Coach Barnett's first year

[Keenan Henderson]

Now that the season is over, what did you think of CB's first year at ORU?  The good, bad, and the ugly?  How can he improve? Go easy CB is only 37 and a first year head coach!

It was a year of trying out various ideas such as different lineups and defenses.  I hope that after one season he figured out some things that work and some that did not, so that going forward he knows what his strengths and weaknesses are.  

[Old Titan]

Well, let's see:  ORU finished No. 311 in NET ranking out of 365 D1 teams, and was only saved from the cellar of the 9-team Summit League by what may have been THE worst team in D1 in Kansas City.  What sort of grades do most people have that finish around the 15%-to-20% level of their class?

Are we grading on some sort of curve since he's "only 37 and a first-year head coach", or simply evaluating him like any other D1 head coach at a low-major basketball school who is paid accordingly, has a decent size staff, excellent facilities, and reputedly more NIL money that any other Summit school?

What grade would YOU give him?

[eagle88]

1 hour ago, Old Titan said:

Well, let's see:  ORU finished No. 311 in NET ranking out of 365 D1 teams, and was only saved from the cellar of the 9-team Summit League by what may have been THE worst team in D1 in Kansas City.  What sort of grades do most people have that finish around the 15%-to-20% level of their class?

Are we grading on some sort of curve since he's "only 37 and a first-year head coach", or simply evaluating him like any other D1 head coach at a low-major basketball school who is paid accordingly, has a decent size staff, excellent facilities, and reputedly more NIL money that any other Summit school?

What grade would YOU give him?

It would be difficult to grade him before next year’s roster is set. Most of us will give him some slack his first season but the second season not so much.

[Keenan Henderson]

Not asking for a grade but what can he do to improve going forward?  What advice can we give a young coach to help?

[eagle88]

13 minutes ago, Keenan Henderson said:

Not asking for a grade but what can he do to improve going forward?  What advice can we give a young coach to help?

Here is a John wooden quote “ I would rather have a lot of talent and little experience than a lot of experience and little talent “. In my opinion who HCKB gets to play for him will largely determine his success. Here is my advice recruit, recruit , recruit and lean on high quality knowledge people who can help you, possibly Steve Alford and Mr Barnett are 2 candidates that come to mind. 

[Old Titan]

14 minutes ago, eagle88 said:

Here is a John wooden quote “ I would rather have a lot of talent and little experience than a lot of experience and little talent “. 

Amen - and don't make me post that Eddie Sutton quote again about plow horses in the Kentucky Derby... 

[theeagleman5]

TheEagleman is tired of having to explain to friends/family why my alma mater stinks......  so 10-23 = F       

[Bogus Smith]

3 hours ago, Old Titan said:

What sort of grades do most people have that finish around the 15%-to-20% level of their class?

In public school analogy, we should socially promote HCKB to the second year.  If it's good enough for public schools, shouldn't it be good for everyone/everything??

[Idig32]

I’d give Coach Barnett a C. He’d get an F for performance/results because the win/loss record is unacceptable, but his effort and engagement is enough to pull him up to a C. Next year needs to show progress though. 

[Keenan Henderson]

Did anyone notice he seemed to be losing his hair upfront as the season went on.  It was a stressful year and must have made him want to pull his hair out!

 

[theeagleman5]

Don't get me wrong...TheEagleman likes HCKB and REALLY hope we see improvement next season but I will not be happy with less than 15-16 wins...we need a few more contributors from the portal and looking forward to watching Williams at PG....

[eagle88]

Since times are rather slow on the message board I will share a Coach Duke story. Many of you knew Coach Duke and some of you may not. Either way he is a true ORU legend. Approximately 20 years  ago Coach Duke was inducted into the tennis Hall of Fame. As one of his former players I had the honor of writing a letter of recommendation  for him to the Hall of Fame committee. Coach Duke in his younger years was a gold gloves boxer and basketball player. In the 1960's he was an assistant basketball coach for the ORU Titans. As ORU added more sports Coach suggested starting a wrestling team but Oral asked Coach to start  a tennis program. Coach Duke was ORU's first tennis coach and by 1969 he had ORU #2 in the nation. He was the first D-1 coach to recruit overseas players. Too my knowledge Coach Duke never played tennis and certainly did not know how to technically train tennis players. I always got a kick out of him trying to explain what I should be doing better after one of my matches. What he was great at was recruiting and the quality of players that came through ORU was amazing. Coach epitomized how to recruit excellent talent and he was a person with impeccable integrity. I understand that basketball is a team sport while tennis is an individual as well as a team sport. However John Wooden's quote about having a lot of talent and little experience certainly applied to Coach Duke. I wish Coach Duke would have written a book as it would certainly help a lot of young coaches like HCKB. 

[TrueBlue82]

59 minutes ago, eagle88 said:

Coach Duke in his younger years was a gold gloves boxer and basketball player. 

One of the many classic stories that I heard Coach Duke share related to his dual role as a boxer and basketball player in his youth.  As he tells it, he had just finished playing in a basketball game, and was running late for his boxing match across town.  He rushed in the arena and into the boxing ring just as the match was scheduled to start, still wearing his basketball jersey. The announcer introduced his opponent, and then turned to Coach Duke and said, "and in this corner, number 12, Bernis Duke"! 

[Keenan Henderson]

That is fine Eagle 88 that you are saying coach needs to bring in talent over experience.  I think in today's market you need both because most mid major teams win with experience instead of just talented freshman.  Yes talent wins but so does experience.  Look at the 30-5 ORU team that was both talented and experienced.

I do think the Eagles have missed on a lot of talented guys over the last 3 years and had to settle for players that were struggling from wherever they were previously.  Sometimes as a coach you have your top 10 list of men you want to bring in but they go somewhere else.  Then you get the leftovers and have to try and develop talent.  I guess what I am saying is that signing talent is usually a battle because 40 other teams may want those guys.  

[Old Titan]

The perhaps apocryphal story I've heard several times over the years of how Coach Duke got his nickname, "Buenos Dias": 

On a road trip to McAllen, TX for a tennis match with Pan American University, a handful of ORU tennis players had the not-so-brilliant idea to venture over the border into Reynosa, Mexico to visit the open-air market for souvenirs.

Problems involving passports (or the lack therof) ensued when they tried to return, plus a couple of them were from South Africa and/or an Eastern European soviet satellite country, which during the 1970's were all on shaky grounds diplomatically with the US. 

Some of the players were denied re-entry back into Texas, and I think were gathered in some sort of Mexican prefect's office when the players who were allowed back into the country ran to get Coach Duke.

Coach walked into the prefect's office and was greeted by a man in uniform behind the desk with a prefunctory, "Buenos dias".

Without skipping a beat, Coach replied in his typical absent-minded professor tone, "No, no...it's Bernis Duke."  

[Old Titan]

 

[theeagleman5]

Geez....Keenan just teed up this topic for Old Titan....HCKB just gets an F...but to be fair he gets another year...end of discussion.....

[eagle88]

Although I was  under the impression that ORU had the most NIL $$ in the Summit I am no longer convinced this is the case. Jim Baker wrote a book entitled I was wrong. Well I was wrong!! In the new world of NIL these young athletes are chasing $$$$!! With our lack of recruiting so far this year it is obvious we don’t have deep pockets giving $$ to our players. I see beautiful new buildings at ORU and a campus that looks great but do we have a president and higher powers like the Green family that will step up and fund sports where we can compete for championships?? I don’t know if we will ever know how good a coach HCKB is until he has the $$$ to buy good players. It is obvious some of the schools in the Sunmit have deeper pockets than us just by observing their talent.  To say the least ORU is an interesting place with an interesting thought process.