Great question!!!
Well said except we don’t agree on the bolded part of your post, the winning streak was “smoke and mirrors” and to be kept, he should have to make a tournament either NCAA or NIT at least. CBI does not count!
I really feel that Whaley can turn into a poor mans KJ Adams. His game is very similar to how KJ played 2 years ago and Im really looking for him to be given a chance to play at the right spot rather than a pseudo 5 role that we know Lon and now Kevin love. Give Whaley a chance with a true big man type that forces the defense to switch smaller guys onto him that he can take off the dribble and dunk over. Add in a real shooting threat- I mean there's got to be someone that will be on the look for a new spot that can hit 35-40% consistently. But overall the recruiting/roster cant go through these weird over compensations that KK has had. We are a longer team this year vs the more guard oriented teams we had last year but the results havent been dominating the glass but rather sacrificing the ability to cut and dish to big men or open shooters and when we do have open shooters, they cant hit the shots. Again weve become one man band offensively late in the season with Dedan, just like we were with Bryce and Harkless..
The other side of this is our style of play isnt built to come back from large deficits either. If we get down early it becomes really hard to get back into the game, because we dont run in transition often and cant shoot well enough to claw back large leads. Id really like to find a guy that doesnt need to be the "scoring" threat, but can hit 4 or 5 3s in a game if needed to just open things up or get a run back in the positive direction.
I still think it is too early to say that Kevin can't be a good long term answer here.
I can't fault anyone for not agreeing with that, though I don't think it was all smoke and mirrors anymore than the first part of the season was a mirage. I personally hope they move on even if we make it to an tournament--but I also think that the improvement on the overall record and conference position over the last 2 years will give the AD enough ammunition to keep him another year if he doesn't have a hire lined up already.
So, I wonder how many seasons does he get before he puts together a NCAA worthy product? How many more seasons of cupcake city non-cons and bottom 20% pace despite not running anything worthy of being called an offense does he get before it's no longer too early. Bayno and Lon both got a tournament appearance in year 3, every other head coach in UNLV history that didn't get a dance by year 3 got their walking papers, Rice got his after 3 years straight where he wasn't going dancing.
So he's not stubborn because he refused to change something that wasn't working. Got it. Probably not the best example haha.
Every single school has man to man packages if you're not Jim Boeheim (and even he ran some some seasons). The fundamental difference between the trapping match up man and good man with double teams isn't that far apart. If you go into a season and say 'I'm only going to play one defense', then unless you're absolutely elite at it, you had better have some other cards in your deck. Tark ran the Amoeba occasionally from man to man, and ran 1-2-2/1-2-2- match up his final year. And you don't need to be great at two defenses, you just need to be able to run a 2nd one with a pulse once people figure out your gimmick. Sticking to a gimmick defense despite everyone figuring it out is STUBBORN or defeatist. Everything else is just excuses.
DTJ is a quality asset to be sure. But he was helping us recruit this year and Pharoah and Taj both ended up at our rival, Khaman Maker never answered our phone calls, We did get Pape, who is a project but should provide some rebounding and defense, but who else is left in the valley to recruit?
I like Hicks and Whaley a lot, but neither is even an all-conference honorable mention type player, both have relatively limited games as things stand right now. Hill is going to be coming off an ACL and I'd be amazed if he's back to 100% at the start of next year. Cottrell, Nowell, and JJ3 are useful depth pieces but all severely limited in some way. This isn't Dedan Thomas Sr, JR RIder, Dexter Boney, Evric Gray, Reggie Manuel. This isn't Jerel Blassingame, Odartey Blankson, Romel Beck, Michael Umeh, and Lou Amundsen. This isn't even Dalron Johnson, Lou Kelly, Jevon Banks, and Chris Richardson. If we're being super honest, I don't think it's even Bryce Hamilton, Amauri Hardy, and Cheikh Mbacke Diong quality returning. It's DTJ (and who knows if he won't be poached to a big NIL school) and some potential. I think beyond DTJ you can probalby upgrade with with the right coach across all those positions. Sprinkle did it at Utah State. Abdur-Rahim did it at South Florida.
So the question is how close is he to having a tournament worthy product?
It was a mistake. But I don't think it is that easy to switch to a regular man at high level when you drill a help culture over and over for 3 months. You help when you aren't supposed to you, have breakdowns and it gets ugly fast. They talked on the broadcast against SDSU this last game how much they practice defensive concepts, even though they don't change much. It's not that easy to throw out an effective man D at this level when you haven't practiced.
I was thinking more in the portal. Can't count on DJ more than next year and HS recruiting is over. But after his growth and production this season, I can see some quality players want to come and play with him. Also given the need for a quality guard that can do some combination of guard, facilitate and/or shoot it can be a pretty intriguing possibility for someone looking to make a impact on a Tournament level team.
I'll give you the Dedan/Rider/Boney/Gray/Manuel squad. That was a really good team. But the other examples? No one you listed was as impactful as DJ has been this season, other than Hamilton maybe, but I would trade DJ's ability to pass over Hamilton's ability to score. Also think of Bryce coming off his freshman season vs DJ?? I like Whaley a lot and I think he can be an all conference type player, especially since JUCOs often get a bit of a jump their second season. I do think we have a solid core coming back that can become a squad with some portal additions.
So I wrote a longer response with a more point by point, but somehow it's gone and I can't make myself do the whole thing.
Skill wise, not chemistry or attitude wise (necessarily), but this team with a Harkless or Hamilton, even a Gilbert … would have done well. We had no go to guy, it ended up going to our youngest and most inexperienced player and he did well with it all things considered. Having a capable scorer off ball would have made everything about the offense better.
I remember end of last year wanting both guys to go so the roster spot would be open. Webster finished with a solid 3pt % but he was incredibly inconsistent and terrible defensively and turned the ball over so many times in critical spots... that trend didn't change. Just wondering on guards we missed out on because our "talent assessment" said they'd be 8-10 ppg contributors
The overestimation of nearly every player’s contributions is and has been rampant. He’s a big, he will give us 12/7 for sure. He’s a guard, he’s going to give us 11/5/4. It’s almost always a failure in guesses. They might hit those numbers after a couple years of experience but it’s always for another school.
Fair enough. With that team. Maybe not fair to the players, but they didn't perform terribly well under Lon which takes shine off of them in my eyes. Different coach, philosophy, etc that can happen. But one thing that you are missing is the transfer angle. It makes it tough to compare since the game has changed. But considering Kevin has been good at bringing some proven talent from power conferences each year, and it has improved each year, that is tough to directly compare right now. You could make the argument that any incoming coach could do the same, but Kevin has been better than most, especially others in our conference, in bringing in high major guys that have already established themselves at the highest level.
A few things happened this year that effected our back court.
Kevin has done a nice job with transfer talent on paper, but I've found that roster construction still is subpar. If you wanted Brooklyn Hicks to be your combo guard then you have to find him minutes sooner--of course when your season starts off as a dumpster fire it can be hard to get young guys burn.
I understand and empathize with your sentiment, but the job is the job. But if you have your dad pull strings and call in favors to get you the position despite a lack of qualifications, I don't think it's fair to post hoc say 'well, I don't have the qualifications for job I pulled strings to get, so can you grade me on a curve'. I think we can agree to disagree here.
Preach. It's been this way since Tark has been gone--and if you're really honest with yourself you know Tark was loved by the community but had real issues with administration and that was eventually got him Finfrocked. Since then there's always been a divide on the coaching staff especially on rebel.net. I feel that perhaps too many of us aren't open to opposing view points. That's why I always try to have discussions with the people I don't necessarily agree with. That's far more interesting to me than an echo chamber.
Lon raised money and got results, but he didn't recruit well and it put a ceiling on what he was able to get out of the program. I was on the side of finding a new solution rather than try to match the Oklahoma offer. I think history shows that it probably wasn't my smartest position. I think this is also a peculiar place to win big, and it requires a lot of positive qualities that Kruger doesn't presently have. I don't think anyone knows if/when/how much he'll grow--it's all opinion and extrapolation at this point. I personally don't see it happening in a time frame that makes sense, but I'm not foolish enough to state that as a concrete fact.
For all of our discussion about differences, we're actually SUPER close here. I would prefer to move on from Kevin, but I think he's done enough to get another year at this point and I think that as you stated earlier, it really depends on whether Harp is looking to keep him or move on--and really either position has its risks.
Lon loved to be able to switch screens 1-5 if he could, and I think there's a bit of that in Kevin--but with that kind of length you can do a lot with a 2-3 or 1-3-1 as well. And while our 1-3-1 this year wasn't exactly crisp, it wasn't terrible either.
I think the problem with Cottrell beyond the injuries (which are definitely a factor) is that he's a wing in a 5 body/athleticism. However, he's not proven to be a good shooter or screen setter--maybe that's the foot. Big men's careers are ended by foot issues, but I find screens are mostly desire and toughness. I think Cottrell is a little soft when it comes to that contact, maybe the fragility is in the back of his head.
I think we do have a bit of a disagreement here, which is fine.
Noway he gets another a shot. Maybe Div 2 gig? What % chance do u really think he is here in 2-3 years? I think 10% . Nobody is going to poach him. Unless his DAD has some far reaching influence. List of negatives far outweighs the positives. $ not there? Then u stick with him.
You also don't say you're going to serve brisket and have 4 hours to cook it and say 'well, if you would have given me more time it would have been great'. I'm hungry NOW.
Rules are : you cannot use Utah State as a comparison, it’s not fair, they can recruit better and even though they’ve had 5 coaches in 10 years, they were all assistants on the previous staff and they just did what Dutcher did, carry on with the same exact philosophy. You cannot use Odom as an example, it’s not fair, because UNLV football had success and he just built upon it. You cannot use Lindy as an example, UNLV was on the cusp of breaking through, she had every piece in place, plus she had oodles of head coach experience and she was hired at a very high price tag, so she better get it done!
I am not trying to ignore the bad losses. Not at all. I said this season is not good enough to be the standard.
So if we're going to live and die by the BBQ allegory let me try and kind of put it into terms that match my relative impatience with the situation.
Anything that doesn’t fit your actual conclusion is going to be considered a bad example to you, don’t you see that?
If he wins consistently playing ugly, earning NCAA postseason bids almost every year, we'll learn to love it just like Aztec fans have.
But in this case, you can’t blame those of us who think a reset would be best. Like someone else said in another post and I enjoyed his post but I want my brisket NOW not later! My hope is Harper moves on from Kevin like he did Arroyo but hey that’s just my opinion!
One thing I leaned from KU vs Cincinnati game last night. You have to have a bench. If the most successful program in Big 12 can't recruit how do you make a bench better. Tark did it, Kruger did it with tremendously hard practices. The practices at Baylor and Houston are tougher than the games. Ditto U Conn. The answer is coaching and facilities. We have the facilities but not the coaches to push improvement in practice. KK calls it attitude. I call it lack of a scheme. Watch BYU vs Texas Tech to see if shooting form as in BYU beats defense as in TT. As I said earlier, season tickets for me are a question mark because of the scheme. Boring basketball is bad for players and fans.
The problems with this is that the party (fans) all are expecting steak from the beginning. All of them like brisket when its ready, but they are hungry now. They were told it would be brisket and not steak, but most of the party is not willing to wait, even though they would really enjoy the brisket ( if it turns out) when it is done.
I mean, as someone who watches KU, losing Dickenson and McCullar is 38ppg and no bench as young and talented as they are is going to make that difference up as full time starters. KUs issues are around shooting, they don't shoot the 3 well and when you get down in a game and can't shoot and you're missing your inside presence it's not a good recipe. It'd be like us losing Both Boones and LuRod and expect Hicks and JJ to make up their productivity. KUs bench is adequate at being bench players, but not replacing 2 All Americans...
So tell me why Pitino is bad example again? Just because I brought it up? He fits your Barry Odom example quite well actually. I told you exactly why your examples are not very valid. UNM has been in a shockingly similar situation to us. I honestly don't know if there is a better comparison.
