So, it's final...Todd Simon is coming to Bowling Green.
I will admit that when I first saw on hoopdirt that it was him, I said to myself, I hope that guy has some ties to the Midwest. I saw right away that he had attended CMU...and I got a little sick to my stomach. After a "national" search coming to an end so quickly...you end up with what at first looked like a lazy crony-hire. I was pretty disappointed.
I have looked into it more. I'm way more encouraged now.
First, he built the USU program from absolutely nothing. They averaged 7 wins in the 5 years previous. They had not been good for a very long time. He has taken them to three straight successful seasons and continued to thrive after COVID and in the portal era.
Of 7 players averaging 10 minutes or more a game this year, 4 are transfers, one P5 and one JUCO. One from CMU :).
But he built more than just wins.
Here is where it started, from the Las Vegas Review Journal
Simon’s first SUU team, which finished 6-27, knocked so many peach baskets off the wall that when a couple of visitors from Las Vegas showed up at the 5,300-seat America First Event Center only to find roughly 5,000 of them unoccupied, Simon showed his appreciation by inviting them into the locker room for his pregame speech.
“You go to Walmart and convince two more people to come to the games,” Simon said about creating a basketball buzz in a hamlet better known for bards than buckets, owing to its annual Shakespeare Festival.
Here is where it ended:
Thank you @SUUtbirds fans for another amazing home season!
— Todd Simon (@CoachTsimon) March 5, 2023
Truly one of the best atmospheres in the west helping us to a 13-2 home record & 40-5 the last 3 years.
It wasn’t long ago that we opened the doors and hoped a couple hundred would come so this is all extra special! pic.twitter.com/YFM9vd8Lkd
Is there anyone among us who does not want to come to a rocking Stroh Center and watch our team play high-level, impossible-to-beat-at home-basketball? I didn't think so.
More...again from the Review Journal....does he care about making the NCAA Tourney?
“It’s kind of the last thing on our checklist,” said Simon, 42, who is in his seventh year on the job. “We had two winning seasons in 18 years, and now we’ve had three straight 20-win seasons and we’ve won a regular-season title. We’ve kind of done everything except get to that tournament, so it’s a big deal for us. It’d be a huge milestone.”
Lastly, from the same story. I always say we want a guy who is used to doing more with less, because that's the challenge we offer. How about this?
“We can lead the nation in relationships,” he said. “I can’t lead it in NIL (name, image and likeness licensing), and I can’t feed them more granola bars, but we can care about our guys a lot.”
"I realized what I love is seeing small fish become big fish. It’s fun to see young men grow up and what they get to accomplish in their lives.”
A few other notes. He worked at Findley Prep, which was kind of a basketball-forward prep school. He was an assistant and a head coach. He worked a number of future pros, along with at UNLV.
As far as I can tell, he didn't play college ball.
Looking at the numbers from the last 3 successful years...
They played an upbeat, highly efficient offense.
- Top 100 in pace in country, #16 last year
- Top 100 in offensive efficiency.
- Average number of 3FGA with strong 2FG shooting
- Get to the line a lot....#13 in FT Rate last year
Defensively they were not great.
- They won while allowing 1.05 PPP.
- Biggest defensive strength is on the boards.
Bowling Green fans will not go into shock at seeing a bunch of guys running around in the first half with 2 fouls. Under Coach Huger, BG had 9% minutes in the first half with players with 2 fouls...#318 in the country. Simon played guys with 2 fouls in the first half less than 7% of the time, which was #341 in the country.
Some Slow Your Roll Thoughts:
A couple of things. This year's 22-12 record included FOUR non-D1 wins. Must be something in the water in Mt. Pleasant, or he had Keno Davis do his schedule. The 20-21 season had FIVE non-D1 games....though that was COVID year, probably tougher to schedule. It tempers--just a bit--this 20 win talk and I hope it is something we don't see repeated here.
It was a slow rebuild which I am not sure we are up for here. He was 53-78 after four years with the third and fourth year hovering at .500. If he has that record here after 4 years, people will be out for his job.
Welcome to the Falcons, Todd. Let's get it done!
Nice analysis. If he could do this at Southern Utah, why not Bowling Green?
ReplyDeleteOn scheduling home games with Division I nonconference opponents: I could see this being even more of a challenge for Southern Utah than it is for Bowling Green. The Pac-12 and the Mountain West sure aren't visiting Southern Utah, and the Big West and the West Coast might not want that kind of trip, either.
I did look...Utah Valley did not have the same problem. There is also the possibility of playing a road game.
ReplyDeleteAwfully written article ??
ReplyDeleteLove the hire. His resume far surpasses the others in the mix with the exception of Christian, who is nearing 60 and might not have much left in the tank.
ReplyDeleteI wish the University would stop babbling about academics and all the other platitudes being a top priority. We are starving for a winner, and being afraid to admit winning is the primary goal seems to be a major part of the problem.
Coach Simon has proven he can construct a roster to beat the Kent's of the world (he did last year) and is truly our best hope at recreating what we could have had under Jan's. He's that good.
Throw out the non-conference and check out his league record over the last 3 years. It's Southern Utah for gosh sake. He dominated his peers after taking over a program far more moribund than we are now.
ReplyDeleteI am liking the hire. He really seems like a winner.
ReplyDeleteAnderson Animal, I disagree about the academics. You don't have to choose between winning and academics. Toledo is a good example. There are others. For me, I only want to win if we do it right, and I see no reason why we can't.
ReplyDeleteI hope you are correct. It's just that under the last two coaches, we've had the citizenship and academic bromides endlessly thrown in our face as evidence of "success" while simultaneously falling way behind competitively, as if the on-court product was an afterthought. Hopefully we can achieve both, but I've had my fill of the former and am starving and hungry for the latter. I truly believe we now have the coach with the same sense of urgency and drive.
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