Coach Howard's Future
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There has been some interesting points lately about Howard. They have been scattered through threads so I figured to make it a it’s own thread.
Howard came to Kansas as an excellent recruiter, specifically in the Illinois/Chicago area. He didn’t bring much else as far as Xs and Os are concerned.
Since he has been here, he has nabbed one premier recruit in Alexander and has fallen short on many other recruits. I realize we are dealing with 17 year olds and their decisions are unpredictable. To put the blame solely on Howard might be unfair, but you can’t ignore his lack luster results.
Top that off with the not informing Self on the drug use, does he have a future at KU? How much longer will he be here? And what does he bring to the table?
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He brings that he has a loyal head coach.
Other than that, he’s our main recruiter with Bolden so we should be building him up. You know Bolden reads us daily, right? I think his pseudo is red rooster…
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@ParisHawk Noooo Red Rooster is someone else entirely.
But does Bolden really read KU Buckets and or KU sports?
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I think we have to be careful what we wish for because if Howard ships out, who will replace him?
Since the job is all about sales… the guy below will be a prime candidate, after he settles on his fraud case…
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@Lulufulu Sorry, I forgot the “all fiction” disclaimer - but this is a public forum on the Internet and we should all remember that anyone can read this stuff.
If we diss Howard seriously, what’s to stop pro-UK folks who have Bolden’s ear to repeat what we say: “hey man, how can you even listen to this … who even KU fans don’t respect?”
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I like Coach Howard. He may not be the X’s and O’s guy or the guy who can really develop talent like Manning but he seems to be loved by the team and I think his ability as a recruiter will pay off over time. Alexander was a huge get. It just didn’t pan out. He will help land other top shelf talent and my bet is it will happen sooner than later.
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Coach Howard’s performance is hard to assess IMHO.
Pro: He brought a highly ranked player in Alexander.
Con: Alexander did not pan out.
Pro: he brought some youth and energy to the staff.
Con: He got caught with a small amount of pot.
Pro: He dealt with the legal fall out prudently.
Con: Self appeared to claim not to have been informed about it by Howard.
Pro: He helped coach a team that won the WUGs.
Con: He was not kept home to recruit, while the team went to Korea.
But the biggest factor making it hard to assess Coach Howard’s performance as a recruiter is whether or not there is a real recruiting embargo making it difficult for KU to sign recruits not informally aligned with adidas.
To me, the jury is still out.
Time will tell, though.
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With the latest on Bolden being courted by footballing Bama here’s my opinion: if Snacks strikes out yet again he will be 0-2 against football school Bama. We can’t seriously consider keeping this “recruiting superstar” around if he’s losing out to the football boys. If Bolden picks Duke that’s fine. I expect to win some and lose some against them. Against Bama or Auburn or Texas A&M… Not unless it’s a home grown kid.
I get that he picked up Cliff but can we justify his job with one overrated pick up? If Cliff would have been the next LeBron he would have had a pass for another year. But he brought us Ryan Leaf. It’s time for Howard to show us why Self brought him here…
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Even Wichita State competes well with 'bama recruiting! It does look bad.
I just don’t understand recruiting. I don’t understand… we offer players left and right, but we focus on only a few. What if two or three of the lower-ranked guys we offered all decide to pick Kansas right now? Will Self let it go down? I think not. I think there are stipulations to these offers and we leave many recruits in the air, circling the airport, until we know about elites we offered, who typically don’t decide until spring. If it goes this way then I understand why we rarely get recruits to commit in the fall.
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I think Howard is a very overrated recuiter. He made his name at Texas A&M under Gillespie, followed him to Kentucky, but wasn’t a good enough recruiter for Cal to retain, and didn’t bring in top talent to Illinois. This is his 3rd recruiting season at KU and he has only landed 1 recruit so far, that is not good. He also hasn’t helped KU’s guards elevate their play significantly.
To me, the arrest and suspension is the biggest deal though. What he was arrested for isn’t a big issue, although I’m sure there’s parents of kids he’s recruiting that doesn’t sit well with, but the bigger issue is that did not disclose the arrest to Self when it happened. KU was 20-4 before the suspension and was barely an above .500 team after the suspension. People can spin that however they want, but that was absolutely as big a distraction as Cliff’s situation was to the team.
Snacks not disclosing the arrest is absolutely being used against him in recuiting by other programs and is damaging his ability to land talent because it’s easy for other coaches to attack Howard’s honesty.
One other thing that’s very telling me about where Howard stands on the totem pole is that Self didn’t leave him in the US to recruit. To me, that says Self views Howard as the weakest recruiter on staff and I would feel much better about Bolden if Townsend was his lead recruiter, especially now that Alabama is getting involved and the same guy that sent Randle to Kentucky and Ferguson to Alabama is also the same guy involved with Bolden and has very strong ties to Avery Johnson.
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It’s interesting that Alexander is being held up as some sort of recruiting failure. Cliff could have gone ANYWHERE he wanted to go. Bad recruiter? No.
Frankly, the only thing that bugs me about Howard is that whenever a team picture is taken, he’s just a little too much in the front and center. Kansas seems obviously to be a resume-padding job with photos to back it up.
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Who might replace Snacks?
What a huge boost this would give our recruiting power.
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@DanR I agree 100%. I don’t think that the way things ended up for Alexander says anything about Howard’s recruiting. We won a hotly contested recruiting battle…as you say everyone wanted him. Also, we will never know if we would be viewing Alexander’s success differently if he would have been able to play at the end of the season.
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Amen! What top recruit wouldn’t open his door for “the Truth?”
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“What if two or three of the lower-ranked guys we offered all decide to pick Kansas right now? Will Self let it go down? I think not”
Now we offered Romello White, 116th best player in the land -
This is where I scratch my head. Do we put kids like this on hold while we try to land elite talent? And doesn’t it say something to elites when Self gives this recruit the same love as they get?
I don’t even pretend to understand the recruit process. My guess is you need to be one helluva good poker player… seems to be a fit for the Riverboat Gambler!
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Romello White is also considering Alabama. My guess is this is Snacks attempt at stealing one from them. I just hope someone explains to him that striking out on top 30s and picking up triple digits doesn’t really get back at AJ and Bama.
