SB Nation User Blog: CY N Spurs fan

A Thread on CF...

CY N Spurs fan — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 07:19:50 -0000

Was sent to bash Wayne Morgan, and the same group jumped on and spewed their opinions on what a worthless human being Wayne is.

I would never say that Wayne was a great coach, by any stretch of the imagination. But I find it funny that the biggest Greg McDermott, who hasn't won anything of note, supporters are the ones bashing away.

People seem to forget that NOBODY wanted the Iowa State coaching job when Wayne took over. We had been turned down by Jeff Lebo (who is struggling at Auburn), AND the guy at Wyoming, who has since been fired.

All Wayne did was get to an NIT Final Four, and the second round of the NCAA's. His last team had no experience in post, and so Stinson, and Blaylock had to try to do everything by themselves. Of course the Mac people march out what talented teams those were, as anyone can tell by all of the lottery picks, oh wait,

The thing that I find the most humorous is that we have a coach now that has NEVER won an NCAA game (he has won just a couple D 2 tourney games whoo hoo), and lost to the bad Morgan team with his best team. Add the fact that apparently NOBODY wants to play for him, once a better offer comes along, and you have a program in the condition that this one is in now. Plus the one win he had against Iowa State involved an unconscious performance from behind the arc.

Noone, let alone me, thinks that Wayne Morgan was the long term answer for the Iowa State program. But for any of the blindly loyal Dan McCarney type love that McDermott is getting, he has proved NOTHING.

As someone who remembers Lynne Nance, and that nightmare, as I sit and I watch Iowa State basketball die, it hurts a lot. Johnny, Tim, and Larry for two years made this program relevant, now we get ONE ESPN game. Good job Greg!

I am pretty sure that Jamie Pollard has a list of guys that may be the next one in. The problem is that the program may never again reach a level that we lead ESPN, like we did when WAYNE'S team went to Lawrence, and beat the number two team in the nation on their floor. Hell, I would just be happy to see Greg win ONE game that he isn't supposed to. I won't hold my breath.

When does accountability actually begin for...

CY N Spurs fan — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 19:09:33 -0000

Greg McDermott?

So the guy has been head coach at Iowa State for over three years now, and nobody seems to care.

He is currently working on yet another failed recruiting class. None of the top targets want to return his phone calls, and it looks like, YET AGAIN, we will have a staff chasing its collective tails on the recruiting trails this Spring signing another batch of leftovers.

The loyalists are still there, defending Greg with all of their might. They trot out the standard list of Iowa State excuses, the state of the program when he took over (at least partly his own doing), it takes time to do things the right way, "bad luck," and all of the like, as if they were robots, and this was their task. It's stated so many times that there are people that actually believe it, which is the scary part. There are people that think that it is impossible to win immediately by doing things "the right way." The last time I heard that it was year 12 of the Dan McCarney era, as we were staring at yet another last place finish.

Well here we are, two bad years down, and, still facing a serious talent deficit within the conference, year three doesn't show a lot of promise. Losing your best player, one of the three athletes that you had on the team, players leaving is yet another recurring theme that the blindly loyal still try to excuse. Jamie Pollard was none too pleased that he had to take over the Wesley Johnson transfer situation because he had to protect his coach from the family telling their side of the story.

So you assume that this year will be yet another of what we have seen the first two years; a fundamentally poor, boring, poor rebounding team that is completely overcoached to the point that they stand around not knowing what to do, then
what happens after this season?

Obviously Pollard will have a hard time pulling the trigger on this one, because that was his first hire after he ran off a coach that went to the NIT Final Four, and the second round of the NCAA Tournament seemingly due to a personality conflict. At that time, Jamie stated that ISU was a basketball school, now nobody cares about us (one ESPN game this year speaks LOUDLY to that fact).

But if this team tanks yet again, his hand may be forced. Season ticket sales are down, because fewer and fewer people want to watch this product.

Then you look at the recruitment of the most important player in Iowa State history, Harrison Barnes. Does anyone honestly think that he is even thinking about us anymore? But, Greg's future is directly related to getting him to play for us.

The national perception of Greg is that, while knowledgeable, he is in over his head in a BCS conference, and it's starting to seep into the Iowa State fanbase as well. This is a coach that needs a pr boost amongst his own fans, he needs a bone to be able to throw to them, and this would be it.

If Barnes does go somewhere else, with all of the advantages that we had the whole time he was coming on, then this staff will never be taken seriously by any top player.

How can Greg fix this?

Simple, win games. Quit getting outcoached by people like Ben Jacobsen. Quit losing to Drake. Win a big game. Quit being stubborn, your way may work in at the D2 and mid-major level, but you are in an athletes conference now. Ask Barry Collier, whose resume was much more impressive than Greg's when he left Butler for Nebraska, tried the systemic, coach players up approach, and failed miserably.

Iowa State has basketball tradition. Since 1985, we have been a known program, on a national scale. So the time for excuses is over, it has been demonstrated that you can win here. It's not too late to turn this around, but Greg is going to have to show he is the man for the job. At this point, I am not convinced, at all, that he can do it, I hope I am wrong.

What losing Barnes could mean....

CY N Spurs fan — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 18:21:33 -0000

As we read more and more about the exploits of Ames Jr. Harrison Barnes on the Summer circuit, it is becoming apparent that it will be difficult for Iowa State to land his services. The implications of Barnes choosing another school are concerning to say the least.

First, this staff is already fighting a p.r. battle with the perception that he cannot keep players. When your star player, the player that you publicly stated was the face of your program, leaves the way Wesley did sets off alarms all over the recruiting front. And the way that it played out, Wesley's mother threatening to tell their side of the story, and Jamie Pollard taking control of the situation, already is being talked about in potential recruit's living rooms across the country.

However, not being able to sign Harrison, with all of the built in advantages that he had in the process will make it even more difficult to sign top players.

Think about it, if you are a player that has many offers, and you hear that, aside from the losing records and player retention problems, that this coach couldn't seal the deal on the highest rated recruit in the history of the state, who lived in his own town, whose mother worked for the university, and whose father played at the school, and played with his son, and scrimmaged with his team, and went to every game, and.........well the list goes on.........How is any top player going to take him seriously, ever again??? And what coach won't use that against us. As we have seen, in the world of the Big 12, you have to have athletes to play, the "coaching up" of players is not a path to true, meaningful success. Barry Collier, who had a much more impressive resume than Greg McDermott found that out the hard way at Nebraska.

It should be a HUGE concern for Jamie Pollard, and don't think for a second that he has already second guessed himself for the rushed hire of a largely unproven coach that was Greg McDermott.

That being said, the Big 12 will be down this year, with all of the player losses, so it is conceiveable that we can possibly get to .500 in the league. With a soft non-conference schedule, we have, there is a chance for post season play. I just hope, that if he can beat a Kansas type team, even though they are down, he, and more importantly his supporters, doesn't pull a McCarney after beating bad Nebraska teams and act like he beat Tommie Frazier.

We are not in a position to let this mediocrity extend to many extra years, like we did with the football program, and leave the next coach as big of a rebuild as he inherited.

I hope that I am wrong about this, but I get less and less confident as time goes on.