Private
Waco, TX
High major conference with a blue blood (KU)
Zero McDonald’s All-Americans (I believe I heard 2nd team to win it all without any)
Just athletic as hell, grind on defense, guards that can get their own shot. That team just blew out the “generational” Gonzaga team.
What does Baylor have that ND does not?
Of course the Zags are run by Jesuits vs our Holy Cross order running Notre Dame. Still closer than Baptist General Convention of Texas.
Gonzaga really is a better comparison. One thing about Gonzaga though is that historically they have recruited a good number of foreign players.
I think there’s a misconception around the level of recruiting that needs to be done to achieve final four/national championship success in college basketball.
Baylor has developed a model of bringing in elite athletes and relying on their coaching to develop them as basketball players. Bring in kids that can defend and rebound at a high major level on day 1. Brey would tell you they have “men.”
It seems like Brey focuses (recently) on finding guys that fit the system in recruiting. He values IQ, passing, shooting. You’ll hear “he’s going to remind fans a lot of xyz.” And that model currently has us with one of the oldest teams in the ACC getting overwhelmed athletically each year. Why can’t we find “men” and develop them into well-rounded players. Think about the progress DJ, Grant, PC, Auguste made as system players. All flashed as athletes early, developed in the system over time.
with the NCAA before.
The last few paragraphs are about the allegations.
I've never believed he was as dirty as many made him out to be.
your program is pretty serious charge and has definitely kept him from even being considered for a couple higher-profile jobs he was apparently interested in to some degree. He screwed up, plain-as-day.
Morefield was a long-time assistant of the Drew family at Valpo and Baylor, he's the guy who sent the deplorable texts threatening deportation of a HS junior if he didn't commit to Baylor. It took a nine-month investigation for Morefield to be forced to resign that could have taken about 72-hours. This behavior went on for years within that program. Morefield had already been suspended previously for illegal text messages. Part of that suspension was zero off-campus recruiting at all. As in all of this way before the HS junior I referenced above. Morefield proceeded to recruit off-campus anyway despite being suspended from such activities. That didn't take much investigating, it was well-known and proven in 5-minutes. He then also sent the deplorable texts to Huss and the HS junior. Either Drew knew Morefield was recruiting off-campus despite being suspended from such activities and was complicit or he didn't know what in the world was going on within his program. If that's the case, that's pretty scary.
Drew got 'Failure to Monitor' from the NCAA due to lack of oversight of two assistant coaches behavior and for having illegal scouts at camps and clinics the vast majority of which was clear back in 2007 and 2008. Perea/Morefield stuff was when Perea went to LaLumiere in 2010 and then graduated in 2012.
The party line was to get Morefield to take the fall. Hard for me to solely blame Morefield when the NCAA said this went back to two assistant coaches all the way back to 2007? Then we still need to square up illegal scouts at camps and clinics?
Drew is a very good coach nobody really disagrees on that but laying this solely at the feet of Morefield as some have done is BS. He took the fall but hard to believe he was responsible for bringing in illegal scouts to camps/clinics and for the oversight of the other assistant coaches.
Friendly national media write puff stories because some coaches will give additional access/help with breaking news etc is ridiculous but part of the business.
Sustaining it year after year is tough.
Let's see if Baylor can keep it going. A decade ago, Butler got to the title game in back to back years, but they haven't done a whole lot since.
Two elite 8s and two Sweet 16s, and last year they were one of the favorites to win the title before the season was canceled.
It's hard to sustain success from one coach to another.
If it is, it's the generic "find an excellent coach who is committed to your university and give him whatever he needs to succeed." As mocopdx notes, the first part is the tricky part.
Undoubtedly, Gonzaga has made an institutional commitment to basketball, but without the Elite 8 run in 1999, it never would have gotten off the ground. It was a stroke of good luck that Mark Few, who had never coached anywhere other than Gonzaga and didn't even play college basketball, was a generational coaching talent, and (this is the more important part) didn't follow Monson's lead by taking the first respectable power conference job he could find.
Until the past four seasons, ND had a pretty respectable 21st century going, with 12 NCAA appearances, two Elite 8s and another Sweet 16 and an ACC title. It certainly was a step forward from the 1990s and above average in the grand scheme of major college basketball. What you are saying about Gonzaga could be said by nearly every WCC school, every hoops-first Catholic school, or really almost any other university of any stripe. Why not Santa Clara? Why not DePaul? Why not Georgia?
Gonzaga was dealt a lucky hand and played it wisely.
I mean, there really isn't much more to it.
Bill Grier was designated "head coach in waiting" for whenever Mark Few left, then moved on when he must have realized Few wasn't leaving - he had everything he wanted at Gonzaga. Grier didn't "get it done" when he departed for San Diego; he's been on the staff at Colorado for a while.
So it seems to start at the top with Few. They had the Elite Eight run with Monson and he left, as is/was the norm for a "mid-major" coach who experienced success. The huge salary bump he received to go to Minnesota has been cited - he'd been GU coach for two years at the time and reportedly was earning less than $100,000 (it was 1999.)
Given how his teams have fared since he moved on and how the Zags have fared since Few took over, would Gonzaga have grown into what it has without Few as the leader?
instead of waiting for Few to leave.
He would be one of my first calls when Brey's time is up. He probably will say no, but the call should be made.
The problem is that once the teams at the top had success others started to go that route.
When I started with SMC 70% of the roster was from Australia. now it's about 20% but dipping into Eastern Europe more and more.
Im guessing if he went somewhere else that new school would have a strong international pipeline soon as well.
Sincerely, AlbanyIrish
ESPN had an article on him last year
I thought an interesting part of the story was Lloyd getting his start at Gonzaga, then Few's suggestion he specialize in international recruiting.
Partial text:
It actually came as a result of Monson, Few's predecessor with the Bulldogs. Lloyd, a native of Kelso, Washington (just under six hours from Spokane), played junior college ball at Walla Walla Community College and at the time, Gonzaga was still recruiting the Northwest Athletic Conference. Monson watched Lloyd toward the end of his time at Walla Walla and told him that while the Zags weren't going to offer him a scholarship, Lloyd should call if he ever wanted to get into coaching.
"He probably told everybody that," Lloyd joked.
But after finishing his career at Division III Whitman College, Lloyd decided to call Monson and talk about coming to Gonzaga to work in the basketball program. Monson was ready to bring him aboard, but Lloyd suddenly got an opportunity to play professionally in Australia and then Germany. Following his two seasons overseas, Lloyd and Chanelle went backpacking all over the world, through Europe and Africa and Australia.
Lloyd was finally ready to start his post-playing career at Gonzaga, but by then Monson was no longer the coach of the Bulldogs. Monson had left for Minnesota after Gonzaga made a run to the Elite Eight in the 1999 NCAA tournament, with Few, Monson's longtime assistant, taking over at the top. The agreement Lloyd had with Monson still stood, though.
but the question then must be asked. Why is Mark Few still at Gonzaga. He's passed on numerous jobs that would have paid him a hell of a lot more money likely 2 or 3 times what he's making. Still he decides he wants to make less and live in Spokane (South Bend of the west) Why? Part of the answer lies in the fact that Basketball is Gonzaga's cash cow and as such gets the coach nearly anything he needs to be successful. In the wrong hands that would be dangerous but Gonzaga found a rare individual in Few and have done everything in their power to keep him. In my lifetime Notre Dame has never shown any loyalty to a basketball coach. Johnny Dee? Rubbed out. Digger? Scheduled out. John McCleod? Kicked to the curb despite having donated a million bucks to the university. The Dead Guy is the only one who left on his own terms.
And I think giving MacLeod 8 years with a well under .500 career record, 0 NCAA tourney appearances, and even only 2 NIT appearances was pretty loyal.
off the court. Should we have kept Faust another five years because he went to daily Mass and was/is a great person?
getting your teeth kicked in as a Big East newbie. Then when talented players started committing they let him go. His record while indeed awful should have no bearing on how he should be judged as a coach. Fuzzy was in way over his head McCleod knew how to coach and took the job when no one else would.
I thought they were a Big East bottom feeder, but 8-10, 7-11, 8-10 wasn't as bad as I thought. Given where they came from, there was reason to anticipate a continued upward trajectory even if we hadn't made a coaching change. I'm not familiar with MacLeod's recruiting chops, but obviously Murphy was a huge get. Did Carroll commit to him or to Doherty?
Mac wasn’t going to lead us anywhere. Had he stayed we would probably be mediocre mostly, sometimes good, rarely terrible, mostly not very interesting. As a fan I wasn’t heartbroken when he was let go, and the little inside stuff I heard made me think players generally didn’t love him, though they didn’t hate him. His NBA pedigree was a selling point and maybe he would’ve been the perfect guy for Swanagan, Graves, and Murphy, but interest in the team was really cratering by the end. I’m pretty sure every team he coached at ND had an NBA player on it - a really good one. He also had a lot of guys transfer out. Very hit and miss as a recruiter.
You could make lemonade out of those lemons if you could cut corners and get kids in that would be marginal academically. ND obviously wasn't going to allow that to happen. John Mcleod knew basketball and he knew how to coach.
While I think an additional year with the talent that roster had would have been a suitable reward for what he gave to ND as a program, to get rid of him in favor of getting Rick Majerus, while (as Section12 mentioned) mercenary, would have been the right move.
Getting rid of Mac for the Carolina Lunatic, OTOH, was not fair to Mac.
I realize that wasn't the original plan, but par for the course for ND to monkey-fuck that basketball.
...pondering that image in your last sentence.
They met at Gonzaga.
Sometimes, money takes a back seat to being close to family. I don't know where she was raised but I'm going to assume she is also from the Pacific Northwest.
People call it Spo-compton out here. I've driven through a couple times. Yuck.