John, Giles gone

As the major newspapers reported, Jay John was fired over the weekend. Assistant Kevin Mouton takes over and looks down the barrel of a UCLA and USC home stand. Yikes!

What surprised me was that Mouton's first order of business was to kick C.J. Giles off the team. Bummer. Seems like you'd want to give the new coach a chance to do that himself. Too bad it didn't work out.

More on this later.

Coach John may be fired, but it won't help this season.

I haven't blogged about the Beavers Men's Basketball team this year, but after starting 0-8 in Pac-10 its time.

By the time you read this Coach Jay John may already be fired. I hope that OSU keeps him through the end of the season because it doesn't gain us anything to fire him now. It probably hurts the players. And really, only Pro teams fire coaches halfway through the season right?

Time to catch up with the season. It's been a disappointing season. I've watched a few games live and a few on TV. I've been a season ticket holder the last 4-5 years because I thought that Jay John knew what it would take to build a winner because he'd seen it at U of A. After that NIT season I really felt that he had brought us over the hump and we'd be back to the Orange Express in no time.

This is definitely Coach John's last season (if not his last days). I think it is time for him to go. I think he got spoiled at Arizona. He couldn't get elite talent, yet he wouldn't change his offense to help his players. The offense clearly relies on players to make plays. He's just not good enough with the X's and O's to overcome a lack of talent like say WSU can.

I think this season he may have the best collection of athleticism he's ever had. Heck probably the best since the Miller days. Quite a bit of talent too. But no leadership and no confidence really doomed this team from the beginning. Plus, there's the poor shooting. I think that goes with confidence, but its been a common theme with Jay's teams and really OSU teams for the past 15 years. I actually like alot of these players and I think its possible that the right coach could have a serious breakthrough next season.

So we'll see what happens this week. Thanks to Coach John for his effort and lets hope for a Dennis Erickson-type hire this time.


Makes you appreciate Mike Riley and Pat Casey, huh?