{"id":3692,"date":"2012-03-05T19:06:33","date_gmt":"2012-03-06T00:06:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/?p=3692"},"modified":"2012-03-05T19:08:47","modified_gmt":"2012-03-06T00:08:47","slug":"jmu-retains-coach-brady","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/?p=3692","title":{"rendered":"JMU Retains Coach Brady"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Coach stays.<\/p><\/div>\n

By now you’ve probably heard that Matt Brady will be retained as JMU’s head basketball coach. This morning we published a post stating that it’s probably time for Brady to move on and then hours later Jeff Bourne says he’s retaining him for next year. It’s like some sort of JMUSB reverse jinx. Or maybe it’s a regular jinx if you were in the camp that wanted Brady fired. To be blunt, this news is rather shocking. I had been sitting squarely on the fence when it came down to deciding if Brady should be fired or not. My indecisiveness aside, I was pretty sure he was going to get canned<\/em>. Todd thought agreed and seemed to think it was the right move. To be fair, that put Todd squarely with the majority of the fanbase. A seemingly shrinking and increasingly apathetic fanbase if we want to get technical about it.<\/p>\n

The Extension (or lack thereof)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Just because Brady is not getting fired, it doesn’t mean there is great stability in the world of JMU basketball. Based on what we’ve read, Jeff Bourne mentioned nothing about offering Brady a contract extension. Brady’s current contract has one more year on it. That means that he’ll enter next season as a lame duck coach. In many people’s eyes (including mine) this is not an ideal situation. At best it’s a distraction that hangs over the program all year. At worst, it’s a severe hindrance to Brady’s recruiting efforts due to the fact that some players might be less likely to commit to a coach who might not even be there to coach them. I certainly hope that some sort of extension is in the works and it very well may be. Without one, we could be in for another long season of speculation and uncertainty.
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\nWhat It All Means<\/strong><\/p>\n

Honestly, I have no idea. Todd and I have never claimed to have any sort of special access or insight into the JMU athletic program and we’re playing the same guessing games as everyone else right now. It might mean that JMU thinks Brady caught a bad break with the injuries and they want to give him another year to try to prove himself. It might mean that they are simply too cheap to cough up the nearly $300K to the buy him out. They might have put their feelers out for coaches and determined that they couldn’t get (or afford) a better option right now. Again, we just don’t know.<\/p>\n

Why I’m OK With It\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Even though I’m not sure where this is all going, I’m alright with Brady being brought back next year. The fact is that he’s been a .500 coach at JMU. He’s 67-67 with 2 winning seasons, and 2 losing seasons. And his 2 losing seasons came with injury depleted rosters. I don’t think the injuries are an excuse for losing, but I think they make it tough to really judge Brady at this time. I’d rather JMU be a little more prudent and give Brady a chance to prove himself with a healthy squad than fire him and have to start from scratch again.<\/p>\n

The Dirty Little Secret<\/strong><\/p>\n

JMU has a historically awful basketball program. Nobody wants to admit this, but it’s true. Sure, JMU used to<\/em> have a very good basketball program. That was almost 20 years ago though. Well, Holy Cross and NYU both have won NCAA tournaments and nobody considers them elite programs. JMU’s success in the 80’s and early 90’s doesn’t matter any more than that. It takes a while to rebuild something from ground level. It takes more than 4 years, when you inherit a program that was virtually underground. Brady took over a program that had 8 straight losing seasons. He has 2 winning seasons in 4 years. A lot of the wins have come against relatively week out of conference opponents, but you’ve got to start somewhere.<\/p>\n

At the risk of offending any of you who are nostalgic for the “glory years” of Lefty Driessel, please help yourself to a dose of reality. I was at JMU during Lefty’s “glory years”. They weren’t that glorious. Lefty’s teams routinely underperformed come CAA tournament time. So if you equate 1 NCAA tourney appearance in 9 years, to a program’s “glory years”, then I guess we just need to agree to disagree. JMU is not an easy program to win at. It hasn’t been for years and it’s only getting harder as the CAA gets stronger. And the CAA is a clear case of the haves and the have nots. JMU last made the big dance in 1994. Since then, only 5 other teams have won the CAA tournament, and one of them (Richmond) isn’t even in the league any more. Go back and check for yourself. Drexel has a chance tonight to be the first CAA team other than ODU, VCU, Mason, or UNCW to win the tourney in 17 years. To me, it’s worth giving Brady a full contract to try to elevate JMU’s program to that level.<\/p>\n

What Needs to Happen Now<\/strong><\/p>\n

Brady needs to recruit better. I can’t overstate that. I know lots of folks disagree with me here, but there is a talent gap between JMU and the top teams in the CAA. This is particularly evident in the paint. JMU needs big men and it needs them badly. I’m optimistic about this kid Ron Curry that Brady signed out of New Jersey. He’s a guard though. And so are the 2 other recruits Brady has locked up. Brady absolutely needs to bring in a big man to go with them.<\/p>\n

Brady also has to fix this A.J. Davis situation. Davis is very talented. He also appears to ignore practically everything Brady and the coaches tell him. Brady took a lot of heat for failing to motivate Denzel Bowles. I’d argue that if Denzel couldn’t motivate himself to play defense even though every NBA talent evaluator and draft pundit said he absolutely had to improve defensively, then nothing Brady or any coach was going to say was going to matter. That’s in the past though and Brady can’t let another Davis, another ulta-talented player, buck the system. If Davis doesn’t buy into what Brady is selling next season, then they should let him go and move on without him.<\/p>\n

Finally, JMU needs to extend Brady’s contract. There are 6 seniors coming back next year. That means Brady is going to have to fill 6 slots with recruits for 2013-2014. That’s going to be a near impossible task if he doesn’t have a contract in place. Give him the extension Bourne.<\/p>\n

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