The Firing Line: .500 winning % in Pac12 Conference Play

That was back in the days when coaches were paid 30-40 k a year (when Ralph first got here they had to jump through hoops just to give him an extra few thousand to get him here), almost everybody had a court and locker rooms that were built in the 40s and 50s, budgets were waaaay smaller, one and dones didn't really exist, a person's decisions or word generally meant something, college meant something to a bigger chunk of the players, and money wasn't the end all, and quite frankly a lot more of top recruits had more good sense and fewer expectations.

Those were different times. Sure, some schools had bigger budgets, but you're probably not talking by millions back in those days.

Might as well add in the fact that OSU was a relatively successful basketball school in the years/decades prior to Miller's arrival, it was a different story here in those days.

As Beavers, we should all be familiar with just how hard it is to overcome the perception of being an inept program.

I'm confused. What do you mean by "maintain"? Say a men's basketball coach starts at Oregon State after years of the team winning much less than 50% of their conference games. Do you require this new coach to win 50% or more in their first season or get fired after one season? If not, do you give them two seasons to get their overall percentage above 50%? Let's say they win over 50% of their conference games in their fourth season. Do you fire them anyway because their overall percentage is still under 50%?

I would think the only way to enforce such a "rule" would be to require a 50% or better conference record every single year. And why apply it just to Oregon State? Every year 4 to 5 coaches in the conference have a losing conference record. Maybe the pac-12 should just fire them all every year?

In short, FALSE.

Jonathan Smith has been here for 5 years and he's 18 and 25 in conference.... Fire his ass!

Firing anyone based on a single bad year is probably bad practice. SO a single dip below .500 should be fileable. So we need to do a rolling average, say three years. I also prefer a metric like score differential, because a loss by 20 is different then a hard fought battle that you lose by 1. At least it is from a fans perspective, which, honestly is the only perspective I care about since... I am a fan Take the two women's basketball games this weekend. I went to both, the Utah game was a crazy, exciting emotional roller coaster. Disappointment getting down early, steady building excitement as we slowly gained ground. Euphoria when we tied it, and ultimately despondency when we came up just short in OT. Versus the game vs. Colorado which was... just plain boring and disappointing. Even though it hurt, I would much rather see a game like the one vs Utah then then Colorado game. They are both losses, but they should count differently, thus the need to use season conference point differential.

So that would be my firing metric, a three year average (probably give a slight weight to the current year) of conference point differential, if THAT drops below 0 (more points given up that scored), then sharpen the axe. If that is too harsh than leave in the non-conference point differential as well, that should give the coach a positive buffer each year.

Brief response to some of it.

We made the 2005 NIT for two big reasons.  First, it was an expanded NIT.  That was back when 40 teams were invited.  The top 12 teams received byes, which Oregon State did not.  

The second big reason is that the NIT did not give automatic bids to Regular Season Champions.  2005 was actually the final season that that was true.  2005 was the final season that the MIBA ran the NIT.  The following year, the NCAA took over NIT and sent out invites.    Six regular season champions were not invited.

Of the 40 teams, the Beavers had the 36th-highest RPI, getting a home game with an RPI of 100.  Cal State Fullerton, who Oregon State played, had the lowest RPI in the field.

2005 was basically the final year that the Beavers could make the field, much less earn a home game, with that resume.

In 2012, Oregon State's RPI was 132.  The Beavers probably needed at least two more wins to get any serious consideration.

In 2014, Oregon State's RPI was 100.  Unfortunately, 13 regular season champions received invited in 2014.  You basically were down 21 spots from 2005.  2014 Oregon State is probably easily an NIT team in 2005.  

The cupboard was bare after the 2013-14 season.  Look at the players lost.  Craig Robinson lost the players on the team, the team started to resemble a sinking ship, and Robinson was fired, as a result.  Tinkle had to play a bunch of walk-ons with GPII in 2014-15, because so many players left before Robinson was fired.  Tinkle doing what he did with that team was amazing.  

In 2015, Oregon State's RPI was 133.  Great season considering the hand dealt but nowhere near worthy of a postseason invite, outside of the CBI.

Oregon State was .500 in the Pac-12 for the first time ever in 2016.  It was the first time in the Pac-10/12 since 1993, but the Beavers finished with a losing non-conference record in 1993 and a losing total record, as a result.  2016 was the first time with a .500 or better winning percentage in both conference and non-conference since 1990, GPI's last year.

Oregon State got screwed in 2019.  Screwed!!  The Beavers finished fourth in the Pac-12 with a NET of 87.  One of the teams that leapfrogged Oregon State for absolutely no good reason whatsoever was San Diego, which finished seventh in the West Coast Conference and with a NET of 97.  Screwed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  In any other year, Oregon State is comfortably in the NIT.  It's a no-brainer.  2019.  Screwed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  The Anti-Tinkle crowd never talks about 2019.  Not once.  Just a huge screw job!!!!!!!  And no one seriously contemplated accepting a CBI bid in 2019.  NIT or bust, and we busted.  Screwed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oregon Stat had a NET of 71 in 2020.  No come down.  The Beavers were even more comfortably into the NIT in 2020.  And the Beavers had an outside chance to play into the Tourney with a win over Oregon.  And then people overreacted to COVID-19 and shut down the season.  And the Anti-Tinkle crowd also never talks about 2020.  Just awful timing.  Basically, you saw the second-best Oregon State team in the past 30 seasons and you never got to see how the season played out.  The timing was awful.  Oh well.

Oregon State's NET was 91 in 2021, not as good as 2019 or 2020.  But the Beavers got hot at the right time.  Fun to watch.  I am hoping for a repeat one of these years.