Remember when some of these hayseeds around NWA were throwing Dykes name out there to coach the men a few yrs back? Obviously they quit playing for him for whatever reason, which says a lot about them also, maybe that whole Colin Kaepernick thing did Dykes in. I didn’t support the Orange Monkey in the WH either, but you still have to be professional and do your job.
I give this post a half day before the hayseeds remove it, too much truth to bare…LOL…
I’ve known Jimmy for a long time and when he let the players “squat” during the anthem, I was finished being a fan of his. I knew his father who was also a good man, but sometimes being a good man doesn’t translate into being a good coach. I’m not saying it’s all his fault but something is wrong in the locker room because they don’t react well to him during games. I am a season ticket holder, but I never went back after the anthem debacle, I give my tickets away to different people each game and watch on TV on the few occasions they are televised. He should get another year to correct the situation, but another year like this is both intolerable and unacceptable. (I will renew my tickets and start fresh next winter, hopefully the coach and team show up.)
I’m all for discussing sports related topics related to the Razorbacks, but please stop trying to make political or religious debate here. You can go on Facebook and there’s plenty of groups to join for that.
Allow?? What is this Stalin’s Soviet Union? They’re players, not owned property, if they want to sit, that’s their right. I think it’s kind of useless, and people have actually died in legit wars for that flag, (believe it or not) and their sacrifice deserves respect, but hey, if that’s what they want to do, I understand…
I’m all for discussing sports related topics related to the Razorbacks, but please stop trying to make political or religious debate here. You can go on Facebook and there’s plenty of groups to join for that.[/quote
Why are you hayseeds always trying to suppress free speech around here? There are countries you can go to also, if you can’t be more tolerant for opinions outside of your little box. This is a sports board, the Arkansas Razorbacks women’s basketball is on topic, the reasoning as to why they sat is on topic.
Jimmy Dykes is a good man and maybe a good coach - of men. He bleeds Razorback red. Nolan Richardson struggled when he coached the Tulsa WNBA franchise but we knew he could coach. Coaching young women is a different animal. The point is Jeff Long’s hiring of Dykes simply is not working out. It’s an experiment that is failing. Again, this is another example illustrating that Jeff Long doesn’t really know what he is doing when it comes to hiring coaches. I can’t believe that our women’s basketball job could not attract some highly qualified applicants. Mike Neighbors (formerly at Greenwood and coached at Bentonville High School) has taken the Washington Lady Huskies to the Final Four comes to mind as a viable candidate (if he would want it).
I am just thankful that Mike Anderson’s guys are starting to really show improvement and winning enough games to get us back where we belong - in the NCAA tournament. It’s good to feel some semblance of pride return to one of our major sports programs.
You people are ridiculous! Dykes has only had 3 seasons and he has 1 NCAA tourney under his belt. This year was a rough year I agree. But, he had 2 players leave the team after the season started. Smith was a senior center and Danberry was a 5 star sophomore. Also, Jeff Long is as good as they come in the Athletic Director’s field. You people and your “instant gratification” mantra is just tiresome.
Hesiod…“Observe due measure, for right timing is in all things the most important factor.”
It’s not about instant gratification, it’s about his players quit playing hard for him for some reason. You can have all the X’s and O’s in the world, but if you can’t motivate your players to want to play hard for you, it’s not going to matter. And yes, in this world, it’s always what have you done for me lately, that’s just the results driven world working class people live in. We fail even one day, you don’t get a second chance. Would I fire him after this season? Probably, unless his team shows some kind of heart, like they care against FL, I don’t see much changing next yr. They don’t have to win, but they have to show they care…
Good post! WPS
Jeff Long does many things well as an AD. Hiring qualified coaches and properly mentoring them is not one of them. Winning matters and Long doesn’t seem to feel that pain.
Mentoring coaches? What in the heck are you talking about. ADs don’t mentor anything.
Sure Athletic Directors mentor their coaches. Ask Houston Nutt if Frank Broyles did not mentor him in 1998 when he first came aboard as football coach. Who do you think Nutt would look to for advice? Good athletic directors (who have coached before) will always be in constant contact with their coaches - especially when a coach is relatively new. I have been told by people “in the know” that I trust that Long just “gives the coach the keys to the appropriate buildings” and then clears out. I have several sales people who work for me. I am constantly monitoring their progress and when they start to struggle, I have meetings with them to try to share ideas and different approaches to help them become more productive or reemphasize some simple expectations. That’s mentoring. Long does not do that nearly enough - if at all. Instead he signs these guys to contracts with huge buyouts and we are stuck with them and they don’t even feel any pressure to produce. The proof is in the fact that we rarely sniff the top 25 in any sport these days - except track and women’s soccer or gymnastics. Sorry, getting more out of our coaches is an AD’s job too. If it is not, then why spend 160 million dollars on a huge hole in the ground that few of us will get to enjoy when it’s done because it’s for the big money donors with a product on the field that struggles to just be mediocre.
Anyone can have a down year; that is not the problem. The problem, actually problems, are (1) each year is worse then the the record of the previous year, (2) recruiting this year is horrible and the prospects for next year under Dykes is not any better, and (3) the transfers, rumors of transfers, and the best qualified assistant coaches quitting.
On this site and others, I have read at least 50 recent posts about Dykes, and everyone except you suggest that he should be replaced. I don’t believe the majority is right. However, when it is an overwhelming majority and the minority (you) is less than 2%, it is beyond reasonable to believe the minority is right.
Jimmy is a great guy but the lack of head coaching experience really showed. A lot of fans didn’t like or appreciate when those six players knelt. How JD handled that apparently rubbed the players the wrong way. Then he allows one of his best young players transfer within the SEC and your own division! I think he knows his basketball but doesn’t know how to handle the young minds of today.
No worry now JD resigned today! Now it’s rebuild time again. Hire a young woman that has been an assistant for a number of years. Expect this to take 3 to 4 years of hard times.
Weird how he resigned, I would have given him two more yrs out of fairness, unless his players quit on him. And I think they did a couple times actually. But his record was really bad, there was a disconnection there. Coaching is a tough job, I did some really stupid things in my first coaching job also…But that wasn’t a charge. He should just ride the bench, maybe with MA, and then coach men after a cpl yrs…
Compared to the last several years, considering how much better Incarnate Word is doing this year, especially in the conference, I would hire Christi Smith and give her one year to prove she can recruit and coach at this level. Also, considering how similar her basketball history and coaching is to Dawn Staley, perhaps she can do for Arkansas what Staley has done for South Carolina.
Was Jimmy Dykes forced to resign before he was fired?? That’s a question I think should be being asked… If so, how many coaches can rebuild a program in THREE years time anywhere they coach??? This university is showing a very flawed program when it forces a coach to step down, if that’s what has happened here. NO coach with any kind of respect will take over a program in the caliber of the SEC where the AD and the boosters force a coach out after three years, especially when he just brought in some good freshmen players and has a senior who was a problem child that was a pre-season player of the year who seemed to cause problems within the program. Jimmy Dykes had a rough go and any coach in his place would have had the same problems too. With what he had to work with, and in the conference Arkansas is in, having to put 2 and 3 star players up against 4 and 5 star players on a weekly basis, they’re lucky they won 2 games in conference… Arkansas is mediocre at best in ALL sports in the SEC. Until they learn to recruit those 4 and 5 star players, get used to suffering those 2-14 conference years every once in awhile, because we ARE NOT Alabama and this isn’t the Southwest Conference!!!
It’s been indicated on the basketball board that is indeed the case. It was said it was either/or that Dykes left or the players would.
I’m with you on allowing the players to kneel, can you even imagine what the fall out would have been if he had challenged his players on this issue. Can’t believe how anyone could be pointing fingers at CJD and I hope we never find out that this contributed to their case for letting him to go after three years. Three years on the job with one trip to the tournament and your out, we wouldn’t have stood still if this had happened to MA or BB. I’ll stop venting and move on as we all will. WPS