Breaking: JMU Fires Matt Brady
There you go. JMU announced that the school has parted ways with Matt Brady. We’ll have more thoughts on the news tonight. Love him or hate him, it’s been pretty obvious the administration wanted Brady gone. Not really sure how it benefited anyone to wait this long to cut ties. And doing it the day before the school’s (and the Duke Club’s) largest fundraising day of the year…no words.
This is stuckign fupid
Trade Kenny Brooks for Matt Brady!!!
Seth Greenberg is still out there…
Maybe they’ll hire the next Everett With…. nevermind.
Maybe to raise the program to the next level they’ll hire another Everett With…. nevermind.
Very sad to see this. Don’t agree with the decision, but glad they didn’t put it off any longer.
When you read Bourne’s letter, it actually makes sense. Beyond winning, kids leaving the program and declining attendance, especially in light of the upcoming push for a new arena… those are pretty legit reasons.
I also like how Kenny Brooks is going to be part of the search process.
On the flipside, I don’t really know what JMU’s expectations are for a hoops coach. Roy Williams isn’t coming to Harrisonburg, and if a 35 year old up-and-coming Coach K did take the bait, he def wouldn’t be around very long.
^^ 2004. bump.
Best wishes to Matt. I am sure he will be successful elsewhere.
Glad that Bourne generally played nice in his letter regarding Brady’s departure. Not sure what the admin. is looking for regarding coach’s
responsibility on attendance though. Brady created enough of a winning atmosphere that led me to invest the time to make numerous trips back to the ‘Burg to watch the team in person.
Good luck coach,and thanks.
I thought Brady did a good job with JMU’s program, and as others are saying, I’m not really sure what the administration is looking for in its next coach.
Whoever the next coach is, I think they have to do a better job recruiting the state of VA. There’s lots of talent in the state, and for whatever reason Brady has been striking out or avoided it altogether.
Brady sucked but Bourne sucks 10X worse
This to me is not a basketball move this is a marketing move purely to drum up dollars for the new basketball digs. Throwing Brady under the bus for CAA tourney losses is crap. W&M has never been to the dance and you don’t see them firing coaches every 4 years.
Do I love Brady, no but Borne’s rational doesn’t make sense to me.
Borne = Jerk
OK with it. Now, if this sr class had curry, cooke, and nation and we were a stable team with minimal transfers and didnt have the continual issues that seem to linger in this program, then he would probably still be around. Gut tells me the admin has been wanting to go in a different direction for a few years, but he bought himself a few years after winning the CAA and going to the dance…
I think MB will get another stint at a school in the northeast again.
Horrible decision by the AD. A true leader supports his soldiers and sticks to his word. Bourne gave Brady a 4 year contract, he should be a leader and stand behind his 4 year deal. Bourne’s list of reasons to cut ties is bogus. Brady has done a heck of a job as a coach in a league where there will never again be an at-large bid awarded. One NCAA birth in 8 years is respectable in middling basketball conference. To go consecutive years with 19 and 21 wins is a great job at a school like JMU. Bourne on the other hand needs to do his job and get JMU into a better conference, or work on improving the CAA. It is a real shame that he fired Brady with a year left and a number of rising seniors. This firing is a terrible decision, and it appears that Bourne is disloyal to his coaches. I hope the new coach is a success, and I hope that Bourne’s mishandling of Brady is not an omen for further bungling of the Men’s BB team by this AD.
The 20 wins standard is long past. Here’s Brady’s conference finishes in 12 years as a Head Coach in two average mid-level conferences. Attendance will increase when JMU competes for conference titles, which happened once in 8 years. He had a 67-73 conference record. On top of that, Brady basically ignored Harrisonburg as one of the highest paid employees in the city. He could have easily changed this last point, but didn’t. That’s the simple equation that resulted in the firing.
Marist
7th
3rd
1st – NIT
5th
JMU
7th
11th
6th
8th
4th – NCAA
7th
1st
4th
I found Bourne’s email to be articulate and his reasoning clearly stated. Made perfect sense to me.
I am hoping that Bourne and company already have a few candidates in mind that are realistic hires. I am not counting on that, but one can hope.
Anybody have any ideas who the next coach of JMU will be?
I think the expectations for the next coach are pretty well stated. Compete for conference championships and trips the the dance every year, and (therefore) create the kind of excitement on campus that gets butts in seats. The conference has been all over the map with no real power for a long time. I think it’s not unreasonable to look for someone who can seize an opportunity and dominate one of the lowest-ranked BB conferences in the nation.
I say this having been wrong on this board and predicting Brady would be allowed to stay. That said, if we can’t make it to the show as often as a FGCU or Hampton in our league, really, what’s the point? If we’re not a big time program, at least let’s be a really good small time program.
I don’t understand at all the support for Brady…he has been the very definition of mediocre. I for one appreciate that the administration is aiming for better. Across the board our teams compete at a high level and I think we should be able to expect that from BBall. If winning 20 games a few times and routinely bonking in the conference tournament satisfies you then I don’t know what to say. It isn’t good enough.
I’ll also add on to what LongTimeFan pointed out. He didn’t live here and wasn’t engaged much at all in the community. I routinely meet coaches in town. Not once did I ever meet Matt. I did see him one time at a football game. On top of that the staff didn’t recruit in area much. Not that there was much talent to be had but a local kid is comitted to Mason next year and JMU didn’t recruit him at all. Everyone is baffled as to why. I simply don’t think Brady is engaged enough in the way a coach at a division 1 program should be.
For us, it’s not that Brady is an amazing coach, but more about the fact that he never really appeared to get the administration’s full support. So in that sense, we think he might be shouldering more than his fair share of the blame here. He’s not perfect by any means, but he’s not what’s holding JMU basketball back either.
However, as much as we respected Brady, we also respect this decision (even if we disagree with the way it went down) and think it’s time to move forward. Go Dukes!
I think it was definitely the time and will benefit both JMU and Brady to part ways. I think Bourne/JMU for once clearly explained where the program needed to improve in his email (and it was not just Wins/Losses). I think Brady will return and find a home on a staff in the NE. If he is as good as some on here think he is, he should be able to upgrade his job immediately. This is a mid-major job coaches come/go….if Brady had been very successful at JMU don’t fool yourself he would have been gone years ago. 8 years is a long time to prove yourself. Perhaps one reason some feel Brady never had the Admin’s support is b/c Brady, himself lied coming into the job at JMU and immediately had JMU in a lawsuit as a result of his actions with his former employer, Marist. That is a hard thing to overcome. Had this happened at say an ACC school with much deeper pockets, Brady would probably have been removed right then.
Brady brought JMU into an embarrassing lawsuit before he even landed here and ignored the admins requests to be a JMU connected community player. Some player’s parents liked him. Many did not and were vocal about it. Fixing those things were in his power. He decided not to and knew the consequences. I guess you could say his unretiring a coach to fix the player relationship problem was his attempt to fix that problem. Whether you like Bourne or not though, what message do you think Brady was sending his bosses?
At the end of the day, with almost no post-season success, JMU is losing more money now than before Brady got here. Lowest attendance and high salaries. Brady may be the highest net cost coach in Va. Other higher paid coaches generate their income from boosters.
Brady looks like he wanted to play by his own rules. That’s his choice and it might be possible if you’re winning and generating $ or have a track record. Brady had neither. All these things matter to D1 schools, at least as much as the W’s and L’s, and I really don’t see him landing a head coach job at a peer or higher program soon. He’s basketball smart, but he’ll have to show more than that at major and mid-major D1 with those big salaries.