BG at Miami...

[hammb]

He has never really had an infectious, engaging media personality, but he really seems defeated this year. I could see a buyout reduction agreement, I have to think he is ready to move on. But professionally, I still don't expect it. He's quite likely to never again come close to his current salary number at BG. With fiscal responsibility he's made enough money in BG Ohio to not NEED to work again. The buyout is probably 2 yrs salary so holding out for that buyout will get him an $850k check, he'd be able to be selective and choose a job he wants somewhere.

As for the history, Guest is right that it's basically been committing long term to guys that haven't shown the ability to be more than mediocre. Larranaga was allowed 6 seasons of mediocrity (after a nice first season), before the team finally started putting together some nice seasons late in his tenure. It feels like BG decision makers have looked at that as the model for a head coach when in reality his track record here is highly unusual, and mostly tied to finally nabbing a transcendent recruit in Daniels (to add to an already middle-of-the-MAC crew). Dakich 1.0 was fantastic, but they didn't read the room in bringing him back, it was a disaster. Orr and Huger both got early extensions for being slightly above mediocre for 1 year even though they were overall not very good; as if giving them 7-8 years they'd get an Antonio Daniels and be the next Larranaga. I know Weinert has a poor reputation with BG folks (and his time predates my memory even if I was attending games), but he is still the last coach to put together 5 straight years of double digit MAC Ws. We just love signing up long term for coaches who never show the ability to consistently WIN.

What's more, even in their good years, is that none of these were truly good COACHES. The successes were tied to some stellar individual talents. When we've had good seasons it was on the backs of Daniels, Stacey, McLeod, and Turner. And yes all good teams have great players, but where we fail is when we need to win the MAC tournament and those great players need coaches to pull the right strings? We fail every time. Those 4 guys are as good as any players in the MAC over the last 30 years. Yet, unlike most MAC players of their ilk they never made that run.

[Flipper]

Cultivating a side gig while you work your primary job is the new American Dream. My regional sells cars wholesale during the day...he's told me I can do whatever I wat during downtime. I think I might try to write some....

[hammb]

Only way he would resign is if he had a very well paid P5 assistant position lined up in a good situation.
Even then he would only resign if he was getting the sum of all his money.
I don’t get the impression that he thinks he’s doing a bad job…more just a combination of unlucky and players not executing.

Agreed. He hammers it home in every postgame interview. We taught the players the right stuff. We told them exactly what to do in this situation. They just never do it the way we tell them to. They don't show up with the fire/intensity to play right, etc.

Doesn't seem at all able/willing to make the connection that players continually failing to do what they tell him means they're doing a poor job coaching. That guys unwilling to put in effort is either poor coaching or poor recruiting in finding guys that have that fire.

[maskedopining]

So maybe Huger resigns, they workout a buyout or he rides it out. So where do we go from there right? Before we even bring up names of potential coaches, I think the following is ripe for consideration:

Which schools have a D1 football program that have a basketball program that has done or is trending towards Mr. Frack’s vision from his gift?

Which schools have basketball programs have budgets similar to ours that have had sustained success? How are they using that budget? How do they measure where the spend is working and not working?

Start looking at candidates in that pool of schools to remove biases that may have led to bad decisions in the past.

It’s interesting to me that the last hire we made while Mr. Frack was still here was an assistant at a school that went from mid-major to competing for final fours and 1-seeds in the tournament.

[hammb]

It's tough (and time consuming) to really look at all the budgets and see where we fit compared to what Mr. Frack envisioned/wished. I also think that his vision for BG basketball was more ambitious than mine or anybody's could realistically be. Becoming Gonzaga would take a VERY long time and isl likely impossible. Butler moved up in conference after becoming a mid-major power. These are likely pipe dreams. Sustained success at this level is mostly a figment of our imaginations. But occasional success shouldn't be.

Even with football, thanks to the Frack money, we're paying Huger north of $400k. This is a salary range that is in line with what much of the MVC is paying their coaches, what most of C-USA is paying their coaches. It's more (and in some cases far more) than Horizon coaches are paid. More than almost every Sunbelt coach. Would be the highest paid OVC coach (more than doubling most of them). We can afford to have a MUCH better coach here even if everything remained static, just by giving Huger's money to somebody else.

But, I also think the Athletic Dept and Administration are sleeping on what BGSU basketball can still be. They'll lament the fact that we have zero attendance so we cannot afford to invest more than what the Frack money grants us (paying Huger's salary, his recruiting budget, an absurd equipment budget), without just looking at recent history. Huger was never a good coach, but was able to put up good seasons. Just 3 years ago we won 12 MAC games. In that season, down the stretch we were routinely putting 3500+ fans in the Stroh center for league games, even the weeknight games. The Toledo game was a5000 capacity crowd. We still just put north of 4000 in for the UT game, and to my surprise it was at least 70% BG fans; while we suck out loud. The current attendance numbers are awful because the product is awful with little hope. Put together back to back winning seasons fans will return. Put forth an NCAA tourney team and they'll flock to the Stroh. Start bringing in OOC opponents worth watching to go with those things and those tickets will be a commodity again.

[maskedopining]

100% agree with you. I think some of Mr. Frack’s publicly stated goals are far-fetched. But you bring up great points about the fan base. NWO supports great basketball. It’s a lot of fun to watch a likable team play and grow through the doldrums of an Ohio winter. Personally, I just want to watch a team that gets better throughout the season. And, even with some really bad coaching, we’ve have done some semblance of winning.

To clarify, the questions I raise are more for what I think competent administrators, in which I hope our new AD is, should be answering. I’m not expecting the fans to, not our job. I think those questions are important in the MAC, when you get a good coach, you win, they likely leave. Players that come here and pop to level beyond expectation are now more likely to leave. Being honest about this reality should allow someone to think differently about how BG does coaching contracts.

Most importantly, if you think you need a certain budget to compete, you better make damn sure that both the perceptions and realities about how that money is used are superb. Donors have plenty of good places and causes to put their money towards.

[pdt1081]

100% agree with you. I think some of Mr. Frack’s publicly stated goals are far-fetched. But you bring up great points about the fan base. NWO supports great basketball. It’s a lot of fun to watch a likable team play and grow through the doldrums of an Ohio winter. Personally, I just want to watch a team that gets better throughout the season. And, even with some really bad coaching, we’ve have done some semblance of winning.

The only challenge to his vision is NLI. He couldn't have anticipated that would become a thing in the NCAA. Basketball is a win and play again sport. Football, you can go undefeated for a decade and still get left out because "you didn't play anybody good." With basketball, as long as you keep winning, you keep playing. As long as there continues to be opportunities for players and coaches, in a winning environment, they'll keep coming back, and giving back as they are able to. Winning sells tickets better than any promotion ever will.

[notkithughes]

I like Mike Huger. He is personally engaging. However, I see no chance he resigns.
When I look at this basketball program, it is different than nearly every other sport at BGSU. I'm not talking about wins/losses, I'm talking about how the program engages with the community. Quite frankly, it doesn't. It seems to me, because of the Frack money, there is an almost elitist mentality that they don't have to be part of the Bowling Green community. The team doesn't volunteer and rarely do you see coaches or players at other athletic events. Occasionally you might see Huger at the Stroh for a women's game. Once this year I saw him at the Slater this year. Neither time did he stay long. On the flip side, Hallock, Tomic, Loeffler, Eigner and Fralick are regulars at other sporting events.
Further, while other programs made sacrifices during the pandemic, somehow he got an extension. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the stupidity of that decision but that is another conversation.
Other coaches, specifically Loeffler have supported their own programs financially. I've been critical of Loeffler on a lot of issues but he gets kudos for this. Unfortunatley, I've never heard of Huger giving a nickel to anyone.
Bottom line, he may be an alum, but he seems to be all about the money and what is best for himself. He certainly hasn't learned anything about himself as a coach and leader. Doubling down on flawed systems is his calling card.
He will stay until he is fired or until his contract expires. The question is, how much more damage will be done before BGSU finds the money to pay off the contract?

[Flipper]

Three years of Kingston...six years of Moose...that right there is a lot of damage

[pdt1081]

I like Mike Huger. He is personally engaging. However, I see no chance he resigns.
When I look at this basketball program, it is different than nearly every other sport at BGSU. I'm not talking about wins/losses, I'm talking about how the program engages with the community. Quite frankly, it doesn't. It seems to me, because of the Frack money, there is an almost elitist mentality that they don't have to be part of the Bowling Green community. The team doesn't volunteer and rarely do you see coaches or players at other athletic events. Occasionally you might see Huger at the Stroh for a women's game. Once this year I saw him at the Slater this year. Neither time did he stay long. On the flip side, Hallock, Tomic, Loeffler, Eigner and Fralick are regulars at other sporting events.
Further, while other programs made sacrifices during the pandemic, somehow he got an extension. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the stupidity of that decision but that is another conversation.
Other coaches, specifically Loeffler have supported their own programs financially. I've been critical of Loeffler on a lot of issues but he gets kudos for this. Unfortunatley, I've never heard of Huger giving a nickel to anyone.
Bottom line, he may be an alum, but he seems to be all about the money and what is best for himself. He certainly hasn't learned anything about himself as a coach and leader. Doubling down on flawed systems is his calling card.
He will stay until he is fired or until his contract expires. The question is, how much more damage will be done before BGSU finds the money to pay off the contract?

The basketball team did go to at least one elementary school to read to the kids.

Fairly certain every coach took a furlough during 2020 in exchange for a one year extension. Was the value of the furlough equal to the extension? Probably not. But it helped with department expenses at the time.

[nickm0110]

I'm not sure I can take another season like this one

So does anyone know if lightfoot redshirted or what is up with him? He disappeared from the bench for a bit but is back now! He looks like he could be a fun player to watch!

[maskedopining]

Three years of Kingston...six years of Moose...that right there is a lot of damage

This and letting 3 consecutive coaches (not counting the Jans blip) ride out contracts 2 years after they had completely lost their team and were flailing around trying to find a quick fix.

Customers know when you’re wasting their time. With BGSU basketball, they’ve wasted a lot of our time. Do something different with the next coaches contract that prevents this.

[guest44]

Bowling Green opens a 1.5 point underdog to a dreadful Miami team, in a compete rebuild, under a new coach. Yep it is that bad.

Huger isn’t walking away from that contract. Not a chance. Everything about his program has been naive to reality. Unfortunately, Moosbrugger was more naive and clueless and Huger’s agent took advantage. The first extension was publicly mentioned by Huger that was in the works, similar to what Loeffler has just done with Strack. It was announced weeks later. The Covid extension was signed something like 10 days after the MAC preseason poll came out in November with BGSU picked first. I believe that timing has correlation. But, let’s remember the Moosbrugger 4 year extension (LOL Rodney Rogers) was signed late August that same year, as soon as it looked obvious students would be back on campus, and student fees would be collected. I don’t know what other coaches got as far as Covid goes, but BGSU handed these two out to people they have and will need to fire.

Still very worth noting both of these extensions were not made public. BGSU loves to hand the media a story to make them look good. If BGSU was even remotely confident in Moosbrugger they would make this public. So what else happened regarding Moosbrugger? Was it just his dumpster fire handling of the baseball program? Or is it more? A four year contract extension for the AD was not made public, that AD was told to start looking less than two years later. That’s BGSU.

Edit, this was announced last night. Collected exactly 6 months pay from BGSU and then it’s announced. Incompetence. For those scoring at home. Con Man Hughes wins, Bob Moosbrugger wins, and Bowling Green athletics is left to clean it all up the trash pile they left behind. Incompetent contracts everywhere. Incompetent decision making everywhere.
https://twitter.com/bemoose/status/1627 ... Z9ZTkhzguA

[notkithughes]

I'm not sure I can take another season like this one

So does anyone know if lightfoot redshirted or what is up with him? He disappeared from the bench for a bit but is back now! He looks like he could be a fun player to watch!

His departure from the lineup was when the semester started. It screams "academically ineligible" to me.

[Flipper]

Before Larranaga we had 10 years of Weinert...had a couple of decent years, but certainly not enough to warrant a ten year run.

Throughout our history..it seems like we've been a program that is hesitant to move on from people who are liked