Reply to thread

Message: [QUOTE="LStudfellow, post: 2239584, member: 5436"] A combination of things happened over the last 5 years Superjohn - taken separately they could have been straightened out by now, but put together you can see the path that has led us to this current lowly state. And then the question becomes: have the right steps been taken to reverse/change this course? The next year or two of recruiting are key, in combination with whether Chillious and Daniel were the right guys to help our bigs improve more once they are on campus. Here is how we got to this current state: 1. 2012 - our two best bigs (Oriahki and Roscoe Smith) transferred out, as did our young project big at the time (Michael Bradley). 2. 2013-2014 - recruiting sanctions and negative recruiting against us limited our big men recruiting to getting a project big (Brimah) and a newbie to basketball who played well enough to garner some New York player of the year awards with potential, but not innate basketball skills (Facey). 3. 2015 - excellent post-grad brought in (Shonn Miller); the guy who was supposed to develop into our next really good/excellent big as well (Enoch). Neither Brimah nor Facey progressing to the level any of us would have hoped. 4. 2016 - Brought in Durham and Diarra as bigs - I can see where many on here would find fault with not bringing in at least one big without health concerns, particularly in retrospect. We finally see some progression in Facey's game... but I would say that between the strength & conditioning as well as the inadequate consistent big man coaching (which needs no further beating of that very dead horse) there was not nearly enough progression individually or as a group. Then of course 2 graduate and 2 big hopes for the future transfer. Majority of fault lies with KO, as head coach and leader of the program. Looks like he thought he had the big men part of this heading in the right direction, but too much of it was fool's gold. And I would agree with the anti-KO crowd that he should have realized before the mass exodus that the lack of a good big-man coach was hampering their development. 5. 2017 - 5 big men recruits (counting Polley). 1 4-star, 1 3-star, a 2/3 star (Whaley), a juco in the 3 star range (Cobb) and a grad transfer (Onuorah) who I would agree is also no more than a 3-star.... maybe even 2 1/2 stars. So, to recap: Transfers of bigs and recruiting sanctions hurt us at the beginning of this period. Lack of a good big-man coach and our Strength & Conditioning program over the last several years (as highlighted in the Courant articles back in April) has stunted their growth and led to transfers of our two projected best big men... and KO's lack of attention to detail as the captain of the ship over the last several years has hurt in this area more than any other. And the question now becomes will the changes in the staff (Chillious coaching the bigs and Daniel as the S&C coach) and Ollie's supposed renewed focus and dedication with the help of AD Benedict turn it around? Since I am not Nostradamus or Kreskin, I for one am taking a wait and see attitude, hopeful that KO can recapture that junkyard-dog attitude with the chip on his shoulder that carried him through a 13-year NBA career and a masterful job in his first two years as the HC when he had what seemed an even more impossible task of following the Michelangelo of coaches in Jim Calhoun... [/QUOTE]

Verification: First name of men's bb coach

Forum statistics

Threads: 164,661

Messages: 4,405,630

Members: 10,221

Latest member: abbbb