Clusterf*ck: Stage Three

So, Stanford finally got around to actually hiring a coach.

Not, mind you, a coach with a day of head coaching experience, or one who is likely to be loyal to the school (not that I'm implying that blind loyalty is a virtue, but you know that if the guy is good, Duke's going to snag him when Krzyzewski retires), but a coach nonetheless. And for what it's worth, at least he's a total unknown rather than a known mediocrity like Doug Oliver. To slip into baseball prospect-speak, he's got the tools and he's got the upside-- he just doesn't have any kind of track record.

Unfortunately, the process took so long that the team's highest-rated recruit, Miles Plumlee, has asked out of his commitment to attend the school. I honestly can't blame him a bit. The team next year is unlikely to be a strong one. He'd be likely to see a lot of playing time, but that's about all that one can say on behalf of the '08-09 Cardinal. It's not impossible that Dawkins can talk him back, particularly because-- as a Duke assistant who undoubtedly ran into his brother Mason during Duke's recruitment of the latter-- he probably knows the guy and the family somewhat. As I joked to my dad, maybe he can get Coach K to give him a call and tell him to take the education. But it's no sure thing, and if he ends up going elsewhere, it will be a major loss and one that could very probably have been avoided.

Others have already done a better job than I ever could of critiquing this bestiality of a coaching process from the journalist's perspective. I encourage any of my, optimistically, two readers to check the link-- it's almost like reading The Decline and Fall of a Major Program. Despite a pretty solid record of success in the Johnson years, the program's prestige has collapsed to the level of a third-tier BCS program, where your choices in coaching hires (and, I fear, recruiting) are between raw guys with theoretical upside and known quantities with none. Bob Bowlsby, the Stanford Athletic Director, now gets to contend with the notions that the school is

a. cheap (not willing to pay market rates for a BCS school, not willing to extend Johnson and risk the possibility of having to buy him out, not willing to pay for an experienced coach) and
b. stupid (letting the Coach of the Year walk, having no apparent backup plan, not realizing that prevaricating would make recruits question their commitments).

So the program is facing a total rebuilding job in more ways than just on the court. The team's prestige has also vanished. I've never been one to complain about arrogance-- that would be part of the Lectures On Hypocrisy Series in my own case, I have to admit-- but when arrogance leads to decisions that don't make sense (like playing margin games with your coach and hoping he'll take it like a good boy) it turns into hubris. The Icarus-like flight path of the Stanford program over the past 5 months and change would be a fitting subject for any Greek tragedy, if it wasn't for the sizable amount of sheer incompetence involved (Daedalus, whatever his faults, was never accused of incompetence).

More on the Plumlee situation as soon as things shake out. I'll presage my upcoming preview (to be appearing around mid-June) of the forthcoming season by saying this: Where Stanford was a solid #3 in my "early hunch" thoughts, which assumed that both Robin Lopez and Miles Plumlee would be playing for the program, it's currently sitting at #8, and I think I might be overly homer-istic to even put it that high. 10 scholarship players? No height whatsoever? Lawrence Hill playing the 5?

Ugh. That's my take on the entire situation.