A response to BC fans who think firing Skinner was the wrong decision

Boston College fired its most successful basketball coach in order to interview the head coaches at Cornell, Fairfield, and Northeastern.

Al Skinner went 247-165 at Boston College. The year before he was fired he went to 22-12, had a winning record in the ACC, and made the tournament. Steve Donahue went 146-138 at Cornell with a 78-62 record in the Ivy League.

And you’re convinced DeFilippo made the right choice in firing Skinner?

The reasons given in the article: Jackson and Paris wouldn’t have performed as well under Skinner, Donahue works harder at recruiting, and Donahue is active on the sideline during games.

I think Jackson and Sanders would have had excellent seasons under Skinner last year. Jackson was such a talented player that he would fit in any system at the college level. I give Donahue and his system a lot of credit for during Paris into a major contributor, but I don’t think we were better off with Paris and Jackson under Donahue’s system than Sanders and Jackson under Skinner’s.

Donahue works hard at recruiting, and that is great. I hope it starts paying off. I don’t care how hard Skinner worked at recruiting, the program brought in recruits who developed into stars. Skinner and his staff deserve credit for finding overlooked talent and developing those players.

Donahue is active on the sideline and Skinner was not, but those are just different coaching styles. A laid-back in-game coach is not the same as a lazy coach.

There were reasons to fire Skinner. He had only made the tournament once in his last three years. At the same time, Donahue’s stock was rising from making the tournament three years in a row.

But, I would have given Skinner another year to right the ship. I think last year’s team would have been tournament bound under Skinner.

I wasn’t opposed to the Skinner firing, but I was torn about it then and I’m torn about it now.

I hope the team improves under Donahue. I think he deserves four years to turn BC back into a tournament team. If he gets the right players, I think he can create a successful and exciting team.

Was his success w Cornell. Clearly the expectation was ‘just wait until this guy has some REAL talent’. The reason Cornell was so good (like other mid-majors) is that they had upperclassmen on the squad. Unfortunately, that means Donahue deserves 2 more years to make real progress. However, this is the ACC and he should be able to recruit higher caliber players thst are competitive right away. Although the Cornell story was adorable for the average middle-aged white guy on the couch, I’m not so sure it reasonates with many McDonald All-Americans.

Lots I disagree with here.

1). The offensive sets in the URI game were awful in the second half. I’ve never seen a coach move away from plays (screen and rolls) that work to plays that don’t (penetrate and kick to the corner). Awful coaching job on Monday. Also these kids can’t rebound or he’s not coaching it (my guess is the latter).

2). Daye Kaba and Johnnie Jackson were three star recruits, not four star. Neither wound up doing much after leaving BC. Kaba averaged 8 points a game for Marist after transferring from BC. Jackson would have been playing over Sean Marshall, Louis Hinnant or Dudley. Shamari Spears, good riddance. What a horrible attitude he had. Sorry I think Skinner made the right decision there.

3). If Ed Cooley and Bill Coen did all the recruiting and Skinner did nothing, why not hire one of them? If this is true their recruiting records are stronger than Donahue’s? Cooley is proving this at Providence, his one recruiting class is rated significantly higher than Donahue’s.

4). Let’s get off this no one came in for 2009-2010. If they brought someone in, it would have been one person and it wouldn’t have been a good player because they had no minutes to give out at that point.

5). Again, he could have had Heslip (who wanted to stay) and lost out on Noreen. I’d take that pair over Rubin and Moton every day of the week. Rubin disappeared in ACC play (in fact I’d argue his awful defense in conference play almost cost them some games last year, it was like they were playing 4 o 5 when he was in the game).

6). I love the fact how everyone talks about what a terrible situation Donahue walked into. The situation Skinner walked into in 1997 was far far worse. O’Brien trashed BC on his way out (something Skinner didn’t do). Most pundits thought it would take years for BC to recover. Skinner won the Big East in his fourth full year. At this point I’d be shocked if this group even made the post season under Donahue in that time frame from what I’ve seen. No Troy Bell type player is coming next year.

7). Again it’s not about Skinner, it’s about whether DeFlippo made the right choice in his replacement. You still can’t tell me this was the best choice, Cooley and Chris Mooney were much better choices. Instead of comparing Donahue to Skinner, compare him to the guys who he was up against for the job.

8). Bob Ryan proved that he was a Deflippo puppet in this hilarious piece from December 2010, http://www.boston.com/sports/columnists/bob_ryan_blog/2010/12/somethings_brew.html. In it Ryan writes, “I spoke with a long-time season ticket holder, a man with impeccable basketball credentials, and he said that he really hadn’t enjoyed coming to BC games for the last 10 years, even when they won.”

As someone who was a season ticket holder throughout that time period I can tell you that’s a load of BS. Better than 2000-2001? 2004-2005 20-0 start the NBA front line of 2005-2006. Give me a break. The Ryan articles were just part of the Gene PR campaign to make sure everyone supported his decision.