A Coaching Sim- The Bob Tuggs Journey

[muns]

Not the season we wanted, but it wasn't all that bad either.

We ended up going 18-14 and 9-9 within the BIG. I am concerned that I might get fired, but then at the same time. We did have a winning record and we didn't have a losing record in conf. I need another good class to have a chance I think.

[muns]

Yet another good class.

21st in the nation and 2nd in the BIG. This isn't turning into wins though. So I think im going to switch up (if I don't get the can here on this next sim) and put some more money into the Coaching assistant and hope he can do some miracles with development.

[muns]

I keep my job and I fire my scout. He wants more money and is going to leave anyway. I fire my coaching assistant, and I bring in two more guys.

Dumped 180 K into my coaching assistant in hopes he can help develop these guys.

[muns]

We have 3 schollys to offer this year. In speading money on my coaching staff I go from around 28k for recruiting to about 19k. Big difference.

Again I am hoping we can make a tourney. Being in the BIG is killing me though. Maybe I should have went with another team way back how many seasons ago. I feel like im barely treading water over here. Tuggy Bear seems to always be on the hot seat fighting for his life.

The roster looks really good and to start the season we are ranked 20th. The first time we have been ranked. Nice, but unless that gets me somewhere its meaningless.

[muns]

Finally we get over the HUMP!

We go 20-10 and 11-7 in the BIG. Our RPI is 22 so we will be going to the dance this year. The bubble watch has as in as a lock. Its a big relief thinking about that.

First round of the conf tourney we play wisc. We split this year. We beat them. Up next is the Illini and we haven't beaten them it honestly feels like in 8 years. We can seem to beat them or Michigan State who also swept us this year.

and that streak continues. they beat us again.

I will be watching the selection show as tuggy finally get to see the purdue name on the big board

[muns]

We will be a number 8 seed and we face off against #9 seed Arkansas State.

A quick look at their team. They aren't bad. 3 green guys overall, but nothing special. It would be upsetting if we did not beat them. Let's see how we do

[muns]

We cannot catch a freaking break. They beat us by 1 stinking point. 65-64.

We shot 19-34 from the free throw line and as I look at that stat, we deserved to lose.

UGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!

This career has been beyond frustrating lol

On a side note as much as I would have loved to win that game, we would have played the number 1 seed Florida who made it to the elite 8 so I guess its not the biggest of deals. Still would have been nice though.

Michigan State and Illinois both were number one seeds, and Michigan state won the title.


As I roll the sim over, I noticed that Tuggy Bear won the Conf Coach of the year award. Nice little nugget for the resume.

I need to get the hell out of the BIG if I can

[muns]

Man my 2 forwards get drafted at 19 and 22nd respectfully. That being said I was only able to win 11 games with them on my team in the BIG. I just sit here and shake my head.

Recruiting wise was a little bit worse. We came in at 32nd in the nation and 5th in the BIG. Once again our conf pulls in the good kids. 3 teams in the top 10 and 2 in the top 5.

[muns]

Its that time again...

Where should Tuggy bear go?

At the moment

Tennessee
South Carolina
Northwestern
North Carolina State
Mississippi
Iowa State
George Washington

Have all reached out.

In looking at them all non of them stand out really. South Carolina and Mississippi don't look like bad jobs..... but neither are what Tuggs would be looking for.

However, in Tuggs 10 years at Purdue he has only made the tourney once, and the NIT once.

Overall he is 331-353 with 2 coach of the year awards on his resume. Grand total of 4 trips to the NIT and 2 trips to the NCAA tourney.

At 52 he needs to win now in order to ever reach a big time job.....

Not sure what to do. It's pretty clear he cannot win in the BIG.

ahhhhhhhh not the dilemma I was hoping for

[muns]

In the end I thought long and hard about moving on with any of these schools and I just cant.

None offer anything that would benefit tuggy bear, and another season at Purdue in the hot seat would be better than making a move to programs that have major things wrong with them.

Leaving Purdue doesn't make sense so ill just hope for the best again. Thankfully the AD is very very patient so now that im back to average it should take a few struggle seasons to get me back to the danger zone. well that's what I hope anyway.

[muns]

HAAAAAA

in a twist, I forgot about the 2nd round of offers, and while it isn't ideal, Tuggy Bear cant pass it up

[muns]

While I don't like their unbalanced roster, they offer up some good talent and a higher Prestige school. I wont have to deal with the BIG's schedule and While VCU isn't at the very top of the A-10 they are close.

In the past 15 years they have been to the post season 11 of those years. 6 of the 11 being the NCAA tourney and last year they went to the elite 8.

Tuggy has some big shoes to fill, but thinks he can do it with the reduced schedule. If he can pull the same recruit rankings, this VCU stop should be a good one

[muns]

I was able to land a transfer from Samford that was ranked 143 so we are off to a good start. we have 3 schollys to offer up this year on the recruiting trail.

[muns]

The roster doesn't look bad. Tuggy is excited for his first season here and is hoping to make a tourney in his debut.

I will say its a tough conf but not as tough at the BIG. We start the year with 2 teams in the top 25 with others looking like they have nice rosters. Should be an interesting year

[muns]

We finish the regular season at 22-8 and 11-5 in conf. that's good for 4th place. Bubble watch has us in at the moment, and the first team on the bubble list. So we need to win our first round game to make tuggy feel a little bit better. Our RPI isn't stellar. Its sitting currently at 42

[muns]

We freaking lost in the first round of our conf tourney to a George Washington team that only had 8 wins.... SIGH

however we still make the tourney and play the play in game for the right to the 11th seed.

Boy did we make our own bed here.

[muns]

We beat Northern Illinois by 6.

Up next is Gonzaga who is Georgia. They are the 6th seed, and honestly in looking at their team I have no idea how they have gotten so far as they have. They have a shooting guard and that's it. We should be able to beat them

[muns]

We end up beating them by 11 while holding their SG to 18. Joe Chin who is our best player as a senior goes off for 37....

Next up is the number 3 seed Arizona. I am not hopeful here. They look pretty balanced. They in fact beat us by 8. closer game than I would have thought. Joe Chin went off again this game for 33. They couldn't slow him down, and we couldn't find any other offense to go with him this time.

Real nice season for us and tuggy. Its real nice to actually win for once

[muns]

We land the 37th class, but its only good for 5th in conf. UMASS pulls a BIG and lands the 4th best class.

I get to upgrade Tuggys points, and Joe Chin got drafted 17th.

[muns]

4 schollys to offer this year.

the Roster looks decent. I am hoping to compete for the conf title and make the ncaa tourney again.

Might be a little slip up this year though. I don't see where Joe's 24 points a game are going to come from this year.

[muns]

We finish up 20-10 and 10-6 in conf. That is good for 4th place. A look at the bubble watch and it says we are a lock this year. Tuggy is feeling pretty good going into the A-10 tourney.

We win the first round, second round and lost by a point to fordam in the semi's. St. Joes then spanks Fordham by 40 in the championship. That sucks cause im sure we would have given them a better game.

Lets see where we fall in with the tourney

[muns]

We are the 9 seed and we play UCONN. They looked to be stacked so it would be a miracle if we were to pull this upset.

We don't, and we only score 38 points. We stunk up the joint.

It would have been nice to advance to see Michigan state as the #1 seed in the next round.

I sim the rest of the tourney and of course Michigan State wins another title. The BIG is just crazy good

[muns]

Looking at purdue

They went 12-18 last year and 6-12 in conf

This year they went 17-13 and 10-8 in conf.

It was a good call for TUGGY in leaving when he did.

[muns]

We land the 57 best class in the nation. We slipped a lot this year recruiting wise. one 4 star guy, one 3 star guy and one 2 star guy.

5th best in the A-10 though. Still disappointing however

[muns]

and its time to take a break. been a fun day for Tuggs and his career.

He is ranked 47th all time for the most L's. lol that made me laugh.

Hasn't been a stellar career so far.

[muns]

Tuggy lands the #78 recruit from last year who transfers out of St. Joes.

Also hired a rookie coaches assistant who has 100 ratings on "O" and "D".

We have 2 guys to offer schollys to this year

[muns]

Roster looks ok this year. Nothing earth shattering, but hopefully enough to put us in the tourney.

Jenkins looks to be a guy that is going to be a hell of a shooter. As a freshman he has 92 from deep already.

[muns]

We finish up at 20-10 and 11-5 in conf.

Bubble watch has us in and on the 2nd line of the list. Our SOS is terrible this year, so we prob need to win a game or 2 In our conf tourney. Hopefully that wont be a problem for us this year.

[muns]

And that's the way this career has gone for Tuggy. We lost to Lasalle 78-79 which of course knocks us out of the tourney.

We end up the #2 seed in the NIT where we take on UNC Greensboro. Another disappointment.

We win that game by 4, which doesn't inspire confidence and we move on to play North Florida.

We lose that game by 12.

Hopefully recruiting takes away the sting of the end of this season

[muns]

We land the 19th best class this year and Tuggy's first 5 star recruit. Our 2 forwards come in ranked 12th and 56th respectfully.

19th was good for 3rd best in the conf. St. Joes was ranked 11th and George Mason was ranked 12th.

[muns]

Notre Damn and Baylor offer Tuggy Bear their head coaching positions.

Notre Dame plays in the ACC but has a prestige of 70. Here at VCU its 83. Gonna pass there, even though coaching in the ACC would be nice.

Baylor is actually tempting, but tuggy passes there as well. their prest is only in the 50's however they have only been to the post season twice so that turnaround job in a fertile recruiting texas would have been a decent way to end a career.

Tuggy is holding out hope that a major major will come in the next few years or even in another sim to get him to leave VCU

[muns]

We have 4 schollys to offer out this year. Hoping for a real good class to supplement that last class.

We are liking our roster this year. It looks like we have some talent and will have some depth. I like us better than last year and we hoped to make the tourney so its a bit more amped this year.

Jenkins is now at 98 from deep. He shot the 3 at a 48% clip last year. Hope that continues this year

[muns]

and another terrible year. Tuggy seems to have one at each stop. We go 17-15 and 6-10 in conf. Fail to make any tourney and overall just shat the bed. Our RPI was 42 so we played some tough teams (SOS was 14) but just couldn't put it together. We ended up going 3-11 vs top 50 teams and that just cant happen. We also went 3-2 vs 51-100 teams.

This will prob put tuggy on the hot seat

[muns]

OHHH MY LORD

So after licking the wounds from last year, this happened.

three 5 star recruits and 1 four star???

Tuggy might get the opportunity to end his career with a bang!

[muns]

Roster looks solid. Im not gonna make a prediction this year, but im expecting to be good.

Tuggy needs to win this year though, the board has me on the hot seat and is giving the AD some grief.

Fingers are crossed.

[muns]

We finished up 22-9 and 14-2 in the conf and keeping true to form lose the first round of our conf tourney.

We land a 6 seed in the NCAA tourney and play against a Florida Gulf Coast team as the 11 seed.

Im stopping there to watch the 2nd half of the games tonight.

Tuggy seems to have some life at the end of his career though

[Young Drachma]

Never noticed this one before, but always like your FBCB dynasties because you know the game so well.

[muns]

Originally Posted by Young Drachma

Never noticed this one before, but always like your FBCB dynasties because you know the game so well.

Thanks DC. This one is a bit different for me as i'm not doing a whole lot and just trying to fly through seasons. Wanted to see if I could get to an elite school this way, and it has been harder than I thought it would have. I think by the time Tuggy does get a good offer it will be time to retire or pretty darn close to it.

Either way its been a fun struggle!

[muns]

FGC is the first up and a quick look of a roster doesn't show much. We should beat them.

We do although it shouldn't have been as close as it was. We won 76-68. That doesn't inspire a ton of confidence going into the 2nd match up with the number 3 seed Villanova who by the way is also ranked 4th in the country

[muns]

We were just out classed in that game as nova beats us 88-74. We had 25 team fouls that game with 1 starter fouling out and 2 others ending with 4. Needless to say we played a lot of the bench that game and was happy to see us not lost by 30.

Time to see what happens next

[muns]

Tuggy was named the A-10 coach of the year this season and I got a notice that a guy committed played in the High school All American game, and ohhhh by the way was the MVP of that game with 19 points scored as a SG. I'm thinking that we are gonna have another real nice class coming in again this year.

[muns]

Our recruiting class came in at 22nd which was good for 4th in the A-10. the 4th was a disappointing rating, but top 25 is still good. We landed a 5 start a 4 start and a 3 star.

An interesting tid bit here. We landed the #1 recruit last year from Cali, and our 5 start this year was ranked as the 5th best kid in the nation from Texas. We aren't landing the big studs from the East coast we are leaving our base to land better kids. That is interesting for me to see.

[muns]

The other thing when looking at the guys that have come to VCU that I haven't really noticed because I have been trying to fly through the seasons but will be starting to pay attention now is that all the guards that I have brought in can shoot the hell out of the 3 or have major 3 point potential.

I gotta keep better track to see if Tuggs is doing that on purpose or it has simply just worked out like that

[muns]

Tuggy got to upgrade himself. so he is now 100 in recruiting and 40 every where else on his coaching card.

[muns]

Xavier
UNC
South Carolina
St. Johns
Pitt
Alabama

They all come a calling for Tuggy bear, but he isn't having any of it. There could be something special brewing here at VCU and leaving it now would just be crazy.

Although saying No to Pitt being an alumi was tough.

We need to see how these recruiting classes are going to gel and play out together

[muns]

Virginia Tech is the first major major program to offer their head job.

They have a Prestige of 90, have a huge budget, are in the ACC, and had the number 10 ranked class last year.

Saying no to them is hard....

[muns]

Their roster looks like this. They are balanced, they have a real good sophomore and freshman classes. It would be a job I would take any other day. I just don't think leaving VCU at this point would be a good idea.

I think VCU can make some noise in a year or 2 and want to see that play out.

In the end, Tuggy choses to stay on at VCU

[muns]

Clemson, Miami and Boston College also come calling and both get turned down as well. Something about the ACC wanting Tuggy in their league I guess.

[muns]

I had an assistant leave to take the head job at Stony Brook. My coaching tree has seen 3 other assistants become head coaches.

The best being James morales who left Tuggs while he was at Purdue to take over the Loyola IL program who he turned into a winner quickly. So quick in fact that Georgia Tech nabbed him their coach after 4 years at Loyola. I hope James does a good job at GT. Pretty cool to see one of your own take over a power program

[muns]

Here is what James looks like