Will Cherry, Sam Dowd praise ISU's Bill Evans

[grizzlyjournal]

It's "That time of the year," of course. By that, I mean that the coaching merry-go-round starts whirling and.. that the "old" is flung off and the "new" will soon scramble on. A very well written column in the Idaho State Journal from yesterday examines the job status of Bill Evans, former Montana head assistant coach under Wayne Tinkle. There's no doubting that Mr Evans is one of the quality people in college basketball. I can attest to that, having written a profile on Mr. Evans in 2011... not long before he was hired at ISU. In the presser, after the Bengals loss to Southern Utah on Wed., Evans sat silently, head down, while being defended and praised by senior, Sam Dowd, who credited Evans for his compassion and inspiration. Quoting a paragraph from the column: "To a man, he’s kind. His sarcasm is infectious once you catch on. He boasts coaching Division I college basketball “the right way,” ignoring the temptations so many other college coaches fall for and ultimately get caught in."
The column link is here: https://www.idahostatejournal.com/members/bengals-season-ending-loss-a-microcosm-of-underachieving-this-season/article_a068a891-32fe-5abc-9e2f-73326bb12b55.html

I post this because many players -- including former Griz Will Cherry -- have high regard for Evans. You can read Cherry's recent twitter comments below:
[media]https://twitter.com/willcherry5/status/1106309734158598145[/media]

 

[Kabooom]

Like to see Coach Evans next in line as a Griz Head Coach once Travis selects his next gig..Coach Evans had a lot to do with Tinks success while at the helm for the Griz. Defensive Guru. Good recruiter. If I were Tinks, I'd hire him in a heart-beat @ Oregon St. Their defensive sets at Montana were quite effective..

 

[Gaeilge1]

Isn't Coach Evans still employed by ISU? I thought he still had a year on his current contract, and I hadn't heard that he had been terminated.

 

[Grizfan-24]

I have a ton of respect for Coach Evans. My first experience with him was when he was still coaching at Southern Utah. He isn’t like a lot coaches where their philosophies are closely guarded. I think it is in part because the matchup zone is such a massive undertaking. But he literally gave coaches all of his match-up zone stuff when you attended his clinics. I have like 50 pages of his stuff crammed into a folder somewhere. You could call him up any time.

I attended the coaching clinic at Southern Idaho, where the head coach at the time was Barrett Peery. Peery and Evans have a pretty good connection, and so you can probably see why Peery very quickly came to his defense this week. Both Peery and Evans are pretty good people.

There is some conversation that this might have been it for Evans at ISU. New AD, changing culture at ISU, and a booster frustration at the lack of traction the program has had since he has taken over. There isn’t a more ideal fit for Pocatello than Evans. But there is a belief that they can return it to the Herb Williams era at ISU, and I am not entirely sure that is possible. One of the more difficult places to recruit people to.

Evans is a different cat to be honest, and while I would love him to run the program, I am not sure if he’s in that place in his career. Heard on a couple of occasions when he took over ISU, is that it might be his last head coaching gig. If you want a coach that accelerates the pace of the program, Peery might be the guy.

 

[grizzlyjournal]

For: Grizfan-24. Peery would definitely bring an identifiable culture to Pocatello. But I'm wondering why Peery would want to leave Portland (State) for ISU (and Poky).

All of this is, of course, premature. Evans is still in the employ of ISU, as the article in the Idaho State Journal carefully documents.

 

[Mousegriz]

For: Grizfan-24. Peery would definitely bring an identifiable culture to Pocatello. But I'm wondering why Peery would want to leave Portland (State) for ISU (and Poky).

All of this is, of course, premature. Evans is still in the employ of ISU, as the article in the Idaho State Journal carefully documents.

Think 24 was referring to Evans possibly coming to UM if Decuire leaves. Why leave Portland for Pocatello?

 

[Grizfan-24]

Sort of meant UM, sorry my grammatical and mechanical missteps continue to flag me.


Now that you mention it, Peery is the type of guy who could make ISU work. He spent considerable time in the region, has excellent connections to the JC programs and could bring a quick rebound there.

Heard it from multiple people, PSU isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be from a coaches position.

 

[tourist]

Isn't Coach Evans still employed by ISU? I thought he still had a year on his current contract, and I hadn't heard that he had been terminated.

ISU is floundering. There is no money to buy out his contract, even if they wanted to. This is a school with a large 'non-traditional student body' of young adults with families. Even if there was something get excited about, its subdued. You just don't see a guy in his mid-thirties jumping up and down, screaming on his team, in front of this five kids and pissed off wife. There is no drunken Greek culture on campus, to encourage debauchery. "Animal House" could have never taken place there.
Just got a new President, fired the AD eight months ago whom they kept five years too long, and are stuck with an interim AD during a national search with a seemingly indefinite time frame. They are also stuck with Reid Gym and Holt Arena. The only bright spot is Phenicie, believe it or not. The ISU football fan base has awakened from hibernation this past season.
Pocatello is a dull uninspiring town in the middle of the Greater Salt Lake Mormon sphere of influence, only about 70 miles north of the Utah border. SLC about 170 miles away, Boise 220, Missoula 375. About 75% of the populace is LDS. The only thing more common than dandelions on the lawns, is the number of Stake Centers. I about swallowed my tongue laughing when someone wondered about moving from Portland to Pocatello. I thought for sure, they'd drop to DII after the fall of Kramer. No deep pocket sugar daddy to give it cash.

 

[IdaGriz01]

Isn't Coach Evans still employed by ISU? I thought he still had a year on his current contract, and I hadn't heard that he had been terminated.

ISU is floundering. There is no money to buy out his contract, even if they wanted to. This is a school with a large 'non-traditional student body' of young adults with families. Even if there was something get excited about, its subdued. You just don't see a guy in his mid-thirties jumping up and down, screaming on his team, in front of this five kids and pissed off wife. There is no drunken Greek culture on campus, to encourage debauchery. "Animal House" could have never taken place there.
Just got a new President, fired the AD eight months ago whom they kept five years too long, and are stuck with an interim AD during a national search with a seemingly indefinite time frame. They are also stuck with Reid Gym and Holt Arena. The only bright spot is Phenicie, believe it or not. The ISU football fan base has awakened from hibernation this past season.
Pocatello is a dull uninspiring town in the middle of the Greater Salt Lake Mormon sphere of influence, only about 70 miles north of the Utah border. SLC about 170 miles away, Boise 220, Missoula 375. About 75% of the populace is LDS. The only thing more common than dandelions on the lawns, is the number of Stake Centers. I about swallowed my tongue laughing when someone wondered about moving from Portland to Pocatello. I thought for sure, they'd drop to DII after the fall of Kramer. No deep pocket sugar daddy to give it cash.

All pretty much true about Pocatello, the town. (We have watched in wonderment from IF for about 45 years.) Obviously, Pokie is not a "typical" college town. Its roots are tied to being a railroad hub, with a farm-ranch sideline. But do not confuse even that with Idaho State University, as an institution. It has excellent technical/medical curricula, with close ties to high-tech and medical companies in the town's industrial park. But here's the other thing ... LDS students prefer (it seems to me) just about any place but ISU. They go south to Utah -- like Weber or BYU -- or north to BYU-Idaho, when they can afford to do so.

In the end, the so-call "town vs gown" discrepancy may well be more extreme than almost any place else you have a (fairly) large public university. And that, in turn, translates to a place that is not particularly welcoming to students, much less students from minorities.