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BASKETBALL Has your opinion changed?

A

altshauf

All American
Jan 15, 2005
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Ocean Springs, MS
Curious of your thoughts. The overwhelming thoughts over the past 2 years is that this staff was out of their element at this level. The first year most gave a pass… This year we definitely see improvement.
Not talking about eating crow… really asking the question- do you see the staff as “better” now than you did to begin the year?
In all honesty, I believe there were some bad pieces on each of the previous teams. Wouldn’t mind going back and looking, but don’t necessarily want to throw kids under the bus.
 
Pleased with what I have seen so far. This is much better than what my level of expectation was. But this thing is a work in progress. I won't dismiss the possibility that this is ephemeral based on the difficulty (or lack thereof) of the early portion of the schedule.
 
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Pleased so far, but not satisfied and don't consider it true progress yet. Ask me again end of December and halfway through January once in to conference play.

We still have to defeat Martin again (never easy playing a team twice). Chattanooga who is 7-1 and plays Murray State before us and also plays Belmont who is always tough. We still have Ole Miss and 3 of next 4 on the road.

Are we improved, yes. But still not where I think we should be on year 4 of this "system".
 
I’m kinda wait and see at this point as well. The last 3 years were abysmal and Kermit had spoiled us. Watching him work on Saturday morning brought back fond memories of some really good times with Blue Raider Basketball. I hope CNM is headed back to those times again.
 
Considering two players who were considered pre-season starters, or at least major contributors, are out with injuries I have to be happy with where we appear to be at this time considering what the last three years have been like.
One has to like the overall length on the squad but with some caveats. If Turner doesn't become more of a contributor we won't have a player who has the physique to dominate on the inside with defense and rebounding ability. Additionally I am concerned that so many of the taller players who play on the perimeter don't have enough ball and passing skills to consistently avoid unforced turnovers.
One issue I have noticed occasionally during McDevitt's tenure is that players are wildly inconsistent. A player will have a really good game followed up by one in which he barely contributes. It will be interesting to see how Jefferson follows up his 31 pt. performance at UT Martin Sat. night.

Speaking of UT Martin: IIHC the entire Skyhawks roster is new. Yet with no returning players the first year coach has assembled a competitive %$&-major team. Wouldn't it have been great if when Davis left we had hired a coach who had his finger on where to find players who could immediately play at our level? Where would we be today?
 
Turnovers, poor shot selection and stupid fouls still have me concerned. McDevitt doesn't seem to stress the importance of EVRY possession in D1 basketball. We look like an AAU or high school team out there most the time. Just so careless with the ball.

On the other hand, defense and effort look better than the last few seasons and the offense appears to run a little better.

I still don't like that we gave a coach like McDevitt so much money to learn on the job. We should not have had to suffer through the horrible basketball of the last few seasons.

Watching other teams in conference, I don't believe we will be able to compete at the top this year. UAB, La Tech, Western, and others have big, strong athletic post players we will not be able to match up against. We are not going to be able to compete with our skinny 180lb guys. We desperately need some players like Reggie Upshaw, Shawn Jones, Cory Williams, etc. I think we end up lower middle half this season.
 
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So far so good. Need to see more. But I bet ole 7wood is drafting up a 3 year contract extension as I type this.
 
Way too early to tell. Our OOC schedule is a wet paper bag. Probably one of the weakest in the country thus far. We are 2-2 against what I would consider "respectable" teams. Gotta see how the rest of this season goes and if any of these new faces can be breakout players/batman types of dudes that can get us back to the NCAA's.

Also, people need to remember that over the last 3 years we lost more games in a 3 season stretch than at any point in the history of MT Basketball. And that happened after all the success we had before Nick's arrival. That's crazy and just unacceptable in my eyes regardless of the program's problems when he arrived. Dozens of teams all across the country, every year, remake their rosters and come out swinging and kicking ass (We seem to be doing that this year!). Nick couldn't buy a win for 3 years. I will never be able to excuse that kind of losing. It shouldn't have took this long to at least have a respectable .500ish program.

If this team and program were one of my patient's the prognosis would be guarded to say the least.
 
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I mean, he's 31-64 now. (Had to figure it up as his wiki page hasn't bee updated...great pic of him by the way).

That's just about a .326 winning %. That is just ridiculous now that I look at the actual numbers. Makes me wonder if so far this year is an anomaly or truly improving.
 
MidTennMtneer said:
I mean, he's 31-64 now. (Had to figure it up as his wiki page hasn't bee updated...great pic of him by the way).

That's just about a .326 winning %. That is just ridiculous now that I look at the actual numbers. Makes me wonder if so far this year is an anomaly or truly improving.
Click to expand...
WAY too early to tell. We've played mainly crap teams so far.
 
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I feel like we won the cupcake invitational and we think we're something now. We're not playing the level of competition we used to for our OOC games, so I'm still not sold.
 
Well, does it matter if you win the cupcake invitational if you go 22-8 during the season while doing it? Unless you’re a top 25 team in a big time conference… it’s all more or less the same in all the one bid leagues
 
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My opinion has changed on how I expect this season to go somewhat, but it is going to take a lot more for it to change about CNM. Not him personally, but if he is the right fit for us. I have always thought maybe this just wasn't the right fit and he could go somewhere else and be successful. Maybe he can be successful here. If we push for 20-wins the next 2-3 years then I think my opinion will change. He has shown he can bring in some talent. Now he just needs to show he can mesh that talent into a team.
 
Slightly. Yea, this season has better results in the early going, but against a mostly cupcake schedule. The effort appears to be better on the court, but will it continue as schedule gets tougher and losses mount?

There are still a lot of areas of weakness. Yea, attitude has changed in that this team might not finish last in the conference. Instead they could possibly push into middle of the pack .500 territory. The next few weeks will provide more insight as they face more teams with a pulse.

I would feel better about CNM's tenure if this season's performance were his first season here instead of year 4. With this performance this season, now I'm afraid we just got our Stockstill for basketball. A mediocre season instead of disaster gets him an extension from the two morons. I'm now having visions of mediocre middle of the pack .500 ball vs cupcakes for years to come.
 
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dukewayne said:
Slightly. Yea, this season has better results in the early going, but against a mostly cupcake schedule. The effort appears to be better on the court, but will it continue as schedule gets tougher and losses mount?

There are still a lot of areas of weakness. Yea, attitude has changed in that this team might not finish last in the conference. Instead they could possibly push into middle of the pack .500 territory. The next few weeks will provide more insight as they face more teams with a pulse.

I would feel better about CNM's tenure if this season's performance were his first season here instead of year 4. With this performance this season, now I'm afraid we just got our Stockstill for basketball. A mediocre season instead of disaster gets him an extension from the two morons. I'm now having visions of mediocre middle of the pack .500 ball vs cupcakes for years to come.
Click to expand...
Exactly my fear. Our only hope is that maybe M/M has learned a lesson from the ridiculous CRS contract and won't do the same with CNM.
 
dukewayne said:
Slightly. Yea, this season has better results in the early going, but against a mostly cupcake schedule. The effort appears to be better on the court, but will it continue as schedule gets tougher and losses mount?

There are still a lot of areas of weakness. Yea, attitude has changed in that this team might not finish last in the conference. Instead they could possibly push into middle of the pack .500 territory. The next few weeks will provide more insight as they face more teams with a pulse.

I would feel better about CNM's tenure if this season's performance were his first season here instead of year 4. With this performance this season, now I'm afraid we just got our Stockstill for basketball. A mediocre season instead of disaster gets him an extension from the two morons. I'm now having visions of mediocre middle of the pack .500 ball vs cupcakes for years to come.
Click to expand...
Maybe CNM can get his 100th win in 16 years too!
 
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SFA only losing to Kansas by 8 on the road and Murray playing well makes those two road losses seem “better”. We don’t really have a great win, but we also really don’t have a bad loss yet. I think this season will be frustrating because we will be competitive in most, if not all, games, but will likely not be where we want to be still. I think we will be closer than most thought before the season.
 
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We've won 24 games in the past 3 years.

11-21
8-23
5-18

We are 9-4 now and have 18 games left in regular season. It won't happen, but we could theoretically win more in 1 year than we have in the last 3 combined. That is just sad.

What is worse is I really don't see us hitting .500. That's only winning 6 more games. 1/3 of what we have left. Last night was a repeat of soooo many games last year. Play great and then fall apart the last 5min, lose by double digits after leading at halftime. That is coaching.

My opinion is getting worse at this point but sadly if we hit 16-15 record, while technically it would be an improvement, our admin will tote it around as a win and extend McD again.
 
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Since college athletics is an obvious business model, they have to make the best business decision for the program going forward.

Just not a good look and I remember trying to be optimistic during the Weil days (another UNCA hire).
 
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I think it’s been well documented (as recently as yesterday’s BizJournal) that our President and BOT’s focus is to win APR and Graduation rate titles over on-court and on-field competition titles.
 
Should we finish the season and have not games cancelled (doubtful ?) and finish with a .500 conference record I would have to be satisfied with 18 wins. Any games won in the conference tournament would be a bonus. Next year 20 wins (with a somewhat more challenging OOC schedule) and a conference tournament semi-final appearance should be the absolute minimum expectation.

The real shame is that this type of season didn't happen earlier in McDevitt's tenure, say by his 2nd year.
 
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My concern at this point is more about mediocrity vs. championships. I'm very concerned Nick went out and signed a bunch of guys to win 15-20 games but likely not more. And what I mean by that is, he signed a bunch of good, proven junior college players but didn't really take any chances or sign many "build for the future" type of guys or potential superstars.

When you look at all the recent signees besides T Lenard, they're all JUCO guys that are very athletic and tall but don't score at high %'s and don't have impressive offensive numbers. I don't think a single junior college player he signed had what I would even consider a "good" FG/3pt %. They're all very athletic and tall for their positions but at their very best will be average shooters on their best nights.

And I'm just not convinced you can win championships with guys like that. Sure, you can win 15-20 games and simply "out-athlete" the mediocre/bad teams in your conference. But, when you face the top competition you're just gonna lose because you can't score enough points.

T. Lenard was a great get and I wish we would focus more on guys like him. Because of the transfer portal and obsession with coaches now to find proven talent, there's a ton of high school kids that are great players that we could get here at MT that we would have never had a chance at in the past. Look no further than Lenard who was the highest rated recruit ever coming out of HS to sign with us. Yes Nick is a good recruiter, but signing T. Lenard mostly happened because teams are signing fewer and fewer HS players and instead opting for the transfer/JUCO route.

If we are going to sign JUCO's and take transfers I really feel like they should be can't miss kind of guys. Otherwise, why not take advantage of all this high school talent that's being overlooked now? Only reason you wouldn't go that route is if you're not confident you can keep them in Murfreesboro and playing for MT. That's a whole nother can of worms.
 
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JUCOs. Transfers. Excessive. We now live in a 280-characters-or-less society.
Cant build rich tradition that way. Too many of us think we can reach the top by taking shortcuts.
My opinion is same. Good sports are nearly dead.

Cant wait to see that movie "American Underdog"
 
altshauf said:
Curious of your thoughts. The overwhelming thoughts over the past 2 years is that this staff was out of their element at this level. The first year most gave a pass… This year we definitely see improvement.
Not talking about eating crow… really asking the question- do you see the staff as “better” now than you did to begin the year?
In all honesty, I believe there were some bad pieces on each of the previous teams. Wouldn’t mind going back and looking, but don’t necessarily want to throw kids under the bus.
Click to expand...

No. No coach that has a 3 year record as bad as CNM’s first 3 years deserves a 4th. A majority of D1 AD share the same sentiment, but we have an AD that is a few standard deviations away from being a good athletic director.

This year’s team is better than the last 3 so far, and since we a stuck with CNM I hope he wins. However, I have no expectations of success under CNM and I do not think he should be our HC now.
 
MTLynn said:
What are the problems with the program?
Click to expand...
I have difficulty in watching them... The style of play, their offensive patterns, the OTC (Out Of Control) play, the defensive concepts... Bottom line, I would much rather watch other college teams... I have NO Faith in our current leadership... From TOP to Bottom...
 
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