Prohm Defenders

[Cyclone560]

Fred's lows being discussed here are amazing. He lost to texas tech, a big 12 team, and lost to UAB in the NCAA tournament. Thats is what is being discussed as his lows. Prohms lows are things like biggest upset in bpi history, and worst loss to iowa ever. Most losses in 40 years.

I only bring it up because I think there's a lack of nuance in the fact that very few people ever give credit where credit is due for Prohm. People rail on the 2019 season like it was a huge coaching failure, but fail to hold other teams/coaches to that same standard.

There are definitel flaws and big downs I can acknowledge that, but people who rail on Prohm seem incapable of acknowledging his success too, instead its, well first two seasons weren't his guys so don't count, Fred gets credit there. Next season he was bad. Next season they were good but probably underachieved given the talent so thats a negative and now bad season again, what a miserable job!

The 2019 season ISU had low preseason expectations, it was going to be a bubble tournament year going in, maybe we make it maybe we don't. Instead we end the season as a big12 tournament champs and a 6 seed and yet people look back on it as a disappointment. It's these type of things that annoy me its hindsight and moving the goalposts for the worst with Prohm in my opinion.


I also think there's an overestimation on expectations for this program. I love ISU obviously and love the tradition, but I think you are kidding yourself if you think we are getting Dana Altman, Turgeon, Kruger, etc. If we go a different direction its going to be a mid major with a strong track record coming in that hopefully can make the step up and succeed. Its going to a new version of Steve Prohm in that regard and its a roll of the dice. Maybe you get Chris Beard. Maybe you get Todd Lickliter. If you want to roll the dice, fine, but also just realize I don't think Prohm is as bad as people think and I don't think a new hire is as sure as people think either. And again, McDermott failed in Ames and has proven to be a great coach now, its a tough job and one that I think Prohm fits really well.


TL/DR: I think given the timeline of when and for who Prohm took over hes always been judged harshly. Its definitely been a rough stretch, but I generally think people try to diminish his accomplishments as well. If you think we need to move on I completely understand, but to say Prohm has been a failure at ISU I don't think is fair.

 

[CycloneErik]

I only bring it up because I think there's a lack of nuance in the fact that very few people ever give credit where credit is due for Prohm. People rail on the 2019 season like it was a huge coaching failure, but fail to hold other teams/coaches to that same standard.

There are definitel flaws and big downs I can acknowledge that, but people who rail on Prohm seem incapable of acknowledging his success too, instead its, well first two seasons weren't his guys so don't count, Fred gets credit there. Next season he was bad. Next season they were good but probably underachieved given the talent so thats a negative and now bad season again, what a miserable job!

The 2019 season ISU had low preseason expectations, it was going to be a bubble tournament year going in, maybe we make it maybe we don't. Instead we end the season as a big12 tournament champs and a 6 seed and yet people look back on it as a disappointment. It's these type of things that annoy me its hindsight and moving the goalposts for the worst with Prohm in my opinion.


I also think there's an overestimation on expectations for this program. I love ISU obviously and love the tradition, but I think you are kidding yourself if you think we are getting Dana Altman, Turgeon, Kruger, etc. If we go a different direction its going to be a mid major with a strong track record coming in that hopefully can make the step up and succeed. Its going to a new version of Steve Prohm in that regard and its a roll of the dice. Maybe you get Chris Beard. Maybe you get Todd Lickliter. If you want to roll the dice, fine, but also just realize I don't think Prohm is as bad as people think and I don't think a new hire is as sure as people think either. And again, McDermott failed in Ames and has proven to be a great coach now, its a tough job and one that I think Prohm fits really well.


TL/DR: I think given the timeline of when and for who Prohm took over hes always been judged harshly. Its definitely been a rough stretch, but I generally think people try to diminish his accomplishments as well. If you think we need to move on I completely understand, but to say Prohm has been a failure at ISU I don't think is fair.

But you're the one failing at nuance.
Fred's low points were the kind of blips on the radar that happen to every good program. Yes, that includes UAB.

Prohm's are the kind that only happen to bottom-feeding coaches. A little perspective brings real nuance. You're just faking the funk here to defend a terrible coach.

 

[Messi]

but I think you are kidding yourself if you think we are getting Dana Altman, Turgeon, Kruger, etc.

You’d be wrong. Kruger really wanted the ISU job in 2010 and Altman was interested in 2015. Both had personal issue hold ups that prevented discussions progressing

Good coaches know the potential ISU has and the support they get from fanbase.

 

[rochclone]

You’d be wrong. Kruger really wanted the ISU job in 2010 and Altman was interested in 2015. Both had personal issue hold ups that prevented discussions progressing

Good coaches know the potential ISU has and the support they get from fanbase.

Spot on.

 

[Cyclone560]

But you're the one failing at nuance.
Fred's low points were the kind of blips on the radar that happen to every good program. Yes, that includes UAB.

Prohm's are the kind that only happen to bottom-feeding coaches. A little perspective brings real nuance. You're just faking the funk here to defend a terrible coach.

His lows have been low, but his high's are too good to cast off as being a "bottom-feeding coach" Isu has been a top6 seed 8 times since 1997. 3 of those are under Prohm but yet people insist on discrediting him for all of those seasons. These bad seasons have been brutal I own that too from a W/L standpoint some of the worst since 1997 too. Just assess the good too. The sky is falling because we are in it now, but these could easily be blips too. Everyone is just so eager to discredit the good and pounce on the bad. We've never had a coach who didn't have any really bad seasons outside of Fred. You just might have to ride some of it sometimes. If you want to move on I get it, I just don't like the moving goal posts. Prohm is a bad coach, but TJ, DeVries, ******* Mark Turgeon are all homeruns. Maryland fans think Turgeon can't coach either!

 

[CycloneErik]

His lows have been low, but his high's are too good to cast off as being a "bottom-feeding coach" Isu has been a top6 seed 8 times since 1997. 3 of those are under Prohm but yet people insist on discrediting him for all of those seasons. These bad seasons have been brutal I own that too from a W/L standpoint some of the worst since 1997 too. Just assess the good too. The sky is falling because we are in it now, but these could easily be blips too. Everyone is just so eager to discredit the good and pounce on the bad. We've never had a coach who didn't have any really bad seasons outside of Fred. You just might have to ride some of it sometimes. If you want to move on I get it, I just don't like the moving goal posts. Prohm is a bad coach, but TJ, DeVries, ******* Mark Turgeon are all homeruns. Maryland fans think Turgeon can't coach either!

There's context for that, too, don't worry.
And dude, the sky's gone. We're doing single-digit wins this season, even if all the games are played. That's not a fluke.

 

[CloneIce]

His lows have been low, but his high's are too good to cast off as being a "bottom-feeding coach" Isu has been a top6 seed 8 times since 1997. 3 of those are under Prohm but yet people insist on discrediting him for all of those seasons. These bad seasons have been brutal I own that too from a W/L standpoint some of the worst since 1997 too. Just assess the good too. The sky is falling because we are in it now, but these could easily be blips too. Everyone is just so eager to discredit the good and pounce on the bad. We've never had a coach who didn't have any really bad seasons outside of Fred. You just might have to ride some of it sometimes. If you want to move on I get it, I just don't like the moving goal posts. Prohm is a bad coach, but TJ, DeVries, ******* Mark Turgeon are all homeruns. Maryland fans think Turgeon can't coach either!

Those first two seasons were handed to him on a platter. Those were Hoibergs teams. I think Prohm gets a C grade for the first season and a B+ for his second year, which I think was the best coaching job he’s done at ISU (even that year it took a long time for team to gel and Prohm to figure out his play style and lineup). Unfortunately those days are in the past now and Prohm clearly failed to build on the succesful program he was handed.

 

[Cyclone560]

You’d be wrong. Kruger really wanted the ISU job in 2010 and Altman was interested in 2015. Both had personal issue hold ups that prevented discussions progressing

Good coaches know the potential ISU has and the support they get from fanbase.

Kruger was also coming from UNLV at that point and ready to move back up (hence the OU move). Altman had jumped up and had not gotten Oregon rolling yet along with expectations and also had just been involved in a sexual assault scandal there too. Both situations MUCH different at the time. Neither of those guys have any interest in ISU at the moment.

 

[Messi]

Kruger was also coming from UNLV at that point and ready to move back up (hence the OU move). Altman had jumped up and had not gotten Oregon rolling yet along with expectations and also had just been involved in a sexual assault scandal there too. Both situations MUCH different at the time. Neither of those guys have any interest in ISU at the moment.

My larger point, which you missed, was that ISU has been an attractive job in the past and will be when it opens again. Steve Prohm was a fine hire back in 2015 given the job didn’t open until June which drastically limited the pool of realistic candidates. There will be coaches with high major success who will want the ISU job if it opens again and we’re not halfway through the summer.

 

[Cyinthenorth]

Kruger was also coming from UNLV at that point and ready to move back up (hence the OU move). Altman had jumped up and had not gotten Oregon rolling yet along with expectations and also had just been involved in a sexual assault scandal there too. Both situations MUCH different at the time. Neither of those guys have any interest in ISU at the moment.

Sounds like we need to go after a former P6 guy who has fallen from grace. Maybe Rick Pitino would be interested. His son coaches right up 35. Would be kind of cool.

 

[Urbandale2013]

His lows have been low, but his high's are too good to cast off as being a "bottom-feeding coach" Isu has been a top6 seed 8 times since 1997. 3 of those are under Prohm but yet people insist on discrediting him for all of those seasons. These bad seasons have been brutal I own that too from a W/L standpoint some of the worst since 1997 too. Just assess the good too. The sky is falling because we are in it now, but these could easily be blips too. Everyone is just so eager to discredit the good and pounce on the bad. We've never had a coach who didn't have any really bad seasons outside of Fred. You just might have to ride some of it sometimes. If you want to move on I get it, I just don't like the moving goal posts. Prohm is a bad coach, but TJ, DeVries, ******* Mark Turgeon are all homeruns. Maryland fans think Turgeon can't coach either!

The problem is the first two years were something where you really would have had to try and mess up. The question I think is if you would have left the position vacant I’m not sure you really get much different results. He didn’t really add anything to those teams.

You want to talk about the Shayok year but that team had far better talent than the results that year. You want to hold your head on a three day run. The Big 12 tournament is fun and I really like playing well there but there’s an amount of luck to that.

 

[Cyclone560]

The problem is the first two years were something where you really would have had to try and mess up. The question I think is if you would have left the position vacant I’m not sure you really get much different results. He didn’t really add anything to those teams.

You want to talk about the Shayok year but that team had far better talent than the results that year. You want to hold your head on a three day run. The Big 12 tournament is fun and I really like playing well there but there’s an amount of luck to that.

But that's part of my problem, at least give him credit for putting together the team together. Yet we have people throwing out Mark Turgeon who is widely considered a good recruiter underperforming coach as an upgrade to Prohm.

We discredit years 1 and 2 cus they were too good to even mess up. Then year 3 there's an argument that the roster he inherrited was so upperclassmen heavy that a down year was inevitable yet we can't cut him a break for that. Good year 4 but that team was more talented than the results so it goes down as a net negative on him. People seem to use a year where we were a 6 seed a strike against Prohm and that's just crazy to me.

If you want to give him full blame for year 3 I think you have to give him full credit for at least year2. He has developed guys, Shayok and Burton were WAY better under Prohm than they ever had been before, same with Nader yet its seemingly chalked up to purely those guys being talented and nothing to do with Prohm.

Again, I understand wanting to move on. I think there are reasonable arguments for that, I just think everything I see on here is overly harsh

 

[Messi]

Yet we have people throwing out Mark Turgeon who is widely considered a good recruiter underperforming coach as an upgrade to Prohm.

Mark Turgeon is unequivocally a better coach than Steve Prohm and i would bet my mortgage he would have more success over the next 5 years coaching ISU than Steve would

Turgeon has taken 3 different programs to the NCAA tournament and has not had a sub .500 season since 2000-01 which was his first year at Wichita State

I hate this loser mentality of “yeah prohm is bad but it could be worse”. Yes- it could be. It could and should be a lot better. Steve has coached 2 of the worst seasons in isu’s Big 12 history and he’s on pace for a 3rd.

 

[CycloneErik]

But that's part of my problem, at least give him credit for putting together the team together. Yet we have people throwing out Mark Turgeon who is widely considered a good recruiter underperforming coach as an upgrade to Prohm.

We discredit years 1 and 2 cus they were too good to even mess up. Then year 3 there's an argument that the roster he inherrited was so upperclassmen heavy that a down year was inevitable yet we can't cut him a break for that. Good year 4 but that team was more talented than the results so it goes down as a net negative on him. People seem to use a year where we were a 6 seed a strike against Prohm and that's just crazy to me.

If you want to give him full blame for year 3 I think you have to give him full credit for at least year2. He has developed guys, Shayok and Burton were WAY better under Prohm than they ever had been before, same with Nader yet its seemingly chalked up to purely those guys being talented and nothing to do with Prohm.

Again, I understand wanting to move on. I think there are reasonable arguments for that, I just think everything I see on here is overly harsh

There's no argument for year 3.
Prohm had 2 years to recruit for that year. He didn't. That's failure.

 

[CloneGuy8]

Nothing Prohm has shown me makes me think he can fix this, but it comes down to finances. It is more important to retain Campbell and his staff than it is to fire Steve; if you can do both, then great.

 

[Urbandale2013]

But that's part of my problem, at least give him credit for putting together the team together. Yet we have people throwing out Mark Turgeon who is widely considered a good recruiter underperforming coach as an upgrade to Prohm.

We discredit years 1 and 2 cus they were too good to even mess up. Then year 3 there's an argument that the roster he inherrited was so upperclassmen heavy that a down year was inevitable yet we can't cut him a break for that. Good year 4 but that team was more talented than the results so it goes down as a net negative on him. People seem to use a year where we were a 6 seed a strike against Prohm and that's just crazy to me.

If you want to give him full blame for year 3 I think you have to give him full credit for at least year2. He has developed guys, Shayok and Burton were WAY better under Prohm than they ever had been before, same with Nader yet its seemingly chalked up to purely those guys being talented and nothing to do with Prohm.

Again, I understand wanting to move on. I think there are reasonable arguments for that, I just think everything I see on here is overly harsh

Coaching wise I think year 3 was his best year. I still think he should have gotten better replacements that year but for that I give him a fair amount of leeway. I think they overachieved a little bit that year based on talent. That said we haven’t seen any of the evidence we saw that year since. That year they weren’t very good but they played as a team. We haven’t seen them really play as a team since then.

 

[Cycl1]

It's not that he hasnt done good things it is that the trend is going down. Start out with a sweet 16, the next year is round of 32, then we finish last in conference. Next year we rebound a bit and lose first round of the ncaa. Last year we finish 9th in conference and now are looking at last place again.

First 3 years we were 26-28 in conference play. Next 3 including what little we have played this year we are 14-24, and i doubt that percentage improves this year. Could he right the ship? Maybe. How much patience should we have? Fred brought in good players who would stay 4 years and develop, and supplemented them with high end transfer talent who provided veteran leadership. Prohm has brought in highend highschool talent and supplemented them with weak transfers. Minus shayok, dude could play. So we have our young kids as our best players who leave early, and our veteran leadership as people who should be on the bench. Like i said. He could figure it out, but the teams he is building aren't working currently.

 

[JimDogRock]

Since Cycl1 just mentioned that the trend is going down under Prohm I thought I'd put this graph image here that I put in a different thread last season.
It shows the AP ranking of ISU every week since he took over a preseason top 10 program.

What are the odds that we fight our way in to the top 25 this year? It would have to be pretty dang steep odds for me to lay any money on us to do that.

By my quick count, if you throw out Prohm's first year where he was handed a stacked roster (by ISU standards), we've been in the top 25 a total of 13 weeks across 4+ years. That's less than 15% of the time. If we don't sniff it this year then that will be 2 full seasons in a row and 3 of the last 4 never being ranked.

 

[CYEATHAWK]

we constantly qualify prohm's positives

if you throw out Prohm's first year where he was handed a stacked roster

Like shooting fish in a barrel.

 

[JimDogRock]

Like shooting fish in a barrel.

Yeah, I figured after posting that extra shot dismissing Prohm's first year folks would in turn dismiss everything else in the post.
The funny thing is that it was completely unnecessary to mention Prohm's first year with regard to the proceeding info about Prohm's results. Everything that followed was about the 2016-17 season on.

I think it's a very natural thing to look at any college coach's last 4 years to give some sort of evaluation or grading.