The Next Head Coach of Wichita State WBB - Welcome Coach Nooner

[flyingMoose]

Can you define what a female is?

Of course. What kind of gamete do they produce? If they produced an ova, they are female.

A female can identify as a male. They can identify as a ferret. I don't care. If they produce ova, they are a female.


And yes, I understand what is behind your question. You weren't looking for notes from a biology class.

[1972Shocker]

Of course. What kind of gamete do they produce? If they produced an ova, they are female.

A female can identify as a male. They can identify as a ferret. I don't care. If they produce ova, they are a female.


And yes, I understand what is behind your question. You weren't looking for notes from a biology class.

You clearly do not qualify for the U.S. Supreme Court?

[DwShock]

Ran into the only known WSU alumni that works in the same building as I do, we both had the same reaction, a KU guy? Really all the fish in the sea and we pick a KU guy? Hopefully Coach Nooner proves me wrong.

[SubGod22]

Ran into the only known WSU alumni that works in the same building as I do, we both had the same reaction, a KU guy? Really all the fish in the sea and we pick a KU guy? Hopefully Coach Nooner proves me wrong.

I had someone ask me about that. My thinking was at this point, with women's basketball, you take the best option you may have regardless of KU connections.

[1972Shocker]

So Coach Nooner is not a woman, or at least not yet to the best of my knowledge and that could change I guess, and he has deep ties to KU. Who would have thunk it. ADKS is apparently on a mission to destroy WSU athletics. OMG. Nothing like that has ever been tried before in WSU history at least not by a competent AD.

[shoxlax]

I am not sure why we are discussing ovas, but with seven women’s sports and only one female head coach, someone is bound to gripe loudly about the Nooner hire.

[Shockm]

I thought everyone likes a “Nooner”.

[WstateU]

I thought everyone likes a “Nooner”.

60 years ago…

[1972Shocker]

I am not sure why we are discussing ovas, but with seven women’s sports and only one female head coach, someone is bound to gripe loudly about the Nooner hire.

A valid observation, although perhaps not a very nuanced one. I would point out that in XC and Track and Field there is only 1 head coach for both the men's and women's teams and their is 1 Director that overseas both XC and Track & Field. That Director, Steve Rainbolt is in his 23rd year and the head XC coach, Kirk Hunter, has 14 years in that position.

In Volleyball Chris Lamb will be in his 24th year. In Tennis, Colin Foster just finished up his 14th season. In both of those instances those coaches had spouses who played very key roles until just recently.

Tom McCurdy has been at the helm of the Women's Golf team 16 years.

So there have not been a lot of hiring opportunities in the WSU women sports in the past 20 years outside of Softball and Women's Basketball.

Kristi Bredbenner has been a great hire for the Softball program and is in her 12th season and I hope she is here for the rest of her career.

Women's basketball has for the most part been just so-so (at best) whether under the tutelage of a male or female coach. Only Jody Adams and Darryl Smith had winning records and both left due more to peripheral issues with their leadership. The two coaches with best resumes when they were hired were Jane Albright and Keitha Adams and both had poor records at WSU.

Perhaps once we start seeing turnover among our long-time male coaches we will see more women in those positions. I would agree that would be good to see. However, I still think you need to hire the best person available that you can get. If you have a male and female coach that you consider equal candidates I would go with the female for a women's position. But I wouldn't exclude male coaches from consideration just because of their gender.

So the question is did we get the best person within our reach with the hiring of Terry Nooner. I really don't know. However, I doubt his gender was a factor other than apparently a male candidate has to overcome the prejudice against hiring males to coach women's sports all other things being equal. I am pretty confident that ADKS hired the best candidate he believed he could get considering the WSU WBB job is not nearly as attractive as the MBB position is. Clearly ADKS wants to be successful and seems to have the Jim Schaus mindset that you need to be as good as you can be in each and every sport your sponsor.

I will say that while it is improving I think the depth of the talent pool for female basketball head coaching talent is similar to the talent pool for top shelf players. It is gradually improving but still shallower than what you have in men's basketball.

Do we know which legitimate female candidates were passed over to hire Terry Nooner? I doubt we will ever know that.

[WstateU]

A valid observation, although perhaps not a very nuanced one. I would point out that in XC and Track and Field there is only 1 head coach for both the men's and women's teams and their is 1 Director that overseas both XC and Track & Field. That Director, Steve Rainbolt is in his 23rd year and the head XC coach, Kirk Hunter, has 14 years in that position.

I've read a couple of comments questioning ADKS hiring a former Jayhawk; I'm pretty sure Steve Rainbolt is a former Jayhawk and it's worked out quite well...

Steve Rainbolt - Director of Track and Field and Cross Country - Staff Directory - Wichita State Athletics (goshockers.com)

[1972Shocker]

Here is about the only thing I have seen or heard so far directly from ADKS on the hiring of Terry Nooner. Although the discussion was only generally about the hiring process and not specifically about hiring Terry Nooner.

https://www.audacy.com/podcast/bob-and-jeff-35264/episodes/the-latest-from-the-shocker-sports-universe-e5534

Perhaps the most relevant part answered one of my questions is how did the process of hiring Terry Nooner go so quickly. ADKS indicates they do a lot of advanced scouting work on coaches even if they may not need that information. It sounded like they had definitely done some advanced research on the chance that they might be replacing Keitha at some point as she only had 1 year remaining on her contract.

ADKS did say that one important element of the many profile elements they look at is to find coaches that have genuine, authentic, and very high quality relationships with their student athletes. I think that Keitha Adams and her staff probably had this.

ADKS was asked about his view of the state of the WBB program under Keitha Adams and what his expectations are for Terry Nooner. He said in his research on Terry was that he was very well thought of in the industry and that he very much excelled at his relationships with student athletes.

[SubGod22]

I'll be curious to see where we're at with Nooner in three years. We should start seeing some obvious progress in some form at that point. I don't expect as quick a change in direction as I would in men's basketball.

[1972Shocker]

I'll be curious to see where we're at with Nooner in three years. We should start seeing some obvious progress in some form at that point. I don't expect as quick a change in direction as I would in men's basketball.

I agree. I don't think the talent in the women's transfer portal (that are legit targets for WSU) or the talent available through the Juco ranks will get you there has quickly as it can in MBB. Although I think Keitha did better than most pulling players out of the Juco ranks. I assume the biggest change we will see in recruiting is a significant reduction on the recruiting of overseas players. That's not necessarily a good or bad thing in and of itself. It didn't really work out that well for Keitha at WSU. South Florida has done much better with that approach. Perhaps attracting the higher quality overseas players to Tampa Bay is easier than getting them interested in Wichita, Kansas.

[SubGod22]

I'm hoping Nooner can find a way to keep some of these Kansas girls home that end up being factors out of state. Or even some of the more local ones from finding their way north. Maybe doesn't happen right away, but Kansas girls have some ballers out there and they're often times in small towns many have never heard of. Or Derby.

[WstateU]

I’m hearing the KU fight song…