Doug Gottlieb talks Brad Stevens and OSU

Photo Attribution: USATSI

We’ve been over this before but Doug Gottlib dug it back up in his interesting column for CBS Sports last week.

Mike Holder wanted Brad Stevens to coach Oklahoma State back when the Sean Sutton experiment was going about as well as the NSA-Verizon news being released at a conference of Libertarians.

Here’s Gottlieb on Stevens:

After Brad Stevens’ first year at Butler, my alma mater Oklahoma State was looking for a head coach. As a sounding board I offered up my thoughts on 50 or so coaches that were proposed to follow Eddie and Sean Sutton, the latter of whom had been fired after his second full season as head coach.

Mike Holder, the athletic director at Oklahoma State asked me, “What about that really young-looking coach at Butler? I love his sideline demeanor and his team’s attitude.”

My response was, “I love him. I called one of his games against Valpo and he thoroughly outcoached Homer Drew, who I think is pretty darn good.” 

But I also told Holder that it was too soon to know whether Stevens could recruit Texas and get players to Stillwater. It seemed like he was a year or two away from a Big 12 job.”

Holder responded, “Well I like him a lot. Maybe if Sean Miller or Jamie Dixon turns us down we can double back.”

I thought there was no doubt Stevens would be a can’t-miss someday. But at that time I wasn’t sure how he would work in Stillwater.

Man, was I wrong.

Aghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

No, really, aghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Here’s the entire article (which you should read) and a few thoughts:

— I like that Holder goes to people who know more than him for hires. Obviously I’m not privy to the entire process but those do not seem to be the actions of an arrogant athletic director. This alum (and OSU blogger) for one appreciates it. Also, how about the foresight by Holder — pretty impressive.

— Before you crush Gottlieb too much, his recruiting concern was (and is) a legitimate one. Stevens got exactly one 4-star recruit from 2008 on, everybody else was either a 3-star or 2-star. What Gottlieb underestimated was Stevens’ ability to turn a group of fundamentally sound basketball 3-star players into an absolute machine.

But, well, everybody kind of did.

— Sean Miller or Jamie Dixon? WUT?

— How crazy is it that somebody Doug Gottlieb told Mike Holder “was a year or two away from coaching in the Big 12” just five years ago is THE HEAD COACH FOR ONE OF THE THREE MOST HISTORIC PROFESSIONAL BASKETBALL FRANCHISES IN THE WORLD?!!

— Aghhhhhhhhhhh!