Can't wait

[superjohn]

You folks would be saying the exact same thing about Enoch were he the one with AB's minutes all year long.

Enoch is a soph.

 

[TheChamps990411]

AB was totally lost in this game and to top it off he was out hustled to the ball by the white center on Houston on every loose ball. There was one time were AB didn't even crash the boards and just looked. I'm sorry but I'm so through with AB and his weak play and no offense. Yes he can make some great blocks but he has developed nothing else in his 4 years. Love the kid for the St. Joe's game but it is time to turn the page on him and I don't even know who are Center will be next year. LOL! I just know I can't deal with a guy like AB on the floor who brings so little to team especially on offense and rebounding.

I can tell when Uconn loses just by the posts calling for someone to leave,get benched or fired lol!

 

[King Husky]

I've been a defender of Brimah. Love the kid. Great spirit. Not a good basketball player.

Same with me. Ollie simply asks way too much of him. At best, this is a guy who should start the game, play 3 minutes, and then become a 15 min per game bench player, sharing minutes with Enoch and the other guys.

 

[UConnfan8]

I'm just curious. Were you off the planet when we got Zach Brown?

And then what happened remind me because I must have been off

 

[Stainmaster]

Enoch is a soph.

Half the board has already given up on him ever contributing even though he's only played significant minutes for maybe a few weeks during his career this far.

 

[BUConn10]

Only crazy homers look at kids ranked in the 240s nationwide coming in and expect considerable improvement.

"Well, the last center from Africa we had was the #2 overall pick, so..."

See, you say something like this then in a thread tomorrow about recruiting bigs you will reply to someone pointing out our misses in recruiting ready-to-play bigs and you will make some recycled "UConn has won most of its titles with unheralded players that we developed into stars" or some other candystriped response.

You don't really ever hold a solid position in this regard, you play each individual thread and pick the position that gives the air of superiority, yet your position has always been "UConn is fine" regarding any and all discussions. Try thinking outside the box.

 

[Matrim55]

Enough of these project big men. Get a recruiter who can go get a top 20 big man every year.

So basically hire Coach K or Calipari as an assistant, then?

I mean, even UNC doesn't get a top 20 big every year. And Syracuse's top 20 big (Coleman) didn't play tonight.

Apropos of everything: We've signed six four-star PFs or Cs (Enoch, Durham, Diarra, Brown, Polley, Carlton) and the top postgrad big (Miller) over the past three years.

 

[Stainmaster]

I'm not saying it's easy. I'm saying that our pride and expectations should befit the status we want for this program.

We can't say "of course we're blue bloods, look at all our trophies" and then turn around and say "gee, we can't recruit or develop bigs anymore, that's just the way it is, folks".

If we're blue bloods, ****ing act like it. And that includes high expectations for our players and coaching staff.

You made a deliberate choice to keep your expectations the same when we replaced the greatest coach of all time with someone whose only coaching experiences was 2 years as a collegiate assistant. You chose to look at this program through the same eyes when we were plucked from the best conference in the history of the sport to a mid-major with Tulsa, Tulane, and ECU. The expectations you've assigned are unfortunately not congruent with reality. All things being equal, we all want the same 39-0 tourney runs and recruiting classes of 5 lottery picks per year that you want. Some of just know that isn't feasible.

 

[superjohn]

Half the board has already given up on him ever contributing even though he's only played significant minutes for maybe a few weeks during his career this far.

I would have liked to have seen Enoch given more minutes to develop this season. He's still a mess on defense but he has legit offensive skills, the only way at becoming less raw is game minutes.

 

[3rdbass]

Half the board has already given up on him ever contributing even though he's only played significant minutes for maybe a few weeks during his career this far.

Well it would have been great for KO to let him play some more minutes in a game to work on his D. The kid will never get confidence in his game if you don't let him play through his mistakes and this was the perfect time for more minutes with AB playing so poorly.

 

[Tenspro2002]

YES. YES THEY WERE. IDIOTS WITH FLAMES SHOOTING OUT OF THEIR HEADS. 4 points and 3 rebounds per game? One monster outburst against UCF? People think that we send players to league "because we're UConn and we have some magic secret sauce that makes kids stars whenever they put on the uniform." Look at all of the big men we brought in who went to the league. They were all universally regarded so, so much higher than Brimah ever was. Take a gander at some of the bigs who've entered early the past few years. How many of them only had UConn and La Salle as their only DI offers?

This makes no sense when viewed in context with your comments on Carlton. Low-ranked kids like Brimah are expected to be good as lottery picks, yet Carlton's lack of a spot in the Top 100 is indicative of the sky falling?

You're a smart guy, so I'm disappointed you ignored the nuance of what I was saying.

Brimah was a low-rated recruit, who nonetheless showed flashes (not UCF, which was clearly an outlier) of great potential as a freshman. He was arguably more capable than Thabeet was as a freshman.

NBA draft talk aside, it wasn't unreasonable to evaluate Brimah's freshman year and say "holy s***, if this guy develops over 2-3 years, he's going to be a monster".

And then he never developed. Scarcely any improvement in rebounding, offensive arsenal, feel for the game.

Year 1: Brimah was a pleasant surprise
expectations reasonably re-adjusted
Year 2-4: Brimah was a massive disappointment relative to those more recent expectations based on more information

Why would you evaluate Brimah's years 2-4 based on his recruiting ranking and not based on what he showed in year 1?

 

[Tenspro2002]

You made a deliberate choice to keep your expectations the same when we replaced the greatest coach of all time with someone whose only coaching experiences was 2 years as a collegiate assistant.

And why should a program of our cachet had to settle on someone whose only coaching experience was 2 years as a collegiate assistant? That screams "small time".

 

[Matrim55]

And why should a program of our cachet had to settle on someone whose only coaching experience was 2 years as a collegiate assistant? That screams "small time".

We should've signed a can't-miss big name like Shaka Smart or a Final 4 machine like Sean Miller.

 

[ctchamps]

I'm not saying it's easy. I'm saying that our pride and expectations should befit the status we want for this program.

We can't say "of course we're blue bloods, look at all our trophies" and then turn around and say "gee, we can't recruit or develop bigs anymore, that's just the way it is, folks".

If we're blue bloods, ****ing act like it. And that includes high expectations for our players and coaching staff.

So there it is. I've been wondering why you conveniently omit Zach Brown every time you diss recruiting. It would interfere with your need to bash the coaching staff if you considered circumstances that are legitimate for bad seasons and might be defenses for this staff.

 

[Stainmaster]

See, you say something like this then in a thread tomorrow about recruiting bigs you will reply to someone pointing out our misses in recruiting ready-to-play bigs and you will make some recycled "UConn has won most of its titles with unheralded players that we developed into stars" or some other candystriped response.

You don't really ever hold a solid position in this regard, you play each individual thread and pick the position that gives the air of superiority, yet your position has always been "UConn is fine" regarding any and all discussions. Try thinking outside the box.

Apples and oranges. We have had no issue incorporating under-recruited guys as important contributors on title teams. Most of them barely sniff the NBA, much less as early entrants. Giffey is perhaps the best and he only got one look in the summer league. Also, borderline 4-star guys like Shabazz and Emeka were in completely different universes than Brimah coming out of school. I'm pretty sure both of them had more than 2 DI offers.

 

[huskymagic]

My favorite topic. Let's be clear Amida did not have a good game today, but the few passes that did come his way were either bullet passes by his ankles or some horribly timed passes that had no chance to be successful. The head coach and the guards on this team know what Amida is capable of and where he needs the ball to be succesful like at the rim or passes waist high or above. Amida is the only big man that other coaches have to game plan against due to his shot blocking talent and elite athleticism and length. Of course we will see next year with Mamadou, Carlton, Durham and Enoch how wonderful of an upgrade they will be over Brimah.

Amida is the LEAST of our problems today and every other day. The lack of elite quickness and athleticism this team has without Amida is pretty obvious. The guards were getting beat off the dribble at will and were picking up foul after foul as was Facey. No our problems are much bigger and lie directly with the coaching staff and recruiting and developing supposed talent, and putting them in a position to succeed.

 

[Stainmaster]

And why should a program of our cachet had to settle on someone whose only coaching experience was 2 years as a collegiate assistant? That screams "small time".

Yeah you're right, why didn't the AD tell Calhoun to pound sand? The man was the best person to ever do what he did - to think he wasn't going to be handpicking his successor is ludicrous.

Also, I hate to say it, but whomever your preferred pick was at the time would still be incredibly deficient in many areas when compared to Calhoun. A dropoff was happening no matter who came in to replace him.

 

[superjohn]

So basically hire Coach K or Calipari as an assistant, then?

I mean, even UNC doesn't get a top 20 big every year. And Syracuse's top 20 big (Coleman) didn't play tonight.

Apropos of everything: We've signed six four-star PFs or Cs (Enoch, Durham, Diarra, Brown, Polley, Carlton) and the top postgrad big (Miller) over the past three years.

Durham can become really good but he is coming off of two major knee injuries and wasn't ready to play this season, Diarra has a chronic knee problem that caused a redshirt, Brown was never going to play here, Polley is a 190 lb. small forward ranked 138th in the country, and Carlton is ranked 180th.

 

[BUConn10]

Apples and oranges. We have had no issue incorporating under-recruited guys as important contributors on title teams. Most of them barely sniff the NBA, much less as early entrants. Giffey is perhaps the best and he only got one look in the summer league. Also, borderline 4-star guys like Shabazz and Emeka were in completely different universes than Brimah coming out of school. I'm pretty sure both of them had more than 2 DI offers.

In what way is that apples and oranges.

 

[Stainmaster]

In what way is that apples and oranges.

Contributing on a championship team vs. NBA draft status/leaving early for the NBA. Those are two different things last time I checked.

 

[Tenspro2002]

Yeah you're right, why didn't the AD tell Calhoun to pound sand? The man was the best person to ever do what he did - to think he wasn't going to be handpicking his successor is ludicrous.

Also, I hate to say it, but whomever your preferred pick was at the time would still be incredibly deficient in many areas when compared to Calhoun. A dropoff was happening no matter who came in to replace him.

I don't care about the politics of it -- having a coach with 2 years as an assistant forced upon a program of our stature was ludicrous. A dropoff after JC is reasonable, but if we want to be thought of as a big-time program on the national stage, we should have acted like it.

 

[Stainmaster]

I don't care about the politics of it -- having a coach with 2 years as an assistant forced upon a program of our stature was ludicrous. A dropoff after JC is reasonable, but if we want to be thought of as a big-time program on the national stage, we should have acted like it.

Well, it already happened. And it can't be undone. So it's up to you whether or not you make your peace with it.

 

[Tenspro2002]

Well, it already happened. And it can't be undone. So it's up to you whether or not you make your peace with it.

I guess some of us accept the deterioration of this program more easily than others.

You're what every Syracuse fan hopes to see out of this program and its fanbase.

 

[whaler11]

I gotta say I enjoyed the blue colored glasses after beating down some bad teams a lot more than reading this thread. Yikes.

 

[3rdbass]

My favorite topic. Let's be clear Amida did not have a good game today, but the few passes that did come his way were either bullet passes by his ankles or some horribly timed passes that had no chance to be successful. The head coach and the guards on this team know what Amida is capable of and where he needs the ball to be succesful like at the rim or passes waist high or above. Amida is the only big man that other coaches have to game plan against due to his shot blocking talent and elite athleticism and length. Of course we will see next year with Mamadou, Carlton, Durham and Enoch how wonderful of an upgrade they will be over Brimah.

Amida is the LEAST of our problems today and every other day. The lack of elite quickness and athleticism this team has without Amida is pretty obvious. The guards were getting beat off the dribble at will and were picking up foul after foul as was Facey. No our problems are much bigger and lie directly with the coaching staff and recruiting and developing supposed talent, and putting them in a position to succeed.

You must of missed the whole second half were AB was glued to floor and get out hustled by the Houston Center. There was one play were he was just looking at the guards try to rebound against Houston bigs and made no effort to try for the rebound. He was also glued on the floor on defense and moved horribly. It wasnt' the offense that we are talking about but the horrible defense and rebounding. True our guards played bad besides JA but AB was a total non-factor inside when we needed something there.