Army Making Change in Head Basketball Coach

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2mint
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Re: Army Making Change in Head Basketball Coach

Post by 2mint »

To me this move was very surprising. Yes, his record was below .500 (98-112) but he has the second best winning percentage of any coach since Coach K. left in 1980, trailing only Zach Spiker (102-112). He has also put together some strong recruiting classes recently with next year looking very bright (at least before the move). While sub .500 will get you fired at most schools, there’s a reason why we haven’t qualified for an NCAA tournament since 1968.
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Dude69
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Re: Army Making Change in Head Basketball Coach

Post by Dude69 »

The reason is sub .500 records. And lack of a David Robinson which would solve the sub .500 record issue. Just guessing.
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Coach MC
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Re: Army Making Change in Head Basketball Coach

Post by Coach MC »

Sorry to see Coach Allen leave. I have a personal interest because two of the student-athletes I coach are committed to the Army basketball program. Coming off a 17 win season and 10 wins in conference, I thought the program was turning the corner. With their returnees and the one kid from our program who was a direct admit, things were looking up. And Coach Allen is a top shelf individual, the kind of person you want coaching your kids.

But college athletics is a fickle business. In fact, 5 of the 8 Patriot League basketball coaches will be let go this year. That has to be some sort of record. From what I hear, Coach K is heavily involved in the new coaching hire and Army is looking to swing for the fences with his new hire. We shall see.
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kfan12
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Re: Army Making Change in Head Basketball Coach

Post by kfan12 »

Coach MC wrote: Thu Mar 16, 2023 9:18 am Sorry to see Coach Allen leave. I have a personal interest because two of the student-athletes I coach are committed to the Army basketball program. Coming off a 17 win season and 10 wins in conference, I thought the program was turning the corner. With their returnees and the one kid from our program who was a direct admit, things were looking up. And Coach Allen is a top shelf individual, the kind of person you want coaching your kids.

But college athletics is a fickle business. In fact, 5 of the 8 Patriot League basketball coaches will be let go this year. That has to be some sort of record. From what I hear, Coach K is heavily involved in the new coaching hire and Army is looking to swing for the fences with his new hire. We shall see.
Certainly it is a fickle business. I guess the one thing I noted following the team consistently is that their performance seemed a bit erratic, both between games and half to half. At the end of the day, I think 7 years is a pretty good amount of time to judge whether a coach is going to get you where you want to be or not.
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RABBLE
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Re: Army Making Change in Head Basketball Coach

Post by RABBLE »

It is tough to win in Army basketball. I think Coach Allen did as good as job as anyone could without a tremendous uptake in recruitment. Not many will endure the regimen in the academy to just play basketball but it does cause me some angest to see two good underclassmen vie for the transfer portal just because their coach was let go.
Seems to me why I question some guys true commitment to become Army officers upon graduation. What these two were thinking when they first applied to West Point, I do not know.
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liam
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Re: Army Making Change in Head Basketball Coach

Post by liam »

Does anyone have any insight or thoughts on who the next coach should be? I've seen a few names thrown out. Kevin Kuwik, Carl Little, and Zak Boisvert are the main ones. Kuwik is an assistant at Butler who served 10 years in the military and got a bronze star in Iraq. Little is an assistant at Austin Peay and spent some time as the HC for the all-Army men's basketball team. He served for 21 years as a non-commissioned officer in the Air Force and a commissioned officer in the Army. Boisvert is the Associate HC at George Washington and spent 5 years as an assistant at Army among some other stops. I think Boisvert has been in line for a HC job for a bit now and is apparently the favorite for the job (https://twitter.com/trillydonovan/statu ... 04161?s=20). In the interest of transparency, I am a GW fan and I'm hoping Boisvert stays in DC but I think he would be a great hire. I just jumped on here to see what you guys think about the coaching search, so if there are some candidates or considerations I am missing I am all ears
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Bison137
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Re: Army Making Change in Head Basketball Coach

Post by Bison137 »

2mint wrote: Mon Mar 13, 2023 11:41 am To me this move was very surprising. Yes, his record was below .500 (98-112) but he has the second best winning percentage of any coach since Coach K. left in 1980, trailing only Zach Spiker (102-112). He has also put together some strong recruiting classes recently with next year looking very bright (at least before the move). While sub .500 will get you fired at most schools, there’s a reason why we haven’t qualified for an NCAA tournament since 1968.
This move was beyond surprising, and it made a little or no sense to other patriot league coaches, and anyone who follows the league closely. Allen has done a really good job, considering the talent that he had, and he had now assembled a talented team that might well have been favored to win the league this coming year. They would have been returning their top four players, including Rucker, who would’ve been the preseason player of the year choice. Also, all of their subs were in line to return. But now apparently both Roberts and Benson, who are likely the best pair of freshman, army has seen in over 40 years, are transferring out, likely due to the idiocy of firing Allen.

As for Allen, over the last four seasons he has had a cumulative record of better than .500 in the patriot league and never had a season worse than 500. It took a couple of years to build a good team because Spiker left him with absolutely nothing, choosing to go to Drexel when all five of his starters were graduating. Good timing for Spiker, but it left Allen in a terrible position as a new head coach. I also see Coach K referenced in some posts. He is an example of how hard it is to win at Army. In his final season, when he had all of his own recruits on board, Army was 4–17 versus D1 competition. That makes Allen’s record against D1 competition look really good.
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RespectAPA
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Re: Army Making Change in Head Basketball Coach

Post by RespectAPA »

RABBLE wrote: Mon Mar 20, 2023 3:49 pmIt is tough to win in Army basketball.
Which is why we should have gone to the Grinnell system years ago. Arseneault Junior has already proven it can work at the pro level [NBA G-League] and there's no reason it couldn't work in the Patriot League. The hockey shift aspect of it would even work in our favor since roster depth is a problem we never have. Army had 16 players with 5+ minutes per game, my Tennessee Volunteers had only 10 players that meet that low bar, as did Colgate. And it does exactly what the triple option does: gives us the chance to go and get players who would be effective and productive in our system, who would probably be somewhere in D2 otherwise.
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