UBminicre

Traveled to Germany during this game. Wish I stayed on the plane after seeing this scoreboard dud. Without reading the board or watching, I can safely say that nobody will be able convince me that UB is not heading to the basement in the coming years. If this is the best we can do with the “talent” left behind… I am mortified over what could be without any Nate oats recruits left. Whitesell is a total flop, it’s clear as day light. Can’t extract anything from what we have (or had in graves) and have yet to display one single recruited talent in 3 years of who will be our go to next year. Sure sure we can still make Run in Mac, anything is possible, but this type of skate on thin ice is not my idea of a good time.

Interestingly, Ole Miss beat Memphis and Memphis beat WKU. Either way, glad they won. Helps us out.

I think this was the best we played this year start to finish (not including the fake games). We limited the bad stretches, got on the floor for every loose ball, rebounded well, passed the ball about as good as I can remember, played with a ton of intensity and grit, went with the hot hand when the 3a were falling, very aggressive inside. Very good win w/o jeenathan on road. Nice bounce back - let’s keep it going!

We want it. Our game to lose. The guys are playing with a lot of intensity today. Limited the streakiness.

Our ball movement has been excellent. Just can’t finish. So streaky!

That’s why we gotta be careful with relying on the 3’s. Last thing we want is mmbala to think he should be a 3 point shooter going forward.

Pissed you didn’t go yet?

Quite the string of 3’s. Live and die by it…

Maybe sharp should transfer to womens team?

Maybe we should recruit Fair to the mens team?

Time to switch to ladies… they are locked into tough battle.

Yeah, these announcers have no idea what they are talking about. I think they are told to just say nice things.

Fagan has earned more minutes. Important ones down the stretch too…

I think they get very limited minutes… so they can’t go over.

Maybe trying not to burn red shirt? Not really sure how it works though tbh.

At least we are playing with energy and hitting the floor for loose balls. Fagan has really been stepping up.

Guess we get a preview of what life will be like after Williams graduates. Let’s see who steps up…

I’m runner up. It’s crystal clear that the players wanted to play for whitesell. That is why he retained the entire team. That certainly means something and was important at the time of hire which is why I supported the move. Three years later and it’s time for us to measure him on what he did with the team he kept together and the talent he brings in going forward. I am worried about both, but I hope he proves me wrong.

I am not even sure why the money is relevant in this particular conversation. I understand that the more we can spend, in theory, the better coach we can hire. But spending a low amount doesn’t mean we can’t catch lighting in a bottle. In fact we usually always do… at a lower pay scale. Then they earn up. Either way, I don’t hold it against whitesell that he was cheaper to bring in. I also don’t fault UB for picking the cheaper candidate who was able to keep the very talented young squad together.

Lady bulls are beastly. Keep it going ladies!

I have never commented on Whitesell until Bonnie’s loss. When we signed him, I was happy because the team wanted him and they all stayed. To me that was the clear choice given the success we were coming off of and knowing we had graves, Williams and segu in the pipe (+ Jordan and mballa). My expectations were high, probably too high, but I was severely disappointed in what I perceived to be a regression in Graves (who I thought would turn out to be the best player in UB history). 2019.20 flamed out of first round of MAC playoff against (12) Miami Ohio? Fast forward to 20.21, flamed out in MAC championship and lost 1st game in tough battle in NIT. Fine. 2022, I had high hopes again with the development of Williams and segu and the excitement of mballa sticking around off of a very strong showing. I’d feel far better right now if we won one of sfa or Bonnie’s. It hasn’t happened- that’s one thing. What really irks me is the fact that almost all the real games we have serious lapses and consistency issues for 20-30 minutes. We always catch fire for 10 and get back in it which is good. However, I begin to wonder is there a coaching issue with this extreme volatility in play. Further, I see again guys like Williams and mballa who have a world of talent potentially not hitting those marks. I am not trying to downplay what Williams has done, he’s filling the stat sheet and keeping us in a lot of games when we are down an out, but I think he expects more of himself. Pairing this with graves, again I begin to wonder is it our coaching? Last and most daunting to me, I have no idea who will lead our team to a top 100 rank going forward. For the first time in a long time I look at our roster and I don’t see it. That’s after 3 years which is usually the runway a coach needs to get his guys in. Now, perhaps whitesell has an ace up his sleeve or is going to do some master JUCO work but I’m worried. Pair that with the fact that all the players I expected to keep us highly competitive beyond just top 80 rank and losing mac tourney games were all from the oats era. All of them! That is why, for the first time, I am raising the flag of concern here. I hope I am wrong. I agree that it’s likely whitesell has at least 1-2 years to prove himself. I hope we don’t regress too much further and we get lighting from somewhere. But until proven differently, I am concerned we are about to squander the last relics of the best run in UB history. And for those who disagree, that is okay, but don’t write off our very real concerns as just negative Nancy bitching. BTW, I like where this conversation went. I think it was constructive and is allowing the negative people like me and the positive people to reconcile a bit. We obviously all care for the team or we wouldn’t waste our time. I think big 4 hoops blogger was spot on with why we are all over the place.

It’s a good question. I agree with the others. If I had to guess high correlation to higher rank and being a league champion. The MAC may actually be a bad indication of that cause there are so many team usually very close, between say 80-120. Since it’s a one game elimination, it becomes very random when looking at a dataset. Again this is speculation, I don’t have time or energy to do this myself - but I know some on this board kick ass on this. With that being said, I bet if you look across ncaa, when the disparity in best ranked team vs field is larger - I am sure there is a much higher correlation. To answer question directly, I rather be ranked higher. Like someone said, I think it’s more indicative of sustained success, and is what we need as a program. One last thing I want to point out, even losing MAC championship last year, we also quickly faded away from the NIT scene too. Again, huge disappointment. We haven’t made any noise with the talent we had. Again, my view, unacceptable. I’m very scared this current team is best we will have for the foreseeable future. We better pick it up ASAP or this can get much worse very soon.

I am the one who said mediocre and I stand by that. The reason I do is because I and many of the people on this board had higher expectations. I went into last few seasons with the expectation that 2 of our most talented players in UB history + segu and others was enough to continue our massive success. Obviously nobody thought we would be the same or better from Oats team! But I do think most thought we were closer to a 50-60 ranked team. Every telecast I listened to mentions us as an at large candidate this year, so clearly my expectation wasn’t off base. We have and continue to fall way short of that - much closer to mediocre (ie 80-100). If you think that is not mediocre, so be it, we will not agree on what is good vs mediocre for a D1 program. With that being said, of course it’s early and yes we can get hot in MAC play. That is our only way into tourney so that is all we can root for at this point. I am hopeful we put it together - Williams is the type of player who can carry the team but that doesn’t mean we can’t be honest with the results to date.

At least a few of those people quit the board… they can’t possibly take the criticism from fans willing to travel 100s of miles to see the team lol

Sad truth. Meanwhile there is still a handful of board members that tell us we can’t speak the truth. Instead we need to pretend this is enough. Same for the football team. How is this enough?