So who now?

[greenyellow]

Gottfried's players regressed under him...he is indeed the Ernie Kent of the SEC. This would quite possibly be the worst hire we could make.

Yeah I'm with you on this. You don't want to get a head coach with past failures.. I'd much rather go with a more unknown coach with a higher potential. After all, like someone mentioned above, all coaches had to start somewhere small first. An assistant coach at a big school or a good mid major coach is fine by me at this point.

But I think that Kilkenny and Knight have too big of egos to settle for a mid-major or assistant from a big school. This is probably going to drag on for another couple of weeks with a couple more high-profile misses. Oregon's image is just taking a beating from the search and isn't going to help with recruits. The next couple of seasons could be very painful for us fans.

Well I was talking in reference to Gottfried, I'd rather settle for a more unknown coach with success at a smaller school or as an assistant, than go for Gottfried.

Dragging this out would be not be good, because like you mentioned, our image is taking a hit and it kills our chances for the Terrence's. If PK and Knight really believe we can still get a big name coach, go for it, but hurry!

Right now I can't think of any big names that would possibly be willing to come here since big names are established at the school they are at. Hiring a basketball coach is whole lot different than hiring a baseball coach like Horton so we can't be expecting someone who has had success at one school like Horton did in baseball to just jump over to Oregon.

Yeah, I just don't see it happening. I think our best bet is an retired or free NBA coach or something. Not having an AD this entire time probably didn't help either.

Not having an AD has probably been the biggest thing working against them since most coaches want to know who they'll be working for and how they'll fit into the department. I don't think the coaches that have been contacted know how to deal with a booster running a search instead of an AD.

[RanDux]

^Like Terry Porter.

[uostudent]

Kilkenny is apparently in Carlsbad right. It's possible that he's planning on going down to San Diego to talk to USD coach and Oregon alum Bill Grier.

If we are going to look at coaches from mid-majors, we need to look at Eric Reveno at UP. Reveno has done an excellent job at UP and was an assistant under Mike Montgomery at Stanford for years.

[oregontrack]

Kilkenny lives in San Diego. He could just be going home...

The San Diego coach is pretty damn good, though. We could do worse.

[Duck Dogers]

He is just at home. Bennett is way down the list.

[akili1133]

I would love to see Bennett coach our Ducks. We all no he has a fun offense to watch and he has developed his post players. At this point, I see him as a great option. St. Mary's wasn't good the last few years by accident.

[uostudent]

Andy Katz said a few days ago that Bennett is not being considered since St. Mary's an Adidas school.

[dthomas=ddixon]

Kilkenny is apparently in Carlsbad right. It's possible that he's planning on going down to San Diego to talk to USD coach and Oregon alum Bill Grier.

If we are going to look at coaches from mid-majors, we need to look at Eric Reveno at UP. Reveno has done an excellent job at UP and was an assistant under Mike Montgomery at Stanford for years.

These are the types of coaches I was hoping we'd go after all along. I would love Grier. Oregon alumn so this would probably be his last stop if he was successful.

[greenyellow]

Kilkenny is apparently in Carlsbad right. It's possible that he's planning on going down to San Diego to talk to USD coach and Oregon alum Bill Grier.

If we are going to look at coaches from mid-majors, we need to look at Eric Reveno at UP. Reveno has done an excellent job at UP and was an assistant under Mike Montgomery at Stanford for years.

These are the types of coaches I was hoping we'd go after all along. I would love Grier. Oregon alumn so this would probably be his last stop if he was successful.

I think that we may end up going to him since it's been said Kilkenny wants a solid, up-and-coming coach, which is what Grier is. He doesn't have the big name but he's solid enough to give him a shot.

[jayduck]

[

These are the types of coaches I was hoping we'd go after all along. I would love Grier. Oregon alumn so this would probably be his last stop if he was successful.

What do you love about Grier?

He had a nice first year, 2 years ago. They got a suprise run through the WCC conference tournament to reach the NCAA tourney. They weren't even a bubble team going into the conference tournament, though.

Then last year, he went 16-16 (6-8 in the WCC)
This year, he went 11-21 (3-11 in the WCC)

That's not any definition of "up and coming" in any dictionary I've ever seen.

He's been downright awful for 2 years, in a terrible conference. And San Diego is a great location, with lots of talent, that people love to play in. San Diego State's won over 20 games 5 years straight. Its an easy place to get talent.


3 years as a head coach, getting worse every year. He has an under .500 record, overall, in the WCC.

[oregontrack]

Andy Katz said a few days ago that Bennett is not being considered since St. Mary's an Adidas school.

LMAO, what?

[soduck]

Not having an AD has hurt us somewhat for sure. Dumb timing to push Bellotti out immediately. Even if it had to happen. But in business there is a rule of thumb that when you decide to get rid of an employee,you don't let it drag out. It would have been a better idea to let him quietly know and work on his severance package with documentation in place and do it this summer in this case. I think the three seriously interviewed candidates would have been home runs. I think the timing took this long because of the NCAA tournament. Can't blame them for trying. It is not about ego. They, the PK's want to win, fill the arena. They have a right to lots of input, they deserve it for their very generous contributions. Kilkenny himself has donated a ton of time and over 23 million to U of O, we all know of most of Phil's donations. I get that everyone is anxious to have a coach, but when you seriously criticize these guys it pisses me off. If you gave that much you would want input. I do not want them rushing into just hiring someone. It did not hurt Arizona to wait a lot longer than this and yes I will be pissed off if we don't get the Terrences, but the right coach will likely be here a lot longer than any one recruit.

[oregontrack]

Not having an AD has hurt us somewhat for sure. Dumb timing to push Bellotti out immediately. Even if it had to happen. But in business there is a rule of thumb that when you decide to get rid of an employee,you don't let it drag out. It would have been a better idea to let him quietly know and work on his severance package with documentation in place and do it this summer in this case. I think the three seriously interviewed candidates would have been home runs. I think the timing took this long because of the NCAA tournament. Can't blame them for trying. It is not about ego. They, the PK's want to win, fill the arena. They have a right to lots of input, they deserve it for their very generous contributions. Kilkenny himself has donated a ton of time and over 23 million to U of O, we all know of most of Phil's donations. I get that everyone is anxious to have a coach, but when you seriously criticize these guys it pisses me off. If you gave that much you would want input. I do not want them rushing into just hiring someone. It did not hurt Arizona to wait a lot longer than this and yes I will be pissed off if we don't get the Terrences, but the right coach will likely be here a lot longer than any one recruit.

I don't necessarily disagree, and in fact, I took this very same mindset for the first month of the process. But I do think it's time to stop shuffling their feet and make a hire. If Joe G's cheerleading has any truth to it ("the phone is ringing off the hook!!"), take the best of the bunch and make it happen. I had NO problem with going after some elite coaches (Few, Dixon, Stevens, Anderson) and awaiting their responses, because there's nothing wrong with swinging for the fences. But now we literally have players transferring out because they are tired of waiting (Humphrey, Crittle). You can get a GOOD coach without taking six weeks to get one (Wake Forest, Colorado).

Just. Make. A. Hire. I'm confident the brain trust will make the right decision among, what we've been told, is a significant pool of candidates who apparently want us more than we want them.

[jayduck]

Not having an AD has hurt us somewhat for sure. Dumb timing to push Bellotti out immediately. Even if it had to happen. But in business there is a rule of thumb that when you decide to get rid of an employee,you don't let it drag out. It would have been a better idea to let him quietly know and work on his severance package with documentation in place and do it this summer in this case. I think the three seriously interviewed candidates would have been home runs. 1. I think the timing took this long because of the NCAA tournament. Can't blame them for trying. It is not about ego. They, the PK's want to win, fill the arena. They have a right to lots of input, they deserve it for their very generous contributions. Kilkenny himself has donated a ton of time and over 23 million to U of O, we all know of most of Phil's donations. 2. I get that everyone is anxious to have a coach, but when you seriously criticize these guys it pisses me off. If you gave that much you would want input. I do not want them rushing into just hiring someone. 3. It did not hurt Arizona to wait a lot longer than this and yes I will be pissed off if we don't get the Terrences, but the right coach will likely be here a lot longer than any one recruit.

A few comments on the things you've said here:

1. No chance did this take so long because of the NCAA tournament. All you have to do is look at past hirings from major conferences to see how quickly the hiring/interviewing process can (usually does) go down. Stevens was the only coach playing past a month ago and he was not a primary target before he made it that far. There is no excuse for dragging it on this long. Zip, nada, none. The process took so long because no work was done ahead of time. It was a disaster from, before, the start. We knew Ernie was goin gto be fired at least in early February. And really, we knew it was a likelihood as early as when Kilkenny opted to bring him back for another season, last year. Preliminary talks with agents and intermediaries should have been taking place all season long, and certainly from early February to get a list of candidates that would, first and foremost, take the job for the amount of money we were willing to give them. And these candidates need to be candidates that you would be happy with having as your coach. Its not settling. Its not a backup plan, but you should have a date in mind that you will hire one of these coaches, if your "shooting for the stars" approach isn't working. And that date should be certainly no later than a week prior to spring signing.

2. Seriously? It "pisses you off" that people criticize an incompetent process that's negatively affecting our program? That's great that Kilkenny and Knight have donated so much and I am fine with them having input, which I don't. However, don't come on lecturing us about how much of a "right" they have because they've donated so much more than us. Reality is, unless we have any multi-billionaires posting on this board, most people on this board have likely spent a bigger percentage of their money on Oregon. I certainly have. Again, I'm fine with their larger contributions giving them input. Does that mean they should be allowed to f*** up one of our sports programs on their whims? Of course not.

3. Arizona was harmed by their search process. They lost players, recruits, and had a poor season this year because of it. This is a program that was in the NCAA tournament a record number of seasons, and missed the tournament for the first time since 1984. I would call that "being harmed" and I think most people would as well. Did they eventually get a good coach for them? That kind of remains to be seen. Again, their new coach had a worse year than any have in nearly 3 decades, including interim coaches they had the past few seasons.

Hiring a coach is not only about getting the best possible coach. Its about leaving him in the best possible situation, because its not as simple as "great coaches will win no matter what". Here's 2 hypothetical scenarios:

A) We hire a good coach 2 weeks ago. Only Wiley transfers, we land Terrence Jones and Terrence Ross.
B) We hire an even better coach 2 weeks from now. 2 or 3 more players transfer, Jones and Ross go elsewhere, and we miss out on any quality players in this recruiting class.

Coach A will likely have more success at Oregon. It doesn't matter that Coach B is "better", if coach A has a much better situation to work with. And I'm not only talking about short term, but long term. The difference between success and failure can be very slight, and success and failure both have a tendency to snowball. A new coach comes in, lands big time recruits and wins right away with the new arena and all of a sudden we look like that program on the rise, success begets success. More high profile recruits want to come play.

A coach comes in, loses players, doesn't get local recruits, had mediocre to poor season in the new arena and, by the same token, it doesn't matter how good of a coach he is. He's unlikely to have the required time he needs to build the program from scratch.

There are plenty of good, even great, coaches that have suceeded at one location and failed at others. You need to give them a good situation and we are making our new coach's situation worse with each passing day.

[greenyellow]

Right now, the situation seems to be getting worse by the day as more players transfer. I don't think we are hurt by Wiley so much since this team had so many wings, but we are going to be hurt by Humphrey since he was a main rotation player and Crittle since our post depth was already so low. If there are any more transfer of players who are going to see major minutes, it will only make the new coach's job that much harder since he probably won't be able to recruit new players to fill the roster and contribute. The PKs need to move their egos to the side and see that the players on this team are more important than them because if this team has no team left to watch, there's no one who's going to be paying to see them.