Coaching Staff...is there a missing element?

[X-band '01]

Steele is very much the "my guy" type of person. This is obviously just speculation, but Steele seems to be the type that will give guys some extra rope to figure it out because of the relationships and history he has with his coaches. I'm guessing alot of first-time head coaches go through this.

Most of these guys aren't afraid to pull the trigger on mixing up their staff after a few years, especially if they struggle. Most tenured high level coaches would never go 3-4 years with mediocre results and not make changes.

Mack fired Gaudio after like 1 or 2 years - you have to be willing to fire your buddy in the lead chair.

Having siad that, recruiting has been pretty good. Michigan has Martelli on the sidelines and I'm guessing it really helps in-game situations. I'm also guessing he doesn't do much recruiting - which is fine. He probably doesn't want to anyway.

You don't think other coaches would give their assistants more leniency when they try to extort them?

[XUBison]

The lob thing was clearly not working. It should not have required an assistant to recognize that.

[xucub]

Outcoached. Outstrateggized. Low basketball IQ (also indicative of coaching.) We are even at the point where we have to question how strong the recruiting is if we remain a .500 Big East team every year. This is the Steele legacy. This is the Christopher legacy.

[Xuperman]

Under no circumstances do I want an AD picking the basketball assistant coaches. And by all accounts, the assistants Steele chose were and are top notch.

No doubt, although Christopher is technically his boss, the AD has far more on his plate than MBB....let alone picking assistant coaches. I do however, think that it is entirely within the scope of his job to discuss what type of assistant coaches are hired during the process of a HC hire.

"We're going to put you in the big chair Travis, but I want you to find a really experienced bench guy of your choice to be your co-pilot"

What could possibly be the down side? Steele's staff has been young and fairly inexperienced from the jump. Isn't the the associate HC Jonas Hayes?

[paulxu]

Hayes is the Associate Head Coach.
And don't forget Steele's assistant Johnson who went straight to Minnesota as a head coach, and seems to be doing well.

[xeus]

Per source, MOR applied for the “wise old man on the bench” coaching role but apparently didn’t land the gig. He’d have been perfect.

[GoMuskies]

Outcoached. Outstrateggized. Low basketball IQ (also indicative of coaching.) We are even at the point where we have to question how strong the recruiting is if we remain a .500 Big East team every year. This is the Steele legacy. This is the Christopher legacy.

I think we should let this season play out before deciding this is true.

[xavierj]

I guess I'm just saying I would have expected more coach turnover based on the results the past few years. Seems the coach would have had higher expectations of success.

They did. Guy took a head coaching job at Minnesota and is 10-1 so far. Another guy left for Indiana State. Xavier is 11-2 and improved save for the last half. I feel Travis has done well this year in game coaching, which turned into wins instead of losses. Nova was not so good second half though.

[xudash]

It is a good thing that this board, or much of it, was not around or old enough to have been put in a position of being responsible for reacting to the Cuban Missile Crisis.

[hoopster68]

What is the XU fan base waiting for? We've had three + years of the "deer in the headlights" approach. Most of the the time Coach Steele is out-coached in game situations. I'm not a coach, or a past player, but what I see game after game, season after season tells me something is wrong. As the politicians say, 'the fish stinks from the head."