Is Welsh truly the right man for the job?

Tim Welsh.

As with any coach, Timmy comes under scrutiny the moment something goes wrong. Whether it's a decision on what play to run in the final minute, what prospects to recruit, or what color suit to wear, if the fans don't like it, Welsh becomes the scapegoat. And with the elimination of the Friars from post-season play this afternoon, it seems like a good point to examine whether Tim Welsh in fact is the coach who will lead PC back to the Final Four. Most of the evidence discussed here comes from ESPN.com, which only had 4 years of PC's stats available; this is sufficient for our purposes, since it will show the full effect of his coaching, with minimal influence from his predecessor. Unfortunately, this evidence suggests that Welsh may not be what we want after all.

1. Close games - Over the past 4 years, Timmy has shown his inability to win the close game. In only one of the past four years has Welsh put forth a winning record in games decided by less than 10 points (6-9 in 2002-3; 7-6 in 2003-4; 5-12 in 2004-5; 4-9 in 2005-6). Although it is good that his teams are rarely blown out (about 1/3 of PC's losses were by more than 10 points), it still is not very promising that Welsh cannot make that final push to win the close games that he needs to win, especially in the Big East Tournament (I was present for two games in which Welsh's teams gave up a barely contested layup in the last ten seconds to lose the game).
2. Endurance - This may actually tie into point one, but Welsh's teams seem to fall off horribly from February into March (9-6 in 2003; 6-6 in 2004; 5-6 in 2005; 3-6 in 2006). Part of this is likely due to the young players on Welsh's team, but it still bears in mind that PC cannot get to the Final Four without a strong February and March record.
3. Player Turnover - Welsh certainly has made some good recruiting decisions. After all, he did recruit Ryan Gomes into the PC fold. However, he has unleashed several duds, including Marcus Douthit (A/T = 0.6, 5.9 PPG, 4.6 RPG as a CENTER), and there have been several major controversies with misbehaving players (McGrath's assault charges, the bar brawl) under his regime. This is a mixed point, but Welsh's ability to find good players seems to be falling downhill fast.
4. Success against the Big Boys - The Big East generally enjoys padding its schedule with low quality teams, and that is certainly what Welsh has done. In his career, he is 115-99 at PC (after having gone 70-22 at Iona). Although this 0.537 win percentage is fair, against the Big East (the ones that count for us) he is 53-61 (0.464). The Tim Welsh coached team just has not been able to stand up and show that it is the basketball powerhouse that it once was.

Overall, Welsh seems to be taking the Friars in the wrong direction. Next year will be very important, as the Friars will have to regroup losing Donnie McGrath (who finally emerged this year as a leader for the struggling Friars). This is going to be the big test for Welsh, and if he can't pull the Friars through this, he'd better practice asking, "Would you like fries with that?"