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Post by hoyasaxa2003 on Apr 9, 2024 7:27:42 GMT -5
Great outcome for the Big East of course. While I don’t love UConn, the Big East needs to stay relevant in this era when football continues to mess up and threaten to mess with things relating to other college sports. And while the Big East got stiffed in bids, this is really the best way to show people just how good the conference is.
But now the season is over. Two things I want to see emerge over the next year are a much better Georgetown team, and a good media deal that sets the stage for the future of the conference.
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Post by hoyasaxa2003 on Apr 8, 2024 20:10:08 GMT -5
The one you posted above, for one. If the standard is Twitter posts, there have been plenty linking Mack to Georgetown, yes. Including one that said he visited. But, since I don't know the source, I'm not going to repost them here. Of course, everyone knows that if something isn't posted on Twitter, it didn't happen. I really don't get the allure of Syracuse if Mack has any concern about academics. Not only that, while I realize Georgetown hasn't been a good program in a while, it's not like Syracuse has been killing it. So if you (and people like RBHoya) are OK with seeing Tweets from random sources linking people to Georgetown, why wouldn't you be OK with similar Tweets linking those prospects to places besides Georgetown? Do you just want to put blinders on and pretend competition doesn't exist? You're taking a lot of logical leaps there. The tweet about Mack said someone from Syracuse was trying to recruit him. My comment was solely that that isn't new information. I didn't say I didn't believe it. I do believe it. You then responded asking about tweets going the other way - Georgetown recruiting Mack. You yourself posted a recruit from the SAME source, which stated that Georgetown was leading for him but it was up in the air. I never said I was or was not "OK" with similar tweets. I was just answering your question. That's all. There are no blinders on. And you know that.
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Post by hoyasaxa2003 on Apr 8, 2024 18:21:56 GMT -5
So this tweet tells us someone associated with Syracuse is trying to get Mack to go to Syracuse. Is this really information we did not know already? Are there similar tweets telling us someone associated with Georgetown is trying to get Mack to Georgetown? The one you posted above, for one. If the standard is Twitter posts, there have been plenty linking Mack to Georgetown, yes. Including one that said he visited. But, since I don't know the source, I'm not going to repost them here. Of course, everyone knows that if something isn't posted on Twitter, it didn't happen. I really don't get the allure of Syracuse if Mack has any concern about academics. Not only that, while I realize Georgetown hasn't been a good program in a while, it's not like Syracuse has been killing it.
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Post by hoyasaxa2003 on Apr 8, 2024 14:54:02 GMT -5
This post is from a nobody with no firsthand knowledge or inside info, and you are just trying to stir up negativity as always. Mack's recruitment has been quiet. Some of the "insider" types thought we were the team to beat. Then there were rumors that Vandy (new coach from JMU has a TTO assistant) was going to throw a big NIL offer at him, and then in the last day or two Malik followed a couple people associated with Syracuse's NIL collective. All of it has really been speculation though. Safe to say all 3 teams are pursuing, but nobody knows who is "leading", if anyone is at this point, because Mack and family have kept everything quiet. Let it unfold a little.
Funny how you didn't come down on this source when I posted a pro-Georgetown tweet previously from him, RB. So this tweet tells us someone associated with Syracuse is trying to get Mack to go to Syracuse. Is this really information we did not know already?
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Post by hoyasaxa2003 on Apr 5, 2024 18:03:19 GMT -5
I posted earlier Mack and hugged and we are tourney team I’ve decided I’m not going to get too hyped up no matter who we pull in. I and others here were saying we had tournament caliber talent a couple years back when we got Murray, Spears, and Q back. Of course we were way off on that. I’m at the point where I need to see results on the court before I believe we’re going to sniff the tournament. This is just normal unrealistic fan optimism. I don't think any objective observer (i.e., not a Georgetown fan) seeing us coming off the 0-20 season who had a realistic assessment of Patrick Ewing's coaching ability thought we would be anything close to a tournament team. Granted, I think many of us thought we'd improve more off 0-20 than we did, but a lot of us (including me) thought we'd be better than 2-18 this past season, too. The beauty of college sports is that with improvement/luck, etc. there is always a chance you can improve. And fans will key in on that, too. I am sure I've done it over the years as well. Heck, I remember after the BET win, while I was skeptical of Ewing, I was hopeful we could threaten to make the tournament, and we followed that up with 0-20. At this juncture, without a roster in place, I think a tournament bid is extremely unlikely. Of course, if we get some good transfers, I am sure I will convince myself otherwise before next November.
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Post by hoyasaxa2003 on Apr 5, 2024 10:12:07 GMT -5
There had been early chatter about Preston Murphy, an Alabama assistant. The post Final Four timing makes me wonder if that could be in play? Murphy recently got an extension, but that doesn't necessarily mean much.
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Post by hoyasaxa2003 on Apr 4, 2024 16:01:47 GMT -5
I mostly agree with you, but my point is a little different. You are (in my mind) correctly saying that the changing landscape of college basketball has required coaches to construct their rosters differently. I think this is no doubt true, and will continue as long as free transfers are permitted, combined with NIL. It is simply unrealistic to build a roster expecting guys to stay 3-4 years anymore (at least some of them--the goal is to hold on to some). This is really a question of whether people will adapt. Some, like Calipari, who is still trying to win with 5 star 19 year olds, is struggling to have the type of success Kentucky almuni/fans expect. Others have adjusted to the changes quite well. Perhaps I am wrong, but I also think the impact of the extra COVID year is really hard to understate. The last few years, college basketball has been full of older skilled guys. In years past, these 5th year players would have been off in Europe, New Zealand, Australia, etc. trying to make a buck playing basketball. Instead, many of these folks have stuck around the last several years, to college basketball's benefit. That will be over soon, and I think that'll reduce the age component a bit at least. I also think the transfer portal + free transfers + NIL is driving the aging rosters too. For example, in the past, someone who was disaffected might have stayed on a team to avoid sitting. Now, you don't need to sit, and you can get paid to transfer! So why not do it? I think the end result is that the Power 6 conferences (soon to be 5) will get older as they take on transfers from other schools, and those schools (including, for example, the Ivies) will get younger and less competitive. (Not to be a nit, but I would not use NC State as an example of anything, other than a team that was not even an NCAA roster that got hot at the right time and has really turned on the afterburners.) For what it's worth, KenPom has a stat called "D-1 Experience" to try to capture this. It is weighed by seniority in terms of college experience (freshman, sophomore, etc.) and then weighed for minutes played. 19 of the top 50 teams ranked for D-1 Experience made the NCAA tournament. On the flop side, of the 50 least experienced rosters, the only tournament team was Fairleigh Dickinson, a 16 seed. Though there are some programs just above the bottom 50 that had success, like Marquette and Duke.Any system that considers a team with Kolek, Jones and Ighodaro "inexperienced" is a flawed system. Otherwise most of your points are solid, 2003. I apologize, I inadvertently was looking at the 2022-2023 stat for experience, not this year. Under this year's stats, Marquette is ranked 137, which is above average experience. Since my stats above were for 2023, not 2024, here they are for this year: Top 50 Experience: 19 of the 50 most experienced teams made the NCAA tournament. 2 of the 50 least experienced teams made the NCAA tournament (Saint Peter's and Wagner).
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Post by hoyasaxa2003 on Apr 4, 2024 15:50:51 GMT -5
Simple answer - Epps! He's a net negative despite his counting numbers, due to his ball dominance, poor shooting and poor defense. Might be more effective with fewer minutes and responsibilities coming off the bench. I would not necessarily disagree with you depending on how our roster takes shape, I just don't realistically see that happening. I really do think if Epps could be taught to take his time, have fewer but better possessions, and play mostly off ball he'd potentially be a more valuable player. But, that assumes that Epps would change how he plays. It's hard to say if that's realistic. I know you'd probably say it's not, but I think it's possible we would be surprised.
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Post by hoyasaxa2003 on Apr 4, 2024 11:43:58 GMT -5
I have seen this mentioned a lot. And I think there's some truth to it. The problem is that NIL is in such an early stage, we really don't know the answer yet. And we will never know on guys like Jay Wright and Coach K because they chose to retire rather than deal with it. So, I think the jury is still out on this one. That said, most of the guys who are still coaching and who were good coaches pre-NIL have still be good coaches with NIL in place. Again, because we are in the early stages, it's hard to say if that will last. It would not shock me at all if there are more retirements or if certain coaches work their way out of the game who are disgusted with NIL. I just think the things are often treated as mutually exclusive, when it is not necessarily going to be the case. In fact, I think when we have a better set of data in 10 years or so, it will show that most of the coaches who succeeded before NIL are still succeeding (granted, perhaps not to the same degree), and the bad coaches will likely still be bad. I still think the best forecast of anybody's success is their past results in aggregrate. Yeah, it's nice to speak in generalities and everything, but let's look at NC State and Alabama. They are in the Final Four, with NC State's band of old men mercenary transfers having just beaten Duke's highly ranked group of McD's AA freshmen and sophomores in the Elite Eight. Alabama's backcourt is comprised of old men transfers and Nate Oats, who was a high school coach a decade ago, is in the Final Four. Purdue is a nice counter with Painter having primarily built his roster the old-fashioned way, but the reality is that today you can win with Kevin Keatts and Nate Oats and old men transfers potentially easier than you can with John Calipari and Jon Scheyer types coaching McD's AAs. I mostly agree with you, but my point is a little different. You are (in my mind) correctly saying that the changing landscape of college basketball has required coaches to construct their rosters differently. I think this is no doubt true, and will continue as long as free transfers are permitted, combined with NIL. It is simply unrealistic to build a roster expecting guys to stay 3-4 years anymore (at least some of them--the goal is to hold on to some). This is really a question of whether people will adapt. Some, like Calipari, who is still trying to win with 5 star 19 year olds, is struggling to have the type of success Kentucky almuni/fans expect. Others have adjusted to the changes quite well. Perhaps I am wrong, but I also think the impact of the extra COVID year is really hard to understate. The last few years, college basketball has been full of older skilled guys. In years past, these 5th year players would have been off in Europe, New Zealand, Australia, etc. trying to make a buck playing basketball. Instead, many of these folks have stuck around the last several years, to college basketball's benefit. That will be over soon, and I think that'll reduce the age component a bit at least. I also think the transfer portal + free transfers + NIL is driving the aging rosters too. For example, in the past, someone who was disaffected might have stayed on a team to avoid sitting. Now, you don't need to sit, and you can get paid to transfer! So why not do it? I think the end result is that the Power 6 conferences (soon to be 5) will get older as they take on transfers from other schools, and those schools (including, for example, the Ivies) will get younger and less competitive. (Not to be a nit, but I would not use NC State as an example of anything, other than a team that was not even an NCAA roster that got hot at the right time and has really turned on the afterburners.) For what it's worth, KenPom has a stat called "D-1 Experience" to try to capture this. It is weighed by seniority in terms of college experience (freshman, sophomore, etc.) and then weighed for minutes played. 19 of the top 50 teams ranked for D-1 Experience made the NCAA tournament. On the flop side, of the 50 least experienced rosters, the only tournament team was Fairleigh Dickinson, a 16 seed. Though there are some programs just above the bottom 50 that had success, like Marquette and Duke.
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Post by hoyasaxa2003 on Apr 4, 2024 10:58:13 GMT -5
Wright left coaching as the portal era gained steam and whatever success Cooley had at Providence (1 Sweet Sixteen in 12 years of coaching) came before NIL was a thing. Don't think you can use those predicates to assume the model that worked in a previous era will work now. I have seen this mentioned a lot. And I think there's some truth to it. The problem is that NIL is in such an early stage, we really don't know the answer yet. And we will never know on guys like Jay Wright and Coach K because they chose to retire rather than deal with it. So, I think the jury is still out on this one. That said, most of the guys who are still coaching and who were good coaches pre-NIL have still be good coaches with NIL in place. Again, because we are in the early stages, it's hard to say if that will last. It would not shock me at all if there are more retirements or if certain coaches work their way out of the game who are disgusted with NIL. I just think the things are often treated as mutually exclusive, when it is not necessarily going to be the case. In fact, I think when we have a better set of data in 10 years or so, it will show that most of the coaches who succeeded before NIL are still succeeding (granted, perhaps not to the same degree), and the bad coaches will likely still be bad. I still think the best forecast of anybody's success is their past results in aggregrate.
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Post by hoyasaxa2003 on Apr 4, 2024 9:50:07 GMT -5
That means we have 5 scholarships to utilize, should we wish to do so. Let's say we end up using 4 of the 5 available scholarships. Assuming our NIL budget is $4M as has been stated publicly by sources like Thompson's Towel, that's $1M/player for 4 players. I agree with you we should fill 4 of the 5 roster spots. But, don't we need to spend NIL money on existing players? So for example, if our NIL budget is $4 million and someone like Massoud got $300K last year, wouldn't we expect people like Fielder, Styles, and especially someone like Sorber to get some NIL money too? It just seems like we'd have a lot less than $1 million per player (if we were recruiting 4 players). I assume there is no prohibition on incoming freshman getting NIL.
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Post by hoyasaxa2003 on Apr 4, 2024 9:48:23 GMT -5
I have a buddy who is a huge Duke fan. This transfer out is not unexpected--he was telling me this would happen months ago. That said, he is extremely high on Reeves. Even though he hasn't played that much, according to him, Reeves is athletic and has real size at over 7 feet. Obviously, I know nothing about him really or where he might want to go, but I think he's worth a look. Obviously, you'd prefer to get a higher impact guy, but keep in mind that Cooley got guys like Hopkins and Carter who became impact guys.
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Post by hoyasaxa2003 on Apr 4, 2024 9:42:01 GMT -5
Owing to the growing number of fake social media posts being tossed about lately, know that these are subject to be edited or removed, even if it a Twitter or Instagram from another site was reposted innocently. Many fans see something here and assume it's credible and when it is determined it is not, we will act accordingly. Thanks in advance for your patience. Policing misinformation on social media is more difficult than ever, please know that I, and I am sure most of us, appreciate the efforts to keep those things out and make this a place for good information and discussion. I truly appreciate that the moderators keep a fairly tight ship when it comes to hundreds of threads, etc. Whenever I go to most other university boards like this one, the difference is immediately apparent. We probably don't say it enough so, thanks!
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Post by hoyasaxa2003 on Apr 4, 2024 9:39:19 GMT -5
The big thing Hoyas need to sort is getting a solid starting point guard, likely from the portal to be the anchor. Also need a back-up, which could be Mulready or a Senior or grad transfer. Also need an experienced long big in the middle, I'd long hoped Ryan would be that but that hasn't happened (yet). With point guard I have the unreasonably high hopes (expectations) that Lewis from Sidwell will come in a year and start contributing at point and then own that for a few seasons. I fear losing that. There is strong interest from Lewis (and family) to have this happen and he is incredibly good. If you bring in Kenny Johnson as assistant coach, you're not getting Acaden Lewis. You'll probably get Nyk Lewis instead, though, and Nyk Lewis is rated higher nationally than Acaden Lewis (who barely made the top 100 in the most recent On3 top 150 ranking that came out last week). I assume there are reasons, but if we are bringing Kenny Johnson on board it seems odd that it has not happened yet. That said, even though through rumors/back channels everyone knew that Cooley was bringing over all his assistants fairly early last year, it took a long time for it to be announced or reflected on the website. So, for all we know, Johnson could be in the fold and we just don't know it. It reminds me of that time where there were rumors that Ewing had hired an assistant (I forget his name), but then it never panned out. While obviously I'd like to know, I care less about the announcement, and more about whether whoever that assistant will eventually be is already working on our behalf. Unless we are trying to get an assistant wrapped up in the Final Four (which seems unlikely), I don't think there are any obstacles to doing so.
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Post by hoyasaxa2003 on Apr 3, 2024 19:09:26 GMT -5
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Post by hoyasaxa2003 on Apr 3, 2024 15:31:00 GMT -5
Does this apply to transfers? Or only high school recruits?
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Post by hoyasaxa2003 on Apr 3, 2024 15:30:10 GMT -5
I’m worried because we have known for awhile where we stand and what we need. And yet nothing seems imminent. Tired of hearing oh just wait better days are just around the corner. RDF warned us years ago, a decade plus ago, stop listening to the Hoya apologists who say be patient and have trust. Prove otherwise now. RDF was complaining about JT3 and "Dungeon Ball" at a time when Georgetown's program was at heights it now hasn't experienced for nearly a decade. So, I am not sure how persuasive that point is. In reality, the people controlling the program in 2014 and 2024 are entirely different. There are no Thompsons left pulling strings. Cooley completely cleared out the entire staff. Lee Reed might still be around, but he has very little control over the program to begin with. I do think DeGioia is problematic (see 2017, Ewing), but I also think he has very little impact on the day-to-day either. The blunt fact is we are all fans/alumni, none (or almost none) of us have any influence with the basketball program whatsoever, and we basically need to sit and watch. What more do we have than hoping for the best, and hoping for a turnaround? It's not like a bunch of HoyaTalkers can jump in a van, head down to campus, and demand change. Whether we "trust" or not, the outcome is going to be the same.
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Post by hoyasaxa2003 on Apr 2, 2024 18:28:51 GMT -5
Putting your email and phone number on Twitter seeking a spot on a roster seems...odd.
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Post by hoyasaxa2003 on Apr 2, 2024 17:04:25 GMT -5
Why do you call Keatts "at best an okay coach" while continually arguing that Ed Cooley is a very good coach? During those seasons that you mention, Keatts teams have had an average KenPom rating of 61.5 and Cooley teams have had an average KenPom rating of 76.6. If Keatts is "at best an okay coach", what is Cooley? I am not sure whether I ever stated that Ed Cooley was a "very good" coach but I may very well have said that before this season. I did think he was a very good coach. This past season has me a little skeptical, but I am still confident he'll do much better than last season. At Providence, Ed Cooley made the tournament 7 times (and 8 if COVID didn't happen). He had a winning record in the Big East 8 out of 12 seasons. Keatts, in 7 seasons at NC State has had a winning conference record three times. Before this year, he made the tournament twice. He made it this year because of the autobid. They might have made it in 2020 if COVID didn't happen, but if they did it would have been a bubble situation. While not as bad as this season, Keatts also had a season with a terrible defense in 2022, finishing with the 246th worst defense. So, it's not like his record is without warts. And that was in his 5th season coaching, not after taking over a program in the toilet. Cooley has also coached in the Big East while it has been a brutal conference, for the most part, in contrast to the ACC which has some good teams (but you generally only play them once a year) and some bad ones that are easier to beat. Would I still take Cooley over Keatts every time? Absolutely. I do think it is ironic that so many people wanted to drive off JT3 in 2017, I recall some saying it couldn't get worse, and yet, even with his couple of bad seasons at the end, his record is still better than many coaches. Lastly, don't bother with responding with "Coach A v. Coach B" comparisons meant to show that Keatts or others are better than Cooley. We can cherry-pick data all day long, and it doesn't change the facts. I get the fact that you really think Cooley is a really bad coach without the Coach A v. Coach B comparisons and all that.
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Post by hoyasaxa2003 on Apr 2, 2024 12:45:28 GMT -5
This fake Cooley resignation thing is a major indication that far too many people have too much time on their hands. Some people really need to get out of their parent's basement and enjoy some sunlight.
But, I guess this is 2024.
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