Hubert Davis Catch-all

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NYCBlueBlood said:
I see TJ Otzelberger come up a lot. I'm always a bit surprised. I think he's a good coach, but is he really that different from HD? In his 5 seasons at Iowa State he's won 70.3% of his games, 58.7% of his conference games, finishing on average 4th in conference. Yes he's been to 2 Sweet 16s, but one of those was off a 22-23 (7-11 in conference, finishing 6th).

Honestly, I can't think of many coaches with a more similar record to HD's. 70.2% overall, 69.4% in conference, and just a bit better than 4th on average in conference.
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First of all, ISU has been a much harder place than UNC to win over the relevant time period. They have far less resources and history; their conference has been much tougher on average; and they were much more of a mess when TJO took over (12-20 and 2-22 in the last two seasons before he came). UNC was not in great shape either, by its own standards, when Hubert took over, but still far better off than ISU. That Otzelberger immediately made them a tourney team - then made the S16 - in his first year there is a remarkable accomplishment. So is the fact that he's about to make his 5th tournament in a row, and about to notch his third straight top 3 seed in a row.

Second of all, the focus on overall records and conference records elides (1) the big difference between the strength of the conferences, and (2) that ISU has, on the whole, been a better team on average than UNC during that period when looking at the whole picture. Here are their NCAA seeds vs ours in the last 5 years (asterisk by this year's projected seed):

ISU: 11, 6, 3, 2, 3*
UNC: 8, N/A, 1, 11, 6*

And here are their efficiency ranks per KenPom those 5 years vs ours:

ISU: 43, 29, 8, 11, 6
UNC: 16, 43, 9, 31, 30

What you see from looking at all of that information is that not only has ISU been better on the whole than UNC during that time period, but the recent trend is even more stark. I would prefer to see more tournament success, but personally I think having strong seasons overall is a better predictor of future success than tournament results, which can be fluky.
 
Icky Mettle said:
I’m not sure I necessarily agree that getting the same results at Iowa State is as impressive as at UNC. Iowa State doesn’t have the target in its back that UNC does. I’ve always believed that if you took some of UNC’s worst teams over the past 25 years, and pit them in entirely different uniforms of some other team (e.g., Clemson, Virginia Tech, Boston College, etc), they would have more wins. Other teams wouldn’t be gunning for them the same way. UNC has historically had to take every team’s best shot (generally speaking). Most other teams, including Iowa State, not so much.
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If you could take UNC’s budget, recruiting prowess, facilities and fan support and transfer all of that to Iowa St, then Iowa St would be an easier job.

The problem is that you can’t just switch jerseys. Once you coach at Iowa St, your resources become dramatically less.
 
NYCBlueBlood said:
I do agree that the same results at Iowa State is more impressive than getting them at UNC... but it's hardly the kind of awe inspiring results I'd expect given the amount of frothing at the mouth I see over substantially similar results from HD being completely unacceptable. The number of posts I see saying that HD is terrible, can't coach, completely inept... but people fawning over Otzelberger. It's weird.

Right now in this moment, I think he's a slightly better coach than HD. Firing HD for him makes no sense to me. If the argument is that UNC deserves better than HD... then we need to find better. But all the names I hear as replacements are some combination of A) too old, B) almost definitely will not leave their current job for UNC, C)complete assholes, D) have little or no track record at a P5 school.
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Like I said, I’m not sold that he would be the best fit for a program like UNC.

To the wider point, when there’s not an obvious successor it’s easy to poke a million holes into every potential replacement that gets suggested. I think before you make a move you do everything you can to backchannel and gauge interest from the best options, but the reality is that outside of rare instances (like having Roy waiting in the wings) every coaching change is going to have uncertainty and risk vs. reward that needs to be balanced.

The question is always, what is the point where the reward starts to outweigh the risk? Barring an unexpected crazy tournament run I personally think UNC has reached that threshold, but I’m not going to call someone an idiot for thinking otherwise.
 
finesse said:
This is exactly what Dean was hired by Aycock to do and I never heard the first word from Dean or saw the first action by him to ever indicate he forgot it. As best as I can tell, Roy adopted it. I don't know how much it means to anybody these days but don't even pretend that that's not how it started.
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I didn't say that's not how it started. But if you think Dean would be worshipped the way he is if his career record looked like Larranaga's you're kidding yourself. Dean is worshipped because he won doing it that way.
 
Icky Mettle said:
I remember when Seth Greenberg complained about not making the NCAAT when he had a bubble team that beat both UNC and Duke. Dick Vitale responded (yes, I’m citing Dick Vitale, but I agree with him here), “You cannot just hang your hat on beating Duke and UNC. Those teams take every team’s best shot game in and game out and still get wins. You have to play every team the way you play Duke and UNC to be successful.”

I agree. I watch these other games (or at least used to) and the teams we play usually don’t look the same against other teams as they did against us. The arenas we visit are a lot emptier and the fans are a lot quieter than when other teams show up to play there. Those other teams don’t show up to opposing teams’ arenas and experience what we do from the home team’s crowd.
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Dick Vitale saying something on TV doesn't make it true. Vitale always gushed over Duke and UNC. Him saying that isn't evidence of anything.

I have no doubt you believe what you believe based on your observations. But you are a biased observer (who watches way more UNC games than other games, proportionally) recounting your personal anecdotal observations that teams played better against us than they did the rest of the season.

There is data available that would allow you to test your theory that teams play harder/better against UNC and Duke than other teams. I would love to see that theory put to the test. But belief and anecdotal observations aren't evidence.
 
Calheel said:
That’s always the question. Very few elite schools have hired away coaches from other elite schools. Far more likely you hire Bill Self from Illinois than Roy Williams from Kansas.
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Agree 100%. But only a tiny percent of potential Bill Selfs turn out to be Bill Self. The vast majority wind up being HD caliber or worse. It's been a long time since a blue blood found a Bill Self on the first try.

Now this is not a reason not to try, but it is a cautionary tail to not go chasing after the hot pick of the moment.
 
rodoheel said:
Dick Vitale saying something on TV doesn't make it true. Vitale always gushed over Duke and UNC. Him saying that isn't evidence of anything.

I have no doubt you believe what you believe based on your observations. But you are a biased observer (who watches way more UNC games than other games, proportionally) recounting your personal anecdotal observations that teams played better against us than they did the rest of the season.

There is data available that would allow you to test your theory that teams play harder/better against UNC and Duke than other teams. I would love to see that theory put to the test. But belief and anecdotal observations aren't evidence.
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I am confident teams play harder against the best teams (whether they play "better" is debatable).

I am also confident that there are some very unique pressures at UNC and other bluebloods that not all coaches are equipped to handle (Doherty certainly wasn't).

That said, it is so, so much easier to win at UNC than almost any other cbb job. There are so many built in advantages that most coaches will never experience in their career. Even a half-way competent coach should regularly win 25 games a year at UNC. We want a coach that will average 30 wins a year.
 
rodoheel said:
I didn't say that's not how it started. But if you think Dean would be worshipped the way he is if his career record looked like Larranaga's you're kidding yourself. Dean is worshipped because he won doing it that way.
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I pointed out that I was aware that many fans disagreed. It's just that your implication that winning was integral to the tradition was not true. Winning was initially one of the products of of the program's goal, to turn each player into the best representative as a player and person of UNC they could be. I don't expect that to carry any sway. The modern conditions make it almost impossible. I do hope to hell it's never forgotten. At a time when there few exceptions to being at a school for a long stay, that was a strong selling point. Knowing coming here almost certainly meant graduating and having a successful life got us the kind of players that built this program.
 
NYCBlueBlood said:
Agree 100%. But only a tiny percent of potential Bill Selfs turn out to be Bill Self. The vast majority wind up being HD caliber or worse. It's been a long time since a blue blood found a Bill Self on the first try.

Now this is not a reason not to try, but it is a cautionary tail to not go chasing after the hot pick of the moment.
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And there are more Fedoras than Cignettis.

And even when you do get a Cignetti/Self/Calipari, they have a shelf life. At some point, they enter the late-stage Bobby Bowden era.

But I also think there were probably 50-100 potential coaches that could have matched Hubert's success over the past five years. Obviously, we were never going to hire those coaches or, indeed, anyone but Hubert. But going forward, I think the odds are definitely in our favor that our next coach will out perform our current coach.
 
rodoheel said:
First of all, ISU has been a much harder place than UNC to win over the relevant time period. They have far less resources and history; their conference has been much tougher on average; and they were much more of a mess when TJO took over (12-20 and 2-22 in the last two seasons before he came). UNC was not in great shape either, by its own standards, when Hubert took over, but still far better off than ISU. That Otzelberger immediately made them a tourney team - then made the S16 - in his first year there is a remarkable accomplishment. So is the fact that he's about to make his 5th tournament in a row, and about to notch his third straight top 3 seed in a row.

Second of all, the focus on overall records and conference records elides (1) the big difference between the strength of the conferences, and (2) that ISU has, on the whole, been a better team on average than UNC during that period when looking at the whole picture. Here are their NCAA seeds vs ours in the last 5 years (asterisk by this year's projected seed):

ISU: 11, 6, 3, 2, 3*
UNC: 8, N/A, 1, 11, 6*

And here are their efficiency ranks per KenPom those 5 years vs ours:

ISU: 43, 29, 8, 11, 6
UNC: 16, 43, 9, 31, 30

What you see from looking at all of that information is that not only has ISU been better on the whole than UNC during that time period, but the recent trend is even more stark. I would prefer to see more tournament success, but personally I think having strong seasons overall is a better predictor of future success than tournament results, which can be fluky.
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I don't think we are that far apart. I agree he's done better and it's not easy to do at ISU. But if he does what he's done at ISU at UNC, fans will not be satisfied. As non family pushing out family, he won't exactly get a fair chance. He will be on a razors edge from day 1.
 
Calheel said:
And there are more Fedoras than Cignettis.

And even when you do get a Cignetti/Self/Calipari, they have a shelf life. At some point, they enter the late-stage Bobby Bowden era.

But I also think there were probably 50-100 potential coaches that could have matched Hubert's success over the past five years. Obviously, we were never going to hire those coaches or, indeed, anyone but Hubert. But going forward, I think the odds are definitely in our favor that our next coach will out perform our current coach.
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I'm not sure I can agree with 50-100 coaches. Your idea that it's easy at UNC because of the resources doesn't resonate with me. It's easy if you're an elite coach. If you're not and you don't perform from day 1, the crucible of UNC expectations will crush 95 out of 100 of those coaches... especially if you're not family.
 
NYCBlueBlood said:
I'm not sure I can agree with 50-100 coaches. Your idea that it's easy at UNC because of the resources doesn't resonate with me. It's easy if you're an elite coach. If you're not and you don't perform from day 1, the crucible of UNC expectations will crush 95 out of 100 of those coaches... especially if you're not family.
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I'd look at average tenure of coaches at bluebloods vs. non-bluebloods.

Some schools, like UCLA and Indiana, have pretty frequent turnover (although perhaps slightly longer tenure than an average school). But Kansas, Kentucky, Duke, UNC, Connecticut, Syracuse, Michigan State all have much, much longer average tenures for coaches.

If these pressure cauldrons would chew up and spit out 95 out of 100 coaches, it would be almost statically impossible for these programs to get so lucky as to routinely find the 5% of coaches who can hack the job.

Obviously, you are never going to get one of those jobs until you have established your bona fides somewhere. But given these programs hit rate and ability to sustain success over long periods of time, I am of the view that it is much easier to be successful at a blue blood than a regular school.

That was always one of the attacks on Roy by jealous coaches. They thought he had it so easy because he never had to work his way up to an elite program.
 
NYCBlueBlood said:
There is a reason why Roy retired when he did, at more or less the same time as all the elite coaches in the game who prioritized winning the right way (aka the Carolina Way)... many of whom retired far earlier than expected. We want somebody who is as good of coach as Dean AND as good of person as Dean.

There are plenty of coaches out there who I consider high moral character... but not many of those who are also elite coaches... and I'm not sure any of that subset we can confidently convince to take the UNC job after running one of our own out of town with torches and pitchforks. In order to come up with names who fit the bill as elite people, elite coaches, and obtainable... you have to start softening one or more of those criteria.

IMO, if we run HD out of town, it can only be for a slam dunk hire... otherwise this program really blows up and we're lucky to replace that person with somebody half as good as HD.
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(if we're prioritizing moral character then maybe we shouldn't be defending the guy who kept #1 on the team)

*ducks*
 
It's a valid point but my understanding is that most mainstream Christians believe in redemption. If the police or school didn't object, I'm not going to.
 
The risk, to me, is not only that TJO may only be marginally better than HD, but that you would completely alienate the former players that make UNC such a special place and wind up with a coach only that is marginally better than HD. There are opportunity costs here more than just Ws and Ls.
 
Willy said:
The risk, to me, is not only that TJO may only be marginally better than HD, but that you would completely alienate the former players that make UNC such a special place and wind up with a coach only that is marginally better than HD. There are opportunity costs here more than just Ws and Ls.
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Right.

At this point, I think it is pretty clear that Hubert has done enough to earn another year. I don't see UNC making a change this year because there is no consensus on HD. He will get the benefit of the doubt until he can no longer get the benefit of the doubt.
 
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