What a night!

[Goose]

TAMU

You predicted a 20 win season and NCAA bid this season prior to the season. So, this season I guess you are giving him a pass. If they do not make it comfortably next season, you feel the heat should be on in year six? As I said, it is not a bad thing, but you are giving him a great deal of rope.

As for me getting on the Wojo train, I think you know that answer. I have noted my bar for success at MU many, many times. To be honest, under Wojo I have lowered that bar and they still are light years away.

[TAMU, Knower of Ball]

TAMU

You predicted a 20 win season and NCAA bid this season prior to the season. So, this season I guess you are giving him a pass. If they do not make it comfortably next season, you feel the heat should be on in year six? As I said, it is not a bad thing, but you are giving him a great deal of rope.

As for me getting on the Wojo train, I think you know that answer. I have noted my bar for success at MU many, many times. To be honest, under Wojo I have lowered that bar and they still are light years away.

I did.  And my prediction specifically was to be in Dayton. I thought 20 wins would be needed for that but I was wrong, underestimated our SOS. I actually thought I predicted 19 wins but might be misremembering.

And to further clarify,  I don't think he should wait till year six to "feel the heat" if he doesn't make his goal next year
then he should feel the heat immediately. I just don't believe in firing someone the first year they don't make their end of year goal.

And youll have to forgive me Goose,  but I have no idea what your expectations are. But that could be a memory problem on my part. I know you have made vague statements about having to "win at a high level" and "matching the money invested" but not what that looks like specifically. 

[MUDPT]

T-rank ran the 2019 numbers and we were 38th. Not really comfortably in.  Close are close losses. I'm way more concerned that we were bad in the 1st half against Butler and somehow came out worse in the 2nd half.

[Goose]

TAMU

A year ago I would have wanted to match Xavier success as a program. At this point I think that is far fetched expectation for Wojo to accomplish. How about being Butler or Creighton and see how that goes?

[Eldon]

I did.  And my prediction specifically was to be in Dayton. I thought 20 wins would be needed for that but I was wrong, underestimated our SOS. I actually thought I predicted 19 wins but might be misremembering.

And to further clarify,  I don't think he should wait till year six to "feel the heat" if he doesn't make his goal next year
then he should feel the heat immediately. I just don't believe in firing someone the first year they don't make their end of year goal.

And youll have to forgive me Goose,  but I have no idea what your expectations are. But that could be a memory problem on my part. I know you have made vague statements about having to "win at a high level" and "matching the money invested" but not what that looks like specifically.

Well we at least know that Goose's lowest bar is meeting Rick's SLU team results.  He's been pretty clear that 2011 SLU is a minimal bar.

[willie warrior]

I'm in until next season. If we aren't comfortably in the tournament next year than Wojo will have not met my personal expectations...and the expectations that I believe he sold the university on in his 5 year plan. If he doesn't make expectations, he will probably get the sixth year to rectify, but it his butt will be pretty toasty.

Yup, wait until next year....and then wait until next year...repeat and rinse.

[TAMU, Knower of Ball]

TAMU

A year ago I would have wanted to match Xavier success as a program. At this point I think that is far fetched expectation for Wojo to accomplish. How about being Butler or Creighton and see how that goes?

Still not very specific but I'll take it. If I'm reading this right, you want us to be at "Xavier level success."

Over the past three seasons, Xavier has gone:
14-15: 11 seed, 6th place Big East Finish
15-16: 2 seed, 2nd place Big East Finish
16-17: 11 Seed, 7th Place Big East Finish

I think we can match that in the next three years.

[Herman Cain]

I have wondered this often. What would have Buzz' next season have looked like if he stayed?

You keep the 2015 recruiting class, specifically Ahmed Hill and Marial Shayok who both ended up being nice players. I have heard from multiple people that JJJ and Teve were gone if Buzz stayed. Mayo would have still been given the boot. I think Deonte still leaves after his mother passes....not sure about Dawson. I think he thought a new coach would play him in front of Derrick and transferred when he realized that wasn't happening. If that's true, than he probably wouldn't stick around a second year knowing Buzz was going to start Derrick. Does Car3no still come here? My understanding is that it was more his family MU connection than specifically Wojo that got him to MU.


Lineup would have probably looked like:

PG: Derrick Wilson
SG: Car3no (no guarantee he still comes here but for this exercise let's say it was his family connection that got him here)
SF: Ahmed Hill
PF: Juan Anderson
C: Luke Fischer (no idea who would have started first semester)

Bench:
Duane Wilson (started Hill and Juan over him for size)
Marial Shayok
Sandy Cohen
Satchel Pierce

The roster seems too small, too shallow, and not talented enough to go dancing to me. But I have no idea if those four transfers would actually happen or not. No way of knowing. We also have no idea what (if any) grad transfers, late blooming freshmen, or jucos Buzz would have landed to replace JJJ and Teve's schollies.

I think this hypothetical Buzz squad would have definitely been better than Wojo's first squad....but I still think they miss the NCAA...probably the NIT too.

Good summary. I would add however , that we had Todd Mayo too and it's possible he would have stayed with Buzz. Which may have pushed Derrick to a lesser role and discouraged Carlino from showing up. Deonte and Dawson would have stayed with Buzz. Buzz was very high on Deonte and understood what Dawson brought to the table .  Also Ahmed Hill is a shooting guard at VT.  The whole fiasco of starting Sandy over Deonte would not have happened under Buzz.

[CTWarrior]

Do you think Haanif could have made a difference if he stayed? I mean we only lost by 2 today and the games against X and Nova at home were within 1 or two possessions. I think his defense could have made the difference in one or two games this season, but what do I know.

I think we miss Traci Carter and/or Duane Wilson a lot more.  A competent PG to take minutes and help keep Rowsey and Howard out of foul trouble would be big for this team.

[TAMU, Knower of Ball]

Good summary. I would add however , that we had Todd Mayo too and it's possible he would have stayed with Buzz. Which may have pushed Derrick to a lesser role and discouraged Carlino from showing up. Deonte and Dawson would have stayed with Buzz. Buzz was very high on Deonte and understood what Dawson brought to the table .  Also Ahmed Hill is a shooting guard at VT.  The whole fiasco of starting Sandy over Deonte would not have happened under Buzz.

Mayo was still gone no matter who was coach. He couldn't have stayed if he wanted to. Everything I have heard about Deonte was that his mother's death was the reason for his transfer,  maybe Buzz could have convinced him to stay.

[Its DJOver]

I wanted to wait until the weekend was over to post in hopes that the doomsday-ers and trolls would be gone to say this, but I'm extremely proud of the way this team played Saturday.  Out of the 200 minutes, 171 were played by underclassmen, compared to just 70 for Providence.  If you take off the blue and gold glasses that stat alone will tell you how well this team played.  Unless you're Kentucky or Duke you will lose more games than you win with a discrepancy that large.  Our defense, while still not good, only gave up 77 points which isn't terrible considering that Providence shot 38 free throws (the free-throw margin was mostly skewed by us extending the game). 

My two main concerns coming into this year were in-game management and player development.  Other than the terrible play we ran out of the timeout with 50 seconds left, which appeared busted from the start because Sacar didn't know what to do, we closed the game about as well as possible.  We didn't wait to start fouling, we never got burned long on an inbounds play, we did a decent job of denying Cartwright the ball and made White shoot the free throws, and we didn't just jack up threes, we actually drove.  Had Markus been able to take the ball coast to coast on the last play, we're all taking about the way a young team rebounded after a terrible performance against Butler to at least force OT (which would have been a toss-up with Rowsey, Sacar, Young, and Bullock all fouled out).  You can say that we should have won since we won the reverse fixture, but consider that it took one of their Seniors being out with the flu that he got from a teammate who may or may not have fully recovered, it took OT, and it took the greatest single game performance in 100+ program history.

As far as player development, it's really been hit of miss with Wojo. JJJ improved, but Duane either spun his tires or regressed, Luke wasn't much better when he graduated than when he first arrived, possibly due to injury, Sandy, Haanif, Traci, all peaked their Freshman year. KR, Carlino, and Hank weren't around long enough to improve or regress, and Matt's improvement can mostly be attributed to Todd Smith.  Not a great track record.  However, anyone that says that Theo, Jamal, Greg, and Sacar haven't improved since the start of the year are crazy.  Wojo has to make sure that they take the next step though, and don't become another Sandy/Haanif.

This team is young, and played an experienced team close.  Wojo has at least two more seasons to prove he can develop players and evolve as an in game coach, however if Markus and Sam both graduate (yes they'll both be here four years) without at least 3 NCAA appearances and at least one sweet 16 appearance it will likely be time to move on from Wojo.     

[Jay Bee]

#5YearsToJudge

[JamilJaeJamailJrJuan]

Let me be as clear as I can. My expectations for Wojo next season are that we are "comfortably" in the tournament. Let's call that a top 7 seed. If they do not achieve this, Wojo will not have met my expectations for the first season and I will be concerned.

My expectations for the following season is another "comfortably" in the tournament. If Wojo misses a second time I will be on the "fire Wojo" bandwagon.

This is about where I am.  Even if this season falls into an absolute tailspin and we win 7 or 8 Big East games, I still want to give Wojo at a bare minimum next season.  I think the expectation for next season should be a top 3-4 finish in the Big East and a 7 seed or better, as TAMU said. Anything short of that is going to be a disappointment in my book.  I'd even go so far as to say if MU misses the tournament next season, it may be time to move on.

My biggest concern about a coaching change, even if with a bad 18-19 season, is the make-up of the roster.  Wojo has built a roster that SHOULD be a top 25 team next season, and the entire roster returns for 19-20 (sorry Matt).  That 19-20 team is going to be loaded with upperclassman - Sam, Markus, Harry, Morrow, and Sacar - and this year's freshman class as juniors.  I worry that moving on from Wojo at any point in the next 18 months could be devastating to that roster, especially considering we know Morrow, Harry and Sacar will all be potentially grad transfer eligible, and it wouldn't be surprising in Markus finished his undergrad in 3 years with summer classes based on what we know.  For that reason, I'd really like to give Wojo at least 2 more seasons, especially if next season is a disappointment, but we still qualify for the NCAA tournament.   

But on the flipside, if next season is a disaster and we miss the dance, clearly something has gone wrong.  The talent is there to be a top 25 team all year, and if that talent flops, I am going to be much more open to a change. But I tend to think that's a pretty far-fetched scenario.

I am still of the belief that Wojo is the right man for the job, the last 2 games be damned.  The program's arrow is clearly pointing up (IMO) and moving on from the coach now would be a disaster.  Thankfully I think the BOT is on the same page, and will give him at least 2 more years barring some unforeseen disaster next season. 

[WayOfTheWarrior]

#5YearsToJudge

Couldn't put it better myself.

[Lennys Tap]

#5YearsToJudge

Some prove they can coach in less than 5 (Al, Buzz). Some prove they can't in less than 5 (Dukiet). Jury still out on Wojo.

[Goose]

Jamil,

I want to make sure I understand your post correctly. You feel, and hope the BOT agrees, that barring a major, major hiccup that Wojo should be given a minimum of two more years from this season? I am assuming from your post that you believe they will have top 25 talent next year, but a bit of wiggle room on actual performance. What would be considered an on court disaster next year and the following year in your opinion.

For the record, I thought your post was quite good and I want to understand points accurately.

[JamilJaeJamailJrJuan]

Jamil,

I want to make sure I understand your post correctly. You feel, and hope the BOT agrees, that barring a major, major hiccup that Wojo should be given a minimum of two more years from this season? I am assuming from your post that you believe they will have top 25 talent next year, but a bit of wiggle room on actual performance. What would be considered an on court disaster next year and the following year in your opinion.

For the record, I thought your post was quite good and I want to understand points accurately.

Sure.

I do think that MU will have top 25 talent next season.  And I think Wojo will be given at a bare minimum next season to see how that plays out.  If the 18-19 team misses the dance next season, I think Wojo will be on the hot seat, and rightfully so.  My concern with doing anything before the end of next season is that we have a roster in place to be very, very good the next two seasons.  But if somehow next season is a bust (completely missing the tourney would fit that bill), clearly something went wrong.  That could be due to a bunch of unforeseen departures, or just the team not being as good as its individual parts.  I personally don't see that scenario playing out, but if it did, I'd be OK with the BOT deciding to move in a different direction.  If the team busts next year because a handful of key contributors get hurt and miss a bunch of time, I don't necessarily put that on Wojo.

What I would hate to see happen is a coaching change blow up what should be legitimately a top 10-15 team in 19-20, and a very good team next season.  If the roster is blown up between now and the end of next season anyways, and MU misses the dance next season, the calculus changes.

As I have said before, FTR, I don't think Wojo's seat is the slightest bit warm at the moment. Nor do I think it should be.  But next season is huge.

[brewcity77]

I am usually the eternal optimist and while I didn't quite have MUFINY expectations for this year, I did think a top half Big East finish and NCAA bid was possible. I still think the latter is possible, but the NIT is probable. As I would've been happy with NIT last year, I'm okay with going there this year though I would much prefer a NCAA trip. Postseason is postseason, and I don't think we'll be going to the Final Four so the rest of the NCAA is pretty much a wash for me.

Next year, I think at worst top-4 in the Big East and a comfortable NCAA seed (4-6) should be the expectation. If we are a bubble team next year, that might be enough for me to say it's time to cut the cord. I fully believe this was always a five year plan and Wojo deserves the fifth year simply on the basis that the regular excuses (too young, too small, too inexperienced, etc) will be invalidated. Get the job done in 2018-19, at least to the point where it looks like we have arrived and have the wherewithal to stay, and Wojo should be safe. Fail to do that and we may need to turn the page.