Is John Thompson III the worst coach in Division 1?

but he can still improve immensely as an in game tactician. I don’t want him going anywhere, but saying he needs to improve is simply the truth.

The guy rebuilt a program (admittedly with some strong recruits) and led them to the Final Four. Let’s say a big state school (like Oregon) calls – does he listen? I think he has to – although a lot of the blame for this season’s end lies with him, he is somewhat hamstrung by a lack of commitment from the administration.

It would be great to believe that we’ll get recruits based on the Georgetown pedigree but while a Thompson quote that Moses Abraham is the best shot blocker since Ewing sounds great (but is facially untrue and simply a recruiting tool – I think Mourning was pretty good), this kid never saw Ewing play for Georgetown and almost certainly didn’t see much of his time with the Knicks.

Let’s see what happens with Abraham but when IU shows off their facilities, I think that will wow a kid about as much as hearing about some old players. The administration shares culpability for the season.

to asking “Is Jim Boeheim better than John Thompson III?” I think the question alone deserves a flogging.

Ralph fredigen and jt3 for one reason they both exceeded expectations to start now at least here i expected a championship by now

add depth players- like macklin before he left and rivers. i forgot was summers a junior last year or was he a senior? i drawing a blank cuz if he was a junior what a moron for leaving early cuz he aint dont jack in the nba if he is even in the league

is he the worst coach or is he going to be fired. He’s not and he will not be fired.

The real question is does he learn from his mistakes and is he getting better as a coach. Because if he doesn’t, it’s just a matter of time, a long painful time based on the way the school operates.

There is evidence for both sides of that argument. He clearly learned the value of the intangibles between last year and this year. Would Summers been useful this year? Of course, but not at the risk of ripping the team apart. So he was “encouraged to pursue” an NBA career a year early. Clearly he learned you can’t let things go to the point of fist fights in the locker room and you can’t have dueling point guards fighting for control of the team.

Having said all that, team chemistry was not perfect this year, particularly last night. Watching the huddles and some on court interaction carefully, Chris Wright spent much of the night trying to engage his teamates and, at times, the coaching staff. Most of the night his teamates and coaches looked like it was an impostion to listen to the one guy who came to play.

Much more important are the ingame adjustments. Again it’s a mixed bag. You don’t have great comebacks against elite teams unless you make half time adjustments. But last night was a complete mystery, For the last ten minutes of the game, everyone in my section was screaming that we needed to press them. Nothing else was working, we needed to change the dynamic but despite some impressive work offensively after every basket we go back to the same passive, switch every pick, man to man. It wasn’t working, it was failing miserably, yet we stayed in it.

i don’t know what the right answer should be. But even the two middle schoolers sitting a few rows behind me knew that we needed to try something different. (it was painful after the game listening to the two kids very patient mom explaining the concept of the ncaa tournament that when you lose you’re out and you don’t get to play again. these boys were not happy).

There were also some really questionable calls. His aversion to getting on the refs and getting a well placed techincal i think sent a message to his players that he wasn’t willing to stand up for them. Again, we needed something to change the dynamic of the game and he wasn’t willing to change tactics or even a gesture like a technical.

Finally, the coach brought a team to the arena last night that was not ready to compete. We never really got into the game, despite constant mini-runs that raised our expectations.

I’d like to believe that this is part of the learning process and he’s getting better. I was discouraged by the one post game quote i saw that effectively said sometimes players just make plays. I would have rather heard my players didn’t come prepared to play tonight and that’s on me. We didn’t play hard or effectively tonight and I take responsibility for that. He may have said it and i just didn’t see it. He may not have said it, but i hope he takes it to heart, because if he’s not learning, getting better, it’s only a matter of time, excruciating time.

Good or bad coach, I will never understand why he played Freeman for +20 minutes against Dame when he was so sick he couldn’t make it up and down the floor. That doesn’t seem like good coaching.

When Freeman looked sick against Ohio, he played +25 minutes.

Henry Sims started the year with 10 minutes a game. Once it was clear that Henry wasn’t ready for the big east, Thompson moved him to 1-2 minutes a game. But the minutes were the most random times. He would come in for 20 seconds when we were down by 5 and then sit for 20 minutes. He would sit during junk time at the end of games when we were way ahead. It was like JT3 was trying to mentally break him.

Vee Stanford never was given a chance to try to earn some playing time. Even when Freeman was on his deathbed (and on the court), Vee didn’t even sub into the game.

Bennimon has had some terrible games but Thompson seems committed to giving him 20 minutes.

I don’t understand how he works the bench at all.