Alford is so much better than any IU

[dbmhoosier]

Alford definitely deserved a shot but the time was in 2001 after the Kent St disaster. Steve was considered at the time to be the next elite coach in college basketball by many. He was our golden boy and we had maybe the most divided fan base in sports history. He would have united us. But the racists won out and we couldn’t hire him.

 

[.Gerdis]

I posted this back when we were contemplating Miller. Both Miller and Alford turned a nice 6 year run at mid-major schools into gigs at a blue-blood school. UNM and Dayton are comparable in that they are mid-majors with rich tradition in hoops. I'm no longer big on Alford either, but, at the time, it struck me as odd that so many thought Arch was a borderline sure thing. Yet, Alford was a "please NO" option even though his UNM days seemed superior to Millers' run at Dayton. Not to mention Alford's UCLA team had been top 5-10 in the AP most of that season.

We were glad to be getting rid of Turnover Tom, but look at Archie's turnover rates at UD. Notice how the better Archie's defense was the worse his offense and vice versa. Looking at the efficiency ratings of Miller and Alford's teams are a story unto themselves. Arch had plenty of red flags, but he also had that Elite 8 run which is all many people could think about. I haven't totally lost the faith in Miller yet, because there are many things that I really like about him. That said, if we do end up looking for a new coach soon, I hope we can all get past NCAA Tourney runs as our main priority.

Archie Miller
130-72 (.6435) UD's overall record the 6 years prior to A. Miller
139-62 (.6915) UD's recorde so far under A. Miller
Conference Record 68-34 (.667)
Reg Season Champs 2
C-Tourn Rec (5-6)
C-Tourn Champs 0
NCAA Seeding (#7,#7,#11,#11)
NCAA Tourn Rec 5-3 (.625)
Final AP Top 25 Rankings- None
Total A-10 teams to NCAA Tournament- 24
Offensive Eff. Ranks- #29, #29, #36, #74, #146, #45
Defensive Eff Ranks- #158, #145, #72, #31, #15, #41
Turnover% Ranks- #154, #269, #158, #193, #216, #71

Steve Alford
98-83 (.5414) UNM's overall record the 6 years prior to S. Alford
155-52 (.7487) UNM's overall record under S. Alford
Conference Record 68-26 (.723)
Reg Season Champs 4
C-Tourn Rec (8-4)
C-Tourn Champs 2
NCAA Seeding (#3,#5,#3)
NCAA Tourn Rec 2-3 (.400)
Final AP Top 25 Rankings- #8, #10, #21
Total MWC teams to NCAA Tournament- 20
Offensive Eff. Ranks- #54, #47, #27, #48, #49, #53
Defensive Eff. Ranks- #30, #56, #82, #59, #15, #16
Turnover% Ranks- #27, #53, #14, #171, #153, #52

Interesting to see the contrast in the years prior to their coaching tenures, and when they took over. How did UNM do immediately following Alford? That was over a twenty point jump for the in win % while SA was there.

 

[Paterfamilias]

Interesting to see the contrast in the years prior to their coaching tenures, and when they took over. How did UNM do immediately following Alford? That was over a twenty point jump for the in win % while SA was there.

.5924 winning % for the 6 years post Alford. Noodles went 27-7 the first year after Alford left, then they went 82-78 the next 5 years. Weir had them playing pretty decent this season until he lost Carlton Bragg and the wheels fell off.

 

[Kelly_32]

Alford should've been hired at IU after Sampson was let go. Instead we passed him over and 12 years later we have three Sweet 16 appearances to show for it.

 

[Kelly_32]

I bet Alford could recruit a freaking shooter.

 

[Kelly_32]

Q:
you know what in state talent is good for?

A:
Beating KY in the IN/KY HS All-Star game.


You know where in state talent doesnt make a bit of difference...in college.

Its an outdated thought. Kids travel the country in AAU. Coaches can watch a kid in real time anywhere in the world on Facebook live, baller tv, etc...

I hate the idea that IU needs Indiana kids to win...so outdated.
IU needs excellent basketball players to win.

Well, IU has three seniors from Colorado, New York and Georgia and I don't think any of them gets what it means when IU plays Purdue. In-state recruiting is important.

 

[kkott]

Alford definitely deserved a shot but the time was in 2001 after the Kent St disaster. Steve was considered at the time to be the next elite coach in college basketball by many. He was our golden boy and we had maybe the most divided fan base in sports history. He would have united us. But the racists won out and we couldn’t hire him.

Racists? WTF does race have to do with anything? Curious how you'd have felt if your daughter had claimed to have been sexually assaulted by a bball player and the Coach suggested she pray about it, meet with and reconcile with the player? That has nothing to do with race my friend. That was so long ago, I'm not sure I have all the details correct, and don't care to revisit or argue about it. What SA did at the time was reprehensible. That was the problem.

 

[Baller23Boogie]

Well, IU has three seniors from Colorado, New York and Georgia and I don't think any of them gets what it means when IU plays Purdue. In-state recruiting is important.

In state recruiting is important.

Isn't that what Archie has been doing, and yet, the results still aren't there?

 

[Crossblock]

I don't have anything against Alford because he is a former Knight player or the average Coaching Record. The reason you can't hire him in this day and age is because of his actions off the Court at Iowa. He and the University Administration conspired to keep control of a Criminal Matter within the University and under the jurisdiction of Campus Police rather than reporting it to local Police and having them handle the investigation. He may have been involved with other University Officials to intimidate
the victim to prevent her from pursuing the complaint. He then made several inane comments that could be construed as victim shaming and tried to paint his Rapist Player as a victim. He then gave his Player a Second Chance and watched as he committed a second offense.

Arguably criminal activity, lack of sensitivity for the victim, and poor judgment in handling the player. We don't need the baggage and side show,

 

[Paterfamilias]

Interesting to see the contrast in the years prior to their coaching tenures, and when they took over. How did UNM do immediately following Alford? That was over a twenty point jump for the in win % while SA was there.

A few years ago, I had the idea to look for the biggest 4-year turnarounds in power conferences dating back to 1970. So I looked at every coaching change back to 1970 and recorded win totals for each coaches first 4 years and subtracted the win total from the 4 years prior to their arrival. For example, Knight to IU was a +50 and Knight to Texas Tech was a +43.

Anyway, Knight to IU ranked as the 2nd or maybe 3rd biggest turnaround (I think 2nd) and Knight to Texas Tech ranked 4th or 5th. Eddie Sutton also had two of the top 5 turnarounds with a +57 at Arkansas and a +40 at Oklahoma St.

Put into perspective, Chris Beard is a +34 right now with the rest of this season to go. Beard needs 10 more wins this season to overtake Knight's +43 on the list (also at TT)

Even though I didn't include mid-majors in the project, Alford's +24 at UNM would have been 14th when plugged in. I even went back and stretched out the whole study to 5 years, because Alford was a +42 for a 5 year turnaround. I wanted to see if his +42 would get him to the top 10... and it came in 8th or 9th. I also thought maybe extending it to a 5 year turnaround might let Knight to IU move to #1, but believe it or not (in spite of 32-0 in year 5) he actually lost a bit of ground on Eddie Sutton to Arkansas and stayed in #2.

It's been a few years and I would go back and update the whole list, but I can't find the original work and I don't want to do it again. If I did though, there would be quite a bit of IU/Knight connections in the top 10-15 turnarounds of the past 50 years. With Knight showing up twice, Alford once and Beard who assisted Knight at Tech.

Edit** At the time of my original research Archie wasn't on my radar, but I just checked and Arch had a (-7) 4 year turnaround at Dayton and a (-1) 5 year turnaround. Big turnarounds are pretty rare. Rick Barnes to Tennessee was only a (+9) 4 year turnaround and he might lose some of that in year 5. Bruce Pearl is another recent one that will rank pretty high, he is (+21) as a 4 year turnaround and a (+36) for a 5 year turnaround.

 

[Kelly_32]

I don't have anything against Alford because he is a former Knight player or the average Coaching Record. The reason you can't hire him in this day and age is because of his actions off the Court at Iowa. He and the University Administration conspired to keep control of a Criminal Matter within the University and under the jurisdiction of Campus Police rather than reporting it to local Police and having them handle the investigation. He may have been involved with other University Officials to intimidate
the victim to prevent her from pursuing the complaint. He then made several inane comments that could be construed as victim shaming and tried to paint his Rapist Player as a victim. He then gave his Player a Second Chance and watched as he committed a second offense.

Arguably criminal activity, lack of sensitivity for the victim, and poor judgment in handling the player. We don't need the baggage and side show,

New Mexico, UCLA and Nevada had no issues with it.

 

[Kelly_32]

In state recruiting is important.

Isn't that what Archie has been doing, and yet, the results still aren't there?

Yes, Archie has done okay recruiting the state. Still need to recruit guys that can put the ball in the basket.

 

[Baller23Boogie]

Yes, Archie has done okay recruiting the state. Still need to recruit guys that can put the ball in the basket.

Not debating that. Just pointing out that a large base of the players that Archie has recruited has been from Indiana, so they should know what it means to play against Purdue.

Archie can't shoot for the kids too.

 

[mushroomgod_1]

I posted this back when we were contemplating Miller. Both Miller and Alford turned a nice 6 year run at mid-major schools into gigs at a blue-blood school. UNM and Dayton are comparable in that they are mid-majors with rich tradition in hoops. I'm no longer big on Alford either, but, at the time, it struck me as odd that so many thought Arch was a borderline sure thing. Yet, Alford was a "please NO" option even though his UNM days seemed superior to Millers' run at Dayton. Not to mention Alford's UCLA team had been top 5-10 in the AP most of that season.

We were glad to be getting rid of Turnover Tom, but look at Archie's turnover rates at UD. Notice how the better Archie's defense was the worse his offense and vice versa. Looking at the efficiency ratings of Miller and Alford's teams are a story unto themselves. Arch had plenty of red flags, but he also had that Elite 8 run which is all many people could think about. I haven't totally lost the faith in Miller yet, because there are many things that I really like about him. That said, if we do end up looking for a new coach soon, I hope we can all get past NCAA Tourney runs as our main priority.

Archie Miller
130-72 (.6435) UD's overall record the 6 years prior to A. Miller
139-62 (.6915) UD's recorde so far under A. Miller
Conference Record 68-34 (.667)
Reg Season Champs 2
C-Tourn Rec (5-6)
C-Tourn Champs 0
NCAA Seeding (#7,#7,#11,#11)
NCAA Tourn Rec 5-3 (.625)
Final AP Top 25 Rankings- None
Total A-10 teams to NCAA Tournament- 24
Offensive Eff. Ranks- #29, #29, #36, #74, #146, #45
Defensive Eff Ranks- #158, #145, #72, #31, #15, #41
Turnover% Ranks- #154, #269, #158, #193, #216, #71

Steve Alford
98-83 (.5414) UNM's overall record the 6 years prior to S. Alford
155-52 (.7487) UNM's overall record under S. Alford
Conference Record 68-26 (.723)
Reg Season Champs 4
C-Tourn Rec (8-4)
C-Tourn Champs 2
NCAA Seeding (#3,#5,#3)
NCAA Tourn Rec 2-3 (.400)
Final AP Top 25 Rankings- #8, #10, #21
Total MWC teams to NCAA Tournament- 20
Offensive Eff. Ranks- #54, #47, #27, #48, #49, #53
Defensive Eff. Ranks- #30, #56, #82, #59, #15, #16
Turnover% Ranks- #27, #53, #14, #171, #153, #52

You've done a good job at showing that Glass should have taken a much closer look at Lil' Archie's Dayton stats before he was hired... What the OP hasn't done is explain why IU should consider hiring a guy who has had to beat it out of town twice just ahead of the posse.

 

[Paterfamilias]

You've done a good job at showing that Glass should have taken a much closer look at Lil' Archie's Dayton stats before he was hired... What the OP hasn't done is explain why IU should consider hiring a guy who has had to beat it out of town twice just ahead of the posse.

Yeah, the collapse at UCLA cooled me on Alford and I actually thought he was progressing into a really good coach. I will say that there was a toxicity towards Alford at UCLA from day 1, which would be difficult to function in. I heard stories that players were being encouraged to tank by some pretty important people. It was a bad fit, but the Pierce episode will create the same atmosphere for him at any high profile school... just the way it is. He shouldn't have left UNM, they had some great mojo going there. He and Noodles really worked well together and Lobo fans are just about as passionate as IU fans... factor in the Pit and it was a mid-major IU. Better that than turning IU into a mid-major

 

[royhobbs2]

The anti-knight people have had their say for 20 years and its destroyed the program.

Its time to bring back Alford. The anti-Knight lunatics can go follow UK or Cal-Berkley.

 

[Kelly_32]

Not debating that. Just pointing out that a large base of the players that Archie has recruited has been from Indiana, so they should know what it means to play against Purdue.

Archie can't shoot for the kids too.

My biggest issue is with the upperclassmen and their lack of leadership. Those aren’t Indiana kids.

 

[Baller23Boogie]

My biggest issue is with the upperclassmen and their lack of leadership. Those aren’t Indiana kids.

No argument there

 

[Coach Geez]

Q:
you know what in state talent is good for?

A:
Beating KY in the IN/KY HS All-Star game.


You know where in state talent doesnt make a bit of difference...in college.

Its an outdated thought. Kids travel the country in AAU. Coaches can watch a kid in real time anywhere in the world on Facebook live, baller tv, etc...

I hate the idea that IU needs Indiana kids to win...so outdated.
IU needs excellent basketball players to win.

You're wrong there, can't tell me that landing guys like Trevion Blueitt, Zak Irvine, Kyle Guy, Jaren Jackson Jr, etc (guys who were either AA or played in the F4 and in some cases both) wouldn't have put IU in a better spot to succeed the last 4-5 years. There's plenty of homegrown high school talent to make Indiana an immediate contender if we kept them in-state. Not an outdated idea in the least.

 

[royhobbs2]

You're wrong there, can't tell me that landing guys like Trevion Blueitt, Zak Irvine, Kyle Guy, Jaren Jackson Jr, etc (guys who were either AA or played in the F4 and in some cases both) wouldn't have put IU in a better spot to succeed the last 4-5 years. There's plenty of homegrown high school talent to make Indiana an immediate contender if we kept them in-state. Not an outdated idea in the least.

Alford would recruit Indiana better than anybody.

Purdue can have Keady disciple Painter, but IU cant have Knight disciple Alford because of all the anti-knight lunatic nutjobs who have totally destroyed IUs program over the last 20 years. Those people have had their say on every hire and look where its got the program. No more.

 

[Birnk403]

That has little to do with why Alford isn’t IU’s coach.

 

[Columbus-Boiler]

Why not include Iowa results?

His B1G regular season record was very "meh", but he always seemed to overachieve in the B1G tournament.

 

[Coach Geez]

I posted this back when we were contemplating Miller. Both Miller and Alford turned a nice 6 year run at mid-major schools into gigs at a blue-blood school. UNM and Dayton are comparable in that they are mid-majors with rich tradition in hoops. I'm no longer big on Alford either, but, at the time, it struck me as odd that so many thought Arch was a borderline sure thing. Yet, Alford was a "please NO" option even though his UNM days seemed superior to Millers' run at Dayton. Not to mention Alford's UCLA team had been top 5-10 in the AP most of that season.

We were glad to be getting rid of Turnover Tom, but look at Archie's turnover rates at UD. Notice how the better Archie's defense was the worse his offense and vice versa. Looking at the efficiency ratings of Miller and Alford's teams are a story unto themselves. Arch had plenty of red flags, but he also had that Elite 8 run which is all many people could think about. I haven't totally lost the faith in Miller yet, because there are many things that I really like about him. That said, if we do end up looking for a new coach soon, I hope we can all get past NCAA Tourney runs as our main priority.

Archie Miller
130-72 (.6435) UD's overall record the 6 years prior to A. Miller
139-62 (.6915) UD's recorde so far under A. Miller
Conference Record 68-34 (.667)
Reg Season Champs 2
C-Tourn Rec (5-6)
C-Tourn Champs 0
NCAA Seeding (#7,#7,#11,#11)
NCAA Tourn Rec 5-3 (.625)
Final AP Top 25 Rankings- None
Total A-10 teams to NCAA Tournament- 24
Offensive Eff. Ranks- #29, #29, #36, #74, #146, #45
Defensive Eff Ranks- #158, #145, #72, #31, #15, #41
Turnover% Ranks- #154, #269, #158, #193, #216, #71

Steve Alford
98-83 (.5414) UNM's overall record the 6 years prior to S. Alford
155-52 (.7487) UNM's overall record under S. Alford
Conference Record 68-26 (.723)
Reg Season Champs 4
C-Tourn Rec (8-4)
C-Tourn Champs 2
NCAA Seeding (#3,#5,#3)
NCAA Tourn Rec 2-3 (.400)
Final AP Top 25 Rankings- #8, #10, #21
Total MWC teams to NCAA Tournament- 20
Offensive Eff. Ranks- #54, #47, #27, #48, #49, #53
Defensive Eff. Ranks- #30, #56, #82, #59, #15, #16
Turnover% Ranks- #27, #53, #14, #171, #153, #52

Archie's ceiling was much higher than Alford's. You do bring up good points about their mid-major records being similar, but Archie was considerably younger and Alford kind of plateaued at UCLA with considerably much more talent. I think the fear in hiring Alford was him turning into Crean 2.0, someone who can recruit and run excellent offense, but lacked any semblance of a defense. Hindsight Alford probably has Indiana in a better spot than Archie does now, but I don't believe Alford is the coach to get IU back to the next level consistently.

 

[dbmhoosier]

Racists? WTF does race have to do with anything? Curious how you'd have felt if your daughter had claimed to have been sexually assaulted by a bball player and the Coach suggested she pray about it, meet with and reconcile with the player? That has nothing to do with race my friend. That was so long ago, I'm not sure I have all the details correct, and don't care to revisit or argue about it. What SA did at the time was reprehensible. That was the problem.

You missed the whole point bud. Go look up someone named Kora Breckinridge and there were others too. They would not allow Davis to be fired and insisted a black man succeed Knight.

 

[victorbear]

Racists? WTF does race have to do with anything? Curious how you'd have felt if your daughter had claimed to have been sexually assaulted by a bball player and the Coach suggested she pray about it, meet with and reconcile with the player? That has nothing to do with race my friend. That was so long ago, I'm not sure I have all the details correct, and don't care to revisit or argue about it. What SA did at the time was reprehensible. That was the problem.

Pretty common knowledge that President Hebert wanted a minority coach thus Sampson was hired, don't be a fool.

 

[Paterfamilias]

Archie's ceiling was much higher than Alford's. You do bring up good points about their mid-major records being similar, but Archie was considerably younger and Alford kind of plateaued at UCLA with considerably much more talent. I think the fear in hiring Alford was him turning into Crean 2.0, someone who can recruit and run excellent offense, but lacked any semblance of a defense. Hindsight Alford probably has Indiana in a better spot than Archie does now, but I don't believe Alford is the coach to get IU back to the next level consistently.

Alford's poor defense was just a UCLA development. His last 2 UNM teams were top 15 in the country, and his next to last Iowa team had the #1 ranked defense in the country. No Noodles Neal at UCLA... No Noodles... No D. I'm thinking Alford and Noodles together make one really good coach... apart they are both mediocre.

BTW.. the dynamic duo are back together again at Nevada. It will be interesting to see If Nevada starts playing good D in the next 2 to 3 years

 

[Birnk403]

You missed the whole point bud. Go look up someone named Kora Breckinridge and there were others too. They would not allow Davis to be fired and insisted a black man succeed Knight.

It’s “Cora”, not “Kora”.

 

[CriticArisen]

Not debating that. Just pointing out that a large base of the players that Archie has recruited has been from Indiana, so they should know what it means to play against Purdue.

Archie can't shoot for the kids too.

Nor can he rebound and not turn the ball nor rebound nor play defense and all the other thing this team is poor at.

 

[UTFO]

not to shabby at a place like Minnesota sure. We are IU dude. We aren’t playing for not to shabby

I'd take "not too shabby" at this point.

 

[Kelly_32]

Nor can he rebound and not turn the ball nor rebound nor play defense and all the other thing this team is poor at.

He can sit guys that don't rebound, that do turn the ball over and that don't play defense. It doesn't appear he holds any of the players accountable for their poor play and lack of hustle. I thought Archie would be a hard-nosed coach that demanded his players guard but that isn't the case at all.

 

[IU? I'm Fine]

You've done a good job at showing that Glass should have taken a much closer look at Lil' Archie's Dayton stats before he was hired... What the OP hasn't done is explain why IU should consider hiring a guy who has had to beat it out of town twice just ahead of the posse.

Cherry picking statistics of the first years of Archie Miller at Dayton do not tell the tale. I do not know why you want to skew his results at Dayton by ignoring his last 5 years.

Sure, you can say you were just following Pater's statistical information. But Pater didn't say one should ignore later results.

Every year after your referenced first years, Archie Miller took Dayton to the NCAAT. His recruiting and coaching resulted in improvements throughout each of those years...and this is important...once he got his recruits as upperclassmen.

I'm very unhappy with losing. Losing for the last 2 decades with some small exceptions is not acceptable. But, contrary to many on here, I see that Archie MIller hasn't had time to get his team as upperclassmen.

So keep crying that the sky is falling. Keep insisting that IU pay 16 million in one year to fire our current head coach and hire a Mark Few who won't come here anyway. Ignore the fact that once DG, DD, JS, and AD leave that those with higher basketball IQ will be upperclassmen.

 

[jet812]

His B1G regular season record was very "meh", but he always seemed to overachieve in the B1G tournament.

Please put me on ignore, I have no interest in an exchange with a PU troll...

 

[CriticArisen]

Cherry picking statistics of the first years of Archie Miller at Dayton do not tell the tale. I do not know why you want to skew his results at Dayton by ignoring his last 5 years.

Sure, you can say you were just following Pater's statistical information. But Pater didn't say one should ignore later results.

Every year after your referenced first years, Archie Miller took Dayton to the NCAAT. His recruiting and coaching resulted in improvements throughout each of those years...and this is important...once he got his recruits as upperclassmen.

I'm very unhappy with losing. Losing for the last 2 decades with some small exceptions is not acceptable. But, contrary to many on here, I see that Archie MIller hasn't had time to get his team as upperclassmen.

So keep crying that the sky is falling. Keep insisting that IU pay 16 million in one year to fire our current head coach and hire a Mark Few who won't come here anyway. Ignore the fact that once DG, DD, JS, and AD leave that those with higher basketball IQ will be upperclassmen.

Dude, the sky already fell and landed way way down in every statistical category.

 

[victorbear]

Cherry picking statistics of the first years of Archie Miller at Dayton do not tell the tale. I do not know why you want to skew his results at Dayton by ignoring his last 5 years.

Sure, you can say you were just following Pater's statistical information. But Pater didn't say one should ignore later results.

Every year after your referenced first years, Archie Miller took Dayton to the NCAAT. His recruiting and coaching resulted in improvements throughout each of those years...and this is important...once he got his recruits as upperclassmen.

I'm very unhappy with losing. Losing for the last 2 decades with some small exceptions is not acceptable. But, contrary to many on here, I see that Archie MIller hasn't had time to get his team as upperclassmen.

So keep crying that the sky is falling. Keep insisting that IU pay 16 million in one year to fire our current head coach and hire a Mark Few who won't come here anyway. Ignore the fact that once DG, DD, JS, and AD leave that those with higher basketball IQ will be upperclassmen.

And we will still b losing; older players doesn't equal better players fool

 

[Baller23Boogie]

He can sit guys that don't rebound, that do turn the ball over and that don't play defense. It doesn't appear he holds any of the players accountable for their poor play and lack of hustle. I thought Archie would be a hard-nosed coach that demanded his players guard but that isn't the case at all.

Oh how we forget.

He sat TJD against I believe Rutgers for the last something like 10 plus minutes at Rutgers. He only played I believe Armaan four minutes or so a game a while back for a defensive lapse, I believe against Ohio State. Green's minutes, although not to my liking, were being cut in the 13-15 minute range. Anderson hasn't played the last couple of games.

He's used the bench some this year. Not enough in my view, but he's tried it some.

 

[T.M.P.]

Alford definitely deserved a shot but the time was in 2001 after the Kent St disaster. Steve was considered at the time to be the next elite coach in college basketball by many. He was our golden boy and we had maybe the most divided fan base in sports history. He would have united us. But the racists won out and we couldn’t hire him.

The racists?

lmao ... my god you're fking stupid.

 

[Columbus-Boiler]

Please put me on ignore, I have no interest in an exchange with a PU troll...

I don't think you know what trolling is then, and you can block me at any time I believe.

 

[abraxis]

This. What has Alford done as a coach to warrant any interest from a program like IU? You are damn right he wouldn't get a look here if he wasn't a former player

He probably has the basketball knowledge, but I'm not sure he has the personality. More and more I think it's a personality thing as much a knowledge. How well can a guy convince players and parents that he's the best one for them, over any others. What is it about a given coach that makes him UNIQUE!

 

[royhobbs2]

alford recruited extremely well at ucla, early nba departures hurt them. He still went like 124-62

 

[speroni]

alford recruited extremely well at ucla, early nba departures hurt them. He still went like 124-62

Recruiting is only part of the battle. His results at UCLA were very Crean-like. Due to having good recruits, his teams were often highly ranked, but Sweet 16s were the top and he also presided over the 4th losing season at UCLA since 1948. His last partial season there was turning into complete crap. They started the season in the top 25, and lost at home to Liberty and Belmont... they got clobbered at Cincy... and Alford just blamed his players and took no responsibility.

And FYI... one doesn't have to be a "Knight-hater" to see that Alford might not have been a very good coach at IU.