Coach Alvin Brooks to be the head coach at Lamar

Basketball
83

I mean, that was enough to get him an extension. Life is rough in the low-majors.

84

I think it is clear he rec’d the extension because his 4 year record has shown obvious progress and improvement each year - reasonable way to view it if you are the Lamar administration and you hope he does not hit a wall, flatline or regress backwards in the next couple.

If you don’t do this - exactly what do you do?

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85

Lamar hasn’t had a good basketball history

86

So, this trajectory doesn’t get an extension? really? At Lamar?

Tough place, good job!

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87

He was tutored by a good one in Pat Foster. Alvin was a great recruiter but just not head coaching material.
It was a huge mistake to name him head coach here followed by a series of bad hires here.
Until we got Sampson I would say Penders was the hire who was capable of running a program.

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88

No lie extend the guy.

89

He was 34 when he became head coach at UH. Not about being “head coaching material.” Sometimes you gotta live and learn

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90

We were a good program when Foster left the program.
Bad decisions ruined the program for years to come. This was not just one incident

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91

I give Coach Brooks a pass for his time at UH. Folks who weren’t there can’t understand how devastating the death of the SWC and going it alone in C-USA was to the program. This is why I booed DeLoss Dodds when they “honored” him at halftime of one of the NRG games a few years back.

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92

Yes if you bother to look at what he came into and where they are. It’s an impressive jump.

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93

When did we play ut at NRG?

94

Was that during halftime of the OU FB game?

95

I want to say it was Washington State 2019

96

Sometimes, hiring decisions do not work out. I understand why UH hired Alvin Brooks for head coach. Local high school star at Houston Wheatley, trusted assistant to HC Pat Foster, known as a good recruiter who knew Houston area basketball talent, would be the first minority head coach at the two major sports at UH, and UH could afford him. We can debate how successful Brooks was at recruiting, but Brooks himself would probably admit he was not ready to be the face of UH basketball.

UH then went from bad to worse hiring Clyde Drexler and then Ray McCallum. Drexler was the local hero, who had zero coaching experience and at the end of tenure, seemed to be mailing it in. McCallum had coaching experience but not from Texas, had no recruiting ties in the state, played a brand of basketball unpopular to UH fans, a defensive, plodding style, and just was a bad fit for UH. Good coach, bad fit.

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97

Man, I don’t see anything in McCallum’s head coaching record that says “good coach” anywhere. Maybe he’s a good assistant or something.

98

McCallum got the UH job based on his coaching at Ball St. He was also the opposite of Clyde Drexler.

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99

You nailed it Myron. Penders was best hire between Foster and Sampson.

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100

Ray had a decent record and was very personable. He was a neighbor in Bellaire with a couple of great kids. I can see where he would interview well.

However, he had no recruiting ties anywhere outside the Midwest. A bad hire.

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101

His (Ray) style reminds me of Sampson’s at times defensively

But he also had some losses to teams locally no one would accept despite how good those teams were - him losing Francis early on didn’t help as he was the one who did was out locally and folks didn’t like Fitz :joy:

Dickey had some good talent also but his teams again took losses he shouldn’t have but ironically during that time UH was doing home and home with teams locally

102

Exactly! Brooks has done a great job at Lamar. They went from 3 wins to 20 in four seasons. Man I wish James Dickey had been that “unsuccessful”.