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UCLA Basketball Thread


nate

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Guys. Look at Larry Eustacy's career. Now he has taken over Colorado State's BB team and got them in the tourney. CSU? Are you kidding me? Larry can coach and can win..

Larry does win but the CSU credit goes to Tim Miles. He left the cupboard full with a senior team. Let's see how Larry does in the coming years.

I think Alford is a good x's and o's coach and aside from his character I think it is a solid hire. Not great but solid.

Obviously they wanted smart or Stevens, that did not work out so it seems like they wanted a quick hire with some name recognition for the last signing period coming up.

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FYI, this is from an insider on how it all went down:

 

Here's my best take, based on information, on how this happened:

UCLA clearly had a list of candidates worked up. 

To my knowledge, Billy Donovan, Rick Pitino and Brad Stevens were the top three on that list, for a while. 

I know they had a secondary list.  I'm not sure of all the names that were on it, and for how long.  As I got the names, I shared them.

UCLA had intermediaries contact reps form Donovan, Pitino and Stevens. The reps from all three expressed interest. 

I reported this.  If you remember, too, I warned everyone here that, even though they were expressing interest, it was a long ways away from signing a coach. I even warned that it was very plausible that UCLA's coach wouldn't be among those three.

I never said that it was a "done deal" for any of them, or to "get ready" for any of the three to sign.  I think many here are associating those type of comments with me, and I never said them. 
 
I never reported that Shaka Smart was the main target.  Smart wanted UCLA to be seriously interested, but when they didn't get on him aggressively he decided to stay with VCU. UCLA never offered Smart. 

After Howland was fired, UCLA itself, as in Dan Guerrero, started contacting representatives of coaches to gauge interest. 

From what I've been told, they were informed that Stevens, Pitino and Donovan were all interested.  Others, too, were contacted and expressed interest.  Reps of Bill Self expressed interest.  

UCLA started to pursue Stevens.  I think because he was among their top choices, and he was available and, as I reported, Stevens had the most support among the various factions of UCLA powers-that-be.  

Somewhere between the end of last week and the middle of this week, UCLA got a feeling that Stevens wouldn't ultimately come to UCLA.  They still, though, expressed to the Stevens camp they were interested. I think that was done in case Stevens would happen to come back to them and tell them he clearly wanted the job.  He was their #1 choice, still.  I don't know, however, if they ever formally offered him the job. 

Guerrero kept talking with candidates on the list.  Steve Alford was on the list and the discussions with UCLA and Guerrero started to go well by early in the week.  From what I've heard, Alford was expressing passionate interest in the job.  

Now, this is where it gets interesting, and a bit hazy. There was a decision made to then focus on Alford and not Stevens, and to pretty much de-prioritize Pitino and Donovan.  I don't know if this was motivated out of getting the deal done quickly, money, something changing in the interest expressed by the Pitino and Donovan camps, or what it was.  

I'm not making excuses at all here. I personally would have liked for UCLA to wait on Donovan and Pitino and take a run at them.  I don't know if UCLA got cold feet in going after them, deciding it was a risk and they could be left empty-handed, came to the conclusion they couldn't really afford them (especially with the UC Regents issue) or if Pitino and Donovan had essentially turned them down.

But UCLA did decide to priortize Alford.  Guerrero met with him during the week. 

Why Alford over second-tier candidates like Lorenzo Romar, Mark Gottfried, Tad Boyle, Gregg Marshall or others?

I'm unsure. 

I heard enough from sources by Thursday that Alford was now seriously in play, but that they were still hoping that Stevens would give them an indication he truly wanted to be at UCLA. 

That didn't come. 

By Friday, UCLA had shifted completely toward Alford. It got done very quickly. He agreed in principle Friday morning, and signed the deal Friday night. 

If I had to speculate, I think they moved quickly on Alford for a few reasons:

-- I think they didn't want to get caught in a protracted coaching search.  They didn't want to get turned down a number of times. They had been through that with the football coaching search and I believe it was really difficult for the UCLA administration and thought it reflected poorly on UCLA. Even if they felt good about Donovan or Pitino, I think after not getting overwhelming feedback from Stevens, they thought they could be in a Chris Petersen situation again.  

-- I think that Alford, to them, represents everything they believe a UCLA coach should be - that he had all of the criteria they were looking for.  

I also think: They wanted the information of UCLA-and-Stevens out there, thinking it would help to give them leverage in their negotiations with Alford. I'm not saying this is sound reasoning.  Especially since it would keep expectations high.  

So, that's what I've pieced together.  I think this is pretty darn accurate. 

Please, don't kill the messenger.

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Tiger Woods?  He was an extremely callous and horrible husband/father but never sexually assaulted anyone.  Anyone who covers up that kind of stuff is scum.  Our society is pretty bleak when we say this is ok.  

 I don't disagree mt, but look at Nike's latest commercial "Winning is everything" - if Tiger wins a couple majors, everything that led up to Thanksgiving 2009 will be forgotten.

 

Here's another example.  ESPN and the sports world now deifies Jm Valvano.  Look at his past - he was a crooked coach.  If that stuff arose these days, he would be banned from coaching.  But you never read or hear anything about the recruitment and other violations he was involved in.  He finally signed a settlement (wink, wink) agreement.

 

Unfortunately, Nike is right.  It is all about winning.

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There is more.  Essentially UCLA opted to get a coach ASAP instead of suffer the PR of getting turned down by multiple coaches.  The BRO editor is blasting the Morgan Center pretty hard for how it was all conducted.  They didn't do their due diligence at all in the end.

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I’ve been asked a few times about my opinion on the quality of UCLA’s coaching search.  I wanted to gather as much information as I could before I did that.

 

First thing to clarify, again: UCLA definitely had contact through intermediaries with representatives of Rick Pitino and Billy Donovan, and they were receptive.  As Greg and I wrote repeatedly, that doesn’t mean that Pitino or Donovan were likely coming. I even said that, given the way coaching searches go, it was likely that UCLA didn’t get Pitino, Donovan or Brad Stevens.

 

Here’s what’s happening now:   After hiring Steve Alford, there are stories trying to be planted that there was never clandestine contact made with Pitino or Donovan, and that UCLA didn’t have the money to afford them.  It’s curious what the motivation would be to try to, now, float that p.r. agenda.   If they’re now trying to establish that they never had initial contact with Pitino or Donovan, aren’t they admitting they didn’t do their due diligence? Wouldn't it also be about the worst p.r. move ever to let it leak that there has been contact with Pitino and Donovan when there actually wasn't? Why raise expectations unnecesssarily?  If they’re trying to get it out there that they didn’t have the money to pay Donovan or Pitino, aren’t they admitting that they are failing to raise enough money, or manage the Pac-12 money well enough, to pay a coach a top-five salary?  If they’re trying to use the UC Regents salary approval as an excuse on why they couldn’t utilize available funds, aren’t they then admitting that they made a major snafu in not knowing this before the coaching search? 

 

Any way you look at it, at the very least, it appears UCLA has taken some major mis-steps in the p.r.  associated with the coaching search.

 

In regard to the search itself, we have gathered more information about how it possibly happened. From what we can tell it can be summed up with this statement:  UCLA opted for the p.r. of getting it done quickly over getting it done thoroughly.    While Steve Alford might have ultimately been the best choice, UCLA should have done a more thorough job in exploring the other options out there, like Shaka Smart, Gregg Marshall, or others.   To our knowledge, like I've laid out thoroughly many times, UCLA did pursue Stevens, wasn’t getting enough interest, and opted quickly for Alford. 

 

In regard to Shaka Smart, we have it on very good authority that Smart was never seriously approached.   We’ve heard from a separate set of sources that Smart probably wouldn’t have been interested in the job anyway, since he has no ties or familiarity with the west, Los Angeles, UCLA, etc.   But that doesn’t mean UCLA shouldn’t have done their due diligence and had some initial contact with him.

 

We now know that UCLA got involved with Alford very late.  We hadn’t mentioned Alford previously as a candidate because literally he wasn’t mentioned by any source close to the situation – because he wasn’t on the serious list until very recently. In fact, we’ve learned that UCLA got involved with him only after they learned the new contract Alford signed with New Mexico on or around March 20th didn’t officially begin until April 1st.  Dan Guerrero admitted as much.   So, it wasn’t until the beginning of last week that Alford was an actual candidate.  It’s the reason why BRO, and every other media outlet, didn’t know.  BRO did, however, have it first, by Friday, that UCLA was going in a different direction than Stevens, was serious about a new candidate and that it likely would get done soon. 

 

All of this, of course, goes to the underlying issue here that UCLA opted for the p.r. of getting it done quickly instead of getting it done thoroughly.  Perhaps, as I said, if UCLA had done its due dilligence, and if Alford would have proven to be the best hire given the parameters, and he proves to be a success at UCLA, great. But there are definitely some issues in how UCLA conducted this coaching search. 

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