Welcome - Paul Mills

[Aargh]

An animated coach builds an animated team. An animated coach builds an animated fan base.

An emotionless coach builds an emotionless team, although the team overcame that late in the season. An emotionless coach builds an emotionless fan base. It takes a coach and team with some fire to make CKA a place where other teams fear playing.

[ShockerFever]

An animated coach builds an animated team. An animated coach builds an animated fan base.

An emotionless coach builds an emotionless team, although the team overcame that late in the season. An emotionless coach builds an emotionless fan base. It takes a coach and team with some fire to make CKA a place where other teams fear playing.

Winning also helps.

[WstateU]

This was posted previously (I can’t locate it); take the time to listen if you want to learn more about Paul Mills. I see why ADKS hired him…

ShockRef knows…

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas...=1000514194302

[NCAABound]

We hired a proven program builder from a small school who has shown he can advance in the dance.

He has a chip on his shoulder, throws tirades, brings fire to every game, has an ultra-competitive personality, is hated by opposing teams' fans, and is viewed as a bit of a *****.

This is the perfect hire.

I would say Scott Sutton built that program. He came in after a couple of rough years and slowly brought it back.

[Shock Top]

The last time Sutton made the tournament was 2007-08

[The Mad Hatter]

I would say Scott Sutton built that program. He came in after a couple of rough years and slowly brought it back.

The year before Sutton took over they won their conference and had winning records both years under Barry Hinson (before he left for SWMO). Before Hinson was Bill Self. Self was the one who inherited a team coming off of two bad seasons (8 wins each of the last two years before Self's arrival) and had to rebuild.

In fact, despite being the overall wins leader at ORU, Sutton inherited a program that had won the conference the previous season and had 4 straight winning seasons, but passed on the program to Mills after only winning 8 games his final season.

[Atxshoxfan]

How is Hillary tied to your bowel movements

I take a Hillery every morning.

[another shocker]

He was in the mix for the Texas Tech job.

I don't remember anybody calling MT #1 up-and-coming coach prospect, I heard him called a KU scumbag.

jim schaus hired gregg marshall who went on to lead wsu to an ncaa tournament #1 seed

[Play Angry]

I would say Scott Sutton built that program. He came in after a couple of rough years and slowly brought it back.

Ken Trickey was the OG and had them an OT loss away from the Final Four, winning two tournament games in their debut appearance.

They then had some intermittent periods of success with no tournament wins since 1974 and no bids at all for more than a decade.

Mills took over a 20 loss mess, rehabbed it, matched their program total with 2 more tournament wins in 2021 and returned them to the dance this year with a seed higher than any of Sutton's 3 appearances.

He is not the program founder but is absolutely a program builder. Mills' accomplishments to date are not comparable to GG's of course, but GG was inarguably a program builder at WSU even though Ralph Miller had and others had built programs here previously.

This also is to say nothing of his time under Scott Drew playing an instrumental, decade-plus role in one of the most impressive ground up program builds in NCAA history after the Bliss disaster.

This guy's personality is a fit for a destination like WSU. We want someone with a chip on their shoulder who is self-made without the blue blood pedigree. He is not going to come in with the view that this is a 2 or 3 year audition for the job he really wants. He may not stay forever, but the chances of this being a sticky hire are much greater than someone like Kellen Sampson.

This is the guy for us.

[proshox]

well, jim schaus hired the #1 up-and-coming coach prospect in 2007. an ambitious move. i'm not sure where paul mills ranked on the "coaches to watch" lists. was it top-10? i'll have to look it up.

I got one buddy who is pretty good at coaching lists. Has pretty much nailed evaluating successful and unsuccessful hires in Basketball and Baseball over the past 20+ years. For instance, he was hot on FHCGM two years prior to MT leaving (he was actively rooting for MT to take the OU gig out of fear FHCGM wouldn’t stay at Winthrop another year).

All I can say was that Paul Mills was in his top tier of candidates for the WSU. Differentiating across top tier candidates is hard without being in the interviews so who knows if he was the best available, but Paul definitely had the credentials to be one of WSU’s first calls.

I think there is a lot to be excited about. He is competitive, he is strategic (leaving 9 scholarships open in year 1 / initially building a program to win the league instead of beating power fives), he has been part of two successful program builds, he has gone through the head coaching learning curve (which is steep), he knows how to recruit the most fertile geographically close recruiting territories, he can identify under values high-school talent.

The last trait is the most exciting - NIL gives WSU a chance to be highly competitive if we have:

1) Fantastic Talent Evaluation

2) Great Recruiting

3) Retention NIL program

my biggest gripe with IB was the short term recruiting vs. long term program building. I am hopeful Wichita’s $$$ and his strategic vision sync up to create the monster PROGRAM we all want.

[proshox]

I would say Scott Sutton built that program. He came in after a couple of rough years and slowly brought it back.

Wrong. That program was a dumpster fire by the time Pail was hired.

[Singeril]

I have been cautiously reading up on HCPM. Good hire.

[ShockerExpress]

You all don’t know me, but trust me if you wish. In the Tulsa area, he is widely respected and can coach exceptionally well. You all will be impressed in time. He’s a leader. The school, community, alumni, supporters and players will soon like him a lot. He will win at WSU, no doubt.

I called a friend of mine who lives in Owasso on my way to work. I would not call him an ORU fan, but he knows the AD's family pretty well and went to several games this year (ORU AD grew up in Tulsa).

Said they are quite upset to lose him.

Sounded like he had a chance to stay there at about 700K ish.

Said his reputation in Tulsa is oustanding. ORU was displeased with the end of Sutton's tenure and thought Mills turned it around pretty fast considering.

Talking to him made me feel more optimistic, as well.

I think Mills recruited better to ORU than Devries did to Drake.

[DwShock]

Has an official announcement been made by the university yet?

[shocker43]

The original reaction from the fanbase was a pretty bad look. It took a quick google search for people to "come around" to the hire.