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Looking On The Bright Side


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After UB lost to Dartmouth, a considerably bad loss, it’s time to look at the bright side.

#1 Kentucky lost to Evansville, about as bad of a loss as it will get in college basketball.

Moral of this post for everyone to realize, bad losses happen, even to the best teams. 
 

I figured this is a good way to gain some perspective for the future of this season. 

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I completely agree with your perspective.  I believe they have  talent, and if they work hard and learn from each game, they can compete for the MAC championship.  For additional perspective, consider as good as the team was the last two years, Nate Oats' teams had their ups and downs during his first two years.  They were 17-14 regular season (10-8 in MAC) in his first year, but came together enough to win MAC tournament and play a very competitive game against Miami of Florida in NCAA tournament.  

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I wonder if the landscape of college basketball has changed to the point where we won't see the dominant teams from start to the end of the season. Due to the "transfer portal" where kids are coming and going and the "one and done" who isn't really trying to prove anything outside of showcase themselves and not the team. Teams from years ago who were dominant were those who stuck together as stars for more than one season. Hurley/Laettner/Hill, UNLV, Florida (Noah and crew), UCLA (O'Bannons) even the Fab 5 were around more than 1 season together. 

 

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20 hours ago, mikescherrer8 said:

After UB lost to Dartmouth, a considerably bad loss, it’s time to look at the bright side.

#1 Kentucky lost to Evansville, about as bad of a loss as it will get in college basketball.

Moral of this post for everyone to realize, bad losses happen, even to the best teams. 
 

I figured this is a good way to gain some perspective for the future of this season. 

I'd feel better if they didn't play so poorly, even Monday.

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I don't take joy in Nate losing. However, thus far, the recruits who all turned their backs on UB following Nate's departure have done very little thus far (and the term "very" would be an improvement). We all expected them to come in and be world beaters for us, so their limited roles on their new teams is surprising. Hopefully our new players will be fully into the UB routine (team D, team O, unselfishness) by MAC play.

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10 hours ago, skrabukes said:

I don't take joy in Nate losing. However, thus far, the recruits who all turned their backs on UB following Nate's departure have done very little thus far (and the term "very" would be an improvement). We all expected them to come in and be world beaters for us, so their limited roles on their new teams is surprising. Hopefully our new players will be fully into the UB routine (team D, team O, unselfishness) by MAC play.

I am not surprised.  

I have said it before and I will say it again.  If a top recruit picks a MAC school, it has more to do with other schools backing off their recruitment.  Other schools saw issues with them and so the recruits had to look further down the list of prestigious schools.  

Give me the work horse players still developing who have an axe to grind about not being ranked as a recruit.  Those are the kids that will do great things.  

The biggest recruits we have got have always underperformed expectations.  The real stars have always been guys that everyone looked over. 

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53 minutes ago, dutchcountry7 said:

Give me the work horse players still developing who have an axe to grind about not being ranked as a recruit.  Those are the kids that will do great things.  

The biggest recruits we have got have always underperformed expectations.  The real stars have always been guys that everyone looked over. 

Massinburg, Perkins, and hopefully based off what I’ve been seeing lately, Savion.

Completely agree, the only ones that really have lived up to the hype recently were Harris and Graves.

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2 hours ago, dutchcountry7 said:

The biggest recruits we have got have always underperformed expectations.

In football, Tyree and Licata had some higher offers and performed well.

Men's basketball, Watt was one of the top ranked recruits and performed well. McCrea initially verballed to a Big East school.

We're witnessing why Dyaisha Fair was offered by a bunch of higher programs.

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6 minutes ago, rma said:

Men's basketball, Watt was one of the top ranked recruits and performed well. McCrea initially verballed to a Big East school.

Watt wasn’t s top recruit. 

https://247sports.com/Player/Mitchell-Watt-60308/high-school-105027/

On Mccrea - My understanding was that he never had any Big East offers but wanted to play in the Big East for Georgetown. 

I just googled to see if I could find anything to support my recollection and... 

There is a article from the Rochester paper that says he gave a non-binding verbal commitment to Georgetown on an unofficial visit.   Unofficial visits are for guys interested in the program and want to learn more about it but the school hasn’t made them an offer and didn’t want to pay to bring them in for a official visit.

According to the Georgetown board he never had an offer from Georgetown which is why he decommitted from his verbal the same week he announced his verbal commitment. 

http://hoyatalk2.proboards.com/thread/19895/javon-mccrea-2010

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6 hours ago, dutchcountry7 said:

Watt wasn’t s top recruit. 

Sorry, my wording was ambiguous.  He definitely was not a top recruit. According to 247 he was our second best recruit ever when he signed.  Granted there is recency bias in those rankings

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If you're looking for the bright side, I think it best to go 2015-16, Oats first season at the helm. It looked like a disaster once Hurley departed. Like Jim, Oats had to recruit and replace huge personnel losses. He kept Perk, got lucky with CJ and then brought Willie Conner and Blake Hamilton in. Willie and Blake struggled mightily early in the season and then caught fire after finding their comfort level. They lead the team to a second consecutive MAC title and NCAA berth. Thus it seems to me the questions going forward are:

1. Can Jim repeat Oats' success/be as effective on/off the bench?

2. Will the team improve as the year moves on?

3. Who will be our Perkins, CJ, Willie and Blake? 

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