Why Orr has failed (other than the obvious)

[mscarn]

1) He has not created the infrastructure of a Division I program around him. People have brought up before the fact that the young, zero-basketball experience female team secretary has the title of director of basketball operations and actually sits on the bench and charts plays. Every serious program that we are competing against has this role filled by a current/former coach. The smart ones fill it with someone with direct ties to a talent-rich AAU or high school program in order to establish a pipeline.

On the website, there is no-one listed in the role of graduate assistant or video coordinator. This means that our assistant coaches are wasting their valuable time doing menial, data entry tasks involved in preparing scouting reports rather than developing tactical strategies or, more importantly, recruiting. When the $10 million dollar donation was announced it was intimated by Christopher that this was an area that would be addressed. Because it has not, it places us immediately behind our peer institutions.

2) His unyielding defense-centric philosophy has destroyed not only the effectiveness of the offense, but also any hope of improving it. When he says "Your shooting percentage shouldn't determine your winning percentage," he's essentially giving the team an excuse to miss shots, take poor shots and not be held accountable. Shooting is a skill that can be taught and developed through effort, yet aenemic shooting has plagued Orr-coached teams dating all the way back to Seton Hall.

Combined with the inability to develop talent (Henderson, Clarke, the yearly 6'9" projects who sign and are never heard from again) and you have the disasterous results we have seen. The fact that the leaders of our university don't recognize this and/or acknowledge it yet still consider it acceptable is deeply, deeply troubling.

[ZoombaFalcon]

Does it offend you and the others that have complained about her that there is a woman on the bench? I'm sure you have no clue what she does on a day-to-day basis for the program.

[Roll Along!]

Good point on why we shouldn't be overly upset about the job Coach Orr has done. Working with the 12th largest operating budget in the MAC and 12th largest salary pool, he has consistently put the program in position to finish in the middle of the league standings. He has not been given the financial support structure by the University that matches many other MAC schools, the program continues to remain competitive.

Does he have his faults? Absolutely. But so do other coaches in the MAC. Many times, those faults can be compensated for by throwing extra dollars at a problem.

And, I'm not sure how many times it has to be mentioned, but the Bill Frack endowment is not available to the program until Mr. Frack's passing.

[BGWriter]

I didn't realize BGSU had a competitive program, lack of funding or not. All I see are lots of bad losses, no player development, poor recruiting, poor coaching and low finishes in the standings -- along with early exits from the MAC tournament.

But I guess some folks see that as being competitive.

I just see it as utter and complete failure.

[Roll Along!]

I call 7th, 6th and 7th place finishes in the MAC stagnant and mediocre over the past three years, but I don't see it as utter and complete failure. Amazing that the team can continually finish in the middle of the pack over the course of a season given they recruit worse than the rest of the MAC, develop players worse than the rest of the MAC, can't coach and have a ton of bad losses. How do you suppose that year-in and year-out they finish ahead of half the teams in the MAC? Are they just that much worse than us and also utter and complete failures?

The early exits in the MAC Tournament -- simply unexcusable. Agreed completely. I think we do need to try something else because we are stagnant. I'm just not sure anyone else will do better until the endowments are available to be used.

[Cap City 7]

It would be one thing if the MAC were a strong league top to bottom but it is not. This year there are two maybe three solid teams and the rest of the league is mediocre or worse. There is no excuse for BG to be in the lower echelon of this league. There are just too many teams that should be beatable home and away. There is no reason to expect things to get any better under the present leadership regardless of how much money is spent.

[mscarn]

Does it offend you and the others that have complained about her that there is a woman on the bench?

You got it. It's just because she's a woman.

It's not because this apparently hardworking person (not in dispute) has no basketball experience (not her fault, she didn't hire herself) and last time I checked, this is a Division I college basketball program.

It's not because every other team in the conference has this role filled by a coach.

It's not because our head coach's decisions are, shall we say questionable at times, and another basketball mind on the staff might help out a little in that regard.

It's not because on other teams, these folks do more than book hotel rooms and are empowered to break down film and scout, enabling the coaches to work with the players more and spend more time recruiting, hence making the program better.