SLU Head Coaches

[cheeseman]

I was thinking about this today - Has an assistant coach at SLU ever been successful at SLU when he was promoted to the head coach here?  I can think of 4 who were promoted but all did not succeed.  Coleman, Albrecht, Soderberg, and Crews come to mind.  Now before somebody hijacks the thread by saying Crews was successful lets not go down that road - the consensus on this board has clearly been that he was a failure/mistake hire.  Can anyone name an assistant who was promoted at SLU that was successful here?

[McBroom luvs McDonalds]

Yah, they were Rick's kids, but you can't tell me a guy who won national and consecutive A-10 coach of the year awards was a failure. Yeah, he might not have been the right person to build the program where we wanted it, but to call him a failure would be lazy and narrow minded on your part. Do you forget how much of an honor that was? And how proud that made supporters of the program? And you know how you know you wrote a poopy post? Because you had to defend yourself 4th sentence in. Be better.

[cheeseman]

1 hour ago, McBroom luvs McDonalds said:

Yah, they were Rick's kids, but you can't tell me a guy who won national and consecutive A-10 coach of the year awards was a failure. Yeah, he might not have been the right person to build the program where we wanted it, but to call him a failure would be lazy and narrow minded on your part. Do you forget how much of an honor that was? And how proud that made supporters of the program? And you know how you know you wrote a poopy post? Because you had to defend yourself 4th sentence in. Be better.

Coach Crews how are you doing.  I did not figure you were still reading the board.

[MusicCityBilliken]

None that I can remember. I can't even think of any assistant that one of our head coaches groomed and was successful elsewhere other then maybe Bennett. 

[cheeseman]

2 hours ago, tarheelbilliken said:

None that I can remember. I can't even think of any assistant that one of our head coaches groomed and was successful elsewhere other then maybe Bennett. 

Only name that came to my mind also.

[AGB91]

Dick Versace was here for a short time but had a good career at Bradley.

[cheeseman]

On 7/9/2016 at 7:58 PM, AGB91 said:

Dick Versace was here for a short time but had a good career at Bradley.

Is Bradley where came from or where he went?  He was not here very long was he - to be considered successful you would have to actually accomplish something here.

[kshoe]

Let's be honest, the list of "successful" SLU coaches in the modern era is pretty thin. Spoon, majerus, grawer, maybe Romar if you are being generous. So no, none of them were an assistant here first.

Doesn't mean an assistant coach can't be a good hire though if it's the right person. Wasn't Brad Stevens an assistant at butler before the promotion?

[MusicCityBilliken]

He was Polk's assistant. Coached the Freshmen Team. Prior he coached HS in Chicago at Gorden Tech ( a Chicago powerhouse B Ball school back then). Polk tried to use him as a pipeline for Chicago recruits.

Versace had the nasty habit of some colorful language during the Freshman games. This offended some the alums and Versace only lasted a year. Back then I used to attend the Freshmen games and it was kind of amusing.

I believe he moved on to Michigan State as an assistant

[cheeseman]

8 hours ago, kshoe said:

Let's be honest, the list of "successful" SLU coaches in the modern era is pretty thin. Spoon, majerus, grawer, maybe Romar if you are being generous. So no, none of them were an assistant here first.

Doesn't mean an assistant coach can't be a good hire though if it's the right person. Wasn't Brad Stevens an assistant at butler before the promotion?

I never said an assistant could not be a successful coach anyway - I just was wondering if we just do not ever hire good enough assistants who could be that - might be a reason we are have such a short list of successful coaches period, we don't hire good enough people.

[Taj79]

Certain programs have a reputation for being great assistant coach pipelines ---- Michigan State and Xavier come to mind.  Same can be said for some coaches producing great assistant -- Izzo in the example just used.  Butler had the same kind of pipeline when they promoted Matta from Collier's staff and I believe the same with Lickliter and then Stevens.  They did that with the recent guy but I don't think l that worked out if I recall. 

I agree with Tarheel in that Bennett is the only guy from SLU to move on and be successful but even that comes with a caveat -- wasn't he here with Romar only one year?  Does that qualify him for inclusion in SLU records?  In this discussion, I would say only Sodeberg and Crews qualify under the "SLU promotes assistant" heading.  I don't thiunk they are purebreds however ---- Sodeberg was a Bennett disciple at Wisconsin and Crews had 20+ years as a D1 coach elsewhere.  Coach K's legacy for such production is weak and a lot of that going forward now rest son Wojo and Collins at Marquette and Northwestern respectively. 

Didn't we hire Coleman from Vashon to replace Albrecht?  Of was he already on Albrect's staff back then? 

I think the main goal when one promotes an assistant is to ensure continuity of a successful program.  Ron Ekker ended at 6 and 21.  Grawer ended 5 and 23.  Spoon 15 and 16.  Romar at the same 15 and 16. Not a lot of success you want to continue with those closing marks.  Only Romar moved up; which might make the Brad promotion easier to understand.  Majerus died and Crews closed with back-to-back 11 win seasons.  As for Crews as a failure ---- correct, he knew enough to leave it alone when the pieces were handed to him.  He didn't know how to keep the sustainment going.  Anyone finding that hard to believe is ignoring Crews' closing record at Evansville and his time at Army.  When Jensen left, Crews was available for a reason.  Now we know what it was.

Promoting an assistant is doable, under the right circumstances. 

[JMM28]

cheeseman - the question you've asked is so incredibly narrow, I am not sure what you're fishing for. 

Taj - the Izzo coaching tree isn't exactly a flourishing strong oak tree. It is more like an evergreen tree that got a disease and you keep cutting the dead branches off at the bottom so you don't have to acknowledge that the tree is pretty much dead. And Tom Crean is the only hope at the top right now. 

However you are right that at SLU's level, you're never going to see an assistant promoted from a losing team/fired coaching regime. 

[kwyjibo]

9 hours ago, kshoe said:

Let's be honest, the list of "successful" SLU coaches in the modern era is pretty thin. Spoon, majerus, grawer, maybe Romar if you are being generous. So no, none of them were an assistant here first.

Doesn't mean an assistant coach can't be a good hire though if it's the right person. Wasn't Brad Stevens an assistant at butler before the promotion?

I am curious what metric(s) makes Grawer successful and Crews, Soderberg and Romar not.  I understand that Crews inherited his success for the most part but am curious.  Is it just improvement?  Exceeding expectations--does he get a pass because it was long ago?   Grawer barely averaged to be an average NCAA D-I team in his tenure and never got his teams to the NCAA (he had as we know NIT success).  Crews got two NCAA appearances and wins.  Soderberg never got SLU to the NCAA tournament but his worst year was basically Grawer's average (Grawer had 2 better seasons than Soderberg's best but he had 4 worse teams than Soderberg's worst).    Romar had the best average record relative to other D-1 teams and an NCAA appearance. 

The following shows the average SRS (0 is average D-1) of each coach and percentage of NCAA years by coach.   I think other factors should be at play (like Crews bad seasons are really bad compared to any other coach but Grawer) but it is interesting view.

	Coach  Ave SRS       Ave NCAA Jim Crews  4.46 50% Rick Majerus 4.95 20% Brad Soderberg  4.32 0% Lorenzo Romar 8.63 33% Charles Spoonhour  8.49 43% Rich Grawer 0.93 0%

 

 

[brianstl]

9 hours ago, kshoe said:

Let's be honest, the list of "successful" SLU coaches in the modern era is pretty thin. Spoon, majerus, grawer, maybe Romar if you are being generous. So no, none of them were an assistant here first.

Doesn't mean an assistant coach can't be a good hire though if it's the right person. Wasn't Brad Stevens an assistant at butler before the promotion?

I don't think you have to be generous to call Romar successful.  He led the team to the NCAA Tournament, won the first conference tournament championship in the program's history, had a better conference winning percentage than Spoon and he did those things in a top flight basketball conference with the worst on campus facilities in the conference.

[cheeseman]

33 minutes ago, JMM28 said:

cheeseman - the question you've asked is so incredibly narrow, I am not sure what you're fishing for. 

Taj - the Izzo coaching tree isn't exactly a flourishing strong oak tree. It is more like an evergreen tree that got a disease and you keep cutting the dead branches off at the bottom so you don't have to acknowledge that the tree is pretty much dead. And Tom Crean is the only hope at the top right now. 

However you are right that at SLU's level, you're never going to see an assistant promoted from a losing team/fired coaching regime. 

I am not fishing for anything in particular.  It was simply a question that crossed my mind and the more people responded the more it occurred to me that for whatever the reason we don't hire good assistants since when we promote they don't flourish here or honest most other places either.  Why can you not simply ask a question without having to have an agenda.  If anything maybe we need to pay our assistants more so we get and keep good ones - the answer may be as simple as that.

[cheeseman]

27 minutes ago, kwyjibo said:

I am curious what metric(s) makes Grawer successful and Crews, Soderberg and Romar not.  I understand that Crews inherited his success for the most part but am curious.  Is it just improvement?  Exceeding expectations--does he get a pass because it was long ago?   Grawer barely averaged to be an average NCAA D-I team in his tenure and never got his teams to the NCAA (he had as we know NIT success).  Crews got two NCAA appearances and wins.  Soderberg never got SLU to the NCAA tournament but his worst year was basically Grawer's average (Grawer had 2 better seasons than Soderberg's best but he had 4 worse teams than Soderberg's worst).    Romar had the best average record relative to other D-1 teams and an NCAA appearance. 

The following shows the average SRS (0 is average D-1) of each coach and percentage of NCAA years by coach.   I think other factors should be at play (like Crews bad seasons are really bad compared to any other coach but Grawer) but it is interesting view.

	Coach  Ave SRS       Ave NCAA Jim Crews  4.46 50% Rick Majerus 4.95 20% Brad Soderberg  4.32 0% Lorenzo Romar 8.63 33% Charles Spoonhour  8.49 43% Rich Grawer 0.93 0%

 

 

Grawer gets as pass in my opinion given that the program had one foot in the grave in all areas.  He had to resurrect it from the grave practically.  Lets also not forget that when Grawer was coach I think only 32 teams went to the NCAA - is that correct? - I know it was not nearly as many as today.

[kwyjibo]

7 minutes ago, cheeseman said:

Grawer gets as pass in my opinion given that the program had one foot in the grave in all areas.  He had to resurrect it from the grave practically.  Lets also not forget that when Grawer was coach I think only 32 teams went to the NCAA - is that correct? - I know it was not nearly as many as today.

The NCAA expanded to 64 teams in 1985.   There were way fewer teams back then so it was actually easier.  I take it that improvement weighs heavily then in your assessment of Grawer then.   It is a valid criteria but I would not weight as highly.  Grawer had two successful seasons (out of 10) even though they were NIT;  I am not taking that away but it took 6 seasons to get there (and even that level was not sustained).  There is no way people on this board would give him or any other coach that much time these days.  I still think people overestimate Grawer because we were in a much weaker conference and scheduled weakly.

[Taj79]

JMM:  I agree on the Izzo tree analogy.  I was just using it as an example of the perception.  The Coach K tree ain't so good either.  And neither was the Bobby Knight tree.  So I personally would not be a big proponent of hiring solely based on trees and roots.  There is no guarantee.  I will admit to being high on the potential Inglesby hire from Notre Dame but that was based on his longevity there, a Catholic private school background and dues paid, not because he came from Brey who came from Duke.  Everyone should get evaluated based on merit.

Grawer, in again solely my opinion, gets judged as a success because of where he had to bring the program from.  In the grand scheme of things, maybe that is an unfair advantage to give him.  But I was there and it was horrible.  He made going to the Kiel exciting and that filled that bandbox and made it a tough home court vibe.  To me, he demonstrated quite succinctly just how the school does not seem to know what it takes to get "there."  Spoon won with Grawer's kids but did add some nice talent in H, Dobbs, Robinson, etc.  Then he lucked into Hughes.  Romar had one miracle riding the hot goalie in Love.  Sodeberg was building a program from the ground up but he still wasn't going to do it.  As for Crews, down arrow with Evansville, further down arrow with Army, and his talent evaluation was obviously horrid --- Point Loma and Fort Smith notwithstanding. 

And I don't think just paying a higher salary means much straight up.  There's no science, it is all so inexact.

[kshoe]

1 hour ago, brianstl said:

I don't think you have to be generous to call Romar successful.  He led the team to the NCAA Tournament, won the first conference tournament championship in the program's history, had a better conference winning percentage than Spoon and he did those things in a top flight basketball conference with the worst on campus facilities in the conference.

Well if everyone agrees that Crews' tenure was a failure I'm not sure how excited I'd get about Romar's tenure when you factor in that he won a conference tournament championship with Spoon's players his first season (kind of like Crews did for two years) and then proceeded to go 17-14 and 15-16 the next two seasons before leaving. No postseason either year. The best player he left behind for Sodie was Marquee Perry, a recruit that originally signed for Spoon and his final recruiting class played 0 games for SLU (Nick Kern and Ryan Hollins). I know I don't consider that a particularly successful stint.

[HenryB]

Rich Grawer saved this program.  SLU was on the verge of leaving D1.  Attendance in the years prior to Grawer was nonexistent.  SLU was so pitiful that a home game was played in West Pine Gym.  There was absolutely zero interest in the program before Grawer.  One thing that he did that has never been equaled by his successors was his ability to recruit locally - that was a great boon to attendance.  He got a raw deal when he was fired. We were playing 4 or 5 freshman and took our lumps but you could see the potential was there. The program was ready to really take off when he was replaced by Charlie.  If you were there in the years prior to Rich you would appreciate how important he is in Billikens history.

[Cowboy]

 

-to comment on two.....

-I am in the camp of appreciating Coach Grawer for what he did to save a program that was not far from being dropped, I don't think I am overvaluing his contribution to SLU Athletics and I have him in very high regard and I am disappointed he was not a coach on the All Century team

-Crews gets credit from me for keeping the team together during Rick's illness and after his death and for not changing the program while Rick's players were on the team but gets knocked for not being able to sustain the success which I realize we have never done

[hsmith19]

I was too young to really remember 1992, but from everything I've heard it sounds like that season was truly a trainwreck even by 5-23 standards. How many coaches have survived seasons like that anywhere?

[brianstl]

44 minutes ago, kshoe said:

Well if everyone agrees that Crews' tenure was a failure I'm not sure how excited I'd get about Romar's tenure when you factor in that he won a conference tournament championship with Spoon's players his first season (kind of like Crews did for two years) and then proceeded to go 17-14 and 15-16 the next two seasons before leaving. No postseason either year. The best player he left behind for Sodie was Marquee Perry, a recruit that originally signed for Spoon and his final recruiting class played 0 games for SLU (Nick Kern and Ryan Hollins). I know I don't consider that a particularly successful stint.

So Romar doesn't get credit for re-recruiting Perry and then Romar gets dinged because Brad couldn't do the same with Hollins?

 

The fact of the matter is that Romar left Brad with a roster that included Perry, Fisher, Brown, Diener and Sloan.  Those players helped Brad produce his only two post season appearances (NIT) and his two best Sagarin rankings.

[cheeseman]

46 minutes ago, brianstl said:

So Romar doesn't get credit for re-recruiting Perry and then Romar gets dinged because Brad couldn't do the same with Hollins?

 

The fact of the matter is that Romar left Brad with a roster that included Perry, Fisher, Brown, Diener and Sloan.  Those players helped Brad produce his only two post season appearances (NIT) and his two best Sagarin rankings.

I agree when Romar went to UW he did not leave a bare cupboard.  The problem Brad had was that he could not evaluate talent - he had Ahearn who Romar wanted over Brad's objections.  As it turned out, Romar was right - Ahearn would have helped his team.  He got Lisch and Liddell but could not build around them.  He was a poor recruiter and that will always get you fired.  One thing about Grawer - he had Upchurch signed sealed and delivered but a narrow ass of a Jesuit administrator - I know from personal experience - cut his legs out from under him when he vetoed the summer work the kid had done.  Grawer gets to keep him and he makes the NCAA more than once.

[AGB91]

Ron Coleman was an assistant coach for Randy