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Jim Whitesell and UB Part Ways


Kevin

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2 minutes ago, Bull_In_Exile said:

The only reason I can think of is because he needs a good relationship with the department to seem legit... My guess is the communications people reminded him of that.

You're really going to use this as another opportunity to stir the pot between the two of you as well? Let it go...

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39 minutes ago, Jeseph said:

You're really going to use this as another opportunity to stir the pot between the two of you as well? Let it go...

Not stirring the pot Jesph, I said above I would not blame him either way, sorry if you missed that.

Hell I even defended his post against the reaction: I think it was a shaq take, but not so awful or disrespectful that UB communications should have weighed in, in any capacity. 

But since I seem to be a bad influence here in your opinion I'll just go away.

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I honestly don’t know what’s being talked about on this thread anymore. Basketball? Personal beefs? 

In talking about basketball and the topic of this thread: we knew Whitesell was more laid back and not rah rah in your face. He seems to be a father type players coach. And it seems to me that players aren’t buying into his messages and dare I say they are walking all over him. Like nah coach we are gonna do things our way. I don’t know what goes on behind closed doors but it seems like he doesn’t have the teams full attention. Last year the players had a killer mentality to every game. This year certain players just seem focused on getting themselves off at the expense of their teammates. Mainly talking about Grant and Johnson. I think Whitesell needs to be better at figuring out lineup combos that work. Even if it means going bigger and sacrificing tempo on offense. When a team isn’t disciplined or lacks focus at different points of the game that’s a reflection of the coach. 

Also wasn’t Whitesell the defacto d coordinator under Oats? If so why is our defense terrible?

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2 hours ago, Jeseph said:

You're really going to use this as another opportunity to stir the pot between the two of you as well? Let it go..

Dude...that was more of a gripe toward the athletic communications department at UB. They have a history of pulling this BS because they don't understand what the hell journalism is. They also get sensitive over opinions.

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7 hours ago, Bull_In_Exile said:

Scoreboard... Results before white, results during and after white.... Nothing needs to be defended.

Truth. I hate to think where UB athletics would be without him. The sustained and unprecedented success of the men’s and women’s, women’s  soccer, with men’s swimming, tennis not to mention the change in attitude amongst those in the athletic department from we can’t do to a can do attitude. 

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1 hour ago, Reverend_Goose said:

... opinions.

To me, opinions have never been a problem.  IMO, there are two issues.  1) When the same opinion is repeated 12+ times per gamethread, it grows beyond an opinion and becomes tiresome.  2) When someone has multiple personalities, and thinks it is fine to be rude online, as long as they're polite in person.  They can't expect comments to be related to their in person personality, when some commenters only know their online personality.

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1 hour ago, 121Merrimac said:

‘Remember the Titans’ teaches us that some athletes don’t respond well to screaming coaches.  I’m just pointing out that there is more than one successful coaching style. 

I never said for coach to only scream, I said he never does and there’s a very clear difference in effort from last years team to this one. How many charges does this team take anymore? Barely any compared to last year. 
 

The difference? Oats knew when to scream and when to teach. He could turn it on and off and there was intensity and fire in him that the team fed from. Whitesell just teaches, he never gets worked up and it’s translating to his team not having the driving motivation to make comebacks in games that they can still win. They see a double digit deficit and they mail it in. 

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3 hours ago, Bull_In_Exile said:

The only reason I can think of is because he needs a good relationship with the department to seem legit... My guess is the communications people reminded him of that.

That’s pretty pathetic man. We get it, you have a personal problem with Kevin. stop taking it out on everyone on here. It makes you seem desperate and fragile. 
 

In fact your whole attitude on here towards anyone with a different opinion is arrogant and rude. Maybe exile yourself back to Bull Run if you don’t know how to get along with others 

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3 minutes ago, 961819 said:

I never said ..

A) I get it.  B) I only made a general comment, and wasn't calling anyone (you) out.  C) To me, The Coach/Player relationship during practice is more important than what it is during a game.  To me, during a game , the interaction between Coach and Referee is the more important 'relationship'.

So, Sure, I'd like to see more fire from the Coach from time to time, but I'm not sold that doing so during a game would necessarily impact the players as much as we all want.

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4 minutes ago, 121Merrimac said:

A) I get it.  B) I only made a general comment, and wasn't calling anyone (you) out.  C) To me, The Coach/Player relationship during practice is more important than what it is during a game.  To me, during a game , the interaction between Coach and Referee is the more important 'relationship'.

So, Sure, I'd like to see more fire from the Coach from time to time, but I'm not sold that doing so during a game would necessarily impact the players as much as we all want.

I can see where you’re coming from with that and agree on the relationship with the referees part, there just needs to be more energy from this team and personally I think that starts with the coach 

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15 minutes ago, 961819 said:

That’s pretty pathetic man. We get it, you have a personal problem with Kevin. stop taking it out on everyone on here. It makes you seem desperate and fragile. 
 

In fact your whole attitude on here towards anyone with a different opinion is arrogant and rude. Maybe exile yourself back to Bull Run if you don’t know how to get along with others 

FFS man, get your nose out of Kevins rear long enough to see I was not digging at him there.

I was saying, quite clearly, that the Comm dept was holding access over him and I've said other places they should't be doing that over this post.

 

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7 minutes ago, 961819 said:

I can see where you’re coming from with that and agree on the relationship with the referees part, there just needs to be more energy from this team and personally I think that starts with the coach 

S'all good.  I agree the team needs more energy too.  And that that it comes from the coach... just not necessarily during a game.

The other thing I was thinking, was that I don't know the players, so I don't know how to best motivate them.  As a fan, it's easy to want to see a certain thing during a game (after all, that's all I see)... but, then I think One way might not be best way to get that extra energy from every player.

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20 minutes ago, Erie County said:

Actually, for better or worse, the OP uses what appears to be his real name when posting here. ...

Meh, I wasn't talking about an Avatar's name.  My point was related to sharing a consistent point of view across all platforms.  On Monday, in response to being called out for posting negatively on here, he said "I'm on local (hmm) air waves weekly talking positive about this program.".  That's what I meant by split personalities.  I only know him from a decade of posts on this site.  When I reply, or comment about him, it is only based on what he does here, and his other actions have no influence at all.  If he is inconsistent across platforms, then he might catch unnecessary flak from time to time.

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42 minutes ago, Bull_In_Exile said:

FFS man, get your nose out of Kevins rear long enough to see I was not digging at him there.

I was saying, quite clearly, that the Comm dept was holding access over him and I've said other places they should't be doing that over this post.

 

Still condescending and confrontational I see. I used to be like that on here until I was called out for it and realized how unbearable I was being. Hopefully you do the same

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1 hour ago, 961819 said:

That’s pretty pathetic man. We get it, you have a personal problem with Kevin. stop taking it out on everyone on here. It makes you seem desperate and fragile. 
 

In fact your whole attitude on here towards anyone with a different opinion is arrogant and rude. Maybe exile yourself back to Bull Run if you don’t know how to get along with others 

No offense, but you’re coming off just as poorly. The way to argue against personal attacks isn’t to personally attack someone...

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1 hour ago, UB05 said:

No offense, but you’re coming off just as poorly. The way to argue against personal attacks isn’t to personally attack someone...

By calling someone out for being rude, I myself am being just as bad? Well I guess this is the thread for hot takes 

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7 hours ago, 961819 said:

By calling someone out for being rude, I myself am being just as bad? Well I guess this is the thread for hot takes 

“Pathetic, desperate, fragile, rude, condescending, unbearable, arrogant.” Those are your descriptors for someone you’re disagreeing with. That’s a lot more than “calling someone out for being rude,” it’s doing exactly what you yourself are complaining about. I didn’t know it was a hot take to let someone know they’re being hypocritical. 

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On 1/6/2020 at 2:51 PM, Bull_In_Exile said:

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Jeseph, I'm not personally attacking the guy... Pointing out that there is a history of some people jumping all over a coaching staff, that's all. If he's gonna come in here and rant that Whitesell is not the guy surely saying "well you've said that before"

I mean, that’s all you do when you stick your nose in any thread.

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To get a bit back on track as we wait for Friday's game, I have two thoughts.

First, is it as simple as a "good guy, bad guy" thing?   Fill in your own analogy (I am trying to be sensitive to the impact of language as I age...)

From reading on here (and other sources), Whitesell was the guy who would come over after Oats would yell and calm things down with the player.  The "good guy", so to speak.  And, apparently, he was good at that and was valued by the players in that role.

But from what I have seen myself on TV (and from what has been implied here on the games I've missed), Whitesell is still (basically) the "good guy".  And, of course, the "good guy" schtick doesn't work by itself.  Viewed from this lens, it is hard to be optimistic for the rest of the season.

----

Second, at some level, what we are seeing now is one of the two alternatives that could have happened and Alnutt had to make his choice.  What do I mean?  Well...clearly Alnutt had some concerns about Whitesell unless he would have named him right away (instead of, eventually, coming back to him).  So he had two choices:

1.  Hire someone outside the program and have a mass exodus of players transferring...and start again with a coach he was more optimistic about for the future.  In other words, they would have to rebuild.  This was going to be a tough road because the team was coming off a 30+ win season, was ranked (basically) the entire year, still had a good core, etc.  Did he really want to have that gutted in one year?   And when I say gutted, I mean:  "As a team, we were thinking they had to keep it in-house, or everyone would go their different ways," says senior guard Davonta Jordan, who estimates that half the roster would have transferred if an outside hire was made. "At that moment, everybody was trying to find out if we would stay." https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nys/buffalo/sports/2019/10/21/whitesell-puts-imprint-on-ub-program-while-keeping-oats-influence

2.  Hire someone inside the program to keep the roster together and see if the talent level of the team, despite any concerns he may have about Whitesell as the head coach, wins the day during the season.  It was a wager and you can understand why Alnutt, considering where we were at the end of the season and the momentum of the program, would choose this option.  But that is why he (Alnutt) is in this position -- to make these hard decisions.

I don't know if anyone watches NASCAR, but sometimes if there is a late stage caution, a team will stay out on old tires to get track position to get stage points.  Sometimes it works splendidly, where a team in 12th place does not pit, goes to the front on the restart of a stage with a few laps left, is able to keep it together on the old tires and then finishes 3rd and gets a bunch of stage points.   When it works, it was a good strategy.

However...there are times when a team does not pit from 12th, goes to the front on the restart of a stage with a few laps left...and gets passed like they are almost standing still during the first lap...and finishes 18th on the stage.. (and still has to pit!).  This time the strategy failed miserably.

To bring the analogy together, I believe we are now in the midst of that second scenario happening.  And there is really nothing much to be done about it now.  It was a calculated risk, but it is unfolding in a way that always could happen, but were hopeful it didn't.  

---

How is going to turn around?  Not sure.  It seems like the team is sliding on ice.  Cohesiveness is off and not necessarily playing as a team, especially on defense.  I'd like to say that these two games were a blip and they will turn it around on Friday (I am hopeful for that).  But...my life experience tells me that it may get worse before it gets better.  Teams got beat down by the Bulls the last few years and seeing a team like the Bulls (struggling with defense and not really playing for each other at the moment) is a great motivator for other squads.  Miami will certainly want to kick us when we are down.  Heck...we lost at Miami two years ago with a team that won 15 conference games.  The Miami team this year isn't very good, so maybe we can right the ship here...but they may be thinking the same thing.

 

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11 hours ago, 121Merrimac said:

S'all good.  I agree the team needs more energy too.  And that that it comes from the coach... just not necessarily during a game.

The other thing I was thinking, was that I don't know the players, so I don't know how to best motivate them.  As a fan, it's easy to want to see a certain thing during a game (after all, that's all I see)... but, then I think One way might not be best way to get that extra energy from every player.

I agree with you. I think those types of coaches who can inspire without screaming are absolutely fantastic. I am amazed when they can pull it off (because I don't know otherwise).

Maybe Whitesell's style could work at UB, I just think going from Bobby Hurley (high energy) to Nate Oats (high energy) to Whitesell (low energy) is a huge change of pace especially as you are trying to MAINTAIN success. We saw what success looks like at UB. We saw things that have never been accomplished here. Do we drastically change the recipe or do we modify it? In my mind, Whitesell is a drastic change to the recipe rather than a modification of the success that we had. 

Is this a perfect storm? Yes. When Whitesell was announced, I was worried. After the Dartmouth game, I started having conversations that Whitesell might not be the coach to continue the success. Now we are 0-2 in MAC play. I think, by definition, I have become a hater. If we bring home a MAC Championship within the next 2-3 years, I will gladly put my foot in my mouth. It will also make me reevaluate how I look at coaches.

Will I attend/watch every game? Yes. Will I still support the team? Yes. Can I be upset but still love a team? Yes. Will I still come back every year? Well, I am a Buffalo Bills fan so I think we know the answer to that question

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51 minutes ago, mikescherrer8 said:

I mean, that’s all you do when you stick your nose in any thread.

I don’t agree with everything Tim says all the time, but he is a huge UB booster and fan. Personally I wish he “stick his nose”in more threads. In addition to his comments he has some great insights not to mention some access to information most fans do not. Tim was on this board long before many of the newer people came on board. There was a period of time where he didn’t comment at all. I don’t know why that was but I suspect it may have been some animosity/competition between Bull Run and UB Fan. We should welcome all comments especially from different viewpoints with the exception of hateful, vulgar etc type posts. But that is the job of the mods and not me. 

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