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Four most important days in Dawkins' coaching career? - winflop - 02-26-2015

I know others think differently, but I think Johnny Dawkins' job depends on whether the team makes the tournament.  With two quality opponents, these games will likely determine whether that happens or not.
- If Stanford sweeps the Oregon schools, it is in unless it tanks at ASU and loses in the first round of the conf tournament (both of which are possible, ASU is no much improved from earlier this season)
- If Stanford drops both games, it has no chance
- If Stanford splits, it will have to win at ASU and at least make the tournament semis.  And even then it will be a crapshoot

Anybody know Rosco Allen's status?  I think that's a big deal because it gives the team the depth at 4/5 that allows them to play man more often without worrying about the bigs getting in foul trouble.  Seems that their zone defense this year hasn't been good at all.  Then again, over the past month little of their defense has been very good.

Re: Four most important days in Dawkins' coaching career? - BobK - 02-26-2015

Doubt there are many "others".  Of course only 1 or maybe 2 count. 

I think we must win 4 to make the Tourney and 2 would have to be this week and then 2 in the Pac12 tourney.    If we win 2 this week and beat ASU I'm not sure we make the tourney unless we still win 2 at the Pac 12 or get a first day bye and win 1.  So I think I agree with you winflop.

I doubt Rosco will play.  Would have heard by now

Re: Four most important days in Dawkins' coaching career? - CrazedZooChimp - 02-26-2015

Beat UA might make up for an extra bad loss if that somehow managed to happen.  With this team who knows what games they will or won't show up for...

Re: Four most important days in Dawkins' coaching career? - winflop - 02-26-2015

(02-26-2015, 09:57 AM)CrazedZooChimp link Wrote:Beat UA might make up for an extra bad loss if that somehow managed to happen.  With this team who knows what games they will or won't show up for...

If Stanford needs to win in Tucson to make the tournament they are already done.  The 'Cats are playing for a #1 seed, their younger players are stepping up (like we've seen from Humphrey in particular) and making them not only one of the most talented teams in the country but one of the deepest.

I think winning the other 3 games left and making the tournament semis will get them in.  But they have no real room for any slipups at this point as they are already on the bubble and have no other Top 50 RPI opponents other than the 'Cats unless they get to face them or Utah in the tournament semis.

Re: Four most important days in Dawkins' coaching career? - BobK - 02-26-2015

So my choice and my friend I'm texting with will coach against us tonight, Name your next Coach

Re: Four most important days in Dawkins' coaching career? - Papa John - 02-26-2015

Thanks for starting this topic, winflop, but I don't think that the remainder of this season is a litmus test for Johnny Dawkins.

Will 4-2 in its final six games be enough to get Stanford in? Who knows? If there are enough upsets in other conference tournaments a victory at UA may not be enough.

I was hoping that the team could at least earn a bye in the Pac-12 tournament, but that is looking unlikely.

Let's assume that UA and Utah are out of reach (mathematically possible, but the odds are greater that I will spontaneously combust).

Current #3 Oregon is 11-5 with games @Stanford and @OSU.
Current #4 Stanford is 8-6 with games vs OSU, vs UO, @ASU and @UA.
Current #5 UCLA is 9-7 with games vs WSU and vs U$C.

Let's assume that Stanford manages to beat OSU, UO and ASU and loses to UA. The Cardinal would be 11-7. That means that either (1) UO would need to lose @OSU or (2) UCLA would need to lose one of its final two games at home for Stanford to finish in the top four (UCLA holds the tiebreaker over Stanford and Stanford would hold the tiebreaker over UO). Someone with more math skills could do a better job of predicting, but I'm guessing the probability of Stanford earning a first-round bye in the Pac-12 tournament is less than 0.5.

February is the cruelest month.

Re: Four most important days in Dawkins' coaching career? - washingtonismoney - 02-26-2015

I agree that this won't be a litmus test: I'm pretty sure what we have in Dawkins, and that's a sort of buoyant averageness. We'll stay afloat but not really steaming ahead.

Short of disaster, I can't see Muir firing Dawkins anytime soon. Maybe an utter collapse would do it.

Re: Four most important days in Dawkins' coaching career? - Farm93 - 02-26-2015

Most outside of the Stanford community projected this season's record to be a notch or two below last season' record.

If Stanford went 4-2, then one could argue Stanford exceeded expectations even if the NIT was the post-season path.  Records in that 2-3 or 3-3 type realm would leave Stanford, more or less, in the realm of initial expectations.

If Dawkins finishes 1-4, then I hope Muir and others would really consider the future with Dawkins.  However I would like to think Stanford will not fall suffer through that type of finish.

Re: Four most important days in Dawkins' coaching career? - burger - 02-26-2015

Given the mediocre to poor level of play recently, especially on the road, it's hard to be optimistic about the upcoming stretch. So, the specualtion about the number of wins necessary to make the Tourney is very premature.  One thing that would help immensely is for Randle to get his shooting groove back.  I think that the brobdingnagian number of minutes played has worn him down--out of 5,000+ D-I players, Randle is 35th in minutes played per game.

As for Dawkins, I think that Muir was always going to give him a free pass for this year based (wrongly) on the Sweet 16 run last year.  He just got a contract extension last September.  That means that the earliest that we get a new coach is the end of the 2015-2016 season.

Re: Four most important days in Dawkins' coaching career? - Spiny_Norman - 02-26-2015

If Muir's evaluation includes attendance as well as the record, the trend is definitely toward "buoyant averageness" (I like that term, WIM).  Average Maples attendance in the Dawkins years:

2008-09 - 6722
2009-10 - 6598
2010-11 - 5634
2011-12 - 4891
2012-13 - 4530
2013-14 - 5111
2014-15 - 4920 (with 2 games remaining)

Re: Four most important days in Dawkins' coaching career? - washingtonismoney - 02-26-2015

(02-26-2015, 11:12 AM)Farm93 link Wrote:Most outside of the Stanford community projected this season's record to be a notch or two below last season' record.

So I think this is a flawed standard to judge Dawkins by, leaving aside whether it's accurate. It implies that if you replaced Dawkins with another coach you likely wouldn't see dramatically better results this season with this set of players.

But that's only one dimension of coaching, and it's driven by fans' tendency to overrate in-game tactical moves. But the far more important element of good coaching is the strategic stuff: development, building an overall structure, etc. So while this collection of players might not be able to do much better, a different, better coach installed two or three years ago would've nurtured a different set of players. (My concern is mostly about Chasson Randle, who has not developed into the well-rounded, efficient player he had the potential to become in his freshman year. Outside analysts loved him and Randle has not made great progress since then, necessarily.)

Re: Four most important days in Dawkins' coaching career? - BobK - 02-26-2015

Spiny that's not actual but paid attendance.  Plus students.  Actual much lower. 
WIM you do know that Randle might well become Stanford's all time leading scorer. 

Re: Four most important days in Dawkins' coaching career? - donkey687 - 02-26-2015

With 3 very skilled fifth year seniors, this team should be doing better in the Pac 12.  Yet again, Dawkins teams seem to struggle more as the year progresses. Last year was an exception and they finished strong. Hopefully that will happen again.

Re: Four most important days in Dawkins' coaching career? - washingtonismoney - 02-26-2015

(02-26-2015, 12:27 PM)BobK link Wrote:WIM you do know that Randle might well become Stanford's all time leading scorer.

More games these days though, correct?

Anyway, scoring is nice. Scoring *efficiently* is the name of the game, however. Randle is shooting 40% from the floor and 36% from the three point line. That's pretty mediocre.

Here's the KenPom offensive rankings for Stanford over the course of Randle's career:
14-15 (so far): 32
13-14: 66
12-13: 43
11-12: 104

Averagish, we'll say. This doesn't suggest a player who's contributing something the stats can't see very well, which leaves us with an low-to-average efficiency volume scorer. That's a helpful, but by no means spectacular player. Given Randle's debut season and his skill profile, I think that's disappointing -- he could've done much better.

...

Anyway, my main beef with Dawkins these days is his insistence on a pick-and-roll defensive scheme that sucks Nastic out to the perimeter for long periods, which is emphatically not his game.

Re: Four most important days in Dawkins' coaching career? - winflop - 02-26-2015

(02-26-2015, 12:28 PM)donkey687 link Wrote:Last year was an exception and they finished strong. Hopefully that will happen again.

The team did NOT finish strong last season.  It had a great first week in the NCAAs - the best in the Dawkins era - but that came after losing four of its previous seven games including a lackluster win against a WSU team they should have pummeled and an embarassing 25-point loss to UCLA in the conference semis.  And don't forget they also went out and pulled a complete no-show against Dayton in the Sweet 16 - a game they were very capable of winning.

The wins against New Mexico and Kansas were fantastic, but at the same time very frustrating because they showed what that team was capable of doing and yet that team finished one game above .500 in conference.


Re: Four most important days in Dawkins' coaching career? - BobK - 02-26-2015

Randle was just named first team All Academic All American.  The first since Dan Grunfeld at Stanford, 9 years ago. 

Re: Four most important days in Dawkins' coaching career? - washingtonismoney - 02-26-2015

(02-26-2015, 12:48 PM)winflop link Wrote:The wins against New Mexico and Kansas were fantastic, but at the same time very frustrating because they showed what that team was capable of doing and yet that team finished one game above .500 in conference.

I dunno how impressive those games were. New Mexico was KenPom's #31 team and we beat them by 5. A nice win, but hardly the type of transcendent performance that makes you think, "NOW WHERE WAS THAT ALL YEAR?"

Kansas was seemingly much more impressive, but they were missing the best player in the country.* That's a significant blow.

* (Look, Joel Embiid was the best player in the country last year and would've been the #1 pick if he weren't injured.)

Re: Four most important days in Dawkins' coaching career? - yvonne - 02-26-2015

Dawkins will keep his job because his boss wants him to keep his job. Muir called fans individually two years ago after the fourth straight losing season. He tried to persuade them that the team was "that close" to a winning season and NCAA bid. Last season, after what most of us would consider a minimum result for just keeping him, Muir gave him an extension. This current season is not bad enough for Muir to eat the remaining years on Dawkins' contract.

Re: Four most important days in Dawkins' coaching career? - 2 for 2028 - 02-26-2015

Was it ever made public how many years his contract was extended?

Re: Four most important days in Dawkins' coaching career? - Farm93 - 02-26-2015

I agree that Muir is not going to terminate Dawkins as long as Dawkins has seasons in the 18-12 (8-10) range or better.  Not sure it matters at this point.  Dawkins has been here long enough that returning the program back to the 25+ win per season level would have to be considered a long term, multi-year project.  Not sure many potentially great coaches would want that assignment with the recruiting restrictions at Stanford.

Dawkins may be a decent fit for the program's current reality as a team solidly in the middle third of the Pac.