This one is about Billy Kennedy. And maybe he's said this before but I don't recall, an interesting bit from the press conferences today:

Dexter Dennis was asked about getting the crowd support and sort of threw in that Billy Kennedy (who is an assistant at Wichita now) told him about the great times he had here and how A&M is a great experience for student athletes and was supportive of his decision to come here and that sort of thing. Thought that was kind of interesting to hear.

And then Buzz called BK a "top five human being ever employed as a head coach in any sport." Said he left books and notes in his desk drawer for the next coach to read.

Edit: took out the timeline of events

Great man. Tough diagnosis. I wonder what might've been had he not been struck with Parkinson's.

I don't care what anyone says. He has had two of the top 5 seasons in the HISTORY of A&M basketball- 2016 we won the SEC regular season and went to the sweet 16, and 2018 we went to the sweet 16 and had the single greatest victory in our program's history IMO (defending champion and #2 seed UNC in the second round).

I was getting angry. Glad this is about BK.

Good stuff

By all accounts BK is a great human being.

Method Man said:

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I was getting angry. Glad this is about BK.

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Have it your way. YOU RULE.

Method Man said:

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I was getting angry. Glad this is about BK.

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whopper whopper double whopper

He is still the best at drawing up inbounds plays. It was like you knew we would have an easy bucket every time.

I have a BK autographed b-ball for sale if anyone wants to buy it. I'll start the bidding at $10

Man I was SURE this was about Burger King…

Kennedy was not telling him these things when he was considering transferring to A&M. The story has been presented multiple times on this board like Dexter was considering A&M and Billy encouraged him or told him it would be a good place for him to go. People have created that story and Dennis has never said that. Dennis said previously that once he made the decision to go to A&M, Billy Kennedy reached out to him and wished him best of luck and told him A&M is a great pace and it was a good choice. He also said that when he played at Wichita, Kennedy would talk about his time at A&M in conversations they had.

Billy is a great dude. But the story that he helped steer him to A&M is not accurate.

MarcAg said:

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Kennedy was not telling him these things when he was considering transferring to A&M. The story has been presented multiple times on this board like Dexter was considering A&M and Billy encouraged him or told him it would be a good place for him to go. People have created that story and Dennis has never said that. Dennis said previously that once he made the decision to go to A&M, Billy Kennedy reached out to him and wished him best of luck and told him A&M is a great pace and it was a good choice. He also said that when he played at Wichita, Kennedy would talk about his time at A&M in conversations they had.

Billy is a great dude. But the story that he helped steer him to A&M is not accurate.

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I don't think he would be doing his job at WSU unless it was as you've stated.

I just typed it out as he said it today, he didn't lay out a specific timeline of when these conversations happened

bobinator said:

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This one is about Billy Kennedy. And maybe he's said this before but I don't recall, an interesting bit from the press conferences today:

Dexter Dennis was asked about getting the crowd support and sort of threw in that when he was considering transferring to A&M, Billy Kennedy (who is an assistant at Wichita now) told him about the great times he had here and how A&M is a great experience for student athletes and was supportive of his decision to come here and that sort of thing. Thought that was kind of interesting to hear.

And then Buzz called BK a "top five human being ever employed as a head coach in any sport." Said he left books and notes in his desk drawer for the next coach to read.

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Someone needs to call Buzz out on these top 5 proclamations. I'm sure he could probably quickly rattle off the other 4.

bobinator said:

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I just typed it out as he said it today, he didn't lay out a specific timeline of when these conversations happened

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Fair enough - but the story implies BK helped sell Dennis into coming to A&M (referenced the conversation happening when he was considering transferring to A&M- not after he made his decision)...

Well he didn't make that distinction on if it was after he'd committed to A&M or while he was still weighing options or anything so apologies if that makes a big difference to anyone. I assume it's obviously after he made the decision to leave Wichita, but he didn't say when it was.

BK is a great man just wasn't a very good coach.

Still not about Bernard King

His diagnosis soon after being hired into a major job must have been devastating to him and his family. As an aggie basketball fan, I couldn't believe what our program was facing - human element aside. He seemed to really struggle with it early, as any of us would (many of us might have given up and resign - I might), but he persevered and ran pur program a long time and made it to a couple sweet 16's. I think only that first sweet 16 team was truly a strong team through the whole season, but even if he never made the post season it's a strong achievement as a human and as a family bread winner to persevere through a very serious and scary diagnosis and keep your head up and adapt. I always respected him for that, as a man.

Without the diagnosis I did wonder if we would have held on to him as long with the exact same record, due to the optics of it, but I am glad A&M gave him every chance to succeed and he gave it his all in the face of a degenerative disease. I hope he and his family are doing well.

Seems like every thread in which Billy Kennedy is mentioned has to contain someone who says he may be a great person but he wasn't a good coach.

Kennedy inherited a program from Turgeon who left us with virtually nothing. Middleton got hurt and then turned pro. Turgeon's recruiting left us with so few scholarship players that we couldn't hold a 5 on 5 practice for they first year, and we were shorthanded the second. He then got us to two of our four sweet sixteen appearances, while battling a diagnosis of Parkinson's disease. HIs second s-16 team gave NC their worst NCAA tournament loss while NC was playing a virtual home game.

BK was not a poor coach.

Look I'm not gonna bash the guy but he did less with more than anyone except Melvin. I mean my gosh he had 2 NBA players and a handful of euro pros on his conference championship team . They should have done some damage in the tournament

He didn't make the tourney until his fifth season. It was a great season though but he was awful his first four seasons and even his best team needed a miracle to make the sweet 16 and got obliterated by OU. Then with a stud team we needed a late rally to make the tourney. The UNC win was huge. Huge! Then we lost by a million points to Michigan.

coloradoag69 said:

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Seems like every thread in which Billy Kennedy is mentioned has to contain someone who says he may be a great person but he wasn't a good coach.

Kennedy inherited a program from Turgeon who left us with virtually nothing. Middleton got hurt and then turned pro. Turgeon's recruiting left us with so few scholarship players that we couldn't hold a 5 on 5 practice for they first year, and we were shorthanded the second. He then got us to two of our four sweet sixteen appearances, while battling a diagnosis of Parkinson's disease. HIs second s-16 team gave NC their worst NCAA tournament loss while NC was playing a virtual home game.

BK was not a poor coach.

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Exactly. BK's tenure was choppy at best (for a variety of reasons), but I only care about your top end results. He went to one more Sweet 16 than BCG, and two more Sweet 16s than Turgeon. Oh, and he actually won the conference, something neither BCG nor Turgeon ever did.

Obviously, BK was not a consistently good coach, and we had some real lean years during his tenure. But I'll take his overall body of work compared to any coach in our history....as mediocre as it was (compared to most high major programs).

I have no idea if he was or is a great man - but I'll take your and Buzz's word for it.

However, I didn't like the BK hire and in spite of the two good years (actually only one - as the second Sweet 16 team was frustrating and inconsistent before ultimately making the tournament and then having that epic game against NC in the round of 32) I really couldn't wait for us to move on.

The Buzz hire was exactly the antidote needed to flush the memory of the BK years.

coloradoag69 said:

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Seems like every thread in which Billy Kennedy is mentioned has to contain someone who says he may be a great person but he wasn't a good coach.

Kennedy inherited a program from Turgeon who left us with virtually nothing. Middleton got hurt and then turned pro. Turgeon's recruiting left us with so few scholarship players that we couldn't hold a 5 on 5 practice for they first year, and we were shorthanded the second. He then got us to two of our four sweet sixteen appearances, while battling a diagnosis of Parkinson's disease. HIs second s-16 team gave NC their worst NCAA tournament loss while NC was playing a virtual home game.

BK was not a poor coach.

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This

bobinator said:

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Well he didn't make that distinction on if it was after he'd committed to A&M or while he was still weighing options or anything so apologies if that makes a big difference to anyone. I assume it's obviously after he made the decision to leave Wichita, but he didn't say when it was.

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No apology needed. Just makes a big difference in the story.

Like someone else mentioned- if would have been coaching malpractice anyway if he was encouraging Dennis to transfer to A&M (if the decision to leave WSU hadn't already been made). I know I'd be pissed if one of our assistants was making one of our starters feel better about leaving to go to their former school. Hell no.

NyAggie said:

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coloradoag69 said:

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Seems like every thread in which Billy Kennedy is mentioned has to contain someone who says he may be a great person but he wasn't a good coach.

Kennedy inherited a program from Turgeon who left us with virtually nothing. Middleton got hurt and then turned pro. Turgeon's recruiting left us with so few scholarship players that we couldn't hold a 5 on 5 practice for they first year, and we were shorthanded the second. He then got us to two of our four sweet sixteen appearances, while battling a diagnosis of Parkinson's disease. HIs second s-16 team gave NC their worst NCAA tournament loss while NC was playing a virtual home game.

BK was not a poor coach.

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This

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All this doesn't make someone a good coach. Although, it's not completely fair to judge BK because Parkinson's messes with processing speed. A horrible fit for a head basketball coach.

The elite Tyler Davis recruiting class came out of nowhere. We will never know the full story on how we were able to sign such a blue chip class with the program a complete dumpster fire. That lead to the success we had. Honestly, still underachieved given the impressive collection of talent (and embarrassing exit losses)... But still we did make those two sweet 16s at least.

BK also made some easy unforced errors... like didn't recruit enough guards- such that we either started or had come early off the bench a walkon at point for 3 years? And not even a good walkon... That was a joke.

coloradoag69 said:

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Seems like every thread in which Billy Kennedy is mentioned has to contain someone who says he may be a great person but he wasn't a good coach.

Kennedy inherited a program from Turgeon who left us with virtually nothing. Middleton got hurt and then turned pro. Turgeon's recruiting left us with so few scholarship players that we couldn't hold a 5 on 5 practice for they first year, and we were shorthanded the second. He then got us to two of our four sweet sixteen appearances, while battling a diagnosis of Parkinson's disease. HIs second s-16 team gave NC their worst NCAA tournament loss while NC was playing a virtual home game.

BK was not a poor coach.

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That's not true that there was nothing here when Kennedy got here.

Just a thought, but maybe he sits somewhere between "good" and "bad."

Rather than use the words "was a poor coach", which isn't fair given the diagnosis and how it may have impacted him professionally and personally, how about we say "the team did not have the results we expect". Who knows what would have happened if the head coach didn't have a devastating diagnosis.

The Ags had 6 straight NCAA tournament appearances, 5 straight years of 24+ wins, and 7 straight years of .500 or above in conference play, when Turgeon left. That last Turgeon team was 24-9, and 11-5 in the Big 12, and many players returned for BK's first year - Ray Turner, Kourtney Robinson, Middleton, Elston Turner, Naji Hibbert, Dash Harris, David Loubeau. That first BK team went 14-18, 4-14 in the Big 12.

In 8 years under BK the Ags only made the tourney twice, 6 of the 8 years had conference records of .500 or below, only won more than 22 games once.

The 2015-2016 team was very, very strong - 4 players that were taken in the NBA draft. I'm always curious about the Rick Stansbury impact, the only two years a BK team finished over .500 in conference was when Stansbury was there, but that was also by far our best roster.

All 3 (real) years under Buzz we have gone .500 or better in conference. We were one 2022 win away from being able to say we made the tourney in 2 of 3 (real) years under Buzz.

My only take on BK is he's the only A&M football or basketball coach of the past 25 years whose face I can't picture in my brain. Is that weird?

bobinator said:

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Just a thought, but maybe he sits somewhere between "good" and "bad."

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This is TexAgs, there isn't anything in the middle only one extreme or the other

coloradoag69 said:

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Seems like every thread in which Billy Kennedy is mentioned has to contain someone who says he may be a great person but he wasn't a good coach.

Kennedy inherited a program from Turgeon who left us with virtually nothing. Middleton got hurt and then turned pro. Turgeon's recruiting left us with so few scholarship players that we couldn't hold a 5 on 5 practice for they first year, and we were shorthanded the second. He then got us to two of our four sweet sixteen appearances, while battling a diagnosis of Parkinson's disease. HIs second s-16 team gave NC their worst NCAA tournament loss while NC was playing a virtual home game.

BK was not a poor coach.

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While I agree with the overall sentiment, his first team was a top 20 team and was picked to finish 2nd in the big xii. Middleton missed like two conference games and we finished 2nd to last, and really never got going. That first season was the biggest indictment on BKs coaching, and why I understand how some hold the opinion that he wasn't the best coach.

From there, we had some talent issues in his down years, but BK was recruiting lights out, including the 2015 class that was top 5 in the country. There were a LOT on this board that wanted him gone after the 2014-15 season when we failed to make the tourney for a 4th straight year, but his recruiting level justified keeping him and we made 2 of 3 sweet 16s. After BKs 2nd sweet 16 run, he was a victim of a lot of negative recruiting and our talent on campus and results were both on downward trends and it was time.

In short, I agree that he was not a poor coach and 2 of 3 sweet 16s is the absolute pinnacle of Texas A&M basketball to date. Although that accomplishment is somewhat marred by not making the tournament in 6 of 8 seasons.

So we're not gonna count Buzz's COVID year, which affected every school, but we are going to count BK's first year when he got a Parkinsons diagnosis right before the season, which only affected us. And then Khris Middleton was hurt (only played 20 games and clearly wasn't himself), and Kourtney Roberson only played 9 games.

Then we're going to give Buzz partial credit for almost making the NCAA Tournament last year, but not give BK the same credit in 2015. Last year we were the third team left out, and in 2015 we were a 2 seed in the NIT which means we were one of the 5-8 teams left out. When you're picturing an entire season, that's not much difference. We can cry foul on the selection committee, but you either make it or you don't.

Buzz is a better coach than Kennedy, and it's not even close, but we don't have to juke the stats to help him.

At the end of the day it breakdown to two camps:

BK was not a good coach: he only made the tournament in 2 of 8 seasons.

BK was a good coach: he made 2 of 3 sweet 16s, the most sweet 16s in our school history (in less than 1/3 of the time as the other guy with 2).