Re: NCAA era Program rankings-accomplishments only
You continue to not answer my questions. The reason is because they are coaches' philosophies, not the University's philosophy. Woog had an All-Minnesota policy. Lucia changed that. If it was the University's philosophy, my guess is that Lucia would have been fired. Universities don't like people coming in and trying to change their philosophies. If a new coach came in and recruited solely Canadians, and they won 3 titles in 4 years, they wouldn't be fired either. Or, why did Minnesota go after Dean Blais around the turn of the century? He was known for recruiting kids from all over. If Blais had decided to take the job, it would have conflicted with this mythological philosophy that you think Minnesota has. In sum, it's a coach's recruiting philosophy, not a University philosophy.
Mile High Hockey ---
You are so wrong. It is the "general" philosophy of UMn that if a coach can recruit mostly from the state of MN & in so doing, become successful, the university is MORE pleased than if the coach had recruited mostly from out of state & been equally successful.
I wouldn't even doubt it if "in general", the University holds its coaches to a lower standard when they see that the coach is making an effort to give Minnesota kids opportunities to play at the next level. Evidence of this "general" policy can be seen in every single sport at UMn as far as I can tell. W's Soccer, W's hockey, Ms & Ws CC, VB, Ms & Ws BB, Wr, fb, softball, baseball, Ms & Ws Golf, etc..
Is it tolerated when a coach starts to recruit outside of the state of MN?! Yes, sure it is, BUT, it is expected of that coach to then show a measureable amount of improvement on the field or court because of this outside talent being brought in.
Examples of this are the Australians & English golfers, the Brazilian VB player, the Finnish women's hockey player, the Austrian mens hockey player. It's also deemed quite acceptable to bring in recruits from Wisconsin, Iowa and the Dakotas, too.
But the one thing ALL of those out-state and foreign recruits had in common? They were beyond good, they were extraordinary athletes AND, they were ALWAYS in the minority on the roster. There were always more Minnesotans on every one of those teams than players from outside of MN combined.
The other thing about coaches & how they recruit at UMn. They do it because its the best thing for the state and program at the same time. Bringing in the BEST players from the Dakotas & Wisc to play hockey for us, keeps those players from playing for our conf opponents, and makes us good enough that other MN superstars grow up wanting nothing more than to be Gophers when they grow up.
Bringing in a few select superstar wrestlers from Iowa especially and also other parts of the country, makes UMn one of the best programs in the country, for the young wrestlers growing up in MN to strive to want to be a part of. And wrestling in the state of MN thrives, more than in most other states, in part because of the "general" philosophy of UMn & ALL of its coaches.
You make it sound like its only the coaches philosophy?! Well, in part that is true, but then its obviously the Universities policy to ONLY hire coaches who have similar philosophies to that of Mariucci.
You claim that if some coach came in and starting recruiting only Canadians, that they wouldn't get fired!?!
You are wrong!!!! They'd get fired first chance the school found to do so.
Minnesotans as a people, the whole state, "in general", likes seeing its local boys and gals stay home. Their families like their children to stay close to home. Their friends like it. Their fans like it. The fans of ALL Gopher sports teams like it and PREFER it, as long as it doesn't handicap the team too much.
And the more money involved in the sport, like with cbb and cfb, the more lax the University and the public and fans are when it comes to keeping to that "general" policy. More so with fb, because its gotten virtually impossible to field a competitive team with only MN players. The same is not so true with basketball, and never has been true with hockey.
Which leads me to answer your 2nd question.
On the flip side, my second question (which you never even addressed) addressed the issue that if you are going to praise a University for doing well under a coach's vision, and give that University extra credit, then you should also punish that University and deduct extra points when they do not meet standards.
Your idea that if you are going to praise a University for doing well under a coach's vision, and give that University extra credit, then you should also punish that University and deduct extra points when they do not meet standards is actually fine, I suppose?! And I am sure I know exactly what you are trying to claim, that Woog followed that philosophy and failed, so Lucia had to change the policy and then he succeeded, and that's WRONG, it is not accurate, its bullsh1t.
Woog did not fail. In many ways Woog was very successful. He took the Gophers to 4 straight FFs. And people simply were spoiled by the success of Broten, and felt finishing 2nd wasn't good enough. He missed the FF for 4 years straight before returning in back to back seasons, only to drop off again. And instead of trying to figure out what the complex issues might have been that all seemed to conspire against Woog to prevent his teams from winning a Natl Title, they lazily pointed at his policy of only recruiting Minnesotans as the problem. So Lucia brought in one North Dakotan, and an Austrian, and one more from out of state I think, that all were big factors in helping his win those 2 Back to Back Natl Titles.
Those 2 titles bought him a lot of grace from Gopher fans when HIS new philosophy, which was STILL to recruit primarily Minnesotans, backfired and he recruited SO INCREDIBLY WELL, that we suffered what the bluebloods in cbb suffer from, players coming in and doing the one and done thing, before they really even contribute in a significant way. I think that some of those guys left just a little too early. Each of them probably could have be well served to play one more year, but then again, most of them are doing well and making millions now in the NHL. But had he come up short those 2 seasons, and they were close games, he would have felt a lot more heat during those years the Gophers slumped.
See, the issue with Woog was complicated. There were plenty of good enough Minnesota boys that could have come to Minnesota who didn't for whatever reason, and had those players come, we probably would have had just as good a team, made up completely of Minnesotans. But when local boys choose to go out east, or up to UND or to UMD for whatever reason, maybe to get away from the parents or for an adventure or who knows, maybe their high school coach got snubbed by the Gophers and directs all his players away from Minnesota? But all Lucia did basically, was bring in a few out-staters to make up for the top notch in staters that went elsewhere. Once he got a couple of those outsiders to combine with a core of great upperclassmen players that WOOG had recruited & won those 2 titles, then he didn't have a problem getting all the top MN players wanting to come here, but you can only take so many, and if you go after these 3 first, these other 2 feel miffed and go somewhere else out of spite maybe, and maybe one of those end up being better than one of the 3 you went after first? And as Lucia found out, when you become so popular that you get the absolute best wanting to come here, and then they leave after just 1 or 2 ssns before even helping you to win a Natl Title first, then you are left scrambling to find replacements & it throws everything off.
Now we've recovered, we've got some young good guys who weren't quite ready to bail after last year, and hopefully they will get us a title this year before they bolt, and more than we'd like just might? If they don't leave, we'll be UBER good next year. But eventually these great players will leave, and where will Lucia look first to replace the players leaving?
He'll look for the best local talent, first. He'll get the best locals to fill our needs, and then look elsewhere if there is more space available, except of course when that superstar is found then you hope to get them and surround them with the best local talent.
Another thing about Woog, he was having to deal with in-state schools moving up to Div 1 and recruiting against him as well, which wasn't much of an issue for Mariucci or Broten. In fact, Broten was one of the people who really helped boost SCSU up to Div 1.
So go ahead and TRY to deduct points or punish UMn for its failures, but there are none really. Lucia's only made it to 4 FFs in his 12 years of coaching at UMn. Woog made it to 4 FFs in a row & had gotten UMn to its 6th FF in just his 10th or 11th year or something like that? So if Lucia gets UMn to the FF this year, he'll still be behind Woog in that dept, but yes, of course, Lucia's got those 2 Titles. Basically both coaches started out with a bang, and kind of had a hard time maintaining their momentum. Woog suffered also from players leaving for the NHL which was becoming more & more of an issue throughout his time at UMn.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Woog was super incredible the best ever, he had flaws and he made some mistakes that probably cost him a few more FFs and some Titles. Lucia has some flaws as well and has made some mistakes, too.
My guess is that since your school was one of the WORST when it came to recruiting overaged Canadians, that you have THAT as your motivation for trying to prove JDUBBS comments and ideas to be wrong. If he is right, then what does that say about your school? Eh?!
