Penndemonium
PhD Student
Posts: 1905
Reg: 11-29-04
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Re: @Brown
02-11-24 05:56 PM - Post#363131
In response to SomeGuy
Yes. I was going to type out a reply, but this is my point. Larson leaving isn't a positive, but it is hardly the tipping point. It's not even worthy to mention as a key reason to have issues with the coach. There isn't a single NCAA team in any sport, men or women's, that doesn't have players who don't get the time they think they should, who have personal issues, who don't have enough time to study, who aren't developing on the right way, or who just don't gel with a coach. On my Penn team, it was probably 60/40 of people who felt a full fit on all cylinders. So Larson in the singular is just a footnote. The overall quality of the roster and losing Dingle and Martz are bigger issues.
I'm just tired of reading ridiculous nit-picking. If you want the coach fired, it is simple enough to find real issues. Championships, wins/losses, recruiting, and (somewhat) retention. Larson is one data point in a thousand and is not the tipping point in any way.
One thing that seems hard to point at about Donahue is whether he runs a clean program, has real student-athletes, develops a good team culture, and keeps it organized operationally. I haven't heard anything to the contrary, at least.
Can you imagine going to the Penn administration asking for Donahue to be fired because Larson is the tipping point of a badly run program? We don't even have evidence that this isn't just a run-of-the-mill bad fit between student and situation. We don't have any evidence that Larson would have been impactful. I didn't lose a wink at the time when he transferred, and I still don't.
In the micro sense, I have trouble with the concept of culpability here in general. Not every player develops, for lots of reasons that may or may not have to do with the staff. Larson was an interesting player, but a tweener in some ways. Guard skills from when he was younger, but center height. Lots that could go right in terms of fit and development, but also lots that could go wrong. I kind of view this stuff in percentage terms — you get a player at larson’s level in the recruiting rankings/offers, you get say a 70% chance it works out. Sometimes you get the 30%.
So like penndemonium, I have trouble with the concept that Larson’s transfer is somehow the ultimate indicator that the coach stinks. That said, my problem is just with (I think) overstating the importance of Larson leaving. The overall record is ultimately what I feel comfortable going on, because after 9 years it smooths out the noise of what may be one off situations. And the overall record says Steve isn’t nearly as bad as he is sometimes described. But the overall record also says that Steve hasn’t been good enough.
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Penndemonium
PhD Student
Posts: 1905
Reg: 11-29-04
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Re: @Brown
02-11-24 05:59 PM - Post#363132
In response to SomeGuy
That is my other point. Badly aimed vitriol is self-defeating. Plenty of good reasons to be dissatisfied. Don't pound the drum for weak reasons.
Agree with almost all of this. While I quibble with a lot of what is said here, my quibbles are with the level of the vitriol and hyperbole. In the end, the results are the results, and at this point I don’t think they’re good enough, either. Heck, I’m quite confident Steve himself doesn’t think the results are good enough.
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