I just wanted to share my thoughts and get the opinion of others. As an alum from the class of '01 it’s been disappointing to see our basketball program diminish to it’s current state. However, for me the momentum has started to really swing in a positive direction since bringing in Mike Hill. The addition of Will Healy and Ron Sanchez has me VERY excited to see how we will look in 3-5 years.
I’m also reminded that it takes years to change a culture and to establish winning programs for basketball and football due to the timelines of the recruiting processes, etc.
Having said that what does everyone believe our basketball record will be over the next 3 years based off of our current trajectory?
I think football bowls this year as long as one of the QBs is decent. With poor QB play again, 4-5 wins.
Basketball, I expect to win a little bit more, but I don’t know where our scoring will come from, so I’m not getting too excited. A lot of new faces, but I’m optimistic that a full roster will lead to more wins. Seriously doubt we will be competing for a conference title, but I expect improvement.
Glad to have you. I agree totally with the momentum comment. At some point though “momentum” and “potential” are bad words.
Reality is everything the previous regimes built in the 90’s and 00’s has been destroyed.
I love everything Mike has done so far. Respectfully, there was a lot of low hanging fruit around our program, and he has picked every ounce of it up. I am anxious to see the facilities master plan.
Our basketball team will be absolutely the best roster we’ve had since the Alan Major NIT team. That’s not saying much though. Barring something awful, I view us as 15 wins next year, 20, the following year, and 25+ NCAA in year three. I hope we schedule cupcake city this year, and try to pad the win column, for this starved fanbase.
With the players we are bringing in, that is certainly realistic and achievable. We currently have the #1 2019 hoops class in CUSA. If we can keep 75% of the players we are bringing in, we are going to be very good. That said, the last 6 years, we’ve lost most of the talent we brought in.
Football is a bit of a different beast to me. We should absolutely be bowl eligible this year. We play 6 games against teams we should simply be better than (GW, Umass, WKU, MTSU, UTEP, ODU). That said, we are going to be very lucky with the quality of opponent lined up against us. A better schedule, and I’m not sure this roster would bowl. I trust Healy, but I do expect to see a drop in the W column in 2020. By years 3 and 4, especially with the transfer quality he is getting, we should have an idea of what he will be as a coach.
I think Mike Hill has clearly stated his expectations for all sports here at Charlotte, and is taking steps to accomplish this. Heck, the softball coach finally was removed after being allowed to hang on for years being sub par. So, if you are a coach at Charlotte and have years of being just mediocre or worse, you should be seeing the writing on the wall if you don’t step your game up. I LOVE IT!!!
Thanks for having me and I agree with what you said regarding Mike, the basketball, and football programs.
There were certainly a ton of areas where the improvements will be easy and noticeable. I think the difference is that his hires of Sanchez and Healy are good for the programs now but even better for the long-term. Both coaches are high character christian men that can build out teams, culture, and excel in this crazy thing called recruiting!!
I think our biggest issue this year won’t be reaching .500, but if that will be enough to get a bowl game for us.
Highest-ranked champion from the AAC, C-USA, MAC, MW & Sun Belt will play in a New Year’s Six bowl.
No set order for Conference USA bowls. Champion will choose which bowl it wants to attend.
– Bad Boy Mowers Gasparilla vs. American Athletic
– Bahamas Bowl vs. MAC
– Gildan New Mexico Bowl vs. Mountain West
– R&L Carriers New Orleans Bowl vs. Sun Belt
– SERVPRO First Responders Bowl vs. Big 12
Secondary Agreements
– Walk-On’s Independence Bowl
Conditional if ACC or SEC can’t fill a spot.
– DXL Frisco Bowl
Conditional if American Athletic or MAC can’t fill a spot.
OR Hawaii Bowl vs. BYU
I would expect us to have a winning record this year even at 15-15. I think we will load up on a soft non-conference to build some confidence, plus I think we would have won 3-5 games last year if we had more than 7 players dressed out.
I agree…Sanchez mentioned he couldn’t even practice like he wanted due to not having a full squad. I’m excited but realistic and understand with so many new faces it will be a year or two to gain some cohesiveness.
We are better than GW and UTEP. The other four are 50/50. We have more non coin flip losses than coin flip wins on our schedule. We are trending the right way, but I need to see much more before I’m confident that we beat anyone but GW.
We completely dominated WKU and MT (despite somehow losing that game). WKU will be a little better with a new coach but MT shouldn’t be with the loss of Stockstill. I’m not guaranteeing victory in those games but I’d put the odds over 50-50 in our favor in both of those.
I just want to reference the culture change. The one thing I am confident in is that Mike Hill will not settle for losing. He is going to set goals and hold people accountable to achieve them. Being friends or #family isn’t enough. Doing the only the minimum isn’t going to cut it. Hiding behind past failures as an excuse for not trying more won’t happen. I hate that we had to basically hit the complete rock bottom to dump Judy to make this happen though. It blows my mind so many people supported her as we were circling the drain of failure. I am more excited about where we are today than I have been since we announced football even though we are starting all over again on so many fronts.
Tin, I find you to be one of the most knowledgeable posters on this board RE: football, however I gotta say, if we win 2 with this roster and this schedule I am slamming the panic button on Healy.
I do agree with your assessment that some of those games are a touch more 50/50 than I made them out to be. We handled Umass after the most stereotypical lambert opening 4 minutes in history. I just can’t see WKU being much better, I can’t see MTSU being what they were last year (which wasn’t great) and ODU is on the lamest of lame duck coaches, though he does seem to be able to get them up for big games, and they will have a chance to spoil our year I gotta feeling.
No worries. I’ve no problem taking criticism of my opinions and will have problem saying that I’m wrong (and I hope I am).
All I’m asking is that while this football team has some good players, do the have enough? Do we have enough depth (has always been a problem)?
I’m concerned that we don’t have a qb that can win games, an offensive line that can keep him upright, an ability to harass the opposing qb’s, a punt team in all facets, and wr’s that can stretch the field.
I think (and wouldn’t be surprised) if we won a ton of games. I do think the schedule has winnable games all over it.
I’m just trying to quell the “we didn’t bowl? We pulled a Niner” talk.
I’m generally a huge Niner optimist, but Lambert ball has made me very hesitant to crown anything we do (I was terrified that USM was going to get the ball back with eleven seconds left and beat us with a gimmick play).
I think football season is going to be much more enjoyable than previous seasons, but I’m hesitant to say the results will show up on the field.
I agree with the initial post… I’m not as much focused on the record (at least in hoops) but more so on the energy and directional shifts… Things are trending positively… Now if Healy can get us 6 or 7 wins the pulse is going to quicken considerably