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| Seriously bro - anytime you want to, you know, come back to life and coach again, we're waiting. |
OSU's basketball season came to a merciful end yesterday with a 96-92 loss to Radford yesterday in the CBI Tournament. In case you don't know what that is, all you need to know is that my late grandfather called it the "Crud Bucket Invitational." In case you've never heard of Radford, they're a small school somewhere in Virginia. Typing this while simultaneously watching the Ducks beat BYU in the NCAA tournament makes this officially the low point of the Craig Robinson era.
How did Oregon State basketball get here? Oregon State went to the NCAA tournament in 7 of 10 years from 1979-1989. Then Ralph Miller retired. In 1990, Jimmy Anderson, Miller's top assistant, guided a Gary Payton led squad back to the tournament, where they lost to Ball State. The last 25 years have been awful for a once proud program. How bad? As Craig Robinson left the podium last night, he said "if I get fired, it's been nice knowing you guys." Oregon State's own coach is cracking jokes after losing at home to a Big South school in front of an announced crowd of less than 1,400 people. The reason he's able to crack jokes is because either he doesn't care if he gets fired, or he knows it's a long shot that he will be fired because of the athletic department's financial situation. Maybe a combination of the two. Either way, it's terrible, and it's not the first time he's made a strange statement that seems to indicate he's not that interested in being the Beavers coach:
- In a January 21st story in the Oregonian, he said that, if he were "out of a job" and Princeton offered him an athletic director position, "that would be the one place" he'd go for. I don't think I've heard a coach discuss his next job while still in season at his current job. At the time, the Beavers were 10-7 and had just come off a win over the Ducks - a time when you'd think his job security would be at a high point. Furthermore, if he was out of a job, he'd only consider working at one place? Is he ready to retire? Clearly not, as he said he "wasn't burned out yet" in the same story. To make things even stranger, I can't find anything online that lists Craig Robinson as a potential candidate, other than the speculation coming from his own mouth. It almost seems like he's putting himself out there for it.
- In the March 4th Daily Barometer, when speaking about senior Roberto Nelson, Robinson said "“The fact that that kid (Nelson) is going to have a degree from Oregon State is almost as shocking as the fact that we’re sitting here with an opportunity to be .500.” To me, that sounds like he's calling his team "lucky" to be winning half their games. It also sounds a little bit like he thinks Roberto Nelson should not be a college student, but whatever.
The early success breathed some life into a once proud fan base. They wanted to know what was next. What was next was a fairly highly regarded recruiting class that included Joe Burton, Roberto Nelson, and Jared Cunningham. Joe Burton fit the style Craig Robinson had played the previous year - he was a point guard trapped in a post players body - the other guys were gunners. They were built to play fast. Robinson made a point to tell everyone that they were going to play faster once they got "good" athletes in the program. He was going to get rid of the 1-3-1 defense (probably the team's biggest weapon) and play more man to man. All of this sounded great. The only problem? I don't think Craig Robinson is comfortable coaching that style of play. He played at Princeton - an Ivy League school that doesn't offer athletic scholarships and has such stringent academic requirements that they automatically disqualify themselves from a large majority of recruitable athletes. His only college coaching experience prior to Oregon State was an assistant at Northwestern and two years as a head coach at Brown, which both have the same built-in disadvantages that Princeton has. So for the last 35 years or so, the only basketball he's been around has been played with inferior athletes that play below the rim. Yet his plan was to recruit athletes and completely change his system - a system that probably got him the job in the first place. Washington State had a similar situation, and they turned to Tony Bennett, who was able to implement an offensive system based on relatively un-athletic white guys like Taylor Rochestie and Robbie Cowgill and go to the Sweet Sixteen despite ranking 226th in the nation in points per game. Tony Bennett went on to Virginia, where he's got his team a #1 seed in the NCAA Tournament despite ranking (you guessed it) 289th in the country in points per game. He's stuck with his system, despite having unquestionably better athletes than he had at Wazzu. Craig wanted to have a sexy program to recruit sexy players, and it's backfired big time. He brought in guys like Ahmad Starks, who in three years obliterated just about every 3 point record Oregon State has. Problem was, he got obliterated on the defensive side of the ball. He brought in Eric Moreland, another freak athlete, who has been suspended for parts of each of the last two seasons and gives off the impression that he's only playing college basketball until the NBA comes calling, even if the NBA seems to have "lost" his number like that hot girl in your physics class that keeps telling you "oh yeah, we'll hang out......sometime."
So now he's got guys who can score, and score in bunches. The team averaged 60.8 points per game in his first season. In his second year, they averaged 60.3. This year - 75.8 points per game. So great...we can score now. Problem is, they still can't defend anyone. Points allowed per game have gone from 63.3 his first year to 75.6 this season, 306th in the nation. Yet he's continued to play primarily man to man. Why, I have no clue. Craig Robinson likes to quote his father's advice often. One of the most popular ones is "you don't always get what you deserve, but you deserve what you get." Well, my dad taught me a few things too, amongst them "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" and "dance with the one that brought you." Robinson abandoned everything that had made him successful.
A big complaint I've heard this season is that Craig Robinson doesn't seem to "care" anymore if they win or lose. Detractors point to how demonstrative he was on the sidelines his first few years, when you could hear him yelling "MOVE!" at players from the top row of Gill Coliseum as the gum flew out of his mouth. This season, he did a lot more sitting on the bench watching. I don't think it was a lack of caring, I think it was a genuine lack of not knowing what to do. He'd implemented a system that put the onus on players to be able to stop the guy they were guarding one-on-one. Similarly, the offense was based less on ball and player movement and more on guys being able to create their own shots. So what do you tell guys to do...play better? He basically put himself in a position where all he could say was "you guys have to work harder." He's out of options.
Also out of options - Bob DeCarolis. What's he to do? Despite public perception that he's neglected basketball during his tenure, he's invested many resources in basketball. That new practice facility was built at Robinson's behest that they needed it to compete. Robinson smartly capitalized on the little success he'd had early on, and forced DeCarolis' hand as he extended his contract not once, but twice. He's owed around $3 Million over the next few seasons. Fire him, and you're essentially doubling the expense on a coach. That's money the athletic department doesn't have, as they're still paying off improvements to Reser Stadium and that basketball practice facility. Those shiny new facilities that Oregon State has don't come cheap. Plans are already in the works to sink more money into both Reser and Goss Stadiums. Attendance is plummeting for basketball, and football attendance isn't exactly skyrocketing. Donations to the athletics department have plateaued despite the ever increasing expenses. While the new media deal with ESPN/FOX and Pac-12 Network promised upwards of $20 Million a year, it isn't delivering near that yet, and it's not like all that is "new" money.
So say they do fire him (or he leaves for the Princeton job that he may or may not be a candidate for) - who do you get? I see a few different "types" of coaches out there:
- Established coaches at Mid-Majors with NCAA Tournament experience
Fan Interest: High. Fans love these guys
Odds of Hiring: Low - These guys are in super high demand by every major school that's under performing. Many of those schools have deeper pockets, more fertile recruiting bases, and better facilities than Oregon State. Only way they're coming to Oregon State is if they throw a ton of money at them. Money they don't have.
- Retired Legends
Fan Interest: High. Everyone loves a big name
Odds of Hiring: Low. They're super expensive (Larry Brown's ASSISTANT is reportedly getting almost $1 Million this year at SMU), and not likely to be interested in the long term success of the program. They'll try and assemble a team as fast as possible, win early, then take a quick second retirement as the white knight of the program. Either that, or it won't work because the game has passed them by and then you're stuck paying an enormous salary for a name that's not getting results and isn't really interested in changing anything because this is most likely his last job anyways.
- Cast-Offs from other Programs
Fan Interest: Medium. Fans love that these guys win, but also realize they were fired from their old jobs for a reason (usually some sort of indiscretion.)
Odds of Hiring: Medium. Again, these guys usually are able to capitalize on name recognition and cost a pretty penny, though maybe not top dollar because they're "damaged goods." I personally tend to think that these types of coaches would only come here to re-establish themselves as coaching elite and then look for a job with a commensurate level of esteem. Not the best for the long term health of the program.
- Assistants at Successful Programs
Fan Interest: Medium. They love the association to greatness, even if they've never heard of the guy.
Odds of Hiring: High. These coaches are typically hungry to make a name for themselves, and will come cheaper than someone with head coaching experience. It's not the worst strategy, although it hasn't exactly worked for Oregon State in the past (see above examples). You need to pick a guy from the right coaching tree. For example, every single assistant coach on Bo Ryan's first staff at Wisconsin 9 years ago is coaching their own team in the NCAA Tournament this year. Conversely, Lute Olsen's assistants have largely flopped.
- Flash in the Pans
Fan Interest: Low/Medium.
Odds of Hiring: High. These guys have seemingly come from nowhere, but had one or two good seasons at basketball outposts (Craig came from Brown, Payne from East Carolina). Neither was an established success. Both had forgettable runs (although Payne's teams were probably the most fun to watch in the post-Miller era at OSU). They're easy to hire, because they want to "strike while the iron is hot" so to speak. They're also probably the most risky, because you have nothing to judge them on. Picking one of these guys is like putting $100 on Green 00 in blackjack because you just saw some guy just win $1 Million doing that. They're relatively cheap. Not a good bet in my opinion.
- Lower Division Successes
Fan Interest: Low. They've never heard of the coach or the school he's at, so why should they care?
Odds of Hiring: High. Their current salaries are well below market value for a Pac-12 coach, plus most of them are hyper-competitive and want to be able to prove themselves at "the next level." They've put in a decade perfecting their craft, and know how to SUSTAIN success at an institution. This is the best path available to Oregon State at this point. They might not have experience recruiting high profile kids, but they know how to get the most out of the guys they have. They know what kind of players work for them, and which ones don't. I've always been a believer that recruiting doesn't need to be taught anyways. It's all about relationships. If you're a well-liked person, you'll do fine in recruiting. Barack Obama and John McCain couldn't be more different in terms of political experience, but which guy won? The "cool" guy who people liked and was a better public speaker. Recruiting is all about perception...Craig Robinson got high profile kids to come to Oregon State, but once they were here, he couldn't lead them anywhere. Chris Petersen at Boise had no chance bringing in guys getting offers from school like USC and Washington, but he took those guys he could get and he WON. A LOT. Same thing with Mark Few at Gonzaga. And really, the same thing with Mike Riley. He's got the same disadvantages (perceived or otherwise) as Craig Robinson and doesn't bring in anyone that even sniffs ESPN's top recruits....yet he wins consistently because he knows what he wants to do and what he's good at. Then he goes out and finds kids that can do what he requires them to do.
So there you go. That's my quick recap of why Oregon State sucks, and what I think is the best way for them to get better. In lieu of a coaching change, I'd urge Craig Robinson to look back at what he was able to do with a bunch of guys that went 0-18 in conference the year before and start teaching these guys the way he taught them.
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