tribecalledquest wrote:MissouriValleyUnite wrote:tribecalledquest wrote:They could do way worse.
The job Lowery did at Northwestern did this year was incredible - there's a reason he won ACOY.
I think the perception of him in the coaching fraternity is way different than the perception us MVC fans have. Our perception is outdated because it was years ago when he was in his 30s. He's 50 now and has rebuilt his career.
Coaches can learn lessons and improve too. Sonny Dykes was fired from Cal. He took TCU to the National Championship game in Year 1.
Absolutely.
I agree with your point. You only have to look at Porter in our league for a perfect example of that. My concern with Lowery isn't that he necessarily failed at SIU, it's how he failed. Weber and Painter built SIU into arguably the strongest program in the league. By the time Lowery got the job, just keeping that train on the tracks would have been sufficient. Instead, once those recruits were gone, the program ran off the cliff and crashed, and crashed hard. A crash they still have never completely recovered from. Even Lickliter, who failed miserably rebuilding Iowa and UE was able to maintain Butler and have his protege take it to an even higher level when he left.
To my knowledge. Lowery has never even been a finalist for a HC job since. Even here in his hometown, between UE and USI there have been at least four openings since he left SIU and I don't think he ever got a sniff on any of them.
From the outside, it seems Tonagel was the best choice. Not sure what happened there. Hiring a highly successful coach from a lower level seems to have worked out for Indiana State. Another Indiana coach who shares that similarity would be Todd Franklin at Vincennes. He is 329-72 at Vincennes and 659-169 overall as a head coach. As a JUCO coach, he is rebuilding his roster every two years, which seems like fantastic training for recruiting and navigating the portal world we are in today.