11th Place Finish in BEast is not Getting the Job Done

[Lennys Tap]

Actually there were a number of teams that had to build more than MU and IU THIS YEAR, but I'll let you get your emotions out of the way and chalk that up for your post...even though you said emotions shouldn't be an excuse for moronic statements.   

I am overjoyed for Buzz and MU...it was great watching us in this tournament.

I'm talking about where IU and MU stood in respect to this year's season in April 2008 (when Buzz and TC were hired). Buzz had 1 guy in his soon to be sophmore class(Fulce) and one guy in his incoming freshman class (Otule) with the fall signing period long gone and the spring signing period upon him. TC had noone in his incoming sophmore class and only 3 in his freshman class (Pritchard, roth and Nick Williams). I'd love to hear about the teams that had less as of April 2008 for this year's team. Can't believe there were too many (if any) programs in worse shape at that moment.

[El Duderino]

Seed doesn't matter anymore...you beat the 3 seed and you become the 3 seed.  We would be in the exact same spot as we are now if we entered the tourney as a 3 seed.  (Although I admit the path to the Sweet 16 would be presumably easier if we started with a higher seed).

I agree

Sure in general it would be nicer to finish 10-8 or 11-7 in the conference instead of 9-9, but just getting into the big dance is by far the most important thing. Once you're there, unless you get a really high seed, i don't think it matters much in today's college basketball whether you're a 5-6 seed or a 8-11 seed.

Parity is so deep today that very little separates a 5th-6th seed and a 10th-11th seed. Plus, had we won another game or two in the Big East, we may have flipped spots with Villanova as a 9 seed and been staring at facing a OSU or Kansas in the second round if we had won the first game.

We finished 11-7 last year and got a 6 seed, but i'll take this year over last season in a heartbeat.

[Marquette84]

Buzz took over in April 2008 and when the dust settled his roster for this year was as follows: class of 2011 - Joe Fulce.  class of 2012 (reclassified to 2013 due to injury) - Chris Otule.   class of 2013 - empty  class of 2014 - empty. There were NO, ZERO, NADA programs in the Big East and maybe only one in the entire country (Indiana) that was faced with the kind of rebuilding we encountered for THIS YEAR. We could be a laughingstock last place Big Ten team like IU - instead we're a sweet 16 NCAA tournament team. Anyone who's not overjoyed with the job Buzz did putting this year's team together is a hater or a moron or both.

When the dust settled after Buzz was hired, he saw three players depart from a roster that was oversubscribed by one.  He had exactly two scholarships to fill--he gave one to Jimmy Butler, and one to Liam McMorrow.  

On July 1 of 2008 (Buzz's 85th day of being head coach), 13 of 13 scholarships were filled--
4 in the class of 2009: Burke, McNeal, James & Matthews
3 in the class of 2010: Hayward, Cubillan, Acker
4 in the class of 2011: Butler, Fulce, Mbakwe, Hazel
2 in the class of 2012: McMorrow & Otule
Plus 1 verbal in the class of 2013: Williams

When Mbakwe left, Buzz had coached him for 139 days (plus 213 as an assistant).  When Hazel left, Buzz had coached him for 371 days (plus 213 as an assistant).  If you're going to suggest that 352 days is not enough time for Buzz and Trevor to get to know each other--and 584 not enough for Buzz and Pat to get to know each other--we'll just have to disagree on whether or not Buzz is at least partly responsible for their departure.

Second, I have to point out the irony of you suggesting that anyone who doubted Buzz's recruiting was a hater or moron--because it was 18 months ago that you yourself argued that anyone who expressed optimism over Buzz's recruiting "had an agenda"--which is I think your code for being a "hater and a moron."

You recall that I was the one who thought that Butler and DJO and Buycks would perform well--you were the one who thought they were legitimately 12th place players.  

In fact, you might recall our back-and-forth comparing the 2004 team to 2010.  I was the one who gave Buzz credit for recruiting a better team than Crean did in 2004--you claimed, oh, no, Buzz wasn't possible of recruiting to that level.

[rocky_warrior]

Guys (Lenny's, M84) - lets stay focused here.  The point of bumping this thread was to get Willie Warrior to eat crow.  Mission accomplished, any further recruiting debate in this thread will get deleted.