2023-24 49er MBB Game #2 - Liberty vs Charlotte (@Spectrum Center) 11/10 4:30 PM ESPN+

Agreed. Want Fearne to do well. Just not sure it’s going to work out that way. Don’t want to sign him if we win 16 or 17 games either.

Have not been able to watch either game. From looking at the stats, the difference was Liberty hitting more shots. Everything else seemed to be pretty even.

As far as who is playing, Folkes is a difference maker. If he is not playing at least 25 minutes, someone else will need to step into the role. Maybe it will be Graves.

Based on Assists and # of shots, it does not look like the guards are getting everyone involved.

Once I am able to watch some of the games, I am sure I will have a different opinion.

I dont know about that. In the pregame interview on Friday, Fearne said RB would play…and he was in uniform, but then he didn’t ever get in. ???

That is good to hear. Must of not been serious.

It was game two against an experienced team that has played together for a while, against a team with a new coach with a new style. Not happy we lost, but not end of the world. Ask Notre Dame how they feel about losing to Western Carolina at home. They hit 10 threes and we hit 5 all other stats were even.

I believe we have the talent to compete with most anyone. I believe Fearne is figuring out who can and will play when the bullets are real, not just in practice.

We can all say I heard this or that but none of us were there with Hill, Sanchez, team, etc to understand what ACTUALLY went down.
Hindsight is always 20/20.

Go Niners and go Coach Fearne as I believe we will have a good year, maybe not NCAAs good, but a good year.

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I absolutely agree about the CBI and extending Ron and all of that. Mike should have handled all of that better.

That wasn’t the point of the convo though. What the discussion was was given the timing of Ron’s departure holding onto Fearne and the roster or hiring a guy from a limited pool and then hoping either players wouldn’t leave or we could build a roster to be somewhat competitive.

Given how it played out Mike made the best call possible with Fearne and the team. He has a sneak peek at what a Fearne program will look like while paying a budget salary and a year to source new candidates from a larger pool if Aaron doesn’t perform and a more traditional window to rebuild the roster if need be.

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I don’t think the cbi was a bad thing. I think not firing Ron after winning was the mistake. My guess was Ron went in and asked for another extension after winning and was refused and then top two scorers transferred. So Ron went and covered his butt and left and left us in a bad situation.

We had no choice at that point. Either take one of the few coaches who were gonna leave their program in June/July or stick with the coach the players wanted. It was gonna be a hard season no matter who the coach was this year and will impact recruits for next year.

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Now it’s going to take some time this season. You have milicic who was in doghouse the second half of last year, you have Jackson who hasn’t played in 2 years due to injury, graves who played about half the games last year and 8 minutes a game when he played, Threadgill is threadgill, lucye who lost his starting job last year and became 6th man. I mean that’s the starting 5. There’s inexperience, rust, lost confidence.

Then Niagu, who played about half the games and only 4 minutes a game at usc, Reiber played a lot of games but less the 10 minutes a game, Berry about half the games last year and 7 minutes a game. Folkes who at end of last year was soaring.

Then you have braswell and Rolf who many of us expected them to be in the rotation hasn’t played yet this season.

Out of those 9, we have 4 sophomores, 4 juniors and 1 senior playing. Rolf is a freshman and braswell grad player.

Outside that you have 2 freshmen, Bailey and Richart, a sophomore, Fearne and junior young.

We have 4 guys who were in the rotation last year, 4 transfers, 2 freshmen recruits, 2 guys who played sparingly for Charlotte last year and 3 guys who were injured/redshirted last year.

It’s gonna take time to gel this year and the kids are gonna have growing pains due to inexperience playing and the guy’s playing together. Hopefully we see growth as the season goes on

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Solid post, thank you.

This is a freaking disservice to the basketball program if true. He should have hired a coach and let him build as basketball program. Hill obviously does not know enough to build a basketball program. His records emphasizes that, so why would he try to micromanage and dictate terms to a potential new head basketball coach to retain coaches and players who never won anything important? Unbelievable

I’ll say it again - the concern was losing the majority of the team and having to build a roster in June for a coach that was coming out of a limited pool of candidates.

It’s not about what the current team had achieved or had not achieved, it was about being able to field a competitive team of college athletes.

If we hired whoever we could have in June and rolled the dice on the roster we still would have sucked this year, maybe way worse and we would have been stuck with a coach that was literally just one of a few willing to be hired in June.

The far far far smarter play was to retain Fearne and start fresh going into the normal cycle. There has been terrible mismanagement of the basketball program but pulling the trigger in June on a new coach would have been just more mismanaging. Sticking with Fearne this season and taking a shot at things in March is actually one of the better things Mike has done with basketball.

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There were 800+ portal players that didn’t find a home. A new coach also would have likely brought players that knew his system with him.

Finding players to round out a roster is a non issue. Would they have been good? Probably not, but the current roster likely won’t be either. Unlikely Ron would have left if he felt like we had a roster that could make some noise this year. He took the smart, but cowards way out.

Now if we just didn’t like any of the coaches that were willing to interview, that’s fine, but the roster excuse is just an excuse.

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That’s my point. Either way we likely suck this year, but if we hired in June we are selecting from a very small number of candidates, offering a 5 yr contract and committing the future of the program to them with left overs in the portal that would be arriving later in summer workouts that we then have to shed later. If we hire in March we have a bigger pool of candidates, a more traditional time to land talent and manage roster and we have a normal work out schedule for players and coaches.

It isn’t about this year. It is about long term getting the right guy to lead the program, which is much more likely to happen in March than June.

Now how much faith I have in Mike to hire the right guy? Not much, but I don’t want to give him any excuses to get the wrong guy.

Eh, if we are getting the right guy it’s more likely to happen in April. I don’t want anyone that stopped playing in March.

March/April Semantics - spring is the point.

The final 4 is April 4/6 so likely will be hiring a guy that finishes their season in March.

Any player who threatens to leave if the AD does not maintain the state of our losing program, should be pointed towards the door and be given time to reconsider. Otherwise, he can GTFout

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Players don’t come to play for a school they come to play for a coach. Thats it. They don’t care about anything else. Now that they can leave anytime that is even more true.

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All I noticed was everyone that was hugging everyone was getting paid and made out all right. Hill, Sanchez , families, etc.
I am the one paying and watching the fallout.

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That’s a bit of a stretch to imply it is always true. Demarco still wears Niners gear, not Lutz gear. We can’t preach the brand while catering to players with a mercenary attitude

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