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trueblue32

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Everything posted by trueblue32

  1. WNY kid that I expect UB to be connected to
  2. From D.C. so he may have originally been a Cage recruit. He was preseason 3rd team all-MAAC but he didn't play at all this year. I guess due to injuries although I don't see much coverage on it. He posted 10 points, 9 boards as a freshman against UB, and 8 points, 7 boards as a sophomore against UB
  3. It's not a problem. Why is it bad that D2 or D3 caliber players find a situation that they can excel in and the D1 team can give a scholarship to a more deserving player? It's supposed to be better if the NCAA holds a gun to their head and makes them stay at UB in a situation that was clearly not working for either party? AFAIK there is no fine print that says Transfer Portal (to another D1 school). It also works the other way. Riley Minnix at Morehead St., and Patrick Cartier/Joel Scott at Colorado St. are a few off the top of my head who moved up and are now playing in the NCAAT
  4. I think he was probably the second best player on last years team so if we made it to a title game I wouldn’t have been surprised if he propelled us there. Our 4 MAC tournament MVPs are Xavier Ford, Willie Conner, Wes Clark and Jeremy Harris. I think Clark is the only one with a case as the best player on the team the (entire) season they won it. I think tournament success is often due to secondary or tertiary players stepping up and supplementing the established stars. All of this is basically to say that I think some things just happen in sports and they don’t all have big picture implications. I think that it’s true that Zid had a worse offensive season this year, but he played well and earned an all tournament spot. His team went on a run primarily because of defense and he scored 21 in the title game. Good for him, don’t think it needs to mean anything about Whitesell and co.
  5. Zid’s Ortg is down and UTEP’s offense is significantly worse than UB’s last year. They had a nice run but he didn’t turn into Michael Jordan there lol. Not everything has to be a referendum on the last staff.
  6. Probably not a Cage connection as a big man who just got to Canisius this year but bring me Frank Mitchell. His 15.9% offensive rebounding rate and 30.6% defensive rebounding rate were 8th and 4th in the country respectively. For reference Mballa's Buffalo career highs were 14.7% on the offensive end and 22.7% on the defensive end
  7. Could be a “diamond in the rough” or could be appropriately lightly recruited like all the freshmen this year
  8. Mading also starts for Norfolk St. who is in the semis as the #1 seed in the MEAC this evening. Jones and Jack are locked at Iowa St. and Dayton respectively for at large bids. There could be 4 transfers on 4 different teams in the NCAAT this year
  9. Crazy end game from both teams. There were 4 possessions in the last 30 seconds
  10. Horrible end of game management. Needed a timeout there when things got sloppy. Should’ve had the last shot but now their fate is in Toledo’s hands
  11. Would I rather get the #1 seed with everyone on the roster having at least one more year of eligibility or the worst MAC team in two decades that will lose its 3 best players?
  12. If Toledo fired TK I’d want UB to hire him ASAP. Every year they have the best group of guards in the MAC. Lack of a frontcourt recently has done them in. Make him hire someone who has a track record of identifying and developing big men. It was unfortunate that some of their best years coincided with the UB glory years but I wouldn’t fire TK. Hornbeak on Kent is from Toledo, if TK recruited him they’d probably have won this game lol
  13. One of these years Toledo will decide to recruit a big man and break through. Gonna be tough to win three straight when you’re bottom 15 in the country in two point defense. I think Akron is the best representative for the MAC this year so hopefully they show up
  14. Honestly don't think Boldin deserved it either. Ranks among the top 10 MAC freshmen in mins: PRPG! (usage adjusted ORtg): Sabol - 7th Boldin - 9th PER: Boldin - 6th Sabol - 8th Box Plus/Minus: Boldin - 6th Sabol - 9th Win Shares: Boldin - 8th Sabol - 9th EvanMiya's BPR: Sabol - 8th Boldin - 10th In a "rebuilding year" in the worst MAC in 20+ years, Halcovage brought in 5 freshmen and went 0 for 5 on all-freshmen players.
  15. Notably no freshmen on the all freshmen team, which favors bad teams because freshmen get to put up numbers without veteran competition. The rebuild is going strong, look out for us in 3 years if nobody backs up the Brinks truck and steals our freshmen stars
  16. Jay Wright's had 12 assistants go on to become D1 head coaches. The most successful of the bunch is probably Pat Chambers whose resume is highlighted by 9 years at Penn State before getting fired with 0 tournament appearances. I think being from the Jay Wright coaching tree means very little at this point
  17. Lowest ranked MAC teams and what their freshmen did in their careers: 2022 - WMU (#329). Josiah Freeman playing D2. Owen Lobsinger junior on the #7 team in the MAC. Gus Etchison playing NAIA. 2021 - NIU (#337) had no freshmen contributors 2020 - WMU (#237). B Artis White, Titus Wright seniors on the #7 team in the MAC. Chase Barrs senior barely playing on a terrible Florida A&M team 2019 - WMU (#255). William Boyer-Richard finished his career at a school in Canada. Patrick Emilien transferred twice. 2018 - Akron (#255). Virshon Cotton transferred 3 times. Eric Parrish transferred twice. Torrey Patton transferred and contributed to some good Cleveland St. teams in the Horizon. Mark Kostelac transferred to a D2 school. Jaden Sayles transferred to Stony Brook. I won't keep going but this isn't viable, not to mention that this team is starting from a worse place than any that I listed above. I think Sabol/Boldin/Wilson could be contributors on the next good UB team. I do not think they will be stars on the next good UB team. It's not the end of the world if we lose any of them. Building in 4 year cycles is not a viable strategy any more. It's not to say that we will not have 4 year players and we shouldn't aim to recruit and develop HS kids, but you can't build a program on a prayer that everyone stays. You need to replace transfers out with equal or better transfers in. We are also no longer above "shortcuts to competitiveness", we suck. We are two coaches and an AD removed from the good teams. This coach has no track record of leading a successful program in any way. It is going to be hard to recruit/retain players to a program coming off 4 wins. It's on the staff to identify underrecruited talent in any shape or size.
  18. Sorted by PRPG! it looks a lot worse though. Usage and quality of opponent are important context when looking at ORtg and PRPG! bakes that in. Scoring is just one part of the picture anyway. BPM highlights that none of the freshmen were particularly productive in any secondary or tertiary category, which is to say that none of them excel at rebounding, assisting, blocking shots, or forcing turnovers. On top of all of that, Sabol's already strong shooting and limited size/athleticism, suggests that he likely has less room for improvement than the Graves/Reese/Jeenathans. I also disagree with filtering down to just MAC play. 30 games is already a small enough sample and cutting it in half to only compare this year's freshmen against the worst MAC in 20+ years is needlessly adding noise to this analysis. For example, 750 3PA is a general guideline for meaningful sample in regard to 3P% stabilization. McVeigh's 42 3PA on the season obviously doesn't come anywhere near that, so cutting it even further into a 27 attempt sample means even less.
  19. You're right. Anyone saying otherwise is coping with the fact that this coaching staff sucks. Imagine actually thinking that Sy Chatman was the major issue on this team. Even if we pretend that he was, is Halcovage being so spineless that he can't just bench him really an excuse for Halcovage? Halcovage's "Guys": Fulcher - 83.2 ORtg on 22.5% usage Sabol - 102.3 ORtg on 15.2% usage Boldin - 101.0 ORtg on 13.7% usage Wilson - 84.1 ORtg on 14.5% usage Graham - 62.7 ORtg on 14.0% usage McVeigh - 86.5 ORtg on 11.1% usage Halcovage went 6 for 6 on bringing in below average (106.5) offensive performers and that's with them all having to carry small loads (with the exception of Fulcher). Not to mention Famakinde never playing and disappearing off the roster. When people complain about Adams or Chatman the extent of their analysis is "these are the guys that missed the most shots". Which of the Halcovage guys should Adams and Chatman have been deferring more to? The correct answer is none of them. This team was atrocious and the only players that were D1 caliber are likely to be gone next year. If you choose to be baselessly optimistic about transfers or whatever that's fine we can let it play out, but we don't need to do this BS revisionist history that Chatman and Adams were holding this team back from mediocrity, much less greatness.
  20. Agree with this and I also would imagine that the NIL deals people are hearing of in the first couple years are likely to the be the high end that gets offered at any point. If Akron supporters are paying $100k a piece to Ali and Freeman, are they seeing $100k in return for whatever business venture is paying them that? Akron reported an attendance of 2331 last game, and I'm supposed to believe those two are appropriately valued at a combined $200k? How many years of payments like that do Akron boosters want to make out of the goodness of their heart? Is the answer 0 if they don't make the tournament this year? I do believe UB needs to get more organized on the NIL front, but I don't see any MAC school regularly posting a 6 figure salary cap. I think there's still a lot of settling to be done in the college landscape, with NIL and the portal being new, and kids still with extra years of eligibility from COVID. I don't think college sports will really ever go back to what it was but I feel like this is an NIL bubble that's about to pop, at least for mid-majors.
  21. This seems to be directed at me for my comment yesterday that Adams/Chatman/Smith are not to blame for the lack of organization anywhere on the offensive end, which is still true. I do think there are plenty of bad players on this team. I just don't think they're the ones that have proven D1 track records prior to Halcovage showing up, they're the ones that Halcovage brought in. Which again, is Halcovage's fault. If you care to break down the film and show me where those 3 are killing the boy genius' masterful offensive scheme I would love to watch it
  22. Hes already maybe the best defender on the team too. Never understood why he was chained to the bench in blowouts. Lets get him some experience
  23. He was absolutely the primary ball handler leading up to his injury. His injury forced Sabol and Fulcher to gain more experience and they have since taken some of that load off of him This is an antiquated way of defining the point guard. At least when they aren't being pressed it's more about who you want as the ball handler in the first ball screen of whatever action you're running. His per possession 3PAs are up 6%. Almost all of his usage increase has been inside the arc which he has improved on significantly. He's taking 0.6 more 3PA per 100 possessions. If he's not forcing considerably more 3PA it's not a shot selection issue. There's an illusion of shot selection but we're the 336th ranked offense. How many possessions per game is Halcovage scheming up open shooters where Isaiah Adams is killing the ball movement before it gets to the open shooter by taking bad shots? National average was 71.7% and he shot 66.7% (on a small 60 shot sample), this is an over exaggeration. Stop blaming the college kids for the failings of the guy getting paid $400k a year
  24. Exactly, the Adams bashing is super weird. Given the state of disarray on this team his switch from PF to PG has been as good as you could have hoped for. -His assist to turnover ratio improved from 0.53 to 1.18 -His free throw percentage went up from 66.1% to 70.8%. This isn't super notable but suggests to me that his shot isn't broken and the 3P% regression is a result of decreased quality of opportunity. -His 2P% at the rim increased from 54.4% to 67.1% despite the assist rate on those looks going down from 41.9% to 23.6%. Not to mention that the team's 3 point shooting has regressed which allows defenses to collapse on drivers. So he's improved: -His ability to create for others -His ball protection -His free throw shooting -His ability to create for himself -His ability to finish It's weird that people think that a career 34% 3 point shooter steps onto the worst team in UB history and becomes a 22% 3 point shooter and it's a result of his regression rather than a product of the team context
  25. I did but it didn’t need to be dignified after the first sentence. I guess the discrepancy here is my interest in improvement is relative to the rest of the D1 landscape because improvement against ourselves is meaningless. I’m not going to clap because they throw the ball out of bounds slightly less often en route to still losing by 20. Nobody has shown me anything that rises above statistical noise that indicates that we have improved relative to other D1 teams. We were across the board ranked in the 340s a month ago and we still are today. I’m glad it’s slightly more palatable for you than it was a month ago. Recruits care about winning, not about if UB's turnover percentage was down 2% in the month of February. Good luck with pitching them on Tee4Three seeing marginal improvement
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