Marcus Grant was hired by Phil Cunningham at Troy...
- Thread starter dawgstudent
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Happy for both of those guys. I know we couldn't really hang on to Phil, nor would he have wanted to stay as an assistant, but I thought they kind of got a raw deal. Especially Grant, who I thought we could have held on to.
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Obviously Troy isn't the draw MSU is nor is the Sun Belt (typically a decent bball conference though) so you've got to give them a handicap but it should be a decent sample of what we missed out on, similar to Raffy.
Phil Cunningham and Marcus Grant were both really great to me whenever I was around them and I wish them all the best. Say what you want about that staff, but they were all solid folks. Hopefully soon we can start remembering the good times instead of focusing on the end.
Do you think Ray regrets not keeping Phil now? He could have had a HC caliber asst for one season when he really needed help.
Not trying to start a dumpster fire but I'm still pretty sour about Ray bringing in unproven people from unsuccessful programs when we had better assts available for our taking.
What is everyones opinion on Phil and Grant....
TROY has been bad a Basketball for FAR too long and new blood was needed. And now we have our new facility all we needed was a coach...Whats your thoughts on them?
TROY has been bad a Basketball for FAR too long and new blood was needed. And now we have our new facility all we needed was a coach...Whats your thoughts on them?
Phil did not want to stay as an Asst.
My understanding is that Phil let it be known he was not going to stay as an assistant. Can't say that I blame him nor do I blame MSU for not elevating him to HC. I think the only reason George Brooks was retained was due to him being new to Stansbury's staff and hence some of the internal issues were not deemed to be his fault. Marcus had been there long enough that he had to share some of the blame for things going down hill.
My understanding is that Phil let it be known he was not going to stay as an assistant. Can't say that I blame him nor do I blame MSU for not elevating him to HC. I think the only reason George Brooks was retained was due to him being new to Stansbury's staff and hence some of the internal issues were not deemed to be his fault. Marcus had been there long enough that he had to share some of the blame for things going down hill.
Wrong again. Phil might have stayed but he was never given a chance to interview for the job. George was retained for one reason and one reason alone, he was Craig Swords' recruitor and he had the connections on the Alabama kids we are recruiting now. Phil might have stayed had he been given the courtesy of an interview but as usual, we screwed it up. He later was called and asked to come back as an assitant, but he declined You folks are amazing, you let two years of Sidney lead you to believe it was all chaos. That is BS but we shall see how smart our AD is from now on.
Another poster already touched on this....
Phil was not going to stay on as an assistant unless we had hired a proven head coach that wanted to keep him. It would be a little degrading for him to have to be an assistant to Ray, who was equal or lesser proven than Phil...and I get that. IF Phil had been willing to stay, I would have loved having him as Ray's assistant. But I thought Grant got a raw deal because he would have stayed, and would have been a nice addition especially for recruiting and familiarity with the program.
All of that being said, I would love to see Grant back here one day. Maybe Phil we be awesome at Troy and we can consider him whenever Ray leaves for Duke after Coach K retires***
I don't think Brooks is a bad coach, but of the 3 he is definitely the worst. From what I know he was kept because he's close to the Hood family from his time at MCC and Ray thought it would help to keep Rodney. Whifffffff.
Grant was the obvious choice. Instead we got a Nebraska assistant who knew of one recruit, all because his dad is the recruit's AAU coach.
I like Ray, but if and when he fails because he couldn't get recruits here I'm pointing to his decision to bring in the people he did.
Grant was the obvious choice. Instead we got a Nebraska assistant who knew of one recruit, all because his dad is the recruit's AAU coach.
I like Ray, but if and when he fails because he couldn't get recruits here I'm pointing to his decision to bring in the people he did.
Just a lot of uncertainty with Cunningham as a HC as far as I am concerned. He was a career assistant with Stansbury and never left. I want to say he interviewed once for the Gardner Webb HC position.
So, who was Phil's recruits?**
"Screwed it up?" How? Because we didn't FORCE a staff on the new guy? He was willing to come to the hell-hole -- at the very least, he gets to pick his own staff.
2 years of Sidney, 4 years of Augustus, 4 years of Ravern, need I go back further? That's at least SIX years of CHAOS -- and there were more before then. It was NOT a well-run program from the time all the senior leadership graduated off the hyper-successful programs of the early decade. Simple facts. Know you hate them.
You sure are upset about a team that overperformed YOUR expectations by at least 4 games. What was the last one we'd had that actually overperformed under the previous staff? 2004?
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Engie, seems you are the one with hate. I am beginning to believe you are just another alias for coach34. Ravern and Kodi played on an SEC oturney championship team and should have played on another one had the refs not blown a call. And nobody including Ray tried to force Cunningham on Ray's staff. After Ray got in here and realized we had few, if any, contacts with high school coaches, he then tried to get Phil to come back. Now, seems your facts are the ones that are slanted and screwed up. I responded to the thread with the facts I was told by both Cunningham and George Brooks. Now, I am wishing them well at Troy and only fools like you want to keep on bashing former coaches who have given a lot more to MSU's program than you ever have or will.