SRU

[hawks16]

I missed this editorial from the Rocket: https://www.theonlinerocket.com/opin...hank-you-next/.

"Reynolds’ mindset not only harms his players on the hardwood, but also in the classroom. Only 43 players have earned a bachelor’s degree during his 10-year coaching tenure. His recruiting methods see consistently high roster turnover, as the team did this season when only one player returned from last year’s team."

[IUPbigINDIANS]

I missed this editorial from the Rocket: https://www.theonlinerocket.com/opin...hank-you-next/.

"Reynolds’ mindset not only harms his players on the hardwood, but also in the classroom. Only 43 players have earned a bachelor’s degree during his 10-year coaching tenure. His recruiting methods see consistently high roster turnover, as the team did this season when only one player returned from last year’s team."

So ... while attacking KR the newspaper failed to go deeper. None of this was some secret there on campus. Why was it tolerated for a decade?

[IUPbigINDIANS]

Funny the AD isn't under any heat for keeping him employed so long.

Surely nobody beleives KR somehow kept his player GPAs, recruiting methods, player backgrounds and graduation rates hidden in a vault in Morrow? For 10 full seasons, by the way. Minor detail.

Does KR also work in the SRU admissions office? Who let all those guys in to school? Somebody did.

Anybody know that SRU got a court injunction to get a player allowed on the IUP campus for a game a couple years ago? Wonder if the paper knew about that little item. Wonder how that guy, banned from a PASSHE campus for a very serious item, got admitted at SRU?

Remember when I told you guys this was going deep? It's going deep. KR isn't taking all this alone.

What is the editorial trying to say bringing up the player death from 7 years ago? Was KR ever officially blamed? If he wasn't (we know the answer) that's basically slander.

If they 'fire' him he should sue the crap out of SRU.

That program was a culture. To say all the sudden ... all this stuff -- that has gone on for 10 full years -- all the sudden is a major issue? Unless the whole athletic department is deaf and blind ... they knew about it. Did the program and coach not get any performance reviews in a decade?

This is a witch hunt of sorts. KR's hands may not be clean ... but he's far from the only one up there. He's an employee of the university. Not the employer. Did it really take a player walk-out for anybody to notice ... or just to now officially notice?

Two sides to every story. The paper is siding with the players and sources (which are worthless for credibility). It doesn't have KR's side. Nor SRU's. Rush to judgement, perhaps?

All new players, by the way (except one). In one week of camp a whole roster of new players decided to stage a full blown mutiny?

A whole new roster of players, who, by the way, were recruited and signed by KR, within 5 practices decided to storm the president's office?

Sounds a little ... odd.

KR didn't do all this stuff by himself. Just sayin'

Ian Grady, interim coach, is a good guy. But, he's also been the top assistant to the coach being run out of town for 7-8 years.

This is messy.

I'm not siding with Reynolds, but this whole thing stinks.

[Fightingscot82]

I heard there was essentially a mutiny after last season then this year's crop of mercenaries walked out on KR and refused to play for him. There's a new president so he could be the new variable in this mess.

Didn't something similar happen several years ago with IUP women's basketball?

[IUPbigINDIANS]

I've heard SRU didn't practice the final two weeks of last year -- they only showed up for games.

That team, minus Till, is all gone. Five of them were seniors. So, only six players didn't return this year.


The Jeff Dow situation at IUP was way different. That was loaded with Indiana politics, Indiana High School parents, etc.

[IUP Extra Mile]

I missed this editorial from the Rocket: https://www.theonlinerocket.com/opin...hank-you-next/.

"Reynolds’ mindset not only harms his players on the hardwood, but also in the classroom. Only 43 players have earned a bachelor’s degree during his 10-year coaching tenure. His recruiting methods see consistently high roster turnover, as the team did this season when only one player returned from last year’s team."

Admittedly, I'm not a rocket scientist or mathematician....BUT....Please board, help me with this...

I understand that SRU men turn their roster over every year, essentially...but if KR graduated 43 kids over 10 years, why is that number bad??? Any program only has the opportunity to graduate 3-5 every year, depending on how many seniors you have....so in 10 years, if KR had 43 kids graduate, that comes out to about graduating 4.3 players every year? Is that terrible? I know I'm missing something...because, again, he churns through players, but I'm not sure that's a damning statistic...

The more damning stat is Different team every year, and how players come and go... But he was successful on the court with limited budget...

[IUPbigINDIANS]

IUP24 often uses the famous quote from former Ohio State QB Cardale Jones:

"I didn't come here to play school."


I actually thought the same thing about the graduation number.

My theory as to the point they are reaching for is, say he has 13 guys a year on the roster (10 years is 130 players). Of those 130 only 43 actually graduated from SRU (roughly 33%).

[Fightingscot82]

That 43 number sounds bad at face value but under what context? I'd have to see a year-by-year breakdown. The transfer game makes it really hard. RMU gets KILLED by the new transfer rules so its almost unfair to entirely pin graduation rates on the coaching staff...unless of course you have kids transferring saying that the coach is the reason they're leaving. Could that be it? Who knows.

The D2 basketball recruiting pitch is different than football. Football coaches have a pitch that essentially says, "Come to XYZ to play football. This scholarship will make it cheaper to get a degree." In basketball its "Come to XYZ to play basketball. If you're good, I can get you a contract to play in Europe."

[boatcapt]

Admittedly, I'm not a rocket scientist or mathematician....BUT....Please board, help me with this...

I understand that SRU men turn their roster over every year, essentially...but if KR graduated 43 kids over 10 years, why is that number bad??? Any program only has the opportunity to graduate 3-5 every year, depending on how many seniors you have....so in 10 years, if KR had 43 kids graduate, that comes out to about graduating 4.3 players every year? Is that terrible? I know I'm missing something...because, again, he churns through players, but I'm not sure that's a damning statistic...

The more damning stat is Different team every year, and how players come and go... But he was successful on the court with limited budget...

Yea...Graduating 43 players in a 10 year period doesn't seem like a bad number to me. This seems like an OK number presented in a way to make it seem bad. Kind of like the political opponent of Congressman Claude Peppers who ACCUSED him of being a "known EXTROVERT" and having a brother that was a "known HOMO sapien."

[PSACwatcher]

Funny the AD isn't under any heat for keeping him employed so long.

Surely nobody beleives KR somehow kept his player GPAs, recruiting methods, player backgrounds and graduation rates hidden in a vault in Morrow? For 10 full seasons, by the way. Minor detail.

Does KR also work in the SRU admissions office? Who let all those guys in to school? Somebody did.

Anybody know that SRU got a court injunction to get a player allowed on the IUP campus for a game a couple years ago? Wonder if the paper knew about that little item. Wonder how that guy, banned from a PASSHE campus for a very serious item, got admitted at SRU?

Remember when I told you guys this was going deep? It's going deep. KR isn't taking all this alone.

What is the editorial trying to say bringing up the player death from 7 years ago? Was KR ever officially blamed? If he wasn't (we know the answer) that's basically slander.

If they 'fire' him he should sue the crap out of SRU.

That program was a culture. To say all the sudden ... all this stuff -- that has gone on for 10 full years -- all the sudden is a major issue? Unless the whole athletic department is deaf and blind ... they knew about it. Did the program and coach not get any performance reviews in a decade?

This is a witch hunt of sorts. KR's hands may not be clean ... but he's far from the only one up there. He's an employee of the university. Not the employer. Did it really take a player walk-out for anybody to notice ... or just to now officially notice?

Two sides to every story. The paper is siding with the players and sources (which are worthless for credibility). It doesn't have KR's side. Nor SRU's. Rush to judgement, perhaps?

All new players, by the way (except one). In one week of camp a whole roster of new players decided to stage a full blown mutiny?

A whole new roster of players, who, by the way, were recruited and signed by KR, within 5 practices decided to storm the president's office?

Sounds a little ... odd.

KR didn't do all this stuff by himself. Just sayin'

Ian Grady, interim coach, is a good guy. But, he's also been the top assistant to the coach being run out of town for 7-8 years.

This is messy.

I'm not siding with Reynolds, but this whole thing stinks.

So because they allowed Reynolds to run his program the way he did for the past 10 years, SRU is forever precluded from finally putting a stop to it? Perhaps others in the athletic department have to answer for their complicity or hypocrisy, but SRU is not forever estopped from making a change simply because they let it go on for too long. Its ok to finally clean it up. And I thought the student editorial was well stated.

[IUPbigINDIANS]

So because they allowed Reynolds to run his program the way he did for the past 10 years, SRU is forever precluded from finally putting a stop to it? Perhaps others in the athletic department have to answer for their complicity or hypocrisy, but SRU is not forever estopped from making a change simply because they let it go on for too long. Its ok to finally clean it up. And I thought the student editorial was well stated.

It definitely needed to stop. But to pin this whole mess solely on Reynolds is a scam. I don't know how you fire him and not also the AD for letting it happen for so long.

[boatcapt]

So because they allowed Reynolds to run his program the way he did for the past 10 years, SRU is forever precluded from finally putting a stop to it? Perhaps others in the athletic department have to answer for their complicity or hypocrisy, but SRU is not forever estopped from making a change simply because they let it go on for too long. Its ok to finally clean it up. And I thought the student editorial was well stated.

Absolutely not. SRU can make whatever changes they deem appropriate. Just seems a little hypocritical that they are heaping all the blame on Reynolds making him the scape goat for all that was done wrong in SRU basketball for the last 10 years. Of course Reynolds is not the first or will he be the last person made the scape goat for program problems...nor will SRU higher ups be the last group of administrators that are "shocked and amazed" at the "level of the problem" when they were active participants in allowing it to become what it was. Probably quite a few heads should be rolling with Reynolds...but they probably won't.

[Columbuseer]

Yea...Graduating 43 players in a 10 year period doesn't seem like a bad number to me. This seems like an OK number presented in a way to make it seem bad. Kind of like the political opponent of Congressman Claude Peppers who ACCUSED him of being a "known EXTROVERT" and having a brother that was a "known HOMO sapien."

I think the stat might be misleading. I think the objective is to determine if kr was fostering an academic culture. Think one should look year by year. For example, I would subtract from the 43 all the players who transferred in for their senior year and graduated as they were probably on track to graduate at the time of their transfer and we can’t give kr credit for that.
Another stat that would be telling is distribution of players by the number of years they were on the team. How many 4 year, 3 year, etc.
As others have said, if this stat were the reason, then other heads should roll, unless there were extenuating circumstances like mega donor protecting kr.

[boatcapt]

I think the stat might be misleading. I think the objective is to determine if kr was fostering an academic culture. Think one should look year by year. For example, I would subtract from the 43 all the players who transferred in for their senior year and graduated as they were probably on track to graduate at the time of their transfer and we can’t give kr credit for that.
Another stat that would be telling is distribution of players by the number of years they were on the team. How many 4 year, 3 year, etc.
As others have said, if this stat were the reason, then other heads should roll, unless there were extenuating circumstances like mega donor protecting kr.

If you are going to subtract the seniors that transferred in and graduated, you should probably subtract the seniors that transferred in and did not graduate for the same reason. I don't think counting the number of years players were on the team would get to any meaningful measure of academic success. While I don't particularly like the build your team with transfer players route, it is an accepted method...particularly in the DII ranks. That's who Reynolds is and has always been. I find it a little disengenous to nock him when you new and accepted what he was doing for 10 years.

I think you stick with the simple measure of success...% of players that graduate and average GPA. If the school the coach is at has an overall graduation % of 50% and the basketball team graduates 55% of it's players, the coach is academically successful...if the average GPA for all students is 2.5 and the basketball team GPA is 2.6, the coach is academically successful.

[IUPbigINDIANS]

The question I keep asking is why did Micah Till stay?

He's the unquestioned leader and one of the biggest forces in all D2. If they refused to practice the last two weeks last season (confirmed) and only lasted a week of camp this year ... it's very odd he stuck around.

Maybe he thought things would change with 12 new teammates this year.

The other item is he DID stay with Reynolds. But, no mutiny was going down without his approval. Nobody is messing with that guy. Maybe he just loves Slippery Rock. Had he hit the wire teams would have been sending limos.

Sad thing is ... an extremely talented team is 1-3. With Reynolds they are probably 3-1 or 4-0. That's obviously just the pure 'athletic' view of the situation.

Does firing a 10-year coach after a couple guys on their 3rd or 4th school cry about him set a bad precedent? I think so.

Will they fire Lutz if a couple WRs start yapping this summer?

[CALUPA69]

I heard there was essentially a mutiny after last season then this year's crop of mercenaries walked out on KR and refused to play for him. There's a new president so he could be the new variable in this mess.

Didn't something similar happen several years ago with IUP women's basketball?

I don't recall anything similar at IUP but exactly 10 years ago CALU WBB went 29-5 under 1st year head coach HEATHER KEARNEY and went to the ELITE EIGHT. She was subsequently fired apparently because some players and their parents felt she was too rough on her team. Stranger still Dr Armenti hired MARK SWASEY away from Franklin-Pierce to replace her. F-P was the team that beat the VULCANS in the EE.

[boatcapt]

The question I keep asking is why did Micah Till stay?

He's the unquestioned leader and one of the biggest forces in all D2. If they refused to practice the last two weeks last season (confirmed) and only lasted a week of camp this year ... it's very odd he stuck around.

Maybe he thought things would change with 12 new teammates this year.

The other item is he DID stay with Reynolds. But, no mutiny was going down without his approval. Nobody is messing with that guy. Maybe he just loves Slippery Rock. Had he hit the wire teams would have been sending limos.

Sad thing is ... an extremely talented team is 1-3. With Reynolds they are probably 3-1 or 4-0. That's obviously just the pure 'athletic' view of the situation.

Does firing a 10-year coach after a couple guys on their 3rd or 4th school cry about him set a bad precedent? I think so.

Will they fire Lutz if a couple WRs start yapping this summer?

Multiple transfers are tricky to negotiate...now throw in the fact that Till went from D1 football to JUCO basketball to DII basketball and it can be even more confusing. Probably one of the people most expert in the NCAA transfer process was Reynolds but I bet if Till was instrumental in leading the player revolt, I doubt he would be in a helpful mood! Also, even assuming Till wanted to go DII to DII, SRU would be able to control were or even if he could transfer. Don't think that the interim HC would be in a "giving" mood considering Till probably just lead the coup that quite possibly could end up with you looking for work (unless the new permanent HC decides to keep you) and given the fact that you are the best player on the team (If a 9 year assistant can somehow pull off a good season, maybe he gets either a better assistant HC position or has an outside chance of getting a low grade HC gig)!

[Golden89]

If you are going to subtract the seniors that transferred in and graduated, you should probably subtract the seniors that transferred in and did not graduate for the same reason. I don't think counting the number of years players were on the team would get to any meaningful measure of academic success. While I don't particularly like the build your team with transfer players route, it is an accepted method...particularly in the DII ranks. That's who Reynolds is and has always been. I find it a little disengenous to nock him when you new and accepted what he was doing for 10 years.

I think you stick with the simple measure of success...% of players that graduate and average GPA. If the school the coach is at has an overall graduation % of 50% and the basketball team graduates 55% of it's players, the coach is academically successful...if the average GPA for all students is 2.5 and the basketball team GPA is 2.6, the coach is academically successful.

The thing missing from this "43 in 10 years" number is context ... This number needs to be shown in comparison to other schools / sports programs. If 43 is not an optimal number, what is?

[boatcapt]

The thing missing from this "43 in 10 years" number is context ... This number needs to be shown in comparison to other schools / sports programs. If 43 is not an optimal number, what is?

I agree. 43 is presented as "bad" but is it really? Without context, you don't really know weather that's a good number or a bad one.

Of course 43 is very close to 42 which is the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything...at least according to the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy!!

[hawks16]

For what it's worth, the newspaper cited sources close to the team saying KR's office was starting to get cleared out while also saying sources close to the team wouldn't comment on the coaching situation.

And that's why we frown on anonymous sources.

But to a larger point, Slippery Rock -- like many other PSAC schools -- don't have a hometown paper like IUP and the Indiana Gazette. Sure, Cal and Seton Hill have the Trib and P-G (mostly clumped together in district college reports) and West Chester and Cheyney have the Inquirer and the Erie schools have the Times-News. But they're not sending beat reporters to games. So if something happens like what's happening at Slippery Rock, it's just put together in a roundup. And if something happens out in Mansfield or Clarion...good luck.