Future of CKK
- Thread starter bcvegaspt
- Start date
Perfectly said. I’m a diehard from the sixties. I’m praying for a different direction. We should be MUCH better.
SIXTIES!!! Holy chit. That in itself deserves it's own thread/post. Considering UNLV was not UNLV until 1969. My oldest brother has a yearbook from the 60's era when we were Nevada Southern University.
Wow, didn’t realize you have been a fan that long. That’s impressive. And congrats, with that long of a history, odds are heavy that your marbles aren’t intact, but you seem to be fine.
Just like last year, next season is cloudy with a chance of meatballs! The entire season many of us went back and forth on whether CKK should stay, and it will go into next season with the same feeling. Without a question his seat is still hot, and next year is an NCAA tournament must season!
Sunny or cloudy, who knows?
Sunny or cloudy, who knows?
It will be interesting to see how Harp is gonna play it next season with CKK. Gotta think it’s NCAA or let him go. In that case he’s got to be lining up potential replacements well before end of season so he can pull the trigger quick after the end of the season and hope to keep key players from bolting.
In CKKs comments to the Sun, he doesn’t seem overly worried or pressed to improve next years roster. I’m not sure he’s watched tape on transfers or started any ground work on it.
If this guy gets similar results next year and there’s no change afterwards then my thoughts on Harper will start getting tarnished.
The AD has some credibility with the hiring of Odom but that “cache” can quickly fade if he stays with a guy who clearly does not have it as a HC, in Kevin!
From his vantage point, we finished 2 games back of first with a few dropped opportunities while not getting to play with his full roster including a good portion of the OOC without Keylan. Flip a few more Ws from all those close losses and he's a tournament coach...so yeah, he doesn't feel presses to drastically overhaul the roster.
That said, it doesn't mean he isn't out trying to upgrade positions with transfers, just look at the number of guards we've reached out to. Add in him winking and nodding at Jefferson and he gets replacement size for Boone.. from our view point, we want a Sweet 16/Elite 8 team next year, where he's just trying to save his job by making the tournament so our assessments will differ drastically
I believe the winning streak in the second half of this season gave coach Kruger a one year reprieve.
I would not have been surprised if ckk still got booted. I can see concerns of firing prematurely but the scale almost tilted to had his chance. Some seem to be estatic with this nit postseason is what could be gave him the reprieve.. I hope for the best but another mediocre season and have start over again is certainly not the optimal soloution.. I'd love to see a big improvement and long term deal..but that's a gigantic big what if..
So I think Kruger has to take a step forward next year to keep his job, that's just my hunch. And it can't be a baby step like we finished in 3rd and got an NIT home game. I think he's gotta make the Tourney AND he's gotta get attendance up.
I would think that's a given, they have to extend him or cut him after next season and can't envision an extension because he makes the NIT again. If he makes the NCAA as an at large he should be good.
It would show continued, if slower than desired, growth. But I think too much slow growth is costing the athletic department money. Winning is the number 1 driver to getting butts into seats.
We averaged around 5.8k announced per game this last season, which is actually up over the first two Kruger years (5.2k and 5.6k respectively). But if those are the announced totals, the physical gate is probably 60-75 percent of that tops. I was watching a game and my wife walked in and saw a crowd shot and she couldn't believe how bad it was. Hell, the first Otz year where we went 17-15 we average 8.2k attendance. Marv's last year we were 8.8k attendance. We're winning at a better clip now than under either of those coaches, something else has got to be affecting attendance.
I feel like attendance, recruiting, market penetration, winning, and style are all inter-related when it comes to judging program success and all help with recruiting. There's a lot of competition with sport-related recreational dollars these days.
I think style is underrated as an attendance draw and a recruiting tool (and great recruiting is its own attendance draw). Whatever you say about Krugs, his brand of basketball is about as bland and milquetoast as you can get.
SDSU plays a terrible brand of offensive style basketball and still draws.. But you know what else brings people in... Winning. Style is over rated becuase as much fun as it would be to run up and down the court, if we cant stop the other team and cant win games or be competitive in a hunt for a title and birth, what difference does that make.
I think post Covid era having teams that weren't winning or competitively in the hunt for titles made attendance far less important to games. Its going to take multiple years of good seasons and NCAA tournament births/wins to increase attendance to something that rivals the late 2000's/early 2010's...
I think post Covid era having teams that weren't winning or competitively in the hunt for titles made attendance far less important to games. Its going to take multiple years of good seasons and NCAA tournament births/wins to increase attendance to something that rivals the late 2000's/early 2010's...
Winning should always come first, what I'm saying is that all things being equal style does play into things. IF you've got two 21-11 teams and one plays slow down basketball designed to keep games in the 60s and one that plays high pressure fast paced and scores in the 80s, I can guarantee you the more aesthetic brand of basketball will put more butts in seats and get more recruits.
SDSU recruits to a style that is super successful and aesthetically tough to watch if you don't like phone booth brawl defense. But I would argue that style IS an aesthetic of its own. They take teams wills away and are super physical, If we played defense like SDSU we would win more and that draws more. My argument is that these Kruger teams don't really have an identity or style--they're put together a bunch of parts without knowing how they're going to work and a lot of shifting things around. I would be super happy with the SDSU style/aesthetic because at least it would be an identity.
Winning is the most important part of attendance, but in a competitive market to pretend like with everything else equal style is irrelevant seems like willful denial.
And that became their foundation, their history, it’s what they are known for, it’s their identity.
If they went all Loyola Marymount and scored without defending, if they won, their fans would be ok with it, I’m sure. They’d accept that change as long as they win. If they did that and DIDN’T win, I’m sure they’d clamor … but I do think it’d be more palatable than doing the opposite, from a history of uptempo, exciting, athletic to slow and unathletic, deliberate.
For those that say style doesn’t matter … would you rather run and gun to the sweet 16 or slog it to the sweet 16? I think here, it does matter more. And I don’t think the winning and excitement needs to be to the extreme that it was. But we are the opposite in both style and success.
I think winning eventually cures all ills, but as you noted attendance was going down long ago so can't blame KK for that outside of the winning part which he controls. As you said a lot more competition for the sports dollar now than there was. Plus apathy has built up I think that is the largest contributor to lacking attendance since Marv started. Football was on the same trajectory and a new stadium had a lot to do with that but we had a new stadium last year too and we averaged 23K which was our highest average in how many years? At least since JRob if not longer. If we are good enough for an at large I think attendance will improve.
Style was an absolute must early on which made the Mass hire so jaw droppingly stupid. Then Spoon, another great one stylistically. But at this point we have lost so much is it just win baby.
CKK will get to the DANCE by default. What 6 teams made it? With almost no chance of even winning a game? maybe given a favorable matchups. The MWC is soft and keeps on getting softer as the years go on. Imagine Rice team 2012 in the current MWC. Roscoe Smith,Birch,Bennett,Reinhardt,Marshall,Q Thomas, Hawkins and B Jones . RICE would of runaway with the league won coach of the year. If kevin can pull even a TRIPLE (2 rbi) in the transfer portal at least for mountain west standards and I'll be content until the season starts. I don't know if there is money for a Will Wade , but that would be about the BEST thing to happen to our program .IMO. Would bring in better recruits In not only talent, but in schemes and in evaluating players. That is a guarantee. Wade will only get more $ and sought after next year. This is the perfect timming to grab him. Big buyout. Then it would bring a HUGE shot to the fan base and bring back fans that lost interest and bring a TON more new ones. It's a no brainer. CKK is just not the answer for any shot at any deep run in MARCH. CKK just has too many deficiencies. Maybe he shows a more if he can get better recruits? I doubt on both counts. Unless we get more Vegas players by default.
The MWC being so soft - I agree. That stems from the MWC offices. They can do a couple of things … you can’t really “force” … but you certainly can sternly emphasize playing some teams in OOC. UNLV would be fine with that, I feel like we were pretty near the sweet spot of not being too easy and not crushing yourself - the problem is we had the great opportunity and we had a spastic colon in the bed.
They can also emphasize the referees to call games more like post season. The MWC has always been notoriously bad with officiating but I bet every league feels like that. And it seems like UNLV gets screwed more than others, but I bet every team in conference feels that way, too. I know we were triply screwed vs Utah State. But no matter, the league needs to emphasize more physical play, less ticky tack if they want more success in the NCAAT. I think there’s a reason why SDSU does well post season … they’re physical.
So OOC scheduling and officiating two ways to help the league perform better, imo.
I also would like to see the MWCT rotated, to be honest. With UNLV having no HCA, it hurts us overall. Since there is no “reward” for winning the regular season title other than a #1 seed (they’ll get an at large, of course), incentivize/reward the regular season champion - the following year, they get to host the conference tournament. I get it that fans aren’t traveling to Logan or Laramie … but I feel like it’s more “fair”. If not, and it’s not a neutral city (Denver was a huge fail) … then I feel the Mack is best because so many fans travel here it minimizes UNLV’s HCA (even when we are good … so many fans traveling here dilutes the HCA, can you imagine it in ALBQ, huge HCA for UNM because not many fans will travel but their fans will show).
If he does #1, #2 will come along on its own. If he can't do #1, then #2 will not happen!
The MWC was just ahead of the curve. Now that all the conference tournaments are heading to Las Vegas, moving away isnt likely. Its to much of a destination for the conference to draw attendance to as a money. It sucks that the NCAA is now changing up the "home court" stance on these "neutral" court games, but on the flip side, its better for us when we eventually get our S*** together and start winning the thing.
The same as this year won't cut it. He needs to field a BETTER team than he had this year and I don't think he can do it. With the Boone Bros. Rodriguez and DJT this was supposed to be the year to get to the dance. Now with the seniors and super seniors departing ( and any portal entries) I just don't think he will be able to replace what he lost with better players than they were.
I think we will be pleasantly surprised with Cherry. He’s the #2 juco in the country. Prior to the new transfer portal craziness the top 15 or so juco players typically went to quality programs. He’s a real center.
I mean, Im as down and out about the needs to upgrade to be better next year, but to say we cant attract the type of player needed to make the difference is really selling the program short. Theres a lot of positives that this season can sell to a transfer and alot of transfers that can make positive impacts.
While I agree this year was supposed to be "the year" had we had a full assortment of players from the start, I dont think we lose to St. Marys or LMU and down the stretch vs UNR and SDSU. We really missed Keylans abilities at the start of the year and Kalib's abilities at the end. While I dont disagree that Kalib made a bunch of questionable decisions at times with the ball and missed a ton of easy baskets or disappeared at times, he managed to give us a decent 12ppg/5.2 rebounds. Some of those things just happen, sometimes its bad luck.... But that shouldn't mean we cant find or attract players good enough to compete again and change a couple results along the way and we were dancing... Playing unattractive style and making the NCAA tournament is fine by me. Im not throwing the towel in at "must make the Sweet 16 or else it was a lost season"...
While I agree this year was supposed to be "the year" had we had a full assortment of players from the start, I dont think we lose to St. Marys or LMU and down the stretch vs UNR and SDSU. We really missed Keylans abilities at the start of the year and Kalib's abilities at the end. While I dont disagree that Kalib made a bunch of questionable decisions at times with the ball and missed a ton of easy baskets or disappeared at times, he managed to give us a decent 12ppg/5.2 rebounds. Some of those things just happen, sometimes its bad luck.... But that shouldn't mean we cant find or attract players good enough to compete again and change a couple results along the way and we were dancing... Playing unattractive style and making the NCAA tournament is fine by me. Im not throwing the towel in at "must make the Sweet 16 or else it was a lost season"...
I’d say 19 out of 20 times, we overrate the hell out of incoming players and even moreso when they are JC or D2 or three star HS guys.
So we are Boise St? UNLV has way more to work with than ANY MWC team . With the right hire recruiting gets better. Talent evaluation is also key. Not depending on 4th and 5th year players for 1 maybe 2 years is also key. Have to build a foundation. Started in year 3.
To be fair though, the last 2 we've had have been decent to good... Juiston and Whaley...
Doesn't matter. Our advantage in facilities and history has meant nothing in the past 12 years and the competition has improved theirs... don't expect that to change over night. So yeah, I'd take Boise right now..
It's too late for Kevin to use a "foundation" approach, he has to win now and I laid out in another thread why trying to build a foundation of multiple guys for multiple years isn't a good approach for next year. You keep Whaley/DTJ/Hicks and bring in a few freshman and alot of experienced transfers. Maybe guys you can get a few years from, but that's also no longer college athletic landscape. So go get guys who can help win, they don't need to be flashy or top star recruits.
Tbh, I can’t really recall the former places of everyone on the past several rosters, esp JC. And decent, yes, but pretty one dimensional, no glaring strength. Not going to put you over the top.
NC State in Final 4 with 9 transfers. Coach was a high school coach prior to NCState. ?Academy which had great AAU teams.
I’m sure their total NIL compensation budget skyrocketed.
Kind of fools gold type run though. Impressive as it is, had they not made a desperation heave banked in 3 pointer vs Virginia, hes probably looking for a job.. I cant say why theyre having a historic March to remember and Id love to have one of our own, but theres a reason why coaches are on the hot seats and catching lightening in a bottle for 9 games doesnt seem like it should erase almost 3 years of under performing play..
** Note that doesnt mean its not a huge accomplishment and I wouldnt want that or advocating they should fire a coach that makes a Final 4.
I don’t like complete flukes saving jobs for coaches either … it’s over-reaction.
Part of me hopes Boise fell into this trap with their new Football coach...
