|
Post by beaverinohio on Feb 25, 2020 13:58:00 GMT -8
I became a fan of Oregon St. when I went there through a domestic exchange program during the 1980-81 school year. I then followed them pretty much through Ralph's final seasons. Actually dragged some friends up to Milwaukee (lived in Chicago at the time) to see the Beavs play Marquette in Ralph's final season. They won by the way. In subsequent years, life got in the way and didn't follow the Beavs much until Robinson's last two years or so. WT's hiring coincided with me getting the Pac 12 network with my cable package, so I started following the team much closer. Since it seems we have some historians on the board as well as no shortage of opinions, how did the Beavs end up as an after thought in the Pac 12? Just bad hires? Hanging on to Anderson for too long when he wasn't getting the job done? It just baffles me how they could have fallen so far.
As I've mentioned on here, the other school I root for is Illinois. Illinois fired Bruce Weber 7 seasons after he got them into the NCAA finals (albeit with Bill Self's recruits). And it wasn't like his subsequent years were terrible -- four NCAA and one NIT tournaments, and the two he missed weren't even in a row. The guy they then hired, John Groce, went to 4 post-season tournaments in his 5 years (though only one NCAA) and was actually fired after the Illini earned a berth in the NIT. However, he never finished above 7th in conference and his best year was a .500 record. Though Brad Underwood's first two seasons were bad (10th and 11th in conference), most fans understood he was building something -- culture of toughness and defense -- and for the most part have been behind him. Through some very good recruiting -- recruiting classes of #30 nationally, #25 (with 32nd ranked player), #68 (but with #46 ranked player) and #13 right now for 2020 (with #33 and #45 ranked players), he has the Illini looking like they will be in NCAA tourney (#35 NET).
Just crazy to me that OSU's administration let it get so bad. Especially when you consider both schools had iconic, successful coaches -- Ralph Miller and Lou Henson -- for a long time. Henson coached Illini for 21 years starting in 1975-76.
|
|
|
Post by nabeav on Feb 25, 2020 14:30:08 GMT -8
My opinion? The good in-state players starting going elsewhere. Once we started losing them, the record dropped, and then out of state guys had no reason to choose to come to the PNW. None of the truly elite talent out of Oregon (Love, Singlers, Stoudamires, Terrence Ross, Terrence Jones....etc. have chosen to come to OSU. Who is the last nationally recruited in state guy to come to OSU, Charlie Sitton? Brian Jackson, I guess....but the Oregon Jimmy Chitwood never really seemed comfortable away from the confines of Knappa.
|
|
|
Post by Judge Smails on Feb 25, 2020 14:33:45 GMT -8
My opinion? The good in-state players starting going elsewhere. Once we started losing them, the record dropped, and then out of state guys had no reason to choose to come to the PNW. None of the truly elite talent out of Oregon (Love, Singlers, Stoudamires, Terrence Ross, Terrence Jones....etc. have chosen to come to OSU. Who is the last nationally recruited in state guy to come to OSU, Charlie Sitton? Brian Jackson, I guess....but the Oregon Jimmy Chitwood never really seemed comfortable away from the confines of Knappa. Brian Jackson had a good career considering he was playing with some fairly serious abdominal injuries throughout much of it.
|
|
|
Post by baseba1111 on Feb 25, 2020 14:56:33 GMT -8
Well I'm sure there are plenty of interconnected reasons for the plunge in the success.
The one that is the overriding factor is indeed the university itself. With the lack of support toward athletics overall it's a wonder Ralph was so successful.
I know zero about Illini athletics and administration, but if WT can begin doing what they did he'd have a long extension. Funny the two sets of differing expectations.
|
|
|
Post by beaverinohio on Feb 25, 2020 16:10:40 GMT -8
Overall Illinois administration isn’t what I’d call supportive. It is a research school and that is what they want to be known for. For example, Illini have to turn away recruits that are NCAA qualifiers but don’t meet Illinois standards. Most schools (not sure if it is the case with OSU but is for most if not all B1G schools) will typically relax their standards for at least a few players. Illini’s top football recruit in 2020 class had to be turned away and ended up going to Cincinnati. And we’re not talking about bad students, just Illinois has pretty high requirements and they didn’t meet them. They’ve also been relatively stingy with budgets. I’m guessing maybe not as bad as OSU, but typically not strong compared to B1G schools.
Illinois has also had trouble recruiting Chicago until very recently in basketball and doesn’t get much help from state at all in football (made 19 offers to in state kids for 2020 class and got none. Chicago has produced a lot of top basketball talent that has gone elsewhere. D. Rose, Anthony Davis, Okafor— just too many to name. Underwood got Ayo Dosunmu last year and have a top Chicago kid in 2020 class, so finally making inroads again. Top recruit this year was from NY as is other top recruit in 2020.
It really is amazing how similar the two basketball programs were with the two iconic coaches somewhat recently as well as another prior to those two. And it’s not like they went the big name coaches after Lou. Well Lon Kruger was fairly high profile at FL, but Bill Self came from Tulsa and Bruce Weber from Southern Illinois. Somewhere along the way Beavs headed down wrong path and haven’t been able to get back in course, and I was wondering why that was because as I said didn’t follow them closely for awhile. Illinois was able to sustain success more or less, but they’ve had their issues. Fan base and donors I suppose just keep the expectations up. But they gave Groce 5 years, but NITs and mid-pack conference finishes wasn’t cutting it. But at some point Beavers let the expectations slip and again wondering why?
|
|
|
Post by alwaysorange on Feb 25, 2020 16:23:21 GMT -8
Because quite frankly beaver fans are complacent. Simple as that.
|
|
|
Post by baseba1111 on Feb 25, 2020 16:32:09 GMT -8
Overall Illinois administration isn’t what I’d call supportive. It is a research school and that is what they want to be known for. For example, Illini have to turn away recruits that are NCAA qualifiers but don’t meet Illinois standards. Most schools (not sure if it is the case with OSU but is for most if not all B1G schools) will typically relax their standards for at least a few players. Illini’s top football recruit in 2020 class had to be turned away and ended up going to Cincinnati. And we’re not talking about bad students, just Illinois has pretty high requirements and they didn’t meet them. They’ve also been relatively stingy with budgets. I’m guessing maybe not as bad as OSU, but typically not strong compared to B1G schools. Illinois has also had trouble recruiting Chicago until very recently in basketball and doesn’t get much help from state at all in football (made 19 offers to in state kids for 2020 class and got none. Chicago has produced a lot of top basketball talent that has gone elsewhere. D. Rose, Anthony Davis, Okafor— just too many to name. Underwood got Ayo Dosunmu last year and have a top Chicago kid in 2020 class, so finally making inroads again. Top recruit this year was from NY as is other top recruit in 2020. It really is amazing how similar the two basketball programs were with the two iconic coaches somewhat recently as well as another prior to those two. And it’s not like they went the big name coaches after Lou. Well Lon Kruger was fairly high profile at FL, but Bill Self came from Tulsa and Bruce Weber from Southern Illinois. Somewhere along the way Beavs headed down wrong path and haven’t been able to get back in course, and I was wondering why that was because as I said didn’t follow them closely for awhile. Illinois was able to sustain success more or less, but they’ve had their issues. Fan base and donors I suppose just keep the expectations up. But they gave Groce 5 years, but NITs and mid-pack conference finishes wasn’t cutting it. But at some point Beavers let the expectations slip and again wondering why? All three would be massive upgrades to who OSU hired... Jimmie was loyalty, but OSU should have struck while the program was "Ralph's legacy" and paid a little money to get a good hire... Mid-Major HC at least. Eddie Payne I thought was the right guy even though a good program nevers hires a guy with a losing record overall, never even .500 in league play, at East Carolina. Ritchie McKay was a nightmare post hire, but at least came from Colorado St with winning overall and league record. He seems to have matured some thru his years at New Mexico and now at Liberty. CR seemed very much like a PR hire with only two years of HC experience total and in the Ivy. Jimmie should have been the HC/interim for GP's final season with a search ongoing. You know how they put retired jerseys in the rafters, I saw somewhere in the AD they "retire" Anderson/Andersen from being HCs at OSU.
|
|
|
Post by spudbeaver on Feb 25, 2020 16:35:53 GMT -8
Because quite frankly beaver fans are complacent. Simple as that. I don't know about that, but I don't care enough to defend my point or make an argument. I think I'll just see how this thread goes.
|
|
|
Post by alwaysorange on Feb 25, 2020 17:07:23 GMT -8
Because quite frankly beaver fans are complacent. Simple as that. I don't know about that, but I don't care enough to defend my point or make an argument. I think I'll just see how this thread goes. Pretty sure you are not but wouldn't that be complacency?
|
|
|
Post by wilkyisdashiznit on Feb 25, 2020 17:24:37 GMT -8
Because quite frankly beaver fans are complacent. Simple as that. Discretion is the better part of valor. Guaranteed limited success is a million times better than a likely complete lack of success and far cheaper to attain. If we can find a way to pump a couple of extra million into Oregon State basketball per year, then we'll talk. Until then, we are getting about what we are paying for.
|
|
|
Post by nabeav on Feb 25, 2020 18:24:38 GMT -8
|
|
|
Post by beaverinohio on Feb 25, 2020 19:47:11 GMT -8
Thanks, but that doesn’t answer my question. How did the Beavs go from Miller’s success to being an after thought in Pac 12? You and others have made your point that today it is all about money. Has it strictly been money all along? I’m guessing the disparity in budgets between OSU and other P5 schools was much less back then though I could be wrong. Was it the reality of economics that took the fan base from writing letters to the editor calling for Ralph’s firing when he was still successful to 30 years of less than stellar results?
|
|
|
Post by beavadelic on Feb 25, 2020 20:48:58 GMT -8
I became a fan of Oregon St. when I went there through a domestic exchange program during the 1980-81 school year. I then followed them pretty much through Ralph's final seasons. Actually dragged some friends up to Milwaukee (lived in Chicago at the time) to see the Beavs play Marquette in Ralph's final season. They won by the way. In subsequent years, life got in the way and didn't follow the Beavs much until Robinson's last two years or so. WT's hiring coincided with me getting the Pac 12 network with my cable package, so I started following the team much closer. Since it seems we have some historians on the board as well as no shortage of opinions, how did the Beavs end up as an after thought in the Pac 12? Just bad hires? Hanging on to Anderson for too long when he wasn't getting the job done? It just baffles me how they could have fallen so far. As I've mentioned on here, the other school I root for is Illinois. Illinois fired Bruce Weber 7 seasons after he got them into the NCAA finals (albeit with Bill Self's recruits). And it wasn't like his subsequent years were terrible -- four NCAA and one NIT tournaments, and the two he missed weren't even in a row. The guy they then hired, John Groce, went to 4 post-season tournaments in his 5 years (though only one NCAA) and was actually fired after the Illini earned a berth in the NIT. However, he never finished above 7th in conference and his best year was a .500 record. Though Brad Underwood's first two seasons were bad (10th and 11th in conference), most fans understood he was building something -- culture of toughness and defense -- and for the most part have been behind him. Through some very good recruiting -- recruiting classes of #30 nationally, #25 (with 32nd ranked player), #68 (but with #46 ranked player) and #13 right now for 2020 (with #33 and #45 ranked players), he has the Illini looking like they will be in NCAA tourney (#35 NET). Just crazy to me that OSU's administration let it get so bad. Especially when you consider both schools had iconic, successful coaches -- Ralph Miller and Lou Henson -- for a long time. Henson coached Illini for 21 years starting in 1975-76. A couple of weeks ago, I talked with a friend who was a part of the program bridging Ralph and Jimmy Anderson’s eras. He was with the team with GP, and continued to be when Jimmy took over for a while. He said that it definitely went south quickly when Jimmy became the head man. I love Jimmy, but in terms of adverse impact on us, he hurt hoops. Not as badly as that other Andersen guy hurt football, but Jimmy really wasn’t the head guy. He got to the Dance his first year because he had the best player in America. GP was the coach according to my friend. He told me that a lot of people don’t realize how smart GP is. He just wouldn’t condone screw-offs or selfish behavior by teammates. His skill, clutch and charisma was only rivaled by his tenacity, toughness and competitive burn. This guy told me that he loved Ralph because he coached his players to play the game the right way, and it didn’t matter how talented a kid was. If they didn’t do things the right way or were unteachable, he’d run them off. He said that while Jimmy was a really good assistant, he lost control quickly with his obsession with bringing “athletes”, rather than basketball players who loved the game and were coachable. Guys like Chad Scott were athletes and gifted, but he held up a pizza delivery guy, and it was symptomatic of losing sight of what Ralph put a premium on. For every Brent Barry, there were bad actors. If they could play, he tended to look the other way. Coaches have to build their own program, but if you are inheriting a strong culture, it’s wise to reinforce and build your own thing on a solid, pre-existing foundation. There were also rumors that there was dissension and tension on the team spurred by certain assistants that didn’t help. Jimmy also fell prey to a common problem for many decent coaches who failed to surround themselves with good assistants. During that time, he also suffered the tragedy of losing a top 10 rated transfer from Oklahoma, Earnest Killum, a tremendous offensive player who died of a heart condition. Eddie Payne followed that unfortunate run of 6 years, and brought in an amazing first class in ‘96 I believe, including Corey Benjamin, rated the #5 prospect in America, in the same rare air as the likes of Jermaine O’Neal and Kobe. Unfortunately, within 2 years all but 2 or 3 of the 9 highly-touted recruits had left for myriad reasons, and that great potential run sputtered with JB Bickerstaff transferring and Benjamin declaring early for the NBA draft just as he was catching his stride and showing his immense potential. Eddie was so close to getting things on track just a few years post-Ralph, but he was soon gone, replaced by the poser formerly known as Ritchie McKay, who always seemed to have a new dream job after he landed in his current dream job. We endured Ritchie and his “me first” approach for a few years, until he slunk out of town in the middle of the night to pursue his next dream job. By then, we were over a decade removed from relevance, with few recruits who could tell you much about the Orange Express. Further, Lute at Arizona had created a basketball machine and was snatching the best in our state right and left, and Ernie Kent had some really good teams led by Luke Jackson, Luke Ridnauer. and Freddie Jones. Jackson had narrowed it between the Oregon schools, and Ridnauer (who was friends with the other Luke) took a late visit to OSU even though he was verbally committed to the ducks. In the end, they went to Oregon together. We were no longer THE program in our own state even. When Miller was here, he got the best kids in our state a good deal of the time. We owned the Ducks (even with the shift in the last 25 years, the Beavers still lead the all-time series by a good margin) Jay John was overhyped (“big man guru” from Lute’s Arizona staff). He turned out to be nothing resembling Olson in his leadership. He had some pretty talented individuals like Philip Ricci, Nick Dewitz, Brian Jackson (sad story there), Sasa Cuic (a gifted piece of work who reportedly thought he had signed play for the “OSU ducks”) and Chris Stephens, but he was a poor tactician and had very little control in the locker room. His players were mutinous by the time we finally sent him packing. Remnants of the proud hoops program were becoming hard to find. Craig Robinson was about our 6th choice when we got him. He had some charisma, and for a once-proud program that had been to 1 NIT and zero Big Dances in the previous 19 years, the relative success that his first team had and the win in the modest CBI tourney made some wonder if maybe we could get back on track with him. Good man, mediocre game coach. The CBI was by far his crown jewel in his 6 years here. When Tinkle came aboard, despite the silly notion in my head that Ben Howland or some other name guy would be the coach, I heard that this might be solid from some folks. He had early success as GP2 carried us and some holdovers from Robinson’s team brought some good things to the table. He got us to the Big Dance for the first time in a quarter century, and between he and assistant Stephan Thompson, they brought in 3 nice players who happened to share DNA with them. We have never been more perplexing than we have during his tenure. Let’s go outplay a top 20 team and win, then follow it up with a loss to a team with an RPI below 200. They are excruciating to watch. I have no idea what our identity is in our program. The Beaver hoops program that you speak of is history. I keep hoping that someday we’ll see this program write some new chapters of the type that we were privileged to witness consistently for about 15 straight years.
|
|
|
Post by beaverinohio on Feb 26, 2020 4:23:45 GMT -8
Beavadelic — Thank you for taking the time to write that thoughtful and interesting reply. Very informative. Questions for you or anyone else who would like to chime in. Money is offered up as a major reason for why the current circumstances can’t be fixed. Has that always been an issue or just gotten worse over time as big time college sports has grown? Did that enter into the coaching hires after Miller and if so when did it really become a problem — from the beginning or later? How was the fan base with each particular hire? For example both you and Baseball seemed to have liked the Payne hire. Was that pretty much universal at the time and how about others? Was there a particular time or coaching tenure that just kind of “broke the will of the fan base,” has it just been gradual or do you think that is a poor characterization of the situation?
Again, thanks for the thoughtful reply. As I mentioned, for most of those years I wasn’t following the program closely. Still had some general knowledge but wasn’t as easy to get information about a team out west as it is now, so the perspective is appreciated. I still believe there are coaches out there that can move the program forward. Just have to find the right one — and it doesn’t necessarily have to be a big name. But to find him takes due diligence, an astute AD and, yes, some luck. And no guarantees as some point out. But also no guarantees that WT can even sustain the “gain” he’s brought the program considering there are no more family members coming down the pipeline. For whatever reason he hasn’t been able to capitalize on having those 3 talented players plus GP2 and an NCAA appearance to improve recruiting.
|
|
|
Post by beaverinohio on Feb 26, 2020 7:34:41 GMT -8
Again, thanks for the info. Doesn't surprise me that Illinois spends more, though a little surprised how much more. I'll direct these questions to you since you seem to be pretty good at following the money, but if anyone has thoughts, of course, please chime in. Any idea if that expense number for Illinois listed has anything to do with the buyout, or is that pretty much the amount they spend annually? Surprised to see that the list shows Illinois as third highest in B1G, which is why I wonder about some buyout costs being in there. Also, any idea what what goes into the expenses? I'm assuming that a fairly large chunk is personnel. Looks like for the 2018-19 season, Underwood made $2.85M, while Tinkle made $1.9M according to figures I found. I know Illinois increased the assistant pool when they brought Underwood on, so maybe $200k more than OSU? Does Illinois employ a hell of a lot more support staff than OSU or is there something else eating up a large chunk of Illinois' budget. On the revenue side, you mention tickets and conference network. How is the NCAA tournament revenue split up? Do the teams that are in the tournament get all the money or is it pooled and split among each team or a combination of both? Illinois is only 7th in conference in revenue, and it looks like those above them were in the tournament. Back to OSU, I noticed that its revenue and expenses are equal, and the reporter says some schools will massage the numbers to show it that way. Is OSU losing money with the men's b-ball program, making money or pretty much breaking even? The other thing I found interesting is the schools that are spending less than the Beavs but still have a pretty good track record of getting into tournaments. I realize these schools aren't playing against Pac 12 schools and in some ways have a better chance of getting into tournament, and they don't have the "cost of being in the Pac 12." But still interesting and makes you wonder just how bad the athletic department has been at getting a bang for their buck.
|
|