Free Quebec wrote:

Gwmayhem wrote:

Three years?   Everyone is really OK with firing a coach on a 5 year contract after 3 years?

Let's get the obvious out of the way.  MoJo was hired as an interim head coach who was inexplicably extended by a corrupt AD who clearly sabotaged this program.  He had never been a head coach, was not ready to be one at the A10 level, and his teams progressed steadily in the wrong direction during his tenure.  Not at all the same thing as Jamion.

Back to the original question.  Are we really OK cutting ties with a coaching staff who did not have even a full recruiting cycle to turn things around? (Remember, he inherited a 9-24 team.)  Even if you are fully convinced that Jamion was the wrong guy to lead this program, how can you not give him a 4th year anyway to make sure he's not the right guy?  There was improvement in conference play, and that was without Ira Lee, a player we desperately needed and who JC successfully recruited.  What if James, Joe, Brayon and Brendan all return with JC as coach and JC gets some quality additions in the frontcourt?  This is all hypothetical I realize but might that result in a 5th-6th place A10 finish next season?  If that team makes the NIT, is Jamion still the wrong guy?

I get it.  He didn't get it done.  The Lee injury was a bad break but we can't not evaluate coaching performance due to bad breaks.  But seriously, we were not a laughing stock this season, certainly not in conference play.  

But putting records and performance aside, unless you're being fired with cause or are a pawn being used to help sink a program, doesn't every head coach deserve a minimum of four years on the job?  

It’s almost impossible to go from sub-200 to the NiT, especially with a coach who never coached a top 200 team in 7 years as a head coach.

But we could extend your hypothetical, what if he came back next year and we made the final 4? In that case, firing him would have been a mistake. But in reality, year three saw us finish 226th in the nation per KenPom, and go just 9-9 against teams outside the top 150. That’s bad by any measure.

With all due respect to St. Peter's or Rick Pitino coached teams, just how often do schools from the Northeast Conference (where Jamion coached for 5 of his 6 years prior to GW) or the MAAC finish as a top 200 program?  Seems to me you would have a lot of member schools in these conferences who would weigh you down regardless of how good you might be.

OK, let's find some middle ground.  Let's say next year's GW turned out to be this year's Utah Valley.  20-12 overall.  10-8 in conference.  KenPom of 119.  Jamion learns to win some meaningful OOC games, or stop losing the ones he should win.  Goes 1-1 in the A10 tournament.  No postseason tournament.  Not sure why he gets fired when the arrow is pointing in the correct decision.  Are you firing him based on this performance (along with the first 3 seasons)?

We should all be cognizant of whoever posted that GW has now had consecutive coaches who did not make it to a 4th season.  Could easily be another factor as to why the current situation is taking so long to finalize.  This is definitely outside the norm for the sport, and frankly, gives this program a very bad look.
 

I think the big thing is now GW has the reputation of being trigger happy with firings, on top of being on the lower end of the pay scale. Basically we’ve become the Cleveland Browns.

Sure, there’ll always be coaches desperate enough to agree to coach here because there are only so many D1 jobs at multi-bid conferences. But we should want to be a job that every AC and mid major HC jumps at the chance to be the HC at GW.

The days of ML and JC calling GW a destination job are probably over for a while.

i'll take the seemingly unpopular route of waiting until the hire is announced before drawing conclusions about the decision

Just too many games in which we seemed woefully unprepared, either at tipoff or coming out of the second half.    Too many games teams went on extended scoring runs against us for which we seemed ill prepared to address, invariably resorting to hero ball.  Too many years of poor recruiting, scoring a few hits with Freeman and some of the power conference washouts but generally bringing in far too many players who did not seem equipped to play in the A-10.    Too little player improvement from the time of a players first GW game until today, especially on the defensive end.   Too few i game adjustments..   And in the end, too many empty seats at the Smith Center and too little coverage by the media.   We had become American or Howard.    You can argue that he coached well and the preformance failures were on the players, but even if that is correct, they were nearly all his players in year 2 and ALL his players in year 3.  I was not a big fan of the coach however I would not have been upset with his return, but to pretend that there were no valid reasons to fire Christian  Perhaps GW does have a taste for sirloin but on a hamburger budget, but they did fire someone with 2 years remaining and I would like to think it was to upgrade the coaching position.   Lets hold our breath until something is announced before trashing the school's actions.

List of JC's wins against top 100 KenPom teams:

Six years at MSM:  None (four wins against 100-150 ranked teams)
One year at Siena:  None (one win against 100-150 ranked teams)
Three years at GW:  Two, both in his first year with MoJo players, in four overtimes against Davidson and against #95 Duquesne.  None in the last two years (five wins against 100-150 ranked teams)

Based on what I would say are very reliable sources coming out of the Final Four, it appears that GW offered the job to someone and was turned down. I don't know the reasons exactly but I was led to believe it was based upon the level of support (read as either salary, assistants salary, facilities or charters or all of the above). Yikes! I know the name (it was not a current HC is as far as I will go) but will not provide it here at the moment. I trust this source implicitly and he would be in a position to know.

Last edited by GWRising (3/31/2022 2:40 pm)

GWRising wrote:

Based on what I would say are very reliable sources coming out of the Final Four, it appears that GW offered the job to someone and was turned down. I don't know the reasons exactly but I was led to believe it was based upon the level of support (read as either salary, assistants salary, facilities or charters or all of the above). Yikes! I know the name (it was not a current HC is as far as I will go) but will not provide it here at the moment. I trust this source implicitly and he would be in a position to know.

FFFFFUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCKKKKKKK

We are so screwed

GWRising wrote:

Based on what I would say are very reliable sources coming out of the Final Four, it appears that GW offered the job to someone and was turned down. I don't know the reasons exactly but I was led to believe it was based upon the level of support (read as either salary, assistants salary, facilities or charters or all of the above). Yikes! I know the name (it was not a current HC is as far as I will go) but will not provide it here at the moment. I trust this source implicitly and he would be in a position to know.

Based on recent news about the remaining list and the rumor Jason Williford has dropped out of the running, it may very well be him. If the fact that we were turned down is true, thats really disappointing.. When you fire someone you have to make sure you have the resources and plan to get what it is you're looking to upgrade to. I don't have any info but you have to wonder about the plan. 

This is not to bring back the ML debate but to point to the long time lack of support for the program. Even when things were good. This was posted on Facebook by ML about the NIT win
"Throwback Thursday- This was a night I will never forget. I can’t believe it has been 6 years. A lot of great memories from a special night spent with players, family, friends, alumni and fans. One bad memory-We were only allowed to celebrate for an hour with our family and friends after the game because the university wouldn’t pay for our hotels that night. We had to bus back from NYC to DC(1am-5:30am). How sad is that? We won a school record 28 games with little to no support. I wish I could write a book but I can’t."

 

Gwmayhem wrote:

Free Quebec wrote:

Gwmayhem wrote:

Three years?   Everyone is really OK with firing a coach on a 5 year contract after 3 years?

Let's get the obvious out of the way.  MoJo was hired as an interim head coach who was inexplicably extended by a corrupt AD who clearly sabotaged this program.  He had never been a head coach, was not ready to be one at the A10 level, and his teams progressed steadily in the wrong direction during his tenure.  Not at all the same thing as Jamion.

Back to the original question.  Are we really OK cutting ties with a coaching staff who did not have even a full recruiting cycle to turn things around? (Remember, he inherited a 9-24 team.)  Even if you are fully convinced that Jamion was the wrong guy to lead this program, how can you not give him a 4th year anyway to make sure he's not the right guy?  There was improvement in conference play, and that was without Ira Lee, a player we desperately needed and who JC successfully recruited.  What if James, Joe, Brayon and Brendan all return with JC as coach and JC gets some quality additions in the frontcourt?  This is all hypothetical I realize but might that result in a 5th-6th place A10 finish next season?  If that team makes the NIT, is Jamion still the wrong guy?

I get it.  He didn't get it done.  The Lee injury was a bad break but we can't not evaluate coaching performance due to bad breaks.  But seriously, we were not a laughing stock this season, certainly not in conference play.  

But putting records and performance aside, unless you're being fired with cause or are a pawn being used to help sink a program, doesn't every head coach deserve a minimum of four years on the job?  

It’s almost impossible to go from sub-200 to the NiT, especially with a coach who never coached a top 200 team in 7 years as a head coach.

But we could extend your hypothetical, what if he came back next year and we made the final 4? In that case, firing him would have been a mistake. But in reality, year three saw us finish 226th in the nation per KenPom, and go just 9-9 against teams outside the top 150. That’s bad by any measure.

With all due respect to St. Peter's or Rick Pitino coached teams, just how often do schools from the Northeast Conference (where Jamion coached for 5 of his 6 years prior to GW) or the MAAC finish as a top 200 program?  Seems to me you would have a lot of member schools in these conferences who would weigh you down regardless of how good you might be.

OK, let's find some middle ground.  Let's say next year's GW turned out to be this year's Utah Valley.  20-12 overall.  10-8 in conference.  KenPom of 119. 
 

In the 6 years JC was at Mt St Mary’s, 6 of the other 11 teams had a higher peak than JC, with 5 different programs accomplishing what he couldn’t by cracking the top 200 during his time in the NEC.

As for finishing 119 next year, that would require improving by more than 100 places, which is very hard to do (I know Towson did it this year).  Probably about a 1% chance for a team to improve that many spots in a year.

So how long does it take before a GW fan/donor/supporter feels like the Administration could care less about its fan base. The AD knows nothing about basketball. There is no emphasis on winning. They make a coaching change and tell us to believe in the process. How’s that working? If Williford turned the job down for reasons already noted that leaves me with a sinking feeling. Great leaders do great things when times feel the worse. I’m not waiting for a positive sign from the powers that be.