[jacketree]

In the Pantheon of Stanford basketball coaches, Dawkins is sort of an above-average guy.  Probably just good enough not to get fired.  Mike Montgomery is the outlier in terms of performance and tenure. He was here for 18 years and while he won 70% of his games, even he really only had a 7 year run of anything approaching excellence. That run came 11 years into his tenure and frankly was fairly clouded with repeated late season underachievement.  (I am heavily biased toward conference titles and deep tournament runs. First round flame outs against Sienna don't do it for me. Nor does going undefeated most of the season only to choke in the second round against an 8 seed.) That's the best it's ever been.

Dallmar    .492
DiBiaso    .372
Davis        .496
Monty      .702
Johnson  .625
Dawkins  .581

2004 is when college basketball died for me.  Stanford threw up on its shoes; Monty left.  Tech played into April and rewarded Hewitt with a lifetime contract.  11 years later Stanford flails away while Tech is paying two coaches to suck at two different schools, both of whom will probably be fired at the end of this season.  It's gotten to the point where I can watch GT blow lead after lead after lead against the likes of Duke and Louisville, losing games by doing things like dribbling the ball of a foot and no longer care.  I didn't even realize Stanford played last night.  But it is really nice to have March back.  Once upon a time I would invent meetings in San Luis Obispo County during the tournament so I could listen to mid-day/mid-week games uninterrupted on the radio.

Flipping the channels last night I was going back and forth between distopian 1984 and distopian Trent Johnson (aka Sam the Eagle) on Pac12 Network. It was the 2008 Pac12 (or maybe still 10 at that point) tournament championship.  #11 Stanford with a furious comeback against #3 UCLA (which missed about half their free throws down the stretch) and 'probably the best coach in the country [who will be unemployed in a few years]' Ben Howland.  They were on a run of Final Fours at the time.  Completely forgot how that game turned out other than Stanford probably lost.  Mitch Johnson, Anthony Goods, Fred Washington, Lawrence Hill and the Lopez Brothers.  Game ended when with the clock ticking down and Stanford trailing by 3, Goods or Johnson (think it was Goods) inexplicably finds Lopez for an uncontested dunk. Trent is pissed, UCLA makes both free throws with 2 seconds left and Goods misses a long-distance runner off the rim at the buzzer.  Good times....good times.....

[jacketree]

In the Pantheon of Stanford basketball coaches, Dawkins is sort of an above-average guy.  Probably just good enough not to get fired.  Mike Montgomery is the outlier in terms of performance and tenure. He was here for 18 years and while he won 70% of his games, even he really only had a 7 year run of anything approaching excellence. That run came 11 years into his tenure and frankly was fairly clouded with repeated late season underachievement.  (I am heavily biased toward conference titles and deep tournament runs. First round flame outs against Sienna don't do it for me. Nor does going undefeated most of the season only to choke in the second round against an 8 seed.) That's the best it's ever been.

Dallmar    .492
DiBiaso    .372
Davis        .496
Monty      .702
Johnson  .625
Dawkins  .581

2004 is when college basketball died for me.  Stanford threw up on its shoes; Monty left.  Tech played into April and rewarded Hewitt with a lifetime contract.  11 years later Stanford flails away while Tech is paying two coaches to suck at two different schools, both of whom will probably be fired at the end of this season.  It's gotten to the point where I can watch GT blow lead after lead after lead against the likes of Duke and Louisville, losing games by doing things like dribbling the ball of a foot and no longer care.  I didn't even realize Stanford played last night.  But it is really nice to have March back.  Once upon a time I would invent meetings in San Luis Obispo County during the tournament so I could listen to mid-day/mid-week games uninterrupted on the radio.

Flipping the channels last night I was going back and forth between distopian 1984 and distopian Trent Johnson (aka Sam the Eagle) on Pac12 Network. It was the 2008 Pac12 (or maybe still 10 at that point) tournament championship.  #11 Stanford with a furious comeback against #3 UCLA (which missed about half their free throws down the stretch) and 'probably the best coach in the country [who will be unemployed in a few years]' Ben Howland.  They were on a run of Final Fours at the time.  Completely forgot how that game turned out other than Stanford probably lost.  Mitch Johnson, Anthony Goods, Fred Washington, Lawrence Hill and the Lopez Brothers.  Game ended when with the clock ticking down and Stanford trailing by 3, Goods or Johnson (think it was Goods) inexplicably finds Lopez for an uncontested dunk. Trent is pissed, UCLA makes both free throws with 2 seconds left and Goods misses a long-distance runner off the rim at the buzzer.  Good times....good times.....