There Was More to the Nicki Collen Hire than it Appears | Mechelle Voepel Joins

254-339-1122 the sikkim 365 radio text line is sponsored by riverbend liquor and wine with the most extensive variety of craft beer in waco a hidden gem on lakeshore drive and 19th street all right thanks to chris cienko coming up monique billings who's on the atlanta dream roster had a chance to visit with her yesterday evening about nikki colin the new head coach of baylor university and michelle vopel and i we talked a little bit michelle i think it was on sunday afternoon about just kind of where they might be in the search did you have nikki collin on your radar at all uh not really but then once i heard it i wasn't totally surprised i know that coach collin had looked at potentially getting a college job last year so i know it was something that was at least on her radar but no it was that that i think they did a pretty good job i would say um of keeping this pretty quiet until they were ready to announce it michelle what do baylor fans need to know about nikki collin as she comes in to take over kim monkey she's a really passionate coach so that will seem familiar to baylor fans um she's she's somebody who i think um very much loves the game of basketball and and that might sound like well don't all coaches but i mean she really loves it she's somebody who will just sit down with you and chat um on at any level of basketball she just really enjoys breaking down the game um she's got a like i said a very passionate personality i think she you know connects really well with her players and she's had a lot of experience um you know being both an assistant and a and a head coach um you know at multiple stops in the college level um then assistant with the connecticut son before she became the dream head coach so you know she she's somebody i think that the fans will they will connect to i think i think she's that type of coach that she wants to connect with the fans and in some ways i think um you know nobody nobody is kim mulkey that's for sure but i think the passion that she coaches with will will sort of be reminiscent of the way that coach mulkey coached michelle i know coaching changes like this especially in women's basketball don't occur very often and we've seen once proud programs maybe not have the same success after you know the legendary head coach leads what are some of maybe the common missteps or things that you feel like she needs to avoid maybe uh from the outset you know as far as the path in the direction of the program and keeping it on track know obviously you can't try to be um somebody that you're not and i i think there's one thing about about nikki is that she's not going to be um she's very very confident who she is so she's not a coach who's going to come in and try to replicate coach mulkey we all know what the key is the key is recruiting and you know nikki's you know senate arkansas louisville colorado state florida gulf coast ball state for a little while so she's been at successful college programs and understands the recruiting game but you know baylor's been exceptional with that and then with developing players to play for in coach mulkey system i think one thing that obviously you know should be a benefit is you know she's you know nikki's coached in the wnba so she can you know toss the players about if you want to get ready to play in the wnba i know exactly what that takes you know because i've done it and uh you know if i think that she can use that in terms of um from a recruiting standpoint you know what i don't know and um you know i don't know if any of this is leaked out um in the last few hours or not you would know better than i but it's exactly what her staff's gonna look like because i think that's gonna be a big a big part of this i mean kim talks about how important her staff was to her and so i i think that's going to be something to watch but um but really from a personality standpoint i think they hired somebody who's got a really strong personality which i think they needed after after coach mulkey left so they have that and now it's going to be a matter of uh how well that coach colin and her staff can recruit i really think that's the biggest key what did it say to you michelle that even before her name came up that there was a chance when the transition began that you could have lost half your roster and obviously the transfer rules are different and some of the players on their roster are just brand new inside a year transfer so that would be not so complicated but you kind of get a feeling that some of them could leave and they lost hannah gusters and they might lose someone they've lost some of the staff and maybe even satia which wouldn't be a surprise but that melissa smith said i'm not going anywhere basically she didn't say that specifically but she said ready for the next challenge what did that say that some of those who know how good this core team is were ready to move on no matter who was hired as the next head coach i i would think that says that melissa really has loved your time at baylor and you know we both know that that isn't always the case with with young people anymore they go to college a lot of them specifically for a coach they don't necessarily have it doesn't seem like they have that much of a relationship with their community or their school you know everything's about basketball and the staff that's there that they're playing for and then you know now we see you know um players like like for instance like a nancy mulkey and i'm not saying she's at the smith level or anywhere close to that but you know is from um texas and played at rice and won a wnip championship and then when her coach left she's going all the way to seattle you know which is a huge move for one year that would tell me like that there's a lot of connection with that coach now that doesn't mean melissa didn't have a strong connection with him because i think we all saw from social media she was you know it was really tough for her but i think it says she wants to finish what she started at baylor um and you gotta admire that because you don't see that as much anymore you do see kids leave with one year left or you know as his graduate transfer so i think um you know maybe she says look this is the place i've been i've been happy here i think she's very well maybe the best player in college next year and she wants to finish the job she started there i think no matter where she goes she's going to be you know she'll be a lottery pick in the wnba but but it is kind of i don't know sort of admirable to see her decide you know i'm going to i'm going to stay here and finish what i started michelle nobody covers women's basketball like you and when you have a coaching search you know obviously someone like you is going to be able to kind of rattle off a list of these people finn or these are the people they should talk to how difficult was this one one because of the way that macros does things and that he essentially goes into a cave until he hires a coach and we've seen that several times throughout his tenure here uh to to figure out and just because you know baylor's kind of a different thing given that you know a hall of fame coach is leaving it's a a small private school and all of those things that went into this i think you're absolutely right those things all do make it a little more complicated i mean this is a religious um college and so there would be some people i don't think would be comfortable going to baylor and some people baylor might not be comfortable hiring i really wish that wasn't the case but i think in reality it probably is the case then you have the fact that yeah you're following somebody who's not just enormously successful but has one of the biggest personalities i think in all the college sports so some people would be like i don't want to do that that's uh you know that's a recipe for um you know for for falling short if you will and that's where i think because nikki collin is such a confident person um i can't overstate that enough she really has a lot of confidence not in a bad way but she really believes in herself i think that's probably something that stood out to mack rose because you kind of need to have that to say okay hey i know i'm following a legend here but that's not going to stop me from wanting to do this job all those things together though as you said didn't make it complicated to try to figure out who they would hire because maybe some names you'd think oh yeah this might be a person who'd be a really good fit for a big job but maybe not a fit for baylor to be honest you know michelle you mentioned uh some of the feedback and i i you do cover the wnba heavily and you also cover women's basketball as paul said as well as anybody what was did you can you kind of share a little bit of reaction from the women's basketball circles uh you and i had a conversation sunday and you mentioned how it would be hard because there's only a certain maybe a handful of people that that would fit what baylor is and who they want to be right as far as the as far as those who could be candidates what was the reaction was it overwhelmingly positive or was it like we'll see what happens i think there is um and i'm just trying to be you know straightforward as i can you know there are a lot of people who are concerned or bothered um that they feel like there is an anti-lgbtq attitude at baylor and when you consider how many people that are involved in the women's basketball world are part of that community and that includes myself um you sometimes there are elements of baylor that concern you there's just no getting around that in in the women's basketball community and that they're not the only school i know i feel like with what i've read um in baylor's handbook that they have tried to if you will i i don't want to i don't want to say this wrong but i think they've tried to say we want to be open to people of no matter what their background is no matter what their um you know sexual orientation is we want people to feel comfortable here but it's not a place that everybody would feel comfortable and so what i saw was some people say how is coach carlin going from an organization that is that is you know the wnba that is so positive and it was one of the leading professional organizations and recognizing you know pride for instance going from there to baylor and i think that's the question she may is going to be facing um so i think some people asked that question and the other thing was some people look at this and say hey what does this mean when a coach is willing to leave the wnba you know two weeks before the season starts to go to baylor now that doesn't surprise me because there is simply more job security and more money in the college game so you know it's as you guys said and i think you've covered it expertly it's it's a little more complicated than than just an average coaching search and the way all of this went down has been you know one of the more interesting things i've seen to women's college basketball all the way going back to you know when the first rumors cropped up that maybe tim mulkey might be leaving michelle thanks for your time uh we appreciate it so much thanks for being a part of the show and also anytime you've been on with us before about and a lot of it was over what baylor had done under the kim mulkey era and other stories in basketball as well michelle voeple national writer columnist for uh espn on women's basketball at both the pro and also college level now coming up next uh when i talked to kalani brown as the show was winding down yesterday she gave me a number to monique billings a forward for the atlanta dream and i had a chance yesterday evening to record an interview with her about uh nikki

Channel: Baylor Bears on SicEm365

Views: 6,595

Rating: 4.891892 out of 5

Keywords: Baylor, Baylor Bears, Baylor Athletics, Football, Basketball, Baseball, Dave Aranda, Scott Drew, Kim Mulkey, nicki collen, baylor wbb, baylor womens basketball, baylor hire

Id: 66VUv_PmNCQ

Length: 12min 9sec (729 seconds)

Published: Tue May 04 2021