I know I am not about to hear good things on the guy from you, but my alma mater NIU just hired Ricardo Patton as their new men's basketball coach and I was wondering if I could get a few opinions on what to expect. He cannot possibly be as bad as his predecessor Rob Judson and so that in itself is an upgrade. How does he recruit? Are his in-game coaching skills really that bad? What kind of offense/defense does he like to play?

Basketball itself is on life support in Dekalb and quite honestly this is going to be a very important hire for AD Jim Phillips (who is well on his way to becoming a star in his own right.) There was talk (wishful thinking I believe) that Pete Gillen was going to come back to the midwest and take the NIU job but instead it ended up being Patton, which comes to a surprise to most alumni. I don't know much about him and so was hoping to get a little better informed.

He's a decent recruiter. He picked up some pretty good talent in Boulder even though it's extremely hard to get b-ball player to CU. I'm not sure his coaching is all that good. He tried to run an up-tempo style at the higher altitude in Boulder hoping the opponents would tire out with mixed results.

He may be able to do a bit better job being closer to a major hoops area like Chicago. As much as you hate to admit it still exists, there are still minority kids and families that see an Afro-American coach differently than a white coach and will go there over a better program. Even if he were to get the leftovers in Chicago, he could still build that program up pretty quickly. The problem is that he's not a disciplinarian and that can sometimes lead to passive play by his kids. They usually like him, but that doesn't always win games.

I know this will come off as non PC, so cover your eyes for a second. . . my friends and I call him Retardo Patton.

He's horrible. Beyond horrible. I don't think there has ever been a game I've watched where I've said "Ya know, Ricardo really outcoached that guy"

CU doesn't have elite level Big 12 talent. But they damn well have more than 7 win talent on that team.

He's a good recruiter (scary when you think about a 7 win season). He's a class act. He's a class act who takes pride in his university. He's just a horrible coach. I mean horrible.

A couple of years ago he flirted with Middle Tennessee State. The CU fans were praying he took the job. (Why you have an active contract at a Big12 university and are looking to downgrade is another question) In the end he decided he couldn't take the pay cut and stayed.

I hope he does better for you than he did for CU.

We had a basketball team at CU?

He's a good recruiter (scary when you think about a 7 win season). He's a class act. He's a class act who takes pride in his university. He's just a horrible coach. I mean horrible.

I wouldn't exactly call Patton a class act. Long story short......

Patton was an assistant under the previous head coach. Patton saw some cracks in the coach's armor and actually provoked the players at that time to criticize the current coach. The head coach was sent packing and Patton got the job.

i thought he retired?

I wrote this article which is fairly glowing last year when the team looked to have promise. Unfortunately they bombed toward the end...but it kind of gives a little history. http://big12-fans.com/articles/cline10.html

I think he's a pretty decent recruiter, but he's not been really great at getting the best out of his talent. How David Harrison wasn't a dominating force every single game is beyond me. He's been around for awhile, but the only real success he's had was when they had Billups and when they had Harrison.

Maybe he can get it done in a place closer to recruiting grounds, but I think he'll have a hard time. I wouldn't count this year against him though, because I think his team and he mailed it in when he wasn't coming back.

i thought he retired?

Harrington "left" the same way Patton "resigned".

Nah, Patton is a bad coach, but he is a class act IMHO. The team was about to implode under Harrington anyway. The players never really liked him and there were a ton of mini blowups up to the point Patton got the job.

In fact, one of the reasons Patton got the job was because he had some "ins" with Chauncey Billups. If Harrington is the coach, Billups never comes to CU. (it wasn't an accident Harrington was one of the rare coaches fired in midseason)

CU then made the same mistake they made with Harrington. They waited to long to replace Patton. He had plenty of chances and didn't do anything. Even in the couple of successful years CU had, they were still horrible on the road, it just so happened those teams had the talent to take care of business at home and beat some teams.

As far as representing the university, the conduct of his team and his community service, Patton was always top notch. As a coach, he sucks.

I understand why CU fans feel they way they do, but compared to Harrington, Miller and the other CU coaches, Patton was Red Auerbach.

I think Xs and Os he's average. He's never going to outcoach anybody, but he's not going to get outcoached that often either. I think he's a decent recruiter, but it's hard to tell. Colorado is not a basketball mecca -- the state is not a high school hotbed and it's hard to get basketball recruits to a place like Boulder, especially since there isn't a tradition there. And one of the main reasons Patton and the university had a falling out is that they have put zero money into the program and facilities.

I think Patton has historically gotten more out of his players than the talent he had. They might have underchieved with Harrison, but aside from him and Billups, Colorado has typically been made up of guys who couldn't break the starting lineup at Kansas. The fact that he was consistently in the middle of the pack is actually a positive sign.

Throw this season out the window. He was a lame duck coach and the team quit back in November. At a place like NI, I think Patton can be in his element -- think Dana Altman at Creighton, who like Patton was a run of the mill coach at a Big XII North backwater school.

He was better than Steve McClain. And it's gotta be easier to recruit in Boulder compared to Laramie.

I understand why CU fans feel they way they do, but compared to Harrington, Miller and the other CU coaches, Patton was Red Auerbach.

I think Xs and Os he's average. He's never going to outcoach anybody, but he's not going to get outcoached that often either. I think he's a decent recruiter, but it's hard to tell. Colorado is not a basketball mecca -- the state is not a high school hotbed and it's hard to get basketball recruits to a place like Boulder, especially since there isn't a tradition there. And one of the main reasons Patton and the university had a falling out is that they have put zero money into the program and facilities.

I think Patton has historically gotten more out of his players than the talent he had. They might have underchieved with Harrison, but aside from him and Billups, Colorado has typically been made up of guys who couldn't break the starting lineup at Kansas. The fact that he was consistently in the middle of the pack is actually a positive sign.

Throw this season out the window. He was a lame duck coach and the team quit back in November. At a place like NI, I think Patton can be in his element -- think Dana Altman at Creighton, who like Patton was a run of the mill coach at a Big XII North backwater school.


This is written by someone who just hasn't watched a ton of CU basketball. The reason he did better than the other coaches is because he had more talent. Guys like Billups (only for a year), David Harrison, Roby, etc. We've had a ton of talent here. Also, he wasn't in the middle of the pack consistently. We were up, down, up, down, up, down.

A lot of the wins are due to home heavy schedules and seasons we pounded teams at home in the altitude. We went 18-48 on the road the last 5 seasons. I'm not just talking losses to Kansas here. I'm talking regular ass kickings by Nebraska, Baylor, and some of the bad Iowa State teams.

Take 2002/2003. That's the year CU won 20 games. They went 20-11 and made the NCAA tourney. We beat a series of top ten teams at home (the only time it happened in the Patton era) This included Texas, Oklahoma State, Kansas and a top 25 Missouri team.

We went 9-7 in the Big12 that year. Yeah, we beat 3 top ten teams and went 9-7. When you lose to Nebraska (3-13), get blown out by Iowa State (5-11), lose at Kansas State (4-12) that happens. His poor coaching turned what should have been a team capable of winning 23 or 24 games and turned it into a team that got up for about five games. That team also lost by 19 at Rice that year.

As for his coaching prowess, I don't know what to say. If you think he wasn't outcoached on a consistent basis, I'm not sure what I can say to you other than he did. His X's and O's aren't just bad, they are terrible. He can't make in game adjustments to save his life. What I'm not sure CU can replace is his recruiting actually. The only reason people like you think he can coach is because CU has always had a ton of underrated talent on the team. He recruited Harrison away from North Carolina. Nobody outside Colorado knows how good guys like Stephone Pelle, Michael Morandis and Blair Wilson were. (in a better offense, Wilson could have been a JJ Redick type player, he could flat out shoot the ball) Under Patton they consistently underachieved.

Maybe NIU will be happy with him, I dunno. I'm glad he's gone. I'd rather lose with a coach that consistently gets his team to try. If CU get an above average coach in next year, I'd be willing to bet they double their win total from this year with the same players.

We had a basketball team at CU?

News to me as well...

From what you guys are describing, Patton sounds exactly like the kind of guy our AD Jim Phillips likes to surround himself with. The university is very focused on graduating its players and having very high character guys and it looks like Patton shares the same kind of mindset.

NIU as a whole is completely devoid of any talent (as witnessed by 7 wins this year in a very bad MAC conference) so if Patton can bring in anything resembling talent I think it would be a step up for the program.