After Tech's loss to Miami I read a couple of interesting tidbits pertaining to J.J.'s future.
#Hokies coach James Johnson tells media he's confident he'll be back coaching Tech next season.— Norm Wood (@normwood) March 12, 2014
I think coaches have to say that. If he truly believes it, then perhaps he thinks he'll be able to sell his vision of the future and the groundwork he's laid to Whit. Or maybe he knows Tech can't afford a better option.
According to Teel, Whit is mulling his options.
All of this magnifies an already excruciating decision for new athletic director Whit Babcock. With the program saddled with three consecutive last-place ACC finishes, two on Johnson's brief watch, does he make a coaching change?
Had Johnson won elsewhere, or previously at Tech, the answer would be a resounding no. After all, the last ACC coach dismissed after less than three years was Duke's Neil McGeachy in 1974.
But Johnson remains a novice, and if Babcock is virtually certain that he can hire a proven coach, then he owes it to the school, program and athletic department, and all their constituencies, to make the difficult and unpleasant decision.
That's what leaders do.
Yet if Babcock is unsure, if he concludes Tech may lack the cache and/or coffers, then Johnson's character, manner and potential merit another season.
If that strikes you as waffling, so be it. But rest assured, Babcock, who turfed four coaches in two-plus years as Cincinnati's athletic director, is vacillating on this as well.
I think it's a coin flip either way, and that's based on a gut feeling. There are so many options to consider: will a change at the top force more roster turnover and leave Tech with a short bench again, is there a budget to lure an inspired coach to Blacksburg, is 2 seasons enough to evaluate a coach, will anyone buy tickets if the status quo remains given last place finishes in the ACC three years in a row...
This will be interesting to watch play out, that's for dang sure.
Comments
I'd hate to think about the possible attrition that may come if JJ is let go. We saw what happened when Seth was fired with the transfers and commitment switches, I sure hope that wouldn't repeat if Whit makes a change.
Most if not all of those guys were gone before Seth was fired, if not officially they had their mind made up. The only guy that was probably a direct result of Seth being canned was Harrell decomitting.
I hate to think of the further attrition of fan support if he isn't let go.
If we do can JJ, hopefully we do it sooner rather than later. We waited to long after the season to fire Greenberg and by then just about all the available coaches had already found jobs, which pretty much forced us to go with JJ.
JJ hasn't had the support of the administration, nor has any basketball coach in our recent history. I wonder what JJ could do if Whit lent much support to him and the students came out to support the team. I'd love to see what happens then. 2 years is too little to want to fire someone, and the constant churn in the program wouldn't be good for anyone.
Sure, maybe trying to set us on a different course sooner rather than later may help us in the middle-to-long term, but I'd rather see us support JJ.
The administration saying "go get'em" and fans cheering doesn't change Xs and Os on the court. The game management was terrible this year from what I saw. We made the same mistakes the entire season and that to me comes down to coaching. Injuries definitely hurt us but the lack of change in what we did on the court is the telling sign. We switched to a 2-3 because we had no bodies to play man and it happened to work well for us. The offense struggled not only to score, but to create opportunities. How many times did I watch Wilson dribble around the top of the key and no body was moving around. We had no one willing to attack the basket. The coaches need to be addressing these things and they just weren't addressed all season. JJ is a great guy I am sure but he just isn't getting it done.
The perception and enigma around our program will not change until there is an overhaul.
Look at Utah for example. Two years ago they fired their coach and had 8 total players on their roster when the new coach was hired, 8! Now two years later they are on the cusp of making the NCAA Tournament. I used to buy the JJ needs more time scenario but Utah had it worse than Tech when Seth was fired and now they are in a much better shape because they hired a good coach who actually knew what he was doing. I'm on the fence on whether JJ should come back or not but I hope Whit at least takes in to fact what Utah did, which I think he will.
^^^This. A great example of what a coaching change can do. If the guy you get can recruit and coach, good things will happen in that 2 year time-frame...
I really hate hearing talk about a coach losing their job. This was only JJ's 2nd season.
We need to at least keep him until we are done paying SG then re-evaluate the situation at that
point. I feel so bad for him. He was put in an incredibly difficult situation. I was so pissed off
yesterday after we lost to Miami to look on twitter and see all the horrible comments regarding JJ.
Our season has been over for 18 hours now, we should have already made the move.
It is clear what needs to be done, go do it, Whit.
I wonder if this was the same thing being said about Coach Beamer his first years: 2-9, 3-8, 6-4-1, 6-5, 5-6, 2-8-1.
Totally different world.
Much more comparable is Johnson being compared to London. UVA has kept him around for a lame duck season and the energy of their fanbase is miserable. They kept him around because his buyout is ridiculous, but it's clear he's a bad coach draining the life out of the program. It's clear Johnson is a bad coach and he's draining the life out of the program and he's cheap to buyout.
Not to me...I don't see how anyone can make any definitave conclusions one way or the other about his coaching ability.
And if we are going to make London comparisons, let's make them at the same point on the career timeline. After year 2 at UVA, London was the ACC Coach of the Year. The only thing I take away from a Mike London comparison is how dangerous it is to draw hard conclusions based on a two-year body of work.
I also think the London-JJ comparison is spurious. JJ is dealing with the lasting effects of an unstable roster of mostly unheralded players. If he was pulling in highly ranked recruiting classes including 5* talent and still ending up with a cellar-dwelling ACC record, THEN the London comparison would be justified.
It's too bad he was never a head coach anywhere else so we would have some idea of his coaching ability potential...
It's almost like hiring a guy who has never been a head coach anywhere to get his first such gig in the ACC at a school that already has a mountain of administrative and geographical obstacles is a terrible, terrible idea....
Well...yeah. There is a lot that can be (and has been) said about the how the Johnson era began.
How is it a totally different world? I feel this statement is somewhat blinded by what beamer has become. Also, I don't have the info right in front of me but didn't coach K struggle his first few seasons at duke? Not saying JJ is coach K, just that I think the expectation of all sports fans have become unrealistic at all levels in what a coach can do in their first several years of coaching. My high school team (ironically where will Johnston played) made a bizarre coaching change my senior year right when it seemed we were on the peak of breaking out. The team struggled for a few years but this past year (once guys had a few years in the new system) really broke out. I'm all about keeping JJ.
Well, first of all, you're choosing all the coaching anomalies that fit your narrative. James Johnson is certainly not Frank Beamer or Mike Kryzchewski. It is basically impossible for him to be, those are the two winningest current coaches in their sports history. Much, much, much more likely is that James Johnson is Ricky Stokes. Stokes was 8-19 and 2-14 in his second year. He actually was a game over .500 his first year. Stokes followed up those two seasons with 10-18 and 12-17 seasons. By your rationale, Stokes should have been saved, after those four seasons, because "think about Frank Beamer!"
Second, Frank Beamer was coming off of NCAA Sanctions in his second year. No matter what your opinion of how Seth left and Johnson came in, it wasn't NCAA sanctions. JJ was hired to minimize the Seth damage and he failed to do so (Harrell) and has failed to do anything, literally anything, with the players and schedule that he was left with. Someone mentioned Utah, great comparison.
Finally, the media landscape is so drastically different and the expectations of fanbases that come with those changes that it should be clear today for people to stop making these comparisons. Literally, it is a different world.
It's Malcolm Gladwell's concept of blink. It was clear from the start that JJ was over his head and now he has given us 60 games of proof. His teams have dreadful awareness of game situations. He has taken Seth's offensive schemes and somehow made them worse meanwhile losing the emphasis that Seth had on defense. Yesterday, yet another example of late game situations and how they should be handled. I haven't seen anyone who follows college basketball say, "You know, he's a pretty good coach!" This doesn't even touch on the off-the-court fanbase support issues.
James Johnson will be relieved of his duties in the next few days and the VT fanbase will quickly move on because we have the greater interest of the program in mind. James Johnson had an opportunity to coach an ACC team, a dream for many assistant coaches across the country. I'm sure he is thankful for that opportunity and disappointed that more success was not realized.
For VT Hoops, its the dawn of a new era.
I think you are setting yourself up for disappointment. I don't think JJ is going anywhere this year.
I wouldn't be disappointed, I would be shocked. It would be an egregious decision.
Both Frank Beamer and Coach K had previous Head Coaching experience at any level before their current jobs.
How is it a totally different world? In the late 80s, very few football games were televised. If you weren't an established power it was difficult to get exposure. Without exposure getting talented players was extremely difficult. Blacksburg was even more isolated from the rest of the state than it is now. Basically, building a program was really, really hard. There was no internet either.
Nowadays every game is televised and it's easier to connect with recruits. It's not easy to build a program, but there are fewer barriers. For every Beamer who started slowly but recovered there's a Mike Locksley or Ed Orgeron or Sly Croom etc. who never got there.
I don't claim to follow the basketball team closely but in the games I've seen I just don't see JJ being a good coach. If he comes back next year and struggles then the situation could become toxic.
13-19 last year and 9-22 this year. i haven't been able to see games - are they improving from a competitive spirit and fundamental standpoint at least? that doesn't seem to be the narrative on this site from the articles and discussions.
no, they're not. We relied a lot on freshmen this year, but that is a convenient excuse IMO. i don't dislike JJ, and i always cheer for our kids regardless of their record, but i didn't see anything this year to indicate that we are moving in the right direction. i don't want to fire JJ just to replace him with another project, but if we can identify and land "the guy" for taking our program back to the top 4 of the ACC and back into the NCAA tourney, then i think it's time to change direction.
I would disagree. The record doesnt show it but the player development does. Multiple guys improved this season and the overall play showed signs of getting better. JVZ and Wilson improved their games, as did Thompson. Those are 3 very young players that matured. Our inbounds plays got better, as did our defense towards the end of the season. Loosing Eddie hurts but I think this team(read as "not the Erick Green show from 2012") improves a lot next year, just as it did this season
well, i hope you are right, with or without JJ. i just want to see improvement, and i know there are very real financial considerations to any coaching decision. in the end, i'm not for or against JJ, i'm for the hokies, and if JJ is back, then i will hope he proves a lot of people wrong and goes 9-9 in the ACC with a post season birth of some kind. my concern would be recruiting. how will recruits view coming to Tech with a coach so obviously on the hot seat?
if we move on, then i hope the new guy can keep the young players around and build on that, not start from scratch.
i just want to win...
I think the best way to help Tech in the long run is to keep JJ another year. We have a bad name with coaches because of the Greenburg thing. If the team has another cellar dweller year, then we have a much easier explanation as to why the split with JJ. That would help Whit with future coaches and recruits.
That being said, I completely see what youre saying about recruiting. Players usually commit for a coach. If they win early and often, the prospects will be likely to keep coming for visits. If not, we can hope that the new hire can bring some of his guys to Blacksburg immediately
I don't think loosing Eddie hurts. He was too inconsistent and not a Sr leader. We have some good shooters coming in, we must keep them as VT commits and we must grow the leadership from the remaining players from this year. Someone, Someone!, has to step up as the team leader next year. The pick of Emologu (sp) as Team Captain was also not a wise move based on this year's body of work (not his fault, IMHO). Perhaps that can help grow the leadership within the team for next year...
I truly think that this past year's team had no senior leadership, and that was a contributing team issue.
I think JVZ will really step up on the court and especially as a leader next year. The kid has really developed nicely.
Agree!
THere are several 'gurus' who have praised JJ's abililty to take a group that was working to play up tempo, man to man, and in mid-stream completely change their playing style and make them competitive in doing so. The defense was good later half of the season and this turned in to a very good rebounding team, especially considering they played all zone and its not easy to rebound out of zone. I saw big improvement from JVZ, Wilson, THompson, Barksdale when healthy. Emelogu was on his way but injuries derailed him a lot. Mid-season to the end I have changed my opinion on JJ and think he should stay and have a chance to field a complete team.
Specifically, what "gurus" said this?
Also, what do you mean by "competitive?" We scored 45 points in our last reg season game.
We were right there in every game to the end or well in to the second half over the past month or so including at Duke. In the games we we lost by 10+ you could see the tank run dry where there were just not enough bodies and energy. There has to be some basis in reality here... this is a team that generally over the past 6 weeks or so was playing with 6, SIX scholarship players and a grand total of TWO guards, one of which is a walk on.
Gurus- longtime VT hoops recruiting folks and couple hoops writers
Will "being right there in it for half to three quarters of a game" be enough next year as well?
At some point do we ever get to evaluate James Johnson on...you know, winning?
Also, I'd love to see some links to all of the gurus who can't stop talking about what a great coaching job he's doing, you and I are not getting the same message from gurus.
Regarding competitive spirit, I would say there was the effort there for the last ten games just not the number of people needed and the talent equivalent to the competition. They could easily have laid down and quit after four consecutive blowouts of over 20 points. They didn't. JJ changed the style to something he admits he doesn't want to run in the 2-3 zone on defense but he felt he had to do it to protect what was left of this roster.
I am not sure as fans a lot of you understand how difficult it is to try to compete in the ACC limited to a six to eight man roster. Even if you have equivalent talent, those few extra minutes a game of resting make all the difference in the world in the final couple minutes of a game. Look at how many times Tech was in a game until the final three or four minutes or overtime in the case of Pitt. We lost most of those games because our players didn't have the legs left to keep up with fresh opponents even in our slow paced game. Brian also brought up some great points in other posts about how the change of pace impacts all aspects of the game so once we get down six or seven points its extremely hard to flip a switch to try to create opportunities to come back.
As to fundamentals, that again is really challenging to measure when you aren't playing the style of basketball your coach really wants to utilize and your roster is depleted to the point of exhaustion.
Was this a successful season? No Was it all JJ's doing? No, not even close. I think its amusing that most of the predictions of this team at the beginning of the season had Tech exactly where they are now and no one really seemed fazed by the predictions of 9-21 and last place. Maybe folks didn't really believe it would be that bad. Just really interesting to see all the negativity come out from fans now that the predictions have become reality.
Have I postulated on who could replace JJ if it comes to that? Yes, and in all honesty if they were able to secure one of those coaches because Whit decided to let JJ go I would not have an issue with it. But if Whit decides JJ stays than I will do what I can to support him as a fan of the team and move forward. Will that keep me from speculating on his replacement next year if we have this same kind of record then? Nope. If we play like this next year, there wont be any other recourse than to let him go. As it is, I wouldn't be shocked if Whit ask's JJ to review his current coaching staff and determine if he has someone capable of working with his shooters. Improving on the shooting game would go a long way towards a winning record. We finished the season with a 40.2% shooting percentage, which is 327th out of 345 teams in Division I. That has to improve by taking more high percentage shots and by running offensive possessions where we get open looks rather than being forced to beat the shot clock.
You mentioned the incoming players in another thread. These guys appear to be pure shooters and that would have made a huge difference. Three more made buckets and were looking at a .500 season. We lost 9 games by 6 or fewer points. That isnt worth firing a guy over (Edit) unless it is his 9th season
Yep, tired legs usually make the difference in the last two minutes of the game and there were no more tired legs in the ACC than the regular six or seven Hokies that played all season.
At the end of the game yesterday against Miami, down by 2 and a chance to tie, we got the rebound off the missed FT but had the layup blocked. A head fake could have drawn a foul and a pass to an open guy could have led to an easy basket. That is not JJ's fault. He had un uphill battle to began his tenure and it only got more difficult.
Well, I don't know if this decision has any bearing on JJ, but this happened:
Granted, statistically speaking, the women had a better season than the men, but not by a whole lot.
They underperformed a little bit, but for the most part finished above where they were expected and they have the foundation for a solid team with even more reinforcements coming next year. With only one senior next year being a former walk on in Kelsey Conyers, this team will completely be Dennis' own kids come next year. I have higher expectations for the women's team than the men's for next season just based on the roster make up.
As far a JJ goes, I'm sure Whit will meet with him by tomorrow, if he hasn't already and we'll know what is to come of everything probably by Wednesday of next week at the latest.
What would be wrong, would be to let JJ go and then someone come in next year and win with his players. Let's look at two games at opposite ends of the schedule. The win over West Virginia in November was a game where we had a full team. West Virginia was leading in the first half by 17 and with 2:54 to go in the 1st half the lead was 16 points. Emelogu scores 22 and Smith gets 19 and Hokies win 87-82. The rest of the year WVA beats # 8 Kansas, # 11 Iowa State and #21 Oklahoma. Hokies start losing players and games. Now fast forward to the end of season UVA game, the # 1 seed in the ACC tournament and regular season champ (that is hard to admit). We have the lead for 28 minutes and the Cads lead for 10.5 minutes. They get hot with two minutes to go in the game and win. Hokies start game with 3 true freshman and a sophomore. A walk on plays 28 minutes and scores 3 points, but is 2nd on the team with 6 rebounds. Eddie shoots 1-8 and scores 7 points. Three good recruits coming in and several players coming back that didn't play or were injured most of the year. JJ did a heck of a job to hold this team together.
They won something like 2 of their last 17 games, most of those by double digits including 4 20+ pt losses in a row at one point. They scored...40-soemthing points in their last regular season game...
By what measure, exactly did he " hold this team together?"
If you watched those games, most of them were close (except for those four games in the middle of the schedule) until the last five minutes. The team is worn out. Freshman are not use to the college game, travel, schedules, etc. and with no one coming off the bench, it makes a difference. Thompson, Emelogu and Wilson will be better next year and with Mueller, Kirby and the 3 recruits that sound like they can score coming in, the team is still going to be one of the youngest in the country. The best thing about freshman is they become sophomores. Look at Kentucky - they are loaded with blue chip freshman and they have struggled this year. How many blue chips do we have?
You realize that you said "Freshman are not used to the college game" and followed that up *immediately* with "We will be better when we get a couple more recruits in." How can it be both? If "youth" is an acceptable excuse now, and next year we will still be "one of the youngest teams in the country," will "youth" be a valid excuse next year too? Then we will have to give him another year of ACC Basement play.
I have three questions for you:
1. What is the identity of this team under James Johnson. What is VT Men's BB under James Johnson?
2. What has this team shown you under James Johnson to inidicate that he is the guy who is going to help VT Men's Basketball achieve our goals? What is our ceiling under JJ and what makes you think that?
3. If the position of Men's Basketball coach were open right now, and JJ was coaching in a similar situation...say, Penn State, and had similar results, would he be one of your top targets to fill the vacancy here? Why or why not?
With regards to your first paragraph, I think it's just a depth issue. The new recruits will have many of the same challenges making the high school-to-college transition, but we were consistently relying on a freshman playing 35+ minutes a game this year. The incoming recruits should preclude that from being a necessity next year.
It just seems like a contradiction, I understand the depth argument but this is the message that's comign across "Of course they're not any good, they're freshman and college ball is hard. But wait until we get these three freshman who can shoot, they will be good and make everything different."
It's just more "Do nothing and hope things change, everything will be different next year." It gets tired after a while.
I think the fact that no one's even attempted to answer the second question is telling. It really feels like no one, not even the people who think he should get *A*nother year think he's actually the best coach for this program moving forward. Every argument is "it's not fair" or "save money." Those are *bad* reasons to keep a coach, unless the continued goal of this basketball program is to "save money." It was run that way for the last two decades, the new goal needs to be "win and make the NCAA Tournament." Is James Johnson the guy who's going to help us reach those goals? Absolutely no one has made a convincing case that this is so, and really very few have even tried.
None of these questions can be asked/answered until a coach like JJ who wants to run uptempo style has more than 7 scholarship players for an entire year. If, with 10 fresh bodies next year, he lays an egg, I'm right there with you,
I'm so not looking forward to having this conversation again next year. There's going to be a bunch of fans lining up to give a laundry list of excuses...err reasons why we failed again and why it's OK and if we only give him one more year we might make the CBI and then from there the sky's the limit!
We literally had this same conversation for almost a decade about Bryan Stinespring at OC. People will find any reason they can to keep coaches who aren't performing.