Reflecting On The 2023/2024 Men's Season And Discussing The Future.

[mikescherrer8]

So.....yeah. 

I think we all know that this season was tough to watch from start to finish. Finishing 4-27 is NOT something we have been accustomed to in a long time. Potentially one of the worst and most unforgettable years of UB men's basketball in recent memory. Certainly in the last 20 years. I believe we all sort of saw the writing on the wall on how bad this season COULD be but didn't know it would be THIS bad.

My thoughts are the obvious, this is a good ol' fashioned program rebuild and we just witnessed rock bottom, literally. The good news is, how much worse could it possibly get? I'm intrigued to see how this off-season unfolds in terms of transfer portal roster moves and coaching staff doing their best to ride with talented young players and develop them, despite that being difficult to do in this era of college basketball. The fact is, this team was so young and inexperienced, with sprinkles of experienced upperclassman. There just was no way that this team was going to be successful. I wouldn't say this offseason is necessarily the most important one, but, we are really going to see what Halcovage and co. are capable of, and what they intend on doing to better the program. I'm fairly optimistic they can do so.

Above all of my rambling, I think this is a necessary thread for all of us fans to sort of come together and discuss this season and to discuss the future. 

Now...air your grievances.

[UBinMD]

2 hours ago, mikescherrer8 said:

So.....yeah. 

I think we all know that this season was tough to watch from start to finish. Finishing 4-27 is NOT something we have been accustomed to in a long time. Potentially one of the worst and most unforgettable years of UB men's basketball in recent memory. Certainly in the last 20 years. I believe we all sort of saw the writing on the wall on how bad this season COULD be but didn't know it would be THIS bad.

My thoughts are the obvious, this is a good ol' fashioned program rebuild and we just witnessed rock bottom, literally. The good news is, how much worse could it possibly get? I'm intrigued to see how this off-season unfolds in terms of transfer portal roster moves and coaching staff doing their best to ride with talented young players and develop them, despite that being difficult to do in this era of college basketball. The fact is, this team was so young and inexperienced, with sprinkles of experienced upperclassman. There just was no way that this team was going to be successful. I wouldn't say this offseason is necessarily the most important one, but, we are really going to see what Halcovage and co. are capable of, and what they intend on doing to better the program. I'm fairly optimistic they can do so.

Above all of my rambling, I think this is a necessary thread for all of us fans to sort of come together and discuss this season and to discuss the future. 

Now...air your grievances.

My question is, will the staff be retained 100%? Maybe they are all competent, but it’s hard to evaluate after what we just witnessed. It would be nice to see some rumblings on players, etc but I know the portal isn’t open yet, so once that happens, I guess we will see.

[JFH47]

The season, the fan experience , the AD, the coaching, the nonchalant, disrespectful attitude of the majority of players, especially #5  during the playing of the National Anthem were all a disgrace.

The best part of the season were the Dazzlers!

 

[enrique14150]

If you're like me and you didn't see this as a complete rebuild coming in (they were a .500 team last year), then this season was a complete disaster.  To be fair - there was a lot of turnover last year, and a lot of turnover again this year.  Judging against their predecessors, Hurley, Oats, and Whitesell all inherited way better teams (with greater expectations too).

Once I accepted what this team was at this point (I didn't like it, but it was the reality), I started looking at the big picture. Wins and losses now didn't matter as much as the coaching staff and young players getting as much playing time and lessons learned as possible.  In that sense they were successful down the stretch.  The team kept playing hard to the end, and they got better (the youngsters all improved, and the team played better defense) - that told me the coaching staff hadn't lost the team and they were learning too.  However, all that will be for naught if those guys all leave in the offseason.  

A lot of people wanted a younger coach on the rise, with potential, and I had to accept the growing pains with that.  I just didn't think it would be THIS bad.  Like, "losing to Little Three teams" bad.

[Ubbullsfan09]

Im really not sure if Halcovage is the guy after that travesty of a season, both on and off the court a poor job. The talent of our recruits was shockingly low this season. Sabol is a shooter and nothing else (would be a 7th-8th man that is on the floor when you need an offensive spark on a decent team), Fulcher is a turnover machine and a poor shooter, McVeigh and Wilson improved but still don’t seem D1 caliber yet and we saw nothing of Fakaminde. Boldin is solid but doesn’t look to be an impact player that will change a game. If we want to ever be competitive again, we need to go the route of mining the transfer portal or finding a way to bring in better recruits. I want to see Halcovage get one more recruiting cycle, but if it’s another disaster we should consider firing him .

 

Also we desperately need NIL money if we want to stay relevant.

Edited March 9 by Ubbullsfan09

[rma]

5 hours ago, enrique14150 said:

Like, "losing to Little Three teams" bad.

This is what's most frustrating to me. We lost to the #6 team in the MAAC and the (oh wow) #8 team in the A10. The A10 is a strong/power conference so their multitude of bids makes the Bona loss bad, I guess. Though I can't believe Bona fell all the way to the 7 seed. If the A10 gets 5 or 6 teams in this year I'll chalk it up as a quality loss.

Edited March 10 by rma

[yussi1870]

Coach has a chance to show how quickly he can learn. I expect he’ll do quite a bit of self reflection 

[Chet]

3 hours ago, Ubbullsfan09 said:

Im really not sure if Halcovage is the guy after that travesty of a season, both on and off the court a poor job. The talent of our recruits was shockingly low this season. Sabol is a shooter and nothing else (would be a 7th-8th man that is on the floor when you need an offensive spark on a decent team), Fulcher is a turnover machine and a poor shooter, McVeigh and Wilson improved but still don’t seem D1 caliber yet and we saw nothing of Fakaminde. Boldin is solid but doesn’t look to be an impact player that will change a game. If we want to ever be competitive again, we need to go the route of mining the transfer portal or finding a way to bring in better recruits. I want to see Halcovage get one more recruiting cycle, but if it’s another disaster we should consider firing him .

 

Also we desperately need NIL money if we want to stay relevant.

Sad but true. Almost spot on IMO.

GHIII went from Bapson College as a player $$$$$ to Nova’s staff $$$$$$$. No doubt he’s faced some adversity like anyone, but he’s had a silver spoon. Time to determine if we have a dog. The entire deck is stacked against him now. 

Transfer portal makes it way easier to build than years b4, but NIL is certainly a barrier right now. It’s going to be a very interesting off season.
 

 

[DooleyBull06]

I’m gonna echo some of @enrique14150’s thoughts. I too didn’t think it would be this bad. I knew we were in for a full rebuild and I wasn’t focused on our win/loss record…to a degree. I didn’t see 3 wins coming. I won’t even count the barely win over a high school team. I thought we’d be more competitive but night in and night out we often found ourselves down double digits quickly. Above all else, what I wanted this year was to see growth and development. A team that was performing better in late February than it was in December. And for two weeks we were. But still getting blown out. Which speaks to a lack of talent. I wanted to come away from this season knowing we had a coach and a culture. While I wasn’t expecting wins right away, coming from the Jay Wright tree, I expected more from Halcovage in terms of Xs and Os, half court sets and execution. I’m not giving up on Halcovage, but in every facet of college basketball, we simple need to do better. 

[Tee4three]

1 hour ago, Chet said:

Sad but true. Almost spot on IMO.

GHIII went from Bapson College as a player $$$$$ to Nova’s staff $$$$$$$. No doubt he’s faced some adversity like anyone, but he’s had a silver spoon. Time to determine if we have a dog. The entire deck is stacked against him now. 

Transfer portal makes it way easier to build than years b4, but NIL is certainly a barrier right now. It’s going to be a very interesting off season.
 

 

I like this post, it's a fair critique and good questions to bring up.

GH3 show UB you can put your nose to the ground and work 

I always tend to be a bit more optimistic on things....his time at UB has shown me he is willing to put the work in, just got to see the results

Hot take: He could have taken an easy way out moving on from the entire previous roster. We one hundred percent would have been worse but we would have seen the "improvements" a lot earlier (organization/teamwork/ball movement/communication)

Edited March 10 by Tee4three

[UBinMD]

5 minutes ago, Tee4three said:

I like this post, it's a fair critique and good questions to bring up.

GH3 show UB you can put your nose to the ground and work 

I always tend to be a bit more optimistic on things....his time at UB has shown me he is willing to put the work in, just got to see the results

Hot take: He could have taken an easy way out moving on from the entire previous roster. We one hundred percent would have been worse but we would have seen the "improvements" a lot earlier (organization/teamwork/ball movement/communication)

I honestly believe he thought Adams and Chatman would be good enough and the freshman could get some PT. I don’t think he envisioned this, maybe .500 or a little less.

early on the older guys had no confidence in the younger players and it became hero ball. It improved a little, but not a lot. Most often it looked like a 5 man pickup game. A bit of that may have been GH3 Letting them play and observe, but unfortunately it didn’t get much better. I’m not sure the team really liked each other much. Just felt very individualistic most of the season. Even the last game there were guys wide open and the passes weren’t made. Not that anyone was a dead shot on the team, but open shot usually have a better chance of going in. Let’s see how the game against Daemen goes next fall and we can see what we are in for.

[DocCas86]

Offensively Halcovage brought over the Villanova philosophy of being a 3 PT team. 41% of UB's field goal attempts were 3 pointers (compared to  44% to 48% for Villanova in recent years).  Problem was for a variety of reasons (Chatman is not a 3 point shooter, reliance on FR who lack experience / confidence(?), Adams' regression) they shot horrendously from 3.  I am not an x and o guy, so would be interested in opinions on how Halcovage could have coached differently to help.  I know one thing he did is dial back the number of threes.  A glimpse of what could have been, over the last 5 games, Sabol, McVeigh, Fulcher and Wilson shot a combined 46% from 3.

The other big issue for this team was defense.  I am no expert, but my thoughts are lack of team quickness, youth and coaching. I don't have enough knowledge to say what the biggest factor is.  So I look forward to hearing more perspectives.  

The first test for GHIII will be who enters the portal.  This is a critical off-season, with challenges, but also opportunity.  I am hoping the staff learns from this past year and is able to put together a much more competitive team nextyear.

Edited March 10 by DocCas86

[MKBullsfan]

There is a really good chance at 80% of the roster being new next season. The turnover of players will be real and again we will be looking at another historic losing season. Wishing for the best but the future does not look bright.

[Tee4three]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong

Transfer portal opens next Sunday after the last conference tournament and lasts now only 45 days 

[bullsbball]

Wow, that was a painful season. I've been quiet on this board the past several month, so I apologize for the long post.

I'm still so confused on the coaching. This includes both recruiting and play calling.

I was concerned back in the off season with the lack of experienced players being picked up from the transfer portal. We lost 8 and only picked up one.  Bowling Green had 7 transfer in while most other MAC schools had 1-3.  UB needs to do a better job recruiting JUCO players which add experience quickly. That has been our success the past 5-7 years.

We were all told the GH3 was looking for the best players that fit into his style of play.  And then, he only gets Graham from the portal (and he had eligibility issues).  I wasn’t really impressed with Graham in his limited play. Did we leave scholarships on the table? Fulcher was also a transfer? Good driving to the basket when he did.

And then he picks up 5 Freshmen. Diovion Famakinde went AWOL before the season even started. At the start of the season GH3 didn’t appear to want to play his Freshman until he realized he didn’t have enough players. Sabol had the most minutes of the Freshman but his 3-point shooting was off most of the season (until the last game). Wilson was good on defense. Boldin and McVeigh were so so. 

What happened to Kanye Jones? He went AWOL midway through the season.

This team just lacked experience.  Smith just seemed uncommitted to playing. Never really went after any lose balls. He wore his emotions on his sleave and often got into foul trouble. Fulcher had some nice drives to the basket. Williamson showed glimmers of hope with the inside game. Will they return next year or think the grass is greener elsewhere? Adams and Chatman were only talents on the team.

Now, on to coaching.  How could GH3 expect to have Adams to play point-forward the entire season as started out the season?

Rarely did I see this team do “organized plays”. The women every single possession looked at the coach to see the play. Nothing like that on this team. Always seemed like a “pickup game” plays. Similarly, I never understood UB’s side-line in-bound plays on offense. UB always seemed to move away from the in-bound player.  

People complained the past several years that we had so many fast break points. Sure didn’t seem like we had so many this year. This year was a lot of “in-bound the ball, go down the court, try to break the defense”. This team needs to be faster in order to get the “easy” (and more exciting) baskets.

Sure would have liked to have seen more ball movement and better ball screen. Less turnovers as well but that probably comes with being a less experienced team.

In short, I just got the impression that this team wasn’t coached well.

Edited March 10 by bullsbball
Corrected coach reference

[bullsbball]

Oh, on the radio post game, UB coaching staff says they have one Commit for next year but it hasn't been made public yet. 

Why would anybody want to come to UB?

[MuchMany]

59 minutes ago, bullsbball said:

Oh, on the radio post game, UB coaching staff says they have one Commit for next year but it hasn't been made public yet. 

Why would anybody want to come to UB?

It's public. It's Brayden Jackson from Fort Erie Academy. Plenty of discussion on him in the Recruiting sub forum.

I'll post something of my own when I get some time, but for now just a couple points of clarification to your previous post:

RH3...not sure if you have Robert Griffin in the brain or?

Sabol's three point shooting was not "off" most of the season. He was hot and cold for sure, with games of 0-4 0-5 0-6 balanced by 7-10 6-8 5-8. But he shot 37.6% on the season, which is excellent for anyone let alone a lightly recruited freshman.

Boldin was a useful player and showed a lot of promise before getting shut down with an injury. He doesn't belong lumped in with McVeigh, who struggled with the speed and feel of the college game most of the year. 

[bullsbball]

39 minutes ago, MuchMany said:

It's public. It's Brayden Jackson from Fort Erie Academy. Plenty of discussion on him in the Recruiting sub forum.

I'll post something of my own when I get some time, but for now just a couple points of clarification to your previous post:

RH3...not sure if you have Robert Griffin in the brain or?

Sabol's three point shooting was not "off" most of the season. He was hot and cold for sure, with games of 0-4 0-5 0-6 balanced by 7-10 6-8 5-8. But he shot 37.6% on the season, which is excellent for anyone let alone a lightly recruited freshman.

Boldin was a useful player and showed a lot of promise before getting shut down with an injury. He doesn't belong lumped in with McVeigh, who struggled with the speed and feel of the college game most of the year. 

MuchMany, thanks for the corrections.

Coaches abbreviation has been corrected in my original post. 

Why would UB's own coaching staff say it wasn't public?

Correct on Sabol. Hot and cold. 35.7% if you don't include the last game.

Edited March 10 by bullsbball

[DaBulls99]

4 hours ago, MKBullsfan said:

There is a really good chance at 80% of the roster being new next season. The turnover of players will be real and again we will be looking at another historic losing season. Wishing for the best but the future does not look bright.

You know this for a fact or you’re just talking out of your butt? Such doom and gloom before we have any real info at all. 

[DooleyBull06]

2 hours ago, bullsbball said:

Wow, that was a painful season. I've been quiet on this board the past several month, so I apologize for the long post.

I'm still so confused on the coaching. This includes both recruiting and play calling.

I was concerned back in the off season with the lack of experienced players being picked up from the transfer portal. We lost 8 and only picked up one.  Bowling Green had 7 transfer in while most other MAC schools had 1-3.  UB needs to do a better job recruiting JUCO players which add experience quickly. That has been our success the past 5-7 years.

We were all told the GH3 was looking for the best players that fit into his style of play.  And then, he only gets Graham from the portal (and he had eligibility issues).  I wasn’t really impressed with Graham in his limited play. Did we leave scholarships on the table? Fulcher was also a transfer? Good driving to the basket when he did.

And then he picks up 5 Freshmen. Diovion Famakinde went AWOL before the season even started. At the start of the season GH3 didn’t appear to want to play his Freshman until he realized he didn’t have enough players. Sabol had the most minutes of the Freshman but his 3-point shooting was off most of the season (until the last game). Wilson was good on defense. Boldin and McVeigh were so so. 

What happened to Kanye Jones? He went AWOL midway through the season.

This team just lacked experience.  Smith just seemed uncommitted to playing. Never really went after any lose balls. He wore his emotions on his sleave and often got into foul trouble. Fulcher had some nice drives to the basket. Williamson showed glimmers of hope with the inside game. Will they return next year or think the grass is greener elsewhere? Adams and Chatman were only talents on the team.

Now, on to coaching.  How could GH3 expect to have Adams to play point-forward the entire season as started out the season?

Rarely did I see this team do “organized plays”. The women every single possession looked at the coach to see the play. Nothing like that on this team. Always seemed like a “pickup game” plays. Similarly, I never understood UB’s side-line in-bound plays on offense. UB always seemed to move away from the in-bound player.  

People complained the past several years that we had so many fast break points. Sure didn’t seem like we had so many this year. This year was a lot of “in-bound the ball, go down the court, try to break the defense”. This team needs to be faster in order to get the “easy” (and more exciting) baskets.

Sure would have liked to have seen more ball movement and better ball screen. Less turnovers as well but that probably comes with being a less experienced team.

In short, I just got the impression that this team wasn’t coached well.

Excellent post. It was @DocCas86 that asked about X and O stuff. An example is, in the half court set have Smith or Chatman set a high ball screen on the strong side for Fulcher, who can use the screen to drive and score or kick to Sabol. A simple ball screen opens so many possibilities. The team didn’t play off each other. We didn’t play to a strengths. Ball screens and cuts…more player movement rather than 1v1 play. 

Side note, whoever complained about fast break points is stupid. But often fast break points are a product of good defense. Which we didn’t play. Not knocking Sabol but he is slow laterally. That’s an example of something teams exploited. Aside from the recruiting aspect, the coaching needs to improve. 

[MuchMany]

53 minutes ago, bullsbball said:

MuchMany, thanks for the corrections.

Coaches abbreviation has been corrected in my original post. 

Why would UB's own coaching staff say it wasn't public?

Correct on Sabol. Hot and cold. 35.7% if you don't include the last game.

If I had to guess why it isn't "public," it's because he hasn't officially signed his LOI for whatever reason. So they can't comment on a player in that case.

Why would you exclude Sabol's last game of the year in his stats? That game mattered just as much as any other one. Not really fair to arbitrarily remove a nice shooting game from his season stats.

[BrooklynBull]

5 hours ago, bullsbball said:

Oh, on the radio post game, UB coaching staff says they have one Commit for next year but it hasn't been made public yet. 

Why would anybody want to come to UB?

How about for a great education!

[UBlearns]

Truthfully fellas, I'm not particularly optimistic.

I understand that in this transfer portal era it's entirely possible that the team has 10 new players next year, but the sad fact remains that this team was not competitive for the vast majority of the season.  They lost 20 games by double-digits, including 13 (!) conference losses.  They had no semblance of a cohesive coaching/gameplan scheme.

Coach will get a second season and I accept that, but the entire staff should be on the hot seat as of the beginning of training camp.  I haven't figured out my benchmark yet for next season.  I want to say .500 overall and .500 in the MAC, but this team was not remotely close to either of those benchmarks this season.....and let's be honest, those aren't exactly lofty goals to begin with.

Edited March 11 by UBlearns

[skrabukes]

23 minutes ago, UBlearns said:

Truthfully fellas, I'm not particularly optimistic.

I understand that in this transfer portal era it's entirely possible that the team has 10 new players next year, but the sad fact remains that this team was not competitive for the vast majority of the season.  They lost 20 games by double-digits, including 13 (!) conference losses.  They had no semblance of a cohesive coaching/gameplan scheme.

Coach will get a second season and I accept that, but the entire staff should be on the hot seat as of the beginning of training camp.  I haven't figured out my benchmark yet for next season.  I want to say .500 overall and .500 in the MAC, but this team was not remotely close to either of those benchmarks this season.....and let's be honest, those aren't exactly lofty goals to begin with.

If they go .500 overall and .500 in the mac, gh3 should be coach of the year. Good luck with that. I'd love for someone to set betting lines on that one. I'm not a better, but I can imagine what those odds would have to be. 

[UBlearns]

1 minute ago, skrabukes said:

If they go .500 overall and .500 in the mac, gh3 should be coach of the year. Good luck with that. I'd love for someone to set betting lines on that one. I'm not a better, but I can imagine what those odds would have to be. 

I don't disagree.