Itās ridiculous how much talent weāve wasted. Donāt forget aly, patterson.
1 Like
Yep, just off the top of my head.
Last in the conference and 80% wants to give coach another yearā¦. Damn, weāve fired coaches for a lot less (at least on nnn). People quit caring or realllllly like Fearne as a person. Or new blood on the nnn board. This may be Fearneās only 2nd season but heās been here longer than that.
Lassssstttt in the AAC. If money wasnāt an issue people want to keep that 2nd year coach which was on the previous staff? Unbelievable. In this era of basketball, itās possible to make immediate impact, especially your 2nd year. But letās take the team to the
B
O
T
T
O
M
O
F
T
H
E
A
A
C
Need to give him another year for sure. I know he already coached a year last year but in terms of hiring Iām still taking this as his year one since he was just an interim last year.
If I was Fearne, I would ratherā¦
- Coach out my contract
- Be fired and collect $2mm
0
voters
If NIL and portal wasnt a thing and this was the result - I would be on the fire him bandwagon and he likely shouldnt have been hired.
But if NIL and portal werent a thing he would have returned a quality team and this likely would not have been the result and if it was the result the cause would be clear.
But I have pretty much thrown in the towel on basketball so I am not upset enough to really care either way.
4 Likes
But you can build a winning team in one year with the portal, if you have the ability to assess talent, and everyone is going to say $$$$$, but other schools with less resources do it, this coaching staff has to learn to asses talent and recruit players that fit the system and philosophy that they are trying to implement (shooters if we are going to shoot 25 threes a game)
He could hsve still lost guys to transfer even without the portal. The bigger issue isnāt nil, itās the unlimited transfers
1 Like
And the problem with the bottom of the AAC, none of your players receive any of the post season awards. Graves, I think has played well enough this season to have earned a conference award.
Other problem with being in bottom of AAC, not enough butts in the seats. No one likes to watch losing basketball and bottom line is winning basketball brings more donors. If Fearne was winning or at least middle of the pack in AAC this conversation probably wouldnāt be as big of an issue.
Clearly Fed-Ex was liking what Penny/Memphis was selling to give them 5 million/year for the next 5 years.
As a reminder, Penny was on the hot seat last year as well. He got rid of his entire coaching staff, recruited from within the conference and elsewhere.
Winning silences a lot of noise. You can talk about talent all you want, itās up to the coaches to run a system that fits the personnel they recruit.
I think we have to keep Fearne for at least another year if not two.
Like someone else posted above we donāt want to be the AD that has the quick hook. That will keep a good coach away all things being equal with other opportunities.
We made our bed with Fearne and we need to stick it out for a while.
And I fully admit that I drank the kool aid last year.
The people calling for patience and a coaching search after the season was over were right.
I still donāt think heās a bad coach.
He may be able to turn it around next year if he gets the right mix of players.
3 Likes
When will we ever stop cheaping out on coach hires? We have wasted so much money the last 20 years. I donāt have confidence we would have made a quality hire had we not gone with Fearne at this point.
We got really lucky to get Albin for what we did. At least with Fearne I think we got a competent coach for what we paid. I hope he can show this offseason that talent eval is ok too.
If/when this goes south, can we finally make a hire that says we give a shit about menās basketball?!
It is the unlimited portal, no sitting out, extending years and NIL all of it combined.
In the old version if a kid wanted to leave they had to sit out so it encouraged many to stay and the ones who left were leaving for a good reason, either recruited over or a change in staff or unhappy with playing time - so basically they werenāt happy anymore.
Now kids that are HAPPY where they are get $$$ offers during the season to enter at the end of the year. Itās ridiculous.
Moneyā¦if you were offered a higher paying job wouldnt you consider it. Coaches do it all the time, so honestly cant fault the kids.
Sometimes, its not always about moneyā¦its about opportunity to play in post season, larger crowds, larger tv market,etc. Overall bigger opportunities.
1 Like
I didnāt say I wanted to give him another year. I said maybe itās smarter to take the $2 million we would owe him if we fired him and invest it in the roster.
If it werenāt for NIL I think Fearne might already have put a for sale sign up himself.
Without Fearne every player on last years team would have been gone last year. They all made that abundantly clear to the AD. You would have never seen what any of them could do properly coached, which you did last year (good conference record and double bye).
NIL has killed all of my interest in giving to the Foundation. I am not going to pay a player to come here, nor fund a free ride scholarship either. Not what I want to support.
Love the Niners and have been a green jacket, FSL and season ticket holder to football and basketball for decades. My financial support ends in April. Hate it but done with this new world.
3 Likes
clt plans to continue to donate to the school and athletics.
not interested in renting players
1 Like
Instead they left tthis year, and we underachieved with them.
So youre not interested in winning?
I appreciate your support but we need donors like you. We need to give to nil, not quit donating. Tge system sycks but itās the one we are in and we need to play it
With all these longtime donors cutting off contributions, sounds like Graber and Mike Hill need to figure out a way to get some major fundsā¦.,Rick Hendrick or Marcus Smith or Johnny Harris/Smokey Bissell or Dave Tepper.