Interesting article on the Williams hire.
http://college-basketball.si.com/2014/03/21/buzz-williams-stunningly-lea...
What I found particularly telling was the last sentence:
"The only shocking part about him leaving was where he ended up."
This really reminds me of Tubberville leaving Texas Tech for Cinn. Whit seems to be able to attract coaches into positions others view beneath them.
Most concerning, is the stuff about the recruiting violations at Marquette that lead to Buzz' one game suspension and firing of asst coach. I don't know enough about college basketball or the situation to comment on that more though.
(apologies if this article was already linked somewhere in another thread.)
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What sickens me is that we spent just over half of what Marquette spent on basketball in 2013...we really need money to start flowing through Blacksburg!!
Marquette spent close to the most. I don't think our expenses were as bad as you seem to think.
I will be upping my Hokie Club level at the first of the month and I will be putting down the deposit for basketball tickets as well.
How much did Marquette spend on football?
Leaves a lot more money for basketball
Touche
How much did Marquette make on Football? ZERO
Far from the worst. Good school, talent rich area, great facilities, best basketball conference. AND ZERO EXPECTATIONS. If he makes us good, he'll be regarded as a genius.
It has the potential to be a good job, but it's really hard to argue that it's not one of the worst gigs right now: tough conference, zero history or tradition, remote physical location.
What jobs in the conference would you consider to be worse?
Other side of that coin: Best conference in the country (same reason Ole Miss, Vandy, etc. can lure in some good football players), some of the nicest practice facilities in the country, low expectations, AD willing to work with you/give you time, solid recruiting class coming in, if it stays together... did I miss anything?
No, hence the "potential" I mentioned.
Seth Greenberg who was barely above .500 at South Florida was able to make us relevant, so it's not really as bad as everyone is making it out to be...
Right, he worked his ass off, and the best he could do was one tournament appearance and "relevance" - that's a testament to how rough it is.
Come on guys, we can't sit here and list all these reasons why we aren't good in bball, haven't been in decades, and don't get good recruits, and then IMMEDIATELY get all huffy when some member of the media says the same thing.
We are what we are, let's hope Buzz is the guy who changes that.
I think we were top 4 in the acc quite a few of those years. Beat UNC and Duke several times at least 2 of those times they were ranked number 1. That in itself is more than some of the other schools that have been in the ACC much longer have done. I don't think it's ideal, I just don't think it's nearly as bad as some are making it out to be.
Specifically, what are the jobs in the ACC that are worse than VT and why?
I wouldn't necessarily say that any are worse, but you could put us in a group with BC, Clemson, GT and Miami and no one would know the difference. I would rather coach at VT than NCSU for that matter because of the unreal expectations.
You keep talking about tradition, but i don't see Mark Price really helping gt pick up recruits or Tim Duncan for Wake (wake did have one season since then that were nationally relevant.) or David Thompson at NCSU. Being really good 20 years ago doesn't get you good recruits now and it won't get you a good coach either (except Notre Dame football).
You can make arguments for Clemson, BC, and WF.
Clemson - History much like VT, football school with little desire to do well in basketball, record in mediocrity isn't any better than the worst record (so, not worse, maybe a tie)
BC - Weak athletic program, weak alumni base, weak college sports town, record in mediocrity
WF - Weak athletic program, just as rural and detached as Blacksburg, weak alumni base, terrible coach just retired, well passed it's glory days, future looks bleak (I do think this job is worse than VT... VT can build, WF has to be more creative with a much smaller and somewhat apathetic alumni base)
Yeah, you could make arguments for a couple of other schools, hence we are "one of the worst in the ACC" as per the article, I still don't understand why this is so controversial.
I don't disagree it's one of the worst. To me its worded poorly, like saying someone has the crappiest house in Beverly Hills.
WF is in Winston-Salem. Not a huge city by any means, but it's fairly close to Greensboro and the Triangle area. Also with Tim Duncan and Chris Paul as NBA poster children and a number 1 ranking as little as 4 years ago, I'd say Wake is a better job than Tech right now. Clemson and BC I definitely agree with. We know Tech has had to do more with less in the past, but we still managed a few top 4 finishes in the ACC. Hopefully Buzz can get us over that hump.
Greenberg had us 3rd or 4th in the ACC five out of nine years, that said, he scheduled SOOOOO badly Out of Conference that those kind of finishes got us into the NCAA once and the NIT five times. He couldn't even win the NIT tournament so all his crying about should have been in the tournament never held water for me.
All of these results were before Pitt, Syracuse, Notre Dame and Louisville joined the conference
To be fair to Greenberg, winning the NIT or not doesn't mean anything on whether you deserved to make the tournament of not. Most of the teams have given up once they get snubbed from the tournament.
There may be truth to the fact that teams kind of give up after missing the NCAA's...but you can't afford to give up. If you think you should be in the NCAA's and you get 'snubbed' and thus relegated to the NIT you need to win the NIT. Otherwise, the following year the 'experts' will look at bubble teams and remember that the team that was 'snubbed' last year went on to lose in the second round of the NIT so they should probably be overlooked for another bubble team again. Losing the NIT is just confirmation to the selection committee that they made the correct choice last year and they'll make the same choice again.
This was exactly where I was going with my statement. Self fulfilling prophecy.
Whether you believe you will succeed or fail, you are correct.
To keep the team motivated is the coaches' job.
Agreed -and shit's 'bout to get real with Louisville in next year. I may have to make a trek up to the Burg (from ATL) to catch a game next year just to say I saw "the genesis"...
BC will always be a worse job than everyone else
His dollars will go a lot further in the NRV than back in Milwaukee. Though I normally don't bother to read articles on basketball, I've been laughing at the comments on ESPN and SI.
Football will always be my favorite sport, but having a solid basketball program helps out Virginia Tech and its athletics department immensely. I'm very excited about the future for the Hokies!
Whit's first at bat: Grand Slam
love this quote:
GO HOKIES!
Print it, frame it, post it
Let this kind of national sour grapes about us actually investing in the sport be the driving force behind our awakening. Talking heads are pissed we aren't following the script and staying bad. Screw em all.
They're not completely wrong. From an outside perspective, Virginia Tech is the worst job in the ACC right now. The team finished in last place this year (six conference wins in the past two years). No tradition. Virginia Tech is a football-dominated school. No blue-chip recruits coming in. Leading scorer is graduating. Virginia Tech is in the middle of nowhere.
At the same time: Good academics, $21 million dollar practice facility, best conference in the country, fertile recruiting regions, beautiful campus, food, co-eds, fans willing to get rowdy during games, low expectations, will be a god if you win a national championship, Blacksburg one of the best places in the country to raise kids
I get the narrative their trying to push. It reminds me of when Bret Bielema left Wisconsin to go to Arkansas. Their analysis is shallow but it's understandable.
Unfortunately the vast majority of sports analysis in this country.
Here's the problem, everything you listed is basically the same for every other school in the conference, but literally every single one of them have history and tradition that we don't have , plus the geographical limitations.
Let's be real, there's potential to build something good here. But denying that this isn't literally the worst gig in the conference is delusional.
I have a problem with using hyperbole like 'worst'
just to grab attention and be posted on fan forum sites...
It connotes an undeserved negativity towards Virginia Tech.
' Most challenging' or 'Toughest' is alot more fair.
The facilities are top notch, the fan base is superb...
Who would pass up a top 10 salary to coach Basketball in the ACC?
anyone?
This is a bad job? The Cassell was so loud that Nolan Smith was wearing earplugs on the bench. You know where else people wear earplugs while watching a sporting event? Seahawks home games.
And for the argument of football school, I give you Florida and Billy Donovan. Every basketball program that you see in the NCAA tournament had to be built from something. Duke and UNC were at one time not that big a deal. Buzz could be our something. And maybe we'll tell our grandkids about the days when VT basketball was terrible.
I was just showing the argument that Virginia Tech is a "bad job". I never said it was a good argument.
No I'm totally agreeing with you, just expanding on your points and giving counter-arguments
I am so excited for this guy to take over the program. Hopefully by my senior year, we will be a team knocking on the NCAAs door.
Hey SI
What's it matter if this is the worst gig in the ACC or not? He already agreed to it.
To us? It doesn't. But it's a valid discussion point when you're trying to figure out why he did it.
This is a move that shocked the world, revel in it! But also understand that it shocked the world because of who we are in the world of men's basketball.
Meh...I don't think it's that bad...but I feel like when it comes to basketball there are more "elitists" than football...Like Buzz Williams seems like a blue collar guy but these guys are saying "HOW DARE HE STOOP DOWN TO COACH AT VT!" What they are talking are the same reasons we don't like UVA, and UNC, and DUKE...this is why I want Wichita State to win the National Championship...All this tradition and crap goes out the window...the ACC is a basketball conference...we don't really fit in the ACC because VT is not the wine and cheese crowd...I'm not sure if VT can handle a good basketball AND football team...the universe might explode...
It feels like our fans our whining, when we should be sticking out tongues out.
Yep, were the worst job in the ACC, and we got him. Suck it, everyone!
This ^^^
And next year's follow up is gonna be glorious...
Great PR move by Buzz and all the talk will also get good press by VT.
I think the chrome shines a little brighter for both just by making that hire.
heres the thing. college basketball even more than football is cyclical. outside of the perennial powerhouses, teams rise and fall. i dont think there's many who would argue that VT is worst job in ACC RIGHT NOW. we've finished 3 straight years in the cellar and still aren't that deep. that said, 4 years ago we obviously weren't the worst and 2-3 years from now we can certainly hope we wont be. we have a state of the art practice facility and a fan base that has proven it will support a winner
Hamilton (the author) is just a whiny, butt hurt, punk. He is a Chicago/Wisconsin homer that can never hope to understand the sheer bodacity of Hokie Nation. For this reason, Sam Rogers has granted him pardon.
Not concerned at all on the recruiting violation. It was an assistant's indiscretion and Buzz took the fall for it as the head coach. In no way from what I've read was Buzz the person committing the violation.
Can someone gif Buzz playing the piano so we can watch it forever on a loop
Someone needs to make that but this will suffice for now
The SI has some harsh truths in it, but that's okay. We've got to admit we've been in the lowest quarter. Now... Buzz gets to shoot us up into the top half, and the climb will prove we can stay there. In our better times, we've beaten the likes of Duke, UNC, Louisville, & Memphis (State). I look at Buzz's profile and see a guy that will have us to the point where we don't back down from any team, and I won't be at all surprised to be there two years from now, if not sooner. Not that we'll win all those games, but we won't back down.
What we'll see this season from his team is a toughness, and a 'no excuses' attitude that is easy to support. Buzz's style doesn't mirror Tom Izzo, but his teams will be the same kind of tough challenge as Izzo's. The players will respect him and know he is concerned about growing them as men and ballers. We may not have the flashiest team around, but we'll be exciting to watch. All of his Marquette teams fit that bill.
The term 'no-brainer' has always bothered me, but this is a ... There is nowhere to go but UP. This was an easy choice for Wiliams. He knows this job is going to solidify his reputation.
Some stats: now, with Buzz pulling in over 2 million, that statement doesn't hold water.
I just have to say that if I was Mike Brey I would probably be wondering where my pay raise is. He has 300 wins at Notre Dame and is making a third of his counterparts in the league.
I know ND has a reputation for paying low scale, like Boston College, but I find it completely inaccurate to presume Brey makes that little. These salary charts are notoriously inaccurate.
True, but unless he was getting some sort of massive bonus or something, he was getting paid on the level of James Johnson.
That's part of what I mean. For example, it was widely reported that Buzz was paid $2.8 mil in 2012. It was also reported in some circles that he was paid $1.8 mil. i only saw one report that actually put out the detail that he was paid $1.8 mil and that 'Team Buzz LLC' was paid $1 mil as a one time bonus. All the reports that show coaches making X dollars with no other income are completely wrong. Every coach has auxillary income from TV to camps to shoe contracts, etc. Many of these charts do not show the entire incomes for coaches, and the most unreliable ones are those for private universities. Brey's ND contract might have called for him to get $616K, but you can be sure he also had other income from Nike or TV or camps, etc. Just as Johnson's contract was for $271K with $409K 'extra income' for a total of $680K.
That's my original point - the media gets coaches' income wrong nearly 100% of the time. Same with their supposed buyouts, too.
Good point. Beamer's actual "salary" is $285k, but he gets over $2M in "retention incentives" and money from Nike every year.
Not sure if pensions or retirement accounts are in those numbers either.
I've seen differences for Brey's figure, some websites have it coming in closer to the 1.2 million dollar mark. So there could be some discrepancies there (since ND is private, I don't believe they have to fully disclose how much Brey makes)
So Williams will be making the 3rd most next year, coming in after Coach K and Pitino
Also, what the media reports almost never factor in is the coaching escalators. Buzz won't get $2.57 mil each year for 7 years. He might get $2.1 mil in 2014, $2.2 mil in 2015, etc. His contract might be like his Marquette contract, where he gets an annuity at some point. he might get $1 mil extra in one year. He might have incentives included in that total. I know that Babcock included incentives in Mick Cronin's contract for the number of home games he had in their on-campus arena. long story behind that, but you get the point. I've seen coaches get bonuses for season ticket totals. Whit might have put in an automatic $100K raise for Buzz if we sold over 6000 season tickets. Or an automatic $200K raise if we won the ACC tourney, or advanced to the Sweet Sixteen. Tony Bennett was hired at supposedly $1.7 mil annually, no way he doesn't make more than that now.
That's straying a little from the point, but done to reinforce how uninformed these salary estimates typically are. What we do know is that Whit is serious about basketball success.
and that coaches get paid buckets of moneys
I should have been a coach....
on another note GO MEMPHIS!
Something else to consider since it's one of our favorite topics from time to time:
Is there anyone at all worried about our Frank Beamer succession plan anymore? I don't want to see him go until we take a shot at a natty but I am officially no longer worried that we'll make the right move post-retirement.
Very true. Whenever the day arrives, it is obvious Whit will be prepared. We'll be more than fine.
This^.
Whit is a heat-seeking missile.
I was worried about some long-drawn out Bobby Bowden scenario.
I no longer have that concern.
'I don't have a coach in my back pocket-(because he's sitting in the palm of my hand.')
Beamer isn't going anywhere until at least after 2016. You know he wants to coach at the Battle In Bristol. So there's a minimum timeline for us. After that is a big guess, but it won't be long after that.
So Whit and Frank have 3-5 years to plan this.
Any supposed writer that uses the phrase "one of the worst..." doesn't get my respect. There can only be one worst of any group. Where did he learn how to write?
To give him credit maybe he meant worse and made a typo.
All I know is that this hire is one of the best case scenarios. ;)