Buzz

[Big Papi]

I think I get you, but I guess my point was that just because we beat teams that were ranked at the time, it is clear that all those teams never should have been ranked in the first place sans Nova.  I get that they were ranked when we played them, but their team performances have shown just how wrong those rankings were.  Those wins are nice, but nothing earth shattering in my opinion.  Those teams seemed flawed to me when we played them and only proved itself to be true as the season wore on.

The injury bug has definitely been a bummer, no doubt about it. 

Sorry but you kind of have to take into consideration what a teams ranking was when you played them.  Look at us for most of the year we were a top 25 team.  We lose DJ and now we are probably outside the top 25.  The season is a long season and their are ebbs and flows throughout. 

You poo poo our win this year against Nova but it is just as good as any win we had last year.  They are a top 12 teams this year, are they not?  The rest of our wins last year were really no better than any of our wins this year.  We beat a Pitt team at home when they were in the middle of struggling to a 2-4 February record and a Villanova team that barely made the tourny and probably compares similar to a Providence team of this year.  Add in blowout losses to Louisville twice and UConn when we had a deeper bench and more height and this year is every bit as good as last year.  So if this year has been nothing special with no great marquee wins, the exact same thing can be said about last year.

[The Lens]

Academics on track.  

This is the most concerning to me, and IMO the only red-flag.  In 2010, we'll have 4 JuCos on the roster.  This is a school that was rumored to not admit Carl Landy b/c we already had Marcus Jackson and we wanted to see how that would go.  These guys might all be choir boys but that doesn't mean they'll all graduate.  MU's curriculum is light years ahead of a community college curriculum.  And I'm not even mentioning the perceived inferiority of southern school systems (Mike Slive touched on this in a NY Times article).

Here are the records of the others:  Miller (24-6 with a strong returning team in a weaker conf.), Bennett (16-14, rebuilding), Brownell (20-13), Lowry (13-18), Keno Davis (18-12 with 6 seniors), Gregory (25-6, see Miller), McKillop (26-6 best player, weak conference), and Drew (17-13).  After Miller, Buzz ain't looking too bad.  Next two years of rebuilding will tell...but Buzz has dealt with a lot of adversity that a lot of these guys didn't want to touch...yet have fared marginally with at their places in rebuilding years.

If Buzz turns down UNO, stays with Billy G all the way thru A&M and one year at UK, all of a sudden we hired the TC of 2008.  What if TC took EMU in 1997, quit and joined Deane's staff in '98 (Jud connection)?  Buzz's biggest fault may be taking the first job offered.