Bullsboys

2 hours ago, DaBulls99 said:

Can we lock this thread unless it actually pertains to us? Feel free to go to their board if you want to oogle over BH. He’s not our coach. Time we move on. 

A Bit ridiculous - He's a Buffalo Native, Former Buffalo Assistant during our most successful years and he's doing well - Nothing wrong with talking about him on here! Not to mention Jamie Quarles is over there and LaQuil - More than enough Buffalo connections to warrant a thread! 
Plus - it's more interesting to read about him than our current crop right now! 

Practicing with the best of the best on a daily basis - Collecting 2Million per year, I think he's going to be just fine!
He has played some games in the G-League too this season!
9 games - 18ppg - 6reb - 4ast

It's awesome to have a UB guy in the NBA!! 

2 hours ago, MuchMany said:

Thanks for making it all the way to the end of my post 😅 I appreciate @Bullsboys perspective and understand that over an up and down four years, certain things stick with different people.

JW's second year was really good, 20-21. Graves, Jeenathan, Rondo, and Mballa is one of the better big fours in recent MAC memory. That MAC finals loss was a really big letdown. Who knows if the recruiting would have picked up if we'd have won, maybe things could have gone differently. But them's the breaks.

I wish you hadn't reminded me of that Army game. One of the most infuriating home games in my history of attending. 13-point favorites against a bad Army team and lost by 13.

That's the beauty of being a fan - We all have our own opinions and it sparks debate and opinions, its a pointless debate really as Whitesell got fired and its all been and done, good to hear all opinions though! I don't think Ive swayed your opinion and you haven't swayed mine but it's still fun to discuss!

I Agree 100% about the Army game, BOTH times, VERY infuriating games - I also remember the good wins too like Western Kentucky on the road Maceo dunking on that 7 footer, DePaul, Bonnies 2 times (JW had a fantastic record vs Bonaventure, Canisius and Niagara).

The last 10 years have been pretty sweet overall - Hopefully this season is just a blip - Time will tell on GHIII though!

1 hour ago, MuchMany said:

Their PPG was due to having leftover talent from Oats and leftover tempo from Oats. As we got further from Oats, the talent and coaching that made his system go fell off. The PPGs you cited aren't impressive once you consider we were playing a top 10-20 tempo in those seasons.

We do remember things differently, because I remember sitting in the crowd wondering why everyone was standing around the perimeter instead of moving through the D. Then we'd jack a late three and pray for the offensive board. Our assist rate fell off once JW became HC, even with a very good MAC PG in Rondo. Can anyone tell me what type of offense JW ran here? Coach Jacob, here's your chance.

As the Doc pointed out, the struggles of his iso ball almost always spelled doom against the top of the MAC. As good as Jeenathan, Graves, and Rondo were at iso ball, good teams knew how to shut it down when it mattered. Also, "iso ball players" aren't only good in iso situations, so mixing in running an actual offense that gets them in advantageous situations is what the best teams do. Kobe Bryant was an excellent iso player, but he also benefitted from offensive design that got him in pindowns, post ups, downhill off screens, etc. 

The offense was sustained by elite offensive rebounding led by Mballa and Jeenathan, which good teams were able to snuff out. His rosters never had enough shooting, quality or quantity. He basically tried to run Oats' run and gun dunks and 3's system, but completely forgot the most important part, outside shooting. It doesn't work without it.

His recruiting let him down in the end. I always pissed and moaned about it and they never corrected it. Quality players make everything go, or not go, in the end.

I disagree with inheriting Oats players being the only reason the PPG and tempo were high - When they were with Oats they barely played - Whitesell and his staff Developed JeeNathan Williams and Segu - See the stats below.

Yes - They were recruited by Oats Staff with Hodgson and Whitesell but they developed under Whitesell - That is a big part of coaching! Developing players! He also kept these players for their entire careers when they could all of easily jumped in the transfer portal at any point! 
Development and retention is huge!
The only noticeable loss from the rotation for JW with retention was when Skogman transferred out! 

Style of play that they ran was similar to Oats with a fast paced - set based offense. I 100% agree that the shooting let them down - Graves struggled shooting his senior year and Brewton/Jack were brought in to be shooters and were both inconsistent - Losing Skogman was big too as they didn't really have a big-man who could stretch the floor like Perkins/McRae did. 

I thought our offense was entertaining and good to watch - I enjoy these conversations though - they take me to better times compared to what we have watched this season - But I think when it comes to JW we can agree to disagree on the outcome! 

Also - I tried to upload screenshots of stats above - Ive never uploaded pictures before on here so no idea if they worked right or not - Im not the most Tech Savvy person out there 

 

1 hour ago, enrique14150 said:

You could tell that Akron's game plan was to feed the ball into Freeman, let UB commit multiple defenders to him, then kick it back outside to someone open.  Except UB seemed to know this was coming, and did a good job of reacting quickly and getting out to cover.  We rip on the coaches a lot, maybe this is one where they deserve some credit for good preparation.

Pros - I thought the game plan was good on Freeman, For most of the game they stuck to their plan, They were physical, they doubled him consistently from the passer, Pushed out his catches so he got no deep touches and off ball they were very packed in and compact.

Cons - They don't seem to know what they are doing away from the initial game-plan - rotations were sloppy, they often times had 3 guys triple teaming the post-ups instead of just the double team which led to wide open shots for Akron when Freeman got the ball out and we were scrambling - The Screen the Screener action Akron did you could see was worked on - but as the game went on the guys got sloppier in there coverage. 
The last 10 minutes of the game it seemed like the guys stopped communicating on the floor - and the defense was all over the place and not in a good way. A lot of gambles for steals which they didn't get led to Akron baskets. It looked very undisciplined out there the last 12 minutes of the game imparticular.

4 hours ago, DocCas86 said:

I was one who tried to remain optimistic in JW tenure.  For example, even last year, UB was 3rd best defense in MAC.   The nail in the coffin for JW was the 1-7 record (average 82 pts against vs 68 pts for) against top four MAC teams last year coupled with poor performance against Akron in Cleveland.  The better teams were able to shut down the ISO ball.   

Again though - Last year was a full rebuild - According to KenPom they lost 93% of their returning offense from the season before - The fact they won 1 of those games is good considering it was a rebuild season...In 4 years of JW we made the NIT once and made it to a MAC Championship game and for 3 of the 4 years we were competing for top 4 all season.... He should have had more time.

I also think the games were entertaining, Up and Down Fast paced, High level Athletes - They were fun to watch!

4 minutes ago, TheCommish said:

fdu made the elite 8 and they watched film in a shower. 

Yeah and all of their top players transferred out and they are now back to mediocrity - Kids don't want to watch film in the showers!

NIL means more to kids yes - But facilities play a HUGE part in recruiting - NIL isn't enough when other schools also have NIL. 

 

2 hours ago, JFH47 said:

Fire the AD and  hire Turner Battle either as AD or coach. Also change to a Northeast Conference. Buffalo is not a mid west college. I believe there would be more fan interest and would appeal to more transfers if  a change was made.

I 100% agree that Alnutt needs to go! He has run the athletics department in to the ground! 

Not sure moving to a Northeast Conference would move the needle with transfers - They just need to be able to pay more in NIL and upgrade the facilities - UB still has exactly the same basketball facilities as they did 10 years ago - A new Locker room is needed/ Practice facility that's not shared with intramurals/ A film Room which UB does not have - UB is behind the majority of MAC schools in these categories! 

1 hour ago, MuchMany said:

People I know didn't like Jim because his teams ran terrible iso offense with no movement and he brought in increasingly shitty mercenary players. But you're right, his teams were also very low energy and fell miles short of the "blue collar" ideal.

I think you were watching a different team to me- Per KenPom under JW they ranked top 20 every year in Pace of Play/Tempo - They played a fast uptempo style of basketball which is miles better than what we see now.

Also in 2 of the 4 years of JW Tenure they ranked top 100 in Offensive efficiency - Year 1 was almost a full rebuild where they lost CJ, Perk, Harris, Caruthers, McRae - Year 4 they lost everybody on the roster essentially 

MAC conference Rankings for scoring under JW;
2019-20 = 1st - 78.6PPG - Graves and Jordan were only returners who played meaningful mins on the last team
2020-21 = 1st - 81.4PPG
2021-22 = 2nd - 79.7PPG
2022-23 = 3rd - 77.5PPG - (Lost Williams, Mballa, Segu etc) - Full rebuild

For context;
2023-24 = 11th - 67.2PPG 

I don't see your point about us being a heavy ISO team though - because as you can see above we scored very well - Williams was a very good ISO player, as was Segu - Why wouldn't we ISO with them?
For the record I thought we were fun to watch and moved the ball plenty. 

What is done is done though - It just irks me the level of hate JW gets on here 

47 minutes ago, MuchMany said:

Considering the fact that Halcovage was our 4th or 5th preference, I've been wondering if this season isn't more the product of the larger program at UB and the shape that Whitesell left it in. Why else would so many seemingly interested and qualified candidates turn us down?

My guess is two things: our non-participation in NIL (which Alnutt, Whitesell, and Mo should have started three years ago) and the condition of the roster moving forward. It may have felt like being set up to fail for guys looking at their own career prospects.

Remember: there's a reason so many people wanted JW gone. The rosters were getting worse, the in-game coaching was bad, no energy. Things were bad and it felt like they were going to get worse. Now we're dealing with the leftovers of his mediocre guys and a random collection of last-minute freshmen. Of course it's worse. 

Without the resources to compete for certain prospects and left with a roster comprised of misfit holdovers and zero incoming recruits, what exactly was the appeal? Basketball isn't like football where you can scheme your way out of things and hide a lack of talent across 100 guys. It's about 12 guys making shots in the end, Jimmys and Joes etc. The cupboard here was essentially bare.

And the coaching this year has been horrific too. It's not to excuse that. I'm just trying to understand how we got to this point. I wrote the most scathing preview of this season out of anyone, predicting 6-12 MAC, but even that didn't go far enough.

I thought Whitesell and Co had good energy out there, not on the level of Oats and Hurley but that was their style and not his, I felt that Whitesell had a presence on the sidelines and I still felt that his teams played with a blue collar mentality.

As far as NIL, under Whitesell the players had NIL infrastructure that was there for the team. When JW was let go so did the NIL Money. 

If JW had of stayed we would have been an upper team in the MAC this season maybe even competing with Akron if they had brought the right transfer PG in to replace Foster.
JW had a full rebuild last season, developed players like Curtis Jones, Isaac Jack, Isaiah Adams etc, they played one of the top non-conference schedules in the nation according to Kenpom and brought in a lot of money for the University through the Buy Games - Made it to Cleveland and won almost half of their games in a full rebuild season! 

Now we are in a full rebuild situation again - We have a win against a NON-D1 school and a directional Michigan school. 

ADMA in my mind is the one who should be held responsible with his mishandling of the JW Firing and this poor hire in GH. 

 

7 hours ago, Tee4three said:

I believe it was said that he needed a vet, an NBA player and the third seat could be whoever he wanted 

If I remember right Oats assistant coach hires were Donyell Marshall as the NBA Player, Whitesell as the vet with experience and Hodgson for his recruiting ties. Great Staff.

8 minutes ago, BasketBull said:

This doesn’t make firing Whitesell a bad decision, it just suggests a bad hire was made.

Sure. 

2 hours ago, squire17 said:

I think UB is going to romp. UB 85 Niagara 72

Oops

1 minute ago, UBlearns said:

In theory this sounds fair - but what is your definition of "competitive product" (serious question, not being snarky)?

You can’t recruit a good team when you’re this bad. 

And to think, UB is paying this staff so much more than Whitesell’s staff to be this bad. 😬

You guys know it’s this close bc butler decided not to prepare for this game right? 

On 11/22/2023 at 11:49 AM, Tee4three said:

This is what I don't get, I can handle the ok development and miss reads and other breakdowns that come with freshman and an entire new team

This team has zero structure. Zero. No offensive structure and no defensive structure. Looks like a bad intermural game at the triple gym 

We went from a team that had talent/athletes with no structure to a team that looks devoid of both 

This team isn’t entirely new. 

22 minutes ago, skrabukes said:

Good thing everyone is happy JW is gone.

I know right?

14 hours ago, MuchMany said:

Why was a coach rebuilding in his 4th year on the job? Because he never recruited well beyond "Oats players," using your logic. 

Uh things like graduation. Things like conditioning a player to be NBA ready. It happens to tons of 4th year coaches. They just don’t have a terrible fan base calling for their heads every single year despite success. 

Just now, Tee4three said:

In my opinion either UB is going to be very very bad or that FDU team isn't actually 309th team in the country 

I’m going with very bad

1 hour ago, Ubbullsfan09 said:

Jo Smith is a monster in the paint! 

Yep a Whitesell player, just like all the top scorers. This team isn’t a rebuild, but last year’s was a complete rebuild. 

12 hours ago, Bluebird96 said:

The above is from TBN article from yesterday.  Maybe this is old news but clears up the salary splits. Here’s hoping GH3 has great success and UB somehow finds a way to keep him here, while some of these guys move up and get their shot at a HC job down the line somewhere if not

I think I read that Alumni Arena did not have AC, which is one of the requirements set by the TBT to host the regional site. 

I understand the school not wanting to pony up for the AC, for a TBT team not affiliated with the school. However AC is needed in the Arena, the place is unbearable in the summer. It would have made sense to pay for the AC now.

The school in my opinion has not taken advantage of the National success that Blue Collar U has had, through lack of social media (Essentially free PR), inability to provide AC to host and overall notable lack of interest by the administration and the University.

On 1/18/2023 at 10:02 AM, BullBoy said:

Here is my quick view on attendance....Buffalo doesn't have great sports fans... They have great Bills fans and other than that if a team is not winning at an extremely high clip, people don't show up...I think even the Sabres show that.

And yes, the long break without students and pep band is terrible.

This is what I’ve been saying for years. Supported decades of the bills being the worst in the league. Only truly showed up for the bulls when we were nationally ranked. Home games are quiet as shit all the time, we have zero home court advantage and a bunch of weak ass “fans”

On 2/25/2023 at 9:05 PM, Erie County said:

I hope this is his last 2 weeks employed. 

Hope you lose your job too 👍