Morning Buzz
Time for my take on the hiring of Kevin O'Neill, following plenty of criticism over the move from fans and national columnists. It's worth noting USC could not pay Jamie Dixon enough to lure him from Pittsburgh and late June is a lousy time to hire a coach.
That said, I kind of like the hire. Above everything else, I know O'Neill will outwork everyone. He will come to the office at 5 a.m., recruit like a madman and do everything possible to succeed in his last chance to be a head coach at a large Division I college.
Remember, I write this as the guy who championed Oregon State's Craig Robinson, so I'm not disposed to support O'Neill. But I like the fact he coached at Arizona as an assistant and also did that interim stint two years ago, which makes him familiar with the Pac-10.
And I also like that he is not Reggie Theus, who would have been all flash and who knows what else? If his stint at New Mexico State was any indication, player arrests and a lousy APR were likely.
O'Neill's got a clean reputation. He will also be a disciplinarian and to be honest, last year, the inmates ran the asylum at certain points of the season. He wants to succeed more than anything else. And USC basketball needs a jolt right now.
My only caveat with O'Neill is that he really needs to mellow as much as he claims he has since those crazy days at Tennessee.
OK, that's my thoughts. As usual I turn to English sportswriter Barry Glendenning to sum it up: ``Bear in mind it's only an opinion that's no more valid than that of anyone else ... except you, obviously. Yes you, sitting there in your office or bedroom, reading this on your PC monitor, possibly with several other screens open, each of them showing something that's probably illegal in several American states.''
Fair enough analysis.
And it still comes down to who can best evaluate and obtain talent. Players win games, not coaches.
Wow an actual post without a mention of bad girl band. Congrads Scott I actually agree with you. See it's not hard. Put pen to paper and write about what they pay you to do...SC sports. Awsome job Wolf.
Is there a chance of regaining any lost recruits or players, and is there anyone out there who could still be brought in on scholarship, any unsigned players from high school or jaycee, or even overseas?
First, Theus wasn't even the coach at NMSU when there when Pope was arrested for DUI in Pittsburg. He also wasn't there when the APR took a shot. So you must have meant "arrest" without the "s" and referring to Tyrone Nelson who stole a pizza. I can name 6 guys off the top of my head who have been arrested at Duke basketball so are you really using that incident to say Theus who has coached in the ABA (finals in first year), NCAA (tournament second year) as an assistant and lead recruiter (final four second year) and coached in developmental league, head coached in NBA (adding plus 5 wins from previous season and 5th place showing), and coached in AAU just "fluff"?
O'Neill is hopefully a great coach. ONeill has had a few players get into trouble as well but he shouldn't be blamed for it. Sure a suprising number of his former players and his former bosses don't like him and think he's not a good coach, and state every chance they get. And he is sub .500 career wise and has an average span of under 2 years per job. And he was sued and subsequently fired in 2000 for reneging on contracts just before the fall enrollment. That's the past and sometimes people flourish in situations after gaining experiences. But why does Scott really taking his position?
We all know that everything Scott says is to stir up things and go against the widely held opinions while offering baseless conjecture, innuendo and lies every step of the way. Then he'll find some minor conflict and play it up to create more controversy.
His only other way of attempting to keep readers is to obsessively put up pictures of attractive teenage girls despite being gay.
For whatever reason however he also is, or was one of the few reporters given the run of HH and a platform to share what he knows or may know. So we still try to pick peanuts from shit. Recently however the LAT, after doing some sensational pieces has also been delivering the all the updates as well since the hoops program has shut its doors to Scott. They know his innuendo help set the stage for the Floyd firing.
Scott obviously hopes to ingratiate himself only to maliciously attack later.
I wonder how long it will take for K.O. to say USC is his "last job." I hope to eat my words; he won't last half as long as Floyd. Having tasted a bit of success, the lower half of the Pac-10 just won't cut it anymore.
Another typical MG hire, he's cheap, it was easy and it will probably be a bust. MG might be the laziest AD in Div 1 sports.
Interesting to note that KO did a lot of work scouting opponents and preparing Memphis for the NBA draft, for which he received high marks. And, Memphis got who out of the draft via trade....OJM.