I knew there were a lot of people that wanted Lisa McDonald to become the head coach of the Ball State women's basketball team, but this is ridiculous. There has been a huge outpouring of support for her. Let's start with today's Daily News editorial. It starts off with what appears to be a Tom Collins bashing, and then does a 180 and supports his decision, although a previous DN editorial backed McDonald.
Both Ryan Wood's story today and
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For a full Kelly Packard bio, read today's DN story by Andrew Walker. Pretty thorough, not gonna lie about that.
As I kind of stated in a previous post, I never really saw what was so great about McDonald that it was an absolute necessity that she get the job. Sure, Ball State won a share of the MAC West championship. But this team underachieved greatly and got bounced in the first game of the MAC Tournament in a year where we were expected to supplant Bowling Green for MAC supremacy. Now who knows if that will happen, especially with the Falcons reloaded.
People want to say "oh, she did a great job considering all the outside distractions" but at some point you have to forget about them. If the players couldn't move past it on the court, well isn't that McDonald's fault? Has anyone who blames the outside distractions ever been an athlete? In my athletic experience, once you step onto the court, everything is forgotten and you're concentrated on winning the game. Look, I'm not shortchanging the unfortunate illness surrounding Roller at all. Let's be clear on that. It just seems like a Division I athlete should be able to focus on gameplay some point.
All I'm saying is, based strictly on performance, it certainly didn't seem McDonald was the clear-cut choice although she was the top assistant. That being said, Roller was Brenda Frese's top assistant and that appeared to work out pretty well. Although you could argue that Roller's teams really underachieved.
Some people (mainly ballstate1984 on BSUFans and the DN articles) makes the argument that Packard hasn't coached in 10 years. Well, first off, that's college. And it's actually been eight, but hey, let's just round up. Second, I doubt she has forgotten how to coach, especially being part of an elite staff at Colorado State, in which Bowling Green coach Curt Miller was also an assistant. Looks like that hire worked out pretty well. Third, in women's basketball, there's little difference between coaching college and pros, which is where Packard came from. Her credentials are certainly worthy of a shot at college coaching, and if you're a Ball State alum, you'll with nothing but the best.
So what were the reasons McDonald wasn't hired? Hopefully it's something we'll find out soon.
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