If you want to hire a lesser known guy, for less money, you aren't going to bring back all the fans that have bailed on the team right now. Sure, you'll get some back. There are fans that just want anyone but Ernie at the helm. But you won't get enough to fill your new arena unless the hire itself is exciting. Just being "not Ernie" isn't good enough to be exciting.
If you want Matt Court filled to the brim, you give Few whatever he wants, no matter how much more than you were planning to spend it is. He's worth the money.
- He's a big enough name to get fans interested.
- He's got local ties which is important to some people (i.e. gets more people excited).
He's a big enough name, and well known enough, to make it more likely that the current players stay. - He runs an umtempo system:
- Hiring an uptempo coach is important. We still have a young team and in any coaching change, players transferring is a concern. These players came to Oregon in part because they wanted to play in an open court game. Their skill sets are geared to it, and that's what they want to do. You're less likely to lose players if you get an open court coach. Also, its another thing that just gets more people excited to come watch.
None of this has even dealt with how good of a coach Few is, or how much success I would expect him to have here. Because, that's just impossible to know with any coach. I'm not even 100% sold that Few makes the jump from mid-major to major coach smoothly (his predecessor didn't). Its entirely possible that he's just the right fit for Gonzaga. But he's the coach that makes sense for Oregon. Even when we were doing well recently, Ernie was on the hot seat with many fans. Even during that last Elite 8 run. And that's the biggest problem with keeping Ernie here any more. It doesn't even necessarily matter what his results are, there are just a lot of fans that are done with him...period.
Based on his local ties, his success in the Northwest, and simply the mentality of the fanbase, Few is a guy who will have all the support he needs and more. He'll have a longer leash than other coaches, be given more leeway. Yes, without success, that support will run dry at some point, but its important to have it to begin with. And he'll have it in spades.
So you make a run at Few, no matter what it costs you.
The alternatives aren't too exciting.
There's Mike Dunlap, who is a very well respected guy in coaching circles. But, he hasn't come in and worked miracles here yet. It very well may not be his fault at all, as there's no way to know how much or little impact he's been allowed to have. However, I just can't imagine that, after letting go of Ernie you would hire somebody from his staff. No matter how brief a period of time that person was on his staff. Dunlap may be a great coach, but that's certainly not a way to get anybody excited. And generating excitement is the #1 job of the new hire, from the AD's perspective.
We'll hear Reveno's name tossed out there(from University of Portland). Everybody was high on him earlier this year, when they notched a few "big" upsets. But they've crashed and burned since, and their wins may not have been as great as they looked in the first place. A lot of credit was given to them for pasting UCLA, but everyone's been doing that these days. Really, we had every opportunity to win that game at UP earlier in the year. And that was during our first stretch of poor basketball, with Dunigan out with injury. Since UP's good start, they've been blown out by 20 to Idaho, blown out by 40 by Washington and they've lost a lot of other games. They've really fallen off the map and now have the same record that we do. Raveno's not a known name, nationally. Barely even regionally, and not going to bring excitement enough to open a new arena.
We'll hear Bennett and Grier's name get tossed out there (from Saint Mary's and San Diego). 2 guys that have done ok in the WCC, just squeaking into the tournament one year each. Neither has been able to threaten Gonzaga in the league. San Diego's really not done much the last couple years (they are 8-11 right now), and do we really want to replace a Saint Mary's coach with another Saint Mary's coach?
I'd say, especially depending on how the Seattle U game at Washington goes, Cameron Dollar's name might be thrown out there. But, he's in his first year as a coach, and aside from the beat down they put on OSU, Seattle hasn't done a whole lot. He could be a great recruiter though, and we'd probably be better able to dip into the state of Washington for recruits, while at the same time weaken UW's recruiting.
That's far from a complete list of options and I'm not saying that an unknown somewhere, or an up and comer, can't come in a get the job done. On the court somebody unknown very well might be "better" than Few. But, the goal of this hire is going to be getting butts in seats, immediately. Some assistant somewhere, or some unknown, might be the next John Wooden, but it won't matter a bit if Matt Court opens with 2000 fans in the place.
After you've already invested 200 something million dollars is not the time to be cheap about the hire.
