Blewitt stays, and other Friday links
posted by LW, Friday, March 26, 2010
Apparently Paul Blewitt's daughter has some serious clout.
Blewitt, if you believe the reports out of New York, was all set to take the St. John's job.
Then he returned home and ...
Paul Hewitt walked in the door Tuesday night after meeting with the athletics director from St. John's and got "the look" from his oldest daughter.
The look that said, "don't you even think of moving us to New York."
You really wonder about the reactions from other ACC coaches when they heard Hewitt was staying. I don't know if they were totally rejoicing, but they couldn't have been terribly disappointed given how much Hewitt has underachieved with all that talent he's lured to the school.
It's similar to Al Groh at Virginia ... Chuck Amato at N.C. State ... Tommy Bowden at Clemson.
Plenty of bells and whistles in all three cases, but not enough winning.
Was interested to read Mark Bradley's take on Hewitt's decision, considering Hewitt has basically waged war on Bradley and all.
Bradley responds to the news by telling Hewitt how he needs to change his ways to win back the fan base.
Among the suggestions: Stop the excuses, make changes to your staff, learn to coach offense, and give back that huge buyout.
Grab the popcorn, folks. This is gonna get good.
The suggestion to shore up the offense could hold relevance for Clemson fans who'd like to see Oliver Purnell do the same thing.
Coach offense as hard as he does defense: With few exceptions, all Hewitt’s players have defended at a high level. His offense has functioned less well. Too often Tech doesn’t seem to know what it should be doing. Chris Bosh averaged only 9.7 shots his season as a Jacket; seven years later, Derrick Favors averaged 8.1 shots. If you’re going to recruit one-and-done talents, you’d better figure out a way to get them the ball. A creative assistant with an offensive background would be most welcome here.
Dick "Hoops" Weiss of the New York Daily News says the St. John's search is quite the clusterflub.
Plenty of fallout from Urban Meyer's outburst the other day.
Tony Barnhart says the man needs to get a grip.
I have defended Urban Meyer and bent over backwards to be fair to the man. And let me say that he has always been good to me, personally. But he is flat wrong here. There was a right way and a wrong way to handle this issue and over the last two years, when the media has been involved, Meyer has been pretty tone deaf. The issue was never the quote by Thompson. The issue was the way others outside the program picked up the quote and used it out of context. That is wrong and it is unfair to the kid.
But when that happens, the smart coach doesn’t go after the reporter who quoted the kid CORRECTLY in an attempt to intimidate the rest. You sit down with all the reporters and explain to them that the kid is upset and, if there is any doubt about the context of the quote, Meyer as the head coach provides it in a calm, rational manner. Then the story goes away. But now this story has gone viral and, like Gundy, Meyer will soon be in the YouTube Hall of Fame. Not smart.
Chris Low of ESPN.com had pretty much the same view.
Anybody who’s ever been around Tebow for any period of time knows what a stand-up guy he is. So it’s only human nature for his coaches and teammates to want to stand up for him if he’s cast in a negative light.
Tebow would do the same for them.
But for Meyer to direct thinly veiled threats at Fowler, telling him to be careful, and then suggesting that they would probably be going at it (fighting) if Meyer were the father in this case comes across as amateurish for a coach who’s won two of the last four national championships.
Don’t make a show of it.
If you're interested in a homer's take, here's the beat writer for the Gainesville Sun.
Auburn is paying out some serious buyout cash to former football and basketball coaches.
Huge series for the baseball team this weekend. Previews from the Independent-Mail, Post and Courier and Greenville News.
And here's the view from Virginia's side of things.
“They’re very talented — they have a lot of really good left-handed hitters. [Additionally,] their No. 1 and 2 starters are left-handed,” Brian O’Connor said.
Because the middle of the Virginia lineup has struggled against left-handed pitchers this season, the Cavalier players know they will have to step up to emerge victorious.
In closing, Greg Wallace of the Independent-Mail says Kyle Parker's baseball ascent should make Dat Boy nervous.
LW
Click here for the "Eye On The Tigers" blog archive.
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Apparently Paul Blewitt's daughter has some serious clout.
Blewitt, if you believe the reports out of New York, was all set to take the St. John's job.
Then he returned home and ...
Paul Hewitt walked in the door Tuesday night after meeting with the athletics director from St. John's and got "the look" from his oldest daughter.
The look that said, "don't you even think of moving us to New York."
You really wonder about the reactions from other ACC coaches when they heard Hewitt was staying. I don't know if they were totally rejoicing, but they couldn't have been terribly disappointed given how much Hewitt has underachieved with all that talent he's lured to the school.
It's similar to Al Groh at Virginia ... Chuck Amato at N.C. State ... Tommy Bowden at Clemson.
Plenty of bells and whistles in all three cases, but not enough winning.
Was interested to read Mark Bradley's take on Hewitt's decision, considering Hewitt has basically waged war on Bradley and all.
Bradley responds to the news by telling Hewitt how he needs to change his ways to win back the fan base.
Among the suggestions: Stop the excuses, make changes to your staff, learn to coach offense, and give back that huge buyout.
Grab the popcorn, folks. This is gonna get good.
The suggestion to shore up the offense could hold relevance for Clemson fans who'd like to see Oliver Purnell do the same thing.
Coach offense as hard as he does defense: With few exceptions, all Hewitt’s players have defended at a high level. His offense has functioned less well. Too often Tech doesn’t seem to know what it should be doing. Chris Bosh averaged only 9.7 shots his season as a Jacket; seven years later, Derrick Favors averaged 8.1 shots. If you’re going to recruit one-and-done talents, you’d better figure out a way to get them the ball. A creative assistant with an offensive background would be most welcome here.
Dick "Hoops" Weiss of the New York Daily News says the St. John's search is quite the clusterflub.
Plenty of fallout from Urban Meyer's outburst the other day.
Tony Barnhart says the man needs to get a grip.
I have defended Urban Meyer and bent over backwards to be fair to the man. And let me say that he has always been good to me, personally. But he is flat wrong here. There was a right way and a wrong way to handle this issue and over the last two years, when the media has been involved, Meyer has been pretty tone deaf. The issue was never the quote by Thompson. The issue was the way others outside the program picked up the quote and used it out of context. That is wrong and it is unfair to the kid.
But when that happens, the smart coach doesn’t go after the reporter who quoted the kid CORRECTLY in an attempt to intimidate the rest. You sit down with all the reporters and explain to them that the kid is upset and, if there is any doubt about the context of the quote, Meyer as the head coach provides it in a calm, rational manner. Then the story goes away. But now this story has gone viral and, like Gundy, Meyer will soon be in the YouTube Hall of Fame. Not smart.
Chris Low of ESPN.com had pretty much the same view.
Anybody who’s ever been around Tebow for any period of time knows what a stand-up guy he is. So it’s only human nature for his coaches and teammates to want to stand up for him if he’s cast in a negative light.
Tebow would do the same for them.
But for Meyer to direct thinly veiled threats at Fowler, telling him to be careful, and then suggesting that they would probably be going at it (fighting) if Meyer were the father in this case comes across as amateurish for a coach who’s won two of the last four national championships.
Don’t make a show of it.
If you're interested in a homer's take, here's the beat writer for the Gainesville Sun.
Auburn is paying out some serious buyout cash to former football and basketball coaches.
Huge series for the baseball team this weekend. Previews from the Independent-Mail, Post and Courier and Greenville News.
And here's the view from Virginia's side of things.
“They’re very talented — they have a lot of really good left-handed hitters. [Additionally,] their No. 1 and 2 starters are left-handed,” Brian O’Connor said.
Because the middle of the Virginia lineup has struggled against left-handed pitchers this season, the Cavalier players know they will have to step up to emerge victorious.
In closing, Greg Wallace of the Independent-Mail says Kyle Parker's baseball ascent should make Dat Boy nervous.
LW
Click here for the "Eye On The Tigers" blog archive.
Link to this entry - Discuss this entry - Return to Blog Home
Donnie Patterson. Donnie Patterson is the founder of Patterson Tax Service, located in Easley, S.C. He has been active in tax preparation since 1970, and offers a full range of tax and bookkeeping services.
Larry Williams. Larry has covered the daily beat at Clemson since 2004. Williams, who worked for the Charleston Post & Courier from 2004-08, joined Tigerillustrated.com in November of 2008. He may be reached by email at ldubya08(at)gmail.com. Replace (at) with @.