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Post by cardfan on Nov 30, 2023 12:32:55 GMT -6
We won’t beat Bellarmine.
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Post by williamtsherman on Nov 30, 2023 12:49:59 GMT -6
One thing I know with absolute 100% certainty is that if Whitford DIDN'T leave behind the likes of Sparks/Boogie/Sellers then the "empty cupboard" excuse would have been the main theme of certain members around here, and Lewis would need multiple years to "build the program". But as it is we have the "rebuilding year" excuse because that hurricane of recruiting energy Jim Whitford set a roster standard that Lewis couldn't be expected to maintain.
Meanwhile the quality MAC coaches have rosters that kicked our ass last year, have new rosters that are going to kick it again this year, and they are strangely unaffected by the systemic and insurmountable roster problems Lewis is said to face.
See my signature below.
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Post by 00hmh on Nov 30, 2023 13:58:57 GMT -6
There is no MAC coach who recruited well enough this year to replace our last year losses without a rebuild. VERY rarely has any coach done that well.
Those quality programs who did lose talent last year had quality bench players and young players ready to step in. AND good added players, as did we.
NONE were first year coaches hired post season before last year.
So, how do really compare?
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Post by williamtsherman on Dec 1, 2023 8:58:26 GMT -6
Well yes, OBVIOUSLY there is an insoluble and insurmountable problem totally outside of his control that prevents the BSU basketball coach from having a contending roster. Just as there has been for the last 23 years in a row. Really bad luck, that.
Every since Ray recruited Lonnie, Theron, Petey et al, there has just been one crucial and unavoidable blocker after another that has prevented the unfortunate BSU coach from recruiting a championship caliber roster. Luckily for us here, we have these really sharp people to point all these out for us, so us less perceptive people don't get the ridiculous idea that the BSU coach should be able to recruit like the MAC champion coaches do.
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Post by 00hmh on Dec 1, 2023 9:42:35 GMT -6
General, the 20 years you keep talking about isn't the doing of Mike Lewis.
And recruiting like the top programs in his first year wasn't really a black mark.
This year's class was recruited with an expected roster that made recruiting focus different than what are needs turned out to be, but our class is a pretty good one.
You're not giving credit for that, writing off this year's class early. Which MAC classes do you think were greatly better anyway? Which would have replaced our losses and led to your fantasy instant success?
There's a pretty big flaw assuming the best MAC recruiting was both possible this year with the late departures AND that the best class coming in would have replaced those losses.
Nobody is saying we can't recruit and compete with this coach in the MAC. Whether we can match past MAC glory days or not, doing this year was understandably not in the cards.
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Post by williamtsherman on Dec 1, 2023 9:50:49 GMT -6
The name of the coach changes.
LOSE/EXCUSE stays the same.
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Post by universityjim on Dec 1, 2023 10:00:57 GMT -6
What gets me when discussing recruiting is how many offers other MAC schools have out and how few Ball State has out. Ohio for example has 45 open offers for the 24-26 recruiting classes. Ball State has 1. According to Verbal Commits. How accurate that is in reality I don't know but it still bothers me.
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Post by 00hmh on Dec 1, 2023 10:57:19 GMT -6
What gets me when discussing recruiting is how many offers other MAC schools have out and how few Ball State has out. Ohio for example has 45 open offers for the 24-26 recruiting classes. Ball State has 1. According to Verbal Commits. How accurate that is in reality I don't know but it still bothers me. Why? How does our staff gain or lose by offering a much higher percentage of the players they scout?
Making an offer to a 2026 class player is pretty meaningless. 2025, too. The player can't "accept" and very few commit, and it's not binding if they do. Players may value it slightly, counting coup.
Does it measure for Ohio how many kids they are following? Probably NOT. No school can follow and give TLC to 45 players while they surely are continuing to scout (and probably offer) other players continually.
You see numbers all over the board for schools at each level. Some schools make a practice of giving offers like business cards. Other are more close to the vest and still give just as much attention to the players they are really interested in.
Players are aware of this, I'd guess they value continuing contact more than offers.
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Post by 00hmh on Dec 1, 2023 11:24:25 GMT -6
The name of the coach changes...LOSE/EXCUSE stays the same. I notice you have no answer to the questions raised above.
Whatever we say about PAST coaches, or other good MAC current MAC coaches, isn't the issue what THIS coach at THIS program should do? THIS year. Do you really think THIS coach should have kept those players who left? Or. Do you really think THIS coach "should" have somehow anticipated that loss and somehow found recruits to challenge for a MAC championship THIS year? Could any of those OTHER coaches really done so much better as to give us a champion THIS year? I think we can absolve him for the 20 years. Whatever the reasons for losses in that time, nobody is saying THIS coach should do anything but improve. Reaching the highest level in the MAC THIS year is not a reasonable expectation. |
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Post by williamtsherman on Dec 1, 2023 11:35:51 GMT -6
The name of the coach changes...LOSE/EXCUSE stays the same. Do you really think THIS coach should have kept those players who left? Or. Do you really think THIS coach "should" have somehow anticipated that loss and somehow found recruits to challenge for a MAC championship THIS year? I think we can absolve him for the 20 years. Whatever the reasons for losses in that time, nobody is saying THIS coach should do anything but improve. Reaching the highest level in the MAC THIS year is not a reasonable expectation. There has been some form of a BSU basketball message board in existence for each of the 23 years of dismal non-contention. I have been on these boards each year and there have been excuse-makers and apologists for the coach each of these years. Believe me, these excuse-makers were just as confident and fervent in their excuses as you are now. In fact you yourself were making excuses for Taylor and Whitford right up until we were finally rid of them. Maybe you remember that. But the thing is that recruiting talks and bullshit walks. |
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Post by mattg on Dec 1, 2023 11:43:51 GMT -6
What gets me when discussing recruiting is how many offers other MAC schools have out and how few Ball State has out. Ohio for example has 45 open offers for the 24-26 recruiting classes. Ball State has 1. According to Verbal Commits. How accurate that is in reality I don't know but it still bothers me. Why? How does our staff gain or lose by offering a much higher percentage of the players they scout?
Making an offer to a 2026 class player is pretty meaningless. 2025, too. The player can't "accept" and very few commit, and it's not binding if they do. Players may value it slightly, counting coup.
Does it measure for Ohio how many kids they are following? Probably NOT. No school can follow and give TLC to 45 players while they surely are continuing to scout (and probably offer) other players continually.
You see numbers all over the board for schools at each level. Some schools make a practice of giving offers like business cards. Other are more close to the vest and still give just as much attention to the players they are really interested in.
Players are aware of this, I'd guess they value continuing contact more than offers.
To piggyback off of UJ’s angst, the perceived notion from his observation is that we are not working as hard as other schools to attract talent. I’m sure that’s not REALLY the case, but these recruiting websites are the only widely available sites that the general public can look into to get a glimpse of their teams future. Future-casting is always excited. We Ball State fans are great at it! When the future according to these websites looks “lesser than” compared to other MAC schools that puts a damper on my prospective outlook as well, regardless of validity. |
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Post by mattg on Dec 1, 2023 11:44:44 GMT -6
Do you really think THIS coach should have kept those players who left? Or. Do you really think THIS coach "should" have somehow anticipated that loss and somehow found recruits to challenge for a MAC championship THIS year? I think we can absolve him for the 20 years. Whatever the reasons for losses in that time, nobody is saying THIS coach should do anything but improve. Reaching the highest level in the MAC THIS year is not a reasonable expectation. There has been some form of a BSU basketball message board in existence for each of the 23 years of dismal non-contention. I have been on these boards each year and there have been excuse-makers and apologists for the coach each of these years. Believe me, these excuse-makers were just as confident and fervent in their excuses as you are now. In fact you yourself were making excuses for Taylor and Whitford right up until we were finally rid of them. Maybe you remember that. But the thing is that recruiting talks and bullshit walks. Your last sentence needs to be an actual banner put up in Worthen! |
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Post by cardfan on Dec 1, 2023 11:55:48 GMT -6
Sherm, if you’re sitting on the six figures per kid that would have given us a shot at keeping the big 3 who left, what the hell are you waiting for? I don’t think money would have kept sellers or Sparks. Sparks wanted to play at IU. Period. So lewis helped him get there. Sellers was never going to stay in Muncie, Indiana. Not when he was getting money thrown at him to go back south before he even entered the portal. Boogie—— he’s the one who really screwed us over. Waiting till he learned he graduated in late July to take the money and run was totally unanticipated. I think Lewis was pretty stung by that. Gave boogie a second chance which boogie repaid by leaving again a month before fall semester. That kinda put us behind the 8 ball, no? We lose an all conference guard that late? He was going to be the centerpiece of everything we do. It was his show and had we had him in our lineup that’s a proven scorer and play maker and I think we look a lot different. That move hasn’t worked out too well for him…. Lewis brought in 2 Indiana Al stars and kids who’ll eventually be really good. I like the xfers he brought. Bailey was finding his groove when he got hurt. Anderson can score. Freshman Middleton can be a stud if he learns control and selectiveness. Britain watts would be our pg if he’d not gotten hurt. We have pieces. It’s just now December. I’ll wait til these guys have had a couple months in the floor together before I write them off. We have no idea if we’re severely behind the other mac schools till we start playing them and that’s not for another month.
We’re gonna take some lumps. I did not expect us to be able to reload with sparks/sellers/coleman level talent as soon as they left. Yes those were very good Whitford recruits. I think Lewis actually coached them up to the point they could get paid like they did. He had them one damn year. That’s it. Lewis is in year two. He’s going to get things done. He doesn’t throw a hundred offers at kids, he’s pretty elective in identifying kids he thinks can play the way he demands. Plus, I think he’s realizes he’ll have to recruit the portal harder than high school. It’s the way it is now for us so you’re not going to see as many offers out to hs kids. I think bell and Adams won’t be back next year and will be replaced with veteran xfers if I had to guess. They are long athletes which we need on the perimeter but I think they are too far off in their development to help anytime soon.
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Post by 00hmh on Dec 1, 2023 12:05:52 GMT -6
Do you really think THIS coach should have kept those players who left? Or. Do you really think THIS coach "should" have somehow anticipated that loss and somehow found recruits to challenge for a MAC championship THIS year? I think we can absolve him for the 20 years. Whatever the reasons for losses in that time, nobody is saying THIS coach should do anything but improve. Reaching the highest level in the MAC THIS year is not a reasonable expectation. There has been some form of a BSU basketball message board in existence for each of the 23 years of dismal non-contention. I have been on these boards each year and there have been excuse-makers and apologists for the coach each of these years. Believe me, these excuse-makers were just as confident and fervent in their excuses as you are now. In fact you yourself were making excuses for Taylor and Whitford right up until we were finally rid of them. Maybe you remember that. That is bull shit. To be more correct, I argued we didn't have good options in either case to make a coaching change that would make a difference. Not unless we made a financial commitment. Both AD's had their hands tied in making any real change during those two coaching tenures. I was never a fan of Billy Ball, but defended his hire and tenure as a necessary evil to get past the catastrophic hire that proceeded him. On top of financial constraints, we could not find a good choice willing to take on that dumpster fire.
Whitford was an OJT hire with serious flaws.
I still believe Whitford apart from fairly obvious flaws was snake bit by very BSUish injury and other issues at critical junctures. He missed on key recruits and that was his greatest failing at several times, but he brought better talent than he got credit for to the program. I watched a lot of practice and saw a lot there that contradicted the coaching criticism he received. He took a lot of unwarranted crap. When we had the money for a buyout and found a good replacement I certainly supported the change. |
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Post by bsuwolf99 on Dec 1, 2023 12:17:04 GMT -6
It would be interesting to hear from someone with background in the recruiting world to give their insight on what BSU has done wrong recruiting wise the last 15 years. With Whitford, it didn't seem like he even made the effort to pound the pavement to chase after recruits which does not appear to be the issue with Lewis; but that alone doesn't make you a great recruiter. Are we consistently bad at judging potential players skill sets that would be competitive in the MAC; are there institutional factors holding us back from certain players (grade or other high risk recruits); are we not interested in non-traditional recruiting (Junior College/International players); etc. Like what does Toledo do differently than BSU recruiting wise that separates us?
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