Porter is Gone…Now What and Who’s Next?

Some players are upset about TP’s departure, and it is a given that some will eventually put their names in the transfer portal (it is standard practice to ask players and recruits to wait until a new coach is hired before making decisions) …and that is fine. It is better for a player to leave the team rather than stick around when he does not want to be at UP.

There are five or six current players who could form the nucleus of a good team, and it is going to be up to the new coach to re-recruit the players he wants and needs.

optimist wrote:Since starters Ali, Davis, Jones, Henn (?isn't he getting his masters?) and Dasher will likely leave (bench players will surely try), the new coach is going to struggle.

It is quite possible Ali and Henn, and even Davis and Jones could return.  Ali and Henn may leave school, but as they have each transferred twice before, they will not be going to another team.  Davis and Jones have also each transferred twice, but between JUCOs…so they could transfer from UP, but eligibility could become a problem being accepted to a new schools.

I would not expect Adams, Ferebee, Fahrensohn, or Triplett to return, but others could choose to remain or be re-recruited by the new coach.

And honestly, any new coach will want to bring in "his" recruits if he can...

The question is, who will be the next coach?

It is difficult to say, but Scott has said he is looking for a coach who:

1. Can recruit.
2. Can develop the players he recruits.
3. Can create a positive team culture while retaining talented players.

Scott has also indicated he has narrowed a list that includes some with D1 or D2 head coaching experience, and assistants who have experience recruiting in the WCC.  All indications are this will not be a long drawn-out process this time.

I’m sure there will be more, but I just read there are currently 11 D1 head coaching jobs waiting to be filled:

Boston College
Penn State
Wichita State
Fordham
Portland
Northern Illinois
Tennessee Martin
Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV)
Indiana U – Purdue U Indianapolis (IUPUI)
Texas State
UC Riverside

It will be interesting to see who goes first, but shouldn’t we expect UP to hire someone with experience in the western US?

Any prime candidates to take over at UP?

DD wrote: It is difficult to say, but Scott has said he is looking for a coach who:

1. Can recruit.
2. Can develop the players he recruits.
3. Can create a positive team culture while retaining talented players.

Scott has also indicated he has narrowed a list that includes some with D1 or D2 head coaching experience, and assistants who have experience recruiting in the WCC. All indications are this will not be a long drawn-out process this time.

Please please pleez let it be a coach who has has success in D1. I understand budget is an issue, but the program is in such dregs I don’t think it can weather five more years of failure.

"1. Can recruit.
2. Can develop the players he recruits.
3. Can create a positive team culture while retaining talented players."

If that is what Scott is looking for, he needs be out the door as well.

The last three coaches and their staffs could all recruit. Heck, UP made a huge deal hyping Porter's recruiting classes and where they ranked nationally. What they could not do was turn those recruits into a team that could consistently win games or perform well against the upper echelons of the conference.

Geezaldinho wrote:Please please pleez let it be a coach who has has success in D1. I understand budget is an issue, but the program is in such dregs  I don’t think it can weather five more years of failure.

Using the model of Mike Meek and Geoff Loomis, who have been very successful in their recruiting and development, Scott is NOT looking specifically for a new coach with D1 head coaching experience, but in addition to D1 coaches, he is looking at D2, D3, and NAIA coaches as well.

Yes, the budget is an issue (UP has lost somewhere in excess of $1.4 million this past year), but it should be noted that MBB is the revenue driver/savior for all the other athletics at UP through sales and advertising income...so it should be a good investment to spend the money to hire a winner.  

IMO, the next coach will NOT demand the reported $2.5 million that TP received over the span of his 5-year contract.

StudentPilot wrote:It will be interesting to see who goes first, but shouldn’t we expect UP to hire someone with experience in the western US?

Oh, absolutely!  Ties to the western US are a prerequisite, IMO.

Recruiting, recruiting, recruiting!!  UP needs to recruit players from the west coast, especially California, but Oregon and Washington too…it must be a priority.  And the new coach needs to start going after recruits in Australia and Europe again, just as Rev did.

DoubleDipper wrote:Recruiting, recruiting, recruiting!!  

I agree that recruiting is the key, but what about X's and O's?

StudentPilot wrote:

DoubleDipper wrote:Recruiting, recruiting, recruiting!!  

I agree that recruiting is the key, but what about X's and O's?

Scott has said:

"There are going to be 20 to 30 people who could do this job in terms of Xs and Os…"

But unless UP has the players to execute those plays, the technical aspects of the game are meaningless. Recruiting is the biggest factor in determining the success of UP’s program, and it’s apparent it has struggled to attract and develop players to compete in the WCC.

Leykam said he is focusing on three areas in which the new coach must excel:

“Player development, creating a positive team culture, and recruiting and retaining talented student athletes…”

He has not mentioned X’s and O’s as a requirement of the new coach, but I think it is a given that any coach with years of D1 or D2 experience should be good at the technical aspects of the game…

IMO, the next coach needs to be able to recruit talent with academic and cultural fits to UoP, and then have a program to develop and retain that talent. That is the model that created success at St Mary’s, and decades ago Gonzaga. A good place to look for the next coach is St Mary’s bench (eg, Marcus Schroeder, alum of Princeton and De la Salle HS, Bay Area).

Btw, this was the model in place with Reveno. In hindsight he deserves more credit. He had a 2-3 year stretch that was the best for UoP in the last 20 to 25 years.

I could try to come up with a list of my own... but why even pretend I'd know more than the @CoachingChanges account on twitter?

@CoachingChanges wrote:Names for Portland, but if I'm Scott Leykam, I'd lean on Erik Spoelstra heavily to the point of almost just letting him make the hire (not sure all of these guys would say yes)

Adam Cohen (Stanford associate)
Jason Hart (USC associate)
Shantay Legans (EWU head)
Matt Logie (Point Loma Nazarene head)
Mike Mennenga (Oregon assistant)
Jesse Pruitt (Stanford assistant)
Jim Shaw (WSU assistant)
Marlon Stewart (OSU assistant)

I've been posting about Shantay Legans for a while now. He seems widely respected around the Big Sky and has built a team in Cheney that would be competitive in the WCC. But would a young coach like Shantay want the challenge of the Portland job? Or would one of the P12 associates/assistants be more likely to want to take on this behemoth?

Dean Murdoch wrote:I've been posting about Shantay Legans for a while now. He seems widely respected around the Big Sky and has built a team in Cheney that would be competitive in the WCC. But would a young coach like Shantay want the challenge of the Portland job?...

Exactly!

I wrote earlier that UP needs a young (under 40?) coach with the fire and energy of LMU's Stan Johnson, and IMO Shantay Legans fits that description...but would he want to move his young family from Cheney to the chaos of Portland?

On the other hand, UP could probably double his current base salary and would still be paying him half as much as Porter is/was getting....and does he have a "favorable" buyout clause in his EWU contract that has a year left?

Looking at the list from CoachingChanges, IMO "Coach Legs" is the most exciting prospect for UP...

DoubleDipper wrote:On the other hand, UP could probably double his current base salary and would still be paying him half as much as Porter is/was getting....and does he have a buyout clause in his EWU contract?

Coach Legans' contract runs through 2022 and the buyout is $50,000. I will start the GoFundMe* and make the first donation if it comes to that.

DoubleDipper wrote:Looking at the list from CoachingChanges, IMO "Coach Legs" is the most exciting prospect for UP...

And a West Coast guy through and through. Is there a P12 or Big West opening upcoming that would be more attractive than the Portland job, though?

* - disclaimer, I'm not actually going to start a GoFundMe for this. Someone at UP can afford the $50K.

Dean Murdoch wrote:Is there a P12 or Big West opening upcoming that would be more attractive than the Portland job, though?

You bring up an intriguing topic, one which I've pondered for some time:

What about the men's basketball head coaching job at UP is attractive?

Anything I try to come up with usually revolves around external factors, from the locality to the university, and doesn't have to do with the program itself.

The Chiles center itself isn't bad. The city isn't bad. The WCC is a genuinely good conference at this point. Lack of success can be blamed on the school /caliber of competition rather than the coach at this point so if you don't succeed so it might not hurt your career if you stay at 9th/10th and if you get to 5th I would think it will help your career immensely. I'd guess that as long as you have more than 2-3 conference wins you could still get another d1 coaching job in a big sky caliber conference if your non conference record is good and your record prior to UP is good.

VillaGorilla wrote:What about the men's basketball head coaching job at UP is attractive?

If we're just comparing to P12 schools or much of the Big West, probably not a lot.

But compared to a school like EWU? Quite a bit as dholcombe has already pointed out. But also budget, UP easily doubles EWU's yearly basketball budget. That's not just a massive salary increase for head coach - that also means an increased salary pool for assistants, more recruiting budget, more buy games should they be deemed appropriate in a given year.

The difficulty comes if a P12 or good BW job also opens up, because none of those schools would have to climb the mountain that will face whoever takes on the Pilots job.

VillaGorilla wrote:What about the men's basketball head coaching job at UP is attractive?

Anything I try to come up with usually revolves around external factors, from the locality to the university, and doesn't have to do with the program itself.

I also generally think of the intangibles associated with being the UP MBB head coach, but they are intangibles common to all who are employed at UP…a sense of community, a place where everyone is supportive, and where the common goal is to prepare students to respond to the needs of the world.

This is done on a beautiful campus that includes first-class dorms, classrooms, laboratories, and athletic facilities in a modern city located close to the mountains and the ocean conveniently served by one of the finest airports in the US, and where you can still buy a house with a lawn and a place for the kids to play for under a million dollars…  

Oh, and there is even an on-campus tavern, the Pilot House.

writerpilot wrote:"1. Can recruit.
2. Can develop the players he recruits.
3. Can create a positive team culture while retaining talented players."

If that is what Scott is looking for, he needs be out the door as well.

The last three coaches and their staffs could all recruit. Heck, UP made a huge deal hyping Porter's recruiting classes and where they ranked nationally. What they could not do was turn those recruits into a team that could consistently win games or perform well against the upper echelons of the conference.

I believe Porter failed miserably at all three: recruiting, developing, and retaining.

I can say with confidence that Porter brought in very few true D1 players (Shaver, Walker, and perhaps Tryon), but he turned away many more very good D1 prospects just so his sons could get the majority of playing time. Although I’ve not met this year’s new players (Ali, Henn and Davis looked above average), as the Pilots closed out the season without Porter, it was obvious other WCC teams simply had greater depth and better personnel.

I once knew most of the players on the team, and they are great guys and great citizens, but having scrimmaged with many of them during the offseason, I can also tell you very few of them developed their ability beyond what it was the day they first arrived on campus.  

Consider how many players left the team before graduation…10 alone off Porter’s first-year roster and at least 18 overall, including both of Porter’s sons and ALL the tall/big men Porter brought in.

Yes, UP did make a huge deal of hyping Porter’s recruiting classes and where they ranked nationally, but that turned out to be bogus:

Portland Pilots embarrassing 2017 basketball recruiting class announcement looks, well, worse now:
https://www.oregonlive.com/collegebasketball/2019/01/portland-pilots-embarrassing-2017-basketball-recruiting-class-announcement-looks-well-worse-now-commentary.html

Going to raise a nit picky fan enjoyment issue.
First, the Chiles Center is okay, not great. I almost bought PSU tickets just to watch games in a fiest class facility.
But my nit pick is Chiles Center sound system. Awful. Worse than awful.
And the concession stand: Fountain drinks gone. Now we get a can.
Again, these are simply small things by themselves but they add up.
Does this matter?
Maybe not but last season I dumped my season tickets and never paid full price for best seats in the gym.

Dean Murdoch wrote:The difficulty comes if a P12 or good BW job also opens up, because none of those schools would have to climb the mountain that will face whoever takes on the Pilots job.

Not a Pac-12 or Big West school, but the number of open head coaching positions just increased to 12 with the addition of Mountain West member New Mexico.

There is an opening at Big West UC Riverside, but that might not be as attractive as seems with the possibility that all UCR sports could be dropped. https://thespun.com/college-hoops/uc-riverside-eliminate-athletic-department-highlanders

Gotta hope the early dismissal of Porter means UP will have a deal in place with a coach who can sign on as their season comes to an end or no later the mid-March.

Dean Murdoch wrote:I could try to come up with a list of my own... but why even pretend I'd know more than the @CoachingChanges account on twitter?

@CoachingChanges wrote:Names for Portland, but if I'm Scott Leykam, I'd lean on Erik Spoelstra heavily to the point of almost just letting him make the hire (not sure all of these guys would say yes)

Adam Cohen (Stanford associate)
Jason Hart (USC associate)
Shantay Legans (EWU head)
Matt Logie (Point Loma Nazarene head)
Mike Mennenga (Oregon assistant)
Jesse Pruitt (Stanford assistant)
Jim Shaw (WSU assistant)
Marlon Stewart (OSU assistant)

 

I agree with @CoachingChanges, not everyone on the list would say, “yes,” but recalling Rev’s path to UP, young guys like Cohen, Hart, and Pruitt, who have really good Pac-12 jobs in California, might take the leap, but I’m not sure I would.

One young (41) coach not listed that Erik Spoelstra WOULD likely endorse is Mike Magpayo, the interim head coach at UCR, and the first and only Asian-American D1 head coach.  
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2021/02/09/asian-coaches-association-mike-magpayo/

Magpayo has his Highlanders KenPom rated at 119, which would be 5th in the WCC and is 214 spots higher than the Pilots.

He may not have a lot of D1 head coaching experience, but he was an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator under his mentor, Kyle Smith, at Columbia during the most successful 4 year run in Columbia history, 2010-14, and before that his leadership was obvious during his seven years as the CEO of a multi-million-dollar real estate firm.

After watching him last night in UCR’s tight loss to Tournament bound UCSB, it was obvious his coaching acumen and calmness in pressure situations would be welcome at many schools.

Magpayo is my #2 choice to take over for Terry Porter as coach of the Pilots, but the difference between my #1 and #2 choices are slight...

UCR is also currently considering cutting ALL athletics for budget reasons which likely makes anyone on staff there uneasy about their current situation even if they are not an interim.

The craziness of Portland cannot help the UP basketball situation. The city has become a National joke. Witness what happened last night in the Pearl District. As a parent, I’d rather have my kid stay home in our crazy state.

Haha, ‘cause nothing crazy ever happens in California.

I guess I touched a nerve, wrv. I clearly state that California is crazy, but funny how you had to go back to 1965 to attack the Golden State. I’ll give you a more current list of our problems: earthquakes, fires, floods, excessive taxation, a pending governor recall for a second time, public school teachers refusing to teach. The list could go on.
The sad part is I used to believe I would eventually return to my hometown of Portland because of how I remembered it from my youth—beautiful, clean, safe, with effective city government and cops allowed to do their job. None of that applies to Portland now. I will stay in this state that is a National joke, rather than return.
My ultimate point is, athletes attend schools not just for athletic opportunity. If you think the action in the streets doesn’t reflect negatively on UP, you are mistaken.