i saw a seawolf once

espn did an article on the best and worst coaching jobs in each conference. ESPN has Vermont as the best and Binghamton as the worst. Cant argue with the Vermont selection they are the best job in the conference based off of history alone and that is about it. I am not sure if Bing is the worst though. Yest Dempsey will have a tough time this year and next, but they do have good academics, great facilities, and great support. they are the worst right now but have huge upside.

http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebaske...obs-the-others

ccd494

Oooh, fun game. I would go:

1. Stony Brook. Tons of institutional support, new arena coming, buzz of an up and comer.

2. Vermont. Yes, they win, but that is a high school gym, seems like they are struggling to keep their best players on campus. A good situation, but I'd rather be at SBU right now.

3. Boston U. Easy to recruit to the city, gleaming Agganis, but no one cares and they play half their games in the Roof.

4. Albany. Nice arena, hosts some conference tourneys, good fan support. Second fiddle in your own town though, to Siena, rightly or wrongly.

5. Binghamton. The arena and the fans are there. The scandal is over. It's a rebuilding job, but if you can go .500 and run a clean program, there's a ton of upside.

6. UMBC. Kind of on a geographic island, but good recruiting area, administration seems willing to let you load up on Juco's/transfers.

7. Hartford. Tiny school. Hosts the tourney. Seems like people somewhat care.

8/9 (tie). Maine/UNH. Pay is peanuts (or at Maine, half a peanut). Gym is not ideal (or at UNH, middle school quality). No one cares about basketball as long as there isn't some major embarrassing scandal. Never won anything.

ccd494

Oooh, fun game. I would go:

1. Stony Brook. Tons of institutional support, new arena coming, buzz of an up and comer.

2. Vermont. Yes, they win, but that is a high school gym, seems like they are struggling to keep their best players on campus. A good situation, but I'd rather be at SBU right now.

3. Boston U. Easy to recruit to the city, gleaming Agganis, but no one cares and they play half their games in the Roof.

4. Albany. Nice arena, hosts some conference tourneys, good fan support. Second fiddle in your own town though, to Siena, rightly or wrongly.

5. Binghamton. The arena and the fans are there. The scandal is over. It's a rebuilding job, but if you can go .500 and run a clean program, there's a ton of upside.

6. UMBC. Kind of on a geographic island, but good recruiting area, administration seems willing to let you load up on Juco's/transfers.

7. Hartford. Tiny school. Hosts the tourney. Seems like people somewhat care.

8/9 (tie). Maine/UNH. Pay is peanuts (or at Maine, half a peanut). Gym is not ideal (or at UNH, middle school quality). No one cares about basketball as long as there isn't some major embarrassing scandal. Never won anything.

Aceinthehole

Nice list ccd494. I agree that all 3 SUNY jobs, along with UVM and BU are good step above the remaining 4.

In the NEC, it's no suprise that QU is the league's hot gig - great facility, institutional support, and very nice paycheck at this level. I just don't know how they didn't vote for Saint Fracis (either one!) as the worst NEC job.

Aceinthehole

NM

Aceinthehole

NM.

UVM Hoop Cat

Probably important to mention their criteria:

When voting, our 14 panelists were asked to take into consideration facilities, expectation level, athletic budget, wins and losses, recruiting base, fan support/pressure and all of the other factors that go into determining the "best" jobs in the ever-crazy profession of college basketball coaching.

Top 3 are Vermont, SBU, and BU pretty easily using that criteria- even though two of those schools may be leaving for the CAA

__________________
"Let's win this game for all the small schools that never had a chance to get here"
- Hoosiers,
& UVM mens basketball NCAA's 2005

i saw a seawolf once

SBU just opened the Dubin family performance center. This helps.

http://www.goseawolves.org/view.gal?id=120913

Urban Barrister

Any truly objective assessment has to rank Bing right up there, even with the recent issues.

Our facilities are second only to Boston's, better than SBU's (even after the renovations) and far better than those at UVM. The expectations are just as high at Bing as anyplace. Our budget is toward the top in the league. Our fan support is number one in the league. Even with a bad couple of years on the court, our W-L record since joining the league still ranks us as one of the league's stronger programs. Our academics are arguably the best in the league.

Heck, if you rank each team in the league on a scale of 1 to 9, using those criteria, Bing is arguably THE best job in the league.

I'm just saying' . . . .

OuttaTownUVMFan

Heck almost any teams facilities in this conference are better than our ha, but at least we've still been winning and maybe someday in the near future this will change

oceandogs

I in no way think Bing will have better facilities than SBU when they are done renovating. Better capacity maybe, but I highly doubt quality.

Urban Barrister

The EC seats more than 5,000 for basketball. Unless SBU's plans have changed, the EC definitely has the larger capacity - by a couple of thousand.

As for quality, why do you think SBU will be higher quality? The EC was built from scratch at the outset of our D-I era to fit Bing's exact specs. SBU is renovating an older, existing facility. There's only so much you can do when you're retrofitting an existing facility.

To be clear, I'm not saying any of this to knock SBU. I think the SB job is at the top of the list, too. I'm just pointing out Bing's strengths on the criteria the authors supposedly utilized, to show why their assessment of Bing was so off base.

Redwyn

Bing absolutely has a better basketball facilities. SB's renovation is pretty comprehensive, but you're absolutely correct - pure dimensional considerations make it difficult to surpass the more modern facilities. If SB wants to move to the "next level" in basketball, an arrangement with a larger neutral arena ala U Conn is absolutely necessary. Otherwise, 110% attendance for every game in the new facility still puts us near the bottom of the CAA in turnout.

However, as far as supplemental facilities (weight room, film room, etc..) go - SB is rapidly moving up the list in terms of quality, quantity, and funding. Following the Dubin Center opening, and supplemented by the already donated academic center and basketball film/locker rooms - I'd be willing to go out on a limb and say only BU may boast better amenities, and perhaps only for hockey players.

i saw a seawolf once

I dont think capcity comes into consideration when talking about facilities. Yes post renovation SBU will have 4,000 compared to 5000, but what does that matter? Binghamton comes up 2000 fans short to filling capacity. People knocked Pritchard but it was a huge advantage as it was full every night. When recruits come on campus they rather see a full gym than a half empty one. When it comes to other things like the weight room, locker rooms, athletic academic center, film room, etc... SBU takes the cake. On top of that the Arena will be beautifull and the quality will be excellant which will help hide its size.

as for academics it is a wash.

UVM Hoop Cat

I honestly can't tell if much of this post is a joke or meant to be serious, but I do disagree with the results and that Bing isn't THE WORST job in the conference and will state the reasons why. I do think it's a good distance away from UVM, BU, and SBU though. It has the potential to be as good, but isn't close to those schools right now.

1) Mens Basketball is the only core sport the school offers, so by default people in the administration and in the community are going to care more. No competition from Football or most importantly in the winter, Hockey.

2) Facilities

3) Home Attendance. Bing leads the league in home attendance even when things were really bad last year which shows loyalty (but I think Vermont has the best support overall in terms of home and on the road.)

4) Can pay well relative to peers in conference

That's really it in terms of appeal- but that's enough to not make Bing last in the conference.

One of the biggest factors I think a coach will consider is what job an AE coaching job will lead to afterwards-this is a stepping stone league if you can win and get out, and all the D1 coaches in Bing's history have gotten fired- one almost single-handidly sunk the program- and have not moved on to other head coaching positions. Not a good sign for new prospective coaches.

__________________
"Let's win this game for all the small schools that never had a chance to get here"
- Hoosiers,
& UVM mens basketball NCAA's 2005