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Post by williamtsherman on Dec 1, 2023 12:37:26 GMT -6
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. My post wasn't an invitation to revisit your Taylor and Whitford excuses again, by the way. |
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Post by coastalcard on Dec 1, 2023 12:48:34 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? Ask Sherm. He is obviously an expert. |
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Post by williamtsherman on Dec 1, 2023 13:21:30 GMT -6
Through a set of remarkable circumstances which I am not at liberty to discuss, I have been able to obtain a photo of the environment into which certain MAC coaches are able to enter and build a MAC championship contending roster. This environment is known as the MFL - Magic Fairy Land and it is magically protected from the transfer portal and NIL shortcomings, as it was protected from other mid-major roster-building disadvantages as far back as 2001. In fact (and this is REALLY crazy) the transfer portal, through astonishing magic, actually becomes a POSITIVE factor for roster building, in the MFL. Unfortunately, the BSU coach is denied entry to the MFL for reasons that nobody can quite explain.  |
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Post by 00hmh on Dec 1, 2023 13:38:42 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? Ask Sherm. He is obviously an expert. His answer would be "recruiters recruit" but that is pretty vacuous, and not very specific on techniques or recruiting strategy. He admits he knows little about what our coaches have ever done or other MAC coaches do on the recruiting trail to do well. He will say that we have not signed enough big guys like Steve Payne, or Curtis Kidd, TSmith, and other past players we all wish we had today. Fair enough, except that's about results, not methods or targets, and I'm not sure any MAC coaches this year would say they had such players in THIS class. |
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Post by 00hmh on Dec 1, 2023 13:44:15 GMT -6
And apparently Sherm, in his NFL, also overlooks our actual current use of transfers which produced two starters and the disproportionate losses we suffered.
In denial that in NIL recruiting today, no MAC team did much more than that.
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Post by cardfan on Dec 1, 2023 14:12:01 GMT -6
I keep forgetting we lostJacobs too. He was a key component last year. We lost 4 really good starters. That’s not easily snd quickly replaced.
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Post by williamtsherman on Dec 1, 2023 14:31:30 GMT -6
Yeah, I know. It's just not possible for a MAC coach to have the players he needs to contend for a MAC title. The portal and NIL make that impossible.
Man, we have GOT to find a way into that MFL so that we can contend one of these years!!!
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Post by realitycheck on Dec 1, 2023 16:01:51 GMT -6
FWIW, the missing ingredient in our recruiting under the past two coaches was the inability to recruit Alpha players. Taylor & Whitford were about as dynamic as Bob Newhart and Tim Conway. I believe Lewis will be able to win some battles on the recruiting trail his predecessors could not.
I like our roster this year but we are pretty young in our depth and we are down two of our top four rotation guards. Losing Davion Bailey (any word on his injury), was huge because Middleton should be your first guard off the bench and he is not quite ready for primetime yet. Bell is Kaiyem Cleary. Athletic as hell and wild as a march hare.
We are also Jekyl & Hyde, home vs. away. We've been pretty solid at Worthen but a train wreck on the road. That is indicative of a young squad with a bunch of guys playing college basketball for the first time.
Ultimately, Lewis is going to have to start recruiting over guys and assume our best talent is bolting. If you aren't recruiting a new starting five every year you're gonna fall behind. For the record, Lewis has no excuses. He is bright, energetic and a damn good salesman and we play in a big arena with a semi-decent fan base. I believe in him and think he will lead us back to the post season. I do reserve the right to pivot on this if we are not in the final four of the conference tournament by end of year three.
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Post by cardfan on Dec 1, 2023 16:08:48 GMT -6
Sherm, I’ve certainly never said it’s not possible. It’s not easy to replace 4 guys the caliber of what we lost in one year but of course it can be and needs to be done. We might take a step back this year, which I’m not excited about but I’m willing to bet Lewis will get things done sooner rather than later. I fully expect him to have us back where we should be and he fully expects that too. He’s not making any excuses as near as I can tell. He expects bsu to be a championship program.
RC, right on.
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