In reply to: The Gonzaga Model posted by ColdwaterIrish
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.