Candidates for 2017 UMass HC vacancy

[Steve81]

Considering the Celtics played last night, highly doubt it would have been an early morning interview. Would think 11 AM would be the earliest and could be an afternoon interview. Best advise, keep busy and not to hit refresh every minute. (-:

[DEM]

I respect everyone on this board because we are the few who truly care about UMass athletics. Also appreciate people sharing their inside sources. I think they're all honestly posting what they're being told. They're just being told different things.

That being said, I do not want Shrewsbury. After what happened with Kelsey, I can't help but feel Shrewsbury is a bit of a panic hire only gaining support because he is with the Celtics. I think the opinions in this thread would be very different if Shrewsbury was on the Nuggets. I just don't think an NBA AC is what we need right now despite possible upsides. Everyone here keeps mentioning "he needs a good staff" which is a bit worrying. Haven't heard that about other candidates.

And keep in mind garnering the attention of the Boston media could backfire spectacularly. They are already not our biggest fans.

Please Ryan, get us a current college coach. Take your time with this. Moving quickly initially was smart and you landed a good hire. But now we can take a little more time. Don't rush to get the deal done with Shrewsbury because he initially reached out and because he coaches for the Celtics.

Go UMass.

Excellent post. I agree with everything you wrote.

[Winslow05]

I say I can tell you that the people that do know me on here know what I'm saying is fact.

Guilty as charged! I can honestly say I do not know many of you on here at all personally, but TheOffSeason is one person who I can safely say I know fairly well and he is pretty well connected in the preps/college hoops community. Not that my word truly means anything in all of this, but he is one person who I know does not share information unless he can validate it and he can usually validate information from very good sources.

[Calmass9]

I think that is a fair point. But on the surface, what do we know about Micah? He was a head coach for 2 years at an NAIA school. He then moved on to join Brad Stevens at Butler for 4 seasons, before moving to Matt Painter's staff at Purdue. Brad Stevens then brought him to the Celtics, where he's running the defense and coaching the Summer League team. To me, the fact Stevens tabbed him to join him with the Celtics means (obviously) that he holds Shrewsberry in high regard. I think we can all agree that Stevens is one of the best basketball coaches on the planet, so to grab one of his top assistants feels like a good move. I suspect Bamford's hesitation with Shrewsberry was his lack of head coaching experience, and related to that no established recruiting pipelines. And yes, I think we are all somewhat nervous about the lack of HC experience given what happened with DK. But by all accounts, Micah is much more involved with the in-game stuff than DK was with Cal. The recruiting aspect might be the biggest question mark for me. But I still think it would be a very good hire. Either way, Bamford doesn't make the hire if he isn't completely sold, I don't believe.

Good post. Regarding Micah's game involvement vs DK when he was at Memphis, Shrewsberry is in charge of the defensive game plan for each opponent the Celtics face. That's a shit ton of responsibility. The guy knows how to coach, plain and simple. We have no idea how he'll be as a recruiter but he has 6 years of experience doing it at high level programs, and that's not something to be scoffed at.

[Max11]

I understand the reservations around Shrewsberry, and I would also rank him behind a number of the coached we were initially linked with:
- Rhodes, Kelsey, Caputo, Dooley (of these, Dooley is the only one we haven't heard any more info about)

At the same time, if those 4 are all out of the equation at this point, I'm not sure where else I'd turn before Shrewsberry? He's a largely unknown commodity, but I'll take that over a known mediocre commodity like Seth Greenberg or the Northeastern coach. The only other name I've seen that could be equally intriguing is Tim Cluess, although even he is close to 60 years old with no national recruiting experience.

[DEM]

I'd caution that we don't really know the extent of the candidate pool at this point. Last week, when an off the radar candidate was hired, was a testament to that.

[NilesGold]

I'd caution that we don't really know the extent of the candidate pool at this point. Last week, when an off the radar candidate was hired, was a testament to that.

Here are some names that have gotten little play here or in the media that MIGHT be of interest...

Mitch Henderson, Earl Grant, Eric Konkol, John Brannen, Dan Muller, Paul Weir.

[DEM]

Steve Forbes got a mention on this thread, but remains under the radar as well. He has a darn impressive resume, if we can overlook his politics

[MajBugman]

Rick Pitino.

[Refuse2Lose83]

I understand the reservations around Shrewsberry, and I would also rank him behind a number of the coached we were initially linked with:
- Rhodes, Kelsey, Caputo, Dooley (of these, Dooley is the only one we haven't heard any more info about)

We've been told that Bamford met with Dooley in Florida and wasn't impressed.

[5150]

The Herald said Bamford met with a coach on Sunday. Any idea who it was?

[sbloombe]

I don't understand the reservations about Shrewsberry, or the idea that he's somehow under qualified, at all. He runs the defense for the Boston Celtics. He was an assistant coach on two final four teams. That's a hell of a lot more impressive than coaching Winthrop or being an assistant coach at Miami.

[Almontis]

Well... for starters, being an assistant and the head guy are two very different things

[69MG]

As for head coaches' recruiting skills:

Adam Zagoria‏ @AdamZagoria 48m48 minutes ago
'Kids recruit each other. ' - Frank Martin on landing Thornwell and Dozier

[LS71]

^
We've heard that.
Best from Amherst,

Dejon Jarreau and Brison Gresham