Saturday, March 04, 2006

Waters Out

Rutgers R.small
I’ve been busy running back and forth to PA, cleaning house, painting and basically getting it ready to put it on the market, so I missed this announcement:
Waters Resigns as Rutgers Basketball Coach.

Waters came to RU and had immediate success when a patchwork club. He won 20 games and made the NIT championship game in 2003. There followed some difficult years both in recruiting and on the court. He made some mistakes in player selection while recruiting. Several players didn’t meet up to the NCAA’s academic requirements and ended up in JUCO programs before going elsewhere.

This year’s club looked promising with Douby, Webb, and Hill being joined by Farmer and Inman. Injuries ended Hill and Inman’s seasons early and Farmer played the second half of the season with one arm. Webb seems to have lost his shooting eye but has continued to play staunch defense. Douby has carried the team for most of its games and has proven to be of star caliber.

When Waters missed a game earlier this year when he got snowed in at the airport after Kent State inducted him into their Hall of Fame, and as Rutgers continued to struggle on the road, Waters’ continued service became questionable. With no public support coming from the AD and more vocal students showing up at the RAC things didn’t look good. I remember seeing rumors that two of the top recruits for next year were unhappy with the shaky status and were shopping around for other schools.

Now that Waters has taken himself out of the picture at the end of the season, Rutgers needs to name a quality replacement swiftly or there will be a number of current players seeking transfers and the recruits will find different places to play. Unfortunately, this from AD Mulcahy is not real promising:
“Gary Waters will remain as our coach for the remainder of the season. Therefore, I will have no comment regarding a successor. From this point on, our focus will be on our team, and the remainder of our season.”

1 comment:

gregor said...

I am so glad to see this happen. I only wish Mulcahy would hit the road as well. After four years of dealing with both of them, which amounted to nothing more than a cacophony of lies and deceit, I have no respect for either of them. As far as Water's replacement, it's a shoe-in that Freddy Hill will be there next year as head coach. He's nothing but another viper in the nest. I haven't heard of any college coaches looking for the job as of yet, but if they wanted to look for a fresh approach I would personally steer them in the direction of Kevin Boyle from St. Pats. He has been ready to make the jump for some time, in my opinion and there's no time like the present.