Is there anything worse... Topic

...than leaving a program you built painstakingly over many seasons and watching it go to hell?
3/20/2013 2:18 PM
There's a starving kid in Africa who might have some ideas.
3/20/2013 2:28 PM
I once left a D3 program because I thought they'd be rebuilding.  The new coach went 31-4 and was national RU
3/20/2013 2:34 PM
I've seen 2 of my former schools win championships within 2 seasons after I left. I figure I must make them better by not being there :)

ETA: One of those 2 teams just won it again. Its the new coach's 4th season, so I can't claim a lot of credit, and only 1 of my recruits remained on the roster, but that recruit did average 23 ppg (28.5 in the tourney) and was the NPOY... same coach won it all 2 seasons ago. That team had 6 of my guys on it (including of course this latest NPOY kid) - a different one of my kids was NPOY that season... I really kick myself for leaving that team... then again, its obvious the new coach knows what he's doing, so there's probably truth in my theory of addition by subtraction (me) 

3/21/2013 10:47 AM (edited)
alblack56,

When I took over at UMD in Smith, I knew the team would be good and I had a great recruiting season my first year, too. The team was national RU (could have easily won the NT) and during the run up to the final four the previous coach posted in the conference standings something like "if you win the national title I'm taking some of the credit."

I came one game from winning it all, which is sad because I'm a solid coach but not a great one and I may not get another chance.
3/21/2013 2:23 PM
my old DII squad was a beast for 2-3 seasons after I left with my recruits. NT champ I think too.
3/21/2013 2:34 PM
after ghost shipping UK and texas a&m in the same season (i meant to leave but missed the cutoff and didnt realize you could send a ticket, i also didnt realize that was the ONLY way to leave, i assumed there was a way and it was just too late) - and some people (DAC) gave me **** for leaving - but the new coaches won promptly, within like 4 seasons at each school, so that made me feel better, sort of cleared my name. i left them both with good prestige and a good albeit small core, so it wasnt nearly as bad as some people (DAC) made it out to be ;)

i sort of did the same thing at tulsa in cusa rupp, at the same general time - didnt mean to stay but i did, but i did recruit for them, unlike the others - which probably made them worse. would have been better to just leave a lot of openings. but im not sure how that school did, like, if the new coach (tianyi i think) was able to get them going straight away, or if i royally screwed them up for a few seasons there. there were like a borderline NT team a couple seasons but i just was at my all-time low levels of caring and effort
3/21/2013 3:05 PM
Posted by coach_billyg on 3/21/2013 3:07:00 PM (view original):
after ghost shipping UK and texas a&m in the same season (i meant to leave but missed the cutoff and didnt realize you could send a ticket, i also didnt realize that was the ONLY way to leave, i assumed there was a way and it was just too late) - and some people (DAC) gave me **** for leaving - but the new coaches won promptly, within like 4 seasons at each school, so that made me feel better, sort of cleared my name. i left them both with good prestige and a good albeit small core, so it wasnt nearly as bad as some people (DAC) made it out to be ;)

i sort of did the same thing at tulsa in cusa rupp, at the same general time - didnt mean to stay but i did, but i did recruit for them, unlike the others - which probably made them worse. would have been better to just leave a lot of openings. but im not sure how that school did, like, if the new coach (tianyi i think) was able to get them going straight away, or if i royally screwed them up for a few seasons there. there were like a borderline NT team a couple seasons but i just was at my all-time low levels of caring and effort
heh...guilty as charged. 

Tulsa went sim for a season then tianyi came in (he wasn't qualified the first season I think). Tulsa was at a C- by then. Basically became like most other rebuilds I think - he made the NT first time in his 4th season and has stayed there since.

In my defense, I was in the CUSA at the time as well as the SEC so I got double whammied :)  Didn't really seem to hurt UK though since ard won the NT a couple seasons later and even with the ghosted 1-26 prestige only dropped to an A. 
3/21/2013 4:14 PM
I made the NT the 3rd season...E8 the 4th...
3/21/2013 4:36 PM
Posted by ryrun on 3/20/2013 2:28:00 PM (view original):
There's a starving kid in Africa who might have some ideas.
What does some kid in Africa know about HD?

Yeah, I know.  I was just being as literal as the post I am replying to.

3/21/2013 10:31 PM
Posted by tianyi7886 on 3/21/2013 4:36:00 PM (view original):
I made the NT the 3rd season...E8 the 4th...
my bad 
3/22/2013 2:14 AM
Worse? Watching them bench some of your superior players so their freshman can start.
3/24/2013 1:56 PM
So this isn't quite so bad as those, but it is more of a practical frustration: 

Scheduling an above average Sim with 10-12 players returning that you expect to rack up a strong 20+ wins and boost your RPI. Only to see them get taken over by a new coach who has no clue what he's doing (or a veteran coach who just slashes the roster to bring in his own guys) and end up putting a 10-17, RPI 200+ team on your schedule. 

Good human coaches are obviously better than good Sims, but for the last couple teams on my non-conference schedule, I'll take a Sim over a mediocre human, thank you very much. 
3/24/2013 4:46 PM
I couldn't disagree more there tarvolon.

I have yet to see a "good" sim.  They are fill ins at best.  When they have a good season, it's because the pieces fell together for them, not because they did anything differently than the last place sim coach did.  Give me a human any day (with the few rare exceptions).

Although there's no official definition of "mediocre human" I looked at the D1 standings in Smith based on the NT Projection report and of the 162 teams in the bottom half, there are 18 humans.  Of those 18 humans, 15 of them have been at their school less than 2 years.  Pretty good indicator that a human of ANY ability is going to be better than a sim coach.

I won't disagree that a human coach can come in and make long term decisions that may not lead to as much short term success but that's certainly an unusual situation compared to the number of times a human coach will do better.
 

3/24/2013 5:39 PM
I'm not talking about for success for a program though, I'm talking about short-term success that the projection report will see as a quality win. 

I don't mean to say sims are good coaches. I mean to say Sims are predictable. If a Sim goes 20-7 and returns 12 players, you can expect them to put up another good record. If a human coach takes them over, who knows. 
3/24/2013 5:46 PM
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