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You called it!
A friend of mine called yesterday and said congratulations. I had not yet heard of the announcement of the newly hired b-ball coach, so I responded by saying "Congrats for what". He informed we had just hired a good friend of his, Buzz Williams. I asked him two questions; Can he coach and can he recruit? His response was we will be back in the NCAA tournament in 2 to 3 years. That is all I needed to hear. It is a great day for the HOKIE NATION and the B--Ball program finally has a buzzz around it;)
Wikipedia tells me it's Brent. I accept that as infallible truth.
Brent
Great write up. The SI article posted last night covered his reasons for MU exit and is info all Hokies should know. There was a recruiting violation in 2012 by his Assistant coach and best friend and the AD fired the AC. This never set well with Buzz and he effectively forced AD out last Dec. Then Buzz left and was so eager to get out that he heavily pursued Auburn job. But SI was clear, we are the big winners here since Buzz wanted out so badly and Whit pushed hard to land him.
There is certainly a lot more to the story that you may be able to fill in. I took it as Buzz has a strong personality, something our program needs. UVA fans will hate his sideline antics.
Well I'll be making an annual trip for Buzz's BBQ
Attendance will improve, but this is still rural Blacksburg and not urban Milwaukee. Of note: Blacksburg does not currently have a NBA team. So, apples/oranges.
We don't need more seats than Cassell can provide, we need fewer and better seats and an energetic, winning environment. Buzz will create that, quickly.
So...Buzz is his nickname. What's his real name?
I kind of touched on that in the challenges section. I do hope that Whit underpromised Buzz on what can happen when with regards to anything that requires significant investment.
My understanding is that he did have some difficulties with the fairly new Athletic Director Larry Williams but it wasn't the root of the AD leaving at least from Whit's side. He sounded surprised but not necessarily that upset about the change. Whit did however really work well with the AD previous to Williams so the change wasn't exactly smooth. There was also the change in President of the school, and I am not sure that Buzz felt he had that gentleman's support with regards to how he ran the program. Williams was hired by the former president on top of everything so some of his battles may have been with the change in leadership above him. The other part of this puzzle is that the newer athletic director left the job in December and his replacement still has not been named or identified four months later. All of these changes contributed to a convoluted working environment for Buzz and I guess he decided it was worth a pay cut to exorcise himself of the situation.
He snagged me! I paid last night..and it didn't even bother me to do it :D
There are several reasons for this down year. I wouldn't necessarily put it on the talent, maybe where the talent was developmentally. He signed a Top 10 class last year, but those guys were freshmen this season. Look at Kentucky, their class of freshmen was considered to possibly be the best class EVER signed and they were practically a dud.
Strength of Schedule, even with some of the big name schools gone from the Big East was a still a big factor. Buzz wasn't afraid to play the best.
Losses to San Diego State University by 8, anOhioStateUniversity by 17, at Arizona State by 2, at Wisconsin by 6, New Mexico by 7, at Creighton by 18, at Xavier by 7, at Butler by 12 in OT, Villanova by 9 in OT, at St Johns by 15, another Creighton by 15, at Villanova by 17, at Providence by 1 in 2OT, St Johns by 1 in 2OT, and Xavier again by 3.
All of these losses but one are to teams in the NCAA Tournament or a #1 Seed in the NIT. Butler is their only loss to a team with a losing record. Five of these teams are in the latest AP Top 25 and one more received votes. SOS was 22nd in the country I believe for this season. They lost four games by one possession, one by two possessions and four by three possessions. That's nine of their fifteen losses by three possessions or less. There are multiple losses to four different teams so obviously they had difficulty with those opponents. Eight of their losses were on the road and two were at a neutral site. They lost four games in overtime, including two double overtime games back to back at the end of the season. They went 11-5 at home this season.
Young talent that couldn't beat good teams on the road isn't unusual and I would expect that whoever takes over at Marquette will have a stellar season next year if they keep the team in tact.
For those who care:
New VT coach Buzz Williams meeting w/team now. Will spend this afternoon in NYC on CBS as guest studio analyst for NCAA Tournament.— Bill Roth (@VTVOICE) March 22, 2014
Marquette before this season was annually a Top 20 school in game attendance. In 2012-2013 they AVERAGED 15,033 fans per game. Need to replace Cassell yet?
To be fair to us, Marquette's bell-cow sport IS basketball. And they've shared an arena with the Milwaukee Bucks for years, so they've had all that capacity for fans.
Even still, if Buzz can get Cassell to average 83% capacity in a year like Marquette did, I'd count that as a win.
People will pay for a winner. We watch sports for a reason - the excitement. It's what you pay for combined with the pride intrinsic in seeing your alma mater generate that excitement.
So there's kind of a catch, you have to both win *and* win the exciting games people want to see. This is the perfect time to have this discussion. You know this gigantic, exciting tournament that everyone's all excited about? We need to start being in that more. It's literally the whole point of playing the game. That was ultimately SGs undoing, he couldn't make that thing. He could win his share of regular season games which was nice, but never could take that next step so the excitement dwindled. With it went attendance, money, wins, and SG himself.
Football is kind of seeing the same thing. Luckily football is so engrained here that the inability to win big/BCS games didn't/doesn't damage things too badly.
If you want people's money, you don't shame them into giving it to you lest they be a "Bad Hokie" or whatever. You need to give them a reason to do so and get them so exited that they can't even think of reasons (legitimate it otherwise) not too.
Whit is a fundraising guy, he knows how to make people say "Shut up and take my money!" He's demonstrating how right now.
I'm absolutely blown away right now.
That I don't have an answer to. Those locations are so close to each other, I think they could go either way. I know there is one in Cburg near target as well, so maybe it's just going to be another location.
Yup, I wasn't originally planning on joining the Hokie Club after I graduate (moving far away so I won't be able to come back for every game) but now I'm gonna donate just because I'm excited. Way to go Whit!
rob, what do you know about buzz and his role in marquette's former ad resigning? i'm reading different stories around the internet as to what exactly happened. some say buzz forced him out, some say buzz was surprised and unhappy that the guy left. numerous stories say that buzz and marquette's administration never saw eye to eye. are you concerned with a seven year contract things might go south between him and the front office and we have another seth type situation on our hands?
Picture confirms Buzz Williams to Virginia Tech #Hokies #BBall pic.twitter.com/fOdWa05FBS— Hokie Huddle (@HokieHuddle) March 21, 2014
This is a start, now it needs to be completed with removal of those other distracting colors
Shirts are pretty boss.
Chris, just out of curiosity do you know if you received many entries from TKP faithful?
Also, I know it's not part of the shirt design but I quite like the SGA logo. That is very well done.
They just didn't have a ton of talent from what I saw. It's gonna happen after 6 great seasons, you're bound to have a couple down years.
Thanks. No problem, now lets get some real in depth StitchStats going with all the Seamheads on this site. #HokieHardball @VT_Baseball
I guess it'll depend on if our current recruits stay or not. I agree about Oak Hill, he definitely needs to get himself an assistant from the area or else recruiting is gonna be tough at the start. He just needs to keep dancing and pissing off WVU fans.
So I'm sure everyone's been wondering this, and it may have already been asked..but
What are the reasons for Marquettes 'down' season this year?
They're closing the one by Macados. I forget what they're putting in there, though.