Congrats to TumTum.  It will be interesting to follow his career.  After a promising start, the Izzo coaching tree hasn't blossomed well of late.

As far as the most recent hopefuls to succeed Izzo, Stephens was 8-23 (4-14 in conference) one year removed from WMU being 8-23 (4-16), so no improvement. Meanwhile, Valentine was 10-21 (4-14) at Loyola Chicago. 

Posted by: @houseizzorockin

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Congrats to TumTum.  It will be interesting to follow his career.  After a promising start, the Izzo coaching tree hasn't blossomed well of late.

As far as the most recent hopefuls to succeed Izzo, Stephens was 8-23 (4-14 in conference) one year removed from WMU being 8-23 (4-16), so no improvement. Meanwhile, Valentine was 10-21 (4-14) at Loyola Chicago. 

Adding to what I wrote, it should have been said of Stephens "no improvement in record" as I don't know about other aspects of the program.

I wouldn’t mind the podcast giving updates on Stephens and Western Michigan regarding changes and progress. I am sure Izzo will do what he can to help Stephens. Western has no recruits coming in this year, so I hope Stephens can get some help in the portal. 

@hazelmotes We will certainly take that idea into consideration. 

It's really hard to be successful in this career right? I don't appreciate it until you look to these guys in various mid level programs. On some level, you kind of have to get lucky with an upset or two in the tourney to get a good job at a power 5 where you will have resources. But even there all power 5s are not created equal. I can't imagine it is easy in the MAC especially with the portal. Stephens has probably two to three more years before you can start evaluating his success.

As for D. Valentine, I think you can say he is a good recruited after getting all those guys for Moser and then keeping them for one year. Again, I would give him another two to three years to see if he can get a turnaround at Loyola in a much tougher conference.