Was the Dickey hire mostly about an affordable name? Or did he have something that we thought might pan out?
1 Like
Agree, think Penders did a great job given our situation at the time. I thought it was time to move on when we did but was furious when we picked Dickey. It made no sense.
6 Likes
I think Mack panicked a bit after BCG didnât work out and some of his other options had moved on (e.g. Bob Marlin).
I do think Dickey had a plan and brought on some great recruiters. The recruiting part worked out great. Itâs hard to believe we had House, Young, and Thomas on the same team. Itâs just as crazy that team wasnât good.
3 Likes
Mack Rhodes did the hiring. What more would you need to know.
1 Like
I think RT is mostly right. Mack wanted BCG but that fell apart, supposedly either over money or Dr. K firmly saying no (she was spot on if thatâs what happened). Marlin was supposedly the backup plan but he had a ticking offer with ULaLa that he took a day or two before BCG fell through.
Itâs been speculated on the board that Mack Rhoades is good friends with Coach Brooks and that BCG and Dickey were both at the top of the pile because they were going to have Alvin on their staff.
And yeah, money was low and our infrastructure was crumbling so the options were limited. Here were the other candidates.
-BCG - Complete professional and personal implosion at Tech. Crushed it after that at Ranger College and just hired at Tarleton.
-Bob Marlin - Solid but unspectacular run at ULala. Probably would have had more success than Dickey but probably less than Penders.
-Rodney Terry - Similar. Solid but unspectacular run at Fresno. Left for UTEP on a probably warmish seat. Looks like he may have UTEP on an upward trajectory.
-Chris Walker - Took over as interim coach for a season at Tech after BCG imploded and had a really awful year. Currently an assistant at Cal.
-John Lucas - Wanted the job but we werenât interested.
RT is also right, Dickeyâs recruiting was surprisingly incredible. Itâs also incredible that we were in the bottom half of the NCAA with those guys. We were decent offensively but beyond atrocious on defense. Our scheduling was a complete joke too. That 20 win team with those three played the second worst schedule in the entire country.
I wanted BCG and was definitely wrong on that one. After that I wanted Lucas. Heâd have been very boom or bust, though.
3 Likes
Good pointsâŠanyone remember who did all the coaching when dickey was here? Those teams were god awful defensively! No doubt Dickey was a good man though.
1 Like
Some on the board I think said Coach Brooks was the âdefensive coordinatorâ then. I trust Alvin is a valuable staff member since CKS wanted him and has kept on staff the whole time here. But if Alvin really had that role and had free reign to do what he wanted schematically and adequate time to do the drills/film study/etc. that he wanted he was pretty bad in that particular role at that time. He may not have really had that role and/or time or free reign to do what he wanted with it, though.
Our offense under Dickey was great at creating post isolations. Thatâs why Tashawn was such a monster here. And like I said, on the whole it wasnât bad. However, it seemed a bit archaic and unnecessarily complicated vs. how basketball has been trending. Stats may not match my memory but I remember us turning it over a lot. The offense was also going to be bad when TT left if CJD had been given more time since it didnât look like we had anyone in the pipeline to fill his shoes. When we were running post ups through Maurice McNeil we were lousy offensively (nice player, but not a good player to be the key to your offense).
1 Like
Mack hired Dickey because he had basically zero connections in the coaching world except for Alvin and Gillipsie.
1 Like
I donât remember TT being a âmonsterâ. In fact, I saw many games on TV and in person, he appeared soft in the paint. A good player, but not a âmonsterâ.
His sophomore year he scored 17 a game with 10 boards, 1.7 blks, 1 steal and 2.5 assists. His true shooting percentage was a solid 57% and he had a PER of 27.6 and 5.3 win shares.
While individually each of those numbers donât always tell the whole story (some more than others) those are monster numbers. He was an exceptionally good player here.
When I say monster I mean monster production. Not like heâd beat someone up in a fight.
Yea. I saw him as a scrapper. Often in the right place to clean up something or grab a rebound. Had he been a couple of inches taller, Iâd suspect heâd be in the NBA with his athleticism and effort.