Quote from: jfp61 on Today at 01:34:43 PMHow can you say this when we have a single good guard (James) that isn't a senior?

Lowery?

Woodruff accepted his qualifying offer from the Milwaukee Brewers baseball club.  Huh.

Quote from: Elonsmusk on Today at 12:45:50 PMArticle was a great read.  My feeling is that if BPR at present has Royce as our 3rd best player, it's a flawed metric with this little of sample size.  Royce has been really quite poor so far to start the season.

I see both Zaide and Royce making major improvement, quickly.  They, coupled with Nigel and Adrien getting more D1 game experience leads me to believe that the team can still be a solid team, and get an NCAA tournament bid.

I'll agree with this sentiment, although with low confidence on the tourney bid part because of the slim margin for error.

I'll second the sentiment that Royce hasn't been great, and I'll take that a step further and say that I was expecting more out of Zaide too.
To their defense, much more is expected of them and it takes time.
Additionally, I think that Zaide has been talked about in a positive light because, compared to the others, he's usually a step above in positioning and making the right play, or at the very least being active/engaged and not getting lost on the court.

The metrics seem to like Royce much more than Zaide though, which is also interesting.

All in all I will agree that those two look primed to make the next step, if/when the game slows down just a bit for them.
Ditto with Nigel and Adrien but they are ahead of the curve rather than on the other side of it.

As an aside- it seems to me like Parham has really been embracing getting stronger and playing stronger inside and I think Shaka should push that. I think once Parham feels like he can belong down low it might open things up for him from the outside or in other parts of his game. That goes hand in hand with moving Ben back to the 5 and having Caedin be a 10 min backup, which I suspect we will see soon.

Watched the new Frankenstein.  I'm a sucker for any grand and idealized Victorian era setting (though Frankenstein was originally Georgian era).  So naturally, I thought visually it was beautiful and captivating.  That being said, I really didn't care for the creative liberties/direction that del Toro took with the story/plot. 

Quote from: UWW2MU on Today at 01:56:25 PMBut no, we seriously have people (non-Rico) making the case of getting rid of Shaka bc of his philosophy that SO FAR has netted us 5 straight seasons of NCAAT berths and 2 different BE conf championships.

We have one person who thinks we should be getting rid of Shaka. And he's a troll.

[Sarcasm alert for those who have difficulty decifering]

I'm so glad that we waited for at least 2 whole losses on the season before we lost our collective minds.  This team will clearly play exactly like they have against Indiana and Maryland all season long.  There's no way this team will grow and improve.  It's not like they're mostly a young and inexperienced group with only two seniors to help guide them, especially in the PG role...

Good god!  I think some of the people who get so caught up in the predictive metrics (count me among them) get to the point of worshipping the numbers and the early game "eye test" that they fail to just let the season play out. Most of all, let them grow and let it play dividends going forward.  We have to "get old" again!

But no, we seriously have people (non-Rico) making the case of getting rid of Shaka bc of his philosophy that SO FAR has netted us 5 straight seasons of NCAAT berths and 2 different BE conf championships.

We KNEW the team lost a lot this year and is super young... that's not ideal when you're trying to get old and stay old, but we also had several good years of staying old and knew this was coming.  Have some damn patience already and watch this team grow this year with OUR guys.  I absolutely hate the portal system and love that we get to see our guys grow up and improve.  Sorry some of you are entitled and spoiled and can't deal with a little bit of adversity. 


OK, sorry... end of incoherent, meandering rant!

Quote from: Jay Bee on Today at 01:03:59 PMMaybe they can try an aggressive style instead?

Good catch. Lack of commas for my redundancy as well. Bench me for sloppy posting.

Quote from: brewcity77 on Today at 09:57:52 AMI sincerely hope we don't have to find out. I think Shaka's model working would be the best thing for college basketball. From a theory perspective, I think retention and getting to know the players in your program over years is a good thing. I want this to succeed and want our players to all grow and thrive.

That said, I think people forget how quickly it all turned south on Wojo. There was zero thought that Wojo would be dismissed when we got dumped from the Big East Tournament on March 10th. 8 days later, The Case Against came out. I don't think that alone made the decision, but I think its virality was part of why the Board moved their planned meeting up from March 22nd to March 19th and made it easier for Bill Scholl to explain why the time was right to dismiss Wojo. Roughly 24 hours after The Case Against came out, Wojo was fired.

If we have a losing season and Shaka's model is largely seen as the reason for it, we're going to end up with months of fan acrimony growing. The initial student calls of "Use the Portal" will get louder and likely more vitriolic as the season goes on. At that point, will Shaka go to the portal next summer, or will he double down on the 15 committed scholarships we have? I don't know.

But I guarantee the board will see and feel the pressure of a losing season. They know that our CBB investment brings back $3 to the university for every dollar spent (as Lovell said). They know that it is our most visible marketing arm. And they've seen what happens when you slide into DePaul territory. A second losing season in a row would be viewed as catastrophic.

In this century, around the league...

• UConn had losing seasons in both 2017 & 2018, then fired Kevin Ollie despite a national title 4 years earlier and NCAA berth and win 2 years earlier.
  
• Butler had losing seasons in both 2021 and 2022 and fired LaVall Jordan despite top-25 kenpom finishes in two of the three previous years.
  
• Georgetown had losing seasons in both 2016 and 2017 and fired JT3 despite 8 bids in the 10 prior years, then had losing seasons in 2022 and 2023 and fired Ewing despite a tourney bid the year before.
  
• Providence had losing seasons in 2010 and 2011 and fired Keno Davis in year 3. PC did let Tim Welsh return in 2007 (19 years ago) after losing seasons in 05 & 06.
  
• Villanova (Neptune), Xavier (Steele) and St. John's (Anderson) fired coaches that never had losing seasons. St. John's did let Norm Roberts return in 2010 (16 years ago) after losing seasons in 08 & 09.
  
• Creighton and Seton Hall haven't had consecutive losing seasons this century.
  
• ONLY DePaul has allowed multiple coaches to return after consecutive losing seasons.
  

.

To start, I don't think we will have B2B losing seasons.  I'm not convinced we will have a single losing season. 

Not really sure how relevant most of these comparisons are because, for the most part, additional context isn't included. 

For example, Neptune had no success after Wright's departure and the program was clearly trending downwards. 

Ewing was a trainwreck, notwithstanding what was clearly a lucky run in the conference tourney.

Aside from JT3, did any of these guys have the level of success Shaka has had in his first 4 years?  In my opinion, he's banked a lot of goodwill that these other examples have not.

Just a very surface-level comparison for me.

"So...do you really think the board would let Marquette become DePaul? Because that's what they would be on the verge of if they let a coach come back after consecutive losing campaigns."

The above is so hyperbolic I'm not sure what to even say...

Quote from: GoldenEagles03 on Today at 11:56:43 AMPerhaps but I think the more realistic scenario is that they win just enough to hover around the 'First 8 out' range winning like 17 or 18 games. Never really threatening to get it but just kind of hanging out there. Then what happens?

17-18 wins wouldn't have us in First 8 out. Might not even be good enough to get us a Crown invite (which we contractually have to accept before NIT).

Quote from: Jockey on Today at 01:18:35 PMWe need skilled bigs. That's all.

How can you say this when we have a single good guard (James) that isn't a senior?