Poll: Is Jamil Wilson Kent's Savior or Curse?

by PaulSF on Mar 9, 2009 7:42 PM PDT in Oregon Ducks Basketball

"...obviously, me coming in with guys who are one year older than me, that’s a building process. I think it will be a great fit."

--Jamil Wilson, Oregon Recruiting Class of '09

Clearly Jamil Wilson sees something in Ernie Kent and his team that many Oregon fans don't see, or at least won't acknowledge: potential.

On Sunday, the 6-foot-7 all-state forward from Racine, Wisc., announced his plans to sign a letter of intent to play for Kent and the University of Oregon, an interesting twist in the on-going saga between Kent and Oregon's faithful. The highly touted prospect is currently listed at No. 62 on ESPN's Top 150 and 35th by Scout.com of all 2009 high school recruits.

With an expensive new arena set to be delivered in 2010 and the Ducks coming off one of their worst seasons in over a decade, is the Wilson verbal another recruiting coup for Kent, or the fodder doubters need to stage their proverbial coup d'état?

We know we've beaten this topic into the ground this season, although rightfully so. But there's no doubt Wilson's commitment and the two recent Oregon wins, as trivial as they may be, change the circumstances a little.

So, what do you think? Does Wilson help or hurt Kent's chances to keep his job?

Poll

Will the commitment of highly touted recruit Jamil Wilson help Ernie Kent keep his job, or is Kent doomed to be out the door before Matthew Knight Arena opens its doors in the fall of 2010?

Wilson's signing is exactly what Kent needed to prove his worth after such a rough year.

89 votes

Wilson's commitment helps, but Kent's going to need a postseason appearance next year to keep his job.

211 votes

It has less to do with Wilson, and more to do with the progress his current players make this offseason.

99 votes

It doesn't matter. Kent will be gone before Wilson ever sets foot on Oregon's campus.

43 votes

442 votes | Poll has closed

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Comments

I've been an Ernie fan for the most part

I’ll have to agree with Kilkenny when he said that Oregon is not a basketball power, yet we tend to think of them as one. While the strides have been great (re: 2 elite eight appearances) we just don’t have the history of a UCLA to compete year in and year out. While I’ll agree Ernie doesn’t develop talent like he should, I"ll take what we have now what we’ve had all the way back until the Tall Firs of ’39.

by SeattleDucks on Mar 9, 2009 7:53 PM PDT reply actions

I think we are looking at Kent being the head coach until this team graduates. The track record being that Kent’s teams improve after that initial rebuilding, peaking at Senior Year. Kent needs to go halvsies in the Pac-10 and have a winning record of conference to open the arena (which should get the Ducks close to the tournament if not in it). With this team, I think it is doable. The big question he needs to answer is if Oregon is so front loaded right now with Freshman, how does he avoid a complete rebuild in 3 years?

If he makes it through next season, I think the next pivotal one will be how the 2012-13 season goes. That will be the season where he will need to break the string of down years

--Dominic

Autzen Stadium is where great teams go to die." - J. Brady McCullough, The Michigan Daily.

by dvieira on Mar 9, 2009 10:16 PM PDT reply actions

2010-11 is going to be the real test in my opinion. Though TP will be gone (is that really that bad), Dunnigan, Crittle, Humphrey, Sim, etc. will all be Juniors, and Wilson will be a sophomore. It will be the opening season for Matt Court….

With that talent, and game experience, there will need to be success. There will need to be sellouts. If there is not an NCAA tourney appearance that year, I don’t see how the athletic department could keep him around.

--AddictedToQuack, SBNation's Oregon Ducks blog

by jtlight on Mar 10, 2009 7:03 AM PDT up reply actions

I love these types of hypothetical debates...

…because no matter what happens, it gives us years of fodder for commenting, discussing, analyzing and debating. In my opinion, Kent’s future is partly going to be dictated by Bellotti’s future. Remember, if Bellotti steps into the role of A.D. in two weeks, he becomes Kent’s boss. Will that help or hurt Kent? As far as I know, Kent has a solid professional relationship with Bellotti, and it might help him. And that would be a pretty shocking development if Bellotti stepped in and his first job was to fire Kent.

Kent will be back next year, without question. He’ll need a postseason appearance (at least an NIT slot) to keep his job for the opening. I think he’ll get it. In fact, I think Kent takes this group of guys to the Dance next year. The Pac-10 is graduating a lot of guys, and it could be a golden opportunity for Oregon to step in and make some noise with an energetic young core.

Hi, I'm Paul Thompson, and I'm a quack-aholic.

by PaulSF on Mar 10, 2009 10:26 AM PDT reply actions

NEXT year?!

Addicted To Quack [dot] com; "In other news, Ropert was mauled by a velociraptor yesterday and sustained a life-threatening ACL injury and a pulled hamstring."

by qrsouther on Mar 10, 2009 6:16 PM PDT up reply actions

I'll buy it.

It's spelled "M-A-R-C-H-I-N-G-B-A-N-D."

I support inroywetrust in his support of The VD Special in his support of me supporting Roger Kieschnick in his quest to becoming the best Kieschnick ever to play professional baseball.

by Takimoto on Mar 10, 2009 9:00 PM PDT up reply actions

Kent is here for the long haul

He survived this season, and he will survive the Kilkenny tenure. Bellotti will not fire Ernie for the type of results he’s had. It will take something like missing the tournament 4 consecutive years, or something, for Bellotti to fire Ernie. Ernie & Mike are pretty close. Mike is HUGE on loyalty (Nick Aliotti anyone?), and up until this year’s monumental failure, Ernie’s results have been signifcantly, but not drastically, worse than Bellotti’s with the football team.

If we have another really poor year next year, yeah, he’ll be gone. But that really isn’t going to happen. The Pac-10 was bad this year…and it gets worse. Almost everybody good graduates, or is coming out early. Some of these teams that lose everybody didn’t even sign anybody this year due to turmoil (and I mean ANYBODY. Both Stanford and Arizona failed to sign anyone this year and both lose most of their production to graduation or the league).

The best post players are leaving, Brockman, Pendagraph, Hill, Gibson, Baynes, Aboya.

We will be a ‘surprise team’ next year, and it shouldn’t come as a surpise to anybody. And we’ll probably be pretty good (NCAA bubble at the least, which is good enough that you can’t fire him, and Bellotti certainly won’t) for these kids final two seasons as well.

Kent will be here until he decides to leave. I know that makes a lot of Duck fans angry to hear and some will refuse to admit it, but I suggest getting around to accepting it sooner rather than later.

by Uncle Pennybags on Mar 10, 2009 11:38 AM PDT reply actions 1 recs

I couldn't agree with you more.

I’ve been in Kent’s corner all along. He runs one of the most entertaining systems around, and with so many young athletes on the team, there’s no question they’ll be fun to watch come next fall and beyond.

But, for all intents and purposes, I also really enjoy debating with Oregon fans about this. I’m as die-hard as any Duck fan, but I can’t stand how volatile some of our core is. Then again, it’s probably that same volatility that lends to having a rabid fan base that helps create some of the best game atmospheres in all of college sports.

In other words, long live the Oregon Ducks!

Hi, I'm Paul Thompson, and I'm a quack-aholic.

by PaulSF on Mar 10, 2009 12:14 PM PDT up reply actions

+1 for Uncle Pennybags for great analysis on this one. The only part I might disagree with is how Ernie handles the new arena. This type of dropoff will be unacceptable in the era of Matthew Knight Arena, even Kilkenny has stated as much. I think the donors wouldn’t have it, despite their loyality to Ernie

--Dominic

Autzen Stadium is where great teams go to die." - J. Brady McCullough, The Michigan Daily.

by dvieira on Mar 10, 2009 1:01 PM PDT up reply actions