Offseason fun - How would you rate Barry Collier as coach here?

[TomEadesSucks]

I thought it might be an interesting topic. I think he was a good coach who couldn't recruit talent well enough to succeed here. First 3 seasons were terrible, but the last 3 weren't terrible (2004-05 we went .500., made the NIT the other 2 years.) So what's everybody else's opinion? I didn't follow the inner workings of the program as I do with Coach Miles, I'm interested in what you fanatics think of Barry and his staff. How do you think he'd do with the talent we have now? Was the NIT his ceiling, or would he eventually gotten us dancing if he had stuck around?

Edited June 2, 2018 by TomEadesSucks

[HuskerFever]

This thread was an interesting take on our last 3 coaches:

 

There really isn't that much variability between all three of them. This only factors in actual performance and not level of recruits, facilities, administrative backing, the state of the program they took over, etc. I'm sure when you factor those things in, the variability increases between these three.

 

[Huskerpapa]

Barry could coach the x's and o's but struggled bringing in the right combination of jimmy's and joe's.  His players worked hard, but he really never had difference makers.  He tended to appear standoffish or aloof and really was not an ambassador for the program.

 

That said, he had some players that I really liked and enjoyed watching.  He also attempted to bring in local talent from all corners of Nebraska including Lincoln.  So overall, I would give him a C- rating.  We had a bit of recent NCAA history being built with NBA talent, and that momentum unfortunately stopped, starting with the Collier years.  

Edited June 2, 2018 by Huskerpapa

[Handy Johnson]

          Barry reminds me of a warm glass of water...

[Norm Peterson]

He really underestimated what it would take in terms of recruiting to hang in a big boy league.  That really put him behind from the very beginning and made it virtually impossible for him to catch up.

 

I think he was a nice guy.  I think he was a decent enough coach.  He was not charismatic -- quite the opposite, in fact -- and not a very good recruiter, and by the time he figured out that he couldn't compete here with mediocre players, the die was pretty much cast that he was going to be replaced.

 

If he had brought in a top-notch recruiting assistant to begin with and landed some difference-maker players in his first class, he might have had a different run here.

[Handy Johnson]

Yep, when yer best players are John Turek, Jake Muhlheissen, & Andrew Drevo, you better pack a lunch.

[Huskerpapa]

But again, and I think this needs to be brought up, he did try to recruit the state.  He had Jake M, Andrew D, Wes W, Roy E, Tony W, Jason, D, and maybe one or two that I am forgetting on his teams. John T was right across the border.  Do you think the talent level has risen in the state, yes it has.

[aphilso1]

I attended DONU for the last couple Collier years and first couple Sadler years.  At the time, I liked Barry.  His teams seemed to play their most competitive basketball in home games against big teams.  It was a lot of fun to be in the student section for those contests.  I also liked his interaction with the students.  He used to come talk to us before the games and buy us a bunch of pizzas as we watched team warm-ups.

 

With a decade+ of hindsight though, I wish the University had moved on from Barry quicker.  He walked into a great situation, inheriting a program with excellent talent but not a ton of history.  Expectations were reasonable.  But he mostly squandered the talent he inherited, and recruited terribly.  By the time he left, the Huskers basically just had Aleks Maric surrounded by a bunch of guys that wouldn't have cracked the rotation for the majority of major conference programs.  The talent was bad enough that whoever followed Collier had very little chance of success.  

 

TL;DR -- I liked him at the time but now I  realize that he was the key figure driving the program into the ground.

[49r]

48 minutes ago, Huskerpapa said:

But again, and I think this needs to be brought up, he did try to recruit the state.  He had Jake M, Andrew D, Wes W, Roy E, Tony W, Jason, D, and maybe one or two that I am forgetting on his teams. John T was right across the border.  Do you think the talent level has risen in the state, yes it has.

 

Ross Buckendahl

[Cazzie22]

I believe Eddie Sutton said that Collier was trying to win in the BIg XII with Mid Major talent.

[colhusker]

1 hour ago, Huskerpapa said:

But again, and I think this needs to be brought up, he did try to recruit the state.  He had Jake M, Andrew D, Wes W, Roy E, Tony W, Jason, D, and maybe one or two that I am forgetting on his teams. John T was right across the border.  Do you think the talent level has risen in the state, yes it has.

I am glad he tried to recruit the state, think all of the guys that are head coach in Lincoln should.  But looking at that list, all were role type players that you have to have, just not guys that are going to carry a team.

[cipsucks]

He's the Laodicean coach.

[Faux Mike Peltz]

I liked Barry, he was always very professional and was initially brought in to clean up the mess academically that it was in, and Collier had an almost near perfect graduation rate with his seniors while at NU. I know multiple sources said Byrne liked Collier because of his values, and told Barry to recruit the state as a top priority the first year or two. Losing Spinelli that spring was going to be a blow. He landed the better recruits, including Joe McCray and Jamel White. I also thought Corey Simms, Charles Richardson, Nate Johnson, Aleks Maric, and Marcus Perry were fun to watch. The team that waxed Kansas in Lincoln was a fun team, Conklin, Drevo, and Nate Johnson all had nice seasons. Barry was the last coach to beat Creighton in Omaha, I believe. (NIT)

I think Barry did an ok job but wasn’t going to get is to where we all want to be...on an interesting note, I looked at an old LJS article about BC resigning to go to butler, they named the top two candidates as Jim Christian and Mark Fox. 

[tcp]

Hard not to like Barry. In another time, he would've been the quintessential college basketball coach. He just wasn't cut out for the emerging profit-center, corporate model of power conference athletic departments that was quickly emerging. TV was radically changing the sport in ways that would prove detrimental to the Colliers of the world. 20 years earlier, and I think we'd probably be talking about the good ol' days of Barry. 

[Handy Johnson]

I was a HUGE Doc guy, But was always kind of lukewarm on Barry. I always got the impression he never really wanted to be here. Could be way off base, just going on a gut feeling... 

[lang]

Really sharp guy.  Very thoughtful and thorough in an interview.  I’m sure many thought bland too and I suppose true.  Had a pretty good sense of humor at times.  I think he had some Osborne-ish qualities.  Old school and respectable guy.  Didn’t like the limelight (see  Lee B’s articles after he left).  

 

I remember well his second? year scaring the crap out of #1?  Kansas.  I’m still smarting from that game.  Also remember the year we drilled KU at home only to follow it up with a tough loss at home verse KSU and Barry slamming his water bottle down late in the game in disappointment.  

 

Too bad the recruiting didn’t pick up in time.  

[Blindcheck]

17 hours ago, Handy Johnson said:

I was a HUGE Doc guy, But was always kind of lukewarm on Barry. I always got the impression he never really wanted to be here. Could be way off base, just going on a gut feeling... 

I liked Doc...I think if Doc started coaching when Miles came here and Miles started coaching when Doc started....Doc would probably have a better record in both time frames....I think he was a great fit, but his the timing of his era was bad...

[hhcmatt]

56 minutes ago, Blindcheck said:

I liked Doc...I think if Doc started coaching when Miles came here and Miles started coaching when Doc started....Doc would probably have a better record in both time frames....I think he was a great fit, but his the timing of his era was bad...

 

While I agree with you that Doc is a good Xs and Os guy if you look at Doc's 3pt attempts allowed numbers and 3pt makes % against they're the same as they were at Nebraska...they're on the high end of Div 1.  In this era of people gravitating towards the 3pt shot Doc's guard the paint at all costs defense just isn't as effective as it used to be.

 

Maybe Doc could pull off a better record than Miles in this era. Could he do it with guys he recruited?

[Blindcheck]

1 minute ago, hhcdimes said:

 

While I agree with you that Doc is a good Xs and Os guy f you look at Doc's 3pt attempts allowed numbers and 3pt makes % against they're the same as they were at Nebraska...towards the bottom.  In this era of people gravitating towards the 3pt Doc's guard the paint at all costs defense just isn't as effective as it used to be.

 

Maybe Doc could pull off a better record than Miles in this era. Could he do it with guys he recruited?

That is the rub...would he get better at recruiting with better facilities? 

 

Was Doc hamstrung with faciliites while Miles is benefiting from Facilities.

 

[hhcmatt]

4 minutes ago, Blindcheck said:

That is the rub...would he get better at recruiting with better facilities? 

 

Was Doc hamstrung with faciliites while Miles is benefiting from Facilities.

 

Facilities are like the issue of not having less than a four year contract: they are something you have to recruit around.  Having better recruiting assistants would have done a lot more for him than any facilities. Given more money for assistants would Sadler gotten better guys or just paid his guys more?  

[HB]

9 minutes ago, Blindcheck said:

That is the rub...would he get better at recruiting with better facilities? 

 

Was Doc hamstrung with faciliites while Miles is benefiting from Facilities.

 

 

He was every bit as hamstrung by a very mediocre staff  and a vacillating, incoherent recruiting approach than he was by facilities.  It was never gonna happen.  

[hhcmatt]

 

This doesn't have the first few years but should do. For the most part Barry's numbers look somewhat uninspiring which seems to fit his personality.  His defensive numbers seemed constant; he didn't pressure the ball and concentrated on making the other team take tough shots.  The block numbers indicated he had a lengthy bouncy team and rosters with Dourisseau, WIlkerson, and Maric (all still playing pro ball) back that up. 

 

His offense was hit or miss with the head scratching 2003 (miss) and 2004 (hit) seasons with a lot of the same guys.  The 2003 team is the one that lost to Alaska-Anchorage. Brian Conklin and Nate Johnson combined to shoot under 25% from 3 to set a standard that not even Tim Miles could top.  The next season the Huskers, armed with an easier non-con, ripped through nets and saw Conk and Nate combine to shoot 50% from 3.

 

Would Maric have been as good with Barry?  Doc not only force fed the big man his junior year but saw his fg% jump 100 points (from .472 to .573).  Would Maric have just naturally shot better with age and experience or was part of his success playing in Doc's crawling up efficient offense?

 

I forget who Barry might have been bringing in for 2006-07. I think it was a good class where guys decommitted. Does anyone have that info?

It took Barry 8 years to make the tourney at Butler.  He might have done it with a Senior year Maric and a good enough supporting cast. He might not have. 

Collier did recruit the state well.

 

Overall fairly underwhelming.

[Norm Peterson]

2 minutes ago, hhcdimes said:

I forget who Barry might have been bringing in for 2006-07. I think it was a good class where guys decommitted. Does anyone have that info?

 

I believe it was Ryan Anderson.  They slow-played this Jonathan Hall out of Miami to try to get Ryan to commit.  They finally got Ryan to commit and he stuck to that commitment in spite of the coaching change.  (Not much he could really do by that point.)

 

The other commit didn't de-commit, exactly.  He might still be trying to locate his middle-school homework assignments in order to prove to the Clearinghouse that he actually went to school.

[Norm Peterson]

NAME	POS	LOCATION	HT	WT	STARS	RATING	COMMITTED
Seketoure Henry	G	Lynwood, CA	6'3"	180		0	9/1/06
Jay-R Strowbridge	G	Harvest, AL	6'1"	175		0	5/23/06
Roburt Sallie	G	Laurinburg, NC	6'5"	190		0	3/7/06
Kris Douse	F	Toronto, ON	6'7"	215		0	2/23/06
Ryan Anderson	G	Seattle, WA	6'4"	175		0	10/30/05
Toni Soda	C	Å ibenik, Croatia, null	7'0"	230		0	9/30/05

 

This was our 2006 recruiting class.  I don't think Soda ever showed, and Sallie was enrolled but never played.  Otherwise, the recruiting class arrived intact.  Sek was a Doc find but the others were all Collier recruits.  Anderson was a 3-star outside the top 150, but turned out to be a pretty good find.  Strowbridge was shockingly good for a kid who was unranked and unrated and still available at the end of the spring signing period that year.  Douse was not good.  Not ranked, not rated, not anything.  And he left mid-year his freshman season for Delaware State.

 

Not to bag too much on Douse, but he played 68 minutes in 7 games under Doc before transferring at semester break.  He played 102 minutes as a senior at Delaware State.  That should tell us something about Collier's last recruiting class here.  Had he not quit, he'd have been fired.  There's no way he could have achieved any measure of success with that crew, assembled in his 7th recruiting class.

[hhcmatt]

47 minutes ago, Norm Peterson said:

Toni Soda

C

Å ibenik, Croatia, null

7'0"

230

0

9/30/05

 

Ah...it wasn't a class that I couldn't remember it was the mythos of Toni Soda