garvin -- After getting my head bitten off for my post-Fiesta effort to justify Shaw's late-game play-calling, and in light of my late-season leap from the "give Dawkins a chance" bandwagon to the "he's gotta go" bandwagon [i.e., "I was for him before I was against him"], I wasn't going to get into this discussion. But your consistency in dumping on Dawkins -- NIT results notwithstanding -- has prompted me to reconsider.
(03-31-2012, 08:53 AM)garvin link Wrote:Despite my negative outlook on Dawkins, I am a hard-core Stanford basketball fan. I routinely stay up until 1 or 2 a.m. to watch the games, and my reward frequently is to see the team fold in the final five minutes. But most fans, at Stanford or anywhere else, are not hard-core. They won't stick around through three awful seasons. If you think attendance at Duke games wouldn't have thinned out after three seasons like the ones Dawkins posted, or that Duke fans would be ecstatic after their team collapsed down the stretch against Syracuse, I believe you are wildly mistaken.
After four seasons, Monty had won 80 games; after four seasons, Dawkins has won 75. Reasonably close. After four seasons, Monty was 1-3 in post-season tournaments, with a somewhat embarrassing loss to Siena; after four seasons, Dawkins has won an NIT title. It took Monty 10 years to win a first-round NCAA game; Dawkins hasn't won one yet [obviously], but I'm just sayin'...
Sure Dawkins took over a program that had had a reasonable amount of post-season success for many years before he got there [and Monty didn't], but all of those players [except Landry Fields] were gone. Indeed, it isn't crazy to argue that the talent Monty had during his first four years was close to being on par with what Dawkins has had -- including Todd Lichti [still in the record books], Terry Taylor and Kenny Ammann [pretty decent shooters], Greg Butler [I think he played a couple years in the NBA], and, of course, Adam Keefe [in the record books AND played in the NBA].
My point? Most people would say that Monty was a pretty good coach and good for the Stanford program -- and, indeed, at least subconsciously, if not expressly, sets the standard by which Dawkins is being measured. At this point in his tenure, I thinnk Dawkins can make a case that he's doing as well as -- and, perhaps, even better -- than Monty at the same point in his career. Sure, the trajectory may not continue, but, if he isn't given 10 years to win his first NCAA tourney game, he won't have gotten the opportunity that Monty had.
As for crowd size, I think you are entirely correct about interest level for non-hard-core fans, but there is another factor that needs to be considered. "Back in the day," the pre-season exhibition [i.e., non-counting] games were free, and the ticket prices for at least a couple of the early non-conference games -- i.e., the Bemidji States, etc. -- were nearly so. Now? Something like $20. And, of course, there's the whole "seat license" thing for season-ticket holders.
I do think, to the extent the schedule isn't already locked in for next season -- and it may very well be -- it would be a good idea to schedule some opponents recognized as being tough/legitimate for next season's early non-conference season. One or two "good wins" over decent teams, even if balance by a couple of "good losses" going into Pac-12 play, would, imho, be much better for our resume [and be more likely to generate local interest and enhance home attendance] than a 15-0 cream-puff non-conference record. Indeed, we should look at Pac-12 play as the "cream-puff" part of the schedule.
