(01-19-2020 09:43 AM)truEMU07 Wrote:  By my rough calculations, to fire him now would roughly cost $455,300. (Next year’s salary + what’s still owed for this season)

No matter what noise we make, or how much one blames Weatherbee for the current basketball situation, remember:

1) Weatherbee didn’t give Murphy the contract with the 20 wins clause. That was a creation that came from either Gragg or Lyke. I’d assume Gragg who hired Murphy to begin with.
2) Unlike spending money on tangible things like the Championship Building Plan, firing Murphy would be paying him not to coach. That’s a tough sell for anyone at a university in Eastern’s financial situation.

I don’t think SW has been perfect, and I’d like to think he’d be out trying to get money from frustrated MBB and other alumni that could help with the cost of getting rid of Murphy ASAP.

Ohio was in a similar situation last year with Saul Phillips. They couldn’t afford to fire him and had to let him be a lame duck coach all year. Now they have a coach that’s actually turning them around. It sucks to say, but unless some big donors step up, it’s not going to be getting better because of a change in the head coaching seat.

True I agree that firing Rob right now would be unwise. The obvious interim selection, assistant head coach Kevin Mondro seems terribly detached during games, appearing clueless to me. He also is in charge of the "Bigs", so you can credit him with the less than superlative improvements of JT4, Toure, King, Madray, etc... Matt Cline clearly is the most engaged assistant but I question the coaching chemistry if the "young guy" were put in charge. As bad as we are now, I could see an absolute dumpster fire if we let the head coach go now.

Rob has some skill sets, he presents value as either a Power 5 assistant or a D2 head coach. If we release him at season end, we afford him a better opportunity to secure such a position and the compensation for such a job commensurately reduces our financial obligation to him. He is a talented individual, unfortunately he no longer fits as the head basketball coach of EMU.

I realize that Ohio gutted it out last year with Phillips. They, however, won six MAC games, which might be six more than EMU wins this year. They now are in a total rebuild position this season, in fact I would not be surprised if their current win total of two (vs EMU) remains static for the remainder of the season. They are really bad!

EMU is in a different place. We have one roster player with expiring eligibility, Toure. This roster has some talent, Groce, Morgan and Montero are clearly MAC capable players. While a new coach would have an incredibly senior laden roster, next season would provide him a soft landing, not unlike Murphy's situation in his first year. He then could thus get a head start on recruiting and building the program to his specification.

(01-19-2020 06:47 PM)Jerry Weaver Wrote:  

(01-19-2020 09:43 AM)truEMU07 Wrote:  By my rough calculations, to fire him now would roughly cost $455,300. (Next year’s salary + what’s still owed for this season)

No matter what noise we make, or how much one blames Weatherbee for the current basketball situation, remember:

1) Weatherbee didn’t give Murphy the contract with the 20 wins clause. That was a creation that came from either Gragg or Lyke. I’d assume Gragg who hired Murphy to begin with.
2) Unlike spending money on tangible things like the Championship Building Plan, firing Murphy would be paying him not to coach. That’s a tough sell for anyone at a university in Eastern’s financial situation.

I don’t think SW has been perfect, and I’d like to think he’d be out trying to get money from frustrated MBB and other alumni that could help with the cost of getting rid of Murphy ASAP.

Ohio was in a similar situation last year with Saul Phillips. They couldn’t afford to fire him and had to let him be a lame duck coach all year. Now they have a coach that’s actually turning them around. It sucks to say, but unless some big donors step up, it’s not going to be getting better because of a change in the head coaching seat.

True I agree that firing Rob right now would be unwise. The obvious interim selection, assistant head coach Kevin Mondro seems terribly detached during games, appearing clueless to me. He also is in charge of the "Bigs", so you can credit him with the less than superlative improvements of JT4, Toure, King, Madray, etc... Matt Cline clearly is the most engaged assistant but I question the coaching chemistry if the "young guy" were put in charge. As bad as we are now, I could see an absolute dumpster fire if we let the head coach go now.

Rob has some skill sets, he presents value as either a Power 5 assistant or a D2 head coach. If we release him at season end, we afford him a better opportunity to secure such a position and the compensation for such a job commensurately reduces our financial obligation to him. He is a talented individual, unfortunately he no longer fits as the head basketball coach of EMU.

I realize that Ohio gutted it out last year with Phillips. They, however, won six MAC games, which might be six more than EMU wins this year. They now are in a total rebuild position this season, in fact I would not be surprised if their current win total of two (vs EMU) remains static for the remainder of the season. They are really bad!

EMU is in a different place. We have one roster player with expiring eligibility, Toure. This roster has some talent, Groce, Morgan and Montero are clearly MAC capable players. While a new coach would have an incredibly senior laden roster, next season would provide him a soft landing, not unlike Murphy's situation in his first year. He then could thus get a head start on recruiting and building the program to his specification.

I agree with this! I want Earl Boykins! We need some excitement within the program! John Bowler doesn't have the cache we need unfortunately!

We have at least two scholies to give Toure and Parris who I wonder why we brought him back? I've said this before but I think we will see 3-4 players in the 2020 class probably all jucos. Definitely one will be a replacement for Toure, probably a PG and maybe another scorer and or another big. I expect Murphy back and he will try to save his job.

We are all disappointed so far in the conference season and some of these losses have been close. This team still like the football team has done needs to learn to put together two solid halves. Love the steals but we generally give it right back on turnovers.

All in all conference play will be a painful learning experience. Just want to see better basic basketball passing, take the 2 not the 3 and improve free throw shooting and getting better every minute at the 2-3 or 1-3-1.

(01-20-2020 09:33 AM)emu79 Wrote:  We have at least two scholies to give Toure and Parris who I wonder why we brought him back? I've said this before but I think we will see 3-4 players in the 2020 class probably all jucos. Definitely one will be a replacement for Toure, probably a PG and maybe another scorer and or another big. I expect Murphy back and he will try to save his job.

We are all disappointed so far in the conference season and some of these losses have been close. This team still like the football team has done needs to learn to put together two solid halves. Love the steals but we generally give it right back on turnovers.

All in all conference play will be a painful learning experience. Just want to see better basic basketball passing, take the 2 not the 3 and improve free throw shooting and getting better every minute at the 2-3 or 1-3-1.

Hopefully a coaching change happens before next season. The change is not based on one bad season, rather, it's because of about 7 years of poor performance.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-J727AZ using Tapatalk

(01-20-2020 10:23 AM)TheWoodenNickle Wrote:  

(01-20-2020 09:33 AM)emu79 Wrote:  We have at least two scholies to give Toure and Parris who I wonder why we brought him back? I've said this before but I think we will see 3-4 players in the 2020 class probably all jucos. Definitely one will be a replacement for Toure, probably a PG and maybe another scorer and or another big. I expect Murphy back and he will try to save his job.

We are all disappointed so far in the conference season and some of these losses have been close. This team still like the football team has done needs to learn to put together two solid halves. Love the steals but we generally give it right back on turnovers.

All in all conference play will be a painful learning experience. Just want to see better basic basketball passing, take the 2 not the 3 and improve free throw shooting and getting better every minute at the 2-3 or 1-3-1.

Hopefully a coaching change happens before next season. The change is not based on one bad season, rather, it's because of about 7 years of poor performance.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-J727AZ using Tapatalk

Maybe we can have a pop can drive? kidding aside it boils down to the $$$

(01-19-2020 10:01 AM)Bob Wickersham Wrote:  You have to factor in how much money you will lose if there is no coaching change after a disastrous 19-20 season. With no hope and a team predicted to come in last place, with the same lame duck coach, absolutely no one will care about EMU basketball. The whole university would take a big hit and I don't know what $$$ value you would attach to that.

If our program depended on any of that it would have folded decades ago.

(01-20-2020 12:54 PM)Block_E Wrote:  

(01-19-2020 10:01 AM)Bob Wickersham Wrote:  You have to factor in how much money you will lose if there is no coaching change after a disastrous 19-20 season. With no hope and a team predicted to come in last place, with the same lame duck coach, absolutely no one will care about EMU basketball. The whole university would take a big hit and I don't know what $$$ value you would attach to that.

If our program depended on any of that it would have folded decades ago.

I’m with Bob on this one, we absolutely can not let Murphy coach EMU Basketball after this season; however, since S.W. was responsible for extending his contract, Murphy will be back next year unless some donor buys out his contract.

I have been to one game this year but I can not support this direction anymore....EMU basketball is dead right now.

I will sitting in my Boone seat not game. No telling how long they will let me sit there before they close it off.

(01-18-2020 07:46 PM)Bob Wickersham Wrote:  

(01-18-2020 04:11 PM)Luckeyone Wrote:  This was a good loss for EMU basketball trust me. We need to take a step backwards in order to move forward with another coach.

Agree. Wins do not help EMU basketball at this point. It has been a rough 9 years. Jeezus did this bad coach have a long leash. Nowhere else in America would a coach performing at this level be able to keep his job for this long.

Except in DeKalb IL.

(01-21-2020 04:58 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  

(01-18-2020 07:46 PM)Bob Wickersham Wrote:  

(01-18-2020 04:11 PM)Luckeyone Wrote:  This was a good loss for EMU basketball trust me. We need to take a step backwards in order to move forward with another coach.

Agree. Wins do not help EMU basketball at this point. It has been a rough 9 years. Jeezus did this bad coach have a long leash. Nowhere else in America would a coach performing at this level be able to keep his job for this long.

Except in DeKalb IL.

007 you are correct, the M&M guys (Murphy and Montgomery) are clearly the two worst coaches in the conference and their longevity would appear to baffle even the most casual observer.