How long before Belmont or Murray State win MVC?

[Drakey]

Didn't Murray have an assistant they could have hired?

[05Racer]

Didn't Murray have an assistant they could have hired?

Possibly, but how does an AD justify hiring an unproven assistant over a guy with P5 experience and a win rate above sixty percent if said P5 guy is actually willing to take the job. The AD is in a public position at a public school so he has to be able to justify his hire to the fans, the media, the boosters, and most importantly his boss, the President, who may well have had an opinion on the subject given Prohm's strong support from the fans and his ties to the community (for those who didn't know, his wife is a Murray native and when he got canned at Iowa State, he moved back here). If Prohm was willing to take the job, hiring anybody else would have been a tough sell. An AD can't make hiring decisions based on the personal loyalties of guys who will be around just two or three more years at most and thanks to the portal could leave at any time for any reason.

[30ASaluki]

From looking at Prohm record at Iowa State, the better seasons appear to have with the prior coach’s players. Going 0-22 his last season are Evansville-like numbers (nothing personal Aces), and it does seem odd to me that no other school has hired him in last 12 months if he’s a really good coach. Just my observations.

[Drakey]

Not to nitpick but his last season at Iowa State was 2-22. Seems like his best years may have been with teams he inherited, although I really don't know what he inherited when he started at Murray. Not being able to persuade anybody to stay at Murray is disconcerting. He di recruit some really good players at ISU, and part of his problem was that they were so good they left for the NBA.

[MissouriValleyUnite]

Not to nitpick but his last season at Iowa State was 2-22. Seems like his best years may have been with teams he inherited, although I really don't know what he inherited when he started at Murray. Not being able to persuade anybody to stay at Murray is disconcerting. He di recruit some really good players at ISU, and part of his problem was that they were so good they left for the NBA.

His first team was picked 3rd OVC preseason. They peaked in the top-10 and were ranked most of the year, earning a 6-seed in the NCAAT.

He then rebuilt them into a team that entered the OVC Final ranked top-25 3 years later.

[05Racer]

From looking at Prohm record at Iowa State, the better seasons appear to have with the prior coach’s players. Going 0-22 his last season are Evansville-like numbers (nothing personal Aces), and it does seem odd to me that no other school has hired him in last 12 months if he’s a really good coach. Just my observations.

All these are fair criticisms, but I felt the COVID year should be a throw away for everybody. Murray looked awful last year and a segment of our fan base was ready to fire McMahon and we saw how well that aged. Also, if you look back at Iowa State's record over the past two decades, basically everyone not named Fred Hoiberg has been mediocre at best.

I have no idea why Prohm wasn't hired elsewhere but coaches rarely get another HC gig the same year they're fired and it's possible he just wanted to take a year or two off. The man also knows Murray State and its history so he might have figured if he just hung around long enough the job would come open again. Not sure how I feel about that but to say it's a solid strategy.

As for the players leaving, I don't know whether that reflects more on Prohm or on McMahon and the kind of guys he had been bringing in. We had a lot of transfers last year as well. Brown, Williams, Hill, and Daquan Smith were the only guys from last year's team that had a major role this season. So maybe McMahon heard the rumors last year that he was on the hot seat, brought in whoever he could to get better quickly with little regard for getting guys that wanted to be at Murray long-term. Then he starts looking for a way out at the first available opportunity. If that's the case, the strategy paid off. He got hired literally two days after we lost to St. Peter's. No way that wasn't in the works days or even weeks before. This tells me he was actively looking well before season's end, and the entire team probably knew it or suspected it.

[smidge34]

Steve Prohm was Billy Kennedy’s associate head coach and recruiting coordinator at Murray, the team he “inherited” was mainly recruited by him including NBA 2nd round pick Isaiah Canaan. To say he “inherited” his better teams at Murray and at Iowa State is based on ignorance mainly. I don’t mean that as an insult, it’s just fact. He endured some unusual circumstances at ISU, like recruits declaring early. At any rate our opinions will soon enough matter not when the rubber hits the road next few seasons.

[TylerDurden]

I wouldn't put too much stock in a coach struggling at Iowa State. That's basically a mid-major job in a major conference.

Heck, Larry Eustachy had a couple of good years at the turn of the century and they've been pretty average most years since. It's been a very up and down program.

I hope Prohm gets things together quickly. The faster Murray competes for a top spot, the better. Same with Belmont.

[Drakey]

I'm no Iowa State fan, but I'm not sure I would agree with that assessment. ISU has had three seasons out of the last 11 when they did not win 22 or more games. Two of those were with Prohm. They have great fan support. They are nowhere near a mid-major.

[TylerDurden]

The last 11 years includes all five years of Fred Hoiberg's run - who has been the most successful coach Iowa State has ever had. They have lost at least 11 games in 19 of the past 21 seasons. It cuts both ways when you play 35 games a year. There are all sorts of ways to splice their record.

Fan support is great. No doubt about that. But they are what they are - mediocre, and occasionally have a really good team. In the last 21 years they've only had seven winning conference records - four of those were under Hoiberg, then two years with Hoiberg's players.

Iowa State has some things working for it - the league, fan support - but after that, I'm not sure I could find 10 P5 + Big East jobs that it's better than - though I'm going to look now -

My point is there are a lot of coaches who have struggled to win at Iowa State. I won't hold that against Prohm - but that last year was REALLY bad...and the one before that was not good either. He's going to have to prove he can get things moving again.