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Wow, that was a painful season. I've been quiet on this board the past several month, so I apologize for the long post. I'm still so confused on the coaching. This includes both recruiting and play calling. I was concerned back in the off season with the lack of experienced players being picked up from the transfer portal. We lost 8 and only picked up one. Bowling Green had 7 transfer in while most other MAC schools had 1-3. UB needs to do a better job recruiting JUCO players which add experience quickly. That has been our success the past 5-7 years. We were all told the GH3 was looking for the best players that fit into his style of play. And then, he only gets Graham from the portal (and he had eligibility issues). I wasn’t really impressed with Graham in his limited play. Did we leave scholarships on the table? Fulcher was also a transfer? Good driving to the basket when he did. And then he picks up 5 Freshmen. Diovion Famakinde went AWOL before the season even started. At the start of the season GH3 didn’t appear to want to play his Freshman until he realized he didn’t have enough players. Sabol had the most minutes of the Freshman but his 3-point shooting was off most of the season (until the last game). Wilson was good on defense. Boldin and McVeigh were so so. What happened to Kanye Jones? He went AWOL midway through the season. This team just lacked experience. Smith just seemed uncommitted to playing. Never really went after any lose balls. He wore his emotions on his sleave and often got into foul trouble. Fulcher had some nice drives to the basket. Williamson showed glimmers of hope with the inside game. Will they return next year or think the grass is greener elsewhere? Adams and Chatman were only talents on the team. Now, on to coaching. How could GH3 expect to have Adams to play point-forward the entire season as started out the season? Rarely did I see this team do “organized plays”. The women every single possession looked at the coach to see the play. Nothing like that on this team. Always seemed like a “pickup game” plays. Similarly, I never understood UB’s side-line in-bound plays on offense. UB always seemed to move away from the in-bound player. People complained the past several years that we had so many fast break points. Sure didn’t seem like we had so many this year. This year was a lot of “in-bound the ball, go down the court, try to break the defense”. This team needs to be faster in order to get the “easy” (and more exciting) baskets. Sure would have liked to have seen more ball movement and better ball screen. Less turnovers as well but that probably comes with being a less experienced team. In short, I just got the impression that this team wasn’t coached well.

He's just a painfully unintelligent man. I read his quotes like people watch car crashes, unable to look away. Like, what??? “Any time you reach an aspiration of running your own program and all the work that you put in, all the years of work that goes into getting to that point that you’re an FBS head coach, I will tell you it was an extremely difficult decision to leave that,” Linguist told the Tuscaloosa (Ala.) News. “I wouldn’t have left it for anything.”

So.....yeah. I think we all know that this season was tough to watch from start to finish. Finishing 4-27 is NOT something we have been accustomed to in a long time. Potentially one of the worst and most unforgettable years of UB men's basketball in recent memory. Certainly in the last 20 years. I believe we all sort of saw the writing on the wall on how bad this season COULD be but didn't know it would be THIS bad. My thoughts are the obvious, this is a good ol' fashioned program rebuild and we just witnessed rock bottom, literally. The good news is, how much worse could it possibly get? I'm intrigued to see how this off-season unfolds in terms of transfer portal roster moves and coaching staff doing their best to ride with talented young players and develop them, despite that being difficult to do in this era of college basketball. The fact is, this team was so young and inexperienced, with sprinkles of experienced upperclassman. There just was no way that this team was going to be successful. I wouldn't say this offseason is necessarily the most important one, but, we are really going to see what Halcovage and co. are capable of, and what they intend on doing to better the program. I'm fairly optimistic they can do so. Above all of my rambling, I think this is a necessary thread for all of us fans to sort of come together and discuss this season and to discuss the future. Now...air your grievances.

It will be discussed for years on Hodgson not being hired as our next head coach. He was a coach on our great teams, was a local guy who was popular with many, was involved in the community and who knows who he could have kept on the roster and recruited. He recruited many of the juco’s and some transfers and was known in the recruiting cycles. All because Alnutt thought he knew better and was just riding the success of others. Sad what has become once a winning atmosphere and culture.

If only! We have both been on the Hodgson train since the news broke of Whitesel’s firing. You can say what you want about Hodgson, but he’s a dog and a hustler. I’ll be rooting for him and Quarles this evening. Both directly off the Oats tree. Likely a tough matchup for his team tonight taking on App State, the #1 seed in the SB and #75 team in KenPom (compared to the MAC’s top KenPom team in Akron @ #119). Arkansas State is at #130 in KenPom and a few spots ahead of Toledo.

Excellent post. It was @DocCas86 that asked about X and O stuff. An example is, in the half court set have Smith or Chatman set a high ball screen on the strong side for Fulcher, who can use the screen to drive and score or kick to Sabol. A simple ball screen opens so many possibilities. The team didn’t play off each other. We didn’t play to a strengths. Ball screens and cuts…more player movement rather than 1v1 play. Side note, whoever complained about fast break points is stupid. But often fast break points are a product of good defense. Which we didn’t play. Not knocking Sabol but he is slow laterally. That’s an example of something teams exploited. Aside from the recruiting aspect, the coaching needs to improve.

Arkansas State destroyed Louisiana in the quarterfinals. They battle Appalachian State in the Sun Belt semifinals tonight at 6.

You know this for a fact or you’re just talking out of your butt? Such doom and gloom before we have any real info at all.

MuchMany, thanks for the corrections. Coaches abbreviation has been corrected in my original post. Why would UB's own coaching staff say it wasn't public? Correct on Sabol. Hot and cold. 35.7% if you don't include the last game.

I honestly believe he thought Adams and Chatman would be good enough and the freshman could get some PT. I don’t think he envisioned this, maybe .500 or a little less. early on the older guys had no confidence in the younger players and it became hero ball. It improved a little, but not a lot. Most often it looked like a 5 man pickup game. A bit of that may have been GH3 Letting them play and observe, but unfortunately it didn’t get much better. I’m not sure the team really liked each other much. Just felt very individualistic most of the season. Even the last game there were guys wide open and the passes weren’t made. Not that anyone was a dead shot on the team, but open shot usually have a better chance of going in. Let’s see how the game against Daemen goes next fall and we can see what we are in for.

Seeing this idea reminded me of years ago, at a UB Faculty Senate meeting, the topic of UB athletics came up and someone with no clue of how D1 athletics works said UB was not right for FBS and, why not join the Ivy League? Of course! The ONLY way UB would EVER consider dropping to FCS would be an Ivy invite..and 0% chance of it ever happening.

Sad but true. Almost spot on IMO. GHIII went from Bapson College as a player $$$$$ to Nova’s staff $$$$$$$. No doubt he’s faced some adversity like anyone, but he’s had a silver spoon. Time to determine if we have a dog. The entire deck is stacked against him now. Transfer portal makes it way easier to build than years b4, but NIL is certainly a barrier right now. It’s going to be a very interesting off season.

I'm not. I listed each player's total stats and their conference stats in parentheses. For what it's worth the other players I have listed above are all freshmen and listed in the top 20 for a large majority of the stats. https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/conferences/mac/women/2024-leaders.html If you click on Paige Kohler, Amber Tretter, Kirsten Lewis-Williams, Alexis Davis it's easy to compare them against each other. For what it's worth I think the race for Freshman of the Year will not include Davis. I think Davis is a huge asset for the team and has one of the top 10 freshmen performances in a UB WBB uniform in the past decade, but her stats this year are below Tretter in every single category except FG%. I also expect to see Davis on the All-Freshman Team. Head to Head (to Head) Winners KLW: PPG, SPG, FG%, True Shooting %, Win Shares, Offensive Win Shares, Defensive Win Shares, Win Shares / 40, Offensive Rating, Steal %, Points Produced Per Game Kohler: APG, FT%, Usage %, Assist %, Turnover % (low) Tretter: RPG, BPG, 3PT%, Turnovers (low), Player Efficiency Rating, Defensive Box Plus/Minus, Defensive Rating, Total/Offensive/Defensive Rebound %, Block % Worth noting the stats I pulled are from the schools' websites, not sports-reference which I believe excludes non-D1 opponents. I think it's very possible that KLW gets the award, but it really could go to any of the three players.

Coach has a chance to show how quickly he can learn. I expect he’ll do quite a bit of self reflection

Im really not sure if Halcovage is the guy after that travesty of a season, both on and off the court a poor job. The talent of our recruits was shockingly low this season. Sabol is a shooter and nothing else (would be a 7th-8th man that is on the floor when you need an offensive spark on a decent team), Fulcher is a turnover machine and a poor shooter, McVeigh and Wilson improved but still don’t seem D1 caliber yet and we saw nothing of Fakaminde. Boldin is solid but doesn’t look to be an impact player that will change a game. If we want to ever be competitive again, we need to go the route of mining the transfer portal or finding a way to bring in better recruits. I want to see Halcovage get one more recruiting cycle, but if it’s another disaster we should consider firing him . Also we desperately need NIL money if we want to stay relevant.

Bluebird - absolutely, I thought the same thing. The kids started carrying the play on their own. I don't think they could've handled that a couple months ago. Again, big picture here, they got a lot more playing time this year than they would've in previous seasons and hopefully that lays a good foundation for the team going forward. Maybe this is the coach in me talking but I have zero tolerance for anyone who can't keep their cool, yells at the ref and costs the team points. He lost control of his actions and it hurt the team. No one else is responsible for that.

The season, the fan experience , the AD, the coaching, the nonchalant, disrespectful attitude of the majority of players, especially #5 during the playing of the National Anthem were all a disgrace. The best part of the season were the Dazzlers!

My question is, will the staff be retained 100%? Maybe they are all competent, but it’s hard to evaluate after what we just witnessed. It would be nice to see some rumblings on players, etc but I know the portal isn’t open yet, so once that happens, I guess we will see.

Except UB is a public institution and joining the Ivy League would throw a wrench into the NLRB decision involving Dartmouth. I prefer Molson Golden to either of these two. At what level do you think the Ivy League plays football?

I like it. Adding a rivalry or a nice incentive certainly isn't a bad thing. Personally, I'd like to see more teams added to the MAC.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powder_horn Bull horn, used by minutemen. It makes too much sense. From 11.5 years ago: https://www.ubbullrun.com/2012/9/11/3317930/should-there-trophy-game-with-umass-what-should-it-be-for

I love the idea of a trophy with UMASS. We're such similar schools and we desparately need something to build student interest and elevate school pride. A rivalry can't hurt and let's face it, despite winning a ton of games in this conference not one MAC school considers us a rival.