I think in the long run CNC will prove to a better coach and better for Baylor than Mulkey was. This will be the first year that she has her own players with the exception of Sarah and with a Big 12 Championship and another Sweet 16 or Elite 8 run she will have a chance to really put the team she wants on the court. She has a lot more class than Mulkey and the players love playing for her.

Being a better coach would require 5 nattys from CNC. That's just not realistic and I like CNC. But your predicting her to be better than a top 3 WBB coach of all time is just crazy imo. And this is coming from someone who thinks Collen will ultimately win a ship albeit not anytime soon

National championships may no longer be a way to judge coaches today versus those that are in the latter stages of their careers because of how the sport has changed just in the last few years with the greater number of elite players and more schools getting their share of high-end players. Getting a championship now is a lot harder than it was just 5 years ago, and even more so when you go back further than that. How long has it been since Geno, considered the best won a national championship, 8 years or so ago?

Obviously no way to know, but if you gave Geno and Kim their years back and started them with 0 championships. I don't believe either could come close to matching their records. Just my opinion, but outside of Geno, Mulkey, Pat and Staley, I don't think any coach in the women's game is ever going to get to anything over three, and I doubt any will even get to that. On the men's side the difficulty of even getting to the second weekend is pretty stiff.

The only caveat to what I said, is NIL, especially in basketball which has relatively so few players compared to other major sports. Certainly dedicated high dollar donors to a program could buy FFs for years for a coach.by buying up the best players around. And if you get to enough FFs, you are likely bound to win from time to time.

The link in the original post does not work, so I don't know the context of the discussion. But here is how I would answer the title question.

No, comparing the two is not unfair. Comparisons are so common in sports as to border on mundane. People are constantly measuring Michael Jordan against Lebron James. There was always the comparison in the past of Larry Bird versus Magic Johnson. When we had Mulkey, many people compared her against Pat and Geno.

That's not even limited to sports. People measure composers against Beethoven and Bach. People argue passionately whether Star Wars or Star Trek is the best sci-fi franchise. Heck, if I check out a new Mexican restaurant, I'm comparing it to one or two others in town that I consider the best.

There is nothing wrong or unfair about comparing two people or two things that fit in the same category. The only time it is unfair is when the comparison is a patently ridiculous one: if I am watching elementary school kids play YMCA basketball, and I start measuring the kids against Michael Jordan, then I am an idiot. Mulkey and Collen are by no means incomparable in that sense. Which brings me to this point: if you think Collen needs to be protected from comparison to Mulkey or any other college basketball coach, you are infantilizing her and saying she must be treated with kid gloves, and she does not need anyone to do that.

Mulkey Collen
21-9. 28-7
27-6. 20-13
24-11. 26-8

If we are going to compare them here are the first 3 years at Baylor for both coaches. And for those who say collen had it easier because Baylor was already established think about this. When mulkey left she blew up the program. Only 1 recruit in the pipeline. At the same time Texas and Oklahoma announced they were leaving so everyone thought the big 12 was going to fold. Try recruiting in that.

Dont know if it's fair or not but if she's half as successful as KM was I'd be damn happy

Comparing NC vs KM is not fair so no need to go there. Let's be happy we have NC as coach now and leading us in the right direction towards a natl championship. I would be happy if NC won a natl championship the next 2-3 years. The best coaches, the greatest coaches always want a natl championship. I'm sure that is NC's ultimate goal.

I know the Mulkeyites will throw a fit about this, but I believe 1 National Title in the world of Transfer Portal and NIL will have an equivalent value of 2 Natty's pre-TP and NIL.

By that standard, Coach Collen still has a long way to go to catch up with Kim. But I think she can.

Don't worry. No one is gonna make any comparisons of a coach who has never made it beyond a Sweet 16 and never will to one who has won multiple national championships. Well, at least no sane person. Most Baylor fans never could understand the difference in a coach being likeable versus one who is a winner, which is why we've never won many national championships any sports.

Big12Fan2024 said:

---

Don't worry. No one is gonna make any comparisons of a coach who has never made it beyond a Sweet 16 and never will to one who has won multiple national championships. Well, at least no sane person. Most Baylor fans never could understand the difference in a coach being likeable versus one who is a winner, which is why we've never won many national championships any sports.

---

We've won 9 straight in acro with a coach who is extremely likeable. Dumbass

Of course it is unfair.

Mulkey is a HOF coach with 4 natties as a head coach.

Collen is still an up and coming head coach who knows our program as it exists in 2024.

Really apples and oranges at this point in time.

That's not his point. His point is that when CNC took over she had 3 future WNBA draft picks. When Mulkey took over she inherited an absolutely dreadful program with minimal talent. Not sure how any rational person can look at those 2 situations and think CNC took over a worse situation than Mulkey.

57Bear said:

---

Yogi said:

---

Of course it is unfair.

Mulkey is a HOF coach with 4 natties as a head coach.

Collen is still an up and coming head coach who knows our program as it exists in 2024.

Really apples and oranges at this point in time.

---

The pantry was almost empty when Mulkey arrived. There were some great players when Collen arrived.

---

She had Danielle Crockrum and Sheila Lambert in her first year -- with both of them juniors. Hardly an empty cupboard.

Both inherited problematic situations, for very different reasons. It would be reasonably fair to compare the results from their first three seasons. It would be considerably less fair to compare Collen to Mulkey's final resume in Waco.

When Mulkey left, many on this board thought the program was dead. CNC's greatest achievement thus far may be that she was able to convince those soon-to-be draft pick players to stay so as to keep the 2021 season from being a complete bust, and really not having to start from ground zero with who knows what, and as a result getting Buggs and Bella for the next season. But those draft-pick players would be leaving after that season. The HS recruiting pipeline that we had prior to the change was blown up. Those HS sophs and juniors quickly started looking elsewhere. Just getting to the NCAAs with no depth and the starters having to play close to 40 minutes a game left dead legs for the tourney but at least kept the image up that we didn't fall off the map, so possible recruits and transfers didn't completely write us off.

Transfers that had committed to come for the 2021 season, for the most part bailed. not wanting to take a chance on a new coach and still in the era that you only got one free transfer. So that front window view from the street with having those players that looked pretty good hid what was in the backroom, which was sparse in numbers and was going to have to be the future base going forward. The best we had was Bickel and Andrews and she wasn't ready for prime time as demonstrated in the UConn game when she had to come in for Didi. I think there were only a couple more coming back but they had not gotten much meaningful on-court experience the last year Kim was here.

I think the two starting points are very difficult to compare fairly because the circumstances of where the two programs apparently stood at the time of the change, the reason why the coaching staff was changing, and the feeling for the program's future, I think, are completely different. I know when KM came, the feeling was we can only get bettor. When CNC came before she even coached a game the feeling, at least for many here, was that it was only going to go downhill.....fast. We did dip a bit in 2022 (but still made the tournament), but nothing like what happened to Tennessee, UT and TT when their HOF coaches left....and those schools had ample warning a change was going to occur. We had no warning or time for preparation either for the team or players we had been recruiting.

Maybe "AI" could make a comparison. -

Obviously, you were not paying attention to Baylor basketball back then. Kim had Danyell Crockrom and Sheila Lambert her first year. Both were wnba players.

They both played two years for Kim. And both are listed as Baylor legends and wnba players. Sonja Hogg changed the culture and Kim took it to the next level. Coach Collen had a different set of challenges. Yes she had 2 superstars but she also only had 7 players. And as I said earlier. Trying to recruit with minimum NIL annd everyone thinking the big 12 was going away was murder. On a side note. I think one of the reasons Kim left was because lsu could produce more NIL than Baylor.

I don't disagree with most of what you're saying. I think recruiting in the B12 across all sports likely took a huge hit upon the OU/Texas to the SEC announcement. I don't have any numbers to support that but it seems like a fair assessment.
I also think it's reasonable to believe that NIL played a part in Mulkeys departure. Gotta imagine LSU has some deep pockets

A good discussion, with notable contributions from some of the long-time inhabitants of this board. There was a significant effort to be fair to both coaches, while grappling with the complexities posed by the attempt to evaluate the career path of two highly significant Baylor coaches.

I was a huge fan of Kim Mulkey. She holds a special place in my estimation, not only for the magnitude of her achievements while at Baylor, but the timing of the first of her national championships. At arguably the lowest point in the history of Baylor athletics, she won a national championship by consecutive victories over three #1 seeds. Baylor improved in each game, and thoroughly dominated a very fine Michigan State team in the Final.
That, more than the perfect season with Griner and the near-perfect season with Kalani Brown, looms largest in my memory and gives her the edge over any successor that she might have.

Having said that, I have come to appreciate the coaching style and the schemes that Coach Collen employs and the Intelligence that she demonstrates when dealing with the press. The latter is one of the less appreciated assignments that coaches are expected to display, and I am not sure that I have ever seen a coach so consistently show the mastery that she does in her press conferences.

She emphasizes an intelligent approach to the game, and when her team is playing the game in the manner she teaches it, they are a joy to watch. That she has done this with far less than an ideal mix of talent only emphasizes that Baylor fans should give her the time to acquire the players who can consistently carry out their assignments to a high level, and to develop a style of play that will make the game of Baylor women's basketball recognizable and attractive to elite recruits.

Big12Fan2024 said:

---

Most Baylor fans never could understand the difference in a coach being likeable versus one who is a winner, which is why we've never won many national championships any sports.

---

I think Scott Drew is likable. I thought Art Briles was likable.

Honest question, if Mulkey took over a team so loaded with talent apparently why did they finish 7-20 the year prior to her arrival. With all that so called top end talent I would think they could have at least squeezed out a .500 record. Injuries?