trueblue32

This is an exciting set of games

When I went to the UB-Temple game at the Eagles stadium a few years back it was not a great turnout compounded by being so spread out in a big stadium. Also very little student turnout for them

Yeah I mean I don’t think we’re a favorite to be invited due to the American being a southern conference at this point minus temple but no team in the MWC is leaving to join the American at this point. Additionally no conference with an AAU school and multiple R1 schools is allowing the sham that is Liberty to join. That guy is throwing shit at a wall as much as any of us

I compiled average Massey rankings of MAC, AAC, and potential AAC additions since the start of 2017. Even if Memphis and Wichita State leave, the remaining AAC teams + us and 3 other top potential additions creates a conference that is a significant step up. Have Alnutt on a flight from Lincoln to Dallas tomorrow to get us in. I have no allegiance to B-tier Ohio public schools

I tend to think concerns about free throw shooting in this forum are overblown. I'd say rarely is it a top 5 cause of losing a game. This is obviously an inexact science as you can argue that making more free throws leads to a butterfly effect of changes to in-game strategy at the end of a game, and teams don't really ever shoot their exact average, but to illustrate: Just changing the FT% from last year's bad FT shooting team to an average FT shooting team flips the result of one game. Using next year's projected number from above also flips the result of one game, and becoming the best FT shooting team in the country from last year (Oral Roberts), flips the result of two games. Obviously improving FT shooting in combination with other factors can flip more results and that's the hope for next year. I just feel that it's a number that's latched onto disproportionately (particularly in post game threads) relative to its impact on outcomes Edit: I'll also add that getting to the FT line is probably just as important as making the shots when you're there and Graves/Nickelberry did so at a higher rate than Jack/Perry. They're different types of players so that's fine, but it should be considered in the context. Even with Graves' struggles at the line he averaged 1.15 pts per 2 shot trip. While the team averaged 1.02 pts/FGA, and 1.07 pts/possesion so a Graves trip to the line was a relatively efficient outcome for a UB possession.

My thought is Boals is gone after this year (see: Oats winning an NCAAT game, running it back with mostly the same team, and then bolting). Convincing Hadaway to come then without ever stepping on campus is a different discussion. He's more akin to James Rojas, Andre Allen, Raymond Hawkins than Williams in that regard, but that's all conjecture.

Who Ohio lands only really matters if you think Jeff Boals will be at Ohio for long, which I personally do not. Williams was ranked #130 and became an all-conference level player his junior year. Lets see if Boals is in the MAC in 2025

To be honest I think we're in a pretty good spot for the portal. We haven't had a major loss there since Bearden, and we've had several significant contributors come in since then. Being a top mid-major theoretically gives us a shot to pick from some good down transfers, while also retaining the Segus and Williams because we're still winning and they arguably get just as big of a spotlight as they would as a role player at a high major. I understand frustration with some of Whitesell's shortcomings, but he seems to continue a culture that players aren't choosing to leave while also succeeding at bringing in more high level talent. You can argue what the ceiling is with Whitesell but I feel he brings a high floor to the program, which I value highly with a re-shuffling of the conference decks on the horizon (which if things break right could raise our ceiling for us). Now is not the time for the program to fall off of the map, and hopefully Linguist can do the same for the football program.

Yes the Bona fan came in here to troll us on wanting to go to the Big 10, which I think most realize is a pipe dream. I think the realistic hope for us is that things get shaken up enough that we end up in a new conference (or a conference that got ransacked by movement), with top G5 schools or P5 schools that got left behind. The 4 end goals for me would be: -Still a semi-regional geographic footprint -The conference has schools in larger markets than the Oxfords and Athens we currently have -The conference perennially gets multiple bids to the NCAA tournament -The conference perennially has multiple top 25 FBS teams Some schools that would ideally fit that imo are Temple, UMass, Cincinnati, Army, Navy, Rutgers, Toledo, Marshall. Then push farther south or west to pick up teams to round out the conference. There are some obvious weak links here (UMass football, Army/Navy basketball), but I think becoming something of a G5 super conference would "lift all boats" and put us around the caliber of the Mountain West and American currently which would meet my goals.

Got a lot of free time with your team bounced from the TBT years ago. At least you have football season to look forward to now

Moss out for us tonight and Rion Brown and Durand Scott out for Category 5. Team Ranks: Brown: 1st in PPG, 1st in RPG, 2nd in APG Scott: 4th in PPG, 4th in RPG, 3rd in APG Leaves them with 6 guys who have played in the tournament. The two guys who haven't played yet were both last seen playing in the NCAA where Deivydas Kuzavas averaged 3.1/3.0/0.3 at St. Francis (PA) and Decardo Day averaged 3.5/3.1/1.3 at Alabama State

I sold him on our ability to sell out Alumni Arena (I read an article where they wanted Key Bank Center, which feels like it's shooting too high to be honest). I think if the marketing is there it could definitely be attainable based on interest in the team when they were top 25, but I don't know what they do in the way of local marketing. I didn't watch the games that weren't in our sessions, but it seemed Ohio State nearly packed the arena and Dayton had a good showing. Xavier was loud, but they frankly didn't bring a huge crowd, packed the bleachers on one side for game #1, but not many people for the Sunday night game. The Ohio Bobcat fans could be counted on one hand. Either way with us, Bona, and Syracuse anchoring a region I think we would be pretty capable of outdoing the attendance I saw in Columbus.

I was at the game and speaking to one of the TBT organizers and he said he was surprised by a decent Buffalo showing. He was saying they’re considering a Buffalo regional in the future

He almost certainly could be in the G-League now, I'm guessing he's in Europe for the money, and I wouldn't be surprised if Massinburg moves that way eventually. G-League pay is terrible comparatively, a lot of guys play there for a couple years to chase the NBA dream and then end up going elsewhere. Guys also occasionally work their way to the NBA after starting in Europe. One guy in recent memory is Mike James on the Nets, he played in Europe as well as the TBT a few times.

Moss is there, he's just got much longer hair now lol. Wearing the 31 jersey here on the left

Getting to the championship entails going to two locations over three weekends. It’s not uncommon in the TBT to not have your full roster for certain rounds. My impression is the original roster is the core guys (with some guys still not getting much time) and the late adds of Johnson and Dennis may have been to fill out the roster for people that could miss games. I don’t have any inside info or anything but that’s my assumption

To me smoking weed and murder are the same thing /s

Hmm it's not letting me post the tweet but there's a tweet out there saying we're hosting Bonaventure on 12/4 Edit: The plain text link https://twitter.com/roccomiller8/status/1416103546689179656

Last week someone asked Mading on Instagram if he was recruiting anyone to come play at UB with him next year and his answer was Carruth for whatever that’s worth

https://www.instagram.com/stories/keishawn3/2611939999438685944/ Keishawn Brewton posted on Instagram that he'll see DeVante Jones on November 10th. They were teammates at Coastal and Jones is now the PG at Michigan. Looks like that may be the season opener

No idea what this guy's reputation is but "SI NBA Draft Insider" Jeremy Woo says Jason Preston is getting top 40 pick buzz after a good showing at the combine. Would think that's enough to get him to leave Ohio https://www.si.com/nba/2021/06/25/nba-combine-notebook-post-lottery-cade-cunningham

Yeah he's not going to be drafted, but the sleeper concern here with European kids is getting offered a decent chunk of change to play professionally at home. Filip Petrusev and Omer Yurtseven being a couple of the big names from last year off the top of my head. I think he probably returns but I don't think NBA prospects are the real threat here. As for next year, maybe he has a shot but he's going to have to come in and really knock down jump shots. I think mechanically there's nothing majorly broken but at 6'7" he's going to have to be a wing in the NBA. The guy in this class that he reminds me of is Kessler Edwards at Pepperdine who I think will go in the 2nd round. They're similar profiles in age, size, college level of competition, and on-ball defensive acumen, but Edwards shot 49.1/37.8/87.6 and Mballa shot 48.6/25.0/67.9. Mballa will have to make a huge jump there to have a chance to be drafted

Zachery posted on Instagram about moving to Kansas City and he’s following a bunch of UMKC staff on social media. Looks like maybe Thorpe connected him there