WBB: NESCAC

[Pat Coleman]

Not sure that a lack of traffic on the message board translates automatically to current women's players not working hard to get better in the offseason. In fact, I'm not sure how that even gets insinuated.

[senatorfrost]

 Pat I was talking about coaching-not players practicing to get better. In my opinion to be a good coach in terms of W's and L's you have to live, eat, breathe and sleep the game. You are free to maintain that women do but I am convinced they do not.
  How many women are watching the WNBA right now?-According to the stats I've seen not too many. How many are watching the NBA finals?-few  Most men's coaches are tuned in. You can learn by watching and so on. Few women throw themselves into the game like men do. This of course is simply my opinion.
   I will always maintain that Conn did the right thing and that it appears they are really interested in winning.

[kate]

Hello, Senatorfrost!  Here's a woman, in the middle of a beautiful spring day, replying to your post about the lack of attention, enthusiasm, whatever for the women's game - both professional & collegiate.  i DO watch every WNBA game that we can get on our cable.  We also watch every college game available, all while attending our beloved Aggie women's games, & when we can fit em in, some of DeSale's, Moravian's & Muhlenberg's!  Yes, many times they are not as well attended, but we've noticed a definite hype in the sport with announcers, live stats, etc.  As for coaches, many of them are slightly younger with families, but they almost always have MALE assistants with what i assume would be male egos  , so if there is a tremendous discrepancy with W's & L's between men & women's coached teams i'd bet my bottom dollar that will be closing FAST! 

[Wydown Blvd.]

Another female chiming in from the office, taking a coffee break from spreadsheets...

As for myself, passionate is an understatement to how involved I am with the game, and I am certainly not alone in that regard. Do we have the numbrers in terms of fans and tv ratings like the guys, no...you're right about WNBA games relative to the general population SenatorFrost. But do the D3 female coaches throw themselves into the game in other ways (clinics, camps, videos, conference calls, books, etc...) Meet some female coaches in the conferences I follow (CCIW, UAA, WIAC), and I beg to differ with your uneducated opinion.

I usually cheer for the UAA, and one of the powerhouses within that "decent"    conference is this lady named Nancy Fahey and her 500+ wins and across the country are these two coaches Carol Simon (300+ wins) and the recently retired Janice Quinn (450+ wins)....I think they're pretty passionate 

[nescac hoops]

While I agree with the previous posts regarding women's passion for the game, I wanted to talk about the senator's "claim" that male coaches are superior in the women's game. These days you have to be a REALLY REALLY good coach to get a position as a head coach of a women's team, especially in basketball. I guarantee that Gromacki was the only male finalist. I don't think that male coaches are better necessarily than female coaches, it's just that the males getting these jobs have to be very good. Coach Gromacki replaced one of the worst NESCAC coaches,  Billy McBride, who was a male  (p.s. Pollack was great throughout her entire career she just didn't play enough -- every game against Williams everybody in the stands  wondered why she didn't start-- Billy was that bad). I'm in support of female head coaches for women's teams but when a coach like Gromacki or any other great male coach comes along they are hard to turn down. If males and females were hired without gender taken into consideration, you would see more mediocre males coaching in the women's ranks.

[senatorfrost]

 Pollack was not great throughout her career. It always looked like she should be great. She could do things others just dreamed about but she'd get into games and wouldn't do well time after time after time. That's why she didn't start. I thought she was most talented/most skilled etc. but for whatever reason she did not bloom until Gromacki came.
  Great coaches? Not familar with Fahey but Carol Simon has underwhelmed me twice. She gets talent but with the open door/open wallet policy Deis has it's hardly a surprise. Simon showed no finesse. That's what I would call it but there is probably a better word.
   Did Fahey outcoach Gromacki? Not at all-she had a ton of talent. I thought Deis failed to play up to it's potential v Amherst. I also thought Bowdoin was best non tourney team I saw last year.
Personally I'm sort of a Mullen fan. Lately she's had a player or two each year and a bunch of scrappers who appear to give close to 100% Can she survive next year though?
    My favorite was Nora Bowman. 5% talent =95% attitude. A poor man's Kristi Royer.

  How can one tell if one is a REALLY REALLY good coach if all they've been is an assistant? This is not a challenging type of question. I'd really like to know. No sarcasm or hidden meanings here.
  It's my opinion that if you're coaching women in D3 that you should always keep things STRICTLY BUSINESS. Chit chatting should be kept to a bare minimum and you should never be buddies or anything close to it. I think what happens is that if you're chit chatting and relating then later on when you try and correct, criticize, or discipline that the action is taken personally and it shows up sometimes in a game where the player isn't totally on the ball and is maybe half a step behind because they're 'hurt' to some extent since there was a rapport/relationship.
   There people just got a good tip for free.
   

[nescac hoops]

Pollack was not great throughout her career. It always looked like she should be great. She could do things others just dreamed about but she'd get into games and wouldn't do well time after time after time. That's why she didn't start. I thought she was most talented/most skilled etc. but for whatever reason she did not bloom until Gromacki came.
 

My point was that a lot of players under McBride's reign underperformed and I don't think Gromacki "developed" Pollack into a player but rather but her in a position to be great.

How can one tell if one is a REALLY REALLY good coach if all they've been is an assistant? This is not a challenging type of question. I'd really like to know. No sarcasm or hidden meanings here.
 

I don't really know what your question is. Not to be sarcastic. I never once mentioned any assistant coaches in my prior post. To perhaps be clearer - I meant you have to be REALLY REALLY good to be hired as a male to get hired over a female. However, I don't understand where assistants fall in?

Gromacki got hired because he had a strong history as REALLY good head coach. Therefore, most males in the women's game are VERY strong coaches or they wouldn't have been hired in the first place over another female finalist. Thus, the ratio of strong male coaches, those who can actually get hired, is much greater in the women's game. As far as male assistants getting jobs in the female game it is highly unlikely because there is not much to separate them resume-wise from female candidates.  Most strong male coaches in the female game -- Southern Maine, Scranton,etc -- tend to be older and hired during a time when less females were coaching. Gromacki is certainly the anomaly in this group given his young age but is obviously a strong coach.

[senatorfrost]

  I never said Gromacki developed Pollack.  I did offer the observation that McBride did give her plenty of opportunities. I said she could do things others just dreamed about. To me that meant that while she always was theoretically capable of being 'great' it never happened until her senior year. The difference between Sr. and Jr. year was that she did really good things almost all the time as a Sr. There were only flashes as a Jr. along with a lot of mistakes, to's etc.
    There was probably a problem but if there was it wasn't (sheer) lack of opportunity.
  You said one has to be a REALLY REALLY good coach to get a job as a head coach in Women's basketball-Thus my question how can one judge if an assistant is a REALLY REALLY good coach? That question refers to the New Conn Coll coach and others. How can one tell anything for sure about an assistant? I would have missed out on Pemper, Berube and Gromacki at St. Lawrence. (Maybe Gear McBride?)I would have hired Davis and of course Gromacki in 2007. Obviously I'm not perfect at predicting. So how does one accurately assess an assistant?

   

[sumfun]

Having been out of town for a few days, I can't believe I missed so many posts.  I'm a woman who checks out D3 Hoops and the posts in all of women's bball.  I watch sports - men's and women's passionately.  In 2009 it's hard to believe that we're discussing the pros and cons of men vs women coaches.  It's more about knowing how to coach sports, not just the xoxoxo's, but players have to know you care.  I believe that close to a quote by Geno at UConn.  If they know you care then you can expect great things out of them.  You have to know as a person which players you can push and which you have to lay off....and when for both. 

[nescac hoops]

Senator,

Sorry I did not clarify my post. I was saying that in order for a male to get a job over a female in women's basketball they need to be a very strong coach. Considering how desirable the NESCAC coaching jobs are and how many applicants they draw, if a male gets a job for a women's team, especially in the NESCAC, I know they are a very good coach.

As for your question about assistants..... assistants get jobs based most often on the recommendation of the head coach who they work under. The greater the coach they work under the more weight the recommendation carries. For example, at Williams College on the men's side, Coach Dave Paulsen had many great assistants who went on to move up to Yale and Rider as assistants and a couple of head coaching positions at D3 schools. I think people respected Coach Paulsen's opinion on the matter -- if he said they were good coaches, they were believed to be good coaches. The current new men's coach at Williams was an assistant at Creighton for a year, a D1 team that had 20+ wins the year he was there. At West Virginia he also won the NIT as an assistant and made the tournament his other year. I know he received strong recommendations on behalf of the head coaches at these programs and those coaches were right -- Williams recovered this year, the kids/parents/etc. all loved him and they are arguably favorite to win the NESCAC next year.

I just looked up who the new Conn College coach will actually be. He comes from Holy Cross, a patriot league school with similar academic/athletic values as the NESCAC. Head Coach Bill Gibbons is one of the more respected head coaches in the area and has made Holy Cross a dominant team in the Patriot league---they won 11 league championships in his 22 years. I'm sure he gave Wilson a great recommendation and that's why he got the job.

[senatorfrost]

 Hoops:
  I can think of three coaches from the Paulsen/ Hixon trees so to speak. (Luke Flockerzli hasn't been at Skimore long enough until next year in my opinion )
   Loeffler did well at Stevens but the other two have not come close to distinguishing themselves yet to put it mildly. How do you get a Gromacki or a Pemper if they come to you with no track record as a head coach? I think it's a crap shoot. That's why I would always go with the the head coach with a good record. I think it's a better bet overall.
   I took a look at the WNBA-13 teams. 8 Men head coaches and 5 women. That's not like college where you can overcome problems with great recruiting-It's just coaching and motivating etc. I might mention that there are those who think that Duke and North Carolina attract good players because of the Men's program through the years.
   I might add that a WNBA fan I know says that through the years Women coaches have crashed and burned quicker and more frequently than men. Anyway 8-5 in a women's league says something. No one will ever convince me that women  (as a group) throw themselves into the game with the same gusto/enthusiasm/passion etc. etc. as men. Not today anyway.
   I do believe that one day it will equal out, but not soon. This is JUST my opinion.

[nescac hoops]

Hoops:
 Loeffler did well at Stevens but the other two have not come close to distinguishing themselves yet to put it mildly.

Jimmy McCarthy is an assistant at Northeastern after being an assistant at Yale. Dane Fischer was an assistant at Rider and then followed Paulsen to Bucknell. John Fitzgerald has taken the more business/coaching approach to basketball after his assistant coaching stint and was Director of Basketball operations at Princeton and now does the same at Denver University. These guys are all under 30 years old - none of them are going to be head coaches at the D1 level yet but could certainly be in the future if not head D3 coaches in the near future as Loeffler has. I don't think it's fair to say that these guys haven't distinguished themselves.

[senatorfrost]

  I never heard of these guys. I was talking about one coach who is from the Paulsen tree who is now a D3 coach and one from the Hixon tree who is also a D3 head coach. They both seem to be improving lately but it's been a rough road.
  Being a good head coach is MUCH harder than most people think. Coaches do a lot of the same things that high level executives do.
   Speaking of NESCAC women, there are a couple coaches who are maybe a little worried that Conn is not likely to be a doormat for too much longer. I wonder where Nora Bowman is now??

[nescac hoops]

  I never heard of these guys. I was talking about one coach who is from the Paulsen tree who is now a D3 coach and one from the Hixon tree who is also a D3 head coach. They both seem to be improving lately but it's been a rough road.

You are speaking of Devin Gotham who went on to be a head coach at MCLA. He took over a very awful team that is now just sort of awful -- so improved that they now appear in coach Hixon's extended
pre-season i.e. his non-conference schedule. Since MCLA, Gotham is ironically the WOMEN'S coach at his alma mater, Nazareth College. He took over a sub .500 team that is now +.500 and is apparently loaded with young talent (8 freshman, on of whom was on the all rookie team) that he recruited. The other guys who you "never heard of" were Paulsen's assistants on their national championship team and runner up team. Gotham and McCarthy (Fitzgerald was actually a senior captain) coached the championship team and Fischer and Fitzgerald coached the runner-up team.

Yes, I think hiring an assistant can be risky, but to answer your question, if they are to get hired its mostly from a strong recommendation from a strong head coach.

[sumfun]

So many of the other boards on the men and women's side are discussing incoming freshmen.  What's the news on the women's side around the NESCAC with new freshmen and/or transfers?