Evansville loses another player

[Da Coach]

6'7" Evansville forward Derek Johnson has left the school. Marty Simmons loses another one of his own recruits, leaving the Aces very short on size.-

http://www.courierpress.com/news/2010/jul/21/basketball-player-derek-johnson-leaving-ue/

Johnson was recruited out of Texas by Simmons in his 2009-2010 class along with Colt Ryan. He played in only 1 game his freshman season, then redshirted due to a knee injury.

Here is Evansville's roster for 2010-2011-

http://www.gopurpleaces.com/roster.aspx?tab=basketball&path=mbball

Starting center Clint Hopf is recovering from ACL surgery. Starting forward James Haarsma left school and transferred. Redshirt big man Bryan Bouchie left, too. Reserve big man Pieter Van Tongeren will be a senior, and will probably have to play a lot more than the 13 minutes per game he played last year. They have a juco player (Matt Peeler) coming in who is a post-type player, but their other 2 incoming recruits are more wing-type players. Coach Marty Simmons has 2 scholarships open, and he is still hoping to add another player or two with some size for next season.

[cougarcrazy82]

Marty Simmons Good Guy Good Coach: Wrong Place!

I have to first state that I think Marty Simmons is an excellent coach and good person overall. He was pretty good at turning SIUe around. Now with that said, I also believe that he is a very demanding and at times over "zealous". The reason it worked at SIUe was that he was dealing with Division II players who probably had no where else to go . Also, he could preach the defensive game without A. Alienating his team (Division I players want to score, not play D all the time B. Alienating the fans. He was great with the "underdog" players because they had nothing to lose. However, I think we can see now at the Division I level the huge difference in player mentalities and it shows with the recent defections. Its the me first attitude!!!! And Marty will not stand for it, so they leave. I think for Marty to succeed he needs to get back to that small town college basketball game and grind it out..........UE expected him to come blaze the trails and unfortunatley it has not shown in the win loss column or in the makeup of his teams......

[tornado]

I have a question .. how many coaches who became successful at D-I were successful D-II coaches prior to that...
obviously we all know of one, but how many others can you name...there really are very, very few.........
That's not to say Marty couldn't break the mold, but I am open to anyone who knows of any such coaches...
There are two different basketball head coaches at the D-II level with over 900 career wins, and nobody even knows their names!! (Don Meyers, Herb Magee)
(plus there are several more with over 800 career wins, Jim Phelan, etc...)

[Da Coach]

Bo Ryan was very successful at D3 Wisconsin-Platteville before being hired at Wisconsin.

[sycamorefan]

Bruce Pearl Who was a national champion at the University of Southern Indiana before moving to University of Wisconsin Milwaukee and then tennessee

[tornado]

yes...that is the guy I was thinking of when I said...
"obviously we all know of one.."

but as noted, I cannot think of another..and nobody else seems to have come up with another name.....
Even rarer would be a D-II guy who had really NEVER even had assistant coach experience at a TOP D-I school...(BP did at Iowa)
so if Marty makes it as a good coach in the D-I ranks, he will a RARITY.....