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Where have I ever once defended what Alford did at Iowa? Again, I would have NEVER hired him. UCLA doesn't ask me which coach to hire.
But he didn't do that at UCLA, he did it at Iowa, if he'd done it at UCLA he wouldn't be the head coach at UCLA today, the boosters would have run him out of town on a rail.
As for the extension stuff that's silly, I see Arizona fans blasting Alford for agreeing to an extension at UNM and then bolting for UCLA before he signed it. I agree sounds bad doesn't it. Well Sean Miller SIGNED a 10 year extension at Xavier in April of 2008, one year later he left Xavier for Arizona. And if you recall, the AD at Xavier was quoted as saying when he left town on Sunday he was told he still had his head coach, Sean Miller, he found out the next morning he no longer had his head coach. that's how it's done coaches move up and they are almost always still under contract when doing it. At least Alford hadn't signed his contract at UNM.
My issue with what Alford did at Iowa is simple, he decided that Pierce was good and he had to have him so he was going to do whatever he could to try and keep Pierce on the team. He put winning games above morality. Not nearly as bad but taking a kid you KNOW cheated to get through HS, and playing him is again putting winning games above morality. Alford publicly defended Pierce, Miller publicly defended PJC. What Pierce did is MUCH worse, but you can't take the moral high ground on this and just pretend that Miller is "skirting some academic rules". He has a kid that he knows for a fact didn't really earn the grades that are on his transcript, I'm still surprised UA didn't force PJC to redshirt last year and prove he could do college level work, they had literally nothing on his transcript they could trust.
He took a kid that he knows for a fact cheated repeatedly. Unless we believe that PJC is the worst cheater in the history of cheating and only did it 3 times and got caught every time, clearly the kid was doing it regularly. UA knows this, and they still admitted him because he's good at basketball.
Miller has gone after Leaf twice now in less than 2 weeks. First when he was talking about markannen and then suddenly he's talking about a kid not playing well at a tryout and not wanting to put the time in to get better. Gee I wonder if he means TJ Leaf. But just in case we're not sure he tells us that Markkanen is not rail thin and needing to get much stronger to compete in college, wonder who that was directed at? but to make completely sure we know, he also talks about kids who are supposed to be good shooters but when you look at the stats they actually shot 27%. Guess what, if you look at Max Preps under TJ Leaf, he shot 27% from 3, as a 14 year old HS freshman. That's how petty Sean Miller is being he's blasting a kid for his 3 point percentage as a 14 year old.
All because Leaf dared to decommit and commit to Miller's conference foe.
I would also submit the comments about the crowd and why would kids commit to schools who don't sell out were directed at 3 kids. TJ Leaf, Jaylen Hands, and Ivan Rabb. all of whom committed the same sin, not committing to Sean Miller. Hands is currently 16.
I have no problem with rivalry stuff, I laughed when Enfield said his comments but he was not talking about HS age kids. I keep seeing UA fans say he's not calling them out by name, everyone knows who he's talking about so that's a pretty silly disclaimer.
Parker is leading the country in rebounding so far this year, he's not goign to be a pro, 6'8' C's don't make the NBA, but he's improved every year at UCLA. I thought his first UCLA team underachieved but last year he did an ok job he had a very short roster and basically had 3 scholarship guards on the team.
I love how when they were at UCLA you blasted the Wears constantly, overrated, soft etc, now they're an example of bad coaching because they made NBA rosters(briefly) and were McD's All Americans. So when they were playing against UA they were garbage, but now you want to make a point you're essentially claiming they were really good players and just coached poorly?
Nobody is arguing Steve Alford is a choirboy but neither is Sean Miller. When ALford talks about UCLA and pace he's not just saying hey Arizona plays slower than we do, he's trying to convince kids in LA that UCLA doesn't play grind it out Howland ball anymore, he's not bashing Arizona he's saying that other guy is gone, I'm the coach and I give players freedom(too much IMO). Miller went beyond that.
