Bill Coen

ViCtorioUs

ViCtorioUs

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Is anyone as surprised as I at how well NU is playing this year? They lost to graduation more of their team than probably any other conference club and yet seem to be very competitive to this point. Of course this is way early and there will no doubt be adversity for Coen's club to overcome.

I have heard raves about his coaching from a number of sources and of course Litos thinks very highly of him. This season will tell us a lot as to how much of that is true. He certainly is very gracious in his post game comments, win or lose.

Of course having a potential CAA POY like Chase Allen doesn't hurt, but the Huskies have played well even when Allen hasn't. All I know is I won't be able to stand losing to them this year.
 
First let's get this out of the way, Bill recruits better then 85% of the conference. I'd argue the top 4 recruiters in some order are: Bill Coen, Shaka Smart, Blaine Taylor, and Jimmy L. All 4 recruit well and implement their systems. Now what's different and interesting about Coen is that He's working with FAR less resources then the other three programs.

He brought in his own staff largely from BC(where he was assistant to Al Skinner) and was always known as a guy who could recruit under the radar guys like troy bell and jared dudley etc, in fact many in the boston community felt he was more of a HC at BC then Al skinner was. Al let Bill run practices and was in charge of recruiting. There's a reason BC fell of a cliff the last 3 years and Skinner was fired as a result, that reason largely was that Bill wasn't there.

He's picked up a bunch of money with the new contract and is starting to get some hired guns for the program(see former head assistant coach at BC Pat Duqette who is a STELLER recruiter).

As far as the program this year Bill's loosened the reins quite a bit. This team runs WAY more then in the past. This will favor you guys because it will be a track meet when our two teams meet. The guard play has been really solid(Smith Harris and Lee), Chase has been a little up and down(adjusting to doubles) and the frontline is a work in progress(Pierson, Dinko, lima). The one thing that stays the same is the defense, it might be a little looser in terms of scope but man they force TO's in bunches(over 18 TO's a game).

Oh and the other thing about Bill, he really cares about the program. He had his players come to all of the orientation sessions. He will personally write you a thank you card for donating or give you a call. If not him someone on the staff will. He's an all around great guy and at the risk of sounding too positive, he's a dramatic change from Everhart(who is being investigated AGAIN on another NCAA violation today).
 
The Huskie fan base may be small but is very passionate. I hope that the student body, alumni and fans eventually catch up. A guy like Coen deserves it. Redsoxn, here's hoping you do well in all your games excepting us.
 
Victorious the fans already are catching up. We've already set an all time high for most student attendance(BU game there were over 1700 students over 3000 overall) and the Siena game we had over 3700 which is pretty darn close to selling out matthews(it's roughly 4500-5000 to sell out..)
 
Coen coached his ass of last night at Utah St.

NU was a 15.5 point underdog last night at USU. USU in the last few years has been 32-0 in november. Also take into account the altitude difference of playing at Logan, Shockingly NU had a 6 point lead late and got HOSED by multiple awful calls by WAC officials. When was the last time you saw a game with 6 traveling violations all called on one team? One of which on a 3 on 1 fast break late?

The call that really has NU fans pissed was a late non call on Chase Allen. With about 8 seconds left USU missed the front end of a 1 and 1, up 1 point. Chase grabbed the board got all the way across to the other end of the court in a flash and was clearly fouled by their forward Jardine. Here's what their head coach Stew Morrill had to say about the play and officiating in general:

"I didn't know what to do, so I just went after him," Jardine said. "Luckily, I think I went straight up enough to not have a foul called."

It was a questionable no-call that the Aggies were fortunate to have go in their direction.

"A couple close calls went our way," Morrill said. "That's college basketball. That's the nature of it. I've been on the other end of it being the road team not so long ago."

I'm not happy about losing this game but realistically to be that big of an underdog and as young as they are, I think shows a grit that the NU team's of the last few years didn't have. Don't be shocked if they compete for 4th spot of the top four.
 
Allen's a player and the CAA seems to be down outside of the top couple of teams. I see no reason why NU can't be a top 4 team if JMU and Mason slip up. I have them as a solid 5th right now.

Much like Tony Shaver and the Tribe, you can never count out a Bill Coen-led team.
 
redsoxn2004 said:
Coen coached his ass of last night at Utah St.

NU was a 15.5 point underdog last night at USU. USU in the last few years has been 32-0 in november. Also take into account the altitude difference of playing at Logan, Shockingly NU had a 6 point lead late and got HOSED by multiple awful calls by WAC officials. When was the last time you saw a game with 6 traveling violations all called on one team? One of which on a 3 on 1 fast break late?

The call that really has NU fans pissed was a late non call on Chase Allen. With about 8 seconds left USU missed the front end of a 1 and 1, up 1 point. Chase grabbed the board got all the way across to the other end of the court in a flash and was clearly fouled by their forward Jardine. Here's what their head coach Stew Morrill had to say about the play and officiating in general:

"I didn't know what to do, so I just went after him," Jardine said. "Luckily, I think I went straight up enough to not have a foul called."

It was a questionable no-call that the Aggies were fortunate to have go in their direction.

"A couple close calls went our way," Morrill said. "That's college basketball. That's the nature of it. I've been on the other end of it being the road team not so long ago."

I'm not happy about losing this game but realistically to be that big of an underdog and as young as they are, I think shows a grit that the NU team's of the last few years didn't have. Don't be shocked if they compete for 4th spot of the top four.
Click to expand...

VCU fans know something about those kind of fouls. Except in our case the player was grabbed by the arm/hand and basically upended on the game winning shot.
 
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