I never would have believed it for some 25 years of my youth.
Why? Because Frank and Nolan could not get along? Crazy.
Frank had no choice in that situation. John White basically fired Nolan himself. Of course when Nolan invited them to fire him after that loss in Lexington he had to expect that they would fire him, and they did.
Nolan’s recruiting had dipped but he did sign Iguodala in the November time before he was fired and I think Sullinger transferred out. Sullinger’s little bro was a stud at tOSU and of course Iguodala has two NBA rings at Golden State. Big game of what if there.
Oh my. Must we travel down this road again in a thread about Texas Tech basketball? I’d rather talk about Rick Bullock and the Sex Pistols. Never mind.
People forget that our program was in the tank before NOLAN left.
Comments: seriously, wasn’t it Sutton that said I would crawl to Kentucky. I wonder who he was referring to, the fan base or Broyles. Perhaps you forgot about Hatfield, and Nutt and their conflicts with the same AD. He should receive credit for doing some good things for UA’s athletics, although I see him as an individual that stayed to long in that position without his meds. At the end of the day it boils down to how you treat people, perhaps you are familiar with the harvest law, “You Reap What You Sow”, no what about “What Goes Around Comes Around”.
Response: I’m wouldn’t use the word tank, but it is true recruiting was more challenging especially behind the false claim by Memphis State reported to the NCAA. Although their investigation didn’t find anything of consequences still the NCAA was slow in clearly them publicly. However once cleared Nolan was back in business until Broyles stirred the pot and the rest is Arkansas history
False. A lot of the same people who still, now, complain after every loss thought it was “in the tank”. It wasn’t.
Things had dipped some, but the year before he was fired, they were 20-11, 10-6, 2nd in SECw and made the NCAAT.
The 3 years before that they averaged 22 wins a season, made the NCAAT each year and were the second best team in the SECw.
Making the NCAAT in the 4 years before the one that led to your firing and averaging 23 wins in those seasons isn’t tanking–especially when you just had a future NBA HOF guy in that span (Joe) and another guy coming in who ended up with 2 NBA championships an NBA Finals MVP, an NBA All Star and an NBA All-Defensive First Team. (Iguodala)
They also had a guy who was Freshman All SEC (Sullinger) who may well have recruited his buddies that played for his dad, who LOVED NR.
Those were 1st team college AA (Oden) and Conley (one of the biggest contracts in NBA history, Razorback legend legacy) and JJ’s brother (Jared Sullinger) who was National HS POY and 2x college 1st team AA.
Would all of that have happened? Maybe not. But some of it very likely would have and we would have had a MUCH better shot at maintaining our elite national status.
But instead, many of the same people who are now part of the fire MA crowd were the ringleaders of the fire NR crowd and had their hearts set on better fundamentals-- lots more screens and rebounds.
Many of us warned them they were doing irreparable harm to the program. They knew better, though.
They just knew we needed an old school, Xs and Os coach that taught the fundamentals and kept his mouth shut. How’d that all work out?
It’s a small sample size–only been about a generation since he was fired–but it sure looks like the 2 we hired after NR ended up crashing and burning following him and the NR protege we hired away after he built an Elite 8 team at a (now) SEC rival and left them with a 30-win team–both finishes the best in that program history–has done well considering what he inherited and the rampant cheating he battles in SEC recruiting.
So, no. It wasn’t tanking. The NR haters were sabotaging it. They never appreciated NR in the least and they gigged him until he imploded. Now, they’re doing their best to do it again despite the fact we are much more relevant and stable than we have been in a generation.
Spot on.