As of this moment, we have no scolly’s to give.
Am I giving too much credit to the fact that he is a transfer from a ‘big’ school? I thought he was a contributing player so my assumption is he will be even better against CUSA talent which is good for us. I don’t follow recruiting too closely so maybe I am drinking the Kool-Aid here or it could be that Sanchez has brought back my optimistic perspective when it comes to men’s hoops. 
He hasn’t gotten a lot of playing time in his first 2 years, and if you read OU press and the comments from their fans, no one is sad to see him go. Almost mirrors what was said about Ryan Murphy today - “good guy, played hard, but writing was on the wall based on other recruits and signees” - type of stuff.
Who knows how he’ll work out. No one will until he gets the chance, but to your question, he was not much of a contributor for OU up to this point.
JJ from Memphis on the other hand, is the kind of proven contributor we need with even more upside. If we get Shep but then can’t also get JJ, we likely lost out in that.
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From what I gather Shepherd was in line for considerable minutes next year. They’ve loaded up on grad transfer guards with Young, Shepherd and another guard leaving early, along with losing a Senior guard.
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He is transferring to a school that finished the previous year with a 300+ rpi. Coach would have to be a great salesman or the player just not care. Helps it’s his home state. Hopefully he can be at least a solid off the bench guy. I’m not gonna over prop him up.
Also - a little tough to be a contributor at PG there over the past couple of seasons (freshman behind senior Jordan Woodard and then in comes Trae Young). I wouldn’t exactly say that he’s had a fully opportunity to show what he can do or be fairly evaluated.
And…Trae Young had nothing but good things to say about him.
It seems to me that the cycle looks like this.
- We have had no success so we hire a new coach and AD
- We talk a few recruits into coming here that are a little better than what we were getting,
but not a lot better because they are going to more successful programs - With better coaching, our current players generate better results, and the new recruits help us win more games
- More wins allow us to move up another notch in recruiting talent
- Repeat steps 2-4 until we win the National Championship
If Shepard is better than the recruits Price was going to get than we are already on step 2. The big question is how big the jumps can be in 3 and 4 under Sanchez. That determines how quickly we can get to step 5.
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There is no way Sanchez can do worse than Price. I think the leap this program takes in the first 3 years will be huge. Even a 150 rpi in 3 years from what we have been would be huge. It means we are out of our downward spiral.
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That is some serious logic! Good way of looking at it. On step 2, now to step 3.
clt says step 3 is always profit
Man it’d better not take us 3 years to get to RPI 150. I know Sanchez tried to buy some time in his opener, but year 3 we’d better be playing for conference championship / NCAA bid. That has to be the goal.
It doesn’t take that long to turn around Hoops. If this were football, I’d understand (then again, look at what Kiffin did at FAU).
I would agree with this, given Sanchez is not starting from an empty cupboard the way Price had to. We’ve kept nearly everyone, so far, and we all expect that Sanchez will find ways to get a lot more out of them than Price did.
Another key point is what will happen to MTSU, WKU, and ODU over the next couple years. Ideally, they continue to get better, making it harder to close the gap. I sure as hell don’t want to start winning CUSA because those teams worked backwards toward us.
Not an empty cupboard? Seriously
Sure. Our foundation, however weak it may be, stuck around. Helluva lot better than having to play walk-ons the way Price had to.
I agree…decent base to work with here. Just need guidance and direction.
clt hopes he gets here sooner.
I think this is textbook “Under promise, over deliver” speak by Sanchez… He knows this thing is busted and it will take some time, but I also think he wants to start kicking ass from Day 1. I’m suspecting there may be a little Lou Holtz “woe is me” gene in every smart coach.
The optics of him winning 15 games this year would be terrific… winning 15 isn’t great, but winning 15 when you won 6 and winning 15 when you have already stated this is going to be a long fix both look terrific on paper… and even better to recruits and boosters.
And I’ve said several times- 2017-2018 was not a 6 win team, it was a 12ish win team that under performed about as badly as possible…
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I’ll be pretty tolerant if we play team basketball, do the little things, compete and show improvement.
I enjoyed Price’s first year because of the never say die attitude of our outgunned team led by Big Joe and his knees.
If we show smarts while getting out talented, then so be it.