I was as shocked as most yesterday after reading ADMT’s tweet. After processing, I wanted to share my theory.
I’ll start with a couple key assertions:
1) MT is a highly intelligent, capable and driven man. He attended Westminster Academy in Atlanta for high school, went to UNC as a Morehead Scholar, and then on to Harvard Business School. This makes him more intelligent than 98% of the population.
2) MT wants to succeed in turning VU into an athletics powerhouse. I don’t think he takes a hard left turn while on the road to possibly being NBA commissioner if he a) didn’t want the job badly; and b) think he could be successful.
Now he finds himself in a situation where he’s got an underperforming coach in the most important revenue sport. The obvious answer is to fire him and move on. But he doesn’t. Why?
I think there are several things at work here:
1) Not having a confirmed chancellor makes it hard to get any firm commitment on his athletic strategy, assuming he has one. (if he doesn’t m, he will in a matter of months according to his previously mentioned timeline.) Any athletic strategy designed to turn VU into an athletic powerhouse would be ambitious, and look nothing like what we’re all used to as fans. Major stadium reno or rebuild, huge upgrade in facilities, and big investments in top notch coaches and staffs. One cannot pull this off without a major capital campaign. A major capital campaign cannot kickoff without a confirmed chancellor’s approval.
2) No head coach capable of fitting MT’s strategy to turn around VU athletics would ever commit to coaching VU with firm commitments in place. Before you say James Franklin, let me remind you of the excellent post by OP, which basically says that hire was pure luck (and I agree!) If you’re targeting a proven HC (fleck, etc), you cannot expect them to accept without a major plan to invest in the program — no pro own coach would accept this job “on the come.”
So in the absence of any truth coming out of VU, we have to create a narrative to explain the tweet. Here’s mine.
After the UNLV loss, MT (either directly or via consultants) puts out feelers to possible candidates. He has a conversation or a few with top flight candidates (or likely their agents), and they all tell him the same thing: where’s the commitment? When left with a choice between rolling the dice on an unproven coach and staying with Mason, he makes the choice to stick with the devil he knows. This buys him another year to get his strategy approved by a sitting chancellor, and hopefully a capital campaign in progress by the fall. This positions him well to make a run at a program-changing hire. Not an unproven assistant, but a legit proven HC who can win wherever he has proper athletic dept support. Firing Mason and replacing with the best he can get is likely to not work any better, at least not for 2-3 years.
While it hurts us fans to know that MT made a decision that will guarantee another failure of a season in 2020, I believe he’s playing the long game here. He made a choice which puts him in the best position to succeed at his goal of turning VU into an athletics powerhouse.
Now I’m bracing myself for the backlash
I’ll start with a couple key assertions:
1) MT is a highly intelligent, capable and driven man. He attended Westminster Academy in Atlanta for high school, went to UNC as a Morehead Scholar, and then on to Harvard Business School. This makes him more intelligent than 98% of the population.
2) MT wants to succeed in turning VU into an athletics powerhouse. I don’t think he takes a hard left turn while on the road to possibly being NBA commissioner if he a) didn’t want the job badly; and b) think he could be successful.
Now he finds himself in a situation where he’s got an underperforming coach in the most important revenue sport. The obvious answer is to fire him and move on. But he doesn’t. Why?
I think there are several things at work here:
1) Not having a confirmed chancellor makes it hard to get any firm commitment on his athletic strategy, assuming he has one. (if he doesn’t m, he will in a matter of months according to his previously mentioned timeline.) Any athletic strategy designed to turn VU into an athletic powerhouse would be ambitious, and look nothing like what we’re all used to as fans. Major stadium reno or rebuild, huge upgrade in facilities, and big investments in top notch coaches and staffs. One cannot pull this off without a major capital campaign. A major capital campaign cannot kickoff without a confirmed chancellor’s approval.
2) No head coach capable of fitting MT’s strategy to turn around VU athletics would ever commit to coaching VU with firm commitments in place. Before you say James Franklin, let me remind you of the excellent post by OP, which basically says that hire was pure luck (and I agree!) If you’re targeting a proven HC (fleck, etc), you cannot expect them to accept without a major plan to invest in the program — no pro own coach would accept this job “on the come.”
So in the absence of any truth coming out of VU, we have to create a narrative to explain the tweet. Here’s mine.
After the UNLV loss, MT (either directly or via consultants) puts out feelers to possible candidates. He has a conversation or a few with top flight candidates (or likely their agents), and they all tell him the same thing: where’s the commitment? When left with a choice between rolling the dice on an unproven coach and staying with Mason, he makes the choice to stick with the devil he knows. This buys him another year to get his strategy approved by a sitting chancellor, and hopefully a capital campaign in progress by the fall. This positions him well to make a run at a program-changing hire. Not an unproven assistant, but a legit proven HC who can win wherever he has proper athletic dept support. Firing Mason and replacing with the best he can get is likely to not work any better, at least not for 2-3 years.
While it hurts us fans to know that MT made a decision that will guarantee another failure of a season in 2020, I believe he’s playing the long game here. He made a choice which puts him in the best position to succeed at his goal of turning VU into an athletics powerhouse.
Now I’m bracing myself for the backlash
