MBB: University Athletic Association

[WUPHF]

It is so true.  Brandeis has to get this right and waiting a year with an interim coach is certainly one way to ensure they rebuild the right way.

[Mr. Mo]

Any idea when they will be holding the open try-outs for next year's team?  [stretching. . . .]

[Gregory Sager]

You jest, but it might come to that. Brandeis has nine eligible returnees -- one of them Brian Meehan's younger son -- and who knows how many of them will come back to play in the wake of what happened. Plus, the departure of the coach under scandalous conditions and the suspension of the AD indicate a toxic atmosphere that is likely to dissuade a lot of prospects from enrolling there to play for the Judges.

Open tryouts are certainly not unheard-of in D3 men's basketball. In fact, we had an ongoing conversation about this in the NCAC room back in the fall of '15, in the wake of an open-tryout message that Allegheny put on the school website after the Gators' head coach resigned in mid-June and his replacement was hired on the ridiculously late date of July 28.

[WUPHF]

It will be interesting.

They had a surprisingly high number of players stay through the worst of it.  It should only get better from here. 

Maybe a few of the players who left last season are still around.

[Mr. Mo]

As a part of his retirement interview with d-mac, Mark Edwards told a great story about how his first year reviving the program at WashU he played with a team put together through an open try-out of existing students.  Then he added new recruits each year thereafter.

[Pat Coleman]

I suppose it's possible that there might be a player or two at Brandeis who quit the team and could be encouraged to rejoin as well.

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

As a part of his retirement interview with d-mac, Mark Edwards told a great story about how his first year reviving the program at WashU he played with a team put together through an open try-out of existing students.  Then he added new recruits each year thereafter.

I've always enjoyed my chats with Mark... the last one was terrific. He had a lot of great stuff. We will have to go back to that well for a Marathon show sometime in our future.

I suppose it's possible that there might be a player or two at Brandeis who quit the team and could be encouraged to rejoin as well.

I was thinking the exact same thing...

[USee]

First off... everything I've been told, Fischer was not the leader in the search.

Was he a candidate?

Yes.

Secondly, he is more than vague about who the three coaches are and does not mention the WIAC. I know that the coach from the WIAC was misnamed in numerous rumors that got to me.

HoopDirt had at least two blog posts on the search and the first mentioned a WIAC candidate.

But I could not care less about any of the rest of this.

Voldemort is only relevant to coaching changes and therefore, after Brandeis, will hopefully not be named in this thread for a long time.

His first post, I quickly found out, was WAY out of left field. WashU hadn't closed the search, I had heard quite different information, and was told by a few that what he had was wildly inaccurate.

He was way off with the Gettysburg search, the NYU search he floundered for a bit, and some other this year. He has been off, which is odd because usually he does a better job of at least nailing down his information.

As for Brandeis... surprisingly quiet out of there. The fact the AD has been benched and there is an investigation going on makes that search... interesting. I also don't see an opening for the job on their website. I may have missed it, but ...

Seems to me its called "hoopdirt" for a reason. I don't think the goal is to have all verified, reported facts. What fun is that. Majority of people want to hear the "dirt" as in "rumor". The "I'm hearing...." line is what draws people to read his feed. It's a different goal. What's the in fun hearing the announcement after the facts? the  whole point of Hoopdirt is rumors.  I'd much rather speculate, even if way off base. But that's just me.

[WUPHF]

Carnegie Mellon announced their 2018-2019 recruiting class which features a 24 point per game (1,300 career) and 7 rebounds per game forward from Kansas City.

http://athletics.cmu.edu/sports/mbkb/2017-18/releases/20180511o2fvr2

[Mr. Mo]

Impressive resume.  Clearly a smart kid.  Racked up those numbers in a small school class.  We'll see how he does against the big boys.

[gordonmann]

Last week I interviewed new NYU head coach Dagan Nelson about his return to the Violets' program. He had some interesting insight into the challenges of recruiting to NYU, even relative to other schools in the UAA, and we talked about his scheduling approach and the timeline for the new facility.

http://www.d3hoops.com/notables/2018/05/atn-nelson-hassell

[WUPHF]

Last week I interviewed new NYU head coach Dagan Nelson about his return to the Violets' program. He had some interesting insight into the challenges of recruiting to NYU, even relative to other schools in the UAA, and we talked about his scheduling approach and the timeline for the new facility.

http://www.d3hoops.com/notables/2018/05/atn-nelson-hassell

Thanks for the interview.  Very interesting.

It would be interesting to know just how many players at say Carnegie Mellon, the University of Chicago or Washington University also considered NYU.

Incidentally, Coach Nelson was right about New Paltz.

The Hawks are slightly less selective than the University of Rochester.

[Gregory Sager]

Yes, learning that SUNY New Paltz was so highly regarded was enlightening for me. As someone who was raised in upstate New York -- admittedly, a very long time ago -- I was always given the impression (which seemed to be borne out by the college choices made by my high-school peers) that the SUNY schools didn't have much in the way of academic cachet, aside from what was available through the greater breadth of disciplines offered in the three larger schools in the system (Buffalo, Binghamton, and Albany). On the undergrad level, the SUNY schools seemed to have a lumpenproletariat vibe which, even back then, was probably anecdotal and prejudicial to a large extent.

[gordonmann]

Lumpenproletariat is the word of the day.

People associated with SUNY Geneseo have described that school to me as the best academic school in the SUNY system of regional colleges, so I was also surprised to hear New Paltz described that way.

[WUPHF]

Geneseo was part of a trend two or three decades ago to cast off the regional moniker in favor of a statewide missions and selective admissions with hopes of creating a public liberal arts college, so I was surprised to see that New Paltz was about 10% more selective.

I would have referred to the SUNY schools as the colleges of the forgotten Americans, but indeed, lumpenproletariate is a way better descriptor.

To a certain extent, selectivity is partially an indicator of how good an institution is at convincing students to apply.  But still, the New Paltz numbers are very impressive.

Incidentally, I am sure no one else cares, but in terms of selectivity, here is how the UAA schools rank:

UChicago
Washington University
Carnegie Mellon
Emory
NYU
Case Western
Brandeis
Rochester