Jump to content
Buffalo Bulls - UB Fan Forum

UBminicre

Members
  • Posts

    982
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    3

Posts posted by UBminicre

  1. I always assumed Mbala was done with UB, but I find it interesting that a guy who can now 100% be the face of this team and have everything run through him rather start over in a brand new system against much better teams after such a disappointing year. Seems like he is taking on a lot, when he really should be trying to focus in a place he knows. I guess he really is looking for that change in scenery which again may say more about our coaching then anything else. Going to the SEC is great to boost your career, but I’d like to think that makes more sense when your coming off a good year and you are trying to elevate. Not when you are underwhelming and getting progressively worse. Gotta bank on the change of scenery theory I suppose.

  2. 7 hours ago, Eduardo said:

    Hey guys. I just interviewed Jeenathan Williams last week and he spoke about his time at UB, declaring for the draft, losing to Akron, among other interesting topics. Check the full interview out!

     

     

    Nice! Wish him the best. 

  3. 23 hours ago, BrooklynBull said:

    This is a great comment on the transfer portal and what many athletes want these days.  I do disagree with Geno on his not losing any top players.  He did lose Elena Delle Donne, but that was because of family issues for her.

     

    Sounds real, appreciate the sentiment. But like someone said, it’s hard to take seriously when you get all the top talent and most likely will not lose any (or many) players to the portal over long run. It’s nice to be the top program in the country for decades straight.

  4. 6 hours ago, bulls2684 said:

    I agree with you that whitesell should be gone, however I don’t think it’s fair to say he doesn’t want to play for him. As of now he’s the only UB player in the portal, and he’s one of 1,000 other players in the portal. He’s just exploring his opportunities.

    To be clear, I said it’s a possibility that shouldn’t be ignored. 

  5. 2 hours ago, CheerUB80/84 said:

    He is not gone yet "Returning to Buffalo is still a possibility" He is not transferring down or laterally.  He a young man who wants to see if he can go to a power program and get more than one team into the big dance.  I would do the same if I was him.  As said by many on this thread and other welcome to college basketball 2022

    Time will tell. He’s a stand up guy for saying that tbh. Wish him the best whatever it is. 

  6. 8 hours ago, SGBull said:

    I personally want Whitesell gone. But at this point I very rarely hold transfers against a coach, it is pretty well established now that this is the new norm. If there is one thing Whitesell has actually been very good with since he became coach, it is retaining players. The fact that Williams, Segu, and/or Mballa did not enter the portal at all is actually unusual at this point. 

     

    8 hours ago, DaBulls99 said:

    Nope. I think Skogman, like many of the 1,040+ players in the portal, thinks he’s above us and the grass is greener elsewhere. Players love the recruitment process when everyone is telling you you’re pretty. Some need it more than others. For all his faults, Whitesell has the respect of the locker room. 

    I’ve said numerous times in different threads, whitesell def gets credit for holding the team around. Agreed it was unlikely all those guys stayed but they did. No doubt. 
     

    However, there is a possibility that can’t be ignored… a guy like Skogman doesn’t want to play for him anymore. It’s certainly possible. Could be a combo of thinking he’s worth more and not wanting to play for a 100% rebuild. Anything is possible. It’s common for players to go into the portal as evidence by amount of players going in, but again the reason I find this one odd is because it was Skogman’s team now with unlimited minutes. I for one don’t think he will do much better then UB, so in my opinion if he goes to a lateral school or lower one, I think that will say a lot about his current relationship with Whitesell. Just my speculation - To be continued. 
     

     

     

  7. 11 minutes ago, skrabukes said:

    Trimble from Akron listed as moving on to Missouri State.  Are most of these guys just transferring to transfer? That doesn't seem like a step up in any way, for someone who has received solid minutes at Akron. I'll just never understand this nonsense. Maybe it's closer to home...I don't know much about him.

    If someone moves for a lateral position you can assume they either weren’t happy with minutes, or didn’t like the coach/culture/setup of team. What else can there be? 

  8. If you lose a coach, you can assume a large % of your team leaves. The fact that we held our team after Nate was actually quite impressive for it’s time. Ashame it d didn’t work out but shouldn’t be ignored. 

    • Like 2
  9. On 3/29/2022 at 10:26 PM, DaBulls99 said:

    Seems like you’re projecting. You must not have any awareness about what’s going on everywhere else. Sorry every time you stub your toe it’s Jim’s fault. 

    I dont have awareness? I literally said in my post, “sure players go in the portal all the time” in my post. How is that lacking awareness?  
     

    So you don’t think Skogman leaving has anything to do with Whitesell? Completely unrelated… what is with you people? Are you related to him or something? 

  10. 13 hours ago, UBinMD said:

    I would think as a coach it would be tough to see 10 years of work burned down in 2 days, but maybe I’m kidding myself 

    It’s inevitable because the structure of the league. There is only a small handful of teams you want to retire from, thus all coaches are always in pursuit to get those top notch jobs. In order to get the best positions you must leave somewhere, and the fall out is a given. Plus she only needs to answer to the players she is leaving and for them she knows the talented ones have options which they are all pursuing too. Hate to say it, but your kidding yourself… 

  11. 3 hours ago, Chet said:

    By all accounts, Whitesell remains a well respected coach and person in the Buffalo locker room. That's certainly the main reasons players haven't portaled out.

    Whitesell is pretty much terrible at everything from my vantage point, but I def agree with this. He was able to keep the group together for 3 years which clearly said something about his character/like ability in locker room. But that’s the reason he got the job, not the reason to keep him. In my opinion, sadly this point makes it even worse that he wasn’t able to capitalize on this much talent who had that must trust him. 

    As for Fagan and Skogman jumping ship - I think that is a clear indication they no longer want to be worth whitesell. Sure players go into portal all the time, but these two were primed to be the main guys on this team and they rather start over elsewhere. In Fagan case he prob will have to go to worse team. Skogman may not get much better…. So if they leave it says a lot about our coaching imo. 
     

     

  12. This absolute shocker is 100% on whitesell. Guy can’t even get the one fairly young experienced piece of talent to stay on our empty roster. This one is devastating for the morale of program and the last link to our good years. Even if he comes back, which I hope he does, it says a ton about the current state of UB basketball and our coach. He better start paying players to join this team (just joking)…. 

  13. 8 hours ago, John said:

    Agree and when the team and players don’t have a successful season the one to be fired is the coach. Do we think the players do any soul searching. Agree the mental side of the game is so important but a coach can’t make shots, free throws or stop turnovers by players. Again I am not giving any passes to our coaching staff as they are the ones who are held responsible. Let’s take just one example as there are probably 100’s. Oats team at Alabama with all their very talented players and many 4/5 stars. He could not get them to play defense, could not get them to shoot 3’s consistently, their free throw shooting was very inconsistent and following them this year Oats said in interviews that he could not get them to play the way he wanted them to. Does that make him now a bad coach? There are just so many factors that can influence how a team does but that is the beauty of college basketball.

    What’s with you guys still defending Whitesell? It’s one thing to say players need to be accountable, sure. But like others are saying, the coach must teach, game plan, inspire, adjust, rotate, recruit and find the best combo to win now and for the future. In all the time Whitesell has been with us, he hasn’t added one single player to our roster that made an impact over the last, what 3 seasons? Somebody said that we are returning only one player who avg 2 ppg to our starting lineup next year. That’s going into our coaches 4th season! As far as I am concerned, he is absolutely 100% disqualified for that alone. That can happen in 1st year (perhaps for our ladies team now) but not on your 4th year. He sucked this roster dry and has nothing to show for it. We need a miracle over the next 1-2 years.

  14. 1 hour ago, C1ubP1fanaticM7 said:

    I agree, we are absolutely on a decline from a talent standpoint. But hopefully this incoming group plays with more cohesion than the outbound group. And that I’m really excited to see. Even if they’re less talented I’ll enjoy watching them more. Just wasn’t fun to watch iso ball. Our offense was consistently too stagnant, zero movement. I don’t know if that’s on coaching or the individual players. I’m sure it’s a little bit of both. I guess we’ll be able to see next year whose really to blame if Whitesell is still coaching the team. If that doesn’t change, I thinks it’s apparent whose at fault

    Guess this is the only hope we can have… but boy do I feel uneasy. To think we had a 4 star, arguably best recruit in UB history, who put up plenty of stats but fell awfully flat in March - and we will get better or more fun thereafter. Wishful thinking, but this all we got at this point. I’ll say it again, Tough day for UB basketball. We need a miracle up jw sleeve or to start over.

  15. 1 hour ago, skrabukes said:

    And I said it was only one metric. Agreed on leading/winning, didn't happen for this group over their final 2 seasons as the go to guys. Jeenathan 6 TOs, Mballa 1-7 and Rondo 1-9 yesterday stings. Those aren't on the coach however. It's sports, and those happen,  unfortunately happened yesterday and too many times this year as a whole.

     

    22 minutes ago, DocCas86 said:

    Here is a four year comparison of Massinburg / Perkins to Williams / Segu.

    image.png.72e52eab5290731bcd8d211dcdd06ad6.png

    The year over year improvements for Williams / Segu speaks volumes for their hard work as mentioned numerous times during broadcast over the past four years.  As for leading the team to victory, I think that Williams / Segu did plenty to lead to victory - they just didn't have the supporting cast (offensively and defensively) that Massinburg / Perkins had.  If you plug in Massinburg / Perkins for Williams / Segu - it would be interesting to see how much that moved the needle, by itself, I don't think much.   

    The lack of supporting cast to make them a championship team falls to Whitesell and his staff.

     

    Dont disagree with both of your responses. But again, I then go back to JW. He did almost nothing to add talent around our guys. Even Skogman who was the next guy behind JW,RS,JM - was an Oats guy (I think?). We got almost no productivity from anyone from Whitesell and now we have no idea what we will look like next year. Would anyone be surprised if we are a 10 win team? With Graves, JW, JM, RS and co. - when we flamed out there - that was the big time alert for everyone. This season just reiterates that we peaked and are heading downwards fast. Unless JW has some aces up his sleeve - we are in trouble. I pray someone gives me something substantial that can change my mind here...

  16. If only 

    3 minutes ago, skrabukes said:

    Jeenathan ppg by year: 3, 11, 17, 19.

    Rondo ppg by year: 2, 8, 13, 15. 

    Mballa ppg by year: 1 (at TT), 11, 15, 13. 

     

    While ppg is only one metric, and they were given increased opportunities by year as well, those numbers hardly lend themselves to "regression". 

    It's not all sunshine and unicorns right now for the program, but these guys, while highly rated coming in, still weren't all Mac guys as young players. Even though they had limited minutes and roles early on, they weren't nearly at the levels they are now (even though Josh still doesn't seem right ppst covid). Disliking or disapproval of the players/staff is everyone's option, but this seems way off base.

    If only points per a game were the only thing that determined success for individual players. Then NY Knicks would have won with David Lee avg 25 points a game. But instead he was sent to other teams and was last guy off bench. 
     

    I said Graves, Mballa and Williams regressed. I specifically said segu didn’t. After the counterpoints I admitted that regressed was the wrong word for Williams. But the spirit is still the same, he didn’t reach his potential as a leader/winner. His stats were good, but that’s not the end goal, the end goal is to win big games in March - and we failed each year - he was our #1 player and must carry some blame.

     

×
×
  • Create New...