dook Biorhythms, Round Two, 6:30 Start in The Dean E. Smith Center (Now With Blood)

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SnoopRob said:
My biggest concern is what standard he has to meet next year to retain his job going forward.

I sincerely doubt it will be publicly announced and I don't expect there to be an agreed upon standard within the fan base.
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You know, I'd probably be able to find comfort in retaining him even after another season below typical UNC standards, if he is able to show promise as a upper-tier head coach at this level.
 
stankeylegjones said:
You know, I'd probably be able to find comfort in retaining him even after another season below typical UNC standards, if he is able to show promise as a upper-tier head coach at this level.
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It'll depend. If it's purely coaching, I'd be less inclined. If there's problems with the adjustment to to new format so that we do poorly in the portal (in my mind, the biggest point of failure this year) I'd be more inclined to do so.
 
finesse said:
It'll depend. If it's purely coaching, I'd be less inclined. If there's problems with the adjustment to to new format so that we do poorly in the portal (in my mind, the biggest point of failure this year) I'd be more inclined to do so.
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Those things are definitely important, and areas that he needs to show he can embrace and navigate through. However, I think it's more important to see that he can coach (develop talent, enhance talent, implement philosophies that cater to the talents of players, and so on) at the level required of a person in his position. This team has the players to furnish a border top-25 team (20-30 range), and should have been one throughout the season. I've spoken ad nauseam about the issues that I'm seeing, along with posting clips/articles from actual analysts who're pointing out issues, so there's no need to rehash it again. But, I will mention that Vipp nailed it in the postgame coverage yesterday: "Hubert needs a perfect team to be competitive." That needs to change, because it's really hard to assemble a perfect team every year.
 
finesse said:
Not sure that it has to be perfect but we need a good big man and a leader. Maybe need the leader the most.
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It quickly became clear just how key Bacot was in both respects. RJ is just not the locker room guy we all hoped he’d be. Add Cadeau who is supposed to be your 5-star PG and (you would hope) a leader, despite his age — but he seems emotionally fragile and keeps making the same mistakes over and over and over… yet you can’t bench him or he’ll for sure head for the portal.

I agree there should be more wins and quality wins on the board, but it’s been a much more challenging season than those who confidently proclaim what their record “should’ve been with this roster” are acknowledging. It’s not all on HD. He’s not the one out there missing clean looks most of the season. The players own their chunk of the responsibility too.
 
SnoopRob said:
While not quite to the same extent, I think you do see much more of that focus on measurables at the NBA level than you do at the NCAA level.

I wonder if the difference is that in the NFL, and even CFB, you have so many more positions and so many more potential players to consider and a much larger team to build vis-a-vis the NBA and CBB? In basketball, it's conceivable to observe a lot of top players each year in depth and get a real feel for them & their skill set, whereas with football you have to consider so many potential players at so many potential positions that things that are more easily quantifiable (i.e. metrics) may very well be considered more important simply because those metrics so easy to compile on the much larger number of players you need to consider.
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There’s probably something to that, in terms of numbers of players to review. Still I would think if they had some standard matrix of measurements (e.g. speed baseline to baseline, some lateral speed/agility measurement, leaping- both running start and standing start or 1-2 step start) it could give meaningful data to the selection process.

The problem with watching the players in-game is everything is relative to the quality of the team around them and the opposition.
 
How measurable are anticipation and reflex? Both seem to be of greater importance in basketball with the smaller playing areas and fewer numbers.
 
Icky Mettle said:
You need to look at the bigger picture to get some context. I always think Gut’s recruiting (as well as his coaching) gets an unfairly bad rap. He really had only two years of full recruiting classes. He became head coach in the October before the 1997-98 season, so there wasn’t much for him to do in terms of recruiting the 1998 HS class at that point. Capel and Lang had already committed. He did then help reel in Ronald Curry, a consensus top 10 recruit (I say helped reel in because Carl Torbush was recruiting him for football as well, but as I understand it, it was the prospect of playing on the basketball team that really excited Curry at the time.)

In 1999, he landed consensus top 5 recruit Joseph Forte, consensus top 15 recruit Jason Parker, runner-up Indiana Mr. Basketball Jonathan Holmes (Gut was looking for a backup PG to play behind Cota and Curry), and Will Johnson, who came to UNC as a Morehead scholar. Unbeknownst to Gut at the time, Vasco Evtimov would not return for his junior year, Ronald Curry would miss the 2000 season with an Achilles injury from football, and Jason Parker would not make the grades to make it onto campus. Needless to say, a recruiting class that consists of a top 5 recruit and top 15 recruit is going to be considered a good recruiting class. Also keep in mind that Gut added Julius Peppers to the basketball team, so Peppers was also part of that class.

When Parker didn’t make the grades, Gut told him to spend a year at Fork Union, and then he could come to UNC the following year. So Gut fully expected Parker— a top 15 recruit from the 1999 recruiting class— to be part of his 2000 recruiting class.

In addition to Parker, the 2000 recruiting class consisted of consensus top 25 recruit Brian Morrison, consensus top 35 recruit Adam Boone, and McDonald’s All-American Neil Fingleton. Unfortunately, Parker did not make it past UNC admissions (even though he qualified under NCAA rules), so he did not end up being part of that freshman class.

If you look at all that, Gut really wasn’t a bad recruiter, but it’s also not like two full years of recruiting is enough to make a truly informed judgment of one’s recruiting ability.

Frankly, Dean Smith’s last three recruiting classes were a bit subpar by the standard he had set. Those recruiting classes were as follows:

1996: Vasco Evtimov, Ed Cota, Michael Brooker, Terrence Newby (Makhtar N’Diaye also transferred from Michigan after the 1995 season, so he would join UNC along with this freshman class in 1996-97 with two years of eligibility left.)

1997: Brendan Haywood, Max Owens, Brian Bersticker, Orlando Melendez

1998: Jason Capel, Kris Lang (As stated above, Curry committed while Gut was coach.) (To be fair, Capel was top 10 and Lang was top 25, so it looked like the makings of a strong recruiting class, and looked like a really good class when Curry was added it to it.)

As for Gut’s coaching, with the exception of the NCAAT first round exit vs. Weber State, Gut did a great job with that 1999 team after losing Jamison, Carter, Williams, and N’Diaye (85% of the scoring for the previous season’s team), and with Evtimov missing 18 games due to the NCAA ruling him ineligible for those games and Capel missing 8 games due to health issues, not to mention Curry missing the first 8 games due to football. Despite all that was lost from the previous season and missing a starter and 2 rotational players for large chunks of the season, he coached that team to final ranking of 13 and a third place ACC finish (when Duke and Maryland both had great teams). He also coached the team to a win over a great Maryland team in the ACCT semifinals.

2000 was a really rough year prior to the NCAAT with the team on the bubble. But imagine what he could have accomplished had the team ended up being what Gut thought he would have after the 1999 season. The team he expected to coach in 2000 was a team that would have consisted of Jason Parker, Evtimov, and Curry, none of whom made it onto the 2000 roster. Curry would have provided the team with a much better backup to Cota than what was available (Newby and Holmes). And Evtimov had potential. In 1999, he averaged 5 rpg in just 11 mpg. That’s 17.6 rebounds per 40 minutes with a decent sample size. He was the highest rated recruit Dean Smith landed in 1996. On top of all that, Brian Bersticker, who appeared to be an integral part of the rotation early on, averaging about 11 mpg, got injured and missed almost the entirety of the season (he played in only 5 games).
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Orlando Melendez could do a flip and dunk the ball, in practice.... 😁
 
Icky Mettle said:
Yeah, he definitely was a little slow and lacked athleticism for a small forward. I remember in the very early days of reading message boards, while Capel was still in high school, reading fans’ reports after they watched him play in high school games. What they would say is that he wasn’t great at any one thing, but he was good at almost everything. They said he wouldn’t deliver many exciting highlights but would display good fundamentals and a high basketball IQ. I seem to remember comparisons to a less athletic Grant Hill.

I also remember trash talking between fans of different teams on those early message boards, and Tar Heels fans telling Duke fans, “We got the good Capel.” Later on, Duke fans would tell us that we got the Capel Curse. I do subscribe to that belief.
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I just remember he was highly rated. And he was a decent role player, just out of position at the 4 and overburdened with carrying a team. Still blows my mind, past and present, UNC’s consistent struggles with securing skilled big men.
 
Hubert isn’t going to make it. I’d give it a 15% chance. When you don’t know by year 4, it’s not going to work out. The iso ball nonsense has spread and isn’t going away. There might be some good results here and there but Hubert is likely gone after next year and I’d be stunned if he’s here 3-4 years from now.
 
HintonJamesHeel said:
Hubert isn’t going to make it. I’d give it a 15% chance. When you don’t know by year 4, it’s not going to work out. The iso ball nonsense has spread and isn’t going away. There might be some good results here and there but Hubert is likely gone after next year and I’d be stunned if he’s here 3-4 years from now.
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I guess that decides it.
 
duluoz said:
It quickly became clear just how key Bacot was in both respects. RJ is just not the locker room guy we all hoped he’d be. Add Cadeau who is supposed to be your 5-star PG and (you would hope) a leader, despite his age — but he seems emotionally fragile and keeps making the same mistakes over and over and over… yet you can’t bench him or he’ll for sure head for the portal.

I agree there should be more wins and quality wins on the board, but it’s been a much more challenging season than those who confidently proclaim what their record “should’ve been with this roster” are acknowledging. It’s not all on HD. He’s not the one out there missing clean looks most of the season. The players own their chunk of the responsibility too.
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I expect Cadeau in the portal regardless.
 
Geisterfahrer said:
I just remember he was highly rated. And he was a decent role player, just out of position at the 4 and overburdened with carrying a team. Still blows my mind, past and present, UNC’s consistent struggles with securing skilled big men.
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The bigs we had that year were Kris Lang, Brian Bersticker, and Neil Fingleton. Obviously Jason Parker never made it onto campus, but if he had and stuck around, he would have been on that team. Gut had recruited Jamal Sampson, a top 25 big, but Doherty did not pursue him when he took over. Doherty did go hard after David Harrison, but missed on him.

The one challenging thing about landing quality bigs at that time was that it was pre-OAD and a lot of the elite bigs were going pro right out of high school. The class of 2001 had Eddy Curry, Tyson Chandler, Ousmane Cisse, Kwame Brown, DeSagana Diop all ranked in the top 10, and they all opted to bypass college. Curry and Brown did commit to college teams (DePaul and Florida, respectively), but I know that Curry at least didn’t have any real intention of going to college.
 
Parrish nails exactly what I've been saying. If you (Bubba/UNC admin) think HD is the right person for the job then you need to support him to the fullest, come out and say he's going to be our coach until he no longer wants to be, etc., while if not, waiting a year or longer is foolish.

 
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Calheel said:
What the heck does "test the portal" mean? I've heard test the NBA draft, but this is a new one for me.
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Agreed. I'm not sure one wants to "Test" the portal. How many kids entered the portal last year and didn't find a home?

It's not like the draft, where you have a spot waiting. Enter the portal and your spot might be filled before you have a chance to get the scores from that test.
 
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