BillySee58

Almost all of my posts get a downvote or two on this board. And I could not care any less. My guess as to why we are mainly seeing guard offers is because the guys who we might see asked to transfer are post players. If we see any of them transfer then I would expect more offers to guys like James Jean Marie. Our problem down low is quality more than quantity.

Dang good work, JayD. Big question is how many of the 10 non-senior scholarship players are coming back. A lot of interest for two spots.

Fall signing period ended back in November. Next signing period starts April 17th

Right now we have just two scholarships to work with, and far more holes. We also have two players coming off redshirts, possibly three with Tikhonenko. Two straight years we have faltered down the stretch due in large part to having a terrible offense. I mentioned we have two spots left. That’s not enough to fix our issues. I know it’s a crappy thing to do and I don’t like saying it or typing it, but I really think it would be beneficial if we could setup transfers for Alcindor, J Simmons and Tikhonenko, or even just 2 of the 3. Let’s say 2 of the 3 for now. That would give us 4 spots to work with. Here is what our roster would look like: Guards: Woolridge, Gibson, Smart, Jalen Jackson, DJ Draper, Larry Wise Forwards: Abdul Mohamed Bigs: Zachary Simmons Now for filling those five spots let’s look at the offers that have gone out since we started the season: JUCO SG James Reese, offers include Boise State and SMU JUCO F James Jean-Marie, offers include San Diego, East Carolina, Oregon State HS (Prep School) SG Kevon Voyles, only other offer was Maryland Eastern Shore last year I think Reese is what we need. A pure shooter, hitting 43.6% from three and 86.9% from the line. Also listed at 6’4” which helps since our lack of height at times prevented us from having clean looks and creating space. Start him at the 3, Smart at the 2, and have Gibson off the bench. I would like to see us get Voyles as well. I think Voyles would be a player who could easily average 15+ a game for us down the line. Really like his ability as a scorer. Adding him and Reese would give us something we’ve never had under Mccasland. He would give us two legit bench scoring options with Gibson, which is huge because some nights two or three of your main guys are off, sometimes guys get injured, and sometimes your leading scorer from the year before ends up shooting 33% from the field and 27% from three. Not to mention having a true point guard off the bench in Jackson who should be able to break down defenses off the dribble better than Gibson and Duffy. Next we do need a legit player who can play 4 in our scheme. James Jean-Marie would be that guy. I don’t feel confident that we get him, but I feel like this type of player could become available on the grad transfer market. A guy like Dallas Polk-Hilliard from Grambling would be a great fit, but no clue if he’s going to come available. Even if he doesn’t, that’s the type of player our scheme needs. 6’7”, shot 43% from three and averaged 12.7 and 5.6. I feel like we need to try and get two guys like this, to go with Abdul Mohamed, who I have no idea what he’s going to give. Last I think we need to add a quality big behind Simmons. Maybe a JUCO, maybe a grad transfer, maybe even a freshman. Someone who can come in, give us 12-15 solid minutes a night, can rebound, give some semblance of rim protection, and is not a liability on offense. Basically what we wanted Arikawe to be. Preferably someone we can groom under Simmons, like we hoped Alcindor could be. Also wouldn’t mind adding someone who could play the four and the five. I’ve mentioned this before, but someone like Colin Voss. 6’7-6’8”, can stretch the defense and guard away from the basket but can also bang down low and rebound. This isn’t a complete overhaul. Saying we needed that was wrong. We have a nucleus that we have felt good in since Mccasland came here in Woolridge, Smart, Gibson, and Zach Simmons. We need Smart to figure things out this offseason but we also need to bolst our roster elsewhere. We have put out some good offers but our coaches need to prove they can recruit and get the guys we need, not the guys who we get because no one else wants them. Let’s see your strategies you would like to see us take this offseason.

Right, I’m just saying it wasn’t like our losses down the stretch came to elite teams. We beat USM who finished third. We destroyed Marshall who later beat us down the stretch. We beat La Tech who also beat us down the stretch. It wasn’t like we ran into teams who were better than what we were facing when we started 16-1.

We faltered down the stretch against average CUSA teams. Two of our 8 losses in our 1-8 finish were against WKU. The other 6 losses were against the middle of the pack (2 to FIU, 2 to FAU, 1 to La Tech, 1 to Marshall)

8-3 to 8-10 is a collapse. I’m not saying 8-3 was pretty, or that we appeared to be legit as a 20-4 (8-3) team. Just saying that’s where the collapse happened. Not once the non-con cream puffs stopped showing up. Not going to argue that style points don’t matter, but I think what’s more important is that your team is good enough to accumulate style points. We weren’t.

But we still would have started conference play 8-3 then lost the last 7. That’s the collapse. Not non-conference play.

You’re dead on but probably aren’t going to convince anyone you’re responding to

This team was better when we had Woolridge and Duffy than when we were missing at least one of them. That’s not an excuse, just fact. But they could have and should have been only to overcome that if they had spent scholarships on good players this offseason instead of a bunch of guys who gave us nothing As CMJ mentioned, we started 8-3 in conference play. Starting 8-3 in conference play then finishing 0-7 is a collapse. Even if we had a losing record coming into conference play, that’s where the real collapse occurred. Yes, the signs were there early on that the offense wasn’t good. But most of us felt like it was just a matter of time before Smart and Duffy got going, but they just never did.

People need to realize that we didn’t falter down the stretch because of easy early competition. We faltered down the stretch because of poor roster building moves that gave us no depth, a couple injuries, and Roosevelt Smart shooting us out of almost every game down the stretch. Duffy and Smart never got going this year and they weren’t even when we were winning. That collapse would’ve happened even if we were playing Duke and Virginia at he beginning of the year.

They have been even since back when we had a good record

This roster needs an overhaul. Period.

We had two players go off last night to muster up 71 points. It’s not like we were firing on all cylinders last night.

Will we catch WKU(‘s current score)?

I cannot get over how many traveling violations we commit. Why?

Gotta be the biggest on-court regression I’ve ever seen

Turnovers, can’t shoot, and picking up way too many fouls. Not looking good.

We are the lowest seed remaining yet have the second most overall wins of the final eight teams in CUSA. Pretty fitting given the season we’ve had.

Yup. Fun to see the band back together

Advanced stats are not the end all, be all. But they provide great support that is, most importantly, completely unbiased. You have extreme bias for Arikawe. In a game where he goes 1-6 from the field you’re singing his praises for doing the dirty work. Not saying he didn’t do dirty work, just pointing out the unwavering bias. Speaking of bias, you are a guy who was incorrectly told by someone you trust that Zachary Simmons wasn’t good early on in his career and your perception of him has clearly been affected by that. So much so that after two years of him establishing himself as the best big on the team, and one of the best young bigs in the conference, and after a game where he goes for 19 points and 16 rebounds you are talking about our other bigs who give us almost nothing. Two guys who have failed everyone’s eyeball tests but yours and who we tell you are objectively not good, and have ample stats to back that up. And your response is that stats aren’t everything, once again confirming your bias. This is painfully false. It’s 2019, we’re not just relying on the five major stat categories anymore. Also not true, from an advanced stats standpoint.

I know I complain about our players not having enough offers, but this is absolutely a dude who I don’t care what his offer list looks like. Please get him. That stroke looks like James Harden

Umoja Gibson and Duffy are combo guards, to a degree. They can run the offense in spurts, but are seemingly more comfortable off of the ball. An NBA example of a combo guard that I would give would be Malcolm Brogdon from the Bucks. Often times you will see a player who is 6’3” or shorter described as a combo guard just because their height more closely resembles that of a traditional point guard, but in reality they are not players who you would want running your offense. Like former Mean Green guard Brandan Walton. He was 6’2” and may have been described as a combo guard in his recruitment but he was not a player who was going to run the offense. He was strictly an off the ball player who was best served catching and shooting as opposed to setting players up. When I watch Voyles film he looks like an off the ball guard. I wouldn’t describe him as a combo guard and I don’t expect us to have him bringing the ball up the court if we get him. I would expect him to play off the ball and be tasked with scoring the ball, while a guy like Jalen Jackson sets him up.

16-1 but yeah, this is on him and it’s on him to take responsibility and realize this collapse wasn’t a fluke, and on him to figure out how to fix it.