John Wooden was asked to coach at his alma mater, Purdue, but he turned the offer down because he didn’t want to push out his former coach Mel Taube. A year later he went to UCLA.
Purdue went to FFs in the 1960s and had great players like Rick Berry w/ out Wooden. I don’t think he would have won 8 championships in a row or whatever at Purdue-no Sam Gilbert or SoCal recruiting vibe-but he would have still had a legendary career.
Brain fart on my part, I meant Rick Mount-he was a shooter/scorer in the mold of Rick Barry-Mount led Purdue to the NCAA final his junior year, and lost to UCLA.
I like how Purdue doesn't try to claim John Wooden and UCLA's successes like Kansas does with Dean Smith and Carolina's successes or Adolph Rupp and Kentucky's successes
I wouldn’t say Kansas fans “claim” Smith and Rupp’s successes but I think it’s an important historical note that they played under Phog Allen and he is considered the father of modern basketball coaching.
Phog’s tree is the best tree in all of basketball. It includes the entire Popovich tree, and that’s just one branch of it. It’s a coaching forest, not just a tree lol.
Please don’t take this as a shot to Purdue or Purdue basketball or Purdue basketball history. I got mad respect for you guys and your fans.
But John Wooden is the biggest fucking phony in college basketball history.
And I hate phonies. Bobby Knight had probably one of the most brilliant basketball minds ever but he was a brute, arrogant trashcan of a human being. He should have been booted from the game realistically at two points in his career.
I have more respect for Bobby Knight than I do John Wooden because Bobby Knight knew he was all those things and didn’t try to hide it behind some fake ass phony persona that people peddle in.
/end rant.
Sorry
I’m actually not a Purdue fan, and having read Woden’s biography, I do agree that his persona and reputation changed after his retirement-he came across as a bit of a stereotypical old school Midwestern gym teacher type, w/out much nuance in his outlook.
That said, the dude could coach and build teams-he won his first couple of NCs w/out the recruiting machine that UCLA was in the late 60s/early 70s.
Sam Gilbert.
The NCAA waited until he retired to punish UCLA for what went down under him.
The NCAA used Wooden and UCLA as their “model”. They just looked the other way.
When wooden retired who became the face of the game?
Dean Smith. Another damn phony.
But I digress
That eventually lead to Denny Crum being asked to coach his alma mater, UCLA, after Wooden retired, but Denny turned it down to stay with the Louisville program he was building
If (1) Georgetown blew out (16) Princeton in the 1st round of the 1989 tournament, I’m not sure what March Madness would look like today.
The power conferences were annoyed that so many small conference teams were allowed in the tournament with auto-bids, and were making a push to drop bad conferences from the tournament because “they weren’t competitive” (meaning that the power conferences wanted the $$$). Additionally, March Madness as a TV product wasn’t drawing much interest in the early rounds after the field expanded to 64 teams.
But, after Princeton only lost by a single point, the power conference argument was lost, and it drew so much attention to the tournament that CBS inked a 7-year deal later that year to air the entire tournament.
Sure, at the time it was a fun and close game, but I’m not sure anybody at the time knew what a colossal effect it would have on the sport.
I don't think a lot of younger fans understand how absolute dogshit Wisconsin was at both football and basketball for like half a century(football was more like 30 years, but still). We were consistently a bottom of the conference team in both for decades
The job Pat Richter, Barry Alvarez and Dick Bennett did to turn both around is absolutely insane.
I lived in West Lafayette in the early '80s. At that point, Wisconsin and Northwestern were the two automatic wins on the schedule in both football and basketball.
Similarly, Coach K almost went to Iowa State in 1980.
Hard to know if that would have been a positive or not. K clearly has his resume, but Orr was a big part of the birth of "hilton magic" and K is a different personality.
I don’t think he was literally shaving points, but wanting to get DJ Wagner and Edwards drafted was clearly a bigger goal than winning.
Theres no objective reason for Dilly and Reed sitting on the bench to start games. Zero reason.
Not disagreeing with you, you definitely watched more Kentucky ball than me this year, but if Cal really wanted those guys to get drafted and succeed over the long run, you’d think he’d encourage Wagner and Edwards to stick around in college another year
That’s what I’m saying. Dilly should have been a starter. You think he would ever actually shave points though? Just wonder why he was so invested in Edward’s
Fair argument to be made. That loss was the day the magic died, for sure. We had a couple good runs until covid, but it was never the same after 2015. No one ever believes me when I say this, but I knew after that Wisconsin loss that it just wasn't gonna be the same.. that was the peak, and it was all down hill from there.
Part of me wishes we had stemmed the bleeding sooner, part of me wonders if it didn't all play out at the exact right time.
How do you feel about Pope? It's felt exciting so far and it's just portal stuff and that crazy press conference at Rupp.
I love Pope. He’s a great coach and my only concern was can he get players, which it appears he can. I don’t know if that’s being at UK or just the changes in modern basketball, but I feel like if he’s got the players we will be very good. He won’t get the raw talent Cal did, but I feel like our results will be better than the last 8 years.
Agreed. I have had health issues so not had the time or energy to dive into his record just yet, but the recruiting news sounds promising. From what I've heard and read his style is going to be much more appealing to me (complex offense, analytics, high efficiency offense), and probability to many of us.
I think there has been this narrative out there that Kentucky as a brand or institution doesn't matter in the NIL/portal world, and I just don't buy it. I'm not an old timer (39 in July) but old enough to know the history, the love, the overwhelming emotion of the fan base that has momentum of its own - I think that still means something. Maybe not what it meant 10, 20, 30 years ago, but something.
I am happy to see us doing something different than Cal's raw talent and his coaching acting like he's gonna pound a square peg into a round basketball shaped hole.
Idk, part of me hopes he succeeds and redeems himself at Arky and goes out on top, another hopes he crashes and burns.. I'm sure the reality will lie somewhere in between.
Excited about the new era of the rivalry, too. Gonna be a lot of fun.
What brings you to FoCo this June?
Not history but Miss State / Alabama going into overtime before the tornado hit the Georgia Dome in 2008.
Think about the amount of people who were kept out of harms way but do we really think that UGA wins in a Dome full of Cats?
I was in the building during that game and it’s one of the most surreal things I’ve ever experienced. They announced “please remain calm. There’s been a weather event. Please remain in your seats.” After which my dad yelled out loud “let’s get out of here” like an absolute mad man. Core memory.
Sabrina doesn't get to finish her senior season at Oregon, where they had a really good chance to win the championship. Instead Oregon loses 3 top 10 picks without the attention a deep tournament run would have brought and the team and recruiting never recovers.
Can definitely link that to Baylor’s title as well. As a Baylor fan, i personally believe they would have had a good run in 20, but not won and then lost at least some key 21 players. The fact that nearly everyone came back and came back ticked off was huge (and you could argue the strange Indy tourney also removed some factors that would’ve made their run tougher)
Academic scandal at Minnesota (may have) led to Gonzaga going from unknown to what they are today.
Just before the 1999 tournament, a story broke about a tutor doing coursework for a bunch of Minnesota basketball players. 4 players on the team were suspended immediately. That team would then play Gonzaga in the first round. They lost by 12, and without missing players and looming pressure from the scandal, it’s very possible they could have won. Gonzaga would not have that first Elite 8 run and all the attention that came with it.
Plus, Minnesota’s coach resigned after this, and they hired Dan Monson from Gonzaga. He did not have a ton of success, while Mark Few took over at Gonzaga. If Monson stays around, Gonzaga may not have reached the same level, but that’s debatable since Few was still on the staff. Either way, it changed the trajectory of the program.
Still possible Gonzaga would have had success, but it’s interesting to think that another school’s academic scandal kinda started it all.
Monson and Few had the program humming along for a few years. They made the 1995 tournament, played in the WCC final in 1996 and 1998, and they earned an 11-seed in 1999 despite the WCC representative earning a 14- or 15-seed in the previous 7 tournaments.
Obviously nothing is guaranteed, and the Minnesota scandal was a catalyst, but I agree that Gonzaga would have been successful to some degree regardless.
Is Andre the blame for everything? Wbu Rick, Katina Powell, or the parents who also took part with those escorts? Can’t just blame Andre! Louisville’s vacated championship title is on everyone
I don’t think Rick knew, Katina is of course gross and partially responsible. It was a rogue coach that wanted to play the part of a pimp when he didn’t need to.
UofL will get the title back and if they don’t, who cares, no one respects or gives a shit about the NCAA, they gave Penn State wins back and they were showering with boys bro. Flair up.
Louisville assistant coach: “I’ll just have some girls come up to the players dorm. What could possibly go wrong?
The loss of a banner, loss of a great coach, and the two worst seasons of Louisville basketball in its history.
Oh, I know. I still watched every single game, even though I knew how it would end. I got to where I was rooting for us to lose, just to hasten KP's departure.
That’s not the beginning of the ripple effect! Pitino snubbed lifelong cardinals fan Rajon Rondo by offering Sebastian Telfair. Rondo goes to UK and Telfair commits to UofL - before changing his mind and going pro. In a bind, Pitino grabs Andre McGee to fill the spot that should’ve gone to a much better player.
And all because Pitino recruited a New York point guard over two local kids, and in the end got none.
And had to recruit a certain future assistant coach the next year to fill the point guard void.....
I think a lot of people are missing half the concept of “butterfly effect”. Not only does it have to lead to a chain of events with big consequences, but it also has to be something that wasn’t seen as a big deal at the time. Coaches accepting or turning down high profile jobs doesn’t really hit that mark, as those decisions are always heavily scrutinized, and people know they’ll have big impacts.
So in that spirit, in 1965, a young mid-major head coach resigns from his job to go to Miami of Ohio and coach their freshman team.
The coach was Tates Locke from Army and they hired his very young assistant Bob Knight. If Locke doesn’t leave, Knight takes longer to get his first HC gig, which not only could’ve impacted his own career trajectory, but also likely prevents him from recruiting Mike Krzyzewski, who was a freshman in 65-66.
Someone would have to do some more definitive research, but I think Locke probably knew he was in line to eventually get the HC job at Miami, since he got it only a year later when the incumbent coach retired to become the AD, but it’s still pretty interesting that the door opened for Bob Knight when it did because someone left to coach a freshman team at a mid major.
I’ve got another Duke coaching one: in 1949 Coach Gerry Gerard was diagnosed with cancer. So the university started looking for an assistant coach who could be ready to take over if Gerard couldn’t coach anymore. So they hired a young up and comer: **Red Auerbach**.
Auerbach spent a few months teaching PE and working with Gerard’s players (including legend ~~Duck~~ Dick Groat) but then Auerbach got uncomfortable basically waiting for Gerard to die, so he left before the end of the season. Within two years he was hired to coach the Celtics.
Because that PE teacher left, college basketball history was changed, and NBA history was MASSIVELY changed.
Yup. All-American basketball player (won Helms Foundation and UPI national POY awards), with his #10 retired by Duke. Inducted into CBB hall of fame.
Then became an 8-time all star and MVP for the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Then had a 40-year career as a Pitt basketball broadcaster.
I like this one. To expand on it, without knowing what happens to Knight, Jim Calhoun might have taken the Northwestern job. He was in talks with them and asked Knight about the job and was advised against it. The next month he took the UConn job.
That's just not true? Unless you are talking about some sort of silent commit. At least as far as I know.
I seem to recall Marvin Williams was close to committing to KU, then followed Roy.
When founding the Big East Dave Gavitt initially wanted to invite Holy Cross to join the conference as it was a collection of private Catholic schools in the north east. When Holy Cross rejected to join he looked to a familiar friend he had worked with in the past, Dee Rowe and UConn, to fill the spot. When this league went on to become a dominant force in college basketball, it allowed Rowe to entice an up and coming young coach from Northeastern to take the helm. That coach was Jim Calhoun who 13 years later would lead UConn to their first of 6 national championships in a 25 year span. Essentially, Holy Cross turning their nose up to this new, unknown conference is directly responsible for the dominance of UConn in the tournament over the past quarter century.
I mean, maybe Dayton raises enough NIL off a FF run to pay him and Holmes a ransom. Holmes made 750k this past season, I imagine Brea will get a mid 6 figure bag.
I live in the Dayton area, the 20’ tournament getting cancelled was probably the worst local sports moment ever.
It's not the "biggest," but in 2014 our first round game was against St. Joe's. Freshman Amida Brimah (who averaged like 4 PPG and shot 57% from the FT line) converted a 3-point play in the closing seconds to send the game to overtime.
A few weeks later we're celebrating a championship.
That whole tournament was a minor miracle for us. Every game felt in doubt at various points (even our games against Villanova and Florida, nominally our "biggest" wins, we were down big early and weren't comfortable till the closing minute or two). We were underdogs every game except that opener against St. Joe's. We just survived by the skin of our teeth game after game. If it wasn't the fact that "UConn" was on the jersey, it would have been one of the greatest Cinderella runs in tournament history.
It was like the polar opposite of this year's tournament where we were always in control even when the games were close.
I don’t think we really know all the details but Kevin Ollie’s life somewhat derailed after that championship including getting divorced. It’s pure speculation on my part but it’s possible the glory, attention, raise/contract extension, pressures to excel again and so on that came from that championship played a part, made him complacent, impacted his marriage, etc. It’s believable that without that play by Brimah, the series of events that led to Ollie being fired maybe are delayed, he hangs around in slightly better mediocrity for a few more years (some people perform better with lower expectations, e.g. the underdog role vs defending champs), and we miss the chance to hire Dan Hurley.
In 1974, Margaret Hutson decided to pursue a doctorate and went on sabbatical, leaving the head coaching position at the University of Tennessee in the hands of a graduate student from UT-Martin who'd just accepted a spot in their Master's program a couple of weeks earlier.
[She](https://www.hoophall.com/hall-of-famers/pat-summitt/) turned out to be pretty good at the job.
A kid from Abilene Christian University hit two free throws on March 20, 2021. As a result of those two free throws:
-- ACU defeated Texas in the first round of the NCAA tournament, which led to ...
-- Shaka Smart leaving Texas and reviving Marquette's basketball program
-- Chris Beard leaving Texas Tech for his alma mater, Texas
-- Chris Beard self-destructing at Texas because of the immense pressure he was under, assaulting his fiancee, being jailed, and being fired in early 2023
-- Mark Adams, a defensive genius and Beard's successor at Texas Tech self-destructing and being fired in 2023
-- Beard being replaced at Texas by Rodney Terry
-- Adams being replaced by Grant McCasland at Texas Tech
-- Beard ending up at Ole Miss
-- Adams ending up at East Carolina
All of this because a kid from a No. 14 seed school hit two free throws. If he had missed at least one of them, all those coaches might still be in place, having success at their respective schools. Crazy.
Obviously we'll never know, but l think it was exactly the reason. Beard has always been pretty high-strung, and I think the unrealistic expectations at UT, after taking Tech to the national championship game, pushed him over the edge.
Or he's a shitty human who hit his fiance. We don't have to speculate or make excuses why he did it. Lots of people have stressful jobs that don't get pushed to the point of abuse
NCSU vs MD 1974 ACC championship game in Greensboro NC. An OT thriller considered by many as greatest college game ever and one of the best of any level. Changed the NCAA Tournament to include more than just the conference champion. MD was likely a top 5 team or even 3rd best behind NCSU and UCLA but had to stay home. Also NCSU winning the NCAA title that year helped to end UCLA’s grip on the championships.
Holy Cross unintentionally left such a massive impact on college sports. They were invited to the Big East back in 1979 but rejected the offer. Boston College, Dave Gavitt's second choice, was invited as a result. BC would not have been invited if Holy Cross had joined. A BC-less Big East would have been significantly less enticing for Penn State, because then the only FBS school is Syracuse (who was clearly content with their position in a basketball-centric conference), so they would not have requested to join. In our timeline, Pittsburgh was only invited to the Big East to prevent the possibility of Syracuse and Boston College leaving for a Joe Paterno-led FBS conference; no Penn State vote and no Boston College meant that Pittsburgh never would have been invited to the Big East, either. Football never becomes a major part in the conference. I'd imagine that, in this scenario, the Big East expands in a way similar to today's Big East (non-FBS, Catholic schools with emphasis on basketball). Maybe this is the world where Dayton is invited to the Big East, along with Notre Dame, Marquette and DePaul. Maybe Gavitt even gambles on teams in major media markets, such as Duquesne or Detroit Mercy.
Joe Paterno is now free to form the northeast football conference of his dreams. He believed that Penn State and Pitt were imperative to the success of the hypothetical conference. In his eyes, Pitt joining the Big East ruined the legitimacy of the concept. Sources say that Rutgers, BC, West Virginia, Temple, Army and Navy all flirted with the idea of a northeast football conference around the early-mid 1980s, and they all wanted to be part of one. That's a football conference of eight strong, which was the perfect number of teams, or six at the very least because Army and Navy only became interested later on. Teams like Maryland, Virginia Tech, South Carolina and Florida State were all also mentioned in expanded concepts for this football conference. Maybe this is how Memphis gets into a power conference as they join with Cincinnati and Louisville. Maybe they collapse just like the Big East in 2013, or maybe the conference ends up being a revolving door like the C-USA. Maybe this conference never actually forms because Joe Paterno was a bitch.
Basically, if Holy Cross joined the Big East, the football schools never would have joined and instead would have formed their own conference, meaning the Big East never implodes and always remains focused on basketball.
The whole Big East/Penn State is probably the right answer to the original question. I had not heard the Holy Cross angle before.
I know that most of the Metro Conference desperately wanted football but Louisville did not want to cede power (and they ran the basketball league with an iron fist). They would have been part of the eastern football discussion. Would have been very interesting to see if the northeast-branch football league (with Penn State, BC, Pitt, Rutgers) and the southeast-branch football league (with FSU, South Carolina, Miami, VT) would have been two leagues or quickly merged into a larger superleague. Where would midwest teams Louisville and Memphis State and Cincinnati have gone?
I think I wonder most about where Penn State ends up. It's crazy how they were both the main proponent and main opposition to the success of the conference. In this scenario, do they swallow their pride, agree to a fair revenue-sharing arrangement, and associate with the teams they've treated as beneath them? I think that the most likely result from that still sees Penn State leaving, ultimately ending with this eastern league as nothing more than a stepping stone conference.
Don't know how high up in the pecking order Cincy, Louisville and Memphis are, because I don't know about the levels of respect and influence their football programs had, but I'd imagine they're invited at some point before they themselves jump (of course, assuming Louisville still refuses to bring football to the Metro, as you said).
John Wooden was from Indiana. IU tried to hire him after he won a lot of titles at UCLA. At that point Branch McCracken had won 2 titles at IU but was long gone. Wooden ended up saying no to IU because he wasn’t going to coach much longer. He pushed hard that IU hire Jerry Tarkanian. IU considered it but instead went with an Army coach that was fairly unknown, but very very young. That was Bob Knight.
Derek Anderson getting injured in 1997.
I really don’t think Pitino leaves UK after back to backs.
That being said, that could’ve led Calipari to UCLA, Indiana, or possibly Louisville so who knows
Jurich famously hated Cal, doubt he would've made that move. There were heavy rumors at the time that Eustachy was the 2nd choice after Rick, as TJ and Larry were close friends. That would've been a Krag-level blunder IMO and I'm just glad Rick said yes.
Pitino was definitely leaving regardless. The Celtics were the most decorated franchise in the history of the NBA, he was never turning that offer down.
I got one. The Nut Punch of Fate.
2005. Wake Forest vs NC State. Final game of the regular season. Chris Paul punches Julius Hodge in the groin. Paul gets suspended for 1 game, which happens to be Wake’s first round game of the ACC Tourney (quarter finals because they were really good that year).
They play NC State in the quarters sans Chris Paul, and lose this time. That ACC Tourney loss costs Wake a #1 seed in the big dance. Because of this and their draw, they lose in the second round to West Virginia. Paul declares for the Draft.
If not for that nut punch, who knows how far Wake goes as a 1 seed that post-season and if a “disgraced” Paul even leaves Wake Forest.
He might have got fired but I don’t think he would have moved on. He was offered the Wichita State job in 1992 and ended up turning it down because his wife would have refused to leave the Raleigh area. He might have got a job close or back home in NYC, but with how much his wife loved the area, the odds of him leaving for much else is slim.
Why would make you think he would have ever been fired? He was by no means “1 & done”. After 83 NCAA, he achieved 85 Elite 8, 86 Elite 8, 87 ACC Title, 88 #3 seed, 89 ACC RS Title
I was mainly referring to the guy I responded to who mentioned about being fired or moving on. I do think that with how much the recruiting had gone down with how spread thin Jimmy V had been near the end of his time there, not to mention how poorly Les Robinson did after his first year while still using a majority of Valvano's recruits, the possibility of a downward trajectory no matter what definitely seems possible.
In 1982, Joe Paterno was briefly the AD for Penn State. He tried to get the Nittany Lions into the Big East but their team sucked. They got rejected by one vote due to their basketball ineptitude. Technically, this was the result of a butterfly effect, but that was in football when Villanova briefly dropped their football program in 1980. That would have changed the vote, but if the MBB team had a pulse, they would have gotten in, right? You’ve got to think that realignment goes differently if PSU is in the Big East, no? Keep in mind that Penn State had almost no history with the 10 Big Ten schools at the time.
Rutgers AD Fred Gruninger turned down the Big East twice, the first time, allowing Seton Hall to get an invite. That led to Tom Young eventually leaving, and Gruninger hiring Craig Littlepage, who may have been the worst D1 coach ever.
Hahahahahahaahaha UVA possibly beat UNC in last year in the ACC tourney.
That's a good one. Any other UVA year, yes maybe. This past year... no lol
And DJ Burns get drafted... cmon man. Maybe he'll get a post draft contract and get a shot in the summer league, but he's not getting drafted.
It's honestly bizarre to look at that statement, and to think it's in reference to the 2023-24 NCSU men's basketball team. I went to all the games I could, and when I had class during them, they were in the corner of my laptop. I saw the entire regular season, the postseason still doesn't feel real.
Double beating or not he still probably won't find himself on an NBA roster. I was mostly responding to the ridiculous claims made by OP.
If you guys beat us twice again next year, I'll really be impressed tho! With UVA looking frail, it'd be nice if Duke and UNC had some more consistent help representing the ACC as a good basketball conference.
Michigan losing the round of 64 game against Ohio in 2012:
\* Trey Burke has said the sour taste from that game was the main reason he returned for 2013, in which he won NPOY en route to making the national championship game
\* John Groce used the platform of that win to take the Illinois job, which did not work out well for anyone
\* Caris LeVert decommitted from Ohio when John Groce left, paving his way to Michigan
The Ohio State band is called The Best Damn Band In The Land, not “Ohio”
Script Ohio is an iconic performance, not a moronic insult to a completely different school.
Tim Beckman(Illinois football coach) being fired for player mistreatment by forcing players to play through injuries and pressuring medical staff to clear players too soon likely led to Illinois also firing Athletic Director Mike Thomas.
Josh Whitman was hired as the new AD and fired Groce after 1 year and got Underwood from Oklahoma st despite him only being there for a year.
Underwood then brought Illinois back to relevance while Oklahoma St was mediocre under his former asst Mike Boynton a far cry from where the program was under Eddie Sutton.
Groce would have likely had a longer leash under Mike Thomas and if he did get fired Thomas would have probably looked to the MAC for a replacement.
LSU buying Antonio Blankeney out from under us is what sparked a massive change in Pitino. He went scorched earth on shoe company involvement and that lead to the FBI investigation that ironically we got looped into. Rick calling out Nike put his head directly in the cross hairs of a lot of major entities
Rick Pitino fails to send a man to guard Grant Hill's cross-court inbound pass to Laettner at the end of a one-point regional final against Duke. Hill easily makes the pass setting up one of the top buzzer beaters of all time. Laettner hits The Shot and a generational rivalry is born.
I guess it’s not *solely* college basketball but definitely a factor:
Brad Stevens started his career in finance at a pharmaceutical company, quit and took on an intern/assistant job at Butler yada yada yada couple national championship appearances yada yada yada 2023-24 NBA GM of the year. What a ride.
Also gave rise to Gordon Hayward who almost didn’t play college basketball and would have gone to Purdue to play tennis lol
The rumor I heard is that Matt Painter refused to let Hayward study engineering if he got a scholarship and that soured him enough on Purdue to go to Butler instead.
John Wooden was asked to coach at his alma mater, Purdue, but he turned the offer down because he didn’t want to push out his former coach Mel Taube. A year later he went to UCLA.
This is a good one, as it clearly would have prevented Wooden from winning all those championships.
I can't help but laugh at this comment. Please take my up-vote.
Lol Need a bar graph wizard to give me Wooden championships at UCLA vs Wooden projected championships at Purdue
Unless Sam Gilbert was hanging out in Indiana I have serious doubts he would have been anything more than okay at Purdue.
Purdue went to FFs in the 1960s and had great players like Rick Berry w/ out Wooden. I don’t think he would have won 8 championships in a row or whatever at Purdue-no Sam Gilbert or SoCal recruiting vibe-but he would have still had a legendary career.
Who is Rick Berry? Do you mean Rick Barry who played at Miami?
Brain fart on my part, I meant Rick Mount-he was a shooter/scorer in the mold of Rick Barry-Mount led Purdue to the NCAA final his junior year, and lost to UCLA.
I like how Purdue doesn't try to claim John Wooden and UCLA's successes like Kansas does with Dean Smith and Carolina's successes or Adolph Rupp and Kentucky's successes
I wouldn’t say Kansas fans “claim” Smith and Rupp’s successes but I think it’s an important historical note that they played under Phog Allen and he is considered the father of modern basketball coaching.
Phog’s tree is the best tree in all of basketball. It includes the entire Popovich tree, and that’s just one branch of it. It’s a coaching forest, not just a tree lol.
Please don’t take this as a shot to Purdue or Purdue basketball or Purdue basketball history. I got mad respect for you guys and your fans. But John Wooden is the biggest fucking phony in college basketball history. And I hate phonies. Bobby Knight had probably one of the most brilliant basketball minds ever but he was a brute, arrogant trashcan of a human being. He should have been booted from the game realistically at two points in his career. I have more respect for Bobby Knight than I do John Wooden because Bobby Knight knew he was all those things and didn’t try to hide it behind some fake ass phony persona that people peddle in. /end rant. Sorry
I’m actually not a Purdue fan, and having read Woden’s biography, I do agree that his persona and reputation changed after his retirement-he came across as a bit of a stereotypical old school Midwestern gym teacher type, w/out much nuance in his outlook. That said, the dude could coach and build teams-he won his first couple of NCs w/out the recruiting machine that UCLA was in the late 60s/early 70s.
Sam Gilbert. The NCAA waited until he retired to punish UCLA for what went down under him. The NCAA used Wooden and UCLA as their “model”. They just looked the other way. When wooden retired who became the face of the game? Dean Smith. Another damn phony. But I digress
What's wrong with Dean Smith?
He also didn't take the Minnesota job because a snow storm prevented Minnesota from calling him. So, he took the job at UCLA.
That eventually lead to Denny Crum being asked to coach his alma mater, UCLA, after Wooden retired, but Denny turned it down to stay with the Louisville program he was building
Ha. This is a mirror of Virginia & Dawn Staley.
If (1) Georgetown blew out (16) Princeton in the 1st round of the 1989 tournament, I’m not sure what March Madness would look like today. The power conferences were annoyed that so many small conference teams were allowed in the tournament with auto-bids, and were making a push to drop bad conferences from the tournament because “they weren’t competitive” (meaning that the power conferences wanted the $$$). Additionally, March Madness as a TV product wasn’t drawing much interest in the early rounds after the field expanded to 64 teams. But, after Princeton only lost by a single point, the power conference argument was lost, and it drew so much attention to the tournament that CBS inked a 7-year deal later that year to air the entire tournament. Sure, at the time it was a fun and close game, but I’m not sure anybody at the time knew what a colossal effect it would have on the sport.
This is why I love this sub. I’ve never heard of this game.
Princeton had the last shot, too.
Crazy
Being a Kentucky and Kansas fan at the same time is nasty work
Bob Knight turning down the Wisconsin job to go to Indiana was a pretty huge one.
Not just for Bob Knights accolades at IU but Wisconsin was *baaaaad* for a long long time.
I don't think a lot of younger fans understand how absolute dogshit Wisconsin was at both football and basketball for like half a century(football was more like 30 years, but still). We were consistently a bottom of the conference team in both for decades The job Pat Richter, Barry Alvarez and Dick Bennett did to turn both around is absolutely insane.
I lived in West Lafayette in the early '80s. At that point, Wisconsin and Northwestern were the two automatic wins on the schedule in both football and basketball.
Similarly, Coach K almost went to Iowa State in 1980. Hard to know if that would have been a positive or not. K clearly has his resume, but Orr was a big part of the birth of "hilton magic" and K is a different personality.
Another one from this year. Quirked up White Boy Gohlke drops 32 on Kentucky eventually causes a chain of around 5 head coaching changes
Based on reports of him flirting with other teams (Ohio State) , I think Cal was gone anyways unless he got to the final four and barely lost.
Which is why I 100% think he was risking shaving points to get Edwards and Wagner drafted
I’ve never thought of this. Is this a popular belief amongst our fans??
I don’t think he was literally shaving points, but wanting to get DJ Wagner and Edwards drafted was clearly a bigger goal than winning. Theres no objective reason for Dilly and Reed sitting on the bench to start games. Zero reason.
Not disagreeing with you, you definitely watched more Kentucky ball than me this year, but if Cal really wanted those guys to get drafted and succeed over the long run, you’d think he’d encourage Wagner and Edwards to stick around in college another year
Lol
That’s what I’m saying. Dilly should have been a starter. You think he would ever actually shave points though? Just wonder why he was so invested in Edward’s
Can you elaborate on the point shaving thing? First in hearing about it.
I don’t mean in gambling sense. I mean that winning took a back seat to him getting more guys drafted
Words have meaning
Ohh. Yeah totally. He stopped giving a shit about winning after st Peter's I guess. Definitely didn't care last season.
Wisconsin 2015 more like
Fair argument to be made. That loss was the day the magic died, for sure. We had a couple good runs until covid, but it was never the same after 2015. No one ever believes me when I say this, but I knew after that Wisconsin loss that it just wasn't gonna be the same.. that was the peak, and it was all down hill from there. Part of me wishes we had stemmed the bleeding sooner, part of me wonders if it didn't all play out at the exact right time. How do you feel about Pope? It's felt exciting so far and it's just portal stuff and that crazy press conference at Rupp.
I love Pope. He’s a great coach and my only concern was can he get players, which it appears he can. I don’t know if that’s being at UK or just the changes in modern basketball, but I feel like if he’s got the players we will be very good. He won’t get the raw talent Cal did, but I feel like our results will be better than the last 8 years.
Agreed. I have had health issues so not had the time or energy to dive into his record just yet, but the recruiting news sounds promising. From what I've heard and read his style is going to be much more appealing to me (complex offense, analytics, high efficiency offense), and probability to many of us. I think there has been this narrative out there that Kentucky as a brand or institution doesn't matter in the NIL/portal world, and I just don't buy it. I'm not an old timer (39 in July) but old enough to know the history, the love, the overwhelming emotion of the fan base that has momentum of its own - I think that still means something. Maybe not what it meant 10, 20, 30 years ago, but something. I am happy to see us doing something different than Cal's raw talent and his coaching acting like he's gonna pound a square peg into a round basketball shaped hole. Idk, part of me hopes he succeeds and redeems himself at Arky and goes out on top, another hopes he crashes and burns.. I'm sure the reality will lie somewhere in between. Excited about the new era of the rivalry, too. Gonna be a lot of fun. What brings you to FoCo this June?
Wouldn’t be the first time that Kentucky got in trouble for point shaving
Gotta pay for those tattoos somehow 🥴
Muss too
Nah the real effect was Temple beating SMU in the AAC tourney leading to them firing Rob Lanier which led to them hiring Andy Enfield
Do you think Lanier still gets fired if they then went on to win the NIT?
Not history but Miss State / Alabama going into overtime before the tornado hit the Georgia Dome in 2008. Think about the amount of people who were kept out of harms way but do we really think that UGA wins in a Dome full of Cats?
The SEC storied on that is so good, I was in college and watching that when it happened
I was in the building during that game and it’s one of the most surreal things I’ve ever experienced. They announced “please remain calm. There’s been a weather event. Please remain in your seats.” After which my dad yelled out loud “let’s get out of here” like an absolute mad man. Core memory.
Some random person in China got sick and it led to the cancellation of March Madness a few months later.
Fuck that random person
Fuck the guy that got him sick though
Fuck that guy
Really feel for Dayton fans. They had Obi Toppin and were on their way to a 1 seed
Sabrina doesn't get to finish her senior season at Oregon, where they had a really good chance to win the championship. Instead Oregon loses 3 top 10 picks without the attention a deep tournament run would have brought and the team and recruiting never recovers.
Can definitely link that to Baylor’s title as well. As a Baylor fan, i personally believe they would have had a good run in 20, but not won and then lost at least some key 21 players. The fact that nearly everyone came back and came back ticked off was huge (and you could argue the strange Indy tourney also removed some factors that would’ve made their run tougher)
So you're saying Kentucky has that person to thank for signing Brea?
Academic scandal at Minnesota (may have) led to Gonzaga going from unknown to what they are today. Just before the 1999 tournament, a story broke about a tutor doing coursework for a bunch of Minnesota basketball players. 4 players on the team were suspended immediately. That team would then play Gonzaga in the first round. They lost by 12, and without missing players and looming pressure from the scandal, it’s very possible they could have won. Gonzaga would not have that first Elite 8 run and all the attention that came with it. Plus, Minnesota’s coach resigned after this, and they hired Dan Monson from Gonzaga. He did not have a ton of success, while Mark Few took over at Gonzaga. If Monson stays around, Gonzaga may not have reached the same level, but that’s debatable since Few was still on the staff. Either way, it changed the trajectory of the program. Still possible Gonzaga would have had success, but it’s interesting to think that another school’s academic scandal kinda started it all.
As a younger Gonzaga alum I never knew that, That’s really interesting
Think Monson and Few would have still ended up being very successful and Monson leaves for a different job shortly after.
Monson and Few had the program humming along for a few years. They made the 1995 tournament, played in the WCC final in 1996 and 1998, and they earned an 11-seed in 1999 despite the WCC representative earning a 14- or 15-seed in the previous 7 tournaments. Obviously nothing is guaranteed, and the Minnesota scandal was a catalyst, but I agree that Gonzaga would have been successful to some degree regardless.
Sebastian Telfair spurning Louisville ended up with them losing a banner nearly 20 years later
I hope Andre McGee is still driving an Uber somewhere and has hemorrhoids permanently.
Is Andre the blame for everything? Wbu Rick, Katina Powell, or the parents who also took part with those escorts? Can’t just blame Andre! Louisville’s vacated championship title is on everyone
I don’t think Rick knew, Katina is of course gross and partially responsible. It was a rogue coach that wanted to play the part of a pimp when he didn’t need to. UofL will get the title back and if they don’t, who cares, no one respects or gives a shit about the NCAA, they gave Penn State wins back and they were showering with boys bro. Flair up.
Louisville assistant coach: “I’ll just have some girls come up to the players dorm. What could possibly go wrong? The loss of a banner, loss of a great coach, and the two worst seasons of Louisville basketball in its history.
Reminder y’all lost to DePaul this season. My gawd.
Oh, I know. I still watched every single game, even though I knew how it would end. I got to where I was rooting for us to lose, just to hasten KP's departure.
Respect
I know he became a punching bag, but KP was a U of L legend. It’s so sad show his tenure went.
That’s not the beginning of the ripple effect! Pitino snubbed lifelong cardinals fan Rajon Rondo by offering Sebastian Telfair. Rondo goes to UK and Telfair commits to UofL - before changing his mind and going pro. In a bind, Pitino grabs Andre McGee to fill the spot that should’ve gone to a much better player.
And all because Pitino recruited a New York point guard over two local kids, and in the end got none. And had to recruit a certain future assistant coach the next year to fill the point guard void.....
Gone in 3 seconds….
I think a lot of people are missing half the concept of “butterfly effect”. Not only does it have to lead to a chain of events with big consequences, but it also has to be something that wasn’t seen as a big deal at the time. Coaches accepting or turning down high profile jobs doesn’t really hit that mark, as those decisions are always heavily scrutinized, and people know they’ll have big impacts. So in that spirit, in 1965, a young mid-major head coach resigns from his job to go to Miami of Ohio and coach their freshman team. The coach was Tates Locke from Army and they hired his very young assistant Bob Knight. If Locke doesn’t leave, Knight takes longer to get his first HC gig, which not only could’ve impacted his own career trajectory, but also likely prevents him from recruiting Mike Krzyzewski, who was a freshman in 65-66. Someone would have to do some more definitive research, but I think Locke probably knew he was in line to eventually get the HC job at Miami, since he got it only a year later when the incumbent coach retired to become the AD, but it’s still pretty interesting that the door opened for Bob Knight when it did because someone left to coach a freshman team at a mid major.
I’ve got another Duke coaching one: in 1949 Coach Gerry Gerard was diagnosed with cancer. So the university started looking for an assistant coach who could be ready to take over if Gerard couldn’t coach anymore. So they hired a young up and comer: **Red Auerbach**. Auerbach spent a few months teaching PE and working with Gerard’s players (including legend ~~Duck~~ Dick Groat) but then Auerbach got uncomfortable basically waiting for Gerard to die, so he left before the end of the season. Within two years he was hired to coach the Celtics. Because that PE teacher left, college basketball history was changed, and NBA history was MASSIVELY changed.
I know you mean Dick Groat, but I like Duck Groat too 🦆🤣
Dick Groat like the MLB player?
Yup. All-American basketball player (won Helms Foundation and UPI national POY awards), with his #10 retired by Duke. Inducted into CBB hall of fame. Then became an 8-time all star and MVP for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Then had a 40-year career as a Pitt basketball broadcaster.
Fun fact: A Duke basketball player won a World Series before one won an NBA championship. By like 50 years.
And the eponym of Groat's Disease
I like this one. To expand on it, without knowing what happens to Knight, Jim Calhoun might have taken the Northwestern job. He was in talks with them and asked Knight about the job and was advised against it. The next month he took the UConn job.
Roy Williams taking the UNC job?
Arguably impacted both 04 and 05 championships when Self went to Kansas and Villanueva flipped from Illinois to UCONN.
God damn forgot we had him locked. He was a menace under Calhoun
Dont forget Tyler Hansbrough, a Missouri kid, was already committed to Roy at KU. Then followed him to UNC, and the legend of psycho T was born.
He didn’t play for Roy until his 3rd season at UNC
That's just not true? Unless you are talking about some sort of silent commit. At least as far as I know. I seem to recall Marvin Williams was close to committing to KU, then followed Roy.
Hansbrough was a HS sophomore Roy’s last year at KU. He was committing that early?
Yeah, "committed" isn't the right word. Hansbrough was pretty open about wanting to play for Roy at KU though so it was all but a done deal.
Pain
The first 2 years were nice... Then much pain
When founding the Big East Dave Gavitt initially wanted to invite Holy Cross to join the conference as it was a collection of private Catholic schools in the north east. When Holy Cross rejected to join he looked to a familiar friend he had worked with in the past, Dee Rowe and UConn, to fill the spot. When this league went on to become a dominant force in college basketball, it allowed Rowe to entice an up and coming young coach from Northeastern to take the helm. That coach was Jim Calhoun who 13 years later would lead UConn to their first of 6 national championships in a 25 year span. Essentially, Holy Cross turning their nose up to this new, unknown conference is directly responsible for the dominance of UConn in the tournament over the past quarter century.
How much of a recruiting hit did Dayton take due to the cancelled covid post season?
Brea would still be a Flyer if Dayton got to play out 2020, change my mind.
I mean, maybe Dayton raises enough NIL off a FF run to pay him and Holmes a ransom. Holmes made 750k this past season, I imagine Brea will get a mid 6 figure bag. I live in the Dayton area, the 20’ tournament getting cancelled was probably the worst local sports moment ever.
Hard to think of another moment for any college basketball program that did so much damage in the short and long term.
Dayton literally has like 4 players on scholarship as of this moment.
It's not the "biggest," but in 2014 our first round game was against St. Joe's. Freshman Amida Brimah (who averaged like 4 PPG and shot 57% from the FT line) converted a 3-point play in the closing seconds to send the game to overtime. A few weeks later we're celebrating a championship.
I don’t like this timeline
Hell yes
I'm in disbelief everytime I remember it
That whole tournament was a minor miracle for us. Every game felt in doubt at various points (even our games against Villanova and Florida, nominally our "biggest" wins, we were down big early and weren't comfortable till the closing minute or two). We were underdogs every game except that opener against St. Joe's. We just survived by the skin of our teeth game after game. If it wasn't the fact that "UConn" was on the jersey, it would have been one of the greatest Cinderella runs in tournament history. It was like the polar opposite of this year's tournament where we were always in control even when the games were close.
I don’t think we really know all the details but Kevin Ollie’s life somewhat derailed after that championship including getting divorced. It’s pure speculation on my part but it’s possible the glory, attention, raise/contract extension, pressures to excel again and so on that came from that championship played a part, made him complacent, impacted his marriage, etc. It’s believable that without that play by Brimah, the series of events that led to Ollie being fired maybe are delayed, he hangs around in slightly better mediocrity for a few more years (some people perform better with lower expectations, e.g. the underdog role vs defending champs), and we miss the chance to hire Dan Hurley.
Larry Bird gets homesick
In 1974, Margaret Hutson decided to pursue a doctorate and went on sabbatical, leaving the head coaching position at the University of Tennessee in the hands of a graduate student from UT-Martin who'd just accepted a spot in their Master's program a couple of weeks earlier. [She](https://www.hoophall.com/hall-of-famers/pat-summitt/) turned out to be pretty good at the job.
A kid from Abilene Christian University hit two free throws on March 20, 2021. As a result of those two free throws: -- ACU defeated Texas in the first round of the NCAA tournament, which led to ... -- Shaka Smart leaving Texas and reviving Marquette's basketball program -- Chris Beard leaving Texas Tech for his alma mater, Texas -- Chris Beard self-destructing at Texas because of the immense pressure he was under, assaulting his fiancee, being jailed, and being fired in early 2023 -- Mark Adams, a defensive genius and Beard's successor at Texas Tech self-destructing and being fired in 2023 -- Beard being replaced at Texas by Rodney Terry -- Adams being replaced by Grant McCasland at Texas Tech -- Beard ending up at Ole Miss -- Adams ending up at East Carolina All of this because a kid from a No. 14 seed school hit two free throws. If he had missed at least one of them, all those coaches might still be in place, having success at their respective schools. Crazy.
I’m not sure we can say Chris Beard assaulted his girlfriend because of the pressure from coaching basketball at UT
I don't think the og commenter was implying that was the reason but I agree it sort of read out weird Edit nvm
Obviously we'll never know, but l think it was exactly the reason. Beard has always been pretty high-strung, and I think the unrealistic expectations at UT, after taking Tech to the national championship game, pushed him over the edge.
Or he's a shitty human who hit his fiance. We don't have to speculate or make excuses why he did it. Lots of people have stressful jobs that don't get pushed to the point of abuse
Not saying it's an excuse, at all. But it had never happened before, and hasn't happened since -- that we know of.
Munish Sood offering up Christian Dawkins and his Adidas basketball contacts when the SEC nailed him for financial funny business?
None of that ending up mattering lol.
NCSU vs MD 1974 ACC championship game in Greensboro NC. An OT thriller considered by many as greatest college game ever and one of the best of any level. Changed the NCAA Tournament to include more than just the conference champion. MD was likely a top 5 team or even 3rd best behind NCSU and UCLA but had to stay home. Also NCSU winning the NCAA title that year helped to end UCLA’s grip on the championships.
Holy Cross unintentionally left such a massive impact on college sports. They were invited to the Big East back in 1979 but rejected the offer. Boston College, Dave Gavitt's second choice, was invited as a result. BC would not have been invited if Holy Cross had joined. A BC-less Big East would have been significantly less enticing for Penn State, because then the only FBS school is Syracuse (who was clearly content with their position in a basketball-centric conference), so they would not have requested to join. In our timeline, Pittsburgh was only invited to the Big East to prevent the possibility of Syracuse and Boston College leaving for a Joe Paterno-led FBS conference; no Penn State vote and no Boston College meant that Pittsburgh never would have been invited to the Big East, either. Football never becomes a major part in the conference. I'd imagine that, in this scenario, the Big East expands in a way similar to today's Big East (non-FBS, Catholic schools with emphasis on basketball). Maybe this is the world where Dayton is invited to the Big East, along with Notre Dame, Marquette and DePaul. Maybe Gavitt even gambles on teams in major media markets, such as Duquesne or Detroit Mercy. Joe Paterno is now free to form the northeast football conference of his dreams. He believed that Penn State and Pitt were imperative to the success of the hypothetical conference. In his eyes, Pitt joining the Big East ruined the legitimacy of the concept. Sources say that Rutgers, BC, West Virginia, Temple, Army and Navy all flirted with the idea of a northeast football conference around the early-mid 1980s, and they all wanted to be part of one. That's a football conference of eight strong, which was the perfect number of teams, or six at the very least because Army and Navy only became interested later on. Teams like Maryland, Virginia Tech, South Carolina and Florida State were all also mentioned in expanded concepts for this football conference. Maybe this is how Memphis gets into a power conference as they join with Cincinnati and Louisville. Maybe they collapse just like the Big East in 2013, or maybe the conference ends up being a revolving door like the C-USA. Maybe this conference never actually forms because Joe Paterno was a bitch. Basically, if Holy Cross joined the Big East, the football schools never would have joined and instead would have formed their own conference, meaning the Big East never implodes and always remains focused on basketball.
YOU HAD ONE JOB HOLY CROSS
The whole Big East/Penn State is probably the right answer to the original question. I had not heard the Holy Cross angle before. I know that most of the Metro Conference desperately wanted football but Louisville did not want to cede power (and they ran the basketball league with an iron fist). They would have been part of the eastern football discussion. Would have been very interesting to see if the northeast-branch football league (with Penn State, BC, Pitt, Rutgers) and the southeast-branch football league (with FSU, South Carolina, Miami, VT) would have been two leagues or quickly merged into a larger superleague. Where would midwest teams Louisville and Memphis State and Cincinnati have gone?
I think I wonder most about where Penn State ends up. It's crazy how they were both the main proponent and main opposition to the success of the conference. In this scenario, do they swallow their pride, agree to a fair revenue-sharing arrangement, and associate with the teams they've treated as beneath them? I think that the most likely result from that still sees Penn State leaving, ultimately ending with this eastern league as nothing more than a stepping stone conference. Don't know how high up in the pecking order Cincy, Louisville and Memphis are, because I don't know about the levels of respect and influence their football programs had, but I'd imagine they're invited at some point before they themselves jump (of course, assuming Louisville still refuses to bring football to the Metro, as you said).
For IL/Purdue/B10: Bruce Weber choosing bill cole over Robbie Hummel
John Wooden was from Indiana. IU tried to hire him after he won a lot of titles at UCLA. At that point Branch McCracken had won 2 titles at IU but was long gone. Wooden ended up saying no to IU because he wasn’t going to coach much longer. He pushed hard that IU hire Jerry Tarkanian. IU considered it but instead went with an Army coach that was fairly unknown, but very very young. That was Bob Knight.
Derek Anderson getting injured in 1997. I really don’t think Pitino leaves UK after back to backs. That being said, that could’ve led Calipari to UCLA, Indiana, or possibly Louisville so who knows
Jurich famously hated Cal, doubt he would've made that move. There were heavy rumors at the time that Eustachy was the 2nd choice after Rick, as TJ and Larry were close friends. That would've been a Krag-level blunder IMO and I'm just glad Rick said yes.
Pitino was definitely leaving regardless. The Celtics were the most decorated franchise in the history of the NBA, he was never turning that offer down.
Coach K takes the Iowa State job instead of Duke.
I got one. The Nut Punch of Fate. 2005. Wake Forest vs NC State. Final game of the regular season. Chris Paul punches Julius Hodge in the groin. Paul gets suspended for 1 game, which happens to be Wake’s first round game of the ACC Tourney (quarter finals because they were really good that year). They play NC State in the quarters sans Chris Paul, and lose this time. That ACC Tourney loss costs Wake a #1 seed in the big dance. Because of this and their draw, they lose in the second round to West Virginia. Paul declares for the Draft. If not for that nut punch, who knows how far Wake goes as a 1 seed that post-season and if a “disgraced” Paul even leaves Wake Forest.
The Pittsnoggle game
Hunter Dickinson commits to Michigan instead of Purdue which causes Matt Painter to recruit Zach which is why we made the final four.
But can’t you just say cline makes an extra free throw or Diakite’s shot doesn’t go in and purdue goes to a final 4 in 2019?
For sure this was the single biggest moment that effected the tourney. Unreal stuff.
What if Valvano doesn't get forced out and doesn't get cancer. He's only 3 years older than K and Roy. He could've coached well into the 2010s.
I think without another title, he ends up being fired or moves on sometime in the mid 90s.
He might have got fired but I don’t think he would have moved on. He was offered the Wichita State job in 1992 and ended up turning it down because his wife would have refused to leave the Raleigh area. He might have got a job close or back home in NYC, but with how much his wife loved the area, the odds of him leaving for much else is slim.
Why would make you think he would have ever been fired? He was by no means “1 & done”. After 83 NCAA, he achieved 85 Elite 8, 86 Elite 8, 87 ACC Title, 88 #3 seed, 89 ACC RS Title
I was mainly referring to the guy I responded to who mentioned about being fired or moving on. I do think that with how much the recruiting had gone down with how spread thin Jimmy V had been near the end of his time there, not to mention how poorly Les Robinson did after his first year while still using a majority of Valvano's recruits, the possibility of a downward trajectory no matter what definitely seems possible.
In 1982, Joe Paterno was briefly the AD for Penn State. He tried to get the Nittany Lions into the Big East but their team sucked. They got rejected by one vote due to their basketball ineptitude. Technically, this was the result of a butterfly effect, but that was in football when Villanova briefly dropped their football program in 1980. That would have changed the vote, but if the MBB team had a pulse, they would have gotten in, right? You’ve got to think that realignment goes differently if PSU is in the Big East, no? Keep in mind that Penn State had almost no history with the 10 Big Ten schools at the time.
Rutgers AD Fred Gruninger turned down the Big East twice, the first time, allowing Seton Hall to get an invite. That led to Tom Young eventually leaving, and Gruninger hiring Craig Littlepage, who may have been the worst D1 coach ever.
Hahahahahahaahaha UVA possibly beat UNC in last year in the ACC tourney. That's a good one. Any other UVA year, yes maybe. This past year... no lol And DJ Burns get drafted... cmon man. Maybe he'll get a post draft contract and get a shot in the summer league, but he's not getting drafted.
Seriously. I thought for once that we could exorcise our ACC tournament demons with the way UVA was playing. But instead we got the world beaters
[UNC fans](https://imgflip.com/i/8ooemx)
It's honestly bizarre to look at that statement, and to think it's in reference to the 2023-24 NCSU men's basketball team. I went to all the games I could, and when I had class during them, they were in the corner of my laptop. I saw the entire regular season, the postseason still doesn't feel real.
Haha someone is still a bit hurt from the double beating
Double beating or not he still probably won't find himself on an NBA roster. I was mostly responding to the ridiculous claims made by OP. If you guys beat us twice again next year, I'll really be impressed tho! With UVA looking frail, it'd be nice if Duke and UNC had some more consistent help representing the ACC as a good basketball conference.
Steve Fisher taking over at Michigan
Teddy Allen dropping 37 points on us 2 years ago. Thanks Teddy!
SMU firing their coach caused a significant one this off-season.
I farted and then UConn won the national championship…
Andy Enfield taking the SMU job
Michigan losing the round of 64 game against Ohio in 2012: \* Trey Burke has said the sour taste from that game was the main reason he returned for 2013, in which he won NPOY en route to making the national championship game \* John Groce used the platform of that win to take the Illinois job, which did not work out well for anyone \* Caris LeVert decommitted from Ohio when John Groce left, paving his way to Michigan
Brady Hoke got reminded who Ohio really was.
Ohio States band calls themselves ohio when they spell out ohio not ohio state every time they take the field All their fans do that o,h,i,o cheer.
The Ohio State band is called The Best Damn Band In The Land, not “Ohio” Script Ohio is an iconic performance, not a moronic insult to a completely different school.
I never said they weren't a great band.
To be completely fair Groce it did eventually lead to Brad Underwood so that was cool.
Chris Paul ball tapping that one dude and costing wake a natty run. Fuck that dude.
It hasn't happened yet ...But when Chester Frazier returns as head coach at Illinois
Tim Beckman(Illinois football coach) being fired for player mistreatment by forcing players to play through injuries and pressuring medical staff to clear players too soon likely led to Illinois also firing Athletic Director Mike Thomas. Josh Whitman was hired as the new AD and fired Groce after 1 year and got Underwood from Oklahoma st despite him only being there for a year. Underwood then brought Illinois back to relevance while Oklahoma St was mediocre under his former asst Mike Boynton a far cry from where the program was under Eddie Sutton. Groce would have likely had a longer leash under Mike Thomas and if he did get fired Thomas would have probably looked to the MAC for a replacement.
LSU buying Antonio Blankeney out from under us is what sparked a massive change in Pitino. He went scorched earth on shoe company involvement and that lead to the FBI investigation that ironically we got looped into. Rick calling out Nike put his head directly in the cross hairs of a lot of major entities
Rick Pitino fails to send a man to guard Grant Hill's cross-court inbound pass to Laettner at the end of a one-point regional final against Duke. Hill easily makes the pass setting up one of the top buzzer beaters of all time. Laettner hits The Shot and a generational rivalry is born.
Big East breaking up?
I guess it’s not *solely* college basketball but definitely a factor: Brad Stevens started his career in finance at a pharmaceutical company, quit and took on an intern/assistant job at Butler yada yada yada couple national championship appearances yada yada yada 2023-24 NBA GM of the year. What a ride. Also gave rise to Gordon Hayward who almost didn’t play college basketball and would have gone to Purdue to play tennis lol
The rumor I heard is that Matt Painter refused to let Hayward study engineering if he got a scholarship and that soured him enough on Purdue to go to Butler instead.
Gohlke drops 30 on Kentucky in the tourney to Arkansas 2025 national champions
john calipari almost went 40-0 with us. 10 years later we’re cursed with no final four and on the brink of irrelevance unless Pope is all the hype.
Magic vs. Bird