iowa80
Golden Hoya (over 1000 posts)
Posts: 2,402
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Post by iowa80 on May 24, 2022 13:56:00 GMT -5
I'm in the "Ewing should already be gone" camp, but obviously, that ship has already sailed. That said, here is where I would set the bar in a hypothetical world where I'm making the decision: (1) At-large bid to the NCAA tournament; plus (2) Either a win in the NCAA or an appearance in the BET semifinal; plus (3) Roster stability. Item (1) is the bare minimum, but in light of Ewing's "body of work" so far, it's not enough for me. Hence item (2). I think asking for a Sweet 16 or another BET final appearance is too much to set as the bar, given the vagaries of single-elimination play. But just getting into the NCAA won't do it for me. If that's all we do, then we're looking at just two tournament appearances (with no wins) in six years. If we win a game, even if nobody really cares about Round-of-32 appearances, it's something. Ditto a "deep" run in the BET, which could really mean just one win if we actually avoid Wednesday for once. The fact that this seems like a lot to ask shows just how far we've fallen. Item (3) is relative. Of course a lot of these guys are one-year rentals, and transfers are more common today than they've ever been. So I'm not saying that we need to have a zero-transfer offseason, or that I don't expect to see a fair number of new faces next year. But even if we hit items (1) and (2), if we're rebuilding the whole team again in April 2023, I won't be satisfied. (This can be ameliorated a bit if we have a strong freshman recruiting class in the pipeline. The bottom line is that we need to see some roster construction, not just one-off team assembly. We can't keep doing this every year.) And relatedly, now that we actually have a senior with Wahab back in the fold, I want to see him graduate. Do I think these goals are necessarily realistic given the roster construction and that of the rest of the Big East? Not necessarily. But in my mind, Ewing should have been fired already, and this should be one last season to save his job. So it damn well better be a good one. Finishing 7-13 and in tenth might be an improvement over 0-19 and eleventh, but (coupled with the prior five years) it still is a fireable result. The roster stability will be key. I said this last season with the incoming freshman group. Now that that group is down to 2 of 5, we clearly need to see something next off season. Q makes it sound like he is looking at one year. Mozone is a one year guy. So assuming those two leave, we need to keep 6 of the remaining 8 that are first year guys. If not, it just doesn't make sense to bring guys in on one year rentals and keep whiffing like we have done historically with this staff. Anglin will be Exhibit A in this situation. He is not a marginal talent like some of last year’s frosh, and he needs to be here as a sophomore. There’s some depth at his position(s)’ but he should get minutes with no quick hook while he acclimates.
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wsdhoya
Bulldog (over 250 posts)
Posts: 466
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Post by wsdhoya on May 24, 2022 14:03:10 GMT -5
Honestly a winning season would be a nice bar imo. We know we already have 3 pretty difficult non conference games in addition to the game at Syracuse, which leaves 7 non conference games to play with. We then have 20 Big East games in what will be a very deep and competitive conference. Let's go 8-3 in non conference and 8-12 in conference. I'd take that and the NIT bid that comes with it in a heart beat and anything better than that indicates some actual coaching occurred.
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Post by hoyaatheart55 on May 24, 2022 14:21:20 GMT -5
I'm in the "Ewing should already be gone" camp, but obviously, that ship has already sailed. That said, here is where I would set the bar in a hypothetical world where I'm making the decision: (1) At-large bid to the NCAA tournament; plus (2) Either a win in the NCAA or an appearance in the BET semifinal; plus (3) Roster stability. Item (1) is the bare minimum, but in light of Ewing's "body of work" so far, it's not enough for me. Hence item (2). I think asking for a Sweet 16 or another BET final appearance is too much to set as the bar, given the vagaries of single-elimination play. But just getting into the NCAA won't do it for me. If that's all we do, then we're looking at just two tournament appearances (with no wins) in six years. If we win a game, even if nobody really cares about Round-of-32 appearances, it's something. Ditto a "deep" run in the BET, which could really mean just one win if we actually avoid Wednesday for once. The fact that this seems like a lot to ask shows just how far we've fallen. Item (3) is relative. Of course a lot of these guys are one-year rentals, and transfers are more common today than they've ever been. So I'm not saying that we need to have a zero-transfer offseason, or that I don't expect to see a fair number of new faces next year. But even if we hit items (1) and (2), if we're rebuilding the whole team again in April 2023, I won't be satisfied. (This can be ameliorated a bit if we have a strong freshman recruiting class in the pipeline. The bottom line is that we need to see some roster construction, not just one-off team assembly. We can't keep doing this every year.) And relatedly, now that we actually have a senior with Wahab back in the fold, I want to see him graduate. Do I think these goals are necessarily realistic given the roster construction and that of the rest of the Big East? Not necessarily. But in my mind, Ewing should have been fired already, and this should be one last season to save his job. So it damn well better be a good one. Finishing 7-13 and in tenth might be an improvement over 0-19 and eleventh, but (coupled with the prior five years) it still is a fireable result. Yea this pretty much sums up where I’m at.
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hoyaboya
Blue & Gray (over 10,000 posts)
Posts: 12,572
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Post by hoyaboya on May 24, 2022 14:29:30 GMT -5
Honestly a winning season would be a nice bar imo. We know we already have 3 pretty difficult non conference games in addition to the game at Syracuse, which leaves 7 non conference games to play with. We then have 20 Big East games in what will be a very deep and competitive conference. Let's go 8-3 in non conference and 8-12 in conference. I'd take that and the NIT bid that comes with it in a heart beat and anything better than that indicates some actual coaching occurred. We will definitely have a winning season. How do we "know" we have "3 pretty difficult non conference games in addition to the game at Syracuse"? The only OOC game we know might be "pretty difficult" is at Texas Tech, which Ewing didn't schedule, the Big XII/Big East people did. Otherwise: 1) The @ Syracuse game isn't confirmed yet - I can see both Ewing and Boeheim wanting to get out of that one 2) The home game vs. South Carolina, which is assumed to be happening because last year's game @ South Carolina was announced as a home-and-home, is no gimme because Frank Martin is no longer the South Carolina coach. I could see both Ewing and new South Carolina coach Lamont Paris seeing little value in retaining that game on the schedule 3) We don't know who the Gavitt Games opponent is, it's no gimme that it will be a "pretty difficult" game - most likely, the conferences will set up a Big Ten bottom feeder to play a Big East bottom feeder like Georgetown I expect Ewing to schedule one of the easiest OOC schedules in the country in a desperate attempt to stack wins given what happened in 2021-2022. We will have a 200+ OOC SOS and will likely go 11-2, 12-1, something along those lines. I can definitely see both the Syracuse and South Carolina games not happening and being replaced with lower tier MEAC opponents. So, given that, it will be almost impossible not to have a "winning record". I think that standard is way too low of a bar when any high major team can create a schedule to ensure a winning record, as long as they win 25% of their conference games.
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CTHoya08
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
Bring back Izzo!
Posts: 2,884
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Post by CTHoya08 on May 24, 2022 14:48:11 GMT -5
I'm in the "Ewing should already be gone" camp, but obviously, that ship has already sailed. That said, here is where I would set the bar in a hypothetical world where I'm making the decision: (1) At-large bid to the NCAA tournament; plus (2) Either a win in the NCAA or an appearance in the BET semifinal; plus (3) Roster stability. Item (1) is the bare minimum, but in light of Ewing's "body of work" so far, it's not enough for me. Hence item (2). I think asking for a Sweet 16 or another BET final appearance is too much to set as the bar, given the vagaries of single-elimination play. But just getting into the NCAA won't do it for me. If that's all we do, then we're looking at just two tournament appearances (with no wins) in six years. If we win a game, even if nobody really cares about Round-of-32 appearances, it's something. Ditto a "deep" run in the BET, which could really mean just one win if we actually avoid Wednesday for once. The fact that this seems like a lot to ask shows just how far we've fallen. Item (3) is relative. Of course a lot of these guys are one-year rentals, and transfers are more common today than they've ever been. So I'm not saying that we need to have a zero-transfer offseason, or that I don't expect to see a fair number of new faces next year. But even if we hit items (1) and (2), if we're rebuilding the whole team again in April 2023, I won't be satisfied. (This can be ameliorated a bit if we have a strong freshman recruiting class in the pipeline. The bottom line is that we need to see some roster construction, not just one-off team assembly. We can't keep doing this every year.) And relatedly, now that we actually have a senior with Wahab back in the fold, I want to see him graduate. Do I think these goals are necessarily realistic given the roster construction and that of the rest of the Big East? Not necessarily. But in my mind, Ewing should have been fired already, and this should be one last season to save his job. So it damn well better be a good one. Finishing 7-13 and in tenth might be an improvement over 0-19 and eleventh, but (coupled with the prior five years) it still is a fireable result. Yea this pretty much sums up where I’m at. I should add that I’d also be satisfied if we get a top-four seed in the NCAA, even if we don’t win an NCAA game or make it to the BET semifinals (paired, again, with roster stability). If we can pull down a seed like that even after losing on Thursday, we’d have put together a hell of a regular season.
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Post by hoya305 on May 24, 2022 14:50:48 GMT -5
My admittedly low bar: .500 in the BE; .600 Overall; one BE Tourney victory. Which, unfortunately, buys the coach security for an additional two years.
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hoyazeke
Platinum Hoya (over 5000 posts)
Posts: 5,818
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Post by hoyazeke on May 24, 2022 17:20:05 GMT -5
So many of you are saying this team has tournament talent, or even that this team is deep. What data points are you using to get to that conclusion? One singular player on this roster played in the tournament last season. Several guys are almost comically inefficient (Spears shot 36%. 36. For Duquesne.) and we are still light at multiple positions. Statistical ranks such as T rank still have us in dead last with Q back. If you compare our roster to others in the league I don’t understand how you can think we are better than anybody except DePaul and maybe St. John’s and Butler. wsd I think those of us that are predicting a tourney appearance are assuming that poor efficiency is more a factor of how players were being used and not the particular player's game. Dante, Primo, Bryson should all be more efficient simply from moving down the pecking order a spot or 2. I know for certain that Dante and Primo were doing too much on teams with few offensive options. Hopefully Brandon and Akok become options 1 and 2 which should take a lot of pressure off the other players. Hopefully these players haven't developed bad habits. Wayne and Q should supply valuable offensive options also. The only one that is changing responsibility in the opposite direction is Brandon but I assume if he stayed at LSU he would have been a top 2 option there as well. Also every team in the conference has lost more than they gained but Creighton and maybe Marquette(depending on Lewis). I really like our pieces.
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guru
Platinum Hoya (over 5000 posts)
Posts: 6,607
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Post by guru on May 24, 2022 17:20:49 GMT -5
Honestly a winning season would be a nice bar imo. We know we already have 3 pretty difficult non conference games in addition to the game at Syracuse, which leaves 7 non conference games to play with. We then have 20 Big East games in what will be a very deep and competitive conference. Let's go 8-3 in non conference and 8-12 in conference. I'd take that and the NIT bid that comes with it in a heart beat and anything better than that indicates some actual coaching occurred. I expect Ewing to schedule one of the easiest OOC schedules in the country in a desperate attempt to stack wins given what happened in 2021-2022. I’m pretty sure no one cares what you “expect” given that you are consistently wrong about everything. March 13 was a long time ago.
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hoya9797
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
Posts: 4,207
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Post by hoya9797 on May 24, 2022 17:25:18 GMT -5
So many of you are saying this team has tournament talent, or even that this team is deep. What data points are you using to get to that conclusion? One singular player on this roster played in the tournament last season. Several guys are almost comically inefficient (Spears shot 36%. 36. For Duquesne.) and we are still light at multiple positions. Statistical ranks such as T rank still have us in dead last with Q back. If you compare our roster to others in the league I don’t understand how you can think we are better than anybody except DePaul and maybe St. John’s and Butler. wsd I think those of us that are predicting a tourney appearance are assuming that poor efficiency is more a factor of how players were being used and not the particular player's game. Dante, Primo, Bryson should all be more efficient simply from moving down the pecking order a spot or 2. I know for certain that Dante and Primo were doing too much on teams with few offensive options. Hopefully Brandon and Akok become options 1 and 2 which should take a lot of pressure off the other players. Hopefully these players haven't developed bad habits. Wayne and Q should supply valuable offensive options also. The only one that is changing responsibility in the opposite direction is Brandon but I assume if he stayed at LSU he would have been a top 2 option there as well. Also every team in the conference has lost more than they gained but Creighton and maybe Marquette(depending on Lewis). I really like our pieces. Nobody knows less about how to put players in a position to succeed than Pat Ewing.
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iowa80
Golden Hoya (over 1000 posts)
Posts: 2,402
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Post by iowa80 on May 24, 2022 17:35:11 GMT -5
wsd I think those of us that are predicting a tourney appearance are assuming that poor efficiency is more a factor of how players were being used and not the particular player's game. Dante, Primo, Bryson should all be more efficient simply from moving down the pecking order a spot or 2. I know for certain that Dante and Primo were doing too much on teams with few offensive options. Hopefully Brandon and Akok become options 1 and 2 which should take a lot of pressure off the other players. Hopefully these players haven't developed bad habits. Wayne and Q should supply valuable offensive options also. The only one that is changing responsibility in the opposite direction is Brandon but I assume if he stayed at LSU he would have been a top 2 option there as well. Also every team in the conference has lost more than they gained but Creighton and maybe Marquette(depending on Lewis). I really like our pieces. Nobody knows less about how to put players in a position to succeed than Pat Ewing. I see that it's Happy Hour.
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Post by trillesthoya on May 24, 2022 17:51:59 GMT -5
Ewing has to prove he can make the tournament at large. This is a tournament caliber team with Murray, Heath, Akok and Wahab. It has plenty of depth and there are enough guys with diverse skill sets to find something that works for us on defense. NIT won’t be enough, and anything else would be disastrous short of an unfortunate injury to someone important. There is no more time for patience, we should’ve moved on last season and we’re out of excuses for the complete mess the program has been in the last few seasons. Win or go home.
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EasyEd
Platinum Hoya (over 5000 posts)
Posts: 7,272
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Post by EasyEd on May 24, 2022 20:10:24 GMT -5
My bar is 5-6 BE wins. Not monumental but improvement.
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hoyarooter
Blue & Gray (over 10,000 posts)
Posts: 10,243
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Post by hoyarooter on May 24, 2022 20:40:11 GMT -5
Do we have any basis for thinking that the defense will be appreciably better next season? If it isn't, then 5-6 BE wins is probably the best we can do, and to me, that's not good enough. But it probably will be to the administration.
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hoyaboya
Blue & Gray (over 10,000 posts)
Posts: 12,572
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Post by hoyaboya on May 24, 2022 21:48:35 GMT -5
My bar is 5-6 BE wins. Not monumental but improvement. That is a low bar - wow. I respect my elders but what’s the point if that is all that you expect?
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Post by trillesthoya on May 24, 2022 22:54:34 GMT -5
Do we have any basis for thinking that the defense will be appreciably better next season? If it isn't, then 5-6 BE wins is probably the best we can do, and to me, that's not good enough. But it probably will be to the administration. The difference between Kaiden/Jalin/Tim and Mozone/Akok/Wahab is difficult to overstate. I don’t even particularly believe our big man rotation is that great defensively, but it’s light years ahead of what we had to field last season. Murray also was one of the best perimeter defenders last season in the SEC as a freshman. Some have talked themselves into Dante being injured all of last season, imo his drop off was more due to the lack of presence in the middle rather than injury, but there’s reason to believe he can definitely be better than he was last year.
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Bigs"R"Us
Platinum Hoya (over 5000 posts)
Posts: 6,642
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Post by Bigs"R"Us on May 24, 2022 23:03:21 GMT -5
I get that we went 0-20 last season, but anything 5-15 or less is going to feel like a disaster after this extreme overhaul.
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hoyainla
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
Suspended
Posts: 4,719
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Post by hoyainla on May 24, 2022 23:27:50 GMT -5
Do we have any basis for thinking that the defense will be appreciably better next season? If it isn't, then 5-6 BE wins is probably the best we can do, and to me, that's not good enough. But it probably will be to the administration. I don't think the players matter if Ewing is still coaching any part of the defense. Our players have not been the problem for the past 5 years. The basis for defensive improvement has to lay on the shoulders of Nickelberry. He has proven he can coach a legitimate defensive team. For the people in the camp of as long as the players stay, that is something we likely won't know until it's too late to fire Ewing. Short of a mass in season exodus like a few years ago that won't play into the equation. As for the bar I thought I set a pretty realistic one last year that if we finished 9th or lower that coach should be gone. Others seemed to think that was pretty reasonable. We saw how that worked out. I think the only way Ewing gets fired is less than 5 conference wins or a scandal.
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kghoya
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
Posts: 4,998
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Post by kghoya on May 25, 2022 9:50:24 GMT -5
Winning Big East record.
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Bigs"R"Us
Platinum Hoya (over 5000 posts)
Posts: 6,642
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Post by Bigs"R"Us on May 25, 2022 9:54:23 GMT -5
If we were to go 9-11, we would have a losing record, but miles above 0-20.
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Post by AshantiCooksBurner on May 25, 2022 10:13:20 GMT -5
An hour before tip, rocket bar.
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