32-31 (guess what that is)

[WaymanFan]

“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.”

So that you don't get away with moving the goal posts, let's be VERY clear about what I said. Here is what I said:

There is a LONG of list of coaches that lucked their way into an Elite 8 or Final 4 and didn't do jack the rest of their career.

Not:

I look forward to seeing your long list of head coaches who took a mid-major to both the Final Four one year, a Sweet 16 another year, and yet basically sucked as head coaches.

If you can't tell the difference, you don't belong in this conversation.

That said, here is a quickly put together list. Keep in mind, PM's career winning percentage is .546 (it's actually a little lower, but Wiki is behind on updating our season).

Mike Davis - One FF at IU in his second season, getting there by beating a banged up OU team they had no business beating. Career all downhill from there. Career winning percentage of .557.

Paul Hewitt - One FF at GT. Four of his next 7 seasons were below .500. Fired. Went to George Mason. Went from 24-9, to 22-16, to 11-20, to 9-22. Career winning percentage of .557.

Frank Martin - Not an exact fit. Did well at KSU. Went to South Carolina and was brutal over 10 seasons except for making the one Final Four. That was the only NCAA Tourney he made there in 10 seasons, and his winning percentage in those 10 seasons was .538.

John Brady - One Final Four at LSU. Fired two seasons later. Career winning percentage of .539.

Richard Williams - Was pretty terrible at Mississippi State for 8 seasons, then had a Sweet 16 and Final Four run, before two more horrible seasons that resulted in him quitting. Career winning percentage of .540.

Tom Crean - Was good at Marquette where he went to a Final Four. Eventually left there for Indiana where he was for 9 seasons and had a .551 winning percentage. Then went to Georgia for 4 seasons and was awful.

That's a QUICK list looking just at coaches that made a Final Four. I didn't even look at ones that just made an Elite 8. Bunch of those, moreso even than the Final Fours obviously. PM's career path is unique. In looking up a few of these, I didn't see anybody that was as bad as PM was the first 20 years of his career, only to have some success, then to follow that up with the garbage we've seen the last two years at OU.

You may not like the words I chose to describe him, and maybe there was some slight exaggeration for effect, but I'm not off by much. Dude has been God-awful outside of what amounts to about 20-25% of his coaching career. Time will tell who is more right here, but I certainly like the side of the argument that I am on.

As expected, you didn't list one comparable head coach. None of them went to both the Final Four and Sweet 16 at mid-major programs and a few of them only had one trip past the first weekend. Yes, you said "lucky" which I interpreted as "sucks"...hair-splitting.

You should have just stayed with the argument which makes sense - Porter Moser has not been successful at OU in two years and needs to show major improvement in Year 3 for him to be the head coach past next season. No need to piss all over his past accomplishments.

 

[WichitaSooner]

As expected, you didn't list one comparable head coach. None of them went to both the Final Four and Sweet 16 at mid-major programs and a few of them only had one trip past the first weekend. Yes, you said "lucky" which I interpreted as "sucks"...hair-splitting.

You should have just stayed with the argument which makes sense - Porter Moser has not been successful at OU in two years and needs to show major improvement in Year 3 for him to be the head coach past next season. No need to piss all over his past accomplishments.

But can you honestly say that if you look at his career resume, it’s impressive as a whole? Sure, he had a great run in 2018 and his last four years at Loyola were good, but it’s not like he is a young coach who has accomplished that in 8-10 years and is currently just in a rare down stretch. He is 20 years in and in 15 or 16 of those years, his teams have ranged from really bad to mediocre. That’s not exactly inspiring. It’s not unfair to point that out and have little faith that he’s capable of leading our program, especially since he has spent his career in terrible leagues and is now in the best league in history.

 

[TINY]

But can you honestly say that if you look at his career resume, it’s impressive as a whole? Sure, he had a great run in 2018 and his last four years at Loyola were good, but it’s not like he is a young coach who has accomplished that in 8-10 years and is currently just in a rare down stretch. He is 20 years in and in 15 or 16 of those years, his teams have ranged from really bad to mediocre. That’s not exactly inspiring. It’s not unfair to point that out and have little faith that he’s capable of leading our program, especially since he has spent his career in terrible leagues and is now in the best league in history.

You maintain that you loved the hire at the time. Wasn’t that based on his results as a head coach (including those down years you are referencing)?

 

[WichitaSooner]

You maintain that you loved the hire at the time. Wasn’t that based on his results as a head coach (including those down years you are referencing)?

That’s a fair point, and I’ll admit that I was wrong. I got too wrapped up in the recent past and overlooked the entirety of his career. And obviously I don’t follow Loyola or any of his other teams closely. Now I’ve seen him coach 63 games for OU and it’s pretty clear that he has a lot of weaknesses as a coach, and it makes sense why he didn’t achieve anything of real consequence for 14 years before finally having a magical run in 2018. And looking back, you see that they played a 7 seed and 9 seed in the Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight, and that their first three wins in the tourney were by a combined four points. I’m not saying that they didn’t deserve to make the FF or that he doesn’t deserve credit for getting them there, but it’s not like they were a great team. They were an 11 seed that got hot at the right time, had some good fortune in their bracket, and rode it a long way. But in hindsight, I placed too much stock in the significance of those two weeks, and not enough in the total body of work. I don’t think there is anything wrong with admitting when you get something wrong, and that’s how I feel about my initial reaction when we hired him.

I won’t weigh in on the specific debate some are having about whether there are other coaches who have made identical runs at mid majors, but it’s undeniable that there are many coaches who have done something similar in March … get hot, pull an upset, but never recapture the magic. From what I’ve seen of Moser in basically two entire seasons, I don’t see any reason for optimism that he will ever get our program where it should be, and I’m afraid that if Joe C waits too long, it’ll be harder and harder to dig out of the hole. I get that he has signed a couple good classes, but his coaching leaves a lot to be desired, and I’ve yet to see him publicly accept much (any) responsibility for the team making the same mistakes over and over for two years.

 

[WaymanFan]

But can you honestly say that if you look at his career resume, it’s impressive as a whole?

He didn't get hired based on his entire coaching career. He got hired because of what he accomplished during his last four years at Loyola - won 99 games and made two deep runs in the NCAA Tournament. I also found it interesting that his first good Loyola team won 24 games (prior to that four-year run) and were CBI Champions. He seems to know how to win in March. Finally, he averaged more than 20 wins a season over his last 9 years at Loyola (pretty big sample size).

His record at Illinois State was awful. My best guess is that he learned a thing or two in his next four seasons as an assistant under Rick Majerus. He then took over a horrible Loyola team which he went 1-17 in conference during his first season. To go from that to what he accomplished during his last four years was indeed impressive. If it wasn't, he wouldn't have gotten hired.

The OU team I saw in Charlotte against Florida two months ago looked to be a well-coached team. There just didn't appear to be a lot of talent...and yes, the head coach has to take responsibility for that. Guys aren't developing (Noland) or they are portal misses (Joe B). Those are things that the head coach must own. This is going to be a critical offseason for Moser. I'm all for Joe C pulling the plug next March if things aren't much better than they are now.

 

[WTSooner]

As expected, you didn't list one comparable head coach. None of them went to both the Final Four and Sweet 16 at mid-major programs and a few of them only had one trip past the first weekend. Yes, you said "lucky" which I interpreted as "sucks"...hair-splitting.

You should have just stayed with the argument which makes sense - Porter Moser has not been successful at OU in two years and needs to show major improvement in Year 3 for him to be the head coach past next season. No need to piss all over his past accomplishments.

You don't read so well. I never said BOTH. I even re-stated my opinion, again, for you. If you are just going to make things up and argue facts I never made, I'll put you on ignore and not think twice about it. Grow up and read what I actually wrote, then maybe we can have an intelligent conversation. I'm not going to argue with you over stuff I never said.

Just remember this in a few years and don't try to backtrack when PM is a complete failure as a HC.

 

[WichitaSooner]

He didn't get hired based on his entire coaching career. He got hired because of what he accomplished during his last four years at Loyola - won 99 games and made two deep runs in the NCAA Tournament. I also found it interesting that his first good Loyola team won 24 games (prior to that four-year run) and were CBI Champions. He seems to know how to win in March. Finally, he averaged more than 20 wins a season over his last 9 years at Loyola (pretty big sample size).

His record at Illinois State was awful. My best guess is that he learned a thing or two in his next four seasons as an assistant under Rick Majerus. He then took over a horrible Loyola team which he went 1-17 in conference during his first season. To go from that to what he accomplished during his last four years was indeed impressive. If it wasn't, he wouldn't have gotten hired.

The OU team I saw in Charlotte against Florida two months ago looked to be a well-coached team. There just didn't appear to be a lot of talent...and yes, the head coach has to take responsibility for that. Guys aren't developing (Noland) or they are portal misses (Joe B). Those are things that the head coach must own. This is going to be a critical offseason for Moser. I'm all for Joe C pulling the plug next March if things aren't much better than they are now.

I just think you exaggerate how “awful” Loyola was when he took over. They weren’t good, but they were basically a .500 team in the two years before he took over. And he only went better than .500 once in his first five years. If he were truly a very good coach, it shouldn’t take that long to make an impact in a bad league. And the Majerus thing is overblown to me, and is straight out of the Moser PR book. There are lots of guys who spend years as an assistant to great coaches who don’t have what it takes to be a great head coach.

It’s interesting you mention the Florida game. I’ve seen many similar posts, where people point to a game or two to say something along the lines of, well, we played so-and-so close, we beat Bama, we looked good against fill-in-the-blank. I think you can say that about basically every team in the country; all but the absolute worst teams will have a few games where they look well-coached and play very well. But the body of work in two years is telling me otherwise. Getting blown out a lot is a red flag. Blowing late leads is a red flag. Making the same mistakes with careless turnovers and poor execution is a red flag. Waiting too late into the season to make lineup changes is a red flag. Having ALL of those is … whatever color flag is more alarming than red.

 

[TEvans4Three]

Some rather crazy posts in here. I think I saw only one mention conference SOS.

It is very difficult to compare previous coaching records with easy schedules to OU's brutal schedule this year. Kruger just started to see how tough it was his last few years and that is when his production fell.

Look at KU absolutely crushing the Quad 1 wins, I think it is 4 or 5 more than the next closest team?

Big12 is just a grind, possibly 9 teams out of 10 making the tournament.


Repost this here since we want to try and go apples to apples:

Coaches|Years|T25 Reg Season Games|T25 games per Year|Win %|More W than L|Avg SOS

Moser ------ 2 | 34 | 17 | 20% | 0 | 4.5
Kruger ---- 10 | 91 | 9.1 | 37% | 2 | 15
Capel ------- 5 | 34 | 6.8 | 21% | 0 | 34
Sampson-- 12 | 62 | 5.6 | 40% | 2 | 55
Tubbs ----- 14 | 72 | 5.1 | 40% | 3 | 29

First 2 years
Coaches---T25 RS Games----Games per Year----Win %
Moser------34*---17---20%
Kruger-----14-----7----37%
Capel------15-----6.8---21%
Sampson--12-----6----50%
Tubbs------7-----3.5---14%

 

[WichitaSooner]

Some rather crazy posts in here. I think I saw only one mention conference SOS.

It is very difficult to compare previous coaching records with easy schedules to OU's brutal schedule this year. Kruger just started to see how tough it was his last few years and that is when his production fell.

Look at KU absolutely crushing the Quad 1 wins, I think it is 4 or 5 more than the next closest team?

Big12 is just a grind, possibly 9 teams out of 10 making the tournament.


Repost this here since we want to try and go apples to apples:

Coaches|Years|T25 Reg Season Games|T25 games per Year|Win %|More W than L|Avg SOS

Moser ------ 2 | 34 | 17 | 20% | 0 | 4.5
Kruger ---- 10 | 91 | 9.1 | 37% | 2 | 15
Capel ------- 5 | 34 | 6.8 | 21% | 0 | 34
Sampson-- 12 | 62 | 5.6 | 40% | 2 | 55
Tubbs ----- 14 | 72 | 5.1 | 40% | 3 | 29

First 2 years
Coaches---T25 RS Games----Games per Year----Win %
Moser------34*---17---20%
Kruger-----14-----7----37%
Capel------15-----6.8---21%
Sampson--12-----6----50%
Tubbs------7-----3.5---14%

All but a few of us agree that the league is tougher than ever. But to me, these numbers reflect what I think is obvious -- Moser and Capel are not in the same class as the others. The winning percentage against ranked teams speaks to that. But remember, he also has lost several noncon games to teams we should have beaten -- Sam Houston and Nova this year, Utah State and Butler last year. Win either of those games last season and we would have made the tournament. We played tougher noncon schedules the last several years under Kruger, and always did very well.

 

[TEvans4Three]

All but a few of us agree that the league is tougher than ever. But to me, these numbers reflect what I think is obvious -- Moser and Capel are not in the same class as the others. The winning percentage against ranked teams speaks to that. But remember, he also has lost several noncon games to teams we should have beaten -- Sam Houston and Nova this year, Utah State and Butler last year. Win either of those games last season and we would have made the tournament. We played tougher noncon schedules the last several years under Kruger, and always did very well.

Counterpoint to that. (thank you for the debate btw)

Kruger in his first 2 years lost to KenPom #97 OSU, #122 A&M, #235 Texas Tech in 2011 and #70 Stephen F Austin, #80 Arkansas, #265 TCU in 2012.

Moser lost to: #60 Utah St (not bad) and #121 Butler in 2022, #70 SHSU and #73 Nova in 2023. I would say that is a better track record for losses against 60+ ranked teams. Wouldn't you?

I know you said NonCon games, but I did have to point out the level of lower teams that Kruger lost to vs. Moser.

Kruger in 2013 NonCon was comparable to Moser 2023 NonCon, except Moser has the #2 SOS, and Kruger had the #27 SOS. Kruger only played 5 Top 25 Teams that year going (20-12) while Moser will have played 16 (13-15). That is a very tough road. I am sure it is harder to have a higher win% when you are playing back-to-back-to back tough games vs one you can kind of prepare for a few weeks out. Would that be an agreeable statement?

 

[mict085]

Everyone points to close losses and a tough Big12 but we’ve lost to some really bad teams this year. The fact is, we are the worst team in the conference. We are dead last. I don’t give a crap how tough the conference is, that should NEVER happen at OU. Moser has failed at OU.

 

[WTSooner]

Everyone points to close losses and a tough Big12 but we’ve lost to some really bad teams this year. The fact is, we are the worst team in the conference. We are dead last. I don’t give a crap how tough the conference is, that should NEVER happen at OU. Moser has failed at OU.

Exactly!

My other response is why did every other team get better and OU did not?

 

[TEvans4Three]

Everyone points to close losses and a tough Big12 but we’ve lost to some really bad teams this year. The fact is, we are the worst team in the conference. We are dead last. I don’t give a crap how tough the conference is, that should NEVER happen at OU. Moser has failed at OU.

All our losses, not Nova/SHSU are all Top 50 teams.

Our worst 6 losses are: #73 SHSU, #70 Nova, #50 Tech, #39 OSU (2), #21 TCU. We have 10 losses to Top 25 teams. (via KenPom)

So who are these REALLY bad teams?

 

[WaymanFan]

I just think you exaggerate how “awful” Loyola was when he took over. They weren’t good, but they were basically a .500 team in the two years before he took over. And he only went better than .500 once in his first five years. If he were truly a very good coach, it shouldn’t take that long to make an impact in a bad league. And the Majerus thing is overblown to me, and is straight out of the Moser PR book. There are lots of guys who spend years as an assistant to great coaches who don’t have what it takes to be a great head coach.

It’s interesting you mention the Florida game. I’ve seen many similar posts, where people point to a game or two to say something along the lines of, well, we played so-and-so close, we beat Bama, we looked good against fill-in-the-blank. I think you can say that about basically every team in the country; all but the absolute worst teams will have a few games where they look well-coached and play very well. But the body of work in two years is telling me otherwise. Getting blown out a lot is a red flag. Blowing late leads is a red flag. Making the same mistakes with careless turnovers and poor execution is a red flag. Waiting too late into the season to make lineup changes is a red flag. Having ALL of those is … whatever color flag is more alarming than red.

Yes, one word of my post was incorrect, so I will stick with facts. Loyola was not "horrible" when Moser took over. By record, they were "mediocre". Moser's predecessor took over a horrible situation - Loyola won about 100 games during the 1990s. They were mediocre in the 2000s, and Moser initially made them WORSE before making them better (which the facts support). Still, after a nice run in the early - mid 1960s (won it all in '63), they won 20+ games 3 times over the course of 45 years prior to Moser's arrival. Moser proceeded to win 20+ games 5 times, including his last 4 years there. I wish some of you would stop arguing against the FACTS. At the end of the day, if we're in the same boat next year as we are now, I doubt anyone will complain if Joe C makes a head coaching change.

 

[WTSooner]

Yes, one word of my post was incorrect, so I will stick with facts. Loyola was not "horrible" when Moser took over. By record, they were "mediocre". Moser's predecessor took over a horrible situation - Loyola won about 100 games during the 1990s. They were mediocre in the 2000s, and Moser initially made them WORSE before making them better (which the facts support). Still, after a nice run in the early - mid 1960s (won it all in '63), they won 20+ games 3 times over the course of 45 years prior to Moser's arrival. Moser proceeded to win 20+ games 5 times, including his last 4 years there. I wish some of you would stop arguing against the FACTS. At the end of the day, if we're in the same boat next year as we are now, I doubt anyone will complain if Joe C makes a head coaching change.

You might get out how OOC scheduling changed for them later in his tenure too. That is a big reason why I don't like looking at overall record, but more at conference record. Your conference opponents cannot be manipulated.

And this isn't just a comment about Loyola or PM. It's a comment I make all the time when evaluating records. OOC schedules are not created equal.

 

[skyvue]

Our worst 6 losses are: #73 SHSU, #70 Nova, #50 Tech, #39 OSU (2), #21 TCU. We have 10 losses to Top 25 teams. (via KenPom)

Three of those losses were at home, and four were by double-digit margins--three were noncompetitive in the second half.

 

[TEvans4Three]

Three of those losses were at home, and four were by double-digit margins--three were noncompetitive in the second half.

This takes my response out of context.

I was replying to the statement that we lost to "really bad teams". Not that we have had some bad losses.

 

[WTSooner]

This takes my response out of context.

I was replying to the statement that we lost to "really bad teams". Not that we have had some bad losses.

Those ugly wins against bad teams matter in this discussion too. We're not talking about record or resume, we're talking about the product PM is putting on the floor. It's a product that was playing some awful basketball early in the year.

 

[TINY]

Those ugly wins against bad teams matter in this discussion too. We're not talking about record or resume, we're talking about the product PM is putting on the floor. It's a product that was playing some awful basketball early in the year.

All of that is baked into the metrics like kenpom, NET, etc. Over the past 2 seasons, ou’s average net is 59 and the kenpom is 43. That takes most of the subjectivity out of the discussion. Ou hasn’t won enough games but they are not a bad team. Like the announcers said in the game against tech, both ou and tech would be locks for the tournament in any other conference (their words, not mine). No one is saying it has been good enough, but the folks who cannot see any positives over the past 2 years are overlooking a lot imo.

 

[mict085]

Sometimes I think, if we were 0-25, some of you would come up with an excuse as to why we aren’t a bad team. It’s pathetic. Last place is not acceptable. Excuses are for losers.