Mike Hill and the Future

Yes. And we have not won a championship in menā€™s basketball or football in the past 5 seasons.

EDIT:

He also said he wanted to win at everything.

Baseball has a regular season title, womenā€™s basketball won last year, and there have been a few other conference championships.

If your perspective is binary, either X is success or Y is disaster then yes we are disaster based on metrics you mention, which I agree isnā€™t success. If you look at the program on a spectrum we are clearly ahead of where we were when Ron took over. I am not above giving Ron credit for that. Reality is his work should make the job easier for whoever comes in behind him. It also makes Mikeā€™s decision more difficult. It is always more difficult to call the ball when you have mediocrity vs a dumpster fire and it means another potential reboot. Especially if losing a conf freshmen of the year is the likely result. Ron has disguised his struggles by winning at home consistently. IMO we have enough data on Ron to move on and gave him 5 years - specifically the last 2 years where we should have seen better results and there were zero valid excuses - even if it means a roster reboot and a potential poor season.

The next three years are make or break for Mike Hill. If weā€™re still dragging our feet on the Evergreen Plan, Poggi turns out to be a bust and MBB is still treading in average waters, then Mike Hill has to be given a hard look. Up to this point though, Iā€™ve been satisfied with our trajectory. MBB is disappointing because cusa sucks so bad, you would think by now we would have made some noise there. So Iā€™m not sold on RS. Everywhere else I feel good about. I think moving to the AAC will lift us out of the doldrums of being in a crappy conference for so long as well.

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Keep in Mind Mike hire Houston who was just voted as the #10 best G5 coach by The Athletic. (also Poggi did not make this list even though there are others that are first year coaches on this list )

Ron was also a National story of what a great hire it was. Canā€™t hold that against Mike.

I am continually confused by the repeated pontificating about players staying or leaving because Ron is here or isnā€™t. The truth is, we have no idea. Even if Mike or a senior AD official asked, thereā€™s absolutely zero guarantee the players would be honest. We have no guarantees of we keep Ron. We have no guarantees of he is terminated. We should go from there as a starting point.

Pony up $750K to a mil, sign someone to coach who has had experience and success at a lower level conference but in DI basketball. Show me a guy having success but only making $200k a year and youā€™ll likely see a guy whoā€™d be happy to sign a $4-5MM contract.

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Why would Poggi make that list?

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We only have Aly because of Fearne. A new coach shouldnt be forced to keep Fearne so unless the new coach is Fearne (which also shouldnā€™t happen) then we should expect Aly to leave when Fearne is dismissed. I am not saying we keep Ron to keep Aly, but I am saying if we make a change we make it eyes wide open about what the likely outcome will be.

The good news is Mike should be looking at Brice, Patterson, Braswell, Igor and see a solid core of guys that should, SHOULD be good for the next coach because they likely wonā€™t/cant leave.

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We may only have signed him because of Fearne but that doesnā€™t mean his retention is tied to him in the same way. We (and frankly most fanbses Iā€™ve observed) reduce these guys to one dimensional basketball players. They are human beings, building bonds with their teammates, making friends and possibly romantic relationships with people that are a part of their Charlotte community.

Kids who pick Charlotte as their ā€œbackupā€ school regularly fall in love with campus, the community, and the university. Maybe you are right and one coach is the only thing keeping him here, but I generally tend to find that peopleā€™s decision making is much more complex than that. These guys are people with their own desires, influences, struggles, and frankly lives, and I think itā€™s silly to distill all that down to one or two factors without having the slightest bit of insight into who they really are.

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At this point it seems like a foregone conclusion we get to be disappointed six years in a row, but surely Mike isnā€™t dumb enough to give Ron another extension right?

I get that. I am not saying it wouldnā€™t happen that he stays - he seems to like it here. I think though when you consider making a change you look at best case scenario and worst case and likely hood it happens. If Fearne goes Iā€™d put odds on he leaves. If you really want Ron gone and you think he canā€™t win with or without Aly then that is a risk you accept.

We have changed coaches twice and both times the roster got gutted and that was under more stringent transfer rules. When you make a change now you have to do it knowing that is the likely outcome. Kid go to play for a coach first and foremost.

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Is Baseball one of the main three sports?

I consider menā€™s soccer to be the third most important.

Anyone know which gets more attendance?

Maybe this is just my baseball bias showing (not a fan of the sport).

Itā€™d be nice if we flired our coach and then followed up with an announcement a couple days later of a stellar up and coming hire. Thatā€™s never happened. Instead we spend weeks or months and then up with something unknown. I thought Ron looked good on paper but not great, and you canā€™t fault kids that played for one of the greatest shooters in basketball history for running away when we hired a supposed defensive specialist with no head coaching experience. Once, just once, itā€™d be nice to see us do things in an organized, expeditious way to create continuity.

Separate and apart from that, ot one single player that weā€™ve had in the last forty years was worth retaining a bad coach. Good coaches can win with bad players but bad coaches lose with good players. I absolutely think our talent was good enough to compete to win CUSA this year and we didnā€™t come even a little bit close to that.

Point is there are others on the list that have not coached a down for the team. So Poggi is not moving the needle where Houston is #10. The list is 15+ (+ being a list of ā€œalso getting votesā€ so around 20 or so)

Similar attendance average. Soccer averaged roughly 900 per game last year over 8 games. Before last night baseball was averaging nearly 800. There were 1500 listed for last night. They have 33 home games though.

And that is the case for moving on - even if roster collapses. The last 2 years Ron had the players to win. The last two years we failed in conference play.

No significant donors is BADDD, we need football expansion immediately and if there isnā€™t much funding thatā€™s a really bad look for Hill. He has been radio silent on fundraising so we can only take it for what we know, and right now thatā€™s not much. If Mike canā€™t fundraise and our revenue sports arenā€™t good, I hope his job isnā€™t completely safe

I know fund raising has gone pretty well for Evergreen, the money is just slow coming in as thatā€™s up to the donors to decide their timelines. What I do not know is the makeup of those donors - are they new or the same old names? I put this as a big unknown right now. I know some of the donors have asked their names not be shared until a certain amount is raised.

I do agree if we donā€™t have any new names in there that is really concerning.

I always hated watching Charlotte play Princeton offense teams like St. Louis and Richmond back in the day so when Charlotte hired Sanchez who runs a similar style I questioned whether it could work here.

What bothers me about Hill is he talks about Ron like he is the second coming of John Wooden. I remember a speech in which he talked about ā€œThe Power of Ronā€ and how blown away he was by him. The guy seems as boring as a bag of sand to me. At least Healy was likable and could give a motivational speech (even if he was full of crap).

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Itā€™d be amazing what rejuvenating the fan base and reaching out to indivual donors could do if we had a vision and accountability for excellence. Iā€™ve personally never been in a better position to support the niners financially but I cant see that the funds we already have are being used especially judiciously.

Getting even 500 new or former donors to commit to $10,000 over say five years would go a long way towards a lot of projects but frankly I feel even less engagement now than I did during Judyā€™s tenure. I let my FSLs relinquish and not a single person even reached out to me about it. Keeping Ron next season gives me zero confidence in the leadership and zero incentive to donate. Its gotten so bad I wish I didnā€™t care at all, but I just canā€™t let it go.

If people thought coach X was a good hire, then Mike Hill gets no blame when coach X is a failure?

Does that work I real life? Isnā€™t most everyone supposed to feel good about Mike Hillā€™s coaching hires?