Just for those who might be interested in Carlene's replacement. UCSB hired the head coach from Kansas, Bonnie Henrickson. She has an excellent resume, having also been the head coach at VaTech. She has resurrected both programs and has a lot of post season experience. This is quite a coup for UCSB. She is a much more high profile get than Carlene was.
OT: New UCSB coach
- Thread starter oldtimer67
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To be clear, Henrickson was fired by Kansas at the end of the season after 2 consecutive losing campaigns, so she wasn't exactly a hot candidate. In fact, I'd say that Carlene probably actually was a bigger get at the time she was hired.
Your opinion. No head coaching experience to many years at two institutions. Two weak years versus many good ones. Never went 1 and 28 as a head coach.
It certainly is my opinion, and others may differ. But it's not particularly persuasive to cite Carlene's record in her last year as evidence that she wasn't a good get at the time she was hired - you have to look at where she was then. When she was hired in 2010, she had been the chief assistant for a team that had 9 consecutive tournament bids, including a national finals appearance, 2 more Elite 8s and 2 more Sweet 16s.
Bonnie's stock is down right now. She was much more successful at VaTech than she ever was in Kansas. Also, although Kansas had 4 down years before she was hired, they actually had a respectable history. At VaTech she was the most successful coach they ever had.
Her rep at Kansas was a sort of "couldn't quite get it done" from anything I read. It will be interesting to see how she does in a different setting.
Both Carlene (at the time) and Bonnie now are good hires for a mid-major with history. To pretend that there was any reason to think Carlene, coming out of the circumstances described by BeK, was not going to be successful is absurd; unfortunately, it happened.
Jut for the sake of argument -reasons why Carlene could have been expected to be not successful:
1) no head coaching experience
2) no experience on the west coach
3) past history of other CVS players / assistants as head coaches
Fact is Carlene had no competition for the UCSB job, except a local NAIA coach.
Just for the sake of argument -
1 - this would suggest that the only hire that can be expected to be successful is someone with head coaching experience - so no school should hire someone who hasn't been one.
2 - I agree 100%, as this is an issue in many hires, including head coaches that are hired into a different area - or type school, I'll add. That said, it is not a given that someone cannot have success on both coasts; while minor, I'll mention Joanne Boyle.
3 - This is nowhere near as cut and dried as you make it out to be. While some were spectacular failures, others had moderate or better success. More-so than college head coaches, I believe many of her former players, at least, have gone on to high school coaching. But the influences on a coach are not limited to their playing coach (Jackson, for example) or the coach they worked for, like Mitchell. Mitchell always indicated she was influenced by Brian Agler, who did coach her as a player, and she also coached at 2 other schools before Rutgers.
I do see that anyone who assumed Carlene would be a great success had absolutely nothing to base it on - but I don't see why anyone should have assumed she would be unsuccessful, either. Because she was a first time head coach in a new area, there were question marks, but not to the degree that they should have expected failure.
RE #1: If you exclude the first generation of WBB coaches, most new head coaches are hired at lower level programs and the vast majority of them are not successful. Only the small number that represent the cream of the crop go on to successful careers at major programs.
That is true, although I'm not sure it is "vast majority" that are not successful. A tough stat to get a handle on. Certainly many are not and only the cream of the crop (hopefully) move on to major programs.
There are about 12 coaches out there that were first hired as a HC at a P5 program, and it includes a few notable successes (Mulkey, Walz, C. Washington) and only one highly unsuccessful coach, unfortunately N. Butts hear at Arizona. The rest are mostly doing ok (some better than others) or in a few cases it is too early to tell (Insell, Dykes, Neighbors).
My preference for a coach at a P5 institution would be someone who has been successful as a head coach somewhere else (any level) and has had some P5 work experience. Mid-majors have a smaller pool to choose from, of course.
Bear in mind that this a majority of all coaches aren't successful, at whatever level, in any given year. For the P5 conferences, for instance, a reasonable definition of success is making the NCAAs. There are collectively have 65 teams in those conferences, and 32 got NCAA bids last year. Bonnie Hendrickson was fired by Kansas for having two unsuccessful years.
Only in Lake Wobegon are all the children -- or coaches -- above average. For every win, there has to be a loss. So for every winning coach, there's probably a losing coach, and that doesn't mean the coach is terrible.
Just means they weren't good enough to keep their job.
Some have constantly been winners, but didn't win the games they needed to and were replaced.
One of the biggest names in College WBB history and a HOF member had a few seasons not up to her standards and there were some fans that came out of the woodwork wanting to ride her out of town on a rail.
That proves , for coaches, it's one year at a time and what you did before doesn't count.
Not pretty, but a fact of life in the I want it now crowd and if I don't get it, you must go
no matter how good a HC you are..
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