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Pike's Early Career

RutgersChow

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Dec 31, 2008
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I'm only posting this for informational purposes and because I find it an odd journey to the top of the coaching profession. Typically, a D1 player from a highly successful program (UCONN in this case) who wanted to get into the college coaching profession would start with a pretty good job and then go from there. Pikiel did this as he took a job as one of UCONN's assistants right after his graduation. He stayed there for only one year. He then took an assistants job with the New Haven Skyhawks of the USBL for one year. From there he went to Yale as an assistant for two years, and then to D3 Wesleyan as the interim head coach for one year where he was 5-18. Then he went as an assistant to Central Connecticut State for four years, and finally to GW where he was an assistant for four years before moving on to Stonybrook. I'm only saying this, and maybe it means nothing, but you wouldn't expect a guy who played for a national championship team to be an assistant there for one year before bouncing around 12 of the next 13 years as an assistant for mostly lesser programs. Maybe he didn't want to be a head coach and was comfortable as an assistant, I don't know. It just seems like a guy with his pedigree would get better jobs than he did in the 13 years after he left UCONN.
 
I'm only posting this for informational purposes and because I find it an odd journey to the top of the coaching profession. Typically, a D1 player from a highly successful program (UCONN in this case) who wanted to get into the college coaching profession would start with a pretty good job and then go from there. Pikiel did this as he took a job as one of UCONN's assistants right after his graduation. He stayed there for only one year. He then took an assistants job with the New Haven Skyhawks of the USBL for one year. From there he went to Yale as an assistant for two years, and then to D3 Wesleyan as the interim head coach for one year where he was 5-18. Then he went as an assistant to Central Connecticut State for four years, and finally to GW where he was an assistant for four years before moving on to Stonybrook. I'm only saying this, and maybe it means nothing, but you wouldn't expect a guy who played for a national championship team to be an assistant there for one year before bouncing around 12 of the next 13 years as an assistant for mostly lesser programs. Maybe he didn't want to be a head coach and was comfortable as an assistant, I don't know. It just seems like a guy with his pedigree would get better jobs than he did in the 13 years after he left UCONN.
There's only so many major, high-profile head coaching jobs. I don't think the path he took was atypical at all. He worked his way up.

There's plenty to criticize him for right now, but you're really reaching with this one.
 
I'm only posting this for informational purposes and because I find it an odd journey to the top of the coaching profession. Typically, a D1 player from a highly successful program (UCONN in this case) who wanted to get into the college coaching profession would start with a pretty good job and then go from there. Pikiel did this as he took a job as one of UCONN's assistants right after his graduation. He stayed there for only one year. He then took an assistants job with the New Haven Skyhawks of the USBL for one year. From there he went to Yale as an assistant for two years, and then to D3 Wesleyan as the interim head coach for one year where he was 5-18. Then he went as an assistant to Central Connecticut State for four years, and finally to GW where he was an assistant for four years before moving on to Stonybrook. I'm only saying this, and maybe it means nothing, but you wouldn't expect a guy who played for a national championship team to be an assistant there for one year before bouncing around 12 of the next 13 years as an assistant for mostly lesser programs. Maybe he didn't want to be a head coach and was comfortable as an assistant, I don't know. It just seems like a guy with his pedigree would get better jobs than he did in the 13 years after he left UCONN.

What?
 
The Virginia coach left coaching because NIL pressures. I think Pikiell sees NIL as a big new struggle. Also, just in general, he was comfortable with the building from HS model. He is a still a great guy and a good coach.

Taking on two 5 star recruits was outside of his comfort zone. "We want good kids from great families" was the line he used to use trying to recruit kids from HS. Both Ace and Dylan fit that model, but working from the NIL model.

I feel like Pikiell should start to use HS again if he's comfortable with it, but knowing he has to bring in higher level recruits. What he brought in this year has no panned out so far, and now he is getting A LOT of pressure from disappointed fans, etc. I get the frustration.

Pikiell does well when back in against the wall. No matter what happens, I am grateful for him as a coach and how he pulled us out from the bottom. I hope he can persevere and have success here.
 
There's only so many major, high-profile head coaching jobs. I don't think the path he took was atypical at all. He worked his way up.

There's plenty to criticize him for right now, but you're really reaching with this one.
Exactly. OP expending a lot of time/effort coming up with new angles to bash the coach in multiple threads. He thinks the coach is lousy. Got it the first 100 times.
 
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Exactly. OP expending a lot of time/effort coming up with new angles to bash the coach in multiple threads. He thinks the coach is lousy. Got it the first 100 times.
I said it was for informational purposes and made it clear that he might have liked being an assistant. It is also not the typical route an assistant at UCONN would normally take to advance his career. Take it as you will. I wasn't bashing him. There are plenty of reasons out there to already do that.
 
This is the worst post of all time Chow lmao.

I’d be more interested if you went back and dug up free throw percentages of Pike coached teams before and after
 
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