Re: Who to replace Hopkins?
Posted: Sat Mar 02, 2024 7:06 pm
Seattle Mariners & Seahawks Chat Forum
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Any team losing to Hopkins should be banned from the top 25 for five seasons minimum. That proves right there that they are having a sub par season. No proof that it is NIL related though. Could be though.Sibelius Hindemith wrote: ↑Sat Mar 02, 2024 7:06 pmAren't they ranked #23? 4th best record among top 25 schools but only one win vs a ranked opponent (Kentucky). Worst losses were Santa Clara and Washington.
Gonzaga head coach Mark Few has turned them all down when they came calling about a potential job: Indiana, Arizona, UCLA, Virginia and Michigan. There were others that also had swings and misses, but only one school truly made him even contemplate leaving Spokane.
It was back in March of 2009 and Gonzaga had just been knocked out of the NCAA Tournament by eventual national champion North Carolina in the Sweet 16. Few knew the call originating from his good friend Pat Kilkenny, who also happened to be Oregon’s interim athletic director at the time, was inevitable.
They had never discussed the job in the past, despite the fact that Few had graduated from Oregon back in 1987. But Ducks head coach Ernie Kent had just completed a season with a 2-16 league record, and Kilkenny — with the help of Nike boss and Oregon booster Phil Knight — was going to make a run at the guy who had begun to turn Gonzaga into a West Coast powerhouse
I’m not going to say I thought it was a given, but I had a high confidence level for a lot of reasons,” Kilkenny told me. “He went to Oregon, his mom and dad lived there, we’re in the Pac-10 at the time, Phil Knight, Nike. Pretty darn compelling argument. I thought he’d say, ‘Yeah, let’s do it.’”
It was a little contentious for the two hours,” Kilkenny remembered. “I believed strongly Mark would be making a huge mistake not leaving a place that didn’t have the resources that Oregon could avail him. Mark said, ‘Oregon’s never gonna get it done, I’m at a better place.’ The conversation was polarizing.”
https://www.google.com/amp/s/watchstadi ... -2021/amp/“We’re so happy,” Few said looking back at the decision. “This is what fits the Few family so well. The Northwest lifestyle, fly fishing, getting out to the lake — [it] is almost a spiritual experience for part of the summer. One of the coolest things when you stay at a place as long as I have, it’s about the relationships you develop. Those guys come back and they are your guys. If you start bouncing around, you don’t have your guys anymore
Lloyd soon became Gonzaga's key international recruiter. He began to develop a niche as an international recruiter early in his tenure on Few's staff. In Borzello's story, Few recalled that one area where he wanted Lloyd to develop was recruiting, telling him that in order to become an assistant at a top program, he needed a niche. Few told Borzello,
He loved traveling over in Europe. And I told him, hey, if you want to make it in this business, you gotta develop a niche, you gotta have something different than somebody else. There's so many guys in this business, you have to separate yourself. So he kind of figured out like, "Hey, I can figure out how to do this European thing and see if I can establish a network and trust, you know, some real expertise over there." And he's done that.
Among the international players that Lloyd has played a role in recruiting are former Bulldogs Mario Kasun (Croatia), Ronny Turiaf (France), J.P. Batista (Brazil), Abdullahi Kuso (Nigeria), Robert Sacre (Canada), Kelly Olynyk (Canada), Elias Harris (Germany), Kevin Pangos (Canada), Przemek Karnowski (Poland), Domantas Sabonis (Lithuania), Rui Hachimura (Japan), Killian Tillie (France), Filip Petrušev (Serbia), Joël Ayayi (France), Martynas Arlauskas (Lithuania), Pavel Zakharov (Russia), and Oumar Ballo (Mali). Lloyd has also been integral in developing NBA players for Gonzaga like Turiaf, Adam Morrison, Jeremy Pargo, Austin Daye, Sacre, Olynyk, Kyle Wiltjer, Sabonis, Zach Collins, Hachimura, and Brandon Clarke.
Lloyd had previously turned down numerous interview requests for head-coaching positions during his Gonzaga tenure. He was contractually guaranteed of becoming the Bulldogs' next head coach upon Few's departure. Gonzaga athletic director Mike Roth said, "Tommy has it in writing from me and the [university] president that says, as long as he's here, when Mark retires, it's your job. He's got a document. I've got a document. The president's got a document. Our general counsel has a document. It's his job." However, in 2021, Lloyd left Gonzaga for the head-coaching position at the University of Arizona.
Coaches are more frequently making lateral moves and taking lesser job titles, sometimes leaving millions of dollars on the table either to escape college football or take less-stressful roles.
Few was emphatic that “all athletes deserve to use their own name, image or likeness in commercial endorsements and on social media” and then removed any further doubt on where he stood by stating “I am very much in favor of them profiting as much as they can from this” and that “this absolutely needs to happen right now.”