What's the ultimate price of Ishee's promotion?
Good luck finding a story more intriguing than John Ishee's. Or a season more captivating. Or a promotion potentially more divisive.
Ishee's elevation from interim head coach to B.J. Smith's official $75,000-a-year replacement Monday came as the program's exclamation mark to its OVC tournament championship roughly 48 hours earlier. Local media praised the school for its brilliant choice, in the same breath saying that the team -- which overwhelmingly was against Ishee's hiring -- needed to stop bitching and play ball.
Unfortunately, it's not that easy. And so far, they're not the only ones complaining.
Ishee came along as a basketball assistant just in time to see the Redhawks picked near the middle of the OVC women's preseason standings. He was moved to interim head coach in early November when Smith was suspended over allegations that he frequently skipped a university class he was assigned to teach. A month later, Smith -- facing the prospect of being fired -- accepted the school's resignation package.
Fast-forward to Nashville, Tenn., where Ishee's team celebrated its second straight OVC tournament championship and a berth in the NCAA women's tournament next week. Ishee is the league's coach of the year, his team is 24-7. Fans are happy.
But while local media continued to press SEMO to hire Ishee as Smith's replacement, team members were vocally critical. Ishee wasn't their man. Not every booster was on the Ishee bandwagon, either. They still aren't.
The SEMO job is Ishee's first as a head coach at a Division I school. His team this year was recruited by Smith and his assistant coaches, who aren't committed to join Ishee next season. Ishee's biggest success so far: being available to fill the gap when Smith made his ultimate job mistake.
Southeast will lose two seniors to graduation, giving Ishee a talented group that should return in the fall. There's talk that the friction in the program could lead to team members leaving after this season. Even the ones who stay will always be Smith's players, recruited to play for him, in his system, sharing in his successes.
For Ishee to truly make this group of players his own will require more talent and ability than we've seen so far.
Noteworthy ...
4 comments:
"team members were vocally critical."
Got a link for any of these comments? Or is it speculative and not substantive?
They were vocal with the administration and with other people close to the team that they did not want Ishee as their coach. It's not speculation. Of course they haven't gone on record saying that, and I doubt they will.
Why do you think they didn't want him? Was it because they weren't recruited by him? Or, in their 19-20 yr old thinking they still thought BJ would be coming back maybe?
I think much of it came down to loyalty. From what I'm hearing, the players were loyal to B.J. Smith because they were his recruits, not Ishee's. The fact that their opinions weren't considered in Ishee's hiring made the divide grow a little more.
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