Have to pay her more than Barnes don't see that happening. I think she is the highest paid coach in women's basketball right now. I don't see DW going there in a non revenue sport. He may be willing to give a Dawn Staley current type contract to someone don't know if he'd go the seven years she has left on it to any coach. Even then that is like 3 million plus a season which is a lot of money for a non revenue sport.
I'm not sure that she is and so many of them have transferred. She has a couple of players that are supposed to be really good and neither is doing that much. She hasn't been able to get a post player that is really elite. She keeps getting two or three top 50 freshmen and two or three leave through the portal for a minus 0 gain. Plus with Boyd and Cooper coming in and top recruit Brooks in 2025 were really on the right track with elite players. Just need several more.
You mean two or three top 30 freshmen..... none of those have left. The only players that have left are transfers and bench warmers. Pretty typical situation when you take over a dumpster fire left by an abusive coach. Two top 5 recruiting classes is head and shoulders above Kellie.
I didn't say each person was both a transfer in (Taylor, Day-Wilson, and Oliver, who transferred for more playing time) AND a benchwarmer (S. Bolin), so your point is moot.
Wilson wasn't a bench warner and actually some of those top thirties your talking about have not been elite players. Plus Kellie's had two top ten portal classes and if you look at the records you will see they are extremely identical. She is 60 and 28 at Duke .682 percentage. Kellie is 104 and 49 at Tennessee .680 so where has she done better? Donavan 6.5 points and 5.3 rebounds, Jackson 8.8 points and 2.2 rebounds, and their list of players having poor seasons goes on. Only the transfer from Georgia has been an elite player for her. She sits in 7th place in the ACC with a 10 and 6 record and while Kellie is 9 and 5 and currently fourth place in the SEC. Makes no difference where a class is ranked if they don't show it on the court thus far hers have not done the job. Meanwhile in the class of 2025 she has no players. We have one top 20 player. So anyway you work it she has done nothing more can't prove it with the stats or how the players have performed. She is going into year four and Kellie is in year five so plenty of seasons to compare and when you compare you get the same coaching results.
Here's the thing. The comparison between Harper and Lawson starts with comparing how they did at comparable points in their coaching careers. Here are Kellie's numbers in her 1st 4 yrs as a head coach:
| 2009–10 | NC State | 20–14 | 7–7 | T–5th | NCAA First Round |
| 2010–11 | NC State | 14–17 | 4–10 | 10th | |
| 2011–12 | NC State | 19–16 | 5–11 | 9th | WNIT Second Round |
| 2012–13 | NC State | 17–17 | 7–11 | 7th | WNIT Second Round |
| NC State: | 70–64 (.522) | 23–39 (.442 |
That is not an effective argument cause your going to bring up those four seasons you need to bring up them all and Harpers percentage goes over 70 percent. You just can't pick out four seasons you like that is a little juvenile at best. People tell me if you can't do it in four years you never will she hasn't and neither has Harper. Replacing Harper with her would be a disaster. Why you find it strange to compare conference records? That is the main part of any coaches season. If you can't win in your conference your not a good coach. She's had the same success against SC and UConn as Harper just hasn't played them as much. At least Harper has that one win over Sc.
It is the most effective argument and comical that you think it is juvenile. Their 1st four seasons as head coaches are the only comparable seasons because the learning curve of anyone early in a career is very steep. Kellie has little growth potential at this point. Lawson has quite a bit. That matters if you are building a program.
She was at western Carolina first with a program at the very bottom won the league one season and finished second another. I not saying Kellie has done a good job just saying Kara has been a failure as well. If we'd hired her instead of Kellie we'd have the same people saying we needed to fire her and get a new coach cause her record here would not be better than the one at Duke.
That ship never launched. When the TN job came open Lawson was on the board of trustees. Naturally, she got asked over and over by reporters about taking the job. She said every single time she had no interest in coaching. Then two things happened: she took a coaching job at another school and she left the board with bad blood when she publically criticised them as lacking diversity. Apparently they felt stabbed in the back and claimed she had never said a word about this to them before. Needless to say, Kara Lawson will not be coaching here. But ya'lls research and comparison is interesting. Personally, I don't think Lawson would have been an upgrade.
Which gets a booby prize bc it means a game with a #1 seed on their home floor. Better to stay at 10 if you can't get up to 7. at l10 seed at least gets you a 2 seed on their home floor if you survive the first round. Lord, this looks dismal. I'd just like us to have a few more enjoyable games along the way if possible.
