Bringing Back Porter

Does there remain a path, other than winning out or nearly so, by which Terry Porter can retain his job as coach, or has that ship sailed?

Will the men's basketball Pilots have new leadership in the fall?

wrv wrote:Does there remain a path, other than winning out or nearly so, by which Terry Porter can retain his job as coach, or has that ship sailed?

Will the men's basketball Pilots have new leadership in the fall?

Not only has the ship sailed, you can barely see its stern as it goes over the horizon, IMO.

Again, it's only my opinion, but Pilots MBB will have new leadership well before fall...it will happen before spring begins.

In my scenario, Malcolm will decide to move on with his life after he graduates this spring and will not return for his final year of eligibility.

TP, with no sons to coach at UP, will then decide to move on with his life too, and will retire gracefully to life in Portland as a Blazer icon.

Again, this is all hypothetical, but I can easily see it happening...

It’s never a good sign when the AD isn’t a your games late in the season, but I don’t see much grace in the Offing with nearly Half a million  on the table.

UP is going to have to pay to wave goodbye.

And when did Larry Steel become respectable? His last four years were three seasons of 3-11 and a 6-8 conference season.

That’s only better in comparison to his first year of 1-13 which porter might match this year in losses thanks to not playing the top two teams twice.

The next coach should have college HEAD coaching experience with a winning record.
Anywhere will do.

Geezaldinho wrote:The next coach should have college HEAD coaching experience with a winning record.
Anywhere will do.

The next coach needs to have a proven record of being able to recruit talented players for whatever level he worked at.  And he needs to hire strong assistants.

Would we be happy if we were 18-8?  Stoudamire is 18-8 in his 4th year at UOP, and he had no head coaching experience.  Not saying UOP and UP are the same situations, but he is recruiting in Stockton, against 8 other D1 schools within 60 air miles.

Would we be happy to be 16-9?  Todd Golden is 16-9 at USF, in his first head coaching job.  He was an assistant to Kyle Smith, who some here wanted to be hired 4 years ago.  Smith was a previously successful head coach, and USF got him instead.  Smith got USF to a couple CBI tournaments, then left for WSU, the worst location in the Pac-12, with no nearby players and a dominant GU in your TV market.  It is hard to keep good coaches.  Will Golden succeed long term?  We'll see.

Herb Sendek had college head coaching experience and a winning record. He is currently 18-7 at SCU, but he is .500 in conference in his 4 years there, and .517 overall.  We'd likely take that, plus he looks like Randy Bennet's less grumpy twin.

Neither Mark Few nor Randy Bennett had any head coaching experience when they were hired 20 some years ago.  But they can find and recruit talented players, and put them in situations to be successful.  Their long term loyalty to their schools is unrivaled. I don't know their assistants, but they seem to be well thought of.

I don't know the magic key to finding the right coach.  Reveno was 6-12 in conference his last year.  I wish he had hired stronger assistants.  Porter has won 7 conference games since he arrived 3-1/2 years ago.  His assistants seem OK, but the players can't execute his system with any success.  

It sure seems to me that the key to success is finding and recruiting talented players, and putting them in a system that allows them to thrive.  If you already did that somewhere else, great.  If you haven't been given the chance to do that yet, but you can get it done, great.   How will we know?  Only time will tell.

How about bringing back Jim Shaw! Great assistant coach with Chavez...moved into several coaching positions in the PAC 12 including OSU, Uof O, UW and how WSU. Also he washed coach at Western Oregon and took them to their dance. Need I say more?

was head coach

Surely not. They're almost certain to finish 1-15, at best 2-14. If they go 1-31 in two years it's got to be the end. I can't imagine he would want to stay. He's a great person and I'm sure that makes it hard for the administration but this team gets worse as the season goes on every year and player development is nonexistent.

UP7587 wrote:
Neither Mark Few nor Randy Bennett had any head coaching experience when they were hired 20 some years ago.

Haha .

Mark Few  took over an elite 8 team from Monson with the entire Corp of assistants including Bill Grier, who folks whispered was the real brains of the outfit. They also were out spending  and out recruiting everyone in The WCC and still are. Picking up recruits in an executive jet apparently helps. Despite the obvious spending advantages, it took him 18 years to get back to that lofty  level. I’ll be dead in 18 years. I’d like to see better than where we are before that.


Grier is probably the best example of why not to hire an assistant. San Diego hired him to ‘improve’ the program, firing winning coach Brad Holland to do it after two 18 win seasons. Holland came from Cal Fullerton and ran a classy program with only one losing season in 13 but wasn’t getting deep enough in the tournament for the AD’s tastes.
At the time, everyone figured “ Oh, great, now we will have to deal with TWO Gonzagas in the conference.”

Grier failed miserably, both as a leader in compliance with the Brandon Johnson  scandal and as a coach and recruiter. His 8 years yielded a loosing record. at one point the toreros were worse than even the Pilots.

After Grier, they hired assistant Lamont Smith, a former USD alumn, he failed also, and was fired over an abuse charge and the coverup. ( and losing record)

Now they have Sam Scholl, a Brad Holland and Lamont Smith assistant. The torreros haven’t won under him. As  I write, the Toreros are the SECOND worst team in the conference. Guess  who is the worst.

Another Brad Holland assistant was Randy Bennet. He then was Lorenzo Romar’s assistant at UW and St. Louis. Apparently what he learned from Lorenzo was how to conceal recruiting violations ( imperfectly). The most famous St Mary’s coach before that was Ernie Kent, who they hired as an assistant. He had winning records two out of 6 years. His last season was pretty good, where his team won 75% of its games. I’m unclear if he became a better coach or 7’5” Brad Millard contributed more.  He then went to coach the Ducks where he had a winning record 10 of 12 years. Maybe some winning head coaching experience helped.

In between Earnie and Bennet was Dave Bollwinkel who was hired out of assistant-ship and was 34-80 .  He got fired abruptly and there was an interim to fill out a season.

Our next coach will start about as low as it gets. A head coach with a winning record from Chemeketa and Maryland Eastern Shore sounds pretty good about now.
His .486 and a trip to the dance in 9 years sounds a lot better than it did 20 years ago. The coach before him was a blazer legend with no head coach experience. He had a .284 winning percentage. Chavez owns the best coaching record at UP since 1970, including Avina, Steele, Holton, Reveno, And now Porter, sandwiched between two blazers with no winning head coach experience. Avina has the second best record. He was a winning head coach at San Mateo before moving to Portland.
Reveno had the third best record and the only one of the bunch with a top 25 ranking ( for a few days) leaving the three blazers hopelessly in the cellar.

I was a big proponent of hiring Porter in 2016. Sorry, everyone. What a disaster.

I still think that parting ways with Reveno was the right move. But clearly the hire to replace him was a failure.

I remember hearing that Porter was signed to a 5 year contract. If that is true, could UP be tempted to keep him for another year so that they don't have to pay two head coaches salaries next year?

NoPoNeighbor wrote:I remember hearing that Porter was signed to a 5 year contract. If that is true, could UP be tempted to keep him for another year so that they don't have to pay two head coaches salaries next year?

From what I'm hearing from others, DD's hunch may be correct, Coach Porter will "retire" gracefully, and will take less than a full year's salary in compensation...but it's all just rumor at this point.

We're probably two months away from any announcement, and it's highly doubtful we'll hear of any compensation/golden parachute, but it would seem Coach Porter and Malcolm Porter will be leaving a year early, and Malcolm will graduate on May 3rd.

StudentPilot never ceases to amaze with the inside scoop and fortuitous sources of info. It's almost DD-esque! (I swear DD has a cousin or old buddy who closely tracks the ins and outs of the men's basketball program on most every DI campus in the western U.S. Wasn't it a cousin who is on the faculty at Weber State and somehow knew the details of UP's interest in hiring away Randy Rahe in 2016?).

You have to wonder if StudentPilot and DD are related somehow... Whatever the case may be, I'm grateful that they share their scoops with all of us here at PN.

NoPoNeighbor wrote:You have to wonder if StudentPilot and DD are related somehow...

Hmm, I wonder if DD would mind if we got our DNA tested just to find out...

Sad to say I've never knowingly met anyone on PilotNation...but hanging with most of the players during my stay at UP gave me some insight into what was going on in the program.  Most of the that insight will be drying up after this season unless I return to school in the fall.  If I had stayed at UP I would be a senior now, and virtually everyone on the team I arrived with has either left UP or will graduate in May.

Regardless, any news I get now is second-hand, but as I learned over 3 years ago, you don't have to be totally accurate to post on forums like PN.  

Good news: Concordia - Portland won't be on the schedule next year. Bad news: because it's closing. Lord if students going to need to find new homes in short notice.

dholcombe wrote:Good news: Concordia won't be on the schedule next year. Bad news: because it's closing.

Wow! Their massive physical growth over the last few years really hid the reality of their declining enrollment. They had just completed that beautiful soccer/baseball complex a few years ago too. This is (and will continue to be for at least the next 10 years) a difficult time for small colleges dependent upon student enrollment and tuition.

Re: Porter: I will raise my hand and say that I was one of the advocates for Porter at the start, and that I agree with NoPo on the timing of everything. For that, I will take my appropriate lumps as necessary. I'm a big fan of the guys on the court that we have and will continue to support them, but I am ready to thank Porter for his service to the University.

In the meantime, the women's team is getting my full attention. They are quite enjoyable to watch! And, baseball starts soon (can't wait to see the finished stadium!).

A potential Porter buyout in addition to the Cantu buyout means a ton of possible dead salary on the books - gotta be $750,000 or more if the entirety of that final year has to be bought out - so I'm not nearly as confident there'll be a coaching change as some posters in here.

I was at UP when Porter got hired and I remember the massive levels of excitement that everyone felt at the time of the hire. It was to the point that the first giveaway were these (very awkwardly cut) TP basketball jerseys. At the time I was among those very excited about the move. That being said it is undoubtedly time to move on and go in a new, hopefully more win filled direction.

It has been suggested more than once that Porter is essentially good and that he will resign and accept a lower amount than owed. This is a capalist society, or so I understand; demanding what one is due pursuant to contract does not render one less than good arguably. Which of our departed coaches took a reduced amount? Holton? Cantu? Were they not quite upstanding? Might be unfair to Porter to suggest he should do that. Might also be pollyanish. But we can hope.

I might not be confident there's a change coming. But if it happens, I'm with a few posters around here in that I'd like the Pilots to go with an up-and-coming coach that's established a winning culture in a "lesser" conference.

The problem is, how many coaches fit that category that aren't also being courted by high majors?

Look at a guy like Jeff Linder at Northern Colorado. Took over a UNC program that was just sanctioned because of recruiting violations by the previous coach, and after a better-than-expected first season they've been great the last three. 26 wins and a CIT title in 2018, 21 wins last year, and Kenpom top 100 this year. He's got four seniors graduating and two years left on his $156,938 contract after this year. Linder was mentioned as a possible candidate for the Colorado State job that was open a few years back.

Maybe Shantay Legans at Eastern Washington? In his third year at EWU, team is 16-7 and 136 in Kenpom. Third year on the job and the team's top two players (Mason Peatling and Jacob Davison) are still Hayford recruits, but there's also important contributions being made by guys signed by Legans (Kim Aiken, for one). Legans makes $140,000 and his contract runs until 2022, with a $50k buyout if he leaves early to coach another school. Still a young guy, only 38.

If the Pilots are willing to pay the next coach what they were willing to pay Rev and TP, does the job still look attractive considering the magnitude of the rebuild that needs to happen here?

I agree wholeheartedly with this sentiment, I feel like we could also potentially take a flier on a young assistant who is ready for his first head coaching job, as you mentioned the size of this rebuild is vast so whoever we bring in must be ready for the challenge and ready to embrace it!

It's not that refusing to negotiate would make him a bad person, it's that he has a lot of pride and after sitting behind the bench a couple times this season I really got the impression he's desperate to escape. Doesn't make sense for anyone to put it off another year. Agree wholeheartedly on bringing someone young in, even without a track record. Some of these Gonzaga assistants have got to be itching to be head coach even at a low tier program.

Well the Gonzaga assistant with obvious Portland ties is Brian Michaelson... given that Gonzaga has been moderately more successful than Portland the last few years, would the Pilots program be a tough sell for a guy like that?

According to this completely unexpected and apparently sporadically updated site we can't do much worse http://d1coachcorner.com/D1coachratings.htm

For example Stoudamires stats are not up to date and only reflect 2 years as coach. I expect with what we're passing Terry we can afford most coaches from "lesser" conferences. Say the 10th-30th conferences. No idea what the lower end of the high major conferences are paying these days, but we are being outspent by other successful programs in similar 7-10th ranked conferences such as San Diego State and obviously Gonzaga. I don't expect us to spend at the Gonzaga level as such salaries need to be earned by building a successful programs over time. We could hire a much better coach for similar or slightly more money than we are paying if we don't also have to pay a premium above their coaching skill level for a "name" from that coaches nba days.

Buying a good coach to buy a program isn't really a thing that's possible unless you were to pay a coach much more than they're currently making which doesn't seem realistic.

In agreement over bringing in someone who is earlier in their career who would like a challenge or moving someone up from a lower division.

As an aside: was there not a former Pilot who was assistant coaching in the NBA somewhere? I want to say that they were with the Spurs and then the Hawks for a while? What are they up to? No, not Spoelstra; he's busy.

FloridaPilot wrote:As an aside: was there not a former Pilot who was assistant coaching in the NBA somewhere? I want to say that they were with the Spurs and then the Hawks for a while? What are they up to? No, not Spoelstra; he's busy.

Ben Sullivan, 2007 UP Grad and current assistant coach for the Milwaukee Bucks...

Graduate of Lake Oswego HS, played his freshman year at Cal St. Northridge prior to transferring to UP to play for Michael Holton for two years and Rev for one.

He's highly regarded by players and coaches alike...I've heard his name mentioned more than once as a potential UP coach.

https://www.businessinsider.com/bucks-nba-offense-ben-sullivan-giannis-antetokounmpo-2019-4

Yes, it would probably be a very difficult sell. They should be selling this as an opportunity to make a name. I have friends in the midwest who are rabid basketball fans who didn't even know UP was D1. Get this team to an NIT berth and you're a god. Best of luck to coach Porter, who is one of the nicest people around.