The Forgotten Years: The History of Wayne Morgan
- Thread starter Nuts4Cy
- Start date
Don't overthink it. It's really simple, its because he was a bad coach. The other stuff was just bonus material.
Yeah, it was ugly. IIRC, the entire staff was prohibited to get to their offices. BVD literally locked down the facility and it made the news.
Anyone who thinks Morgan was a decent coach (as some have admitted already in this thread) are lunatics! There's a reason that he hasn't been offered another job since getting canned. With a roster of Stinson, Blalock, Carr, Homan, and Taggart going two games above .500 while being a preseason top 25 team shows how awful of a coach this dude was. He was one small step above McDouchemat.
IIRC, Lebo was the strongest candidate.
Other candidates were Steve McClain (Wyoming), Dana Altman (Creighton) and Ray Lopes (Fresno State)
McClain withdrew (or probably knew that he wouldn't get the job) after interviewing on the weekend. Altman and Lopes pulled out earlier on Friday.
Interestingly, Lebo went to Auburn and lasted 6 seasons with only 2 winning seasons and 1 NIT appearance. Now he's at East Carolina with 3 CIT appearances (only 2 winning seasons out of 4 but only tied 4th in the C-USA as the highest achievement).
McClain lasted 4 more seasons at Wyoming, with 2 winning seasons but only tied 4th as his highest achievement before getting fired.
Ray Lopes got fired after recruiting scandals (making impermissible phone calls) from Fresno State, then went to be associate HC at Idaho, scout with the San Antonio Spurs, Associate Coach with Florida Stampede (NBDL) and now at Washington State.
In retrospect, things might have gone no better than what actually transpired, with that group of candidates. (Altman is probably the exception. I can't recall, does anyone remember why he pulled his name?)
Wayne Morgan wasn't a very good coach, but he was light years of that **** McDermott.
if you think there was anything at all superior about McDermott's performance here you're either A) a family member of McD, B) a racist, or C) completely blinded by McDermott being an Iowa native.
if you think there was anything at all superior about McDermott's performance here you're either A) a family member of McD, B) a racist, or C) completely blinded by McDermott being an Iowa native.
Or D. Has seen he's had success before and after coaching at Iowa State.
Is he a great coach? No. But it's not like we hired him with no previous coaching success or he's fallen into a coaching abyss after.
People without perspective (newer fans through no fault of their own) don't realize McD was was one of the worst coaches in the history of ISU basketball. It's really ******* hard to be that ******.
McDermott could coach as evidenced before and after ISU, he could not recruit and keep players. Morgan was the opposite, great recruiter who kept players happy, but a lousy head coach. I was surprised he didn't get hired as a assistant for his recruiting alone after being fired. Maybe his bitter scorched earth exit had something to do with that. He burned the program to the ground when he was forced out.
Lets not act like Mc(i hate even typing his name)D didn't have any talent. His last team here was very talented, and he did less than nothing with that group. Absolutely pathetic. I bet Wayne at least gets that group to the NIT.
I feel bad that Wayne even has to be grouped with a coach as bad as Greg at least in terms of what they did as ISU.
In hindsight, Wayne's first year of 2003-2004 with Sullivan (senior), Vroman (senior), Homan (junior), Blalock, Stinson, Staple, and Jefferson (senior) was just as disappointing, if not more, as the 2005-06 team imo. I think with LE and Wayne playing bad cop/good cop, that is an NCAA tournament team.
McD's tenure was considerably more of a failure than Wayne's, and for the same fundamental reason. Neither could manage a Big 12 lockerroom. Travis Hines of the Ames Tribune made a comment on the CF podcast how professional Fred's program is. Almost every player, whether it be a highly recruited All-Big 12 talent or a walkon, take contributing to winning basketball games seriously. I would say though, in hiring Morgan I think you get the results we had almost every time, while McD's tenure was about as bad as possible imo.
McD's tenure was considerably more of a failure than Wayne's, and for the same fundamental reason. Neither could manage a Big 12 lockerroom. Travis Hines of the Ames Tribune made a comment on the CF podcast how professional Fred's program is. Almost every player, whether it be a highly recruited All-Big 12 talent or a walkon, take contributing to winning basketball games seriously. I would say though, in hiring Morgan I think you get the results we had almost every time, while McD's tenure was about as bad as possible imo.
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No ****... You don't say.
There are still some on here that try and say McD was a better coach than Morgan. Unless losing with dignity was your metric, not sure how you make that assertion.
Wayne was not great, and his teams were inconsistent, but give the guy some credit. He beat a fair number of ranked teams, most notably in 2004-05 when they won 7 Big 12 games in a row, including 4 ranked teams on back-to-back-to-back-to-back weekends, which culminated in beating #2 KU in Lawrence (the last time ISU has won there). That kind of thing doesn't happen by accident, with players zipping around doing whatever the hell they want.
