TerryP
Staff
Here's a thought I've held for years that came back to mind after listening to a Bamacentric podcast a few days ago. While he described his segment as a rant, I thought Jimmy Stein did a good job trying to remind fans what we're looking at when we look around the NCAA and SEC at teams and how well their head coach is performing. I know I've mentioned a few podcast I listen to...Jimmy and Luke's happens to be one.
talkintuscaloosa.podbean.com
You folks know I don't like comparisons between sports. I think we see it all to often when people judge basketball under the same lens as football. But, in this case, I'm going to use football coaches as an analogy because I believe it fits these series of thoughts very well. In fact, I'll start with a thread we saw run for weeks last summer, Jalen Hurts.
No matter what opinion you've voiced or felt over the last three years with Jalen you can't tell me he was a bad quarterback. He was far, far from being bad. He was a good quarterback for Bama. That's not something that changed after his freshman year or after his sophomore year. He was always a good quarterback. Now, was Jalen a great quarterback? While he was here, no. If he can take his passing game to another level at OU we may begin to say "he's a great quarterback." BUT, until that happens—a HUGE unknown—he'll remain what he is. A good quarterback. His time in Tuscaloosa he didn't reach that great level. But, the point here is this. He was never a bad quarterback.
When it comes to bad head coaches we've seen a few. We've heard about more. Kevin Steele fits that bill with me. If you look at his tenure at Baylor they were 1-31. He won one game. Just like Ears was to Bama, Steele was a bad head coach.
Staying with football, we've seen our share of great head coaches these last few years. We have one in charge of our program today. Dabo and Urban (in spite of his faults) are both great football coaches. Switching more to basketball we're seeing our share of great head coaches here as well. We've talked about Roy Williams and Coach K. Both are great coaches in NCAA play today.
That leaves us with the good. And, more importantly, how you define good.
If we look at the 300+ D1 active today the good coaches number in the 100's. Simply put, a coach doesn't rise to the level these guys are at without being good coaches. I'm certainly not saying all of the 325 or so left are good. But, it's a large number of guys, right?
Here's where there's points of contention. How do you define a good coach in basketball? In my view, there's two different ways. On one hand we've can take a coach and label him good in the sense he's much better than the bad ones. Or, as I've seen many do from 100's of fan bases there are the coaches who are good, but not good enough.
Let's take this and think purely Bama basketball for a minute.
Mark Gottfried. He was a good coach. He's not a great coach. Even though some view his tenure at Bama as mediocre he wouldn't have taken his team to the Elite 8 if he wasn't a good coach.
Anthony Grant: When Bama hired Grant it was based on what he'd done with the team at VCU. He'd won some big games there and had an impressive resume coming to Tuscaloosa. Now that he's left, he's doing a good job at Dayton. By no means is Grant a great coach. He's not close to that point. We saw this up close and personally. But, with what he's accomplished in his coaching life there's only one way to define how he is at his job: good.
Avery Johnson: Avery is a good coach. There's no better evidence of that than what he accomplished in the NBA. When he took his team to the NCAA's last year it was another check mark in the good column. The record Bama has now, as compared with Grant, against ranked teams is another piece of evidence he's good at his job. Simply put, and it may be to your disliking, Avery is a good coach.
If you believe that Avery is a bad coach I'm left with one conclusion: you don't know bad when you see bad. If he were we wouldn't see Bama in the NCAA's or the NIT. We wouldn't see the same record against teams that are ranked. We wouldn't have seen Bama upset Kentucky or play as well as they did against Tennessee. A bad coach means one thing: they're losing. A LOT, if not all the time.
David Hobbs, Mark Gottfried, and Anthony Grant. They all won whether it be here at Bama or elsewhere. Each had their own thing and each did some things well. But, we found that people came to the conclusion that "good wasn't good enough." While I didn't agree with some of the reasoning voiced by fans I did agree with them on this note: Bama could do better.
Hey. Take note here. The goal for the basketball program is to be great. At least that's what we're all hoping for, right?
Getting back to Avery in conclusion.
Here we are getting close to the end of the regular season of his fourth year. There's a number of things people point to when discussing the health of the program. One rarely discussed, but brought up by Stein in the podcast, is this is also a pretty young squad.
Young. There's a term that's been queered over the years. Hearing it from Tuberville, year after year, makes the term leave a bad taste. Jimmy brought up the comparison of the Fab Five at Michigan. That group alone distorted the meaning of youth in college basketball.
We can't simply dismiss it at Bama. For one, we're watching a team led by a 17 year old. Secondly, we're looking at eight different players who have played quite a bit and they'll be in the starting rotation next season. And, thirdly, we're only seeing two guys leave due to eligibility.
Avery is doing a good job at Bama. Now, you may have the mindset that what he's doing isn't good enough. So be it—that's your opinion. While I'm not confusing the job Avery is doing with the definition of great, you can't confuse the job he's doing with bad.
And here's where we have Bama basketball filling message forums and supplying content. The definition of good, how different it can be from one to the other, and the guarantee it'll be argued about: continuously.
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You folks know I don't like comparisons between sports. I think we see it all to often when people judge basketball under the same lens as football. But, in this case, I'm going to use football coaches as an analogy because I believe it fits these series of thoughts very well. In fact, I'll start with a thread we saw run for weeks last summer, Jalen Hurts.
No matter what opinion you've voiced or felt over the last three years with Jalen you can't tell me he was a bad quarterback. He was far, far from being bad. He was a good quarterback for Bama. That's not something that changed after his freshman year or after his sophomore year. He was always a good quarterback. Now, was Jalen a great quarterback? While he was here, no. If he can take his passing game to another level at OU we may begin to say "he's a great quarterback." BUT, until that happens—a HUGE unknown—he'll remain what he is. A good quarterback. His time in Tuscaloosa he didn't reach that great level. But, the point here is this. He was never a bad quarterback.
When it comes to bad head coaches we've seen a few. We've heard about more. Kevin Steele fits that bill with me. If you look at his tenure at Baylor they were 1-31. He won one game. Just like Ears was to Bama, Steele was a bad head coach.
Staying with football, we've seen our share of great head coaches these last few years. We have one in charge of our program today. Dabo and Urban (in spite of his faults) are both great football coaches. Switching more to basketball we're seeing our share of great head coaches here as well. We've talked about Roy Williams and Coach K. Both are great coaches in NCAA play today.
That leaves us with the good. And, more importantly, how you define good.
If we look at the 300+ D1 active today the good coaches number in the 100's. Simply put, a coach doesn't rise to the level these guys are at without being good coaches. I'm certainly not saying all of the 325 or so left are good. But, it's a large number of guys, right?
Here's where there's points of contention. How do you define a good coach in basketball? In my view, there's two different ways. On one hand we've can take a coach and label him good in the sense he's much better than the bad ones. Or, as I've seen many do from 100's of fan bases there are the coaches who are good, but not good enough.
Let's take this and think purely Bama basketball for a minute.
Mark Gottfried. He was a good coach. He's not a great coach. Even though some view his tenure at Bama as mediocre he wouldn't have taken his team to the Elite 8 if he wasn't a good coach.
Anthony Grant: When Bama hired Grant it was based on what he'd done with the team at VCU. He'd won some big games there and had an impressive resume coming to Tuscaloosa. Now that he's left, he's doing a good job at Dayton. By no means is Grant a great coach. He's not close to that point. We saw this up close and personally. But, with what he's accomplished in his coaching life there's only one way to define how he is at his job: good.
Avery Johnson: Avery is a good coach. There's no better evidence of that than what he accomplished in the NBA. When he took his team to the NCAA's last year it was another check mark in the good column. The record Bama has now, as compared with Grant, against ranked teams is another piece of evidence he's good at his job. Simply put, and it may be to your disliking, Avery is a good coach.
If you believe that Avery is a bad coach I'm left with one conclusion: you don't know bad when you see bad. If he were we wouldn't see Bama in the NCAA's or the NIT. We wouldn't see the same record against teams that are ranked. We wouldn't have seen Bama upset Kentucky or play as well as they did against Tennessee. A bad coach means one thing: they're losing. A LOT, if not all the time.
David Hobbs, Mark Gottfried, and Anthony Grant. They all won whether it be here at Bama or elsewhere. Each had their own thing and each did some things well. But, we found that people came to the conclusion that "good wasn't good enough." While I didn't agree with some of the reasoning voiced by fans I did agree with them on this note: Bama could do better.
Hey. Take note here. The goal for the basketball program is to be great. At least that's what we're all hoping for, right?
Getting back to Avery in conclusion.
Here we are getting close to the end of the regular season of his fourth year. There's a number of things people point to when discussing the health of the program. One rarely discussed, but brought up by Stein in the podcast, is this is also a pretty young squad.
Young. There's a term that's been queered over the years. Hearing it from Tuberville, year after year, makes the term leave a bad taste. Jimmy brought up the comparison of the Fab Five at Michigan. That group alone distorted the meaning of youth in college basketball.
We can't simply dismiss it at Bama. For one, we're watching a team led by a 17 year old. Secondly, we're looking at eight different players who have played quite a bit and they'll be in the starting rotation next season. And, thirdly, we're only seeing two guys leave due to eligibility.
Avery is doing a good job at Bama. Now, you may have the mindset that what he's doing isn't good enough. So be it—that's your opinion. While I'm not confusing the job Avery is doing with the definition of great, you can't confuse the job he's doing with bad.
And here's where we have Bama basketball filling message forums and supplying content. The definition of good, how different it can be from one to the other, and the guarantee it'll be argued about: continuously.
