Iām a bit confused by this thread. We won 21 games which represented a solid improvement from the year before which was an improvement from the one before that. So while I can understand not getting tickets because of finances or the amount you are spending on football, I cannot understand not being excited about the current trajectory of the basketball program. Iām not saying I am satisfied but I feel like we are progressing and hope to see that continue in the new conference.
On a side note, the conference change isnāt exactly stacking the schedule with great teams or current rivals but hopefully this is a short term landing spot for our program and is certainly good for football.
Oh and I did renew my tickets and for the first time I had to buy three now that my daughter is older. That was expensive but basketball is by far my favorite sport.
stop complaining about the conference. i donāt like cusa either but we had not other options with football on board. i like the trajectory of the program but this season will tell me a lot.
[quote=āscollie41, post:41, topic:28260ā]Iām a bit confused by this thread. We won 21 games which represented a solid improvement from the year before which was an improvement from the one before that. So while I can understand not getting tickets because of finances or the amount you are spending on football, I cannot understand not being excited about the current trajectory of the basketball program. Iām not saying I am satisfied but I feel like we are progressing and hope to see that continue in the new conference.
On a side note, the conference change isnāt exactly stacking the schedule with great teams or current rivals but hopefully this is a short term landing spot for our program and is certainly good for football.
Oh and I did renew my tickets and for the first time I had to buy three now that my daughter is older. That was expensive but basketball is by far my favorite sport.[/quote]We won 21 games with a team that had more depth and experience than the one we have this year.
Iām not writing this season off, but I feel like a lot of people are minimizing how much of a loss Braswell, Mayfield, Clark, and Nickerson are.
[quote=āNiner National, post:44, topic:28260ā][quote=āscollie41, post:41, topic:28260ā]Iām a bit confused by this thread. We won 21 games which represented a solid improvement from the year before which was an improvement from the one before that. So while I can understand not getting tickets because of finances or the amount you are spending on football, I cannot understand not being excited about the current trajectory of the basketball program. Iām not saying I am satisfied but I feel like we are progressing and hope to see that continue in the new conference.
On a side note, the conference change isnāt exactly stacking the schedule with great teams or current rivals but hopefully this is a short term landing spot for our program and is certainly good for football.
Oh and I did renew my tickets and for the first time I had to buy three now that my daughter is older. That was expensive but basketball is by far my favorite sport.[/quote]We won 21 games with a team that had more depth and experience than the one we have this year.
Iām not writing this season off, but I feel like a lot of people are minimizing how much of a loss Braswell, Mayfield, Clark, and Nickerson are.[/quote]
those are definite losses but you have to consider the following. we essentially player the second half of the season without mayfield and clark anyways. braswell is a big loss offensively but not defensively, though i am concerned about playing with his production. i would have liked to keep nickerson but he had some serious flaws. we also have to consider what we are adding. lester, by many accounts, is the most offensively gifted player on the team, we add a couple more pieces in blakely and bryan whose level of production is yet to be determined and we add a very good shooter in cherry. think about this guys, imagine last years team with reliable three point shooting. absolutely a tournament team. we accomplished what we did with virtually no outside shooting. we have increased that this season. another year with ingram and benkovic, cherry, lester.
we are not saying it doesnāt matter, it matters quite a bit but leemire was the heart and soul of the team. i would not say the same for braswell. plus we have a lot more talent now then we did on the team after goldwire graduated.
Weāll see. The rosters are quite similar. I donāt think we could possibly have a worst roster as far as post players go (itās even much worse than that post-Leemire team). Guards may be okay if Lester is good.
For me it is a few things. Yes we have consistently won more games, but it has been against pretty weak competition and we fold up almost every time we play a better team. The good thing is for the most part we are winning the games we should, the bad part is we are not pulling many upsets that help the program move forward. Our recruiting has gotten better, but then we canāt keep the team together - losing rotational players either via transfer or program rules. We havenāt made a run in any post season tourny - but we did win our preseason tourny last year. Seems for every good thing there is a bad. And for me the horrible, awful shooting just kills me at games. We went from forcing bad shots that drove me crazy to missing wide open ones. Again the good is we are getting great clean open looks, the bad is as a team we cant throw it in the ocean. Going to Halton for ball games just is not much fun for me right now - well honestly it hasnt been fun on a regular basis in sometime. Seems like we are putting all our eggs in the next year basketball (again) and for real this time. If we cant make a big time run next year then itās going to be time to change direction, again and buy out another 3 years of a contract. At least Bobbyās contract will finally be off the books I guess. With football my expectations were zero and we have nothing to lose so it has been fun. With basketball I want to and will continue to support them - but I just donāt really have any excitement.
We fold up almost every time? We played 16 games against top 100 RPI teams at the end of the season. We were 7-9 against those teams. Great? Nope. But folded every time? I dont see that either. The conference was not littered with bad teams so that āhurtā us since we were one of the middle of the road teams in conference. I was very pleased with our season last year. Which is why I renewed again.
We fold up almost every time? We played 16 games against top 100 RPI teams at the end of the season. We were 7-9 against those teams. Great? Nope. But folded every time? I dont see that either. The conference was not littered with bad teams so that āhurtā us since we were one of the middle of the road teams in conference. I was very pleased with our season last year. Which is why I renewed again.[/quote]
Donāt get me wrong, I was happy with the progress no doubt. My statement was really geared to the fact in the last three years or more really we havenāt had those signature wins or when we did it was sandwiched in between losses. We have some solid wins just not many that got us on a decent roll.
[quote=āNinerWupAss, post:51, topic:28260ā]Donāt get me wrong, I was happy with the progress no doubt. My statement was really geared to the fact in the last three years or more really we havenāt had those signature wins or when we did it was sandwiched in between losses. We have some solid wins just not many that got us on a decent roll.[/quote]Crapping the bed after signature wins is a Niner tradition going back a number of years. The difference is we had more blowout losses and not as many good winning streaks against solid but not great teams.
Last year was definitely good progress. Going 8-8 in the A10 last year was a better performance than any year since our first year in the league, if not the best. There were only 2 losses last year I think the team āshouldā have won, Dayton and FSU, and those were not bad teams. I expect the team to win a lot of games this year against a much much weaker conference schedule. I think the losing streak towards the end of the season was disheartening, because of the way the team lost. This is going to happen when a team has to or chooses to help too much inside and leaves guys wide open on the perimeter (and the other team has the shooters to punish us for it). It will probably be similar this year unless the young post guys can help and our perimeter guys can play better defense against the drive. Thorne has the potential to change a lot of that as a shotblocker if he can get his defensive positioning figured out and has enough stamina to play more minutes.
Hereās what Iād like to see from the players and coaches in terms of improvement. If many things go right, the team should challenge for the top of CUSA, probably win it: Thorne plays more minutes and helps protect guys from dribble penetration at least some of the time, our perimeter guys do a better job protecting against dribble penetration and then getting to open shooters (we should watch tapes of how SLU guards play D over and over, consistently good positioning, footwork, and physical play that doesnāt draw fouls from todayās refs), Williams continues to improve his outside shooting just a bit more and Henry does a little better too, Lester helps with the scoring load, Benkovic is ready to play better D with more minutes at SF/SG (he can hit the outside shot) and maybe Cherry as well, Clayton improves his FT shooting and begins to develop a consistent midrange game (not necessarily great, just passable). If most of these things happen, the team will be very good, with only questions being post depth. I donāt expect true freshman to come in and do a ton, so we really need the starters to play well.
Itās also hard not to think about the following year, when the other transfers will be eligible, the young post players will have another year of experience, and Henry will be a senior. But the team next year has potential to make a little noise.
Hated the big cupcake stretch of the OOC last year. I think Iād rather lose a close one to Vermont or UIC than have to stomach beating up Radford or Lamar again.
areas where we should be improved over last season
1.) shot blocking- we really struggled in this area. thorne with another year and adding blakely should help us improve as a shot blocking unit. this was a big weakness and made it tough to stop dribble penetration.
2.) experience- another year for clayton, thorne, etc. we do not know how much these players will improve but if there is a moderate to sizable increase the sky is the limit for this team.
3.) outside shooting- our biggest weakness offensively. lester, cherry, blakely and another year from benkovic and ingram will increase this.
areas where we should be weaker
1.) post depth-losing braswell hurts more for scoring than anything else as he was not a shotblocker or great rebounder but he was big and a good scorer.