antboy

Believe it or not, it is mostly the former. Lutz recruited decently in CUSA over several years, reportedly because he was very good at selling that conference to recruits, even in years when CUSA wasn't really all that great in the end (which is why Wake would work well for him selling NC recruits). It was a little inflated because he also relied heavily on transfers and jucos he didn't bring in as freshmen, but many of the freshmen he brought in were high caliber players (the A10 only got a glimpse of it with Withers). But once he moved to the A10, he both tried to continue that strategy with southern recruits with very little success (he should've recruited more of the mid-atlantic and northeast than he did, plus he lost his best mid-atlantic recruiting asst. in Moxley to MD) and he also seemed to lose some of his motivation after missing out on the TN job he was gunning for and got too comfy.

I agree with you that Giannini recruits pretty well given the limitations at La Salle, but he has yet to even approach what Lutz achieved at Charlotte in CUSA. It's just not comparable (yet). Maybe it's because Giannini is such a bad game coach that the talent he has is obscured, but I think it's probably more that the talent he's gotten is not at the same level as the depth of talent Charlotte was bringing in back then.

All that said, Lutz might come up for the Wake job, but I seriously doubt he would get it.

rworkman09

This.

Also keep in mind that Wake hired Bzdelik. I could skeet on the floor of the Wake gym and there would be 50 million coaches out there better than him.

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SDW

Slightly different set of circumstances with Gregory since he didn't get fired before leaving and also had an NCAA win and an NIT run in his previous few seasons.

The excuses for Lutz posted above are all examples of a guy who couldn't or didn't adapt to a new landscape, and throw in that he lost his best recruiter and his recruiting went downhill and you've got a guy who now smells of retread.

I also don't think Wake is primed for the Juco/transfer model Lutz espouses, too academically oriented a school, they would never go for it. Call that strike six against old Bobby.

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HA!

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UMass87

niners fans are always insisting Putz could recruit better in CUSA and yet on of his best recruits of that era was Eddie Basden who had committed to UMass until Bruiser was fired. Putz just liked to make excuses and his fans bought them.

antboy

So, he lucked into one really good recruit, so that must mean the rest of the recruits sucked? Lutz must have been one of the all-time great game coaches and outstanding at player development then, because he won a bunch of games in CUSA. In fact, some fans "bought" the excuses because Lutz had 5 NCAA appearances in his 7 years in CUSA. How many A10 coaches could say that? How many did Calipari have over that same period? Maybe, just maybe, Lutz brought in some good players. Charlotte finished 2nd in the A10 their first year, primarily because Lutz still had his recruits left over from CUSA.

Why the need to take such extreme positions? Lutz was a good coach in CUSA, as his record there shows. He was a mediocre to poor coach in the A10, and the record again speaks to that.

moss2k

Things went downhill for Lutz and Charlotte after Tennessee decided to hire Pearl instead of him. It's already being mentioned here, Lutz recruited by selling other programs we were playing and espn games in CUSA. That flopped when we came to A10 and the staff didn't adjust. I always heard he never liked recruiting to begin with.

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