why mcdermott was a bad fit

[Cyclonefarmer]

I don't think GMac envisioned beating Iowa by having them in the witness protection program for BCS schools. Previous ISU coaches beat some good and above-good Iowa teams.
People can dog the "system" all they want but recruiting was the downfall.

...or maybe keeping them?...

[snowcraig2.0]

Yeah, recruiting was the problem. Mike Taylor, Craig Brackins, Wes Johnson, and Chris Colvin were all such terrible recruits. Greg did a good job recruiting. He did a terrible job coaching, relating, and retaining.

[Rural]

Yeah, recruiting was the problem. Mike Taylor, Craig Brackins, Wes Johnson, and Chris Colvin were all such terrible recruits. Greg did a good job recruiting. He did a terrible job coaching, relating, and retaining.

I remember going to the pre-football game scrimmage the year Wes Johnson and Brackins were together for the first time. Wes was about a light-year better than Brackins who was at least that over everyone else. There wasn't anyone else. That's recruiting. Putting 1 or 2 guys with an intra-mural team doesn't work.

[cyclone1975]

my brother goes to isu and he was talking to one of the players (not naming names) and he said that mac was "afraid" to yell at the black players and he only yelled at hamilton or scott, since he just couldn't relate to the black players

That doesn't fit with Wes Johnson's statements about how Mac was riding him so much that he left.

[MookInLincoln]

That doesn't fit with Wes Johnson's statements about how Mac was riding him so much that he left.

Mac has never publicly admitted it, but Jaime has said that Mac changed dramatically and overreacted to Wes leaving ... therefore, one might conclude that the above statement was true over the last few years

[jsb]

Mac has never publicly admitted it, but Jaime has said that Mac changed dramatically and overreacted to Wes leaving ... therefore, one might conclude that the above statement was true over the last few years

I also think there was maybe a little something to the whole idea that some players at least felt like they were treated differently/unfairly by different assistants. That's one reason why I think it is maybe good that all we have left are TJ guys. They are all TJ guys (I think) and really none are Hoiberg guys, so on the days when someone feels like they are being treated unfairly (and there will be days) they might not take it so personally.

[drednot57]

The actual downfall of Coach G-Mac is that he treated his stars differently than the rest of his players as admitted by one JP during an interview with Keith Murphy sometime back. Naturally, his non-stars felt they were being unfairly treated and those feelings would generate the amount of transfers that happened under his tenure.

Why did Coach Mac institute this star system? The Wesley Johnson transfer really the shook coach's confidence in the way he treated his players. When he recruited Brackins, he feared another WJ scenario, so he gave Brackins preferential treatment to the understandable feelings of frustration of the other players.

Basically, Coach Mac went away from his core coaching values and paid the price by not being able to field a consistent line-up during his time at ISU.

I know at Creighton, Coach Mac will be able to return to those values that made him so successful at UNI. Another old saying applies -- "What got you here will keep you here."

[Wesley]

The actual downfall of Coach G-Mac is that he treated his stars differently than the rest of his players as admitted by one JP during an interview with Keith Murphy sometime back. Naturally, his non-stars felt they were being unfairly treated and those feelings would generate the amount of transfers that happened under his tenure.

Why did Coach Mac institute this star system? The Wesley Johnson transfer really the shook coach's confidence in the way he treated his players. When he recruited Brackins, he feared another WJ scenario, so he gave Brackins preferential treatment to the understandable feelings of frustration of the other players.

Basically, Coach Mac went away from his core coaching values and paid the price by not being able to field a consistent line-up during his time at ISU.

I know at Creighton, Coach Mac will be able to return to those values that made him so successful at UNI. Another old saying applies -- "What got you here will keep you here."

Sounds like he is coaching in a league that he can handle now. The problem is 22 players walked anyway no matter how he handled them. That says that he would not succeed here.

[drednot57]

Sounds like he is coaching in a league that he can handle now. The problem is 22 players walked anyway no matter how he handled them. That says that he would not succeed here.

Had Coach Mac stayed with his values, I'm fairly confident the transfers would not have been as numerous as they were. The WJ transfer, in reality, boiled down to a misdiagnosis by team doctors of a micro-fracture in WJ's foot. An unfortunate situation that was nobody's fault, but Coach Mac took the blame anyway. Hence his his decision to change away from his core values. Had Coach Mac not taken the transfer so hard, I'm sure he would have been more successful at ISU. Coaches are human beings too, and subject to all the same emotions we experience. I, for one, understand his motivation for changing the way he handled his players. Unfortunately, the change was, obviously, a bad decision and he paid the price. I'm sure there were other bad decisions that led to the circumstances of his leaving, but I feel his decision to go away from a primary value that made him so successful in the past is the key that led to all the others. He could have, and should have, succeeded at ISU, but his reactions to circumstances beyond his control contributed mightily to the lack of success Coach Mac experienced here. I wish Coach Mac all the success in the world at Creighton as long as ISU's not playing the Blue Jays.

[Frak]

I'll throw in my $.02.

1.Guard recruiting - GMac had one top level guard in four years, Mike Taylor. He recruited DG and Buckley to be program changing guards and neither were really that. DG's shooting limits him and Buckley wasn't quick enough to play at this level. Lucca could not handle or defend well enough to be anything more than a bench player. Overall, guard evaluation was pretty bad.

2.Offensive sets - IMO GMac was used to having Iowa kids that had high basketball IQs. They could learn the sets, had no ego and execute the offense how he wanted. At ISU, those Iowa kids that he had at UNi could still play, but they were not Big 12 starters. GMac knew he needed to up the athleticism and in most cases, those players were not able to grasp what GMac was trying to do offensively.

3.Player relations - This all stems back to the WJ transfer. GMac changed the way he related to the players after that for fear of more transfers. It seems to me that he was afraid to really get on them and that translated to worse execution, more lazy play and a lack of focus. Yeah, there were exceptions (Petey) but for the most part, ISU just had very low basketball IQ for GMac's entire tenure. More than anything, transfers hurt GMac.

4.Bad luck - Yeah, some of it was his own making, but without Mike Taylor getting booted and without WJ's injury, things would have been different. By the end of this season, the hole was too deep to climb out of.

I do think that GMac did an OK job of recruiting. He had good gameplans, although lack of depth usually negated them. And, he did a good job of developing bigs. I just think that it was time for a change and still cannot believe that CU took him off our hands and paid us to do it. I'm sure he'll be fairly successful at CU and do some damage in the MVC. But his time was up here.

[Tornado man]

Why did Coach Mac institute this star system? The Wesley Johnson transfer really the shook coach's confidence in the way he treated his players. When he recruited Brackins, he feared another WJ scenario, so he gave Brackins preferential treatment to the understandable feelings of frustration of the other players.

That's BS. Brackins was our most committed and hardest-working player the last two seasons. Other than being gone with the USA team last summer, he was here working his tail off. Never missed a workout, never missed a S/C session. Wish that the rest of our team could say that. Meanwhile, Lucca stays in Europe and never really works on his game, and JVB decides to try out for the Great Britain team. WTF? They should have both been here. Ask our strength coach who, other than Brackins, really put the work in last off-season. That goes back to Gmac, who should have put his foot down and made some demands of his players, and used Brackins as the example for others to follow.
The more accurate scenario is that Brackins got frustrated at the lack of commitment from his teammates.

[enisthemenace]

Who gives a ****? He's gone.

[swarthmoreCY]

I remember going to the pre-football game scrimmage the year Wes Johnson and Brackins were together for the first time. Wes was about a light-year better than Brackins who was at least that over everyone else. There wasn't anyone else. That's recruiting. Putting 1 or 2 guys with an intra-mural team doesn't work.

Strongly disagree. You do know that team also included Jiri, and if not for player retention, Taylor and Dunson. ISU has had many successful teams with less talent than that. Like Snow said, the lack of retaining players never allowed McD to get rolling.

[Rural]

Strongly disagree. You do know that team also included Jiri, and if not for player retention, Taylor and Dunson. ISU has had many successful teams with less talent than that. Like Snow said, the lack of retaining players never allowed McD to get rolling.

I am mis-remembering the year, then. I sure don't remember Jiri being at that scrimmage (injured maybe?). It was the two already mentioned with Petey, Huluska, Brister, etc. Not near an adequate amount of talent to win.

[brokenloginagain]

i'm going to go buy an oregon hat and a creighton t-shirt just to be thankful we don't have to argue about this sh*& anymore....