New faces on the benches this year in the B12.
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We have seen some coaching changes yet again this year in the B12, last year Smart and Prohm were added this year we have Jamie Dixon, Brad Uunderwood and Chris Beard. Jamie Dixon takes over a TCU program that has yet to take off in the conference, I was actually surprised Johnson never got it going there. He has a brand new fancy gym to help get some talent in Fort Worth. He was formly the coach at Pitt and did ok IMO had a few confence titles when they were in the big east i think he will help bring to TCU to being competitive in the league but I bet it takes a few years. Brad Underwood takes over OSU and I think is the hot hire. Brad is a KSU grad and former assistant to Martin. Brad just got done beating WVU in the NCAA tourny with SFA last year. I work in Brads home town and live about 7 miles from where he grew up and even tho he’s a KSU guy he’s a dam good coach and will have Stillwater as a tough place to play real fast. I think he has some talent with the Evans kid and could be a sleeper to make the dance this season. Beard will take over in Lubbock this season which seems to be a place that not many coaches outside of Knight want to stay, Smith got this team back to the dance last season and bolted for Memphis. They lost a ton of players and always seem to struggle to get talent. I dont know a whole lot about Beard beside the fact he was hired at UNLV only to resign a few weeks later to go to TT. He was an assistant under Knight ther and lead Little Rock AR to the first 30 win season in program history and an upset over Purdue in LYs NCAA tourny. I think He’s the biggest ? of the 3 new coaches. Hope we get some stability with our coaches I think it makes for a better conference but we now have 6 coaches with 5 years or less in their current programs.
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Dixon definitely inherited an experience roster. Adding a top 50 PG recruit doesn’t hurt either. I could see them being more competitive but he will still be working with a talent deficit.
Underwood’s style of play could be interesting, he has 1 excellent player in Evans & one pain in the a#$ (Forte). Zero post depth, zero post presence. Likely to struggle but I’m sure they’ll play lights out when we come to town. If it wasn’t for Evans I would say this is the worst Big-12 team on paper.
Beard actually has the best situation for this year. Team made the tourney, 5 Senior’s, 4 Junior’s on this team. Will be interesting to see how they look
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Just because I think KU needs a good rivalry with KSU again, I wish Underwood had ended up with them. I’m impressed with him, but sometimes mid major success doesn’t lead to power five success either.
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@wissoxfan83 Yes most of the KSU fans are pissed that they missed out and with how Weber is doing he could be gone within a year or 2. But some others didnt think he would come back with how Martin was pretty forced to leave or get fired for his tactics.
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@wissoxfan83
I agree. KSU should have taken Underwood when he was available; he is the future and Liberace is the past. Very difficult now for him to go to KSU when Weber gets canned, likely at the end of this season; typically coaches do not move from one conference team to another.
