Ohio State fired their coach yesterday

2/15/2024 4:50:04 PM

Yesterday or in 2019???

2/15/2024 5:37:59 PM

Imagine being a fan of a school that fires their mediocre 7-year coach (who still had 3 NCAA tourney wins) mid-season so they could take a swing at Sean Miller.

Instead we give ours contract extensions so that the buyout is prohibitive and we are probably looking at 1-2 more years of our shit.

2/21/2024 3:56:23 PM

I would prefer not taking a swing at Sean Miller

2/21/2024 4:42:21 PM

I don’t buy that KKs buyout is prohibitive. If he’s not fired this season, I don’t think it’s because of a $7M buyout (that was as of 4/23, it might be less now). That’s not *that* big. I mean, I don’t know the ins and outs of the financial health of the athletic department presently. But if the big donors want KK go, they’ll find the money.

Also did you really wanna fire him mid season like OSU did even though our postseason hopes have been mostly alive until last night.

2/21/2024 5:38:35 PM

People have been wanting to fire him for 3-4 years.

I swear some state fans get more joy out of coaching searches than they do out of any possible success of sports teams. All while we've let the most mediocre coach in school history stick around for 30 years without ever winning ANYTHING.

And then there are the other ones who are just racist.

2/21/2024 5:48:44 PM

Oh yeah fans have wanted him out for a while now. I get that. But I think even the most anti KK people would realize he wasn’t getting fired after making the tourney last year and unless we were just like 4-20 or some shit, he was not gonna get fired midseason this year ever. That just wasn’t a realistic possibility.

2/21/2024 6:16:28 PM

Lol realistic NC State fans lol

2/21/2024 6:33:02 PM

His contract right now is through 2028 I read. Buyout = half of contracted money owed so a buyout would be in the $6M range right now--no idea if that is prohibitive. It ain't great giving the guy a contract extension after year 5 though. That's a wait and see moment.

It was pretty simple to see that the same reasons why we were missing tourneys and having our worst season in school history in year 5 with Keatts are why we are going to miss the tourney this year too. Weak scheduling, losing to almost any quality opponent we face and average/below average recruiting (I also don't think his system works at this level either, but that's another story). If you are one of those who wanted to give him a pass because recruiting was hard with the NCAA investigation, fine. It's not as if we are lighting up the recruiting trail at this point though.

This idea that State fans are completely unrealistic is insane in 2024. Herb Sendek was 20 years ago. At this point State fans are so starved for any kind of success that we are damn near building statues for DD despite him losing every bowl game and choking every time we have a chance to make a run at the conference championship.

It's incredible to me that Justin skewers Avent who has been to two college world series (and basically had the championship stolen from him during the Covid year), but is a Keatts apologist in year 7 with ZERO tournament wins on his resume.

[Edited on February 21, 2024 at 9:24 PM. Reason : d]

2/21/2024 9:20:40 PM

Had a championship stolen BY HIS OWN DUMBASS PLAYERS!!! Also i don't really have an opinion on Avent, but it's hilarious that people think he deserves to be here but Keatts does not because Avent hasn't won ANYTHING in almost 30 years. 30!!!

I am not a Keatts apologist, i just think people are hilarious and dumb. He got dealt a shitty hand both with the lack of talent on the roster when he started and with all the mess from the previous coach he had to deal with for YEARS. He's had some incredibly awful luck with regards to recruiting and handled it as best he could. I'm not championing him as some savior, but I'm also not calling for his head. I'm too goddamn old to care that much at this point. His teams don't quit and they seem to genuinely enjoy playing for the dude. I'm not going to delude myself into thinking that a program that hasn't been relevant nationally since before the parents of current players were born is suddenly going to have major sustained success, so I'm not going to call for coaches to get fired every 5 years.

Quote :

"It ain't great giving the guy a contract extension after year 5 though. That's a wait and see moment."

In college sports you absolutely cannot let coaches coach out a contract unless they are a legend with a known retirement plan. You have to either fire a guy or give him an extension. Doing nothing is worse than either of those options with regards to recruiting.

2/21/2024 11:14:09 PM

I think it’s fine if KK is fired. I also don’t think it’s a travesty that will set us back years if he is retained. Sometimes it’s just time for a refresh and that’s totally ok. Overall the results have not been what we’d want and expect. I think you can fairly blame the NCAA mess, Covid, the changing landscape of college athletics (NIL, portal, etc). Some people will say I’m just making excuses for a mediocre coach. Thats fine, he hasn’t proven enough for me to waste much more time defending him. I wouldn’t call myself an apologist though.

Quote :

"average/below average recruiting (I also don't think his system works at this level either, but that's another story"

I agree with the recruiting. I think I disagree about the system. He’s pretty consistently had good offenses (this year is the exception) despite people claiming it just “AAU street ball”. For the most part, the defense has been good this year but the Cuse game was kind of unacceptable. Overall it is fair to criticize his defensive style.

We’ve had some recruiting misses and bad luck. But overall a failure to elevate the talent within the program is the coach’s fault. So yeah. He doesn’t have good enough players to consistently put a winning product on the court, that’s a problem.

2/22/2024 6:23:49 AM

^,^^ i'm with both of these guys.

Fire him now or keep him another season, I won't be too upset either way. But I'm not a big fan of coaching searches. It can always get worse.

2/22/2024 10:01:16 AM

Quote :

"In college sports you absolutely cannot let coaches coach out a contract unless they are a legend with a known retirement plan. You have to either fire a guy or give him an extension. Doing nothing is worse than either of those options with regards to recruiting"

Of course this is the case. The reason why I said it was a wait and see moment when it was given and dumb (IMO) under the circumstances is because in 2021 after that atrocious last-in-the-ACC season, he was already under contract through 2026... in other words, he didn't need the 2 year extension to recruit. As far as I can tell, he was given it as a favor for being willing to take the job under the NCAA cloud and riding it out then.

As for the "bad luck" in recruiting and/or ill-timed transfers/NBA jumps, it stops being bad luck after 1-2 of them. At this point, wouldn't most of you be actually surprised if he signed a 5 star and the kid actually made it to campus?

Quote :

"I think I disagree about the system. He’s pretty consistently had good offenses (this year is the exception) despite people claiming it just “AAU street ball”. For the most part, the defense has been good this year but the Cuse game was kind of unacceptable. Overall it is fair to criticize his defensive style."

I don't know enough about basketball X&Os to argue this much beyond this comment that I will throw out.

I wouldn't call it street ball myself, but I think the reason that there is seemingly a disconnect between the casual fans who say this and those who want to show all the actions and plays we run and/or argue for our overall offensive stats generally being ok under Keatts is that they are talking about different things. Yes, when we can get into a transition game (generally against bad teams), we make alot of shots and it flows. However, when we are forced into a half-court offense because we aren't getting turnovers or even if our transition game gets slowed (generally against good teams), the lack of structure and discipline rears it's head and we are prone to settle for low % shots. His offensive system gives greenlights to too many poor shooters and we have regular long droughts during games. Interestingly before I stopped watching, it seems that we have increased our structured sets this season--probably because we don't have any playmakers. So our offense ends up being fine against bad teams and we play alot of them so season offensive stats end up looking ok. Then we shit the bed against every good team when the casual fans watch and the KK defenders will shrug and suggest we "jUsT DiDn'T mAke ShOtS"


Back to my original comment about tOSU, I don't even want Sean Miller, but he is definitely an upgrade there and would be a huge upgrade here.

So for those who won't be upset if he comes back another season, other than "it can get worse" what is the potential upside of him returning? Does anyone actually think he has the potential to make the program better than it has been?

2/22/2024 11:01:33 AM

Quote :

"At this point, wouldn't most of you be actually surprised if he signed a 5 star and the kid actually made it to campus?"

I don't follow other teams, but in the current landscape, I imagine fans of most teams (other than the Dukes/Kentuckys/etc) would be surprised

2/22/2024 11:34:26 AM

Quote :

"His offensive system gives greenlights to too many poor shooters and we have regular long droughts during games"

I think this is more of a personnel issue than system imo. And of course personnel and roster management is responsibility of the coach. So it’s fair to fault him for it.

2/22/2024 12:03:49 PM

Quote :

"it stops being bad luck after 1-2 of them. At this point, wouldn't most of you be actually surprised if he signed a 5 star and the kid actually made it to campus?"

So you're blaming him for recruiting kids who are either too good or susceptible to bad advice??

2/22/2024 3:25:36 PM

I mean, end of the day it's the coaches job to get players on campus. They need a good enough sales pitch to overcome any other pitches.

This was pretty good
https://www.trinityroadtimes.com/post/why-kevin-keatts-hasn-t-won-at-nc-state

2/22/2024 4:57:56 PM

I mean he lost saddiq bey because of the adidas FBI investigation and mark gottfried's dipshit actions. He had two guys go pro (one of which was COMPLETELY out of the blue) and he lost Dillingham because Kentucky has more money. Not sure exactly what Keatts was supposed to do to get any of those guys on campus. All but Dillingham were signed, just never showed up.

I just think it's odd to place all the blame on these individual cases on the coach. Yes, it's his job to build a successful roster, I'm not denying that. Just think that these misses are random and not something that a different coach could have prevented (unless we go back in time and never hire gottfried's dumb ass)

2/22/2024 5:24:36 PM

I think that linked article ^^ does a good job capturing my feelings.

2/22/2024 6:03:09 PM

Is Gottfried looking for a job? Anybody know if him and Boo are good buddies?

2/22/2024 9:34:14 PM

Buckeyes. Duh.

2/23/2024 4:18:54 PM

Kenny Payne's available

3/13/2024 9:33:40 AM

I find it absolutely hilarious that Keatts likely saved his job mere days/weeks before Calipari will likely be fired by Kentucky. I can imagine pack pride/ips/whatever will be fine once they actually pull the trigger and not clamor to fire the guy who just won the ACC.

3/22/2024 3:38:21 PM

Anyone who wants to hire Nate Oats as a basketball coach should watch this Alabama - Grand Canyon game. Not an ounce of coaching has occurred.

3/24/2024 9:28:10 PM