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Of all the basketball games you have ever attended in person, watched on television, listened to on the radio or read about in newspapers or magazines--high school, college or professional--have you ever, repeat ever, been made aware of a team that was poorly coached?
Never. Repeat never.
Every team is well coached, right? Have you ever heard Dick Vitale comment that a team is poorly coached? Did Billy Packer ever claim that a team was anything but well coached? On the IHSA network, has any high school team been said to be poorly coached?
Aren't you just dying to hear Vitale say: "This team has a lot of talent but they are poorly coached. The coach doesn't know what he is doing. He is ruining his team's chances to be successful."
Don't hold your breath, right?
There are great coaches and good coaches and coaches who aren't as good as others. Bad coaches? I don't think so. Not intentionally. Bad coaches are pushed out of the business quickly. They know who they are. Good coaches do what they have to do to be good. Some develop into elite coaches, even legendary. We know who they are.
It takes all kinds to be a coach. Some are great with X's and O's. They are tacticians and strategists, the kind who are asked to speak regularly at clinics. Some are great personalities, the kind who are hired as network commentators after they retire. Some are great recruiters, the kind who know how to evaluate and accumulate talented players.
Without talent, a coach can go only so far, no matter what level he is playing in. It was often argued that King's Landon Cox wasn't a good coach, that he only won because he recruited the best players and simply let them run up and down the floor and beat opponents with their overwhelming skills.
Thornridge's Ron Ferguson had the same reputation when he coached Quinn Buckner, Boyd Batts, Greg Rose, Mike Bonczyk, Ernie Dunn and his state championship teams of 1971 and 1972.
East St. Louis Lincoln's Bennie Lewis didn't get much respect despite winning four state championships in the 1980s. Neither did Lawrenceville's Ron Felling, who built a small-school dynasty with Jay Shidler and Marty Simmons in the 1970s and 1980s.
I don't buy it. Coaching is more than X's and O's. The bottom line is they won championships. How many talented teams have you seen that didn't win anything? How many top-ranked high school teams didn't advance beyond the sectional? How many preseason No. 1 picks never played up to expectations?
Having covered those Thornridge and King teams extensively, it became abundantly clear to me that Ferguson and Cox had a gift for doing more than just push buttons, that there often were more problems to solve off the court than on it, that they were smart enough to understand how to deal with all of the diverse personalities and managed to inspire their players to be the best they could be.
To me, that's what coaching is all about. And when you put it all together, add some talent and a little bit of luck, the result might be a state championship. No, not every team is well coached. Some are coached better than others.
But poorly coached? By definition, is that a team without any discipline? Or a team that can't run a half-court offense? Or execute a simple out-of-bounds play? Or is it a team that doesn't know a man-to-man defense from a zone?
I haven't seen any of those. Have you? If so, call Dick Vitale.
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I seem to remember Ron Astlaw constatntly leaving Jereme Richmond on the baseline last year until the game go to the end. While he figured that out, I don't think he's that good of a tactician.
GUYS COMMENTING ON COLLEGE GAMES WILL NEVER SAY THOSE
WORDS, THAT IS INVOKING MORE OPINION THAN COMMENTING ON
THE ACTUAL GAME ITSELF, WHY CUT YOUR NOSE OFF TO SPITE
YOUR FACE, DICK VITALE OR ANY OTHER COMMENTATOR WORTH HIS
SALT WILL NOT EVER SAY NEGATIVE WORDS ABOUT THE COACH!
EVEN THE GUYS COMMENTING ON COMCAST AND ME-TV KNOW BETTER
TO SAY THE COACH IS DOING A POOR JOB, THEY MAY SAY HE
SHOULD GO TO A TRIANGLE AND TWO, OR SPEAK ON HIS OFFENSE
BUT THEY AREN'T GOING TO CLIMB OUT ON THAT LIMB!
SONNY COX WAS A GREAT COACH, THAT IS MY OPINION, SOME OF
THE GUYS HE COACHED OTHERS WOULDN'T HAVE GOTTEN ANYTHING
OUT OF, OVER AND OUT!
THE PERSON I ENJOYED THE MOST COACHING- BOB HAMBRIC HE
NEVER EVEN TALKED TO HIS TEAM DURING TIME-OUTS, CAN YOU
IMAGINE THAT, I WITNESS THIS WITH MY OWN EYES, HE WAS
A SPECIAL COACH, HE DID ALL HIS COACHING IN PRACTICE,
GAME DAY, WAS EXECUTION DAY, HE WATCHED HIS TEAMS EXECUTE!
GOOD LUCK ALL TEAMS DOWNSTATE!
YOUR HARDWORK HAS PAID OFF, ENJOY THE MOMENT!
Yes to me Landon Cox was a poor coach. How many of his kids were successful at the college level? All that talent but none of his players distinguished themselves in college. And Ashlaw was smart enough to bring in an assistant who knew more than he does. Actually the administration insisted this guy get hired so really credit to the Waukegan athletic department. Finally Richmond is playing how he is supposed to be playing in the first place. That is all over the floor. I bet you are mad Taylor that Jereme is playing well this year after I told you that you were giving up on the kid too soon. HA HA HA!!!!!!
Have to agree, bad coaches get weeded out quickly. Great talent doesn't mean you will have a great team. A coach has to know how to put that talent in the best position to win. Some coaches can do that and some can't. If the coach can't get the players to play as a team, checking their ego's at the door, then they will lose.
Cox was a good high school basketball coach. He got great talent and he won with that talent. To me, Bob Hambric was a much better coach. Were Cox's kids successful in college? Not often, but that can be said for the entirety of the Chicago Public league. Playing with the hype that Chicago players get, doesn't always translate well into the college level.
I have seen a few poor college basketball coaches in my day - how did Guy Lewis ever lose to NC State? I judge a college coach by what he does in the last 5 minutes of a game, year after year.
High school wise, the greatest high school coach that I ever saw and the two worst high school coaches that I ever saw both came out of the the Southwestern conference......the greatest....Vergil Fletcher....you can figure out the other two.
Mentioning Sonny Cox and Ron Ferguson in the same coaching sentence is ridiculous. Sonny Cox was a great recruiter at a time when the magnet school system in Chicago siphoned the best kids in the city into basketball factories. It was Westinghouse, King, Simeon, Marshall, Crane and a couple of others. With the talent Sonny recruited, he should have won eight or nine titles.
The reason Thornirdge is still, today, regarded as the best team ever is not because of its talent. Ferguson molded that talent around a trap press and a defense that buried their opponents every night for two years. They won because their talent executed, and that's a direct result of the coaches.
Ferguson was a great coach. What Bob hambric did with Simeon proves he's a great coach. There are a few others. But VERY few others...
I know coach Smith at Simeon gets a lot of flack but his record speaks for itself. At the same time, one must wonder whether he would have enjoyed the same success without Derrick Rose and Tim Flowers at his disposal. To his credit, he was able to make the team work while dealing with the scrutiny that comes with being Derrick Rose's coach. From what I understand Simeon have quite a talented class coming in (Jabari Parker being the cream of the crop) I would however like to say that coaching makes all the difference. I have been watching Whitney Young this year and I have to say that the amount of discipline they display is impressive on the high school level. They are extremely well coached and know how to show it. I still think Robert Smith is the best coach in the state and that Simeon will win the state title next year (their only challenges being De La Salle and Waukegan). BTW Taylor, great job on the blog. You are the class of Illinois prep basketball and I hope you keep up the good work. O'Brien and Jahns are good too. All the best-Ron C
coach ashlaw initiated and approved the hiring of coach bowen ... the administration did not insist on anything, Tim from Evanston ... were you in on any of these meetings??? ... how do you know so much about anything??? ... good move on his part because he is building a program that will win consistently
ninos, did you see the execution on the floor tonight? do you actually know anything about hoops?
I played hoops at all levels through division one. The differences in quality of coaching was all over the map and hugely significant. Best high school coach defensively was Ron Nickevitch. He figured out that the high school court was narrow and most guards had not perfected their ball handling skills yet so he piled all five defenders between the two free throw lies in zone press that forced thousands of turnovers in his great career. Never would have worked on a big college court with top guards shredding it and sharpshooters in the corners.
In college we went up against Al McQuire who did a great job of allowing talented black players to be creative within a system. They even designed their own uniforms.
Bad coaches were all over the place back then, often football coaches who coached b-ball as well. Great guys, tough, but no strategy. Talent usually prevailed but a great coach win close games with confidence, dicipline and a command of the team.