Game Day vs Niagara 7pm

[eyjee]

11 hours ago, skrabukes said:

No Jo, no Kanye, what was going on with that tonight? 

Still looking for an answer to this as well. Jo was on the bench, not in street clothes. Kanye was MIA as far as I could see. Was hoping Lenzi in the Buffalo News would have an answer but there's nothing in the post-game article about it.

Best guess is Smith is nursing an injury, but considering him playing could've been the difference between a W and that L? Would love an explanation.

[UB92]

I was looking at Barttorvik and it isn't a pretty picture.  https://barttorvik.com/team.php?year=2024&team=Buffalo

But if you are local and want to see the Bulls win, next Saturday vs. W. Michigan we have a 51% chance to win, according to that site.   The rest of the games are not above 40%.

Practically, I can't see a scenario where UB doesn't win at least one game, maybe more.   You would have to think that they are likely not to be a favorite in any game the rest of the season, barring a turnaround.  But the season is long, other teams get injured, sometimes the ball falls your way.  What was a bad turnover one game leading to a fastbreak the other way, turns into a lucky bounce and an open 3 on your end.  A five point swing.  A few of those in a game and you have a victory.

We shall see.

The thing that bothers me most, as one poster pointed out, is a player on a 0-win (vs. D1) team arguing with the ref on a play multiple times.  In the past, maybe you call a time out and pull the guy so he learns.  Now?  You call a time out and pull the guy...and at half-time he is on his phone entering the transfer portal.

I don't think everyone appreciates that it is a little more challenging to climb out of a hole, from year-to-year, because that player you coached up and is doing well...will leave to go somewhere else.    The have-nots, which always had a difficult road, will be challenged even more.

I don't live in Buffalo, but I will try to make it to one of these road games and see the team in person and watch the coach a little more.   I wonder if GH3 is on the phone to Jay Wright after games discussing things, etc.  I get the impression, when reading the quotes from the players and the coach after the game, that they are "fighting it".  They sort of can't really pinpoint the problem and defer to things like "keep working hard in practice", "we are all learning", etc.   In other words, like the coach is "learning as well".   That's got to be a bad feeling as a player...when you are working with a brand new coach and that person is learning.  It is like going to a class in your major and you see a brand new faculty member (their first class) and are a bit suspicious.  And then your buddy, in another section, is taking the same class with the teacher who won the "teaching award" last year and loves their teacher.   And then, after the few month or so, you both talk about what you are doing/learning in class...and the guy with the experienced teacher can go on for five minutes on the subject, non-stop, about the class....and you are baffled since that isn't your experience, and you say things like "who knows what we are doing in my section".

[Chet]

19 hours ago, RapidsFan said:

Starts with coaching

Halcovage is just occupying space on the sidelines

Paulus is commanding his troops

It's relative, but I thought JW was a low energy guy. Reggie, Hurley and Oats all brought the juice in their own way. It appears that GHIII has a much different demeanor on the sidelines. I would love to watch a practice.

[Ubbullsfan09]

We are one of only 9 teams in the nation that remain without a win against a Division 1 opponent. To see this once proud program amongst the likes of Mississippi Valley State, Alcorn State, Grambling and Houston Christian is embarrassing. I really don’t care that it’s a rebuilding year, a program of UB’s pedigree should have managed to grab at least one win at this point in the season. 

[skrabukes]

28 minutes ago, Ubbullsfan09 said:

We are one of only 9 teams in the nation that remain without a win against a Division 1 opponent. To see this once proud program amongst the likes of Mississippi Valley State, Alcorn State, Grambling and Houston Christian is embarrassing. I really don’t care that it’s a rebuilding year, a program of UB’s pedigree should have managed to grab at least one win at this point in the season. 

How is this a "rebuilding" year? What does that mean? I keep reading this on here. Every year is a "rebuilding" year now that everyone transfers out after each year. It's not a "rebuilding" year, it's a winless year to date. It's not as if we can look at the freshman and think that they'll be all-mac 2-3 years from now. It's incredibly unlikely that any of them will be here 2-3 years from now, at least not in the current ncaa model. Even if they are here, this is a winless team right now. That is incredibly hard to stomach. The bench suited up 10 guys the other day, and 2 guys didn't get into the game, including one of their top 5 players. That's not a good sign for the remainder of the season.

[John]

17 minutes ago, skrabukes said:

How is this a "rebuilding" year? What does that mean? I keep reading this on here. Every year is a "rebuilding" year now that everyone transfers out after each year. It's not a "rebuilding" year, it's a winless year to date. It's not as if we can look at the freshman and think that they'll be all-mac 2-3 years from now. It's incredibly unlikely that any of them will be here 2-3 years from now, at least not in the current ncaa model. Even if they are here, this is a winless team right now. That is incredibly hard to stomach. The bench suited up 10 guys the other day, and 2 guys didn't get into the game, including one of their top 5 players. That's not a good sign for the remainder of the season.

Concern is there doe not seem to be any team chemistry. Bolton Jr. Seems to have a ton on potential but barely sees the ball in any offensive sets. It is just Chatman and Isaiah hogging the ball and not even looking for other players. Graham seems to have potential but is so new to the team he barely knows where to be on the court. The fact that Smith did not even get off the bench is perplexing as he looked like he was healthy and had his warm up jersey off until he probably realized he was not going to play. I do wonder what this coaching staff is drawing up at timeouts and they come out with no offensive flow. Every game should have a big time promotion for every game  because they will lose most of the hardcore fans with this team. A decent crowd with their promotion but with nothing to cheer about.

[DooleyBull06]

On 12/29/2023 at 9:25 PM, MuchMany said:

It absolutely makes firing Whitesell a bad move if this was the plan for what followed. The firing doesn't happen in a vacuum, it was a decision of Whitesell vs the feasible alternatives. They appear to have massively overestimated the quality of the feasible alternatives.

Jumping in on the convo you’re having with @BasketBull…wasn’t Halcovage something like our fifth option? After this coach and that coach used us or declined us? So while I don’t think firing Whitesell was the wrong move, I definitely think Alnutt overestimated UB basketball. He was selling the UB glory days of Hurley/Oats meanwhile it was clear we lost that luster and no one wanted the job. In saying all this I realize that Alnutt is not a good salesman. Which is a vital role of an AD.

[MuchMany]

7 minutes ago, DooleyBull06 said:

Jumping in on the convo you’re having with @BasketBull…wasn’t Halcovage something like our fifth option? After this coach and that coach used us or declined us? So while I don’t think firing Whitesell was the wrong move, I definitely think Alnutt overestimated UB basketball. He was selling the UB glory days of Hurley/Oats meanwhile it was clear we lost that luster and no one wanted the job. In saying all this I realize that Alnutt is not a good salesman. Which is a vital role of an AD.

I think firing Whitesell was the wrong move if it was done just for firing's sake, without properly considering the quality of realistic alternatives at the time. Because that's all it ever was - the sitting coach vs the best, most attainable alternative. A winless November and December without much promise for the future leaves plenty of doubt as to whether Alnutt chose the best path for us.

[DooleyBull06]

2 hours ago, skrabukes said:

How is this a "rebuilding" year? What does that mean? I keep reading this on here.

Agree…what are we rebuilding? When you hire a coach, in most cases you are flat out building. And in some cases doing a complete tear down. We got very lucky going from Hurley to Oats. A rebuild usually implies repairing something that was good. We weren’t good before Halcovage. Whitesell was the one who the rebuild would’ve fallen under once he failed to capitalize on the Oats cupboard. Enter Halcovage who we had hoped would come in and build.

[DooleyBull06]

1 minute ago, MuchMany said:

I think firing Whitesell was the wrong move if it was done just for firing's sake, without properly considering the quality of realistic alternatives at the time. Because that's all it ever was - the sitting coach vs the best, most attainable alternative. A winless November and December without much promise for the future leaves plenty of doubt as to whether Alnutt chose the best path for us.

I gotta believe that he didn’t fire Whitesell just for the sake of firing. I think every AD has a short list of targets in the event of. Across all sports. If not, then that’s criminal and cause for the AD to be fired. I think he just thought UB was an upper echelon quality mid major and tried to sell it as such and struck out royally. Kinda over played his hand comparative to where we actually were as a program. I think he fired Whitesell, had potential targets in mind, struck out with them then scrambled to plans LMNOP, struck out again and ultimately settled on plan XYZ. Either way, with the current state of men’s basketball and the football team…Alnutt is on the hot seat.

[Chet]

3 hours ago, skrabukes said:

How is this a "rebuilding" year? What does that mean? I keep reading this on here. Every year is a "rebuilding" year now that everyone transfers out after each year. It's not a "rebuilding" year, it's a winless year to date. It's not as if we can look at the freshman and think that they'll be all-mac 2-3 years from now. It's incredibly unlikely that any of them will be here 2-3 years from now, at least not in the current ncaa model. Even if they are here, this is a winless team right now. That is incredibly hard to stomach. The bench suited up 10 guys the other day, and 2 guys didn't get into the game, including one of their top 5 players. That's not a good sign for the remainder of the season.

Spot on. 

[skrabukes]

22 minutes ago, DooleyBull06 said:

Agree…what are we rebuilding? When you hire a coach, in most cases you are flat out building. And in some cases doing a complete tear down. We got very lucky going from Hurley to Oats. A rebuild usually implies repairing something that was good. We weren’t good before Halcovage. Whitesell was the one who the rebuild would’ve fallen under once he failed to capitalize on the Oats cupboard. Enter Halcovage who we had hoped would come in and build.

The 2 (by far) best players on this current team were holdovers from last year's rostee. Jo, Kanye were serviceable players. That's 4 guys that could've been "rebuilding" blocks. This staff wasnt able to retain other players from last years team that were more than quality. They didnt fill slots for this current team. Theres only 10 guys on the team right now. This is nowhere near a "rebuild". The top players from this years team will be gone heading into next year. We will be a completely bare roster heading into next year. That's not "rebuild", that's disaster (still not quite 90s Chicago State, but getting perilously close).

[Ubbullsfan09]

3 hours ago, skrabukes said:

How is this a "rebuilding" year? What does that mean? I keep reading this on here. Every year is a "rebuilding" year now that everyone transfers out after each year. It's not a "rebuilding" year, it's a winless year to date. It's not as if we can look at the freshman and think that they'll be all-mac 2-3 years from now. It's incredibly unlikely that any of them will be here 2-3 years from now, at least not in the current ncaa model. Even if they are here, this is a winless team right now. That is incredibly hard to stomach. The bench suited up 10 guys the other day, and 2 guys didn't get into the game, including one of their top 5 players. That's not a good sign for the remainder of the season.

I could’ve used a better term to express what I meant rather than the word “rebuilding”. What I meant was that we expected to take a step down this season losing many major contributors and bringing in a young recruiting class, but reload for next year. This season has just been embarrassing and nowhere near where we should be in the reloading process. I couldn’t agree more with your statement 

[DooleyBull06]

4 minutes ago, skrabukes said:

The 2 (by far) best players on this current team were holdovers from last year's rostee. Jo, Kanye were serviceable players. That's 4 guys that could've been "rebuilding" blocks. This staff wasnt able to retain other players from last years team that were more than quality. They didnt fill slots for this current team. Theres only 10 guys on the team right now. This is nowhere near a "rebuild". The top players from this years team will be gone heading into next year. We will be a completely bare roster heading into next year. That's not "rebuild", that's disaster (still not quite 90s Chicago State, but getting perilously close).

I don’t think this staff ever thought it would be a rebuilding year. That’s an unfair expectation to place on a newbie head coach. I think the staff thought they could come in and build. Crawl before you walk, walk before you run. I don’t think anyone from top down to us thought it would be this bad. 

[RapidsFan]

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Edited February 18 by RapidsFan

[RapidsFan]

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Edited February 18 by RapidsFan

[DaBulls99]

This is standard everywhere in the country. Coaches base salaries almost always pale in comparison to the additional compensation from typically donors

[UB92]

We’ve sort of gone down this road before on this board on what was available at the time, what was offered, etc. in both hires (Whitesell and Halcovage). 
 

I do believe that this time Alnutt was better prepared (had a list) but either the money didn’t work or the candidates weren’t interested in the overall opportunity in the current landscape (or both). We know that he settled on Halcovage despite the PR attempts afterward.  
 

As someone wrote, we should not be on a list of teams with no D1 wins and Alnutt will ultimately take the fall for this.  Of course, UB has de-emphasized their commitment to athletics in this overall landscape for the sake of academics.  Perhaps they are just reading the market early.  
 

It is a shame.  I suspect we have already seen the high point of UB athletics unfortunately unless a new President has a shift in priorities.  

Edited January 1 by UB92

[rma]

1 hour ago, UB92 said:

Of course, UB has de-emphasized their commitment to athletics in this overall landscape for the sake of academics.

I really do not see how these should be exclusive in any way. Athletics boosts academics. SUNY (as a system) is losing a lot of enrollment and facing budget problems. UB has the money and reputation to stay above that, but has been getting slightly less selective. Athletics is effectively a marketing arm of the school. Need to get more people interested in going to the school.

[squire17]

1 hour ago, rma said:

I really do not see how these should be exclusive in any way. Athletics boosts academics. SUNY (as a system) is losing a lot of enrollment and facing budget problems. UB has the money and reputation to stay above that, but has been getting slightly less selective. Athletics is effectively a marketing arm of the school. Need to get more people interested in going to the school.

What do you have as evidence that UB is getting less selective? Its academic rank, at the undergraduate level at least, has been rising for the last decade or so. I agree that athletics can make a school more alluring, but that being said, there are a ton of DIII schools with preeminent academic reputations.

[rma]

4 minutes ago, squire17 said:

What do you have as evidence that UB is getting less selective?

https://www.buffalo.edu/provost/oia/facts-publications/factbook/student/applications-admitted-and-enrolled.html

Note that I'm referring to less selective in terms of acceptance rate, which isn't a 100% comprehensive view of selectivity.

The incoming freshman class in 2022 actually had higher submitted SAT/ACT scores than the 2013 incoming freshman class, but the percent submitting those scores went from 84% in 2013 to 33% in 2022 so there's a bit of selection bias there which makes it an inaccurate comparison.

[Chet]

The Athletics department at UB receives more funding from the school budget than any schools in the MAC. Funding from UB continues to rise. 

[UBlearns]

4 hours ago, UB92 said:

I do believe that this time Alnutt was better prepared (had a list) but either the money didn’t work or the candidates weren’t interested in the overall opportunity in the current landscape (or both). We know that he settled on Halcovage despite the PR attempts afterward.  

I don't have any info as to how the coach search went behind the scenes, but if Alnutt's coaching target list didn't appropriately factor in the money requirements, that's just as much a failure as him not having a list at all.  You or I could put together a list of pipe dream basketball coaching candidates as much as anyone could - it's his job and his staff's job to understand realistically how much money UB needs in its athletics coffers to pay that person's (and their assistants', etc) salary.  If Alnutt and staff completely misjudged the cost of a basketball coaching staff in 2023, that's just as much an indictment as anything else with the search, in my opinion.

Edited January 1 by UBlearns

[squire17]

From looking at the charts, the applications and admissions recently have risen. The yield rate (percent of admissions who actually go on to attend) has fallen. One possible interpretation is that there has been a spike in interest from qualified/superior students who normally wouldn’t have considered UB, and in fact ultimately decide not to attend UB. Just because the admission rate is up, doesn’t necessarily mean that UB is getting less selective. UB’s admissions rate may be rising because more qualified students are bothering to apply to UB…a cohort, which beforehand wouldn’t have applied. The drop in the percent of applicants (and admitted and attending) who provide SAT scores camouflages what is really happening.

[rma]

2 hours ago, squire17 said:

One possible interpretation is that there has been a spike in interest from qualified/superior students who normally wouldn’t have considered UB, and in fact ultimately decide not to attend UB.

SUNY has been waiving a lot more application fees recently, including a blanket waiver* for a couple of weeks in 2023. That's probably what's increasing that number.

I had no interest in the other university centers but a free application might have changed my backup plans. SUNY schools were the only schools I actually paid an application fee for, so I only applied to the two I visited. Despite the UAlbany campus' attractive prison aesthetics, they got some of my hard earned money.

*Waiver is only for New York residents which is quite a decision since New York has a 3.8x the number of reasons to attract out of state students here. Maybe eventually those in charge will open their eyes and decide to change course. 🤷‍♂️