UB/Akron Thursday, March 10th @ 1:30 PM

[promotherobot]

Couldn't watch live due to work. Now I know I won't have to spend two hours seeing it. I had a hunch they weren't going to do anything after getting mopped up by Toledo and whiffing on Kent State. Team just couldn't find that higher gear and stay there.

I do have high hopes for the women. They are dominant.

[skrabukes]

1 minute ago, promotherobot said:

Couldn't watch live due to work. Now I know I won't have to spend two hours seeing it. I had a hunch they weren't going to do anything after getting mopped up by Toledo and whiffing on Kent State. Team just couldn't find that higher gear and stay there.

I do have high hopes for the women. They are dominant.

Women will win. Team is flying high right now, on all cylinders. 

[DooleyBull06]

11 minutes ago, skrabukes said:

Another big time ub fan rooting for the coach to "bury himself".

 

Disagree on point 1, big time. Point 2 may be accurate,  without being there all day every day how would one know for sure? Point 3 and 4 is tough to challenge at the moment although I still believe that there is far more on this roster moving forward than most on here.

You think he’s a good tactician? Serious question. We have failed numerous times to execute offensive plays coming out of timeouts. Heck we fail to get the ball inbounded cleanly often. One more question…what has been our identity under Whitesell? 

[DooleyBull06]

18 minutes ago, skrabukes said:

Another big time ub fan rooting for the coach to "bury himself".

 

Disagree on point 1, big time. Point 2 may be accurate,  without being there all day every day how would one know for sure? Point 3 and 4 is tough to challenge at the moment although I still believe that there is far more on this roster moving forward than most on here.

I do agree there’s talent on the roster going forward. We are just going to be younger and experience growing pains of that youth. If all players stay and grow quickly…hopefully we can compete for a title in 2-3 years. 

Edited March 10, 2022 by DooleyBull06

[Jeseph]

1 minute ago, DooleyBull06 said:

I do agree there’s talent on the roster going forward. We are just going to be younger and experience growing pains of that youth. If all players stay and grow quickly…hopefully we can compete for a title in 2-3 years. 

There was talent on the roster this year.

[DooleyBull06]

1 minute ago, Jeseph said:

There was talent on the roster this year.

😭 

[skrabukes]

7 minutes ago, DooleyBull06 said:

You think he’s a good tactician? Serious question. We have failed numerous times to execute offensive plays coming out of timeouts. Heck we fail to get the ball inbounded cleanly often. One more question…what has been our identity under Whitesell? 

I believe that he is an extremely knowledgeable coach. There are countless times where I shake my head in games about decisions that are made. Whether it is player or coaches decisions, I have no idea.  Our identity is to lose to the top teams in league, according to many here. I don't know what the "identity" is. They are far from perfect, but so are most other mid major teams. If our expectation is win or it's a failure, then most teams in the ncaa fail Far more frequently than not.

19 minutes ago, Chet said:

Reality is it's not as bad as most of us on this forum say it is. And not as rosie as skarbukes always suggests. 

There's a difference between rosie and not falling off a cliff. I just don't believe that this squad is nearly as bad as the 90% negative posts in game or against players/staff.

 

[Tee4three]

9 minutes ago, DooleyBull06 said:

I do agree there’s talent on the roster going forward. We are just going to be younger and experience growing pains of that youth. If all players stay and grow quickly…hopefully we can compete for a title in 2-3 years. 

I do really like the guys returning

Think its a great mix of talent and personality

[BasketBull]

34 minutes ago, Tee4three said:

I think whitesell runs a very good program but is having difficulties also winning the tournament

I think thats why whitesell is such a hot button topic and has been for a while, he runs a good program day to day but in game coaching he lacks

I’d like to know what you’d consider running a good program and I mean that sincerely. Under his tenure we’ve had an assistant coach forced to resign over NCAA violations and two players kicked off the team following serious criminal charges. So it’s a program that shouldn’t be called a “clean” program by any account, and it also has failed to live up to high but not unreasonable expectations considering what he was left with. 
 

If when Oats left we knew where this team would be where it is today, would there be anybody who would still want Whitesell hired? It was a continuity hire and now all the continuity that he was hired for have played their last game of consequence for UB.

I don’t fault the hire. It was a reasonable choice at the time. I absolutely fault the extension and every from here on out there that Whitesell remains HC.

I really hope he is self aware enough to recognize he’s failed what he was brought in for and he retires. Let somebody up for a job salvage this program before it’s too late if it isn’t already.

[DooleyBull06]

2 minutes ago, Tee4three said:

I do really like the guys returning

Think its a great mix of talent and personality

And I hope this coaching staff can develop them. 

[squire17]

1 hour ago, Erie County said:

1-6 against the top 4. 

It mattered. Sorry I'm a troll that showed up in 2019 during the message board review. 

Fire the head basketball coach.

Erie, it’s not necessarily the message. It’s the ubiquitous nature of your message. I get it: Whitesell has to go. I get it: the players take bad shots, make dumb turnovers and fouls. No matter how relentless you are in repeating it, you aren’t going to change anyone’s opinion. 

[sdubyas]

So disappointing!  Does not seem like the coaching staff is able to get the best out of the players on a nightly basis.

[BrooklynBull]

Stop with this whining.  Baseball is back.

[DooleyBull06]

1 minute ago, Erie County said:

Maybe in 2-3 more years they can be good.

They have struggled at development of their young players.

😭. While I tentatively agree I will say that we have been a older group and maybe it was harder to develop older players. Some of whom were going through the draft process and just worried about getting theirs. Maybe with a younger group we see more player development. Just hoping at this point. I think we saw growth in Jones and Skogman. Hopefully Hardnett is better next year. We develop Mading, Blocker and see some Williamson. Hopefully Caesar comes in and contributes. Let’s temper expectations now on him. Let’s not put him on a pedestal. 

[skrabukes]

5 minutes ago, BrooklynBull said:

Stop with this whining.  Baseball is back.

Who cares BB, it's UB women's bball only for the next 2 days (and hopefully more!).

[UB92]

55 minutes ago, DooleyBull06 said:

I do agree there’s talent on the roster going forward. We are just going to be younger and experience growing pains of that youth. If all players stay and grow quickly…hopefully we can compete for a title in 2-3 years. 

I have not added to this dumpster fire of a thread so far, but I had to laugh at this in a sort of nostalgic way.  
 

You can find the sort of sentiment you mention during the Reggie years when posters would project growth from certain young players and paint an optimistic picture for future seasons.  Ad nauseum.

Gadot never showed, by Danny White did and ripped off the bandaid, which ushered in a decidedly different approach to the offense (and fun teams to watch).  Oats continued in that way.

Alas, we are back to if so and so develops and if this or that happens, etc., etc.   
 

I did enjoy UB being ranked and the Gonzaga of the East talk, it the latter was only a dream.

On to football.   Who will be the QB and what can coach do with the #1 ranked recruiting class in the MAC?   

 

 

 

 

[DooleyBull06]

4 minutes ago, UB92 said:

I have not added to this dumpster fire of a thread so far, but I had to laugh at this in a sort of nostalgic way.  
 

You can find the sort of sentiment you mention during the Reggie years when posters would project growth from certain young players and paint an optimistic picture for future seasons.  Ad nauseum.

Gadot never showed, by Danny White did and ripped off the bandaid, which ushered in a decidedly different approach to the offense (and fun teams to watch).  Oats continued in that way.

Alas, we are back to if so and so develops and if this or that happens, etc., etc.

I’m not happy about it either. But we are where we are. Facing a rebuild. Now all we have is hope that this pans out. Cuz one thing is for sure, not many of us have faith in this coach.  

[skrabukes]

1 hour ago, Erie County said:

I played pretty high level sports. So only college coaches or ex D1 players can post on the UBFAN message board system? Where are the applications to apply to be a board member while we are at. 

I was neutral on this guy in 2019, even if you don't think so. That miami game changed me. Please make sure you collect applications from the 90% of Bulls fans who feel the same way. I know its hard for you to accept, but people want change and no one likes this staff. Accept it

I wish I could've seen those games so I could've critiqued your performance in the same manner as you do of those on the UB team and staff. Regardless of anything positive that you may have done, I would've surely found every misstep and never recognized the positive. 

You, or anyone else, can say what you wish, however when Literally every single post of yours does nothing but criticize the team/program, it's very ridiculous,  at least in my eyes.

Personally, I enjoyed the games all season, regardless of frustration and evident disappointment tonight and during stretches of the season. That's what sports is supposed to be, at least to me. I wish they'd be 39-0, but that won't happen, now or ever.

Even if you disapprove of the product, as a fan,  I would think that you could find some positives anyway. My 2 cents, and that's it.

[Tee4three]

2 hours ago, Erie County said:

Maybe in 2-3 more years they can be good.

They have struggled at development of their young players.

I mean this staff should get credited with segu/williams/mballa development. They were sophomores when they took over. And far from a finished product

Then skogman has progressed nicely, hardnett took a step back this season

[enrique14150]

I waited a few days to think about this.  I agree with those who are disappointed by how this played out.  We had visions a few seasons ago, when Segu/Mballa/Williams were sophomores, of them being another special group that won things.  That run to the title game last year kinda confirmed that trajectory.  The more I saw this year however, the more I realized their ceiling wasn't as high as their predecessors.  I do not know what the coaches know and what they work on with them, but I got this sense that you weren't going to get much more out of this group (the shooting was so bad so often, it was like, is it possible for this 22 year old to improve at that? Or is he what he is?).  So when they lost this to Akron, I wasn't surprised.  They were good, but not good enough.  And I didn't think anyone could've gotten much more out of them than what they were.  This year they beat the teams below them for the most part and lost to the teams above them for the most part - they truly were what they were.  I think anyone who's disappointed in Mballa's season is right to be, and I imagine he is too.  

Looking forward - with that in mind, I'm looking forward to the next group that comes in.  I'm open to the possibility that they might be better.  Skogman took big steps forward this year (as sophomores often do), Jones showed he has a lot of potential.  With the proliferation of transfers in college sports, it's tough to say what next year looks like yet.  

One thing I do think needs to be figured out is, what style of team they are.  Over the years they've wanted to run the floor and hit teams in transition - most teams consciously do not let us do that.  I think this team wasn't as able to play that style as previous ones.  Their shooting percentage was so bad in so many games that they could play better but still lose.  So I wonder if they're going to build to play that style again, or transition away from it.  Or play the style that fits who they have.  It'll be interesting to see.

Edited March 12, 2022 by enrique14150