The team and season were decent, but once again, not as good as they should have been given the players on the roster. I'm hopeful for Ollie, but I don't think he did a good job that year just because his highly talented team won its way into the tournament. It shouldn't have been in doubt. I think he knows this.
The Red Sox made the playoffs last year, but I'll tell you this: John Farrell was terrible.
HuskyHawk, as one of the more reasonable posters on here, I am interested in fleshing out why you felt that the 2015-2016 had such good players on the roster.
For example: Our "Best Player" was considered to be Daniel Hamilton. I realize that many on here felt that Hamilton was this fantastic player - but I submit that his game, although great at times, was often uneven. And more than once, he slacked on the defensive end. He hurt us with his uneven play in quite a few games. For example, I remember distinctly yelling at the TV at the end of the first half of the game at home against Houston (that we subsequently went on to lose) at the end of the regular season where within a minute to a minute and a half he did about 3 monumentally stupid things, including a bad pass and then sulking on defense. The lead went from 9 to 1, and then we lost in the 2nd half.
He was also an inconsistent shooter, as his 39% / 33% from 3 numbers plainly show. In addition, he never showed the desire to be a leader.
He got drafted in the late 2nd round for a reason. I hope for his sake that he improves on his game enough to make it in the NBA, but that of course is far from a sure thing at this time.
Shonn Miller: loved his hard-nosed game and grit. But he got into to foul trouble too easily and too often. He also struggled against highly skilled forwards, particularly the ones he faced in the Kansas game.
Amida Brimah: limited game. Been hashed out on here a thousand times over. A barely above average player who had a strong tendency to disappear against decent or better competition. Loved his enthusiasm, not often his actual play.
Sterling Gibbs: a decent but limited player. He could get hot, and did, at times. He also shot us in the foot with cold shooting and poor decision-making in several critical losses. He also had slow foot-speed and was a definite liability on defense against better, more agile guards.
Rodney Purvis: Inconsistent with a few good games surrounded by a lot of head scratchers.
Jalen Adams: should have pushed into action more earlier on (absolutely could be held against Ollie)... prone to freshman mistakes, but also had some shining moments, including the obvious heroics against Cincinnati in the AAC tourney quarters.
Omar Calhoun: unfortunately a shell of the player we thought we saw emerging in his freshman year. Loved his toughness and loyalty, but still have no idea how the hip surgeries at the end of his freshman year that were supposed to be "routine" and actually improve his range of motion seemed to permanently ruin his game. Mystifying.
Phil Nolan: had a few decent minutes, and certainly gave good effort on a consistent basis. But had a very limited set of skills and often you barely noticed that he was on the court.
Ok, there are our 8 best players - the rest were below these guys. Where do you see "highly talented" in this group or their backups?
This is not to say that Ollie did a great job of coaching in 2015-2016. He definitely could have done a better job coaching this group, specifically utilizing Shonn Miller more and better (how many times were we all pulling our hair out at the lack of touches he would get at critical times in games?) and recognizing Jalen Adams was his best true point guard and giving him significantly more playing time earlier in the year....
And the two losses to Temple, at home to Stanford, Cincinnati and Houston all included less than stellar coaching at critical times.
But I just don't see (and did not see at the time) the "high talent" of this group as a collective. Your thoughts?
