Gottfried Justifiably on the Hot Seat

After last season’s 5-13 conference record, the ACC media and fans of NC State were expecting this year’s team to compete in the top half of the ACC and at a minimum make the NCAA tournament. Some people(me) had even higher expectations like spending most of the season ranked in the top 25 and competing for a top 6 seed come Selection Sunday. Afterall, this was year 6. Gott has his assistant coaches in place and his roster stocked with his guys.

Unfortunately, the season hasn’t gone as expected. Heading into tonight’s game against FSU, the team sits at 3-8 in conference play. We have 7 games left on the schedule and we are likely underdogs in each game(Kenpom). There is a distinct possibility that we won’t see another win this regular season. There has been “hot seat” talk on various NC State message boards, but generally there hasn’t been much discussion of Gottfried’s future at State elsewhere. But having gone 8-21(.275) in conference play over the last two seasons it got me thinking how that compares to previous NC State coaches who were all under major pressure at similar stages of their tenure at NC State. Would the data suggest/justify discussion of whether Mark Gottfried should get a 7th season as the NC State head coach?

The following numbers are the conference records of Les Robinson, Sidney Lowe, Herb Sendek, and Mark Gottfried for what I consider comparable timeframes to Gott’s last two years:

-Les Robinson(Year 5 & 6): 7-25 (.219)
-Herb Sendek (Year 4 & 5): 11-21 (.344)
-Herb Sendek (Year 5 & 6): 14-18 (.438), 1 NCAA
-Sidney Lowe (Year 4 & 5): 10-22 (.313)
-M. Gottfried(Year 5 & 6): 8-21 (.275)

-I picked two different time frames for Sendek because everyone can remember the pressure he was under during year 4 & 5, but I also wanted to put his record up for year 5 & 6 to see how each coach compares after having 6 years to build the program.

-The good news for Mark Gottfried is that even if he loses the final 7 games this year, his 8-28 record and .222 winning percentage would surpass Les Robinson’s final two years. What a relief!

-If Gottfried goes 7-0 down the stretch, then his ACC record of 15-21(.417) will still be worse than Herb Sendek during his 5th and 6th season.

-Gottfried must go 4-3 the rest of the way to finish 12-24(.333) to exceed Sidney Lowe’s final two seasons. Is that going to happen?

-Gottfried needs 5 wins(13-23, .361) to do better than Herb Sendek’s 4th and 5th season. Remember how much pressure was on AD Lee Fowler to fire Herb Sendek? Only a 5 player recruiting class(with at least 4 of them committed in the Fall) that included a program changing recruit in Julius Hodge kept that from happening. How is Gottfried’s recruiting class looking?

Based on those numbers, I think it can be justified that Gottfried’s job is in serious jeopardy. But wait…what about Gottfried’s 1st 4 seasons? Should’t that buy him some more time?

-Sendek was 46-34(.575) over his final 5 seasons. Gottfried currently sits at 38-45(.457) over his last 5 seasons.
-Sendek had 5 NCAA bids and 1 Sweet 16 over his final five seasons. Gottfried has 3 NCAA bids currently(maybe a 4th this year) and 1 Sweet 16 over each coach’s last 5 seasons.
-Sendek finished T-3rd, 4th, 2nd, T-6th, and 4th in ACC play. Gottfried has finished T-4th, 7th, T-6th, 13th, and ? over his most recent 5 years.

For Sendek even with a better overall winning percentage than Gottfried, more NCAA bids, and better conference finishes the pressure continued to mount over his final 5 seasons in Raleigh. After spending much of his final season in the top 25(will Gott ever do that?) a late season collapse convinced Herb Sendek to reset his clock in the desert at Arizona St. It made sense for everyone involved. In my opinion, Sendek’s seat was justifiably hot after his 10th season despite better results than Mark Gottfried.

Now for those supporters of Coach Gottfried that are going to point out that I didn’t include Gott’s 1st year in the Sendek most recent 5 year comparison, I would argue that his first year results on the backs of multiple all-ACC players(3 to be exact) he inherited aren’t a great measure of whether Gottfried should continue as our head coach. But if you insist on including his 1st season, then let’s look at a comparison of overall records:

-Sendek’s overall ACC record was 72-88 (.450). Gottfried’s currently stands at 47-52 (.474). The two rosters the coaches inherited were nowhere close to equal however setting Sendek is a major hole his first 3 years.
-For Gottfried to finish his 6th season with a better conference record than Sendek, he must go at least 1-6 to finish 48-58(.453). In other words, Gottfried’s conference winning percentage is nearly identical to Sendek’s winning percentage that had him underfire for the most of the last 1/2 of his career at State.

But for both coaches…aren’t the more recent seasons more telling as far as determining whether or not each coach should have been fired?

-Sendek went 17-15 (.531) in ACC play, made the NCAA tournament twice winning 3 games, and reached 1 Sweet 16 in his final two seasons in Raleigh.
-Gottfried currently sits at 8-21(.276). At this point, it appears extremely unlikely he will have a single NCAA bid let alone advance in the NCAA tournament.

These numbers and comparisons suggest that Gottfried has a lot on the line over the final 7 games of the season. His horrible records over his final two seasons have overshadowed the success he had early in his tenure and in my opinion have Gottfried’s seat scorching hot. I didn’t want this to be an emotional entry after a devastating loss, but instead a look at the situation based on performance and how similar performances by previous coaches would have been viewed/handled by our fans and the leaders at NC State. Hopefully this puts the data from previous years into perspective and will add to the discussion of Mark Gottfried’s future at NC State beyond this season.

16-17 Basketball General Mark Gottfried NC State NC State Baseball

Home Forums Gott Justifiably on the Hot Seat

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Viewing 25 posts - 51 through 75 (of 102 total)
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  • #116986
    Tau837
    Participant

    The rapid implosion of this season is stunning to me. IMO it has removed all doubt about Gott, he should be fired immediately after the season if not sooner.

    I have never felt this level of apathy about watching our games, and it is doubly surprising given how exciting it seemed it would be entering the season to watch DSJ and this group of players. I live in CA, so I have changed my MO to checking the score first, then deciding if I will watch. Last night, I just deleted the game recording without watching any of it.

    All that said, IMO the comparisons to HWSNBN are apples and oranges.

    – As others have said, the ACC of Gott’s 6 seasons has been very different from the ACC of HWSNBN’s first 6 seasons.
    – Gott’s performance in years 1-5 was much better overall than HWSNBN, it’s not close — 4 NCAA bids to 0, 2 S16s to 0, more signature wins, better recruiting, etc. HWSNBN should have been fired before year 6, whereas IMO Gott achieved enough in years 1-4 that he earned a pass for year 5 and thus earned the chance to coach year 6.
    – When HWSNBN began his tenure, we were only 6 years removed from V… 6 years removed from being a true national contender. Maybe just 5 years, given Les inherited a great roster that played pretty well in his first season. Expectations were still high, apathy was still low. None of that was true by the time Gott was hired. By that time, we had been numbed by 21 years of Les, HWSNBN, and Lowe.

    But like I said above, it’s time to move on to the next guy, and hope against hope that we can actually hire someone who can effect positive change. At one time, I thought Gott was well positioned given the ages of many of the top ACC coaches (Boeheim, Pitino, Roy, K, Larranaga)… I hoped he would position the program to move up in the ACC pecking order when those guys inevitably retired. Well, they are all still hanging around, so now that opportunity is there for the next coach.

    #116988
    VaWolf82
    Keymaster

    Extending Gott while firing TOB would show she is too emotionally attached to Gott to think rationally.

    Agreed. I also wouldn’t expect DY to say anything very negative before the season was over (or even afterwards). What she says to us is relatively unimportant. What she does with losing coaches is everything.

    #116989
    VaWolf82
    Keymaster

    At one time, I thought Gott was well positioned given the ages of many of the top ACC coaches

    The only way retirement was going to push Gott up is if their replacements sucked as bad as the ones we’ve had since V.

    #116991
    Greywolf
    Participant

    DY answers every email she receives and if she has to stay late to do her other duties, so be it. Her job is to support the coaches until they are no longer the coaches. She has stated time and time again that coaches and the job the do will be addressed at the end of the season.

    Of course she wants Gott to succeed. Of course she isn’t going to be negative in discussing the job he is doing — not with us anyway. She does meet with both the football and basketball HC during the season and have “heart to heart” talks with them.

    She says she appreciates us expressing our opinions and I believe she does but don’t look for her to knuckle under because we argue back with our opinion. IOW she does not appreciate more of the same.

    If the answers sound canned it might be because she has received the same opinions before and answering those emails is redundant for her — she’s answered them before to others.

    This is not her first rodeo. She’s heard it all before.

    #116996
    StateRed44
    Participant

    Hopefully she is saying to respect what he has accomplished, but ultimately if he loses enough to get fired she will address that at the end of the season.

    #116997
    wolfpack92owen
    Participant

    Hopefully she is saying to respect what he has accomplished, but ultimately if he loses enough to get fired she will address that at the end of the season.

    hopefully. But point out the unc score from 2 years ago seems like a mighty big reach and feels like she is trying to pad his stats

    #116999
    Texpack
    Participant

    I certainly hope not. Extending Gott while firing TOB would show she is too emotionally attached to Gott to think rationally.

    Wasn’t the extension an automatic deal for making the NCAA in either one of his first two seasons or am I remembering that wrong?

    #117000
    wolfpack92owen
    Participant

    I certainly hope not. Extending Gott while firing TOB would show she is too emotionally attached to Gott to think rationally.

    Wasn’t the extension an automatic deal for making the NCAA in either one of his first two seasons or am I remembering that wrong?

    initially the first ext was automatic but then before last season she extended him again until 2020 and give him a 20% raise to 2.5 mill/per

    a lot of us were incredulous because she stated it was done to keep him here as if someone was trying to hire him away.

    #117007
    Pack1998
    Participant

    This post is terrible. Sendek was the worst coach in the HISTORY of the ACC over a 10 yr period. No coach in the history of the ACC has kept his job for as long as he did w such a poor record. If u think I am wrong put ur math hat on and look at the data. Most coaches get fired mich sooner for being so bad.

    Gott inherited a team last in the ACC and not one player is in the NBA.

    This year is worthy of offering Greg at Witchita a nice salary at NC State, BUT never! Ever! Compare Gott to Herb. Our worst mistake was hiring Herb over Cal back then (thanks Todd turner). Then messed it up again (thanks lee!). After 5 years and lots of patience anyone w the facilities and resources of State will eventually do well. my concern is Gott has lost his focus. Too bad so sad. Others want this job. Move on.

    #117008
    duckfatrules
    Participant

    When will it be approprite to start discussing possible saviors for our basketball team? illinois is already discussing options and they beat us.
    I have heard :
    Archie Miller Dayton
    Kevin Keatts UNC Wilmington
    Greg Marshal WS
    Cuonzo Martin CA
    Jim Groce Ill (thats a joke)

    what really amazes me are the coaches that we have passed on the last two times that are consistently in the top 25 every year. Turgeon, Mack, but I guess hindsight is 20/20
    what is the best strategy? I remember hearing that Lee Fowler wanted to win the press conference
    A-young up-and-coming mid-major head coach like Archie Miller, Keatts
    B-seasoned veteran like when Miami went with Laranga or Oklahoma going with Lon Krugar or Michigan going with Belein, or Tennessee with Barnes
    C-long time assistant from major program, like Wake going with Manning one year away from kansas or any of many assistants hired from Duke’s bench,
    who are the guys in waiting under pitino, K, Izzo, Self, Boheim, Bennet, Brey
    Do we go high risk long term
    or low risk low ceiling proven comodity safe hire

    #117009
    Pack1998
    Participant

    In reality Gott has been very successful. Our most successful hire. But the inconsistency last year and this is bad. Unfortunate.

    Best call u can make is Greg, then Archie next, then just keep Gott and force him to have a great vet assistant.

    #117010
    duckfatrules
    Participant

    Best call u can make is Greg, then Archie next, then just keep Gott and force him to have a great vet assistant.

    who would be a worthy veteran assistant to help Gott? a Jim Laranga type that does not seem to recruit too well but knows how to develop talent, Bob McKillop, Davidson?
    what really happened to bobby Lutz

    #117011
    pakfanistan
    Participant

    Archie Miller Dayton
    Kevin Keatts UNC Wilmington
    Greg Marshal WS
    Cuonzo Martin CA

    Frank Martin.

    #117012
    BJD95
    Keymaster

    We’d play defense. And score in the 40s. At least it’d be different.

    #117013
    pakfanistan
    Participant

    Frank Martin

    #117014
    StateRed44
    Participant

    Archie Miller Dayton
    Kevin Keatts UNC Wilmington
    Greg Marshal WS
    Cuonzo Martin CA

    Frank Martin.

    This. Martin teaches defense man. Someone pointed out that there may be bad blood given a player that was not granted a release, but I say water under the bridge. He would be a guy that would be an incredible fall back type guy (2nd weeker). He may hold out for Larranaga’s spot, not sure of the timing there but he’s from Miami I think.

    #117017
    McCallum
    Participant

    I have complete confidence that whatever course State takes on a new coaching hire that it will be comprehensive, detailed and wrong.

    There will be slogans and the typical mishmash about integrity and scholastic achievement. In the end State will be State, they are always looking for a cheap deal.

    Along lines that the typical native of Benson could understand, State is the stereotypical used car salesman of college sports except State is also the buyer: think buying a 1990 S-10 for $500 but thinking you’ve gone 2017 F 250 with power stroke.

    McCallum

    #117049
    redwolf87
    Participant

    Larranaga may have cost Virginia an ACC Championship (unrelated to topic).

    We need to go dynamic. Let’s try the mid-major route for once. Maybe we hit the gold mine.

    #117057
    duckfatrules
    Participant

    Larranaga may have cost Virginia an ACC Championship (unrelated to topic).

    We need to go dynamic. Let’s try the mid-major route for once. Maybe we hit the gold mine.

    this statement makes absolutely no sense at all??
    how has Larranga cost UVA an ACC championship?
    they have not even played this year? Larranga used to asst coach UVA but that was 20 years ago.

    #117059
    redwolf87
    Participant

    Go back and look at highlights of the 1983 ACC championship game. In fact, watch the whole game.

    And then, calm down.

    #117272
    Alpha Wolf
    Keymaster

    I have heard :
    Archie Miller Dayton
    Kevin Keatts UNC Wilmington
    Greg Marshal WS
    Cuonzo Martin CA
    Jim Groce Ill (thats a joke)

    I wouldn’t mind seeing Levelle Mouton in the mix. The man can coach and his players always give great effort. He also has connections with guys like Dwayne West. Given the right resources, I think he could be a wildly successful HC.

    #117286
    Texpack
    Participant

    Go back and look at highlights of the 1983 ACC championship game. In fact, watch the whole game.

    And then, calm down.

    There were people on this board who were totally opposed to Larranaga during the search that brought us Gott. If you look at what he has done at Miami, you’d have to say he would have been at least as successful at State.

    #117287
    Greywolf
    Participant

    I think we are confusing talent with scoring ability. We, both Gottfried and us fans, think because we have a bunch of players who can score that we have the makings for a good basketball team. I have no stats, evidence or any such proof for what I am about to say but here goes: The talented players with the character to play good defense are being picked over by the Dukes, Holes and other teams with the reputation muscle to recruit just about anybody they want. The next level of teams are recruiting players with slightly less talent but with the character to play defense.

    Our record is not embarrassing to me, but our lack of work ethic as identified by effort and willingness and maybe desire to do the dirty work on the court. I don’t have the stomach to watch but I read about failure to block out, hustle back on defense, letting the opps have open shots, etc., that indicates lack of work ethic.

    I don’t know if Archie would excel here — I’m not interested in success, interested in returning to the excellence of the Everett Case days. If it were my position to select the next coach and it’s obviously not, I would search out and find a coach who as a player played hard-nosed defense. One who still had the burns on his legs and body from diving after loose balls, one who had assistant coaches whose bodies were grooved and scarred from boxing out.

    From what I’ve heard our past 2 coaches have somewhat lacked in character. Let’s not make that mistake again. Kids with character are not going to come play for a coach who does not have character. And it takes character to give up your body for the team. Players with character find ways to win or bust their arses trying.

    Our other revenue coach isn’t very smooth with the media and doesn’t always make good side line decisions but he has character and he attracts recruits with character. Those recruits may not have the “stars” we all want but they have the character to do what it takes to develop their bodies and skill sets to be “stars” type players. I’m betting we start to attract the “stars” recruits with character who will continue to become better players through hard work.

    I don’t mean to get on a football rant which I can do but intil we hire a basketball coach with character and work ethic himself, we are fools to expect anything but what we are getting. There are exceptions such as Ole Roy but Coach K has character and work ethic. He was a friend to Coach V when befriending “V” wasn’t popular. “K” has won my respect even if I hate Duke. Hasn’t happened at the Dump on the Hump.

    And if we do hire a coach with character, it isn’t going to turn around in 3 or 4 seasons for sure. It’s not likely to really turn in 5 or 6 seasons but we will see a different NC State team on the court. I don’t think we will be embarrassed as we have been with Gottfried. I expect we will see “character” wins like our last 2 football games. No folding the tent because circumstances are breaking bad.

    Let’s start with integrity whoever the coach is and build from there. NC State deserves no less. There may be some here who don’t care about respect and character and who would do things the Carowhiner Way if it meant winning. I’m not in that camp and hope I die before I get senile enough to get there.

    #117298
    maverick_ncsu
    Participant

    Thank you, Grey. This is exactly where I am at this point, and have been when we hired Gott. I want to win, sure. But I want to be proud of our program exceedingly more. And that means being proud of the coach (on and off the court), the players as men (on and off the court) and how they play as a team. Yes, that means I strongly dislike losing and will get frustrated when we blow a 14 point lead and can’t make free throws down the stretch like UVA last night, but I would be able to hold my head up high for cheering for a team of solid men that play as a team, respect their coach because he is a man worthy of respect, who strives for excellence in every area of his own life as well as the lives of his players.

    I think our players seem to be good guys, for the most part. But I don’t see why we expect them to respect a coach who isn’t worthy of respect. Yes, they should respect the position, which is how I’m raising my kids when it comes to anyone in authority, be it a coach, police officer, President, teacher, etc. But I also have expectations on that leader to be worthy of that authority. That’s enough rambling for now, but I have to watch way more *NC bball than I would care to (wife being a *NC grad and all), but I will say that Roy’s players respect and love him for the most part, because he cares about them as men and as their coach. Would just be nice to have that here (without the cheating and lying, of course 🙂 ).

    #117299
    ryebread
    Participant

    Frank Martin openly lobbied for the Miami job when Larranaga got it. There was evidently some bad blood with him and some of the Miami high school recruiting circles. Martin gets results, but there’s going to be a lot of “stuff” that comes with him. I personally think that he’s a guy that has to be “bigger than the program” and would put him in the same mold as Greg Marshall. I can’t see either of them at State working for Yow, and I can’t see NC State ever winning a bidding war with the Koch brothers for Marshall’s services.

    My candidates:
    1) Arch: Defense, pedigree, effort, alum, grinding teams, player development. All there. #1 candidate. Just need a job opening.
    2) Hoiberg: Amazing job at Iowa State. His teams really were offensive juggernauts. I’m not quite sure of his job status with the Bulls, but if he is actually available, we should be on the phone right now.
    3) Cronin: Don’t like his persona, but the man can coach and we have to be able to pay more than Cincy. Hard nosed defense, full court press, balanced scoring, and very tough. He was supposedly interested last time.
    4) Randy Bennett (St. Mary’s): His teams are fundamentally sound, play hard and are good year after year, but are often short on talent. He’s got a very strong international pipeline but struggles a bit to recruit in the US. Take that same pipeline and pair it with 2 Adidas AAU top 50-75 type kids a year (which he could clearly get here) and he could be very good. Problem here is that he’s seemingly a west coast guy.
    5) Vinny D.: That’s the oddball, flier type name and one that’s well down the list, but I always thought Vinny did a pretty good job. We could (and have) done much worse. I trust Deb to help him hire assistants and manage his transition to college coaching much better than Fowler did with Sid. I think he’d recruit well. This would be what people thought could happen with Sid if we hadn’t have hired one of the absolute worst coaches in NBA history (doubters should look up Sid’s record and compare it with Vinny).

    I think any from this list would be better than Gott, and I think if we worked this list we’d likely walk away with a coach.

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