Excellent podcast and thanks for doing this! I have enjoyed listening every week. The intro is fantastic.
Not a criticism but more my own perspective/discussion piece I wanted to bring up. You started off the series talking about how winning is the most important metric for a coach (I agree). The third episode, after meeting with Mooney, I noticed how it was brought up that winning isn’t everything. There is the game of life and the important of players going into college to develop into human beings. I 100% agree that there are things more important in life than basketball like you alluded to.
However, the context of this - at least how I interpret it - is Mooney as a coach. Him running a good program and recruiting good kids should be the expectation. In my opinion, winning basketball games should be the only metric he is based on. He is ultimately their basketball coach at the end of the day and not their life coach or parent.
I mention this nuance because I think the administration has factored in other non-basketball related factors as well when keeping him as a coach, which is wonderful to have in a coach, but should not be the key metric in whether a coach is retained or not.
Anyway, I don’t mean much by this but wanted to share my 2 cents. Glad you’re on the forum as well to further engage in conversation from the podcast!
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As far as other topics to discuss. Would love to hear your thoughts on the following:
- I know you’re planning on focusing on the women’s team but hearing from Roussell about expectations, his thoughts on program. Interview with players would be nice too
- Men’s and women’s basketball schedule (women will be in Cancun with excellent MTE)
- I don’t know if you’re able to meet with others from administration like you did with Mooney, but would love to learn more about how UR is going to handle the house settlement. If they are going to create perks and fan interactions with donors to help incentivize/encourage people to give.
- Lastly, perhaps mentioning this new message board on your podcast to help spread the word. I’m sure there’s a lot of overlap between listeners and members in this forum already, but perhaps the outreach can help bring a few more people who aren’t aware of the new forum yet.
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