An honest discussion: what happened to Greg McDermott at ISU?

[Hugs4ISU]

I am posting this in the ISU MBB forum, because I want this to be about Greg McDermott at ISU, not Creighton.

Just from what he has done at Creighton so far this year, Greg McDermott has proven that he is, in fact, a damn good coach. So what really happened to him at ISU?

My own take, and I could be wrong, is that, in an attempt to recruit at a higher level than he did at UNI, he recruited a few "thug" players who permanently poisoned his image among the other players at ISU. I am thinking primarily of Wes Johnson, but a few others as well.

At Creighton, he is able to make a fresh start, minus the highly-athletic thugs he thought he had to recruit at ISU.

 

[Wesley]

I am not sure he connected with his players at Ames.

 

[dundermifflin]

I don't think you are too far off, but probably could have been phrased a little differently.

I do think he tried to change his personality for some of his guys and it just did not work.

 

[arganbright2]

I always thought McDermott did better with high IQ players and not athletes. Brooks Mckowen is a perfect example. That kid had no business playing D-1 basketball but he had a good career at UNI because he played the game smarter, ran the offense, and did little things that other players wouldn't even think about doing (hands in the passing lanes, hedging out on screens, setting good screens, utilizing back door cuts, etc)

 

[Sevey]

Things just didn't seem to work out from the beginning. Many of the talented players we had in the program transferred out without even giving GMAC a chance. Things seemed to go downhill from there. I believe he is an excellent coach that had a lot of unfortunate events happen at ISU.

I am posting this in the ISU MBB forum, because I want this to be about Greg McDermott at ISU, not Creighton.

Just from what he has done at Creighton so far this year, Greg McDermott has proven that he is, in fact, a damn good coach. So what really happened to him at ISU?

My own take, and I could be wrong, is that, in an attempt to recruit at a higher level than he did at UNI, he recruited a few "thug" players who permanently poisoned his image among the other players at ISU. I am thinking primarily of Wes Johnson, but a few others as well.

At Creighton, he is able to make a fresh start, minus the highly-athletic thugs he thought he had to recruit at ISU.

 

[thatguy]

he thought he was smarter than everyone. Can't win in the Big 12 with MVC players. The types of kids that go to Big 12 schools aren't the type that can be talked to like you can to MVC players.

 

[CycloneYoda]

Starting this thread 3 days before Christmas? Santa is going to throw rocks at you.

 

[CycloneErik]

How is Wesley a thug?

I think he just never connected with players here, from the beginning to the end.

 

[twojman]

Wes Johnson a thug? Dude was playing hurt for a coach that is like a fish out of water at the BCS level.

In case you did not see above, McD is not a BCS level coach. Oh yeah, he also coached scared at ISU the whole time.

 

[Hugs4ISU]

If we were RANKED, this would not be happening.

 

[Lanny]

Here is my take:

Greg uses a tear each player down individually and make them come together as a team. He was very hard on a lot of his players and did not really give his players confidence. His goal was that winning would bring confidence and he would make the players fundamentally sound and hard working by pushing them.

For that strategy to work at ISU they would have had to won big right away, otherwise players start to get disgruntled and without the wins decide to move on - that is why I think there were so many transfers.

At Creighton he arrived with a talented team that already had chemistry so he could win earlier (which makes the team play with confidence) and more players on the team who were happy to play and not the players who thought they were future NBA guys. He did recruit too many guys at ISU who had a lot of talent but wanted to be the guy or have a chance to showcase their talents.

Had they won in the first couple of years I think McDermott would have made it work and done really well at ISU, but when the losses started to mount the players had no confidence. The transfers kept happening because the players were not responding well to McDermott and it created a cycle where they couldn't win because they could not keep players and they could not keep players because they couldn't win... Still a good coach, but he didn't bring in the right guys to make it work at ISU - he needed more glue guys.

 

[cyatheart]

How do you guys think Tom Izzo talks to his players? You think he coddles these guys? You ever hear Coach K at a game talk to his players? How about one of Tim Floyd or Larry E. practices? They destroyed their players daily, berated them with things you can't even imagine, curse words you didn't know existed.

It just got started bad with Mike Taylor getting booted. Which lead to a **** show the next year. DG burned his redshirt. Wes Johnson being hurt with no one to help him out, and no one being able to figure out what was really wrong so that ballooned into a mess. Never getting a good shooting guard really hurt as well.

The dude can coach, some people can't admit it but he can. If you can't see that then you don't know what you are talking about. He did a real **** poor job here and had some really bad luck that didn't help either. He clearly made mistakes and dug his own grave here but basketball is basketball regardless where it is. If he would have just kept doing what he always did he would have been fine, instead he tried to adjust to the players and I don't think the message was always consistent. Then he tried to go back to being himself and that confused people even more, gave the appearance of unequal treatment, the whole thing was a mess from the start. MVC is step down but it isn't 10 steps down like people think. He will have a long career there.

 

[kingcy]

He never could keep a team together. He had problems getting players to buy in. It just wasnt a good match.

 

[Hugs4ISU]

Here is my take:

Greg uses a tear each player down individually and make them come together as a team. He was very hard on a lot of his players and did not really give his players confidence. His goal was that winning would bring confidence and he would make the players fundamentally sound and hard working by pushing them.

For that strategy to work at ISU they would have had to won big right away, otherwise players start to get disgruntled and without the wins decide to move on - that is why I think there were so many transfers.

At Creighton he arrived with a talented team that already had chemistry so he could win earlier (which makes the team play with confidence) and more players on the team who were happy to play and not the players who thought they were future NBA guys. He did recruit too many guys at ISU who had a lot of talent but wanted to be the guy or have a chance to showcase their talents.

Had they won in the first couple of years I think McDermott would have made it work and done really well at ISU, but when the losses started to mount the players had no confidence. The transfers kept happening because the players were not responding well to McDermott and it created a cycle where they couldn't win because they could not keep players and they could not keep players because they couldn't win... Still a good coach, but he didn't bring in the right guys to make it work at ISU - he needed more glue guys.

Thank you, this is pretty much what I was looking for.

What Mac has going at Creighton is what I hunger for at ISU. I like teams full of players with high basketball "IQ". Floyd's teams were like that, and enjoyable to watch.

 

[Wesley]

All In became All Out.

 

[mcblogerson]

His style can't win consistently in the big12. He continued recruiting players that didn't fit his style, they would transfer, the team would lose. Thank you Creighton!

 

[jsb]

I don't like painting of players as thugs. This seems to be the excuse when talking about McDermott. I don't know a lot personally about the players that were here when he was, but it kind of bothers me that this is apparently how our coach viewed the players he recruited. No wonder they didn't like him. And no wonder they all seemed a hell of a lot happier last year.

That being said, McDermott is a good coach who is currently following the tradition of former Iowa State coaches at being very successful once they leave the dark hole that is Iowa State athletics. God Bless, Rhoads and Fennelly for staying, because they would probably do much better at some other school

 

[Tazzels]

1) Did not have the talent at (point) guard that is the basis of successful college teams.

2) The higher IQ players that he recruited did not have the athletic talent to compete in the Big 12

3) The more athletic and talented players were not good team and chemistry players.

4) He needed to turn the program around that was in a tailspin and it takes a very good recruiter to do that.

Some of the same problems that McD went through also were problems with Orr, LE, and TF.

McD was and is a very good coach at the Div. I level. I would question the basketball IQ of anyone who would challange that.

I have tremendous respect for Craig Brackins and Diante Garette for sticking with him.

Just my thoughts.

 

[cyclone87]

His style can't win consistently in the big12. He continued recruiting players that didn't fit his style, they would transfer, the team would lose. Thank you Creighton!

Yep I believe this was pretty much the problem

 

[cyclone87]

I don't like painting of players as thugs. This seems to be the excuse when talking about McDermott. I don't know a lot personally about the players that were here when he was, but it kind of bothers me that this is apparently how our coach viewed the players he recruited. No wonder they didn't like him. And no wonder they all seemed a hell of a lot happier last year.

That being said, McDermott is a good coach who is currently following the tradition of former Iowa State coaches at being very successful once they leave the dark hole that is Iowa State athletics. God Bless, Rhoads and Fennelly for staying, because they would probably do much better at some other school

Floyd and Eustachy both did very well at ISU and then not-so-much once they left.