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Well, sort of. Drake announced that Dr. Tom Davis will remain coach as long as he wants to continue coaching. When he retires, his son and current top assistant, Keno Davis will take over.
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I don't know but this seems strange to me.........they must have a good reason to do this but why?
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I agree. Some coaches deserve such respect because of what they have done for that university. But Dr. Tom Davis' accomplishments, though noteworthy, have all been at other universities. What has he accomplished at Drake that would deserve a lifetime deal and security for his son? He has not had a winning record yet, after 3 seasons. There is a coach at Bradley who had not had a winning record after 3 seasons, and there were a lot of people ready to run him out of town.Comment
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I'm pretty surprised to see this as well. I mean with all due respect to Dr. Tom, what's he done at Drake that warrents him to pick his son to take over after he leaves.Once A Brave ... Always A BraveComment
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Well, let's look at this from Drake's perspective. In the state of Iowa, they are the low man on the totem pole. They have a beloved figure leading their program right now. They have improved quite a bit since he took over, we all know this. His track record says that there will be success. Considering the past coaches and failures there have been at Drake, I really don't see the harm in doing this. They're locking up an Iowa coaching legend for years to come, rather than ending up like Indiana St with a lame duck coach and players leaving left and right. Let's not forget they're just 1 year removed from kicking our @ss regularly.Onward and Upward!
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Maybe so, but Dr. Tom's performance and record at Drake is considerably worse than Jim Les' at Bradley over the first 3-3.5 years that Jim was here.
And, on top of that, Drake does not really have the prospect of being much better in the near future.
At least at this stage in Jim Les' coaching career, there was a future NBA 7-footer in the fold, and an NCAA Sweet Sixteen appearance right around the corner.
I have to wonder why they are doing this unless it is because Dr. Tom knows full well he wouldn't have a job anywhere else, and was willing to take a very low salary!
Lastly, I got a bit of a snicker at the comment about Dr. Tom's son, Keno Davis:
"Keno Davis brings an impressive coaching resume to his role as heir-apparent at Drake"
Here is what constitutes an impressive resume--
--two years as an assistant at a Division II school
--6 years on staff at Southeast Missouri where they just canned their coach, Gary Garner who Keno worked for. While at Southeast Missouri 5 of their 6 years were losing years.
--3 years as assistant at Drake where they lost nearly 20 games all three years!!
Sorry, but I am one who is not as impressed!!Comment
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Hmm, Drake had finished ahead of us 2 of the last 3 seasons (Tied at 7-11 and took the #6 seed in '04, finished 1 game ahead of us in the #7 spot at 7-11 in '05), so that would kind of contradict your statement. They had alse beaten us 6 straight times until this year. Regardless, I would hope that us at BU would hold ourselves to a higher standard than Drake, especially after this season. Maybe I am wrong.Originally posted by tornado
Then again, as I read back on my comments...where did I even mention JL? Why so adversarial?
Onward and Upward!
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Drake may not have been very good under Dr. Tom, but they were a lot worse under everyone else. When was the last time they were out of the play-in game? When was the last time they finished in the top 4 in the conference? They were in VERY bad shape when Dr. Tom took over, and he at least has them playing hard and competing.Comment
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BB- my post had nothing to do with you,
the topic is Dr. Tom and I expressed my opinion.
And finishing one of those last 3 years a game ahead of BU hardly constitutes a contradiction to my opinion.
When under Jim Les did BU ever lose 19 games against the weak schedule Drake has been playing??
In his years at Drake he has failed to even come close to reproducing his performance at Boston College and Iowa.
In his first 3 years at Drake Dr. Tom went:
11-16
13-16
10-19
34 WINS - 51 LOSSES, and never once did he have fewer losses from the prior season!!!
Jim Les' record in his first 3 years:
11-18
15-15
13-15
39 WINS - 48 losses, and never once did he have more losses than a prior season!!
How does it matter that some prior coach did no better?
How does it matter if they beat us 5-6 times (we were playing poorly)
BUT--they played schedules that rated them 307th, 204th, and 136th in nonconference SOS the past 3 years. (BU's SOS were considerably higher.)
No matter how you spin it, the HIRED DR. TOM with the idea he would do better than this, and the Drake fans are expecting better than this.
Makes no difference if they win an occas. game against BU or if Dr. Tom's predecessor did no better.
Davis in my opinion has been a failure, and if I were a Drake fan I'd be shocked that they locked him and his son in for basically the rest of their lives!!
They have recruited poorly, and the few quality players they had some hope for (like Al Stewart) got worse and worse the longer they played for Dr. Tom.
Don't you remember the preseason predictions last fall by many, many posters who were claiming Drake was the most improved team in the Valley and could even contend for the title this past season??
Come on, they ended the season with the most losses of any Valley team (19-despite the weak scheduling against two non-D-I opponents, Detroit, Southern Utah, etc.) and only Porter Moser's performance and the injury to David Moss prevented Dr. Tom from being the cellar dwellar in the Valley.
Do you think he's poised to finally turn it around?
His top incoming new recruit got more baseball recruiting interest than basketball, and Drake was the only D-I school to offer!! He is balancing all his hope on an unproven kid coming back from major knee reconstruction.Comment
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If Dr. Tom has health problems and has to step down shortly, will son Keno fill the open assistant slot by hiring Gary Garner (Keno's old boss) who is now unemployed after being fired by SEMO?
Then if Keno leaves for greener pastures, Gary will take over and Drake will be right back where they were 20 years ago.Comment
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I don't know why you continue to compare us to Drake, unless you really view us as a lower-tiered program with low expectations. But, if you want to compare the two up until this season -Originally posted by tornado
Drake finished higher than BU in both of Dr. Tom's seasons
Drake was 4-0 against BU
Drake had won a game in the MVC Tournament
When you consider where Drake was, and where Drake is, they could do a lot worse than Dr. Tom Davis. They have in the past. And up until this year, there was a very valid argument that they were ahead of us as far as a basketball program goes. Rip him all you want, Dr. Tom is still 5-1 against BU.Onward and Upward!
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BB---the only reason I even mentioned BU was because you did it first and I was trying to show Dr. Tom's performance was bad TOTALLY independent of BU, but if you keep bringing up the fact that they beat us.
Then and only then, I responded in kind.
Here is proof that two other posters, including you, brought in the comparison to BU before I responded:
Da Coach----
and BradleyBrave
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Yes, after I had mentioned that for Drake, a perennial bottom-feeding program, locking up a proven winner was a good thing. Since I view BU on a much higher level than Drake, Drake finishing ahead of us and beating us to me signals that maybe Dr. Tom is doing some good things there with much fewer resources. You seem to only want to belittle the man, which considering his successes over BU, belittles BU.Originally posted by tornadoBB---the only reason I even mentioned BU was because you did it first and I was trying to show Dr. Tom's performance was bad TOTALLY independent of BU, but if you keep bringing up the fact that they beat us.
Then and only then, I responded in kind.
Here is proof that two other posters, including you, brought in the comparison to BU before I responded:
Da Coach----
and BradleyBrave
http://www.bradleyfans.com/phpbb/vie...?p=19796#19796
And, to Da Coach's point about a guy at BU who hadn't had a winner in 3 years and some ready to run him out of town - Again, I hold BU to a much higher standard that Drake. If others chose not to, that's their perogative.Onward and Upward!
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I do think Drake hred Davis to do more than beat Bradley and finish above Bradley in the lower half of the MVC 2 out of 3 years. I know a couple Drake fans who are very concerned by this move. Davis's style of recruiting and his style of play might be successful when you are at larger schools and at the big state school like Iowa. There he could get the blue chip athlete. At Drake he is landing 1 star recruits, and mostlt the hard-nosed gritty Iowa kids who are good role players, but never stars. They can only take you so far. And his platoon style of play doesn't work when the bench players are not all Division I caliber kids.Originally posted by BradleyBrave
I personally don't have anythiung against Davis, but I would not be satisfied with gritty teams that play people close and lose 15-19 times a year. As was stated, Jim Les was building an obvious winning program, and still he had a ton of critics who wanted him gone. I don't see Drake getting better any time soon, and with the rest of the league landing skilled big men and high scoring guards, and every team getting better, Drake will be stuck in the lower division for a long time. There just aren't enough Iowa kids to go around.
If you were a Drake fan, would you be happy with an average crowd of 3000 in the new arena? His style is not exactly setting the community on fire. And DesMoines has the 2nd largest population in the MVC. They should have no problem drawing 7-8000. I remember bad teams in the past that drew that many in the old Veterans Arena."Peoria, land of 10,000 coaches"Comment
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Show me how this was 'obvious' after 3 seasons. Come on! We all wanted him to be successful and BU to win, but give me a break. Even his biggest backers were questioning him when we were 8-6 and just lost 3 in a row to start the MVC season. The only thing that was 'obvious' was that we were talented but underachieving yet again.Originally posted by BU fan
Again, we're not Drake, and they're not BU. About the only thing they have in common is the conference they play in. They're on different levels as far as basketball programs go, and I think we should be comparing ourselves more to the CU's of the conference than the DU's. That is, unless we view ourselves in the same light as DU. I don't.
The coaching in the MVC is what makes it so good, and keeping a Hall of Fame-caliber coach in the league is a good thing. Keeping his son around to succeed him might be a different story.Onward and Upward!
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