[GK3]

Yeah, those takes are just really not comprehending the level of programs Smith has coached at and the challenges he’s overcome. This century the three programs have combined for four tournament appearances and one Sweet Sixteen. In that span, Stanford alone, despite the last eight lost years, has made eight tournaments and three Sweet Sixteens. He is coming into a far higher ceiling situation than he has had before. 

Smith’s median team in Pullman (#67) is just about exactly the quality of Stanford’s median team historically (#66, KenPom data set since 2002) despite Washington State being a far less successful program. That says a lot to me. 

If Smith continues the trend of getting more out of his teams than their norm, it will be a lot better than solid, hovering around .500, etc. He may not do it - sometimes past success does not predict future performance, sometimes water finds its level, etc. But if he stays on his trends he is a lot better than the relatively pessimistic voices in this thread are saying.

If you take my math of how Smith has done relative to his program norms and apply that to Stanford’s norm of #66, Smith’s level of overachievement at Columbia would translate to a median team of #42 at Stanford, his level of overachievement at USF would translate to a median team of #50 at Stanford, and his level of overachievement at Washington State would translate to a median team of #36 at Stanford. In other words, his past level of performance predicts that his median teams at Stanford would be tournament bubble teams. I think it is misanthropic to throw cold water on that. This is an extraordinarily exciting hire compared to what we usually hire and there is every reason to think we lucked into, via the implosion of the Pac-12 and consequent relegation of Washington State, a coach we can expect to make us relevant again.

P.S. As if the direction of travel in Smith’s coaching career weren’t remarkable enough, even the relative outlier in terms of degree of overachievement, USF, occurred in only three years. I think it is quite plausible that if he coached there as long as he coached at Columbia or Washington State he would have been even tighter bunched in terms of consistency relative to program norms at the three programs. Based on this history I would expect that in Smith’s first three years he shows he’s better than Haase but it’s really beyond that when one would expect Nerd Ball to really settle in at the level of overachievement Smith consistently delivers, which in our case would mean tournaments more often than not. I will be very happy if the pattern holds.

Well said and I agree with you.  There are those who just won't give him enough credit for what he has done.  Now he going to be coaching in the ACC, a top basketball conference and won't have to be selling talented guys on how much fun it will be to play in the Palouse in the Winter.  I think better players out of high school want to play in the best conferences.  Now that does NOT mean the NIL is unimportant.  I hope the Stanford Alumni who are capable of supporting our NIL, do so in spades.  I don't like it, but you either jump in with both feet or call it quits.

[GK3]

Yeah, those takes are just really not comprehending the level of programs Smith has coached at and the challenges he’s overcome. This century the three programs have combined for four tournament appearances and one Sweet Sixteen. In that span, Stanford alone, despite the last eight lost years, has made eight tournaments and three Sweet Sixteens. He is coming into a far higher ceiling situation than he has had before. 

Smith’s median team in Pullman (#67) is just about exactly the quality of Stanford’s median team historically (#66, KenPom data set since 2002) despite Washington State being a far less successful program. That says a lot to me. 

If Smith continues the trend of getting more out of his teams than their norm, it will be a lot better than solid, hovering around .500, etc. He may not do it - sometimes past success does not predict future performance, sometimes water finds its level, etc. But if he stays on his trends he is a lot better than the relatively pessimistic voices in this thread are saying.

If you take my math of how Smith has done relative to his program norms and apply that to Stanford’s norm of #66, Smith’s level of overachievement at Columbia would translate to a median team of #42 at Stanford, his level of overachievement at USF would translate to a median team of #50 at Stanford, and his level of overachievement at Washington State would translate to a median team of #36 at Stanford. In other words, his past level of performance predicts that his median teams at Stanford would be tournament bubble teams. I think it is misanthropic to throw cold water on that. This is an extraordinarily exciting hire compared to what we usually hire and there is every reason to think we lucked into, via the implosion of the Pac-12 and consequent relegation of Washington State, a coach we can expect to make us relevant again.

P.S. As if the direction of travel in Smith’s coaching career weren’t remarkable enough, even the relative outlier in terms of degree of overachievement, USF, occurred in only three years. I think it is quite plausible that if he coached there as long as he coached at Columbia or Washington State he would have been even tighter bunched in terms of consistency relative to program norms at the three programs. Based on this history I would expect that in Smith’s first three years he shows he’s better than Haase but it’s really beyond that when one would expect Nerd Ball to really settle in at the level of overachievement Smith consistently delivers, which in our case would mean tournaments more often than not. I will be very happy if the pattern holds.

Well said and I agree with you.  There are those who just won't give him enough credit for what he has done.  Now he going to be coaching in the ACC, a top basketball conference and won't have to be selling talented guys on how much fun it will be to play in the Palouse in the Winter.  I think better players out of high school want to play in the best conferences.  Now that does NOT mean the NIL is unimportant.  I hope the Stanford Alumni who are capable of supporting our NIL, do so in spades.  I don't like it, but you either jump in with both feet or call it quits.