Guru weighs in on Boyle, Wolff and ODU vs. Wendy

Mel takes a look, and a few shots, that made us chuckle at LadySwish. Here are a few snippets; read the full post at melgreenberg.com


Has any state beyond Virginia ever had a cluster of its major universities perform a messier job in the same time period of botching up the way they do business in the women’s game, which is not to deny what a great hire former Duke player and assistant Boyle is in succeeding Ryan. She also head coached at Richmond.


While Virginia officials were busy keeping the university charter jet fueled and airborne, not far away Virginia Tech decided the cheapest way to save travel money finding a coach is to just walk down the hall to the men’s office where they decided operations director Dennis Wolff, a previous head coach at Boston University, was perfect to replace Beth Dunkenberger and women’s coaching experience was not a necessary qualification.
 

Not to be outdone in the state of Virginia, especially involving schools with past track records of Associated Press Poll appearances, Old Dominion’s athletic director Wood Selig, a former member of the NCAA women’s basketball tournament committee when he was at Western Kentucky, decided last week to take advantage of the fading newspaper industry and use the medium as a public forum for dissing longtime Lady Monarchs coach Wendy Larry.

Introducing Virginia Tech women's coach Dennis Wolff

Former Virginia Tech men's Director of Operations Dennis Wolff held his initial press conference on Tuesday, introduced as the sixth head coach of the Hokies women's team replacing Beth Dunkenberger. Wolff, the all-time winningest coach of the Boston University men's basketball team prior to coming to Tech in 2010, led the Terriers to three straight America East titles (2003-04) and made four postseason appearances there.

Wolff has not coached a college women's team before but alluded to coaching his daughter, Nicole, the 2002 McDonald's National Player of the Year. Nicole Wolff endured an injury-plagued career at UConn and is now attending graduate school at Boston University.

Wolff admitted to being surprised when Hokies athletic director Jim Weaver approached him, but is looking forward to what he describes as "probably the biggest challenge of my coaching career."

The Hokies finished 11-19 this season and had just one ACC victory.

Some snippets:

Wolff: "Working with the men's team really rekindled my interest in coaching again."

"It happened very quickly. He (Weaver) asked me to think about it. I thought about it. We had discussions about it last week. ... It was never in my mind until Jim Weaver put it in my mind."

Wolff on the difference between coaching men and women: "A lot of times with high level players on the women's side, they are so dominant all the way through that rarely do they have anybody say anything critical to them." ... (Reference to UConn's Geno Auriemma). "He coaches them like Jim Calhoun coaches them. You have to have thick skin. I think these kids want to have a good team and I think they will be responsive."

On goals: "We want to be a winning program in the ACC, be a top program and be in the NCAA Tournament."

On recruiting: "I'm an aggressive person. ... The way to have good players is to work at it."

On women's basketball experience: "My daughter is something I can use, her experience, my family's experience with her, will guide me."

Jim Weaver: "I have a very high regard for him and I know other people in our department have the same."

On the initial approach: "I approached him, I don't know, five or six weeks ago, maybe four weeks ago, and asked him to think about it. I recognized the fact that it might be a significant change for him. I wanted to plant the seed and I did that."

On the coaching search: I don't discuss other candidates when we have a search, individually, that is. Having said that, I've been working behind the scenes for the most part of this academic year knowing there would be a likelihood that we would be making a change. .. I'm not going to get into those candidates. Some of those are still playing; some of them got beat yesterday."

On why the decision was made so quickly: "I think he's the best person for the job at the time. ....He has a great knowledge of the game. He coached his son at BU. He coached his daughter so that she was the best player in the land eight or nine years ago. People who know him know he's a tireless worker."

Weaver revealed Wolff's contract details as follows: It is a six-year deal, with the base salary identical to the men's coach.
$233,486 base salary
$132,000 retention incentive, paid over three payment (April 1, Dec. 1, Aug 1)
$10,000 fee from Nike contract
opportunity to have a membership at the Blacksburg Country Club or Pete Dye River Course
Dealer vehicle

Tech to "officially" announce new coach at 4 p.m.

You can watch Virginia Tech's 4 p.m. press conference to introduce new coach Dennis Wolff live.

Is this a curious choice, Hokie fans?

Dennis Wolff to take over at Virginia Tech

Multiple sources, including AAU guru Boo Williams and Daily Press columnist David Teel, have said that Dennis Wolff will be the next head coach of the Virginia Tech women's team.

UConn graduate Wolff, 56, is the current Director of Operations for Tech men's coach Seth Greenberg. He's well overqualified for that job, having served as men's coach at Boston University for 15 years, leading the Terriers to two NCAA Tournament appearances and three NIT appearances. Wolff was named the America East Coach of the Year in 1997, 2003, 2004, the NABC District I Coach of the Year in 1997 and 2004 and the New England Division I Coach of the Year in 1997 and 2004. He won a school record 247 games at BU before being fired in March 2009 after the Terriers lost in the first round of the America East Tournament. The former Virginia men's assistant to Jeff Jones was hired by Tech as director of operations last June.

Wolff's daughter, Nicole, the 2002 McDonald's National Player of the Year, was plagued by injuries during her four years at UConn.

So far official Tech sources are mum.