Spoke today with a significant booster for men's hoops. He had a one on one with Muir recently. Here are some interesting comments for you to digest, (potentially) discuss, and agree/disagree with...
Muir's point of view of the realities of modern day college hoops:
1. The "one and done" phenomenon has dramatically changed college basketball. Duke, Kentucky, etc. have succumbed to it. In the Pac 12 Arizona and UCLA have. [set aside UCLA's current lull, it's a traditional recruiting powerhouse in hoops]. Stanford will NEVER succumb to the one and done approach.
2. Therefore, the best we can reasonably hope for is 3rd-4th place in the Pac 12, but not on a consistent basis (ASU, Oregon, Cal, UW, Utah, Colorado, and even USC are legit competitors in given years... some more often than others).
3. Teams that historically finish 3rd-4th in the Pac 12 get to the sweet 16 about once a decade.
4. While Stanford has not finished 3rd or 4th ever in the Dawkins era, we have reached a sweet 16. The two NIT wins are a "cherry" in addition to the sweet 16.
5. Dawkins is a great guy, gentleman, and great ambassador for Stanford.
Therefore, no reason to make a change. Muir concedes that Dawkins has underperformed in the regular season in certain seasons, but the overall body of work is decent for a program not willing to play the one and done game. Apparently Muir (and I would hope many of us as well, whether we agree with him or not on retaining Dawkins's services) was really hoping Wisconsin won the NCAAs. They were a team laden with juniors and seniors. Stanford has to play modern day college hoops similarly. Hope an upperclassmen lead team can make a run once every 4-5 years. I guess last year's sweet 16 qualifies as Dawkins's run...
[An interesting question for we fans to ponder... would Monty have done much better in the "one and done" era? his record at cal was "meh" and he had a much wider berth in terms of the pool of recruiting talent he could pursue than while at Stanford.]
I personally am not convinced by Muir's analysis. For starters, if Wisconsin is an exemplar for the modern era, they have done better than us year in and year out, not just this year's run to the finals of the tourney. why can't we be more like them?
Separately, my booster friend also told me that there is a school of thought that Dawkins works his player too hard and wears them down over the length of a season. apparently players have complained to the administration (hearsay at this point... I have no proof this is true). Apparently Travis's thigh bone stress fracture was illuminating. The orthopedist said he'd never seen a thigh stress fracture in his professional career... said it had to be the result of over exertion, repetition. Dawkins runs 4 hr practices all season long where the players are worked hard (apparently other programs will often only go 2hrs during the peak stretch of the conference schedule and taper throughout instead of a sustained max effort Nov-March). Many think this explains the fatigue and poor play come the second half of Pac 12 play, which has become the hallmark of the Dawkins led Cardinal.
I asked if Dawkins was willing to make some changes to his regimen going forward. My friend said "that's the hope".
I am posting because I trust my friend completely, however the "hearsay" disclaimer should be heeded (as should how often I used the word "apparently"). This could never pass Andy's reportorial standards and integrity given the complete absence of fact checking and original material!
food for thought...
This post was edited on 4/14 9:40 PM by anurag41
This post was edited on 4/14 9:42 PM by anurag41
This post was edited on 4/14 10:09 PM by anurag41
Muir's point of view of the realities of modern day college hoops:
1. The "one and done" phenomenon has dramatically changed college basketball. Duke, Kentucky, etc. have succumbed to it. In the Pac 12 Arizona and UCLA have. [set aside UCLA's current lull, it's a traditional recruiting powerhouse in hoops]. Stanford will NEVER succumb to the one and done approach.
2. Therefore, the best we can reasonably hope for is 3rd-4th place in the Pac 12, but not on a consistent basis (ASU, Oregon, Cal, UW, Utah, Colorado, and even USC are legit competitors in given years... some more often than others).
3. Teams that historically finish 3rd-4th in the Pac 12 get to the sweet 16 about once a decade.
4. While Stanford has not finished 3rd or 4th ever in the Dawkins era, we have reached a sweet 16. The two NIT wins are a "cherry" in addition to the sweet 16.
5. Dawkins is a great guy, gentleman, and great ambassador for Stanford.
Therefore, no reason to make a change. Muir concedes that Dawkins has underperformed in the regular season in certain seasons, but the overall body of work is decent for a program not willing to play the one and done game. Apparently Muir (and I would hope many of us as well, whether we agree with him or not on retaining Dawkins's services) was really hoping Wisconsin won the NCAAs. They were a team laden with juniors and seniors. Stanford has to play modern day college hoops similarly. Hope an upperclassmen lead team can make a run once every 4-5 years. I guess last year's sweet 16 qualifies as Dawkins's run...
[An interesting question for we fans to ponder... would Monty have done much better in the "one and done" era? his record at cal was "meh" and he had a much wider berth in terms of the pool of recruiting talent he could pursue than while at Stanford.]
I personally am not convinced by Muir's analysis. For starters, if Wisconsin is an exemplar for the modern era, they have done better than us year in and year out, not just this year's run to the finals of the tourney. why can't we be more like them?
Separately, my booster friend also told me that there is a school of thought that Dawkins works his player too hard and wears them down over the length of a season. apparently players have complained to the administration (hearsay at this point... I have no proof this is true). Apparently Travis's thigh bone stress fracture was illuminating. The orthopedist said he'd never seen a thigh stress fracture in his professional career... said it had to be the result of over exertion, repetition. Dawkins runs 4 hr practices all season long where the players are worked hard (apparently other programs will often only go 2hrs during the peak stretch of the conference schedule and taper throughout instead of a sustained max effort Nov-March). Many think this explains the fatigue and poor play come the second half of Pac 12 play, which has become the hallmark of the Dawkins led Cardinal.
I asked if Dawkins was willing to make some changes to his regimen going forward. My friend said "that's the hope".
I am posting because I trust my friend completely, however the "hearsay" disclaimer should be heeded (as should how often I used the word "apparently"). This could never pass Andy's reportorial standards and integrity given the complete absence of fact checking and original material!
food for thought...
This post was edited on 4/14 9:40 PM by anurag41
This post was edited on 4/14 9:42 PM by anurag41
This post was edited on 4/14 10:09 PM by anurag41
