Pat Kelsey

[uz2b-len]

His upward mobility is seriously impaired. already labelled damaged goods on Dayton message board. His turn around is gonna hurt him a lot worse than us. And I'm sure he knows it.

[DearOleUMass]

His upward mobility is seriously impaired. already labelled damaged goods on Dayton message board. His turn around is gonna hurt him a lot worse than us. And I'm sure he knows it.

It makes me a bit happier knowing that people from other schools look at him as damaged goods. While not explicitly said it makes me believe that most people are blaming this whole fiasco on Kelsey and not pinning this as a mistake on UMass. Although a small part of me hopes Kelsey does end up at Dayton. It would make for some interesting matchups over the next few years.

[TheChamp]

If he gets hired at Dayton, good. We are more likely to collect some of that money from Dayton buying it out, or him having the money to do so. Then we can contribute to his failure more directly with a yearly thrashing.

[UMassGlorydays21]

In hindsight, there are two things that I wish Bamford had done differently.

1. I wish Bamford had waited until Kelsey & his family had visited UMass before making an agreement/MOU and announcing anything.
2. I wish Bamford had been able to see Kelsey for the fraud he is. I think this is something the vetting process maybe should've helped to identify.

Completely agree with you on point # 1. I feel like I'm beating a dead horse but an MOU is NOT a firm commitment. It does not carry the same legal implications as an official employment contract.

Bamford should have worked with the lawyers to hammer out the official contract first and then have him come up to Amherst for negotiations. If any amendments needed to be made those could have been added with an addendum at a later date. I am not completely blaming Bamford but it is obvious at this point that he was lax in his due diligence.

1) not verifying that Kelsey had signed an official letter of resignation

2.) not having him visit campus at least once before making the announcement

I think if he simply stuck to his original time line ( making a hire by month end ) and having Kelsey come up to Amherst with his family to visit campus and start negotiations it would have came to light that maybe this wasn't the right fit. Then, the circus that ensued would have never happened. Everyone could have just went their separate ways. Instead we jumped the gun and announced his hiring before the deal was official. Now we have egg on our face .

My other big concern is how this looks to the players. As we have seen many of them are very loyal to DK and were upset about his firing. After this spectacle I have to believe they are questioning Bamfords competency. I do think he is a talented young upcoming AD but I feel his inexperience in making a big time hire really shined on this botched deal.

[DearOleUMass]

In hindsight, there are two things that I wish Bamford had done differently.

1. I wish Bamford had waited until Kelsey & his family had visited UMass before making an agreement/MOU and announcing anything.
2. I wish Bamford had been able to see Kelsey for the fraud he is. I think this is something the vetting process maybe should've helped to identify.

Completely agree with you on point # 1. I feel like I'm beating a dead horse but an MOU is NOT a firm commitment. It does not carry the same legal implications as an official employment contract.

Bamford should have worked with the lawyers to hammer out the official contract first and then have him come up to Amherst for negotiations. If any amendments needed to be made those could have been added with an addendum at a later date. I am not completely blaming Bamford but it is obvious at this point that he was lax in his due diligence.

1) not verifying that Kelsey had signed an official letter of resignation

2.) not having him visit campus at least once before making the announcement

I think if he simply stuck to his original time line ( making a hire by month end ) and having Kelsey come up to Amherst with his family to visit campus and start negotiations it would have came to light that maybe this wasn't the right fit. Then, the circus that ensued would have never happened. Everyone could have just went their separate ways. Instead we jumped the gun and announced his hiring before the deal was official. Now we have egg on our face .

My other big concern is how this looks to the players. As we have seen many of them are very loyal to DK and were upset about his firing. After this spectacle I have to believe they are questioning Bamfords competency. I do think he is a talented young upcoming AD but I feel his inexperience in making a big time hire really shined on this botched deal.

1) Hind sight is always 20/20. The idea of saying Bamford should have verified that Kelsey had an official letter of resignation is ridiculous. Thats just a slime ball move by Kelsey being halfway committed. I'm sure going forward RB will be sure to do this but I don't think its fair to say, after the fact, RB should have been sure all paper work by Kelsey was filed.

2) Not having him on campus is a little odd, I assume he was intending to keep the hire as close to the vest as possible and didn't want anything to leak out. This is the only problem I have with the way everything was executed.

On the topic of keeping to Bamford's original timeline. He stated he wanted to have someone in place by the end of the month. I believe RB had Kelsey high on his list and wanted to get everything wrapped up ASAP as coaching changes can happen in a matter of hours, as we saw with the Wades/Rhoades situation. As soon as Rhoades was choosing VCU, Bamford wanted Kelsey locked up as soon as possible out of fear he might lose him to another school if another high profile position was to open. At this point if everything is pointing to Kelsey and he agrees to sign on the line, who in their right mind would say no?

[uz2b-len]

Live and learn

[Refuse2Lose83]

Kelsey finally deleted his UMass tweets

[Tman1319]

Wouldn't Kelsey have come to UMass in 09-10 and 11-12 with Xavier? I know the campus has changed a bit, but I would assume only for the better with the Champions Center.

[pity]

Gary Parrish and Matt Norlander from CBSSports talked a bit about the Kelsey situation on their podcast from Friday.

Not sure how much stock I put in their comments/information but Parrish "was told" that one reason Kelsey had second thoughts was possible roster turnover and him not inheriting the team he thought he was getting. Obviously, this is something that we all know was/is a possibility, and therefore so should Kelsey, but still I don't think I've heard that explicitly mentioned in the media yet.

The two also suggested that UMass should absolutely go after the $1 million buyout given what the reasonable expectation would be had the situations been reversed (i.e. Kelsey accepts and then UMass hears that Mike Rhoads wants the job after all).

Kelsey talk starts around the 38:00 minute mark and goes on for the final 10 minutes of the podcast:

http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/cbsspor ... refid=stpr

[Refuse2Lose83]

^ Really interesting conversation! Bamford was in Houston Monday night and Rhoades stopped taking his calls?!?!?!

[78]

Listened to the podcast stuff about Kelsey. Parrish is clearly talking out of his ass when he mentions the stuff about players leaving. Typical "look at me, I'm an insider" BS.

[pity]

I agree, he's definitely not the most authoritative voice on UMass info, but the same thought definitely crossed my mind (and I'm sure many others') over the last couple of days.

Furthermore, Parrish is a Calipari guy from his days's as the Memphis beat writer, which definitely colors his thoughts in regards to DK's firing and subsequent search. That's why I completely disregarded his tweet about the "UMass coaching search being a mess." So I definitely take all his opinions with a grain of salt, at least in regards to UMass.

Still, interesting and perhaps influential to have that kind of thing coming from a pretty prominent national voice in college hoops. Not in a good way.

[78]

^^^^^

Every time a coach leaves or is fired there is a risk that players are going to transfer. It's part of the college coaching landscape.

[Refuse2Lose83]

If Kelsey really backed out because of possible transfers that tells me three things: 1. He's clueless to not think that was a possibility, especially considering that he had not been on campus yet and talked to any of them, 2. He did such a poor job "recruiting" them Wednesday that he wouldn't be able to get guys here. I'm under the impression that our guys are all willing to stay and probably want to stay. Is leaving a possibility in their minds? Yes, but I think the majority want to stay and 3. If guys are really leaving, Kelsey should have confidence in himself that he could recruit new players here to get us to the top of the A10. He either doesn't believe in himself (he clearly has had doubts about himself before) or he absolutely was looking at UMass as a 2-3 year stepping stone, use this vastly young and talented group then bolt for Xavier/Wake/Indiana/etc.

[MassMan06]

I don't buy that for a second.