Lee B brings the hammer!

[Jugular]

http://www.omaha.com/huskers/mens-basketball/barfknecht-tim-miles-has-improved-huskers-and-the-administration-should/article_2a78dbb4-f8af-11e6-a8de-1300d58dcdf8.html

[HB]

A buddy of mine this morning (wish I could take credit for it):  Headline should have simply been:   "Eichorst is still a (C-word)."  

 

 

Edited February 22, 2017 by HB

[hhcmatt]

I'd say he put what a lot of us see in Miles into the public spotlight.

[HuskerFever]

Is there genuine concern from the media that there's a strong possibility that Miles won't be around? This isn't the first article within the last week or two that addresses and chooses sides on this argument.

[rr52]

I like the questioning of Boehm's responsibility. I think he's gotten a pass when some things should've been directed at him.

[HB]

12 minutes ago, HuskerFever said:

Is there genuine concern from the media that there's a strong possibility that Miles won't be around? This isn't the first article within the last week or two that addresses and chooses sides on this argument.

 

Yes.

[Swan88]

Lee Barfknecht finds another excuse to do another piece trashing the Husker basketball team and its coaches and administration. 

The entire premise of the article is that Eichorst refused to give an impromptu evaluation of Miles to Barfknecht.  Barfknecht must have been offended or something.  Although he writes, "Only a damn fool would deny Miles a sixth season now," the top of the front page of today's entire issue is emblazoned, "Will Miles be back?"

#fakenews

[Buglem]

I don't always like Lee's work but he couldn't have summarized my feelings on this any better. 

[Buglem]

14 minutes ago, Swan88 said:

Lee Barfknecht finds another excuse to do another piece trashing the Husker basketball team and its coaches and administration. 

The entire premise of the article is that Eichorst refused to give an impromptu evaluation of Miles to Barfknecht.  Barfknecht must have been offended or something.  Although he writes, "Only a damn fool would deny Miles a sixth season now," the top of the front page of today's entire issue is emblazoned, "Will Miles be back?"

#fakenews

I hear what you're saying but I have to side with Lee on this one. If Eichorst hasn't seen enough at this point in the season to answer this question then I'm not sure what he's going to learn the next two weeks. And he can't use the "I don't comment on performance mid season" excuse because he spoke in support of his football hire mid season this year. 

 

I also agree with Lee that I don't trust Eichorst to make another big hire. 

[ConkTrifecta3]

I don't understand the logic of getting rid of Miles after this year...so much potential.  Is there something going on beyond the court?  What are we going to have to do to secure a 6th year from him?  Nit? NCAA?

[hhcmatt]

25 minutes ago, Swan88 said:

Lee Barfknecht finds another excuse to do another piece trashing the Husker basketball team and its coaches and administration. 

The entire premise of the article is that Eichorst refused to give an impromptu evaluation of Miles to Barfknecht.  Barfknecht must have been offended or something.  Although he writes, "Only a damn fool would deny Miles a sixth season now," the top of the front page of today's entire issue is emblazoned, "Will Miles be back?"

#fakenews

 

It's a mix of SE burn and Miles support.  He's been fairly praiseworthy on the toughness of this team after they bounced back from the Southern game.

[Swan88]

As long as I'm still fuming over this hatchet job, I'll add this:

Barfknecht says "It's time to end the needless and often reckless speculation about" Miles's job status.  And then he proceeds to magnify the issue with needless and reckless speculation about Miles's job status.  #ridiculous

Barfknecht acknowledges that, after his last OWH article on Miles's job status, he "got calls from friends [in all major conferences] asking if Mikes was on the chopping block."  So . . . he's not intending that to happen again?  #ettubrute?

[throwback]

30 minutes ago, Buglem said:

I hear what you're saying but I have to side with Lee on this one. If Eichorst hasn't seen enough at this point in the season to answer this question then I'm not sure what he's going to learn the next two weeks. And he can't use the "I don't comment on performance mid season" excuse because he spoke in support of his football hire mid season this year. 

 

I also agree with Lee that I don't trust Eichorst to make another big hire. 

Well said. I don't mind an AD who prefers to wait till end of season to make comments on coaches, otherwise you could be asked for comments after every tough loss, and it looks like a clown show. But if that's your policy, stick to it. Don't break it for "your" hires or it starts to look like ... well, a clown show.

 

Mr. Eichorst has plenty of problems outside of hoops. He had probably better focus on the bellwether cow first that lost four of its last six games, three by blowout scores. And I'd like to hear how NU is going to spend this windfall of B1G TV money, once we start receiving a full share in July. He's been very quiet on this subject ... along with many others. That's a windfall of $30M to $45M, which would increase the AD budget by roughly 30% to 40%. That's a HUGE percentage and deserves to have a detailed plan behind it. Maybe he has one. And maybe it's a smart plan. So I'd like to hear it.

 

I know a lot of people don't like Lee B's attitude sometimes, but he is -- without question -- the most well-connected sports journalist in the state. And it's not even close. So when he writes something like this, there's tons of substance behind it ... i.e., there's a reason.

Edited February 22, 2017 by throwback

[throwback]

1 hour ago, HuskerFever said:

Is there genuine concern from the media that there's a strong possibility that Miles won't be around? This isn't the first article within the last week or two that addresses and chooses sides on this argument.

Yes. Lee B doesn't write things like this without knowing what's being floated behind the scenes. He's too well-connected.

 

Ha - sorry, I see HB beat me to the answer and was much more succinct. 

Edited February 22, 2017 by throwback

[HB]

4 minutes ago, throwback said:

Yes. Lee B doesn't write things like this without knowing what's being floated behind the scenes. He's too well-connected.

 

Ha - sorry, I see HB beat me to the answer and was much more succinct. 

 

A rare case of brevity for me!  

[Swan88]

And I'm not buying this crap about uncertainty over Eichorst's support for Miles.  Here is an unequivocally supportive statement from around the turn of this year about Miles from Eichorst:

 

As for men’s basketball, Eichorst gave his full support to Miles – hours before Miles’ team defeated No. 16 Indiana on the road 87-83 to begin Big Ten Conference play. The Huskers had gone 6-6 in a challenging nonconference schedule.

Eichorst sees continued growth.

“They've really worked hard. Tim has worked his tail off. He's got a great group of assistants around him,” Eichorst said. “I really like the nucleus — the young nucleus. Obviously, I think he would want them to be a little bit further along. But they've played a really good schedule up to this point. No one’s making any excuses. We will never do that. I just think we want to see improvement.

“And I think we just need to have reasonable expectations around it, and support. We’ll kind of dissect it all at the end. We’re in the middle. The Big Ten’s a formidable league. I know this: The effort’s been there. The preparation’s been there, from what I've seen in practice. And we’ve had some guys dinged up. Again, there are no excuses there, but you have to take that into consideration as you look at the whole thing. I’m very, very optimistic about where we’re at.”

[hhcmatt]

19 minutes ago, Swan88 said:

As long as I'm still fuming over this hatchet job, I'll add this:

Barfknecht says "It's time to end the needless and often reckless speculation about" Miles's job status.  And then he proceeds to magnify the issue with needless and reckless speculation about Miles's job status.  #ridiculous

Barfknecht acknowledges that, after his last OWH article on Miles's job status, he "got calls from friends [in all major conferences] asking if Mikes was on the chopping block."  So . . . he's not intending that to happen again?  #ettubrute?

 

There is a lot of "I don't like how SE is running this department" in this article as well as many others. Miles can recruit over people wondering about his job....it's not the worst thing he has to recruit over given he's running a clean program at a school with no tradition. Miles sure can't recruit this summer though if SE stonewalls everyone before firing him after the season.

[soxnskers]

I'm kind of shocked by some of the negative responses to this article.  I know not everyone will agree but looking at this as a hatchet job on the basketball program is something i couldn't disagree with more.  If anything I saw this as something that the basketball program needed to have said by someone other than themselves.

 

Most all of us on here are on board with the direction the program is going and believe Miles needs more time.  The only reasons we even have to question this is because SE didn't extend his contract last year and at this point none of us know what he is thinking.  There's been way to much smoke coming out of this situation for there not to be some potential of a fire.  He could have put the kibosh already if he really wanted to but he obviously hasn't.  It just reminds me way to much of the same situation with Bo and we all saw that that ended in a firing.

 

I will agree that sometime the OWH is overly critical at times of the NU Athletic Department (especially in comparison to the way it covers the CU athletic department).  But i don't think that anyone who looks at the NU Athletic Department objectively could say that some of the faults that were called out in this article don't have any basis in truth.  They definitely are not perfect.

[HB]

14 minutes ago, Swan88 said:

And I'm not buying this crap about uncertainty over Eichorst's support for Miles.  Here is an unequivocally supportive statement from around the turn of this year about Miles from Eichorst:

 

As for men’s basketball, Eichorst gave his full support to Miles – hours before Miles’ team defeated No. 16 Indiana on the road 87-83 to begin Big Ten Conference play. The Huskers had gone 6-6 in a challenging nonconference schedule.

Eichorst sees continued growth.

“They've really worked hard. Tim has worked his tail off. He's got a great group of assistants around him,” Eichorst said. “I really like the nucleus — the young nucleus. Obviously, I think he would want them to be a little bit further along. But they've played a really good schedule up to this point. No one’s making any excuses. We will never do that. I just think we want to see improvement.

“And I think we just need to have reasonable expectations around it, and support. We’ll kind of dissect it all at the end. We’re in the middle. The Big Ten’s a formidable league. I know this: The effort’s been there. The preparation’s been there, from what I've seen in practice. And we’ve had some guys dinged up. Again, there are no excuses there, but you have to take that into consideration as you look at the whole thing. I’m very, very optimistic about where we’re at.”

 

Swan, you apparently are more trusting of Eichorst than most of us.   I know this, Miles and the staff don't think it's "crap".  They think they are coaching for their jobs.   And Shatel and Barfy don't both just have major columns on it if their isn't some fire behind the smoke.    Miles isn't Eichorst's type of guy, despite the above public comments.   Two things could stop SE from going there:   1.   A pretty successful end to the season, and/or 2. Someone above him puts a stop to his nefarious designs.  

[Jugular]

Lee's article is serving more than just Tim's job status. Lee has serious reservations about the true commitment by the Athletic Department to truly wanting to be ELITE.  Look at the hires that have been made...Mike Riley and Amy Williams are not exactly what you would call aggressive hires or what you would call "doing everything to win". They are very conservative hires.  With that said, I do like some of the new assistants we have hired in football--much more aggressive. 

[OmahaHusker]

I'd like to know what happened behind closed doors in regards to Lee mentioning "Glynn Watson actually committed to Creighton for about 24 hours." That's news to me.

 

Also just a great article all around. Miles has shown he deserves to keep his job and ride this thing out. I'm very optimistic.

[Jugular]

There have been numerous letters written by a lot of us in support of Coach Miles sent to Boehm and Eichorst. Due to Shawn's leadership style (unless he's making an "exception"), it's difficult to tell where Tim and his staff stands. 

[jason2486]

This article just makes me dislike Eichorst even more. If Miles and the staff didn't feel like they were fighting for their jobs, they are now. Let's hope the guys go on a great run and put Eichorst in his place!

[jimmykc]

As far as I am concerned this may be the best piece Barfy has ever written. Unless he has a personal ax to grind with Eichorst and is just using this as a straw man to denigrate him, anyone with any basketball sense knows this is not the year to dump our present coach. And if Hawks is pulling all the strings because he is rich, this would also seem to go against our Nebraska traditions. Hopefully it is just the time for Barfy to stir up some interest in his column.

[hhcmatt]

29 minutes ago, HB said:

They think they are coaching for their jobs

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