Doubting Frank Martin

[uscfan1981]

Originally posted by GamecockTripp:

Originally posted by uscfan1981:

Originally posted by GamecockTripp:
Year 1 -- Brought in 3 guys nobody wanted (Carrera, Chat, Kacinas) in a couple of weeks. Sucked.

Year 2 -- Ran off Horn's players. Brought in a bunch of players. Some were hits, some were misses. Got a transfer. He got hurt. Overall, sucked.

Year 3 -- Signed 4 guys. One's turned out OK, 2 have been hurt, 1 never enrolled. Kacinas, Chat, and Notice have turned out to be pleasant surprises considering basically no one wanted them. Currently sucking.

Going forward -- Martin started in the toilet. Then, he ran off 4 guys and started over. We were lower than the toilet. I guess we were in the sewer. To even win any games at all right now is an accomplishment. People bitching about firing Martin are wasting their breath. He will 100% get a 4th year and he will 99% get a 5th year. I'd even say it's about 95% he gets a sixth year. Give the man some time.

Everything you stated is the truth.

However, what you are missing is a good coach still turns it around by year 3 or 4 (if not sooner). Bruce Pearl (at Auburn where no one even cares they have a team) took a team of walk-ons, jucos and players he couldn't even recruit (due to the show cause) and passed us in half a year. Kevin Stallings (at Vandy) lost his entire team brought in something like 9 new players and passed us in half a year. TN has hired 3 new coaches and we haven't beaten them since 2007.

I don't expect to beat KY but I do expect us (in our coaches 3rd year) to beat a team that his historically bad, rebuilding with a coach in his first year. I expect us to beat a MSU team that only fielded 5 scholarship players a couple of years ago. I expect us to beat Elon, USC Upstate, Manhattan, and a terrible Charlotte team every time we play them.

None of these items has Martin been able to do.

What is your expectation?

And you've stated the truth, too. My expectations are that I don't have any. I think some of us act like we're a basketball school just because Frank McGuire had about 7 good seasons back in the 60's and 70's. We haven't won a tournament game in 42 years. We had 1 good season under Felton, 2 good years under Folgler, and a few decent seasons under Odom. That's it. We've had about 6 or 7 "good" seasons in my lifetime and I'm 38 years old. Maybe Frank Martin isn't as good as the coaches you mentioned. Maybe he is. I don't know.

But as a school that basically hasn't done squat in basketball in my lifetime we should give the man at least 5, if not 6, years to do his job as best he can and not say, "Well Auburn did it" or "Well Vandy did it." Bruce Pearl is one of the biggest cheaters in college basketball and will have Auburn on probation within 3 years. Kevin Stallings has been at Vandy for 14 years and has had 1 losing season. Pearl can recruit up there with Calipari and Stallings is a great coach. I wanted him when we fired Horn.

All I know is Martin's our coach and all we can do right now is support him and the team. It's his 3rd season, 2nd if you throw the first year out because he ran off 4 players and started fresh from scratch. Should he have gone after more JUCO's? I don't know but I do know that I won't have expectations next year either. I'll have some in year 5 and certainly in year 6. You're not going to fix 42 years of sucking in 3 or 4 years. It's going to take some time.

Fair enough. I'm not advocating his firing yet. But I just want us to win and I know if we get the right coach we can soon.
One thing is for certain, Darrin Horn was the worst hire in basketball history.

 

[sclawman77]

^
What about Steve (Fig) Newton?

 

[Cocky4SC]

You can't compare Vandy, TN, Auburn to us when it comes to recruiting for basketball. They have had teams RELEVANT in tournaments in the past two decades. The kids we are recruiting haven't seen us in a basketball tournament in their lifetime..... If you are a high school kid... who would you want to play for? A team that has a chance to go to a tournament each year or us? This isn't a bash on our university but how the program has been ran far longer than Martin's tenure.

My expectations are for us to continue to build on what he has going now. You can't base the state of our program by the record at this point. Martin was given chicken crap and expected to make chicken salad out of it. If he doesn't fix it by 2017, THEN you can get upset and start calling for his job. Until then. R E L A X.

 

[GamecockTripp]

Originally posted by Cocky4SC:
You can't compare Vandy, TN, Auburn to us when it comes to recruiting for basketball. They have had teams RELEVANT in tournaments in the past two decades. The kids we are recruiting haven't seen us in a basketball tournament in their lifetime.....

^^^ This.