Rob Jeter fired at Milwaukee

[talksalot]

HL's Bill Potter tweeted:

Bill Potter ‏@billpotter_HL  2h2 hours ago

Fans can watch @LaVall_Jordan's introductory @MKE_MBB press conference on @ESPN3 or http://HorizonLeague.com  today at 5pm ET. #HLMBB

[bbtds]

Milwaukee has hired Michigan assistant coach LaVall Jordan as its next head coach.

http://mkepanthers.com/news/2016/4/7/milwaukee-names-lavall-jordan-mens-basketball-coach.aspx?path=mbball

Press conference at 4:00 p.m. CDT

http://es.pn/22hFGri

[valpopal]

Controversy concerning Milwaukee head coach hiring: http://www.wtmj.com/sports/college/exclusive-uwm-had-milwaukee-native-tj-otzelberger-tabbed-but-hired-lavall-jackson

[a3uge]

I had heard rumblings of this from inside sources too. I was all for moving on from Jeter (way too expensive for 10 years of mediocre teams), but if they listened to Lena Taylor instead of going with their gut... well, they deserve to suck.

[valpotx]

Geez, if that is true, that is just a bumble f of a situation!

[valpo04]

UW-Milwaukee Basketball Play-By-Play Guy Quits, Burns Every Single Bridge On Way Out

From his Instagram:

bjohnson613: To quote Groucho Marx "Hello, I must be going!" Before the decision is made for me, I am officially announcing my retirement as the voice of Milwaukee Panthers Men's basketball.

I would say it's taking the last life boat off the Titanic, but that would be unfair to the crew of the Titanic.

Never have so many competant, talented people been run off by such a talentless group of entitled beaurocrats. No matter how much the coaches, players, and support staff care, they can't overcome incompetent administrators.

UWM leads the world in incompetent administrators.

I criticize awful athletic directors like Koonce, Costello, Geiger, and Braun. It's not their fault. Hell, if they elected me President I'ld take the job. If I suck at it, it's not my fault. I'm not qualified to be President.

Should Amanda Braun turn down an AD job just because she's horribly under qualified? Hell no. She's a bad AD, and a deplorable human being, but those are the cards she's been dealt.

Those in charge of the UW System have failed to hire effective administrators. Failed. F F F F!

It has been my pleasure to work with the wonderful players and coaches for 17 seasons. The players, coaches, parents and the fans have been like my family.

I will miss Panther hoops the rest of my life.

Best of luck to my friends that are still imprisoned at UWM Athletics. Fight on, brothers (and sisters.) Keep your heads low and make us proud.

Finally, best of luck to LaVall Jordan, his staff, and the players. As so often happens in the NCAA, it's not your fault. Win and get out quick, because long term is fatal at UWM Athletics.

Panther Nation, it has been my pleasure.Cheers!

[VULB#62]

   indeed.  What recruit in his right mind would risk going there?

[a3uge]

UW-Milwaukee Basketball Play-By-Play Guy Quits, Burns Every Single Bridge On Way Out

From his Instagram:

bjohnson613: To quote Groucho Marx "Hello, I must be going!" Before the decision is made for me, I am officially announcing my retirement as the voice of Milwaukee Panthers Men's basketball.

I would say it's taking the last life boat off the Titanic, but that would be unfair to the crew of the Titanic.

Never have so many competant, talented people been run off by such a talentless group of entitled beaurocrats. No matter how much the coaches, players, and support staff care, they can't overcome incompetent administrators.

UWM leads the world in incompetent administrators.

I criticize awful athletic directors like Koonce, Costello, Geiger, and Braun. It's not their fault. Hell, if they elected me President I'ld take the job. If I suck at it, it's not my fault. I'm not qualified to be President.

Should Amanda Braun turn down an AD job just because she's horribly under qualified? Hell no. She's a bad AD, and a deplorable human being, but those are the cards she's been dealt.

Those in charge of the UW System have failed to hire effective administrators. Failed. F F F F!

It has been my pleasure to work with the wonderful players and coaches for 17 seasons. The players, coaches, parents and the fans have been like my family.

I will miss Panther hoops the rest of my life.

Best of luck to my friends that are still imprisoned at UWM Athletics. Fight on, brothers (and sisters.) Keep your heads low and make us proud.

Finally, best of luck to LaVall Jordan, his staff, and the players. As so often happens in the NCAA, it's not your fault. Win and get out quick, because long term is fatal at UWM Athletics.

Panther Nation, it has been my pleasure.Cheers!

Bill Johnson telling other people they're bad at their job... That's funny. He WAS the worst play by play guy in the Horizon by far. Can't stand him constantly whining about the refs every play and declaring every possession was a travel.  It's not surprising he's extremely unprofessional in his departure. Good riddance, Bill.

[valpopal]

  indeed.  What recruit in his right mind would risk going there?

...and today comes news Akeem Springs will transfer to Minnesota.

[covufan]

UW-Milwaukee Basketball Play-By-Play Guy Quits, Burns Every Single Bridge On Way Out

From his Instagram:

bjohnson613: To quote Groucho Marx "Hello, I must be going!" Before the decision is made for me, I am officially announcing my retirement as the voice of Milwaukee Panthers Men's basketball.

I would say it's taking the last life boat off the Titanic, but that would be unfair to the crew of the Titanic.

Never have so many competant, talented people been run off by such a talentless group of entitled beaurocrats. No matter how much the coaches, players, and support staff care, they can't overcome incompetent administrators.

UWM leads the world in incompetent administrators.

I criticize awful athletic directors like Koonce, Costello, Geiger, and Braun. It's not their fault. Hell, if they elected me President I'ld take the job. If I suck at it, it's not my fault. I'm not qualified to be President.

Should Amanda Braun turn down an AD job just because she's horribly under qualified? Hell no. She's a bad AD, and a deplorable human being, but those are the cards she's been dealt.

Those in charge of the UW System have failed to hire effective administrators. Failed. F F F F!

It has been my pleasure to work with the wonderful players and coaches for 17 seasons. The players, coaches, parents and the fans have been like my family.

I will miss Panther hoops the rest of my life.

Best of luck to my friends that are still imprisoned at UWM Athletics. Fight on, brothers (and sisters.) Keep your heads low and make us proud.

Finally, best of luck to LaVall Jordan, his staff, and the players. As so often happens in the NCAA, it's not your fault. Win and get out quick, because long term is fatal at UWM Athletics.

Panther Nation, it has been my pleasure.Cheers!

Ouch!

[oklahomamick]

t's funny. He WAS the worst play by play guy in the Horizon by far.

I think the hick at WSU is by far the worst. 

[VULB#62]

USAToday has picked up the story.  Braun's "deplorable human being" has now got even more national exposure.

http://ftw.usatoday.com/2016/04/milwaukee-panthers-basketball-play-by-play-angry-rant

Might a libel suit come from this?

[M]

Any press is good press??

[StlVUFan]

Bill Johnson telling other people they're bad at their job... That's funny. He WAS the worst play by play guy in the Horizon by far. Can't stand him constantly whining about the refs every play and declaring every possession was a travel.  It's not surprising he's extremely unprofessional in his departure. Good riddance, Bill.

I don't doubt that he has good reason to feel the way he does about what's going on out there, but this is precisely the same thought I had (assuming that it's the guy I've heard a few times).  His professionalism was severely lacking in my opinion.

I'm sure he's far from the worst in that respect, but the only guy I've heard that was worse was that play-by-play guy for the Houston Cougars in the 2nd round of the 2008 CBI that we were stuck with because WVUR wasn't allowed to stream that night (Thank you very much, Gazelle Group; they heard from me on that one, for whatever good it might have done).

[vufan75]

Austin Arians transfer to Wake Forest per twitter reports.

[VULB#62]

Yep.  Here's the tweet. (Retweeted by Paul Oren)
[tweet]721893729561407488[/tweet]

Both he and Springs are going to P5 schools, though neither Minnesota (2-16/8-23) nor Wake (2-16/11-20) right now are world beaters. It says a little about the talent in the HL.

[oklahomamick]

I don't think chubby will play much.  Both have to sit out a year.  Springs has already transferred once. 

[FWalum]

I don't think chubby will play much.  Both have to sit out a year.  Springs has already transferred once. 

Arians can play right away as a graduate transfer. Quite frankly, from my perspective and experience, who wouldn't want to go to Wake Forest.  My daughter's experience there was extraordinary.

[VULB#62]

Great school caught in a down athletic cycle right now (except for MSO).  Only 4800 undergrads - small college-like campus atmosphere but big time in all aspects. Took my daughter on a pre-college visit there.

[oklahomamick]

I don't think chubby will play much.  Both have to sit out a year.  Springs has already transferred once.

Arians can play right away as a graduate transfer. Quite frankly, from my perspective and experience, who wouldn't want to go to Wake Forest.  My daughter's experience there was extraordinary.

Don't know if Danny will play him a lot of minutes.  I think Arians is a limited player.  But he's the one with the bball scholarship...

[blackpantheruwm]

Austin had some personal stuff going on last year and spent much of the off-season off the court. While his points per game went up slightly, he obviously regressed from his sophomore to junior year of eligibility.

Bill Johnson barely skimmed the surface. There's a lot more that he didn't touch on, some of which has been reported and some of which has not.

[covufan]

Austin had some personal stuff going on last year and spent much of the off-season off the court. While his points per game went up slightly, he obviously regressed from his sophomore to junior year of eligibility.

Bill Johnson barely skimmed the surface. There's a lot more that he didn't touch on, some of which has been reported and some of which has not.

What is going on at UWMilw?  The Twitter feeds need clarification?

[blackpantheruwm]

Austin had some personal stuff going on last year and spent much of the off-season off the court. While his points per game went up slightly, he obviously regressed from his sophomore to junior year of eligibility.

Bill Johnson barely skimmed the surface. There's a lot more that he didn't touch on, some of which has been reported and some of which has not.

What is going on at UWMilw?  The Twitter feeds need clarification?

What's going on is the program is being headed up by someone whose job since Day 1 has been to sabotage the men's basketball program to the point that she could fire the head coach.

Rob Jeter's contract has been the center of a lot of problems. There was no buyout; so when AD Bud Haidet retired in 2009, Rob was under contract through something like 2014. He had automatic renewals and got one that extended it to 2016 back in 2011-12, and Braun negotiated one more year to get rid of most automatic renewals. Without a buyout, the university would have owed Jeter the balance of the contract - at 452k per year by the end of it (400k in 2006 and 440k in 2010, I believe), it's a lot of money to pay someone to not do anything. Every AD has tried to do things to sabotage the program.

- George Koonce tried forcing Jeter to fire all of his assistants and only hire one back. This was in writing and done in February 2010 when the Panthers were headed out on a big road swing. Obviously this was designed to get Jeter to quit, and would have gotten our program blackballed. Boosters intervened and got the chancellor to jettison Koonce. There were some personal things that arose that actually made the fire-Jeter plan moot and got Koonce gone. This is mostly in the papers.

- Rick Costello was an empty shirt who didn't engage in direct sabotage as much as he didn't know what he was doing. He announced at the February 2012 basketball luncheon (donors, boosters, players etc.) that the team would not be going to the postseason if they didn't qualify for the NCAA Tournament. He probably meant NCAA or NIT, but he only said NCAA. Half the team was there and they were just blown away. The players had all but cashed out for the season by the time the HLT came around, and a bunch of them paid for spring break right after we got eliminated by Butler only to find the Chancellor making the decision to pay for the CBI. They came out flat and lost. He also got rid of academic staff (eventually helped with APR ban) and negotiated incorrectly with the Wisconsin Center District, announcing to the team that even if they win the 2011-12 regular season title that they won't be able to host the HLT because the WCD booked that weekend. The team was 8-1 at the time. Would we have won the HL that year? Doubtful, we didn't have the post presence of the year before. But these are college kids. They were dejected, twice, by things the AD said. Do you think for one second that Mark LaBarbera would have ever made mistakes like this?

- Andy Geiger moved us to the on-campus 'arena' without ever walking inside it. The guy was there to keep us in the Horizon League by all means necessary; in early 2013 he took a phone call from someone - I can't say who - and told them that UWM was happy with the Horizon League. You can probably guess what that phone call was. The arena move just killed recruiting for us.

- Then you come to Braun. When I say every turn, I mean every turn. I can't talk about a lot of it because she's still here and there are a lot of media and social organizations putting in the effort to investigate around here. Of what's already out there? She canceled our summer foreign trip for 2015 because she said "it wouldn't look good" even though the trip was privately funded. Then she turns around and fires Jeter and staff, who as of now we owe about 625k of university money over three guys through next June. At the same time the university is looking at $30 million in annual budget cuts - how does that look, Amanda? All when Jeter was going to end his contract next spring. Amanda has said in the media that coaches 'aren't kept in the last year of their contracts,' but basic research shows that's B.S. - at South Dakota State, Scott Nagy was on a one-year contract every year. He's not the only coach like that, but since he's in the HL I figured that he's the easiest example. She turned down invites to all three postseason tournaments this year (also she tried to say that CBI/CIT weren't "official invites" - well duh, they aren't official until you say yes) and then lied to parents, players, boosters, donors etc. about the reasons. We know now she was planning to fire Jeter, but even still she could have said "we didn't feel this was the right time" instead of lying to everyone.

She's pissed off a lot of people, and what I've told you there is basically some of what's been reported thus far. Obviously I know more, but there's no chance I can share those and compromise investigations both inside the university and without.

I will say this: stay tuned. This party is far, far, far from over.

[blackpantheruwm]

I wanted to say one more thing: you guys got affected by her sabotage. A lot of the stuff is under the surface, but take the foreign trip alone into account - you did it this year and you had probably your best team since 1998, as far as I know. Milwaukee's last foreign trip was in 2010, preceding our 2011 championship. Butler went to Italy in the summer of 2009 - how did they do in 2009-10 anyways? Cleveland State did it in 2008, and they won the 2009 HLT and were the last non-Butler team to win in the NCAA Tournament.

So what does this tell me? Summer foreign trips help basketball teams, and they help them a lot. The talent is there, and maybe Valpo/MKE/Butler/CSU would have been just as good without the foreign trips. But you go, you have an unforgettable experience. You bond, you play basketball, you get a bunch of games and double that amount for practices. Teams become better because of those trips.

We didn't take one in summer 2015. We were 20-13. We were within one or two possessions of winning 9 of our 13 losses. This team needed one or two breaks in 9 losses - with an average amount of possessions around 70 - to go 29-4 instead. We weren't as good as Valpo, but a foreign summer trip could have given us just enough of a boost to win a few more games.

Had we won, say, even 5 of those 9 games - where would our RPI have been? And in turn, where would Valpo's have been? Valpo was one of the first couple teams out - if we were, say, 123 in the RPI instead of 173 - it doesn't kick you up 25 slots, but it might kick you up enough. That 12-point win at the ARC is stronger. That overtime win at the Arena is much bigger. We had a 1.06 positive impact on your RPI, 5th after you, GB, Oakland and Oregon. Oakland's impact was almost twice of what yours was, and if we were 25-8 instead of 20-13 our RPI would have been comparable to theirs.

It's not a stretch to say Amanda Braun's decisions - even the ones that are already public - may have knocked Valpo out of the NCAA Tournament.

[wh]

It makes the stuff we're dealing with, like the Don Bosco idiot luring David Scara away, seem trivial by comparison.