Damion Lee gives his finalists .... MU is one of them

[ChicosBailBonds]

Stanford and the Ivy's are the only schools that do not make exceptions in terms of accepting student-athletes that would not otherwise qualify for the school.  At those schools they must meet the minimum listed requirements to get into the school (so, say Stanford requires a 31 ACT score and a 3.5 GPA on a 4.0 scale...the student-athlete must be meet both of those requirements.  Where it helps to be a student-athlete is that at those schools, they may list those as the minimum requirements, but in reality you really need a 3.7 GPA and a 33 ACT score to be accepted due to the high number of top level applicants.  The student-athletes who meet the minimum requirements but do not exceed them to the point of what is really accepted for the "common" student will get preference).  So, Duke is like any other school where if they want a student-athlete, they are not going to have to get a 30 ACT and have a 3.3 GPA like a "common" student would to even be considered for Duke.  They could have a 20 ACT and a 2.5 GPA and be just fine.  (I believe Hesenberg got this wrong in his thread questioning why basketball players who don't have a pro future don't use their status as division 1 student-athletes to go to the Ivy League schools.  The answer is simple in many ways, but most simply, not many student-athletes have the grades to get into these schools.)

At my old gig I had a guy that worked for me for many years that swam for Penn.  His dad was actually the GM of the Detroit Lions prior to Matt Millen. He would tell me that he got in without necessarily the grades, but his swimming capabilities.  You don't get scholarships for athletics at Ivys, but he got plenty of financial aid to take care of tuition, etc.

[Tugg Speedman]

At my old gig I had a guy that worked for me for many years that swam for Penn.  His dad was actually the GM of the Detroit Lions prior to Matt Millen. He would tell me that he got in without necessarily the grades, but his swimming capabilities.  You don't get scholarships for athletics at Ivys, but he got plenty of financial aid to take care of tuition, etc.

You are correct. The ivies and Stanford will allow "some" athletes (maybe 25%) with grades and test scores that would not otherwise get them admitted.  That said, they cannot be down near "Diamond Stone numbers" but they will let things slide for a certain few.

The rest have to meet the school's standards.

[Benny B]

Oh come on.  Duke is a great school, but its not like he's recruiting to Stanford or Harvard.  Pitino has won everywhere, not just one school.  And he also has a far superior coaching tree.

Habba- whaaaa???

Pitino's tree: 6 NCAA Championships






Coach K's tree: 8 NCAA Championships, 1 pre-1985 NIT Championship, 3 Olympic Gold Medals & Wojo.




Benny's laying 10:1 that K's tree gets another championship before Pitino's.

[JWags85]

You're insane. Duke is a fantastic school...and it is absolutely in the same neighborhood as schools like Stanford and Northwestern. So, Pitino wins everywhere? Might want to ask the Boston Celtics about that. He was a total failure in the NBA.

Duke is considered a Southern Ivy, along with Vanderbilt, Emory and Rice. 

I'm well aware how fantastic Duke is as a school, but like Wade said, my point is that its athletic restrictions are not like that of other schools.  UNC, Texas, USC, and ND are also tremendous schools but their academic requirements for athletes are not that of the general student body.

As for the Celtics, apples and oranges.  We're talking college basketball.  He's been successful at 4 different programs, incredibly successful at 3 of those.

Habba- whaaaa???

Pitino's tree: 6 NCAA Championships

Coach K's tree: 8 NCAA Championships, 1 pre-1985 NIT Championship, 3 Olympic Gold Medals & Wojo.

Benny's laying 10:1 that K's tree gets another championship before Pitino's.

How are you defining tree?  Cause I don't include Coach K, and I imagine you're including Bobby Knight, in that as well.  I meant Pitino's and Coach K's former staff/players who went on to be successful coach.

Pitino: Billy Donovan, Tubby Smith, Mick Cronin, Jeff Van Gundy, Travis Ford, Frank Vogel, Jim O'Brien (not even including guys like Kevin Willard, Herb Sendek, or Steve Masiello)

Coach K: Mike Brey, Quinn Snyder, Tommy Amaker, Johnny Dawkins, Chris Collins, and Wojo (Jeff Capel and Bobby Hurley are maybes)

[Lennys Tap]

How are you defining tree?  Cause I don't include Coach K, and I imagine you're including Bobby Knight, in that as well.  I meant Pitino's and Coach K's former staff/players who went on to be successful coach.

Pitino: Billy Donovan, Tubby Smith, Mick Cronin, Jeff Van Gundy, Travis Ford, Frank Vogel, Jim O'Brien (not even including guys like Kevin Willard, Herb Sendek, or Steve Masiello)

Coach K: Mike Brey, Quinn Snyder, Tommy Amaker, Johnny Dawkins, Chris Collins, and Wojo (Jeff Capel and Bobby Hurley are maybes)

I agree with you. Coach K is a branch on the Bob Knight tree. The branches on Coach K's trees haven't produced a single Final Four, let alone a National Championship. Pitino's pupils have been much more successful than K's.

[wadesworld]

At my old gig I had a guy that worked for me for many years that swam for Penn.  His dad was actually the GM of the Detroit Lions prior to Matt Millen. He would tell me that he got in without necessarily the grades, but his swimming capabilities.  You don't get scholarships for athletics at Ivys, but he got plenty of financial aid to take care of tuition, etc.

Really?  Maybe it's different now or maybe different schools do it differently, but the guy I coached volleyball with was offered the women's volleyball assistant coaching position at Cornell (he was only interested in it so he could get his PhD from Cornell for free and ultimately turned the job down) and they obviously explained all of the recruiting aspects and what student-athletes are required to do to be accepted into the program and he said that in the Ivies they have to meet the minimum listed requirements for students to be accepted into the school.  That as well as having coached 2 different kids who were recruited by the likes of Princeton, Stanford, and NYU (both ended up choosing Stanford) for men's volleyball and being required to meet the minimum entrance requirements for Princeton and Stanford but not for NYU, but not being required to get anything more than those minimum requirements like "common" students would be.  I don't know, maybe it's not a requirement but something some schools follow but others don't, or maybe different sports have different requirements or different schools, etc.

[wadesworld]

Am I the only one who thinks that a coach's "coaching tree" not matter one bit in considering how good of a college basketball coach he is?  His job is to coach college kids at the sport of basketball, not to mentor future coaches and send them on to successful programs.  If Wojo wins 2 National titles here but none of his coaches ever get head coaching gigs I'll still consider him the best coach in MU basketball history.

[Skatastrophy]

Am I the only one who thinks that a coach's "coaching tree" not matter one bit in considering how good of a college basketball coach he is?  His job is to coach college kids at the sport of basketball, not to mentor future coaches and send them on to successful programs.  If Wojo wins 2 National titles here but none of his coaches ever get head coaching gigs I'll still consider him the best coach in MU basketball history.

Making good staffing decisions is part of being a good head coach.

[Carl Spackler]

Really?  Maybe it's different now or maybe different schools do it differently, but the guy I coached volleyball with was offered the women's volleyball assistant coaching position at Cornell (he was only interested in it so he could get his PhD from Cornell for free and ultimately turned the job down) and they obviously explained all of the recruiting aspects and what student-athletes are required to do to be accepted into the program and he said that in the Ivies they have to meet the minimum listed requirements for students to be accepted into the school.  That as well as having coached 2 different kids who were recruited by the likes of Princeton, Stanford, and NYU (both ended up choosing Stanford) for men's volleyball and being required to meet the minimum entrance requirements for Princeton and Stanford but not for NYU, but not being required to get anything more than those minimum requirements like "common" students would be.  I don't know, maybe it's not a requirement but something some schools follow but others don't, or maybe different sports have different requirements or different schools, etc.

Meeting the minimum is vastly different than actually having the grades etc to get admitted WITHOUT the athletics.  Guy from my high school went to Yale and played football. No effing way he gets into Yale on grades alone.  Sure he met the "minimum" but he wasnt getting in without football.

[Galway Eagle]

Oh come on.  Duke is a great school, but its not like he's recruiting to Stanford or Harvard.  Pitino has won everywhere, not just one school.  And he also has a far superior coaching tree.

http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities

If Duke is just a good school you must think Marquette is like a community college at best. 

[JWags85]

http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities

If Duke is just a good school you must think Marquette is like a community college at best. 

Read what I wrote above, at no point did I disparage Duke as a school, jeez.  I used "great" and "fantastic", never "good"

[wadesworld]

Meeting the minimum is vastly different than actually having the grades etc to get admitted WITHOUT the athletics.  Guy from my high school went to Yale and played football. No effing way he gets into Yale on grades alone.  Sure he met the "minimum" but he wasnt getting in without football.

Right, I agree.  But my point is that the Ivies and Stanford are the only schools that list minimum requirements for entrance into the school and require their student-athletes to also meet these minimum requirements.  So a school like Penn or Stanford may list minimum requirements at a 31 ACT and 3.4 GPA on a 4.0 scale and every student-athlete has to get at the very least those numbers, but in reality if you are a "common" student applying there they may not even consider you if you're below a 33 ACT and 3.6 GPA, whereas they will get you in if you're a student athlete you just need the 31 ACT and 3.4 GPA.  At schools like Marquette they may list a minimum requirement of a 24 GPA and 2.8 GPA for a admission into the school, but if a top 75 recruit gets a 20 ACT and has a 2.4 GPA they will have no issue getting into Marquette despite not meeting the listed "minimum" requirements.  The same with Duke, Northwestern, and many other very good academic institutions.  The only schools that require their minimum admission requirements be met for student-athletes at the D1 level are the Ivies and Stanford.

[Benny B]

I agree with you. Coach K is a branch on the Bob Knight tree. The branches on Coach K's trees haven't produced a single Final Four, let alone a National Championship. Pitino's pupils have been much more successful than K's.

"So, Mr. Affleck, you're the patriarch of your family, right?  No ancestors or anything in your past?"

[Galway Eagle]

I agree with you. Coach K is a branch on the Bob Knight tree. The branches on Coach K's trees haven't produced a single Final Four, let alone a National Championship. Pitino's pupils have been much more successful than K's.

And Bob Knight is from the Fred Taylor tree who came from the Tippy Dye tree who came from the Harold Olsen tree who came from the played at Wisconsin under Walter Meanwell. Which means Wojo is actually from a Wisconsin Basketball tree!

[Benny B]

And Bob Knight is from the Fred Taylor tree who came from the Tippy Dye tree who came from the Harold Olsen tree who came from the played at Wisconsin under Walter Meanwell. Which means Wojo is actually from a Wisconsin Basketball tree!

"No, Mr. PBS Guy.  I have absolutely no ancestors that I wish to speak about.  Certainly not any that would root for the University of Wisconsin today."

[WarriorInNYC]

Am I the only one who thinks that a coach's "coaching tree" not matter one bit in considering how good of a college basketball coach he is?  His job is to coach college kids at the sport of basketball, not to mentor future coaches and send them on to successful programs.  If Wojo wins 2 National titles here but none of his coaches ever get head coaching gigs I'll still consider him the best coach in MU basketball history.

Agreed.  I was going to say something similar.  Coaching tree doesn't mean crap to how good of a coach you are.

Making good staffing decisions is part of being a good head coach.

Yes, but good staffing decisions does not translate into guys that are good head coaches.  For instance, Mike Martz was one of the greatest offensive coordinators building that offense in STL, "the greatest show on turf".  He was an awful head coach.  It looks bad on Dick Vermeil's "coaching tree" yet he was a great staffing position because he was a fantastic OC.  Same with a lot of Belichick's assistants.  Almost all of them have been terrible head coaches yet a lot excelled as assistants.

[JWags85]

Agreed.  I was going to say something similar.  Coaching tree doesn't mean crap to how good of a coach you are.

Yes, but good staffing decisions does not translate into guys that are good head coaches.  For instance, Mike Martz was one of the greatest offensive coordinators building that offense in STL, "the greatest show on turf".  He was an awful head coach.  It looks bad on Dick Vermeil's "coaching tree" yet he was a great staffing position because he was a fantastic OC.  Same with a lot of Belichick's assistants.  Almost all of them have been terrible head coaches yet a lot excelled as assistants.

Well football is different than basketball, coordinators often proceed to HC, but a coordinator is a specialist while a HC is a generalist often times.  Lot of great HCs were never coordinators.  John Harbaugh comes to mind.

I don't think its the end all be all, but I think there is something to it.  Its staffing, its mentoring of direct reports, its management.

Also, as I think about it, often coaches who stay at one program a long time with a system don't have great coaching trees.  Coach K, Boeheim, Bo, even Bobby Knight.  Might have something to do with viewing it as progressively climbing a ladder through successes and failures as opposed to a patient tenure.