cohen locked up Hopkins with a six-year, $17.5 million extension in March 2019 while the Huskies were in Columbus, Ohio, to play Utah State in their first NCAA tournament game in eight years. (They won, but were ousted in the second round by North Carolina.)
It was a halcyon time for Hopkins, who had led the Huskies to the Pac-12 regular-season title with little foreshadowing of the troubles to come. Since starting last season 10-2 behind two future first-round draft picks, Jaden McDaniels and Isaiah Stewart, the Huskies have gone 6-25. And with just one prominent recruit committed for next year — four-star center Jackson Grant of Olympia — the prospects for a rapid revival are not robust.
But once this season ends, a guaranteed $12.2 million of Hopkins’ reworked contract will remain. A buyout of that magnitude would be an extremely tough sell in this economic climate, with the COVID-19 pandemic wreaking havoc on athletic-department budgets, including Washington’s.
So, yes, I expect Hopkins to survive this season. He would then have an opportunity to figure out how to make the program thrive again, as it did when he when took Romar holdovers such as Matisse Thybulle, Noah Dickerson and David Crisp, added prized recruit Jaylen Nowell and transformed the Huskies into a cohesive, dangerous squad.
But even if Hopkins does survive the misery of 2020-21, that introduces a new question: If things don’t turn around, how much longer?
Shut the fuck up. Romar sucks and Hopkins sucks far worse than anyone could have ever imagined. No additional analysis needed.
Funny how some cowardly people talk with embolden internet courage while safely hidden behind a keyboard and computer screen because I know for a certified fact that you would not say that to my face.
Comments
At least from my perspective, the term “rat ball” has been tied to disorganized random play that has each of the players seemingly doing their own things.
While I would agree that it’s not the most flattering of terms (I tend to call disorganized teams “roll the ball out” in describing actual teams) I have never seen the term used in a manner that is racially motivated. Now, if we’re talking about using it to describe either players or pickup games that suck and aren’t worth the time playing in? Yep ... that’s an accurate application.
Reality is that regardless of offense run, if you don’t have the players you’re going to suck regardless.
It has nothing to do with the talent level we have right now and the free fall this team is in.
Even if Quade doesn’t get suspended and we win 20 games last year we still suck donkey balls this year and god knows what we will suck next year
Hopkins has fucking neutered this program
There are no excuses. There is no debate
The potential Porter team had a solid cast of upperclassmen (Dickerson, Crisp, Green, Thybulle) leading it while Michael Porter Jr, Jaylen Nowell, Daejon Davis, Blake Harris, Mamoudou Diarra would just have to fit in and play while not worrying about leading the team. As well as, Jontay Porter reclassified and would have been added to that 2017 UW basketball recruiting class.
Also, LoRo had his recruiting and roster set up in such a manner that he would have experienced upperclassmen leading the team for the near future which would help to alleviate the loss of any potential one and done recruits before it was all taken away from him.
Now, Mike Hopkins finds himself if the very same predicament that led some very influential Tyee Club boosters to call for LoRo to be fired while being paid more money per season than LoRo was to led the UW MBB program. More money, more problems...from first to worst to worst.
And for the record I defended Romar almost to the very end. But at the end of the day you have to win games.
LoRo, who is allowed to change his mind, recognized that if you want to swim with the sharks you have to be a shark can't be a Guppie or you will get eaten up. Use every means within the NCAA guidelines to improve your program and compete.
Just look at the USC head coach who hired the Mobley brother's father to their staff https://www.cbssports.com/college-basketball/news/southern-california-hires-father-of-two-top-40-recruits-to-be-an-assistant-coach/ . Now, would those same people be upset if Mike Hopkins had hired the Mobley brother's father and had the Mobley brothers on this UW roster?
Both Mike Hopkins and Dave Rice currently have sons on the UW roster who wouldn't be there if their daddies weren't coaches.
Btw- the term 'rat ball' is used to describe African-American basketball players just as the term 'street ball' is by people criticizing their on court play from my experience...
Let my try and sum up what I'm reading from one or two in this thread: Hopkins is a disaster and should be fired, which makes Romar totally awesome. Sure, Romar missed the tourney six straight years, lost 16 conference games with the #1 overall pick at point (and playing like it), but that's excusable because reasons. Romar hiring an unqualified assistant because his kids are good at basketball is excusable because they're his godsons (what member of this forum didn't know that?), other schools do it to, and our kindergarten teachers were all full of shit when they pointed out that multiple wrongs don't make a right.
Throughout this whole thread I've been struggling to understand why it's so impossible that BOTH of them could suck and needed/need to be fired. Romar>Hopkins is the new Sark>Ty.
The sons for Hopkins and Rice are walk ons to the best of my understanding ... if they had scholarships it’d be nepotism at its finest
I’m not going to say that you’re experiences aren’t valid because I can’t speak to that ... but at least as a UW student that was NEVER in the vernacular when it came to any African American players. The term would have been used to describe the B (or lower) games and largely reflections on athletic ability.
Moreover ... per Urban Dictionary: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=ratball&=true&defid=2802054
Both NCAA football and basketball are dirty. I don't know how one would quantify one being dirty than the other as they both have coaches, programs, boosters who use unscrupulous measures to secure recruits and there are far more players recruited onto a football team than onto a basketball team.
They both (Mike Hopkins' & Dave Rice's sons) were able to walk on at the UW because their daddies are the head and assistant coaches- that's nepotism right there. If they were more talented then they would have received a scholarship. Like I posted before Dave Rice's son transferred from another University into the UW when his dad became a UW assistant basketball coach. Being a walk on makes it somehow ok compared to the Porter brothers situation, huh?
Urban Dictionary was founded by a Caucasian guy Aaron Peckham. Every time I hear the term 'rat ball' it is used in a negative way to describe African American basketball players especially on the AAU and NCAA levels.
While Mike Hopkins can't even get local UW legacy HS recruits to commit to the UW but at least he has Scoonie Penn's son who enrolled early...and Jackson Grant from Olympia HS who if he's watching this season's team play may just reconsider his UW commitment.
UW WBB 2021 HS Recruiting Class https://gohuskies.com/news/2020/11/6/huskies-sign-top-25-recruiting-class.aspx
Romar had to go
Hopkins has to go now
Good Christ just stop this fucking pointless debating.
From there on, it's a free for all. High talent plus high basketball IQ allows them to do that. Few didn't always used to be that way. He's figured out less is more. They still run crazy good stuff out of timeouts but that's not their style at all.
That said, Hop sucks.
Seattle Times https://www.seattletimes.com/sports/uw-husky-basketball/this-uw-huskies-mens-basketball-season-is-a-debacle-can-mike-hopkins-survive-it/
The Washington men’s basketball team has been hide-your-eyes hideous in 2020-21, and the scary part is that it’s hard to see it getting much better.
To rephrase, it’s easier to see it getting much worse.
Meanwhile, the question framing the Huskies’ season has changed. At first, when they got blown out both by powerhouse Baylor and middling Big West squad UC Riverside, followed shortly by an ignominious loss to Montana of the Big Sky, the apt query was: “Can Mike Hopkins figure out a way to turn this around?”
But now, as the blowouts mount, with no end in sight, a new question must be asked: “Can Hopkins survive this debacle?”
He might, indeed, but not necessarily by virtue of merit. The Huskies are in the process of one of the worst seasons not just in school history, but conference history. They stand 1-10 as I write this, with an almost certain defeat coming Saturday against Pac-12-leading UCLA. Their lone win was over Seattle University, which has been followed by seven consecutive losses. The previous worst Husky season, the lamentable 5-22 mark in Bob Bender’s first season as coach in 1993-94, is in real danger of being surpassed.
That’s the clinical summation, but it’s actually worse than that. Seven of the Huskies’ 10 defeats have been by 10 points or more, four by 20 points or more, and one by 34 (to No. 2 Baylor). They have given up 80 points or more in five consecutive games — an indictment of a coach who built his reputation as a practitioner of Jim Boeheim’s diabolical Syracuse zone defense.
If you need further evidence of that fact, consider that they rank 321st in the country (out of 338 Division I schools) in defensive rebounds per game (22.55), 330th in rebounding margin (minus-9 per game), 318th in assist/turnover ratio, 286th in scoring defense (76.5 points allowed per game), 307th in scoring offense (63.7) and 320th in scoring margin (minus-12).
The Huskies sit 228th in the country in RPI (right behind 0-6 Alcorn State), 158th in ESPN’s College Basketball Power Index (right behind Montana, which is 2-3 in the Big Sky), 154th in the Sagarin Rankings and 147th in the Pomeroy Rankings.
They are, to put it bluntly, one of the very worst basketball teams in the country this season, by any measure. But this is a case where your eyes tell the story most succinctly. They look woefully overmatched in every aspect of the game, almost every time on the court.
Hopkins certainly earned some patience with his first two seasons at Washington, which resulted in a pair of Pac-12 Coach of the Year awards. But that reservoir of goodwill is evaporating rapidly — which is painful to say about a stand-up guy who once seemed to have an unlimited future in Hec-Ed.
In fact, the burning question that fans fretted over early in his tenure was whether Hopkins would be lured back to his alma mater, Syracuse, when his mentor Boeheim — now 76 — finally retires. Hopkins, after all, was once the officially designated coach-in-waiting at Syracuse, until Husky athletic director Jen Cohen brought him to Washington mere days after firing Lorenzo Romar.
Romar got the boot after a 9-22 season — a record that this version of the Huskies would no doubt eagerly settle for. Romar, in turn, got the job after Bender was fired following an 11-18 season in 2001-02, and Romar produced six NCAA tournament appearances — but none in his final six years.
Cohen had to wrestle with whether the rut the Husky program had fallen into under Romar justified paying the $3.2 million buyout of his contract. She ultimately decided affirmatively.
But the question facing her now is more daunting. Partly to ensure that Hopkins wouldn’t bolt to Syracuse or anywhere else, Cohen locked up Hopkins with a six-year, $17.5 million extension in March 2019 while the Huskies were in Columbus, Ohio, to play Utah State in their first NCAA tournament game in eight years. (They won, but were ousted in the second round by North Carolina.)
It was a halcyon time for Hopkins, who had led the Huskies to the Pac-12 regular-season title with little foreshadowing of the troubles to come. Since starting last season 10-2 behind two future first-round draft picks, Jaden McDaniels and Isaiah Stewart, the Huskies have gone 6-25. And with just one prominent recruit committed for next year — four-star center Jackson Grant of Olympia — the prospects for a rapid revival are not robust.
But once this season ends, a guaranteed $12.2 million of Hopkins’ reworked contract will remain. A buyout of that magnitude would be an extremely tough sell in this economic climate, with the COVID-19 pandemic wreaking havoc on athletic-department budgets, including Washington’s.
So, yes, I expect Hopkins to survive this season. He would then have an opportunity to figure out how to make the program thrive again, as it did when he when took Romar holdovers such as Matisse Thybulle, Noah Dickerson and David Crisp, added prized recruit Jaylen Nowell and transformed the Huskies into a cohesive, dangerous squad.
But even if Hopkins does survive the misery of 2020-21, that introduces a new question: If things don’t turn around, how much longer?