NMSooner'80
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https://golobos.com/news/2021/02/26...nge-of-leadership-in-mens-basketball-program/
The folks in Albuquerque are back in the market for a new head men's coach for the sixth time in 22 years. It's like they're spinning their wheels trying to be as big-time as many of the locals thought they once were. And I'm not talking about the late 90's, when they were consistently ranked, and people acted like they were losing 20 games a year.
I've been looking at on-line comments since I got home from the LNC (I'm my 86-year-old mom's chauffeur to women's gymnastics home meets). The clueless among them are clamoring for 65-year-old alumnus Michael Cooper, who has no college degree and has never been a college head coach anywhere. It's going to get interesting.
Weir actually impressed me in his first year some. They overachieved four years ago, and actually won 19 games with a patchwork squad. The "big-time" transfers they were getting turned out to be terrible "chemistry guys," and some had legal problems. Ironically enough, that's what happened at times during Cooper's years on the team in the late-70's - and the locals are mostly very myopic about the program during that time. It all came crashing down in "Lobogate," a couple of years later.
It's way harder to build a winner there than they realize. They draw bigger crowds than OU does (except this year, when state government made it basically illegal to hold a live sporting event at the in-state schools). But their only really good run since 1999 came under Steve Alford, and he burned a lot of bridges with how he treated people in the community.
If you think we have problems landing "burger boys," then they really do out at UNM. I don't think some of the locals realize that it was never realistic to think they'd get the national blue-chippers out of high school.
Gonna be interesting. They would love to have the program that OU does, but I doubt they would be satisfied with our consistency of NCAA tourney trips, etc.
The folks in Albuquerque are back in the market for a new head men's coach for the sixth time in 22 years. It's like they're spinning their wheels trying to be as big-time as many of the locals thought they once were. And I'm not talking about the late 90's, when they were consistently ranked, and people acted like they were losing 20 games a year.
I've been looking at on-line comments since I got home from the LNC (I'm my 86-year-old mom's chauffeur to women's gymnastics home meets). The clueless among them are clamoring for 65-year-old alumnus Michael Cooper, who has no college degree and has never been a college head coach anywhere. It's going to get interesting.
Weir actually impressed me in his first year some. They overachieved four years ago, and actually won 19 games with a patchwork squad. The "big-time" transfers they were getting turned out to be terrible "chemistry guys," and some had legal problems. Ironically enough, that's what happened at times during Cooper's years on the team in the late-70's - and the locals are mostly very myopic about the program during that time. It all came crashing down in "Lobogate," a couple of years later.
It's way harder to build a winner there than they realize. They draw bigger crowds than OU does (except this year, when state government made it basically illegal to hold a live sporting event at the in-state schools). But their only really good run since 1999 came under Steve Alford, and he burned a lot of bridges with how he treated people in the community.
If you think we have problems landing "burger boys," then they really do out at UNM. I don't think some of the locals realize that it was never realistic to think they'd get the national blue-chippers out of high school.
Gonna be interesting. They would love to have the program that OU does, but I doubt they would be satisfied with our consistency of NCAA tourney trips, etc.
