Play Angry wrote:I get the feeling ISUr and UE both have the personnel to be really good next year if they each had a different coach. Unfortunately, that isn't in the cards for either. Seems unlikely either group will ever play to their ceiling under Simmons or Muller.
Life in the Valley.
I also get the feeling that UE would be in 10th place two years from now under a different coach. Hell, they'd probably bring someone in, make a Sweet 16 next year, immediately lose that coach, and divebomb.
I've decided I'm happy with Simmons at UE. He'll never be a good coach, but he never fields terrible teams, either. His teams are always a threat to end up on Thursday night, but never a threat to end up with a 300+ RPI. Quite frankly, I don't think Evansville is in a situation to do better than that long term. The probably I have is with the teams that are absolutely terrible. If Evansville under Simmons was one of the worst two teams in the conference, we would be golden.
Muller can still be a good coach at ISUr. He's still learning on the job, and he's very young for this gig. He's got time. It'll be interesting to see how next year plays out. He's obviously able to sell the program to talented kids, and I don't fault him too much for failing to win with four starting sophomores. Granted, I fault him for the program exodus he initiated that put him into a situation where he had to start four sophomores, but oh well.
Next year will definitely be interesting with Giacoletti. I think he's very capable of getting Drake on the right track.
I think next year will be telling from a progress standpoint for some coaches, but it's two years from now that I'm actually excited about. ISUr and Drake could both be very good teams that season. When you figure that Jacobson and Lansing are good enough coaches that UNI and ISUb will always be steadily decent-to-very-good, Doyle will be a senior for Loyola and carrying that team on its back, and Simmons is competent enough not to field a terrible team at Evansville, that could be a loaded year 1-7.