Ten Years Ago Today...

[AZ Shocker]

MT did great at Wichita St. He's a Kansas kid and played ball at ku. Of course he felt he was coaching at a certain level while at Wichita St. I tend not to hold that against him at all. He simply didnt know any better and probably couldn't see what Wichita St. could become through that growing up a ku guy lens. Coach Marshall saw it...seen it...and done done it!!!!

[WSUwatcher]

Mark's probably our 5th best coach (behind HCGM, Ralph Miller, Gene Johnson, and Gene Smithson) out of 25 spanning 113 years of Shocker hoops history. Maybe you throw Leonard Umnus ahead of him and knock him down to 6th best although the difference in eras makes it hard to measure. He has the 4th most wins in program history.

I don't get the need to belittle his achievements. He inherited a decrepit mess and did an excellent job turning things around. He is no HCGM, to be sure, but he accomplished a great deal and I am grateful for his efforts during his tenure.

Turgeon deserves great credit for making the program a more desirable place for the next guy along.

There are stepping stone programs -- MT thought WSU was one of them, and for him that's probably all it could be in the long run -- and then there are stepping stone coaches. Turns out that when MT took his next step, he became the stepping stone in his own right, to a guy who turned WSU into a destination job, at least for himself and (with the help of visionary administration and leadership, fundraising, and a move to a league out of the "mid-major club") possibly for his own successor(s) whenever that time comes.

[ShockingButTrue]

I really don't know the full story on the Turgeon and Bowles situation. But I have mixed feelings on the issue. Yeah, you recruited the kid to Wichita State but if he says Coach I'm not interested in Wichita State if you leave. If I can't go with you, I will go somewhere else. If that is, in fact, the mindset of the kid then a Coach taking him with him hasn't really done any harm to the offended school. They weren't going to have the player anyway. Now if a Coach actively campaigns for a player to back out and go with him that's a different story and if the kid has signed an LOI perhaps not totally legal either.

No one really knows if he tried to talk Bowles into staying at WSU. Some would say he probably didn't. Some would say of course he did.

[shock]

Whoever replaces WSU in the MVC should hire Mark when he gets fired next year.

[WuShock16]

Whoever replaces WSU in the MVC should hire Mark when he gets fired next year.

Even if he was fired...and I'm not worried for him, he wouldn't be out of work long. He'd have plenty of schools interested in him. He could do a lot better than the Valley. The Valley schools couldn't afford him.

[ShockingButTrue]

Whoever replaces WSU in the MVC should hire Mark when he gets fired next year.

This all day. The getting fired part that is.

If he struggled to win the Valley here who would believe he could turn ISUb, or, say for example, The Ramblers, into Valley champs?

[another shocker]

Even if he was fired...and I'm not worried for him, he wouldn't be out of work long. He'd have plenty of schools interested in him. He could do a lot better than the Valley. The Valley schools couldn't afford him.

maybe a tulane or, say, unc-wilmington.

[ShockingButTrue]

maybe a tulane or, say, unc-wilmington.

[Dark Lord]

Turgeon was a stepping stone coach for this elite program to get our elite coach

[ShanShock]

So you are about my age.

Not many on this fine forum have any idea who Little Orphan Annie is.

"It's a hard knock life."

[Husker4Shockers]

Turgeon did two great things for WSU: he came, and he left. And the years since have not been kind to him; he looks like he's aged about 150 years. It's a tough world out there!