BASKETBALL Middle Tennessee (4-8) vs Rhode Island (7-3), 3:30PM, Sunday, 12/29/2019

[MTFNBY5]

I'm not worried about men's basketball.

You see the success of many coaches fluctuate with staff changes. Nick has the bulk of his staff from UNCA intact.

They had success there and it should be easier to sign and retain players at MT. Therefore, it's just a matter of time before the program gets back to the top of the conference.

Love your enthusiasm - Here's to hoping it is warranted.

 

[dukewayne]

I'm not worried about men's basketball.

You see the success of many coaches fluctuate with staff changes. Nick has the bulk of his staff from UNCA intact.

They had success there and it should be easier to sign and retain players at MT. Therefore, it's just a matter of time before the program gets back to the top of the conference.

If you're not worried, you ain't watchin'.

I couldn't resist a little fun Lynn.

Seriously though, it's not just that they are losing that has me concerned at this point. It's how they are losing. There are some troubling trends or patterns in the performance or lack of performance of the team that are starting to appear more established that has me more concerned.

Overall, it seems the team is headed in the wrong direction instead of learning to fight and become more competitive in each game. One of those most glaring areas is the lack of defense. While there is no doubt some strategy or schemes involved in defense, it is more about attitude, effort, toughness, and heart. It's this overall lack of heart, attitude, fight, and toughness that really has me most concerned about the direction of the basketball team. I hate to admit this but when I see this identity or lack of identity from the team, I see the team reflecting the appearance of their HC. As is the case with most any team, they take on the persona of their coach.

I know this is more in line with anecdotal evidence, but the game when CNM was running up and down the sidelines sweating, jumping up and down, and trying to demonstrate stances or movements for the players seemed to be one of the team's better efforts this season. It was clear that CNM was putting all he had into trying to motivate and teach the players that game. The team's effort looked better at the same time. Of course, this was at a time when more than a few were calling the team's effort into question. I was really hoping that the animated CNM coaching up his team was a sign of things to come. Sadly, I haven't seen a repeat performance of his energetic coaching or the team standing out with effort.

At this point, I really hope a light goes on with the coaches, players, and the whole team so that they start exhibiting great effort, fight, and competitiveness in each game from this day forward. I would really like to see CNM succeed here at MT. It's getting to the point now that they really need to step up their efforts immediately.

 

[dukewayne]

Like I said above.......




No hyperbole either. We missed the boat in football completely and I'm not even gonna get into that because it's another convo for another day, and we fumbled and failed to capitalize on the momentum and national credibility Kermit brought to our program by failing to retain him and/or hiring the wrong coach to pick up where Kermit left off when he went to Ole Miss.

The boldest thing would have been to give Ronnie Hamilton the job, thus keeping all 3 recruits, and hoping Ronnie could hire some good X and O guys around him and keep the train rolling. Much like what Penny Hardaway is doing @ Memphis. And it seems to be working.....

By completely going away from Kermit's assistants, we effectively gave up our best signing class ever, and in the process gave away all the momentum and national credibility we had established.

Now look where we are. Year 2 of McDevitt, the wheels have fallen off, we basically can't even beat D1 competition and get blown out in the first 10 minutes half the time, etc. Going forward, if this keeps up, I have no idea how he thinks he can recruit talented players to come here.

Thanks, McPhee & Massaro. Another stellar decision to add to your track records.

I get where you are coming from regarding recruiting, but I do disagree with your recruiting assessment.

I actually think CNM is doing a pretty good job of recruiting. Of course, I think it was a mistake for him not to have already brought in one more Freshman or even JUCO 6-8 type PF. Other than that glaring problem, I think CNM has been recruiting and signing quality and talented young players. Obviously, I do distinguish between success in recruiting and coaching those players on the court. It seems to me that he has brought in some talented young men with pretty good heads on their shoulders. The big problem has been coaching up all those young men to play together as an elite fighting machine on the court.

I would agree that if the horrible performance continues on the court for the team, he will be making his job of recruiting a lot more difficult. With his personal style of recruiting and reputation of players really liking him, he could likely still land some good recruits. It would likely be more difficult from a somewhat less interested recruiting pool.

Overall, it seems that his recruits in general have some really good potential. It's now his job as coach to develop those players so that they realize their potential. If he could do that, he would have no shortage of talented players wanting to sign with him.

On a slightly related subject, Kermit seemed to have difficulty in recruiting because of the difficulty in finding young players who were willing to persevere through the incredibly tough demands Kermit would place on the players. Once Kermit established himself as a coach who could really develop young talent into incredible players if they were willing to do the hard work, then finally recruiting really began to open up for Kermit. I also think that is why Kermit began to have so much success with highly rated but under performing transfers. Those highly rated players were watching their bball careers and NBA hopes fade at other programs. Once they finally got hungry or desperate enough to do the necessary hard work it takes, they were willing to make the move to a HC that had proven he could make a winner out of them.

 

[Raiders_55]

Great conversation going on in this thread.

Plain and simple, MTSU has 4 wins this season, with only one of them being against a Division I team.

Defense is terrible and they're turning over the ball way too much.

From what I've seen so far from the team this season, it's going to be a tough CUSA run this Winter.