trueblue32

Whitesell says they're going to keep the uptempo, blue collar style, and will recruit for that.  Love it.

1 minute ago, MuchMany said:

I assume he means Nate Will returning for his Soph season. Which if true would be great obviously. Also likely means Rondo is staying, as those guys are really tight. They're currently driving convertibles around Orlando 😎🤘🏼

Ahh, I read it as Noah Williams.  That's good to hear nonetheless, portends good things for Jeenathan's development next year if Oats believes he'd be a contributor in the SEC at some point.  Jordan, Graves, and Johnson (if he stays) is a backcourt with 3 all-MAC players.  We should be solid on the wing next year with Grant and Williams making a step up.  We just gotta find big men and I think we're still a tier 1 MAC team next year.

40 minutes ago, promotherobot said:

Anyone else hear this? Dick move if true.

"Oats was trying to poach Williams off UB and join him at Alabama. Got a text from one of Williams immediate family member this afternoon that a decision was finally made and he is officially  staying loyal to UB and not following Oats to Alabama"

Where did you hear this?  He hasn't recommitted from what I've seen.

12 minutes ago, Battle of Bull Run said:

Javon Graves posted some highlight footage to his Instagram today, not sure if we should read into this or not.  Somebody is taking the time to edit some footage of him together.  Harris posted something similar recently, but obviously makes sense for him.  I hope I am looking at this the wrong way.

It was posted by UB's video guy. I think you're looking into it too much. Pretty sure they do them for everybody every year.

Jalone Friday was dismissed from ACU so I'm not sure he's the guy we want if we're trying to maintain the culture in the program

1 hour ago, mikescherrer8 said:

Can this clusterfuck of a thread be locked? Lol. Some of you on here are idiots.

Can we not lock threads because people don't want to read the replies? This is an open forum if you don't wanna read it, don't click on it.

Why were the original threads for these guys locked? Feels like moderation for the sake of moderation.

Jeenathan Williams also in the airport on his story for whatever that's worth

Double oof

Not related to our search but this would be wild

He was originally committed under Reggie, Decommited when he was fired, and then re-committed under Hurley. I don't think Allen or Williams is completely off the table this late in the recruiting cycle depending on who we hire. They're in a tough situation too.

Is it not possible that not all players were present given that it went down on a week day during classes?

Would alnutt not know if he was lying? People are doing everything to sabotage Oats' reputation to make themselves feel better LOL

This one is actually a decommitment 😞

I was scared by Lanier's Siena tenure but I've warmed up to it, since then 13 years of experience at 4 different power programs. If he can recruit that alone can get the job done in the MAC. Does SUNY have any type of faculty children attend free type of deal? Buddy Boeheim is technically a walk-on at Cuse I believe due to something similar. If we get Lanier and his son comes a 14th scholarship (quality) player certainly wouldn't hurt a new coach.

Lanier's son has an offer from UB already. Maybe it'll be like Mike Davis going to Detroit and his son setting the D1 freshman 3PM record haha

2 minutes ago, ButlerAlumDad said:

Don't downplay the rest of the staff and their roles. Did UB do anything unique? IMO individuals were allowed to play "playground" ball. It worked with this group. JW strategized the defense and again IMO was the bench coach. "Wild Oats" was the screamer.

I would say having a top 20 offense with no real NBA talents is unique and not accomplished playing "playground ball".  I'm not downplaying the staff and I've been advocating for hiring from within.  If you feel Oats was the wild screamer and not much else to me it makes his jump to Alabama all the smarter before he gets "exposed".

19 minutes ago, Kevin said:

According to figures compiled by USA TODAY Sports, Wofford's Mike Young earned a salary of $161,043 this season. That is the lowest total among the 64 NCAA Tournament coaches included in the compilation and 5.96 percent less than the $171,244 salary USA TODAY Sports reported Young earned last season.

They don't get paid off of their short-term rankings. Wofford did a fantastic job, why isn't Young out the door?

Has he received a 2.4 million dollar offer yet?

5 minutes ago, dutchcountry7 said:

Many coaches, including those making less money, have made the round of 32.

He did well for the school while he was here but it wasn't unheard of for a school of UB's stature.  Many coaches have done the same on the way up the ladder.  Few have been able to sustain success at a program like Buffalo.  (No pun intended).

Sure but how many of them did so in two consecutive years?  And how many were top 25 for essentially the whole year?  Acting like we did so much more for him than anyone else has ever done for a coach is bizarre.  I had grievances with Hurley for how he tried to air us out in the media after he left but Oats did nothing to harm us so I don't understand why everyone is trying to tear him down now.  If the worst thing he did is make us sound better than we are with the Gonzaga talk then almost every person on this board is probably just as bad as him.

3 minutes ago, Kevin said:

This University, City, fans, donar base, health system, and opportunity did more for Nate Oats than he did for us. Let’s never forget that. 

Period.

Now I’m done. 

Lol what? He was the best coach in UB history and led us to our best season in history.  The university paid him less than most top 25 coaches, and got some back in the buyout.  The fans started showing up with about a month left in his final season.  Finally, hanging his wife's recovery from cancer over his head as if we personally did anything has gotta be the shittiest thing about this fanbase.

I mean isn't an agent's job to make his client as much money as possible, in turn making himself as much money as possible?  It would be irresponsible for him not to do that.  Him doing research and not just signing on the dotted line of the largest contract seems pretty reasonable.  Oats made it clear the Gonzaga vision was always contingent on support from the University and 800k and no dedicated practice facility isn't that.  If you convinced yourself that he was gonna stay here for pennies then that's on you.  I'm probably as romantic about the program as anybody but I don't know how Oats could have been any more straight forward than he was.

I'm not sure if Rob Lanier would be the man for the job, but WNY has enough basketball talent to put together a tournament caliber team alone.  I've long wanted somebody that just cleaned up the WNY market, and I'd assume he's the reason Davonte Gaines is going to Tennessee.  Off the top of my head an all-WNY team for this year:

Dontay Caruthers

Jeenathan Williams

Anthony Lamb (Vermont)

Jordan Nwora (Louisville)

Naz Carter (Washington)

Dominick Welch (Bona)

Amadi Ikpeze (Bona)

Stafford Trueheart (Hofstra)

Emmit Holt (Indiana, now Providence)

Howard Washington (Syracuse)

Sterling Taplin (Tulsa)

Takal Molson (Canisius)

Jayce Johnson (Middle Tennessee)

Ryan Funk (Marist)

Too many good players getting away.  You could even expand into the Toronto area as one of the closest D1 schools, and access a much larger talent pool, basketball is exploding there.

Questioning his parenting skills is too much.  I don't believe he did anything he didn't think was the best for his family.  Of course she's going to be upset right of the bat, something similar happened to me when I was younger and I remember feeling the same way the day that I found out.  I turned out okay.  Everyone loved Nate for 6 years and now he does what's best for him and everyone wants to assassinate his character.  Not meeting with the players is the only thing that I've seen that could've been handled better but there's still players congratulating him on social media.  I'm sure we don't know all the circumstances.  He gave us 100% while he was here and didn't drag UB's name through the mud on the way out like Hurley/Evans did.  I'm not sure what else people wanted from him.

Don't worry guys, if Oats takes our recruiting class McGeehan can just bring his one man recruiting class: a 5'8" PG with no offers other than Campbell. I'll give anybody a fair shot but damn if we spurned Hodgson or even Beilen for him that's gonna be disappointing.

25 minutes ago, Kevin said:

the point is "dream job" was any job that paid more than 850k. 

Wasn't the UNLV job that he turned down 1.something million? Didn't he remove himself from consideration for Pitt last year? I'm sure that was north of $1 mil