I found an interesting/obvious trend with our last 3 coaches that we hired. These coaches spent time building their programs, and that shows with their ranks in kenpom. After they leave, the program then gets worse. I wanted to see if those appear with some of the other coaches that have been mentioned. I have all schools on a google drive for those interested in looking at any other coaches. https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/fold ... wdhAlTy_Ny

With Todd Simon, he really got SUU going with a strong upward growth over 7 years. It kind of reminds me of Craig Smiths and Danny Sprinkles graph.

With Tod Kowalczyk, they had a end of Stew / Duryea dip for 4 years and then went back to their 50-150 kenpom ranking. Definitely been consistent while at Toledo.

Just thought these were interesting, take from them what you will. Maybe there are more coaches on the up and up that should be looked at. I'll have to spend more time looking at the other schools graphs. I put a few of the graphs below, obviously clicking on them will make it so you can actually see them.

That makes me really not want to hire an Assistant. South Dakota under Eric Peterson tanked. It makes me like Todd a little more. It took a little time to build up, but he kept it above everything except one year under Bill Evans. It also makes Tod Kowalczyk look above average, but not overly impressive.

Full wrote: ↑

March 27th, 2024, 1:38 pm

That makes me really not want to hire an Assistant. South Dakota under Eric Peterson tanked. It makes me like Todd a little more. It took a little time to build up, but he kept it above everything except one year under Bill Evans. It also makes Tod Kowalczyk look above average, but not overly impressive.

Agree with all of those. Assistant is too risky, could be terrible. I personally prefer Todd a bit over Tod.

I'm not sure I see these showing Todd is much better than Tod. I think the only reason you are thinking that is because Tod hasn't left Toledo for them to drop off. His improvement is just as dramatic as the others and his consistent KenPom ranking is well above Todd's. The MAC is generally a worse conference than the MAC as well so that means Tod is having more OOC success than Todd. If it is about NCAA bids, Todd hasn't even taken a team to the NIT yet.

A point I wanted to make, but couldn't help having fund with the Tod and Todd thing. In the end, I would be very pleased with either of those two.

GeoAg wrote: ↑

March 27th, 2024, 5:25 pm

I'm not sure I see these showing Todd is much better than Tod. I think the only reason you are thinking that is because Tod hasn't left Toledo for them to drop off. His improvement is just as dramatic as the others and his consistent KenPom ranking is well above Todd's. The MAC is generally a worse conference than the MAC as well so that means Tod is having more OOC success than Todd. If it is about NCAA bids, Todd hasn't even taken a team to the NIT yet.

A point I wanted to make, but couldn't help having fund with the Tod and Todd thing. In the end, I would be very pleased with either of those two.

I think it's close for sure. Tod is very consistent, but I see that situation as a Craig Smith type turnaround. End of good coach. Bad next coach. And he took them back to where they were for the previous ten years, but not any higher. Where Todd took one of the worst teams in all of college basketball in suu to new heights. And maintained and improved those heights over 4 years.

Full wrote: ↑

March 27th, 2024, 1:38 pm

except one year under Bill Evans.

That year happened to coincide with perhaps my favorite day of March Madness in my lifetime - March 15, 2001.

With a little research, I present the following:

The day started in Greensboro, NC with 12-seed USU playing 5-seed OSU. Pre-game press conference where Stew assured the media that USU and OSU were "not that different. They have several MacDonald's All-Americans and Logan has a MacDonald's." Being the first game of the day, all eyes were tuned in as the Aggies upset OSU in overtime.

Later that day, 14-seed SUU (led by Bill Evans) went toe-to-toe with 3-seed Boston College eventually losing 68-65. But there was some buzz about the quality of basketbal in the state of Utah.

Later that evening, from San Diego, 12-seed BYU took on 5-seed Cincinatti. The Bearcats were able to pull out a last minute (okay - not) 84-59 win.

Great start to the day. Entertaining mid-point. Great end to the day.

Wow, that’s some great stuff. Thanks for sharing!!

GeoAg wrote: ↑

March 27th, 2024, 5:25 pm

I'm not sure I see these showing Todd is much better than Tod. I think the only reason you are thinking that is because Tod hasn't left Toledo for them to drop off. His improvement is just as dramatic as the others and his consistent KenPom ranking is well above Todd's. The MAC is generally a worse conference than the MAC as well so that means Tod is having more OOC success than Todd. If it is about NCAA bids, Todd hasn't even taken a team to the NIT yet.

A point I wanted to make, but couldn't help having fund with the Tod and Todd thing. In the end, I would be very pleased with either of those two.

I look at it as Toledo under Stan Joplin (12 years) was near the 110's until the year he was fired. Toledo under Kowalczyk has been in the 110's after buiding back from what looks like a terrible hire. Southern Utah looks like a sub 200 program that got up to the 150's under Simon only to drop down to sub 200 as soon as he left. I'm not sold on anyone, but trust the new AD will do her best to bring in a great coach. It's going to be tough. The best coaches availible may end up with a shorter stay than Chris Beard at UNLV completing the 3 years, 2 years, 1 year cycle.

Full wrote: ↑

March 27th, 2024, 7:59 pm

GeoAg wrote: ↑

March 27th, 2024, 5:25 pm

I'm not sure I see these showing Todd is much better than Tod. I think the only reason you are thinking that is because Tod hasn't left Toledo for them to drop off. His improvement is just as dramatic as the others and his consistent KenPom ranking is well above Todd's. The MAC is generally a worse conference than the MAC as well so that means Tod is having more OOC success than Todd. If it is about NCAA bids, Todd hasn't even taken a team to the NIT yet.

A point I wanted to make, but couldn't help having fund with the Tod and Todd thing. In the end, I would be very pleased with either of those two.

I look at it as Toledo under Stan Joplin (12 years) was near the 110's until the year he was fired. Toledo under Kowalczyk has been in the 110's after buiding back from what looks like a terrible hire. Southern Utah looks like a sub 200 program that got up to the 150's under Simon only to drop down to sub 200 as soon as he left. I'm not sold on anyone, but trust the new AD will do her best to bring in a great coach. It's going to be tough. The best coaches availible may end up with a shorter stay than Chris Beard at UNLV completing the 3 years, 2 years, 1 year cycle.

SUU was 342 out of 351 in 2016 the year before Simon took over and in 2014 were dead last 351 out of 351. Brutal shape before he took over.

Spent some time looking tonight. Some names we probably don't have interest in / they don't in us / who knows if they are good, but they have positive trends over their time at the school.

Dustin Kerns - App St.


Brain Wardle - Bradley


Bryce Drew - Grand Canyon


Griff Aldrich - Longwood


Chris Victor - Seattle


Justin Gray - Western Carolina


Jerrod Calhoun - Youngstown St.

Simon could also mean Dave Rice. Dave Rice gets top level players.

I really like these graphs, I really hope our next coach is responsible for three dots of growth at their current gig and has a star player or two

Any time I saw someone where I was like "damn that's nice" they were already gone or can't/won't come.

Darian DeVries - Now with West Virignia


Dusty May - Now with Michigan


Alan Huss - One year sample size, but pretty impressive.


Kelvin Sampson - lol


Josh Schertz - Indiana St.


Will Wade - Mcnesse St.


Grant McCasland - Last year - Texas Tech


Bucky McMillan - Samford - Signed Extension


Kyle Smith - Now at Stanford

This is good stuff. And similar to how I go about searching for potential candidates.

Take a look at Preston Spradlin from Morehead St. He’s probably a top 3 candidate on my own personal board.

AggiePharm wrote: ↑

March 27th, 2024, 10:10 pm

This is good stuff. And similar to how I go about searching for potential candidates.

Take a look at Preston Spradlin from Morehead St. He’s probably a top 3 candidate on my own personal board.

He took a bit to get going, but the last 4 years have been much better than his first 4.

aggie4L wrote: ↑

March 27th, 2024, 10:18 pm

AggiePharm wrote: ↑

March 27th, 2024, 10:10 pm

This is good stuff. And similar to how I go about searching for potential candidates.

Take a look at Preston Spradlin from Morehead St. He’s probably a top 3 candidate on my own personal board.

He took a bit to get going, but the last 4 years have been much better than his first 4.

Yeah that’s not too surprising it took some time for him to build. He was only 30 when he first took over mid-season amid some turmoil. He also spent some time as an assistant under Coach Cal. Other names I like that I haven’t seen mentioned much are Russell Turner (probably not leaving UC Irvine at this point) and Eric Olen (limited data since UCSD has only been DI for 4 years)

Average and Rolling 3-year average of RPI, SOR, and KenPom for Toledo since 2008. TK's first year was 2011. Maybe he just peaked at Toledo couldn't squeeze any more out of that program. It was a dumpster fire when he took over.