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“DEJON JARREAU and BRISON GRISHAM, Houston: Former top-150 prospects who committed to UMass together out of high school, this duo also transferred together to Houston. The rare “package deal” that actually materializes, Jarreau and Grisham should help the Cougars after sitting out last season. The 6-foot-5 Jarreau, in particular, could see the ball in his hands with the departure of Rob Gray.”
“4. HOUSTON: Replacing Rob Gray and Devin Davis will be a major chore, but Kelvin Sampson has plenty of talent at his disposal. Corey Davis Jr. and Armoni Brooks should give the Cougars plenty of points while Galen Robinson can handle lead-guard responsibilities. The transfer duo of Jarreau and Grisham will also help, and freshman Nate Hinton is a top-150 prospect and one of the league’s more touted recruits.”
Unless Penny is a coaching Prodigy, the dropoff of coaching tactics from Tubby Smith to Penny is going to be severe. One thing that will help Penny is the amount of good JUCO players that Tubby brought in and return for Memphis…if he uses them. If he decides his young freshmen are the future because he promised them playing time, well, it could spell disaster.
I think the funny thing that most prognosticators don’t see is that the Coogs have been 12-6, 12-6, and 14-4 over the last 3 seasons in a tough conference. Every year, they underestimate CKS and his teams and we’ve been close to the top in each of those seasons. I don’t see any change based off CKS’s history and what I’ve seen so far and I’d probably pick him over an untested head coach like Hardaway.
I think UCF is probably a good team to pick, but I wouldn’t bet against Cincy or Houston at this point. I’d also be very wary of UCONN…they have talent, just need a coach that can get the best out of them and Hurley may be that guy.
Penny may be a good coach or they may have a Clyde Drexler experience. They’ll recruit well because of Penny but we’ll have to see about the coaching part
Huge difference between Penny and Clyde was Penny coached HS ball for years before becoming a collegiate head coach, unlike Clyde. He’s also coached AAU ball which helps with recruiting. He’s proven he’s serious about being a coach. Will he be successful? We’ll see.
James Dickey could recruit and had coaching experience prior to coming to Houston, but the difference in coaching abilities between Dickey and Sampson was night and day.
Kevin Ollie at UCONN was similar, very good recruiter, but horrible game coach compared to his peers in the American.
Maybe Penny has that strategic mind to be successful, but I have a feeling that Cronin, CKS, Marshall, Hawkins, and Hurley are going to expose his lack of game experience. High School and AAU ball, especially when you have the best players on the court, is a completely different world than college basketball.
The American is not the type of conference where you will be able to come in and throw a bunch of talent on the floor and hope to win. I expect Penny to have an average record while he catches up coaching wise. Hopefully Memphis will give him ore than two seasons to settle into the position.
What happened to Ollie? I mean besides the fact that we’re a microwave society that needs to see immediate results? Coach K had a .500 record his first 4 seasons at Duke in the early 80’s. He wouldn’t have lasted if his career began in these “modern times.” I mean didn’t Ollie win a national championship just a few years ago? He played at UConn. I mean really.
he won with calhoun’s players. once he got his guys in he sucked. the uconn team that won the title game wasnt even good either. napier went crazy during the tourney.
Ollie was a terrible game coach. All that 4* talent and his offenses were predictable and lacked options that only won because the talent willed it to. He took a program that was a national powerhouse with resources and within 4 years had made it into a loser.
Again, maybe Penny will succeed, but there will probably be growing pains. Probably also not a good idea to be claiming you’ll be the premier destination for “one and dones” when there may not be any more available in a few years.