Will Tennessee ever return to national contender status?

[DarkPhoenix]

Yikes. Simmons maybe, but much as I love Kyra, she's KJH age and in the hottest of hot seats. Shaky take here.

You are aware they just went in partnership with Food City to upgrade facilities, right? Thus the stupid long new name for the Tommy Bowl. Existing facilities are often listed by portal recruits, including RJ, as a major part of thier decision. Facilities ain't it.
I don’t follow all the rules, but isn’t sign on bonuses against the rules?


Once again we're conflating NIL with the upfront sign on bonus. My understanding is the initial lump sum is where we're falling behind, with donors hesitant to sink a chunk into an unproven hs prospect, no matter how highly rated. More willing to pony up for a proven portal signee, thus our success there. But this has nothing to do w NIL.

It's true actual NIL opportunities are probably going to happen for good, marketable players. But we have to get them here first, and apparently the pay for play fee is our problem.

 

[Bsport]

Tennessee women's basketball has won more championships and was more revelant than the men's program. I wonder why the administration didn't invest in the women's basketball program after the Pat Summit Era?

Because Harte was the AD, who fired Pat, and he wanted a cheap hire. No one wanted Holly, so she was cheap. Harte cared nothing for women's sports; look what he did at Florida State and Alabama. Fulmer hired Kellie because he was given a mandate by too many to hire Kellie. Also at that time Barnes was looking around at UCLA, so once again, we got a cheap hire and Barnes got a big bonus. It remains to be seen whether Danny White cares anything about women's sports.

 

[Majors]

If facilities were the only standard or metric, then we should have several more national championships. However, if you are measureing which university has the best facilities for women's basketball, we would problaby be among the top, if not the top, but would perfer the we hoist a NC trophy and new championship banner.

Just say the investment you’d like to see. This is a safe place. Because you’re going around about nothing except bricks and mortars = more championships.

 

[dapeak]

View attachment 598596

Bingo!

 

[Darth_Vol]

I seem to recall reading that Niele Ivey was one of the coaches Fulmer initially talked to about replacing Warlick, before he was voluntold to hire within the family.

Hmmm....

 

[NeedOrange]

Name another slow footed legend like larry bird is what I meant

Did you not see @knoxvol52 or @madtownvol post?
Are NBA players not players
You said "EVERY TIME"
Did you misspeak 'Coach'

 

[glv98]

I seem to recall reading that Niele Ivey was one of the coaches Fulmer initially talked to about replacing Y, before he was voluntold to hire within the family.

Hmmm....

Your shoulder ok? Your reaches right now are a little worrying. And at a time when there's so much in easy range you could go for. PF did reportedly approach NI but everyone and their grandma, including you, always knew Ivey was only going to take one job, the one she currently has. You know, the one at her alma mater that she was chosen and groomed for for years.

 

[Majors]

Up 16 at home.

 

[Majors]

I seem to recall reading that Niele Ivey was one of the coaches Fulmer initially talked to about replacing Warlick, before he was voluntold to hire within the family.

Hmmm....

“voluntold”

I’ll be working that into my word of the day

 

[volbound1700]

Because Harte was the AD, who fired Pat, and he wanted a cheap hire. No one wanted Holly, so she was cheap. Harte cared nothing for women's sports; look what he did at Florida State and Alabama. Fulmer hired Kellie because he was given a mandate by too many to hire Kellie. Also at that time Barnes was looking around at UCLA, so once again, we got a cheap hire and Barnes got a big bonus. It remains to be seen whether Danny White cares anything about women's sports.

I disagree that the Holly hiring was initially bad on paper. She was the hand picked successor by Pat Summit and basically grew up in the program. I thought it was the best pick but it clearly did not work out and showed after 2-3 seasons. We took too long to make the change.

I do agree that Harper isn't quite getting it done. She did provide a spark for the program but the last couple of seasons we seem to be slipping. I still want to hold judgement until the end of March, however.

 

[glv98]

Up 16 at home.

Yep, it was a very bad loss.

You can think Harper is not the right coach without making up s*it about coaches who were never coming here. In fact, it's a target rich environment right now. Why hurt credibility by crying over a coach who was never coming here 5 or 6 yrs ago? Ya'll getting lazy.

 

[glv98]

I do agree that Harper isn't quite getting it done. She did provide a spark for the program but the last couple of seasons we seem to be slipping. I still want to hold judgement until the end of March, however.

Injuries have just decimated really the last 3 yrs. KJH is clearly not a good enough coach nor recruiter to overcome injuries to Rae, Horston, TK and most especially Rickea.

The hope this year was that having RIckea plus the portal pieces would provide the wins that would change the recruiting narrative. And now that's blown to bits during the exact stretch of games that could have done that. Blame it on a simple twist of fate.

Basically, we're down to the last chance, and that's RJ coming back and us having a strong SEC season and a March run.

 

[Majors]

I disagree that the Holly hiring was initially bad on paper. She was the hand picked successor by Pat Summit and basically grew up in the program. I thought it was the best pick but it clearly did not work out and showed after 2-3 seasons. We took too long to make the change.

I do agree that Harper isn't quite getting it done. She did provide a spark for the program but the last couple of seasons we seem to be slipping. I still want to hold judgement until the end of March, however.

Holly was the best pick for the moment. She kept the team together, expectations together while Pat faded away.

 

[arkyvol]

The Lady Vols return to national contender status? Yeah, about the same time Vandy qualifies for the CFP.

 

[Rons1989]

The Lady Vols under Coach Harper will not reach the status from the Summit days. She has not been successful in recruiting top players out of the HoopsGurlz top 100. The last and only one out of the last couple of years stayed about two years and was never played more than two or three minutes per game and finally left the team to go elsewhere. Harper needs to put her husband in an administrative position and hire a top notch assistant coach such as Catchings that can recruit and contribute. Harper had done nothing to correct the high rate of turnovers as remember a season where there were 3 games of over 25 turnovers per game....want to correct turnovers simply apply the Coach Barnes method...in practice if a turnover is made the player must run from the floor all the way to the top of the arena and back....that stops turnovers. I Harper is permitted to remain, we are in for a run of seasons as a middle of the pack team in the conference. Either hire Parker or the current coach at Duke as her replacement.

I honestly wouldnt mind seeing what coach Yo could do here i think that would be a deadly hireshes young relentless recruiter n kids run thru a wall for her and with the tennessee brand she could do big things

 

[glv98]

I honestly wouldnt mind seeing what coach Yo could do here i think that would be a deadly hireshes young relentless recruiter n kids run thru a wall for her and with the tennessee brand she could do big things

Have you seen Ole Miss this year? So far Yo is an enormous amount of talk and not much results.

Not sure why we'd downgrade to coach that hasn't even had the results Harper has had. If we move on IMO it definitely needs to be a proven, experienced championship credentialed coach. No more up and comers. That's how we got where we are.

 

[Coach Jumper]

Have you seen Ole Miss this year? So far Yo is an enormous amount of talk and not much results.

Not sure why we'd downgrade to coach that hasn't even had the results Harper has had. If we move on IMO it definitely needs to be a proven, experienced championship credentialed coach. No more up and comers. That's how we got where we are.

On this, we agree

 

[brittannica]

Have you seen Ole Miss this year? So far Yo is an enormous amount of talk and not much results.

Not sure why we'd downgrade to coach that hasn't even had the results Harper has had. If we move on IMO it definitely needs to be a proven, experienced championship credentialed coach. No more up and comers. That's how we got where we are.

Completely agree. I think we swing for the fences and find someone accomplished who wants a new challenge, though I’m not sure who that is.

 

[volnationnj]

Have you seen Ole Miss this year? So far Yo is an enormous amount of talk and not much results.

Not sure why we'd downgrade to coach that hasn't even had the results Harper has had. If we move on IMO it definitely needs to be a proven, experienced championship credentialed coach. No more up and comers. That's how we got where we are.

This is the problem. There aren't any experienced, National championship credentialed coaches, in wcbb, that are or will be available.
There's only Dawn, Kim, Geno, Brenda, Tara and ... ?
That leaves uncovering a coach who has won maybe their conference championship. Will that be enough for LV fans ?

 

[arkyvol]

The most I see in the Lady Vols future is that they might occasionally make themselves an annoyance to one of the serious programs.

 

[Darth_Vol]

Your shoulder ok? Your reaches right now are a little worrying. And at a time when there's so much in easy range you could go for. PF did reportedly approach NI but everyone and their grandma, including you, always knew Ivey was only going to take one job, the one she currently has. You know, the one at her alma mater that she was chosen and groomed for for years.

Forgive me again oh smartest in the room. Yes, it was widely assumed Ivey would eventually be the successor at ND, but at that point there was ZERO evidence McGraw's departure was imminent. Would Ivey have considered one of the highest profile jobs in the sport in hand at that point with McGraw coming off a National Runner-up finish and no clear plans of walking away in sight?

Maybe, maybe not, we'll never know. But I'm not ready to say the chances were zero, even if you consider it common knowlege...

 

[Eric Viesturs]

No, but it helps explain why just saying "hire a big name" doesn't automatically guarantee success.

I agree. Might be interesting to review the whole list but off the top of my head (identifying who was a big name at time of most recent hire):
- Dawn Staley - probably yes
- Kim Mulkey - definitely yes
- Geno - definitely no
- Pat - definitely not

 

[Rons1989]

This is the problem. There aren't any experienced, National championship credentialed coaches, in wcbb, that are or will be available.
There's only Dawn, Kim, Geno, Brenda, Tara and ... ?
That leaves uncovering a coach who has won maybe their conference championship. Will that be enough for LV fans ?

Thats exactly my point lol who are we going to get lol Nielle ivey would be the only other person besides a coach Yo from ole miss n yes they struggling (even tho 6-2 not struggling) but they hunted now they not surprising anyone and they are talented just missing a superstar like we are ...we need someone who has AAU connection as this is one reason recruiting sucks kellie never recruited tennessee level players had no relationship on that circuit with elite players and idc who your assistants are the head coach is the closer when its all said and done sam and joy have gotten recruits on campus multiple times just based on relationships, but we have not closed the deal....thats on Kellie period

 

[creekdipper]

Maybe we can coax Gary or Muffet out of retirement.

 

[dapeak]

Quiet as Kept… Kara woulda been fine at Tennessee. USA Basketball ties and it’s clear she’s recruiting well at Duke. But Fulmer played in her face and ours.