Didn't see this coming, but it could work out for Memphis

8dog

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to figure out if this was a joke or not. Im still not sure.
 

Indndawg

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looks like one of the coup hirings+ UM won't have to fork out a butt-load of $$.
 

tossedoff

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He was groomed to be the heir-apparent to Lute Olsen. However, Olsen screwed him over by naming Russ Pennel (sp?) the associate head coach. Pastner left and brought all of his Houston connections to Memphis.
 

Seinfeld

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Mike Anderson, Rick Pitino, Bruce Pearl, Tim Floyd, Scott Drew, Leonard Hamilton, and Derek Kellogg all turned the job down one way or another. RC Johnson royally screwed this search up by making promises of making a "big hire" without having any cards up his sleeve to play with.

That said, I like the hire and think that Pastner could do a solid job. Parrish seems to think he has a good chance of keeping Xavier Henry and Nolan Dennis with Memphis.
 

qbdog

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The father of Xavier Henry. He's definitely a Calipari protege if he's going to try and pull that off in his first year as a head coach.

I think the two biggest concerns are: 1) Lack of head coaching experience and 2) The fact that, if he does succeed, he has no ties to Memphis and could jump ship at the next big opportunity. The Memphis AD has shown that he is probably too inept to put a large buyout in the contract just in case.</p>
 

ckDOG

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Ol Blue said:
That said, I like the hire and think that Pastner could do a solid job.
I agree. This could work out well for the UofM.

Yeah, but it could just as easily be a terrible hire. What's the deal with this guy other than his AAU connections and apparent disire for the higher-ups to have this dude to be the next big thing?
 

Seinfeld

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A young, energetic coach that comes from a good pedigree. They've also both proven that they're very good at certain aspects of coaching, but this is their first time to be the man.

The big difference is that Mullen came into a situation with very low expectations and will be given time. Pastner, on the other hand, I don't know about. From the folks I've talked to, it seems like the Memphis fanbase is pretty much split 50/50 over this hire so I'm not sure how lenient they're going to be. I guess we'll see. Memphis could have done better, but I also think they could have done much, much worse.
 

Ol Blue.sixpack

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ckDOG said:
Ol Blue said:
That said, I like the hire and think that Pastner could do a solid job.
I agree. This could work out well for the UofM.

Yeah, but it could just as easily be a terrible hire. What's the deal with this guy other than his AAU connections and apparent disire for the higher-ups to have this dude to be the next big thing?

It is very possible that something similar was said about Rick Stansbury about 11 years ago.
 

BlindDawg

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So wait, you like this hire, but you though Scott Drew, the guy who took the Baylor program from the brink of extinction to a respectable program and is still improving, would be a terrible hire? Nothing against this hiring, but I think Scott Drew would have been a solid hire and definitely better than this one.
 

Ol Blue.sixpack

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BlindDawg said:
So wait, you like this hire, but you though Scott Drew, the guy who took the Baylor program from the brink of extinction to a respectable program and is still improving, would be a terrible hire? Nothing against this hiring, but I think Scott Drew would have been a solid hire and definitely better than this one.

That's right. Apparently when Geoff Caulkins floated the Drew trial balloon by his peers the response ranged from laughter to no way they would hire that guy. That's a red flag to me that he is living on borrowed time.
 

MSUCostanza

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Seriously, though. If this is a top 15-20 job like you claim, why did no less than 7 other guys turn them down? I think you are overestimating the status of this job. And again, seriously, the Tiger fans I talked to were not pleased with this search, R.C. Johnson, or this hire. They are panicked. Except for the extreme sheep, of course.
 

Ol Blue.sixpack

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MSUCostanza said:
Seriously, though. If this is a top 15-20 job like you claim, why did no less than 7 other guys turn them down? I think you are overestimating the status of this job. And again, seriously, the Tiger fans I talked to were not pleased with this search, R.C. Johnson, or this hire. They are panicked. Except for the extreme sheep, of course.

First of all, I don't think they offered it to 7 guys. Second, I base my opinion on the status of the job by what people in the coaching business have told me.
 

majors42

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So you are one of those guys with "connections" what college coaches have you talked to about status of the job?
 

Frances Drebin

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...I doubt very seriously that the job was offered to seven guys. If there's one thing we learned more than anything during this coaching search, it's that the Memphis media is absolutely horrible.

I don't know whether this is a good hire or not. On one hand, he's very, very young and has no coaching experience. On the other hand, he's brilliant, one of the best recruiters in the nation and knows basketball. This could certainly turn out to be great if Pastner can keep Robic on staff and get some recruits to stick around.
 
Nov 16, 2005
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If there's one thing we learned more than anything during this coaching search, it's that the Memphis media is absolutely horrible.
Yeah but actually we kind of had that hint already. Remember back in December they said that douchebag from La Tech was going to be our new football coach? Channel 3 had "solid info".