Is this where you thought we would be? | The Boneyard

Is this where you thought we would be?

Year 4 of the rebuild. Where do we stand?

  • We are ahead of schedule

    Votes: 15 8.1%

  • We are on schedule

    Votes: 162 87.6%

  • We are behind schedule

    Votes: 8 4.3%
  • Total voters
    185
XLCenterFan

XLCenterFan

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As we approach our in-person return to the BE, is this where you thought we would be at this moment? Year 4 of the rebuild. We are ranked, we are recruiting, and we are winning. Good times are surely back. A few years ago after a loss at Nova, Danny said "you better get us now...cause it's coming." I feel like now has passed. They had their time to get us.
 
At the end of the Ollie years, I couldn’t have possibly imagined we’d be back here so fast. The AAC seemed like a black hole that we couldn’t get out of and we seemed to recruit the same style of kids cyclically that were raw talents but couldn’t adapt to a half court offense. Danny changed that immediately, but if I’m being honest I would have thought Danny would have instituted a better offensive structure and identity by now. Think of how different this team will be next year to this; none of the bigs we have next year will be capable of hard hedging screens 40 feet from the bucket like Whaley (which infuriates me but he’s so good at). So I guess it’s a bit of a mixed bag at this point. Compared to Ollie we are so far ahead of my hopes. Compared to Hurley year 1 I would have hoped for slightly more identity and direction in the team for the future
 
XLCenterFan said:
As we approach our in-person return to the BE, is this where you thought we would be at this moment? Year 4 of the rebuild. We are ranked, we are recruiting, and we are winning. Good times are surely back. A few years ago after a loss at Nova, Danny said "you better get us now...cause it's coming." I feel like now has passed. They had their time to get us.
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No
 
On schedule but at the same time, not reaching their full potential YET.

UConn is so tantalizingly close to being undefeated. Knockdown just one extra 3 vs WV on the road, get one-stop vs MSU and this is an undefeated, top 10 team. This Providence game this weekend is incredibly important as far as remaining on track. Start of the BE play with a resounding win!
 
Travelman32 said:
On schedule but at the same time, not reaching their full potential YET.

UConn is so tantalizingly close to being undefeated. Knockdown just one extra 3 vs WV on the road, get one-stop vs MSU and this is an undefeated, top 10 team. This Providence game this weekend is incredibly important as far as remaining on track. Start of the BE play with a resounding win!
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They would not have beaten Baylor. And, to answer the question, they are pretty much on schedule for how they saw this thing going.
 
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MJKI said:
At the end of the Ollie years, I couldn’t have possibly imagined we’d be back here so fast. The AAC seemed like a black hole that we couldn’t get out of and we seemed to recruit the same style of kids cyclically that were raw talents but couldn’t adapt to a half court offense. Danny changed that immediately, but if I’m being honest I would have thought Danny would have instituted a better offensive structure and identity by now. Think of how different this team will be next year to this; none of the bigs we have next year will be capable of hard hedging screens 40 feet from the bucket like Whaley (which infuriates me but he’s so good at). So I guess it’s a bit of a mixed bag at this point. Compared to Ollie we are so far ahead of my hopes. Compared to Hurley year 1 I would have hoped for slightly more identity and direction in the team for the future
Expand ...
Agree with everything you've said, but watch for Sampson Johnson on the hedging screens. I don't think anyone will ever be as good as Isaiah, but, from my vantage point, Sampson has shown flashes, and with more court time could be a close second.
 
MJKI said:
At the end of the Ollie years, I couldn’t have possibly imagined we’d be back here so fast. The AAC seemed like a black hole that we couldn’t get out of and we seemed to recruit the same style of kids cyclically that were raw talents but couldn’t adapt to a half court offense. Danny changed that immediately, but if I’m being honest I would have thought Danny would have instituted a better offensive structure and identity by now. Think of how different this team will be next year to this; none of the bigs we have next year will be capable of hard hedging screens 40 feet from the bucket like Whaley (which infuriates me but he’s so good at). So I guess it’s a bit of a mixed bag at this point. Compared to Ollie we are so far ahead of my hopes. Compared to Hurley year 1 I would have hoped for slightly more identity and direction in the team for the future
Expand ...
hansonel-amin said:
Agree with everything you've said, but watch for Sampson Johnson on the hedging screens. I don't think anyone will ever be as good as Isaiah, but, from my vantage point, Sampson has shown flashes, and with more court time could be a close second.
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Agree with all this… Remember Whaley took a few years to hit his stride and crack the lineup. Some of the other guys will get better at hedging screens… Sanogo looks better and more mobile than he did last year, no reason he can’t improve even more. Or Samson.

That said, nobody will be as good as Whaley at it, but he’s one of the (if not THE) best we’ve seen at hedging screens here.
 
QuickDraw said:
Most of us would have been satisfied with a 9-2 record at this point before the season had begun.
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Before the season, yes. 100%.

But watching that MSU game slip away...This team could easily be 10-1, with perhaps a (likely?) loss coming to Baylor, hopefully in a hard-fought close game. Or watching that slugfest vs. WVU, even with the loss to MSU, same feelings.
NJHoops said:
They would not have beaten Baylor. And, to answer the question, they are pretty much on schedule for how they saw this thing going.
Expand ...

True, or, most likely true.
 
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On schedule in my view. I do feel like last season, with the injuries to Andre and Bouknight and the lack of games to develop the players, held us back a bit. The absolute stinker against Maryland showed how much needed to be done. This season we had a lousy stinker game vs WVU that should absolutely have been a win. Against MSU our problem was at least caused by their D, against WVU it was self inflicted. But then the guys played out of their minds and beat an Auburn team that maybe they shouldn't have. Should be a one loss team, whether Baylor or MSU.

Now they need to prove they learned something from those losses. St. Bonaventure was a good start, especially closing it out. Hurley continues to recruit well, and soon we will only have players he brought in. I remain concerned with his inflexible approach to defense. I have never seen a team that was so incapable or unwilling to change defenses even for a few minutes, as needed. He has to have that in his bag of tools or we remain limited.
 
I've thought about this question a lot over the past few years so I'm glad it's been asked. I voted "on schedule". These last two years, plus the tail-end of the 2019-2020 season, showed us just how bad the Ollie era was in terms of recruiting, coaching and talent. It hasn't always been pretty, but I think the benchmark last year was getting back to the tournament and not losing our footing in the Big East, with any tourney wins being extra credit. Check that box.

This year, IMO, the benchmark is not a Championship/FF/E8, etc. I think it's probably one tourney win at a minimum and the ceiling may be Sweet 16, but it's early still and I'm traditionally more pessimistic. What I really want to see is us to be able to close out games against top BE brass (Nova, Creighton, etc.) plus the OOC schedule. So far, we've seen hints of success in that regard but it's not consistent. If we do that, I vote "ahead of schedule" but I'd say we're in between those two areas, with recruiting being the skew to the upside.
 
XLCenterFan said:
As we approach our in-person return to the BE, is this where you thought we would be at this moment? Year 4 of the rebuild. We are ranked, we are recruiting, and we are winning. Good times are surely back. A few years ago after a loss at Nova, Danny said "you better get us now...cause it's coming." I feel like now has passed. They had their time to get us.
Expand ...
Good poll. The results show that the Boneyard is much more measured and positive than the majority of posts would suggest.
 
others have made this point, but i think bouknight had the team a bit ahead of schedule last year. the goal for year 3 should always have been "just make the ncaa tournament" but lots of us (me included) wanted more because hurley found a lottery pick in the top-75.

the goal for this year should be to make the tournament with a higher seed and win a couple of games. we are on track to do that. it's been a hell of a ride!
 
8893 said:
Good poll. The results show that the Boneyard is much more measured and positive than the majority of posts would suggest.
Expand ...

All comes back to the phenomenon of those who are displeased being the most vocal in expressing their grievances. Silent majority lurking here to get info about the team probably doesn't post much but will click a button for the poll.
 
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For the rebuild, I wanted:

Year 1: Show improvement (check, went up 70 spots in KenPom).
Year 2: Continue improvement, finish with winning record in conference, get to bubble, use that as narrative to turn around recruiting (check - Akok and Jackson top 50 recruits, Sanogo right there, Big East news helped).
Year 3: Make the tournament. Capitalize on actualizing the narrative with even better recruiting (Check, top 10 class, best class we've had in years since title class)
Year 4: Consistently ranked, top 4 seed (so far so good, been ranking all season and metrics put us at a top 5-6 seed so far).

So yeah, basically gone exactly to plan. Kinda eerie, really.
 
HuskyHawk said:
On schedule in my view. I do feel like last season, with the injuries to Andre and Bouknight and the lack of games to develop the players, held us back a bit. The absolute stinker against Maryland showed how much needed to be done. This season we had a lousy stinker game vs WVU that should absolutely have been a win. Against MSU our problem was at least caused by their D, against WVU it was self inflicted. But then the guys played out of their minds and beat an Auburn team that maybe they shouldn't have. Should be a one loss team, whether Baylor or MSU.

Now they need to prove they learned something from those losses. St. Bonaventure was a good start, especially closing it out. Hurley continues to recruit well, and soon we will only have players he brought in. I remain concerned with his inflexible approach to defense. I have never seen a team that was so incapable or unwilling to change defenses even for a few minutes, as needed. He has to have that in his bag of tools or we remain limited.
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Maybe he's saving some of it for Big East play, and also waiting for the team to "get it right" with the new defenses in practice.

That's my theory (which could end up being completely wrong)
 
at this moment in time, recruiting wise ahead of schedule, results wise on schedule. but the latter will probably change based on how we finish the season.
 
MJKI said:
At the end of the Ollie years, I couldn’t have possibly imagined we’d be back here so fast. The AAC seemed like a black hole that we couldn’t get out of and we seemed to recruit the same style of kids cyclically that were raw talents but couldn’t adapt to a half court offense. Danny changed that immediately, but if I’m being honest I would have thought Danny would have instituted a better offensive structure and identity by now. Think of how different this team will be next year to this; none of the bigs we have next year will be capable of hard hedging screens 40 feet from the bucket like Whaley (which infuriates me but he’s so good at). So I guess it’s a bit of a mixed bag at this point. Compared to Ollie we are so far ahead of my hopes. Compared to Hurley year 1 I would have hoped for slightly more identity and direction in the team for the future
Expand ...
I think Danny wanted to create our identity first. First we needed to get the kids that could play that style, then we can create that identity of an athletic, aggressive, high motor team. I think he's doing that now.

From here we continue to improve talent and hone our offense, but the identity has to come first..
 
auror said:
For the rebuild, I wanted:

Year 1: Show improvement (check, went up 70 spots in KenPom).
Year 2: Continue improvement, finish with winning record in conference, get to bubble, use that as narrative to turn around recruiting (check - Akok and Jackson top 50 recruits, Sanogo right there, Big East news helped).
Year 3: Make the tournament. Capitalize on actualizing the narrative with even better recruiting (Check, top 10 class, best class we've had in years since title class)
Year 4: Consistently ranked, top 4 seed (so far so good, been ranking all season and metrics put us at a top 5-6 seed so far).

So yeah, basically gone exactly to plan. Kinda eerie, really.
Expand ...
What year do we win #5?
 
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auror said:
Elite 8 or better next year if everyone minus Whaley and Polley comes back.
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cole is an absolute must for us to even be a top 25 team.

i'd love to have martin back too and play an unstoppable small ball lineup of cole/hawk/aj/martin/sanogo but i'm not holding my breath for him to return...

so the question mark is akok. can he be the starting PF on an elite 8 contender? i'm not fully confident in that YET but if he keeps playing well he'll change my mind.

a bench mob of digg/gaff/karaban/samson/clingan is wild. speaking of AK if he's enrolling this spring shouldn't we have heard by now?
 
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bendm said:
cole is an absolute must for us to even be a top 25 team.

i'd love to have martin back too and play an unstoppable small ball lineup of cole/hawk/aj/martin/sanogo but i'm not holding my breath for him to return...

so the question mark is akok. can he be the starting PF on an elite 8 contender? i'm not fully confident in that YET but if he keeps playing well he'll change my mind.

a bench mob of digg/gaff/karaban/samson/clingan is wild. speaking of AK if he's enrolling this spring shouldn't we have heard by now?
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He is not returning early. He is staying at IMG, hoping to play in the new year
 
Beating MSU instead of VCU would have made losing to WVU more palatable. So about on schedule but we didn't make as much hay in the OOC as I would have liked. Just like in the AAC, there will be pressure to finish at the top 3 of the BE for seeding if not for a bid.
 
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