Requiem for a Dream: Ole Miss 68, Arkansas 66
by Stephen Expat on Mar 6, 2010 5:49 PM CST
in Basketball
14 comments
Way back in January (given all the ups and downs of this season, it seems like several years ago by now) I unveiled an oh-so-stirring dream of mine: to see the Hogs finish with an 8-8 record in SEC play. I first articulated this on the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend, and like Dr. King's soaring vision of an America rooted in racial equality, my wish of a .500 conference record no doubt inspired millions and brought tears to many an eye.
With about five minutes to go in the second half, I felt certain my dream would shortly become a reality. In fact, I was preparing for a lucrative career as a corporate motivational speaker. My eyes kept glancing at the phone, certain that Jeff Long would be calling to thank me for my inspirational words.
And then, well ... the Hogs proceeded to score one point over the final 5 minutes and 22 seconds of play, and allowed the Rebels to rally from a 64-53 deficit during that time. Ole Miss took its first lead of the game with 53 seconds left to play. To quote The Walrus:
"And so dear friends,
you'll just have to carry on,
the dream is over."
It's hard to feel this way now, but the Hogs made some progress this year. Going from 2 wins in the SEC to 7 may not be cause for a ticker-tape parade, but it shouldn't be entirely dismissed, either. Having said all that, the regular-season-ending, five-game losing streak has done a good job of reviving the bad vibes that have surrounded this program for too much of the recent past.
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I'm done
Fire Pelphrey. Fire him now. Or condemn yourself to Jeff Lebo Buzz Peterson name other players who should be good coaches but just aren’t.
Hire someone who can coach. Do it now. Just do it. Progress schmogress.
Three years and what we get is this?
Fire him.
Arkansas Expats: Acting like the Lost Generation since at least 2007.
I understand the frustration...
But who do you (and others who want Pelphrey out) think we can hire who is better? I’m serious about that question.
At this point, I doubt we could lure John Brady away from Jonesboro, and his buyout is something like 1/3 of Pel’s salary.
The problem isn’t that Arkansas has fallen so far off the wagon that the head coaching job isn’t a good job anymore. It’s how we’ve treated our coaches in the past, and how we continue to treat them.
It started with the way we showed Nolan the door (whether he deserved to fired is another story), the way we treated Mike Anderson, and then we fired Heath after assuring him his job was safe if he made the Tourney.
Sorry, but firing Pelphrey when he’s making progress, just because said progress isn’t quite good enough for our expectations (and whether those expectations are reasonable is debatable), is the best way to drive the program into the ground.
If you think getting snubbed by Dana Altman was bad, wait until whoever is coaching Louisiana-Monroe won’t even take our call.
Mike Newell:
Tanned (very tanned), rested and ready!
by Stephen Expat on Mar 7, 2010 1:29 PM CST up reply actions
I don’t know whether he should be fired or not. But it’s clear after three years his recruiting skills are pathetic. Today we still don’t have 13 scholarship players on the team, three years after he was hired. It’s been noted many times about his players leaving for various reasons, but just to revisit Pelphrey’s classes:
07 — Sanchez — injured, probably done. Rakestraw, pointless recruit, gone. Britt, pretty decent player, character issues occasionally. I guess that’s it.
08 — who can count all of the players that were signed that year? McDonald, gone. Henry, gone. Clark, gone. Moore, gone. seems like that was another point guard and small forward who signed and didn’t qualify.
and of course Fortson and Clarke, decent players, but not all-SEC caliber due to limited size.
09 — Johnson, Bryant, Farmer — could be decent players if given more experience, ok, not great recruits.
Nobles, pretty good player, needs more playing time.
Powell, big-time recruit and the best player Pelphrey has picked up.
Borden, didn’t qualify.
10 – Scott and Wade, more decent guards, probably not going to set the world on fire.
Waithe, JC small forward, probably will get a lot of minutes next year, but no superstar.
Peterson, former Iowa player, should be a good third point guard
That’s it, and the shocking thing is for the first two years of recruiting he only has three under-sized guards to show for his efforts. Next year we do add four more small players (Waithe is not a center) — but still no size. We may have ten guards next year.
And finally if Pelphrey can sign one more player we will actually have 13 guys on scholarship. It has taken him four recruiting classes to get to 13 players. That’s a bit mind-boggling. It’s almost as if nobody wants to play for Arkansas anymore, a frightening possibility.
Without players of some size on the perimeter and depth in the paint, we’re going to continue to be mediocre. the 94 team had 5 guys at 6-7 or better, and all weighed over 250. Stewart, Williamson, Biggers, Wilson, and Robinson. That more than 40 minutes of Hell allowed us to win a National Championship.
Ouch
My problem, dxf, is that every time you look at the cold hard facts, as gargo just did, you see the awful truth: Pelphrey is not up to the job. As for who we can hire, well, money is not really the problem. Whether anyone wants the job is an issue, but the answer as to how is clear: you do a sophisticated, modern search, hiring a competent advisor, and find the right match. You don’t listen to fans; you don’t fumble around like Uncle Frank.
Personally, I’d take Billy Gillispie in a heartbeat. I would take John Brady. I would take Kevin Stallings. I would take Andy Kennedy. Get the picture? Based on performance, John Pelphrey is nothing short of a spectacular failure, and, further, there is no coach in the SEC I think would have done a worse job. Not one.
Now, we won’t fire Pelphrey. Not this year. We’ll wait through next year’s debacle, with the program altering class of 2011 hanging in the balance, then we’ll fire him. We will miss out on those kids. And the program will continue its slide into the depths of hell.
Arkansas Expats: Acting like the Lost Generation since at least 2007.
I wasn't trying to be glib.
No, money isn’t the problem. I never said it was; I said that we’ve got problems that money can’t fix. This is what got us in trouble when we fired Heath. We erroneously thought that we could just throw money at a someone and they would drop everything to come be Head Hog. We’ve (both the fans and administration) developed a reputation for treating our coaches badly, and all the history in the world can’t make up for being treated badly.
You would “take” Kevin Stallings or Andy Kennedy? What on earth makes you think we could get either of those guys?
By the “program altering class of 2011”, I assume you mean the “next triplets”. If Pelphrey signs these kids, will it save his job? Or, are you assuming that he has no shot at signing them, just like you’re assuming that that next year will be a “debacle”? Perhaps you’re right in those assumptions. I don’t think you are, but I’ve been wrong many times.
But, hypothetically, under what circumstances do you see the class of 2011 being “saved” by firing Pelphrey? Weren’t Pel and Dana Altman hired as the result of a “sophisticated, modern search”? There has to be more to your plan than “fire Pelphrey” and “hire someone, anyone, who can maybe save the program”. We’re getting dangerously close to perpetually chasing our tail.
I think you said it best when you said “you don’t listen to the fans”, i.e., the ones still living in 1994.
As an aside, have you noticed Stan’s USF tean knocking off ranked Big East teams lately?
Excellent points
I don’t have any answers. I would like to think Pelphrey will become a great coach; but nothing indicates that at this point.
I am not sure we could attract any coach in the SEC now, but I suspect we could, given the fan base and arena and our ability to pay. At least we wouldn’t make Stallings come out of his own pocket to take the team to a pre-season tourney. :)
If Pelphrey signs the “next triplets,” the program should turn around. But I thought for him to have a reasonable shot at signing two of the three of them, he needed to go NIT this year, NCAA the next. As it stands, the competing coaches will say, “Hey, sure you can get minutes at Arkansas, but big deal if you can’t get to the NCAAs.” Can Pelphrey recruit them without showing he can be a winner? I don’t think so. Could someone else? Well, someone could. But I have no idea who that someone is.
No, Altman and Pel were NOT selected as a result of a sophisticated, modern search. The Dana Altman deal was an absolute disaster, resulting from Broyles thinking he had Gillispie in the bag, and White and Broyles acting like idiots. We may have hired a firm to help find Pel after that, I can’t remember, but it was after the damage was done.
I wish I had the answer. We are not the only school struggling to find someone to right the ship, so it is clearly not easy. But if it were me, I would make the move now. Reasonable minds can differ on that; and since the UA won’t fire Pelphrey now, I hope I am wrong and he becomes the next John Wooden.
Arkansas Expats: Acting like the Lost Generation since at least 2007.
My mistake
I thought we went to a search firm after Billy G. spurned us. Now that I think about it, we may not have even used a search firm for Pel. If we do it right, with a search firm, I would feel a bit better about letting Pel go, but not much.
I agree that the Razorback fanbase is one of the best in the country, but we’re also undeniable fickle. The national perception is that we run people out of town who didn’t deserve to be (Houston Dale, Stan, Pelphrey may soon be added to that list), and I think that perception is something we’re all going to have to deal with in the very near future.
Is the general consensus that we’re not even going to make the NIT now? I was under the impression that there was still a chance.
Two quick points
• The UA did hire a search firm after Altman bolted, and Pel was the result of that process.
• The NIT is not really a possibility. If lightning strikes, and we win the SEC Tournament, then we are headed to the NCAA, obviously. If we make it to the SEC final and lose, we are 17-18. As I understand it, the NIT can invite a sub-.500 team, but I doubt they would extend us an offer even if we did make to next Sunday, ’cuz we still would have lost six out of our last nine games, and I assume our RPI would still be pretty weak.
by Stephen Expat on Mar 7, 2010 2:59 PM CST up reply actions
How much effort will we likely see at the SEC Tournament?
Will these guys even bother to dripple the ball?
I can't get the following quote out of my head.
“This is 5th season in last 9 UA will finish regular season below .500. Hogs had 5 losing seasons in 32-year stretch prior to 2001-02. Yikes.”
I mostly have believed that the UofA athletic department has the following:
1. The desire to produce a top-notch basketball program.
2. An understanding of the fan base that clamors for a winning basketball program.
3. The ability to get it done. This requires money and planning and intelligence (A.D., coach, recruiters, and assistant coaches).
After the last 10 years, I guess I am wrong. My friends and I are in pain. I think Billie G. would have been a great steal (very hot coach), but he crawled to Kentucky at the 11th hour. OK, we got unlucky there. I sincerely hope that we can convince some other young coach to give us a try. As pointed out, Pel is losing on recruiting (if Nolan and Pel walk into a recruits house, the kid plays for Nolan 10 times out of 10) and, in my opinion, is not manufacturing wins by coaching.
Still: Go Hogs!! Prove me wrong and win the SECT and the NCAA Tournament this year!!
by Hog Fan in Houston on Mar 7, 2010 2:09 PM CST reply actions
I hate to say it, but......
I hate to say it but it may be time to consider pulling the plug on the Pelphrey era. I don’t think it is entirely his fault. He took over a program that was not what it should have been. Stan Heath was not the man to replace Nolan. He is a good guy and a good assistant but he was not head coaching material. Some guys are better assistants than head coaches. That is just a fact. Pelphrey just hasn’t had the talent and that is a shame. Let’s not forget, we went to the National Championship Game 2 years straight. How many wins in the Big Dance do we have since then? That is the tragedy of the program. We have fantastic facilities yet many of the players that we will be recruiting don’t even remember the championship teams of the 90’s. We have lost that edge. I truly think it is time to bring in someone that will not only inspire the state but will be able to bring in those top recruits that Pelphrey has, so far, been unable to land. I like John Pelphrey and I hate to say it, but it may be time to make a change. It doesn’t seem that Long is ready to pull the trigger so, we are probably in for at least one more year. I hope I am wrong. I hope Pelphrey can turn it around but I have my doubts. This has to be the lowest point of Razorback basketball since the Lanny Van Eman era.
in hindsight, retrospect, rearview vision, whatever, Broyles should have developed a little humility, foresight, and longrange vision, and kept Nolan. Broyles should have behaved like the Southern Gentleman he believes himself to be and approached Nolan and dealth with whatever problems the two men had.
Nolan’s loss and the way it was handled will not go away, at least not until we have several solid seasons again. For someone who always trumpeted his love of Arkansas, ultimately Broyles loved his persona and power more than the school.
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