The situations were totally different. Foge was given the reins of a pre-season number one ranked team with one of the most prolific offenses, (at the time), in college football which he was clearly not prepared for because he had never been a head coach at any level. Evans was hired when he was the hottest coach in the country with a reputation of being a strict disciplinarian which is something Aiken, Gore, Smith, Lane, Goodson etc etc needed at the time. Ralph Willard was hired after Evans because he was considered the exact opposite of Evans. He had a .434 winning percentage. Do you think he underachieved or was he just a bad coach.
Jerome Lane in-game interview
- Thread starter JD1976
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Paul Evans was given the reins of a team with two first round NBA draft picks, a future P5 head coach, plus several other outstanding talent and still never advanced to the sweet 16. How was that different than Foge under-achieving?
You're splitting hairs now. Call it what you will, under-achieving, bad coaching, Evans sucked here. So did Willard. So did Chipman in the Big East. Yeah, Evans was an improvement for Chipman with that team and brought discipline, but he still didn't win the Big East tourney or advance to the sweet 16.
Evans was an improvement over Chipman the same way Majors 2 was an improvement over Hackett. Infinitesimally small
I was there. I have a lot of cool memories. Mainly related to seeing the players, talking to them briefly, and even going into the coaches offices while they had to get some things. You are right. I remember playing a bunch of pick up games and the tournaments.
Smith and Lane were not first round draft picks when Evans took over. Charlie was considered to be not physical enough, which he admitted in an article in sports illustrated after Evans was hired. And Lane was a guard and NOBODY was talking about him being a first round nba talent until Evans moved him from guard to power forward. And your last statement makes no sense at all. Majors 2 had a winning percentage of .273 and Hackett was .397 so Majors 2 wasn't an improvement at all over Hackett. And again, my challenge to your initial post is that you "rank Evans as the worse all time coaches with Stallings, Hacket, and Foge which may be your opinion but is not based on facts.
I stand by my assertion that Evans ranks with the all time worse coaches given what he produced with the resources at his disposal. If you were happy with him you probably also enjoyed the wondrous tire bowl championship of 2009. I'm through debating something that happened almost 40 years ago. Enjoy the game tomorrow
Pitt underperformed under JD in the post season when you judge it against the regular season success he had , but those teams never had the talent that the Evans teams had and that’s what I’m saying . Those teams had a real chance to win it all .
Charles Smith was a first round draft choice the second he stepped on campus and Jerome was a tremendous athlete ranked in the top ten out of high school that didn’t have an ideal game for a guard . Thinking that Evans figured out something that nobody else would’ve with both of them is not right .
Foge agreeably was in over his head as the head man , Stallings was the wrong guy at the wrong time and was the worst hire right up there with Mike Haywood . Majors 2 and Hackett were disasters thanks mostly to the university disbanding the booster groups .
The blame really in all these moves goes directly back to the ADs and the administration. Not giving Jackie control of the FB team , firing Wanny and letting JD leave all administrative decisions as was the disbanding of the Golden Panthers .
Does Evans belong with these guys , no , but he was a bad hire . Players cannot like a coach , but respect him the players hated him and had no respect for him . As bad as Stallings was his players liked him and had his back .
nobody's debating that the players disliked Evans. That wasn't even part of this discussion. And if you would rather have the Stallings record vs the Evans record well then I may not be able to keep you from becoming like your father. And Smith and Lane were highly rated players coming in but Smith benefited greatly by Evans system which emphasized the low post. It's part of the reason he was hired cause of what he did with D Robinson. And Lane was a horrible outside shooter and would have never made it as a guard and again, benefited from the system he played in under Evans. If you can't see that then you must be suffering from PSM, (Pantherlair Selective Memory). But no worries, I'm working on a cure.
Haha, I had forgotten about Norm and the blowhorn! I played on Providence with Coach Loy ..I can still remember him saying "Get in here, Friars"...lol.
You could’ve coached the Admiral and Smith they were that good . Anyone who watched Pitt realized that Jerome was a great athlete that couldn’t shoot well enough to play guard or the 3 , but he needed to be on the court .
No one’s arguing that the Stallings era was better . Your comparing a team that went 0-18 in conference to a team that was capable of winning the national championship . Only Young and Artist would’ve seen the court with those teams and no one from his second yr would’ve even made the roster . ( maybe Luther as a bench player )
Had Pitt hired a competent coach after Dr Roy Pitt would’ve been far better off with the talent they had . Funny how Evans , a bb savant in your opinion , never got another job .
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