Future of the Vikings in 2022 and Beyond.

I think Waters was more important then Gates. Waters proved you could still win here at a time when many didn’t even believe it was possible anymore. I don’t think Gates takes the job without the success that Waters had.

Hi Ede, thanks for the holiday cheer. 

I agree with your coach ranking (so far). Gates needs additional time; before I would solidify the rankings.

As I said in other posts, Mackey was a double edge sword. What he did was incredible. He took an obscure program in an obscure "motor oil sounding" conference to the verge (1 point away) of making it to the elite 8. This all took place while the AMCU-8 did not have an auto bid yet. The Vikes got in the tournament as an "At large" entry. To my knowledge, that still has never been replicated. That event shocked the system and rallied the community. Mackey "Run and Stun" style was replicated by other coaches; such as; Huggins. Too bad his fall was almost as dramatic and probation was a death sentence (which I believe to this day was crap). 

Waters was a good coach and his play style was close to Mackay on defense. The Wake Forest win was huge (as well as, some good OOC wins). As a fan, that brought attention back to the program. However, the landscape was transitioning on him created a couple of challenges. Suspect his coaching style impaired his relationship with the players. The NCAA was seeking a more up-tempo game; thus some of the rule changes devalued his defensive philosophy. The impact of these challenges, made games more difficult to win and players began to look else where. This killed the momentum of the early success. 

As for Gates, his start was not ideal. He entered a program with very few players and it was insanely late in the recruitment year.  Kudos to him for being able to quickly assemble a team. For his encore act, the next year the team went to the NCAAs. Now he needs to win some big OOC games and win games in the NCAAs. 

Fair point on Waters. He brought the program back from the abyss.

Gates did not only keep just about every one of his kids here, he added even more. The only one of a modicum of significance he lost was Oglesby, and at the end of the day, the program doesn't need him with what they've added/are adding.

And no, I'm fairly confident that Gates would have no interest in taking Oglesby back after he found that grass is not greener.

Waters got a raw deal in the end I feel

I agree.

Look at our program historically. Going all the way back to Homer Woodling at Fenn College, the program has had exactly 3 coaches with career winning records: Mackey, Waters and Gates. Not even the legendary John McLendon had a winning record.

What Mackey did was truly remarkable. He took over a program that had won about 30 percent of its games over the prior 50+ seasons and won 67 percent of his games while making a sweet 16.

Then after the scandal, the program eventually spiraled back down to its previous level of ineptitude. Mike Boyd had one 20 win season (with some of Mackey’s left over players and a few highly touted recruits of his own) sandwiched between 5 other seasons of mediocrity, plus he led the program to probation.

Then Rollie Massamino had a similar trajectory with a 4 year rebuild leading to one 19 win season and a quick crash below .500 in his final two seasons. There was no probation in this era, but we did have star players robbing MLB pitchers for jewelry.

Then came the disastrous Mike Garland era. The cupboard was bare when he came in but he didn’t do much to change that. His staff was one of the worst you’ll ever see in terms of experience. Rick Albro was associate HC after a .500 career at a D3 college, Luke Brown was in his first season after being a GA, and the only assistant with D1 coaching experience was Sean Bledsoe with 2 years under his belt at BG. Although they did bring in a handful of good players (Raheem Moss, Vic Morris, Patrick Tatham, Carlos English), a majority of their recruits were D2/NAIA types (many of them transferred down to finish their careers). The best thing that came from this tenure was J’Nathan Bullock in the last season.

Then Waters came in and “flipped the script” as he would say. He completely changed the culture, upgraded the level of recruits we could attract and became the program’s winningest coach along the way. I think he was building a Sweet 16/Elite 8 type of roster before all the transfers and who knows how his tenure finishes if he gets a chance to coach that team at full strength.

Now it looks like we may be seeing history repeat itself. After the Waters era ended in mediocrity, Felton came in and immediately scorched any remaining foundation to the earth.

And then in comes Gates, looking very much like Mackey and Waters before him. Hopefully this time it is sustainable instead of an isolated peak spaced between years of lowly valleys.

I think it was TOTO who eluded to this a while back on the previous board. Paraphrasing his thoughts: Waters style of coaching was not suitable to the generation of players he was coaching. If you believe that, then you have to say they left because he ran them off. I suspect TOTO is much closer to age group of those kids than I am and would provide a better perspective of the players point of view.

When Waters said "I didn't want to go out this way". I always took it that he had rather handed over a program that was still winning. 

I believe Waters had made up his mind it was time to hang it up.  

Coach Waters released a book called “10 principles of a character coach” that actually touches on how his career ended. It’s actually an interesting read for us fans because he mostly uses his time at CSU to illustrate his points and he goes through very specific situations with different CSU teams and players.

He did write about losing the transfers and how the rules were changed which made his style of play harder to coach. Because of the mass exodus of talent they had to rely on guys who weren’t ready (or able) to lead the team to success. Because of that they had some unexpected down years. And before they could bring in the next group of talented players it was time to retire. That’s where the “I didn’t want to go out like that” comes from. I believe he was ready to leave around the time he did, but in his mind he would’ve been coming off some great seasons that would’ve made the transition easier. And since they had some down years, he wanted to stay long enough to turn it back around but he didn’t have it in him (or wasn’t given the opportunity).

College insider top 25: #21 Cleveland State

Wright State in the mix as well

Unless there is a big issue that develops, I think they will all be back (including Beaudion). I really think they will all leverage their COVID exception.

It appears that this group will likes playing together and Gates has a deep rotation. Therefore they will get their minutes. If this team learns to score more points, the rotation minutes will increase. This will pay off as the season moves into the late February. 

Watching how Gates crew recruits, (JUCOs and redshirt Freshmen) this team will always be one of the veteran teams in the HL.

With Chemistry, veterans, and deep rotations, the Vikes should be in position to contend in the HL each year.

He doesn’t, except he’s going to miss all but 1.5 games of his senior season. That’s a prime case for a medical hardship. The only question is would they grant that to someone who was already playing on the “bonus” senior year.

I was thinking Medical Redshirt like Grady should be available to Beaudoin if they desire the execute it. I don't think the NCAA will create an issue regarding the COVID Redshirt year. 

Somebody on Twitter said he was on court working before game last week

Thanks. I hope he makes it back. But getting a workout in and being ready to return to competition are two different things.