Purdue @ Penn State

[Coach]

I think their deficiency is the entire program.


They've never been a very good program. Some schools do well at both football and hoops, but PSU just isn't one of them. They have ok teams every 5 years or so, but they just aren't an established program. In hoops, PSU is playing second or third or fourth fiddle to Pitt, Nova, Syracuse, and Maryland. If you look at a map, you'll see why this hurt so bad. They are in the middle and they are the low man on the totem pole. In football, they are the best out of all the schools listed. It seems like hoops attracts more athletes from urban areas who prefer to go to college in an urban area. That hurts them.

Honestly, I think a different coach with different recruiting abilities could do better getting kids, but I still think it is a big uphill battle to be competitive on a bigtime level. In football they outrecruit the schools that kill them in hoops. Success also tends to breed success. If they could find a way to get 3-5 straight tournament appearances, then I think they'll really improve as a program because the hoops culture at PSU will start to change.

Teams like Michigan and Ohio State have had recent successes and failures in the last 10-15 years. Indiana was a yearly top 5 power, and now look at them. A few years of winning (Gonzaga) can turn your program around for quite some time til things go downhill again. It is a cycle and PSU has never been on the good side of things enough times to make their program relevant in the grand scheme of things to even begin with.

[shocker]

"It seems like hoops attracts more athletes from urban areas who prefer to go to college in an urban area. That hurts them." - as per COACH

Im not real smart with Geography but correct me if I am wrong. These top 25 teams are not considered Urban areas, I wouldnt think.

Urban would be Washington DC, Philly, Pittsburgh, etc. I don't see any of the following teams as being "Urban" teams/areas.

This excuse kinda sounds like the argument of attendance at Pitt football games. There is too much to do in this 'Urban' city. I just feel that an excuse is like a crutch.

Are these teams really Urban? Especially Northern Iowa, BYU and WVU?? :lol:
Kansas
Duke
kentucky
WVU
Kansas State
New Mexico
Baylor
Texas A & M
Purdue
Tennessee
Wisconsin
Butler
Northern Iowa
Vanderbilt
BYU
Texas El Paso


BTW - what was the previous school Eddie had success at? I really don't think that is the epitome of Urban.

[Coach]

ok.

My opinion. Did you read the whole post? Teams that win for a few years can beat that theory and I don't feel it works all the time anyway. Look at Rutgers and Seton Hall...they're not as good as they should be by my theory. PSU is outrecruited by Pitt, WVU, Maryland, Syracuse, Nova, Temple, etc....all within about 150 miles of PSU in each direction. PSU is a hole in the scheme of things for hoops. I love the university, but I think they have some things going against them bball wise. If...IF..they would win for 3-5 years in a row and make the tournament, I think they'd have a shot. Right now they get everyone's leftovers.

[shocker]

The following schols are very close in proximity and still are very competitive in any given year.

Look at UNC /Duke (not this year for unc). Georgetown / MD. WVU/Pitt.
Kansas/Kstate.
Texas/texas/baylor/A&M. Nova/temple
butler/ND/indiana.
Marquette/Wisconsin. OSU/Xavier/Dayton/Cinn.
Kentucky/Tenn/Vandy.

These schools may not be 150 miles apart but very close when it comes to recruiting. How can they be so competitive? And not all are Urban areas.

[BisonBlue07]

You ask how they can be competitive? As coach has already said numerous times, if they bring in a coach who brings in a new attitude to the program and get 3-5 successful runs and make the tourney then that would greatly help and change the basketball persona for PSU. I do not see how this is so difficult to understand??? No one cares about basketball at PSU b/c it is not worth caring about, it is very much so like the Pirates in MLB. If something sucks people aren't going to care about it on a widescale level (there will always be the diehards). I feel that coach was perhaps just offering another opinion about what might be hurting PSU with the geographical stuff because it offers a different take on maybe why they're struggling to get some players. It's easy to sit here and continually say the coach sucks (which he does!) and that they need a change (which they do). All those schools you have mentioned have good coaches who can consistently bring in the good talent; they are established. As coach mentioned, a new head man at PSU might struggle a little bit because of the demographics of the area along with the MAIN fact that PSU basketball has no background as a winner. I do not see what is so hard to figure out about that?

Perhaps this will help....why do we only have 2 political parties that run the show year in and year out? Because they are well established and have all the resources and strength to get the best "players." The green party and the like just cannot compete because they have never had anything to show that they can compete. The same comparison works with what coach is saying. Those schools surrounding PSU are established as good basketball schools and that would only hurt the chances of building PSU up. It can definitely be done, but their surroundings aren't going to help them in that case. Either way, I am sure coach would admit that it would be an excuse to blame geography and demographics solely on PSU's basketball failure, but it definitely has some level of impact to the program.

[WPIAL~Titan]

Coach, I know you're a big UCONN fan...All that talent and they STUNK this year. I realize that Calhoun was out for awhile, which hurt them, but come on...They have more athletic talent than Pitt.

DESPITE ALL THAT TALENT and "GREAT" coaching, UCONN hasn't won a game in the BE Tourney since 2006.

Jamie Dixon did an amazing job with Pitt's talent this year. I envisioned a .500 BE record at best, not the #2 seed in the BE tourney. Jamie needs to continue to do a good job of recruiting. I say he should bring back Slice so Pitt can own NYC again. Slice is about to get canned at Manhattan College.

Boeheim also did and excellent job at Cuse. Remember, that Cuse team lost to D2 LeMoyne in pre-season.

[shocker]

Thanks for clarifying that for us bison Bleu07. Your buddy COACH didn't specify that and I was just pointing out some other facts. My bad if I hurt yours and his feelings. My sincerest apologies. I do have one question for you though. Was his record at East Tennessee State a fluke as well as his NIT title? Just curious. Believe me I am not taking up for the guy. Just curious since everyone is saying is such a bad coach. How the heck did this awful coach, win an NIT title and do so well prior to psu?

[BisonBlue07]

Never said coach was my buddy, I think we both just share the same belief that penn state needs to change some things with their basketball program.

And to answer your question about how he happened to win the NIT and how did he do so well at the places before PSU....It so happened that he actually had a pretty good core of players on that team last year and yes it was a good win for PSU, but I sure hope you don't think the NIT is such an impressive tournament to win. Everyone at Penn State figured they had a legitimet chance of making it to the NCAA last year and they just missed out; winning the NIT should have almost been a given even with the annual sad state of the program. Obviously he has some coaching ability or he wouldn't have made it to PSU in the first place; however, some people cannot handle a bigger job. I am in no way saying coaching college basketball would be easy on any level, but I would imagine it would be a little more intense and take a different skill level to be successful at Penn State when compared to success at East Tennessee State. After nearly a decade of being below average I think it is time for a change

[shocker]

To be honest I really dont follow psu basketball but I think they are relatively young. I think his entire squad is back again plus a decent recruit in Bui (sp).

Dead Ed will do fine next year and my prediction will be that all you bandwagon nit wit fans will all be back on his wagon by Christmas 2010. Wait and see. :shock:

[Coach]

I did clarify what I meant in my post. You probably just didn't read it...

Oh well... Titan, you are right about my Huskies man. They just weren't very good. I know they have talent, but those guys just didn't perform and I don't feel like they played typical UConn D. On top of that they didn't have enough scorers. They had four guys average 10 ppg and after those guys the next highest was like 4 and then 2. Finally...a 69% free throw shooting team just isn't what I'd hope to see. Their best scorers weren't that great at the line.

In terms of the Cuse, that zone is sweeeeet. I wish Eddie D could get guys to play D like that. When I was at the Purdue game I just noticed how much faster their guys were switching on D and their reaction just seemed so much faster compared to the Nitters as well.