CMA For COY The Right Choice

[Ray Morgan]

The list below shows the coaches poll pre season rankings of the conference teams, their position in the final standings, with the number of 4 star or above recruits in parentheses. The final number shows how many spots a team moved from the pre season rankings.

1, Nova 1 (5) =
2. Creighton 2 (5) =   
3 Providence 6 (4) -3
4.Uconn 3 (3) +1
5  Seton Hall 5 (3)** =
6. Marquette 9 (5) -3
7. Xavier 7 (4) =
8. Butler 10 (3) -2
9. St. John's 4 (2) +5
10. Depaul 11 (2) -1
11. G Town 8 (2) +3

St. John's finished 5 slots better than the pre-season poll. Only G Town was even close st +3. SJU has less 4 star players than 8 of the 11 teams, and I had to search different services in order to find a 4 star ranking for Posh and GW.  If finishing strong is a criteria, then how about 9 and 4 in conference games and 10 and 4 overall. Road wins over the number 1 and number 3 teams in the conference, with Nova being ranked 2nd in the country at that time.  Achieved this with our 2 best players being a freshman and a soph.  Was over 500 in a tough conference with the smallest team in the conference. Maybe someone can check, but maybe the only Big East team with a freshman pg with a freshman often first off the bench with a few starts thrown in.   Two other players with a big role also had no division 1 experience.

The Big East's top 3 teams all have great coaches. They all had excellent seasons. But COY  should be a coach that overcame adversity including injuries, inexperience and an awful start (not suprising with all the new faces), and finished over 500 with a roster that had few highly ranked high school players. CMA for COY. Not even close.

 

[MCNPA]

I think that for COY, the only two really to even speak of are Hurley and Iron Mike.  Ewing made a nice comeback but not quite the same way.  That said, I don't think it should be Hurley because his team is frankly loaded with talent and UConn is only one spot above us in-league with a loss to SJU.  It's also his first year in the league and I think making a jump within the league says something more than just changing leagues and doing a nice job with a loaded roster.  We shall see.  Some more awards in the morning and then Wednesday for the big ones.

 

[BrooklynRed]

Since this is a coaches poll, do you think Uconn being "new" to the league will be a detriment to Hurley--sort of a payback for leaving the conference?

 

[mjmaherjr]

If I'm voting no brainer it goes to CMA

 

[paultzman]

NM

 

[Lambsbball]

Coach Anderson has won COY three times. Winning it in the BE would make 4.

Conference USA Coach of the Year (2004)
NABC Coach of the Year (2009)
Clair Bee Coach of the Year Award (2009)

 

[JohnnyFan]

Beyond the team outperforming expectations, I think you have to consider the 1-5 conference start.  Keeping the team together and not allowing negativity to stagnate growth is not easy.  That's good coaching. 

 

[Knockout-Ned]

If you're another coach and you are debating Hurley vs  CMA, you would have to think personalities come in to play.  This is an award Hurley will never win unless it's a runaway.

 

[Jack Williams]

The coaches vote right? 

because if that's the case I think CMA will win. I think most big East coaches won't want to vote for a guy whos team just joined. 

 

[Amaseinyourface]

The coaches vote right? 

because if that's the case I think CMA will win. I think most big East coaches won't want to vote for a guy whos team just joined. 

Was thinking the same. Also the two newest coaches to the BE.

 

[Sherman Sheridan & Grant]

The coaches vote right? 

because if that's the case I think CMA will win. I think most big East coaches won't want to vote for a guy whos team just joined. 

and whose program is obnoxious and difficult to root for - unless you live in that state and are caught up with the Huskies hype.
 

 

[monte]

Much like us, UCONN has one star and some good players around that star. Also like us, they are a very good "team", but they are not loaded with talent. Their star was out for 9 league games, and Hurley kept the team together during that time and finished third. He deserves a lot of credit for that. Unlike us, everyone knew what to expect from UCONN, and they delivered as expected. We, OTOH, shocked everyone with our 4th place finish.  Based on that alone, and putting aside personal biases, CMA deserves the award. But Hurley certainly merits consideration. 

 

[Amaseinyourface]

Much like us, UCONN has one star and some good players around that star. Also like us, they are a very good "team", but they are not loaded with talent. Their star was out for 9 league games, and Hurley kept the team together during that time and finished third. He deserves a lot of credit for that. Unlike us, everyone knew what to expect from UCONN, and they delivered as expected. We, OTOH, shocked everyone with our 4th place finish.  Based on that alone, and putting aside personal biases, CMA deserves the award. But Hurley certainly merits consideration. 
 

Absolutely, he merits consideration for second best coaching job in the Big East

I would disagree slightly about their talent level. They had the (co)defensive player of the year, 6th man of the year, 2 4* big time freshmen, and none of those guys mentioned were even their 2nd or 3rd best player. They were picked to finish 3rd and did so. They did play 9 games without Bouknight but they also went 0-4 vs top 4 BE teams.

 

[lawmanfan]

Much like us, UCONN has one star and some good players around that star. Also like us, they are a very good "team", but they are not loaded with talent. Their star was out for 9 league games, and Hurley kept the team together during that time and finished third. He deserves a lot of credit for that. Unlike us, everyone knew what to expect from UCONN, and they delivered as expected. We, OTOH, shocked everyone with our 4th place finish.  Based on that alone, and putting aside personal biases, CMA deserves the award. But Hurley certainly merits consideration. 
 

Monte I could not disagree with you more about UConn's talent level.  They are one of the more complete teams I've seen this year.  And well-coached.  But Anderson clearly deserved the award.

 

[IDRAFT]

I'm happy for Anderson and the voting makes sense to me. Whatever we thought of SJU before the season the same collection of coaches who vote for COY voted this team as a ninth place team. No other team in the league this year came close to outperforming their projection as SJU did. Personally I thought ninth was harsh, but would have picked SJU seventh or so. To me the most impressive coaching came at the very end. After losing the DePaul and Villanova games, and Posh, it would have been understandable if the team lost out. 

 

[paultzman]

Class! 
https://twitter.com/van_macon/status/1369675255606894596?s=21

 

[monte]

Much like us, UCONN has one star and some good players around that star. Also like us, they are a very good "team", but they are not loaded with talent. Their star was out for 9 league games, and Hurley kept the team together during that time and finished third. He deserves a lot of credit for that. Unlike us, everyone knew what to expect from UCONN, and they delivered as expected. We, OTOH, shocked everyone with our 4th place finish.  Based on that alone, and putting aside personal biases, CMA deserves the award. But Hurley certainly merits consideration. 

 

Monte I could not disagree with you more about UConn's talent level.  They are one of the more complete teams I've seen this year.  And well-coached.  But Anderson clearly deserved the award.

LMF not sure what you mean by "complete teams". Does that mean talent top to bottom? Does that mean how they play together? Also when you say one of the more complete  teams that you've seen, I would agree if you mean in the big east. I would disagree if you mean in the country.  I never said CMA didn't deserve the award. Quite the contrary. And I'm thrilled that he won. 
 

 

[monte]

Much like us, UCONN has one star and some good players around that star. Also like us, they are a very good "team", but they are not loaded with talent. Their star was out for 9 league games, and Hurley kept the team together during that time and finished third. He deserves a lot of credit for that. Unlike us, everyone knew what to expect from UCONN, and they delivered as expected. We, OTOH, shocked everyone with our 4th place finish.  Based on that alone, and putting aside personal biases, CMA deserves the award. But Hurley certainly merits consideration. 

 

Absolutely, he merits consideration for second best coaching job in the Big East

I would disagree slightly about their talent level. They had the (co)defensive player of the year, 6th man of the year, 2 4* big time freshmen, and none of those guys mentioned were even their 2nd or 3rd best player. They were picked to finish 3rd and did so. They did play 9 games without Bouknight but they also went 0-4 vs top 4 BE teams.

Amase as I've said before, # of stars and rankings count for something(they do IMO), it's only until a kid steps foot on a college court. Then they mean nothing. UCONN has 4 top 100 kids on their roster, 2 of whom didn't contribute much this year. Having said that, going in to the season there is no doubt they were considered a more talented, more balanced and deeper team. Ending the season, I'm not sure there's a huge disparity between them and us. Of course, much of that credit goes to CMA for getting our kids to play up to thier maximum ability. 
 

 

[monte]

Succesful teams are a combination of talent and coaching(I'm simplifying it). UCONN finished 3rd and we finished 4th. So the disparity between the 2 teams, in terms of results this season,  is relatively minor. My feeling is that we have slightly less talent overall, and slightly better coaching. Some of you may disagree. 

 

[redmannorth]

Succesful teams are a combination of talent and coaching(I'm simplifying it). UCONN finished 3rd and we finished 4th. So the disparity between the 2 teams, in terms of results this season,  is relatively minor. My feeling is that we have slightly less talent overall, and slightly better coaching. Some of you may disagree. 

We have much less talent than Uconn, the talent level between the 2 schools is not comparable. 
Their talent played to their level our talent greatly exceeded the level of talent on paper and played well collectively which made the sum greater than the individual parts. Excellent job by CMA and staff and kudos to the players who bought in to the system.