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I was at the Jim Christian press conference today and spoke with him afterwards. I'm going to increase my college basketball coverage next season. With me being back with Trainwreck Sports, I will be credentialed with UB, Canisius and Niagara so I look forward to providing additional content in the future.

Fair just got drafted #17 by the two-time defending champion Las Vegas Aces as their first pick. Makes 2 recent UB pros, both from Rochester.

You guys both bring up some great points. I agree with UBinMD that I feel like this coach and staff are trying to build a roster around kids that are interchangeable on the floor defensively and offensively both from a size and athletic point of view. These coaches are clearly looking for kids who are willing to play defense, are good athletes, and are unselfish hard workers. I think you can describe all of the freshman from last year under those categories. Those are clearly the type of kids this staff is after. I think this is the formula started by Villanova and now used by many schools, like Uconn. Obviously the talent level at these schools is above the level we are recruiting at but the type of kids are the same. The kids this staff is after are willing to sacrifice their own accolades for the good of the team. This describes, Sabol, Boldin, Wilson and Mcveigh all of this staffs recruits last year. I agree with MuchMany who feels that the veteran leadership from last year never took on these characteristics and they were a non complimentary group of players left leading this team. They were selfish players and were not willing to sacrifice for the good of the team. All of the lazy play from last year falls squarely on the shoulders of Chatman and Adams. That is why we won so little of our games. These kids let us down by being selfish and lazy. I think this staff will be the first to tell you there mistake was to allow Chatman and Adams and Smith the ability to return and their choice to continue to play them heavy minutes down the stretch of the season. It was destined to fail when the only reason these kids stayed here at UB was because they did not want to have to sit out another year because it was all of their at least second transfer if they chose to move to another school. These kids had no interest in playing for this coach, after all they came here to play for Whitesell. They had no interest in buying into what this staff was selling. That was the major issue last year. I wish the coaching staff had just benched them. It was a weird dynamic all year and I think this was the crux of it all. I think this staff is trying to follow the mold of Villanova and Uconn but we did not get a chance to see it much last year. I think they are trying to create an identity of interchangability, with athletes who work hard and are willing to sacrifice and play unselfish. Personally I think this is the approach to take in our situation. We go after the kids who are loyal and are willing to stay and play as a team. I also think this a reason you see this staff recruiting these kids who dont have a ton of other offers. They are under recruited and have a chip on their shoulder to prove themselves. I think next year we are going to see a vast improvement and I think it will be an entertaining brand of basketball. Trust me, I was as frustrated as anyone this past season. I drove 550 miles to see three games of Chatman and Adams being ball hogs and lazy on defense. I was the one standing and clapping when Chatman was kicked out of his final game, BYE! I am not happy with the status of this program but after I have let my emotions settle and I have reviewed our situation, a plan emerged that I think this staff is aiming for. Will it result in wins next year like we all want, I doubt it, but I think it takes time to build a program. I will support this approach and I hope you all will as well. I look forward to next year. I want to see a team identity based on interchangeability, athleticism and unselfish play where the players sacrifice for each other to allow for team success. If we see this from the team it will be a fun season and we can all get behind that approach. Go Bulls!

Short answer, no, I did not see that. I also saw a team that was extraordinarily fragmented. I saw a lot of lazy veteran play. I saw a lot of young players that deferred to veterans most of the season and we consistently let down. It is probably wishful thinking, but this year will be 100% GH3 recruits, so I will reserve judgement until after this season. I did listen to almost all of Dan Hurley's interview where he talks about player selection, his thoughts on building a team and I think he is 100% correct that it really only takes one bad apple and it really does change the dynamic of an entire team. I only saw one game live and it was the Niagara game and the level of selfish play and laziness I observed was painful to see. That group was not a team at that point and never really got any better.

Our Roster may be complete for the WBB team! Coach Burke just posted a huge Boom and said 3/3 Stay tuned. Assuming Makenna is 1 of 3, that means 2 more announcements should be forthcoming in the next day or so. If she got in 3 recruits over the weekend and landed them all, that is wild stuff!!

Everyone looking for the next Mark Sears I live less than an hour from The Mount. Maybe I will go at lunch time decked out in UB gear and try to find the basketball team to make a sales pitch. That shouldn’t violate any rules, right?

Let's make it happen.

Winning basketball!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyone care to chime in on what brand of basketball we will be playing next year? The net loss on paper is significant and we were already horrendous.

Not a transfer, but we picked up a commitment from Drake Saltarelli out of IMG, 6'1 215lb LB. Sounds like he has family in the Buffalo area. I know Lembo mentioned we are a bit thin at LB, so maybe a Freshman depth piece for us.

Doty listed as class of 2025 on this summer's City Rocks roster, so maybe we're targeting him for next year after a prep season. https://www.instagram.com/p/C5i9P3wN9uG/?igsh=cGYyOHJyZzZzaDFw

Who knows what he is building at this point. One thing I wanted to come out with from last season was an identity. I don’t think we have one. We hashtag all in grit but there were few times I saw a gritty effort. Being interchangeable is vital in today’s game I agree there. Tough defense sure but I don’t think we had good defenders last season. As for the attacking the rim, we shot way too many 3s for a team that shot horribly from 3. Maybe if we attacked the rim more and focused on quality 2 point shots we would’ve been more competitive.

He has been all the way to Rhode Island as well.

Shay Ciezki too...just imagine her at the point. If only..

Oh I'm sure that they'd be an improvement, but my point still remains, that we've fallen quite a long way to be picking up Canisius' bones. We'll see if any of those guys go back with a proven coach in Christian now at the helm.

Danny Hurley seems like a perfect fit at UConn, doesn't come across like a Kentucky coach in my opinion Oates on the other hand to me screams Kentucky

Are people really upset that a basketball player who only had scholarship offers from Albany and Fairfield and decided to walk on at Arkansas State and was not recruited by UB? Is that the level of recruit that people want?

UB not only had that weight lifted, but got paid to remove an anchor. Best possible option for UB, in my view. The team was a mess the past few years. Sadly, It was evident to anyone with eyes and even a rudimentary understanding of football.

So I met with a former player the other day, one of my best friends as well. He had played under Leopold and Linguist. He didn’t have many great things to say about linguist at all. He said the majority of the team didn’t like his coaching style and said he was very unorganized. My friend also told me that he had full control of the offense and didn’t let the OC do much if at all. He’s now ran out of eligibility but still gets to practice with the team during spring ball. He loves Lembo and the consensus around the team is that Lembo is a great coach who gets along well with his players. My friend thinks the team is in really good hands with him