Last week, word started trickling out that rather than any of the other names that Lobo fans had been hearing and debating about, NMSU’s Paul Weir would be the next head coach for men’s basketball. It’s fair to say that choice was shocking, as not only was he a legitimate mystery candidate, he’s been an Aggie for 10 years. However, once the initial shock wore off, I’ve certainly become excited about the Paul Weir era. He’s still a bit of an unknown, but I think that we’ve learned some things so far in his brief tenure to give us hope.
This is not a Rebuilding Project
A few weeks ago, the team looked like it was falling apart. Four scholarship players had announced that they were transferring, more appeared to be heading that way, and even the walk-ons were on their way out. A strong argument for firing Neal was that if he only had one season to prove himself, the deck was becoming heavily stacked against him. Now, we could see as many as nine scholarship players return for next season. That’s hardly a rebuild, and Weir is hardly treating it as such. He’s looking for players to specifically fill holes, such as Troy Simons, who was the leading JuCo scorer last season and could immediately provide some of the firepower that went missing when Elijah Brown decided to transfer. Next year’s team might not come into the season with the same level of expectation that this year’s had, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they end up doing better.
Speaking of the team falling apart, things clearly were much worse that I thought. Sure, the team’s body language wasn’t great during their late-season swoon, but that’s usually the case when a team is struggling. It was easy to convince myself that once Tim came back and they won a few games, they would look like they were having fun again. It’s pretty clear now that at that point, most of the players were counting down their days in a Lobo jersey. No wonder things were so rough towards the end. Hopefully they’ll have more fun this year.
Weir is a Lifelong Student
Here’s a fun fact: Paul Weir has picked up a degree from every university that he’s ever coached at. He has a master’s from Northwestern St. in human performance, a master’s from Iowa in sports psychology, an MBA from NMSU, and is working on his doctorate in educational leadership from NMSU. The guy loves to learn and takes advantage of working at a university to better himself. Very specifically, every degree has targeted aspects of being a head coach in college basketball. There’s no real substitute for actual experience, for sure, but he’s clearly a guy who takes the position and all it entails very seriously. It also takes a level of humility and self-awareness to take the time to learn from others, which as far as I can tell, he has.
Based on some of his comments, I get the sense that he spends time learning all he can about the game itself. He seems to favor a style of play that is in line with how the game is evolving – which is a breath of fresh air – and is already starting to mold the team around that style. Weir is looking at how the majority of teams having success these days are built and he wants the Lobos to be built the same way. Luckily, the roster already has some guys on it who could really fit in well with that style, so I think the transition could be fairly smooth.
Weir also made the comment of looking at analytics. He didn’t elaborate on that, but hopefully it means what I think it does. I might try to dig into that a bit…
Weir is Hitting the Ground Running
Perhaps the strongest argument for keeping Neal was that it was getting late in the game, not only for finding a new coach, but for recruiting as well. And to be fair, those are legitimate concerns. Weir recognizes this challenge and has basically been non-stop since he took the job. He had two recruits in town just a few days after he signed his contract and travelled to visit another immediately after. Keep in mind, he’s doing this while also trying to get the current players to buy in, re-recruit a few of the players who were planning to go, and while building a staff. Hopefully he’s scheduled a nap sometime in June. He’s known for being a hard worker, which is quite the label when you consider how every college coach is a hard worker. It means something when you stick out in that regard and he’s been living up to it since he was hired.
It’s super, super early to judge Coach Weir, but I think that what we’ve seen so far has been encouraging. In fact, at this point, the only thing that feels weird at all about the choice was that he was the Aggie’s head coach. Had he come from, say, Wright State, like Coach Bradbury did, I think that my personal impression would be that we might have unearthed a diamond in the rough. Time will tell how Weir will work out (I mean, I liked the Neal hiring as much as anyone), but I for one am not going to bet against him.