trueblue32

Eh it’s a fun tag line but they were also at one point coaches on their way up. It’s a cycle but one has a track record of already doing it. I’m not against either but completely ruling someone out for a MAC job for not meeting high major standards is pretty silly. I listed like 5 coaches who followed this path and run a top 100 mid-major. I forgot Ritchie McKay at Liberty, there may be others. It seems like a pretty high hit rate if you have the resources to get one. I think people saw one top 25 season and believe we’re destined for that every year when we don’t have the facilities or resources to do that. Being a consistent top 100 program is not a small accomplishment at the mid-major level.

Starting a thread here since Zid Powell just hit the portal

I will say, Oats has obviously handled the press conferences terribly, but the decision to play Miller is above Oats' head and certainly above Hodgson's head. When the story broke the first person to say Miller would play was the AD. There is no school with more money to toss a coach aside that compromises the school's (legit) shot at their first national championship. If you think Oats should sacrifice his job on moral grounds and bench Miller, your standards are not grounded in any reality. Hodgson hasn't even made the public remarks that Oats has. I'm not sure why we would exclude Hodgson from a search because of this situation

Buffalo connections obviously matter for recruiting purposes. Also they obviously matter for the getting the best caliber candidate at the salary we can offer. Becky Hammon coached men under Greg Popovich. Nobody is hiring her in the NBA because she coached teenagers at the University at Buffalo LOL

$425k. Reality is he will probably have to take a paycut whenever he starts his head coaching career because it will probably be at a mid-major. How close we can get to matching that while also buying out Whitesell I have no idea

Also saw someone point out that Alnutt overlapped with Mike Anderson at Missouri who was just fired by St. John’s. AD ties, NY ties, played the fastest pace in the country the past two years. Mediocre results at St. John’s but he outperformed their last 4 coaches which says something. He also had pretty good results at his previous stops (Arkansas, Missouri, UAB)

I was a defender of the Whitesell hire as a means of continuity but by the end of year 3 it was clear he wasn't the guy and he had outlived his purpose after he was no longer retaining Segu/Williams. This is good news and let's hope Alnutt doesn't fuck this one up. Hodgson is the clear ideal candidate. I'd also love Josh Pastner. He flamed out at Georgia Tech but that's a hard place to win. He's super well liked, and other high major bounce backs have had success at mid-majors later on (i.e. Alford at Nevada, Kennedy at UAB, Pitino at Iona, other Pitino at New Mexico, Groce at Akron etc.)

We're listed in the second tweet in the thread

Another name that we'd be dumb to not eventually be connected to: Greg Dolan from Williamsville. He's a senior at Cornell and his sophomore year was wiped out by COVID. Still has a year of eligibility but Ivy League doesn't permit graduate students. He's currently averaging 13.5/3.6/3.6 and shooting 43% from 3

Just gonna start another thread for transfers that we're connected to

Nate Oats on his best player bringing a gun to another one of his players and resulting in a murder: “We knew about that. Can’t control everything anybody does outside of practice. Nobody knew that was going to happen. College kids are out, Brandon hasn’t been in any type of trouble nor is he in any type of trouble in this case. Wrong spot at the wrong time.”

Presumably Sports Reference's Play Index. Super helpful for coming up with random stats. Here's the query that gets you that: https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/play-index/pgl_finder.cgi?request=1&match=game&year_min=2023&year_max=2023&game_type=A&is_range=N&pos_is_g=Y&pos_is_f=Y&pos_is_c=Y&c1stat=ast&c1comp=gt&c1val=7&c2stat=fg_pct&c2comp=gt&c2val=100&c3stat=fga&c3comp=gt&c3val=8&c4comp=gt&order_by=fga Only 8 guys have done it nationally going back to the '10-'11 season: https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/play-index/pgl_finder.cgi?request=1&match=game&game_type=A&is_range=N&pos_is_g=Y&pos_is_f=Y&pos_is_c=Y&c1stat=ast&c1comp=gt&c1val=7&c2stat=fg_pct&c2comp=gt&c2val=100&c3stat=fga&c3comp=gt&c3val=8&c4comp=gt&order_by=fga

I don’t really understand this mindset, Mballa and Skogman were the first impact players we’ve lost since Shannon Evans? Maybe I’m forgetting someone but for all the (valid) Whitesell complaints creating an environment where our top players leave hasn’t really been an issue. Mballa made sense using a 5th year COVID eligibility to move from a rebuild to P5. Skogman was a little more confusing but this really hasn’t been much of an issue for us

I continue to be astounded by Isaac Jack, he already seems like the best post scorer since Perkins. Left, right, beautiful footwork, doesn’t panic when he gets the ball on a roll. Super polished for a freshman. I’ll admit I’ve been frustrated about the start of this season but we already have a win over the best team in the Patriot League, if we can close out a win over the best MVC team that at least convinces me Colgate wasn’t a fluke. The talent seems to be there but consistency is key

Isaac Jack running the floor/defending looks pretty unathletic then you get the ball in his hands and he’s a super polished finisher. It’s jarring lol, feels like he has a high ceiling for us long term given that he’s actually relatively inexperienced playing basketball

Backcourt looks deep, frontcourt looked fine but I’m concerned about them against higher level competition. In The Almanac Whitesell said they hope to have Chatman back by conference play but they might just redshirt him. Williamson looked small out there even against a D2 team and was the last scholarship player off the bench

Not MAC related but it was interesting that Armoni Foster’s alma mater IUP had a lead at Syracuse into the second half in an exhibition yesterday even without him. There are good players at D2, I’m excited to see what he brings

IMO throw a banner up in the triple gym where BCU practices and as a reminder to the current players that working hard while at UB can lead to professional success. At high major schools you’ll find reminders of their NBA players everywhere. I tend to agree not to hang a banner in Alumni Arena, if we host TBT next year they bring banners of all the past winners so it’ll be there when BCU is playing.

Yeah it had gotten up to $2 mil but I think the cost of the COVID bubble year knocked down the prize to $1 mil and they still might be trying to dig themselves out of that. Hopefully the prize pool grows again in the future though. proballers.com is a good resource I use a lot during TBT time. They won’t have signing announcements as far as I know but it’s a good central location for information on overseas leagues

I want to highlight this point after people were teeing off on the staff last year for the schedule. I don’t think the staff changed their scheduling philosophy this year. They’re at the mercy of bigger schools when it comes to scheduling these games

@ UConn 11/15

Perkins has never played in the G-League but that’s because he makes a lot more overseas not because he wouldn’t have G-League interest. Same reason CJ averaged double digits in the G-League and then left.

They are bigger but their starting lineup doesn’t really represent how they play. McGhee plays the second least minutes on their team. Their top 5 in minutes go 6’0” 6’1” 6’7” 6’3” 6’10”. By comparison our top 5 in minutes go 6’3” 6’6” 6’0” 6’8” 6’3”. EC Matthews being out hurts our depth on the wing but I’m glad we’ll have Davonta as an additional hound on the ball. I’d like to see one of him/Dontay on the court at all times

I went to the Columbus regional last year and the Syracuse regional this year. It was the same at both. Syracuse didn't even sell alcohol in the arena and the concessions were what you'd expect at a community college. It is what it is, you're there to see the basketball games. They're not building things up around it like it's the Olympics. You'll be driving/Ubering around.