That's a very interesting analogy, A& M hoops is like UH football (pre Holgorsen) . I guess Shelby would be the Bill Yoeman of A& M hoops.

bobinator said:

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halfastros81 said:

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I don't think our "recent " history has been crash and burn. We haven't had what I'd call a failed coaching regime since Watkins - 21 yrs ago. Each head coach since then has had a fair share of success. I think this one will as well.

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This is also why I disagreed with people who didn't think our job was a good one in the cycle. The thing working against us was how late we got started, almost all of the "next big thing" coaches were already off the board.

But our job should be extremely attractive to young up and comers. Of our last four coaches three got hired by higher level programs and the one that didn't was kind of a special case and even he made multiple second weekend appearances in the NCAA Tournament.

We're like the Houston football (pre-Holgorsen) of college basketball.

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Well you'll always be behind the 8 ball if you coach leaves because of the early portal dates. If they fix the portal then coaching hires will drag out a little bit more.

But if they don't fix it, then be prepared for more schools to fire coaching mid to late season than waiting until the season is over with.

You're also just always going to be behind if you lose your coach to a second weekend NCAA Tournament team.

Maryland played their last game on March 27th.

Would also be different if the pieces were definitely locked in behind the scenes but they weren't.

Part of me still wishes Buzz would have been stuck here just for sheer hilarity of it.

bobinator said:

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halfastros81 said:

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I don't think our "recent " history has been crash and burn. We haven't had what I'd call a failed coaching regime since Watkins - 21 yrs ago. Each head coach since then has had a fair share of success. I think this one will as well.

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This is also why I disagreed with people who didn't think our job was a good one in the cycle. The thing working against us was how late we got started, almost all of the "next big thing" coaches were already off the board.

But our job should be extremely attractive to young up and comers. Of our last four coaches three got hired by higher level programs and the one that didn't was kind of a special case and even he made multiple second weekend appearances in the NCAA Tournament.

We're like the Houston football (pre-Holgorsen) of college basketball.

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Our least successful coach of the last 20 years went to 2 sweet 16's.

And his Spain teammate got 2 years eligibility at Virginia recently.

94chem said:

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bobinator said:

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halfastros81 said:

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I don't think our "recent " history has been crash and burn. We haven't had what I'd call a failed coaching regime since Watkins - 21 yrs ago. Each head coach since then has had a fair share of success. I think this one will as well.

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This is also why I disagreed with people who didn't think our job was a good one in the cycle. The thing working against us was how late we got started, almost all of the "next big thing" coaches were already off the board.

But our job should be extremely attractive to young up and comers. Of our last four coaches three got hired by higher level programs and the one that didn't was kind of a special case and even he made multiple second weekend appearances in the NCAA Tournament.

We're like the Houston football (pre-Holgorsen) of college basketball.

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Our least successful coach of the last 20 years went to 2 sweet 16's.

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Had a coach on the floor in TJ Starks.

So the question raised might be was he really the least successful of the group? There are clearly arguments to support an answer of no. You could even make an argument he was the 2nd best of the 4 . I wouldn't argue Kennedy was better than BCG tho.

He had one good team in seven years and one talented team that got hot at the right time.

I could make an argument that Kennedy's teams were my favorite ones to watch.

I've got BCG nostalgia since I was a student then... but that was a tough brand of basketball to watch. Even in Acie's senior year we had some grind it out victories.

Turgeon always seemed to have a way to fall on his face when it mattered and his teams were always early peakers that cratered at the end.

But Kennedy not only led us to 2 sweet 16s, but made one with the single greatest comeback in the history of the tournament. And made the other running North Carolina out of the gym. Also we had some really big wins over Kentucky and the style we played was appealing.

Buzz won here, but it was a 6 year grind.

Not saying Kennedy was the best coach we've had, but in general it was a good run of basketball that was easy on the eyes as well.

Was it easy on the eyes when we lost to Southern or UNT? Was it easy on the eyes when we didn't make the NIT until year four and lost in the CBI by a bunch to an awful team? Was it easy on the eyes when we lost at home blowing a lead to a Bama team with two starters out to miss the tourney? As a coach, he was mostly bad. He recruited well enough that at times his players synced together and made things happen. The UNI game was horrible until he stopped coaching and all we did was press.

That 2016 team was fun to watch. The 2018 team had a few fun games.


Buzz was pretty bad to watch but I bet it was fun watching us beat Auburn, UTn, UK.

Kennedy is clearly 4th best in a list of our last 4 coaches (even if he is easily better than those that came before)

This is how you can see "but Sweet Sixteens brah!" Is clearly a fraudulent "metric" its clear how the market and our own athletic department viewed them all

Gillispie got hired by Kentucky
Turgeon got hired by Maryland
Williams got hired by Maryland
Kennedy got fired and never coached a game as head coach again.

Even if you just throw out the results, absolutely nobody likes watching pack-line defense. It's why everyone hates watching Virginia despite how good they are. It's boring as ****.

Under Kennedy we were one of the slowest teams in the country, we didn't play aggressive defense that created havoc and caused turnovers AND we shot almost as bad as we did under Buzz.

In 15-16 we were 92nd in the country in scoring while last year we were 152nd. So there is some evidence for Kennedy's team being slightly more offensively minded.

My bar is obviously low for what appealing basketball is, and maybe it was more Caruso than anything else, but we moved the ball on offense at least a bit and seemed to get the shots we wanted.

Even with lean talent, I thought it was fun to watch Elston Turner play.

I'm not going to double down too hard here, but as bobinator pointed out, the BCG and Buzz styles might win but they are not visually appealing.

And Turgeon was a turd.

Perhaps that's true . We never got to see him at peak performance level. Point was that noone would hire him as a hc at the college level again, upgrade or downgrade, because of his condition which may or may not have impacted his coaching performance. I don't honestly see how it wouldn't have impacted his performance tho because it is a stressful job.

The 2016 team is the exception. Yes, that one particular team was nice to watch. Kennedy was our coach for eight years.

I could even concede that it was easier on the eyes than Buzz's teams, but that's like saying the humidity in College Station is better than it is in Houston.

I preferred Buzz's defense to Kennedy's because at least it was active, but we weren't particularly nice to watch in either case. We had exactly one team since 2012 finish in the top 100 in efg% and that was Kennedy's 2015 team, only two finished inside the top 200 in tempo, Kennedy's 2018 team (#118) and 2019 team (#179) though I'd argue the 2019 team's tempo was only high because it turned the ball over so much. We've finished 300+ in tempo six times.

We've been terrible from beyond the arc (ranked 250+ 10 times).

What's funny is Torvik has us projected as top 50 in tempo this year. People are going to be fainting in the aisles on opening night like when Elvis started touring.

Your post kind of makes my point... its been a long time since we've seen pretty basketball, so comparatively Kennedy's teams were better and faster. It's not saying much... but watching Buzz's teams play made me want to gouge my eyes out.

Again, not going to ride or die with this point, but there were spurts of good basketball with Kennedy and multiple rosters that had guys that got NBA shots.

Rob Williams
Caruso
House

All have carved out an NBA career.

We also had Tyler Davis, Hogg, Jalen Jones, Admin Gilder who were all more talented than anyone we've had on the team recently.

The best we have from the Buzz years so far are a couple of 2-way contracts. Part of this is because I think Buzz likes coaching with one arm tied behind his back. "Hold my beer while I win games in the SEC with a team filled with guys who you wouldn't want on your roster."

The new jobs that the other three got is just the icing on the cake. The fact remains that Kennedy is the only one of the four who we fired.

Still annoyed we gave him an extension when no one on earth would steal him from us.

Fair enough

Main point of this thread anyway is that we're hoping to see some pretty basketball this year.

Remember that comment when he loses a game he shouldn't and everybody on this website wants to string his ass up.

halfastros81 said:

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Don't disagree but how do you define "success"? To me just making the tourney this yr would be a great start but that isn't enough to "lock him down". It's hard for me to define that kind of success over say a 3 yr period other than you know it when you see it. Can't really set a clear goal of making it beyond the s16 because it's so dependent on matchups, injuries , etc that are out of his control.

Given the current success of Pearl and Oats I think he has some time to generate "lock him down" success rate here.

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I don't want to put the cart before the horse, but with the exception of maybe the 1980 team, this is the best roster, EVER…. And I don't think it's even close. No offense to anyone, but damn!

None of the practices even count until we have this year's theme

I hope its Murphy related.

JJxvi said:

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Is anybody else worried that all the official social media content makes it look like these guys are just constantly playing basketball? We need to make sure these guys are well rounded at life!

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like sheesh, why are they just practicing all the time

halfastros81 said:

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I liked Buzz trying to guide his guys towards being better more rounded people but I have to think a lot of that stuff starts going in one ear and out the other at some point.

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Ask one of his players. Teaching young men to dress like men is a lost art. And I'll note my dad wore a suit when preaching every Sunday. He might lose the tie for evening services but he treated it much like a priest would his collar though being a Southern Baptist.

I have zero problem with coaches like Ryan Day having required reading for their players. But I do believe the game itself is guidance for life. And that include all team sports and many individual ones, too.

And I think starting over with a clean slate allows us to enjoy our team again.