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Players or Coaching?

D

Dallas Brave

New member
I know a lot is made of JL's game coaching, lack of experience, etc ...

When it comes down to it though, you can't win without the right combination of players. This year's team is an enigma. They play hard one game and then play like pansies the next game.

I think Les is an OK coach and is doing the best he can with what is a mediocre team. IMO, where he has messed up big time is not recruiting better inside players or properly developing the big guys he has recruited. In 2005-06 we had POB and Zach plus a 3 (MS) who could rebound to go with outstanding play from the guards. The team was a complete team and the results showed. In 2006-07, we were OK because Zach was a stud and our 3 point shooting was the best in the nation. After that, we have been mediocre despite winning 20 games each season which has become a meaningless benchmark when you play almost 40 games a year.

While I want to do well in the MVC, I want to do well in the NCAA more. Build a team that can do well in the NCAA and the MVC results will automatically be there. Could you imagine what would happen to this team if they get on a run in St. Louis and get the auto bid? They will get absolutely hammered in the first round of the NCAA.

JL better recruit some big men, wide body boys who can play defense, rebound, and make a layup. And he better be able to develop them if they are projects. It makes me literally sick to see the program get so little out of players like David Collins and AT. If they are as bad as JL seems to indicate by limiting their minutes, then don't recruit them.

I have hated watching us trot out such a short lineup for the last 3 years.

I have hated watching a 4 play the 5 spot and a 3 play the 4 spot for the last three years.

I am hoping that a combination of WE and JP might get us where we need to be at minimum ... provided we put them on the floor at the same time. And can AT be as bad as JL seems to think he is?

If I fire JL ... it is because he can't recruit and develop big guys. This is NCAA basketball, not a 6 foot and under league.
 
great post DB.....to win the Valley you must have an inside presence....and bigger players make it tougher on opponents in the paint....my worry is next season we lose SS, if AT is worse than SS and all we have is JP who is a 4 in his 1st year D1, WE and TB who are both under 220 lbs.....then we are in trouble....we need to get over the fact we are not a run-n-gun O' and are not a big 3-point shooting team....please lets get bigger! And if JW does become a Brave he is also a 200 lb player who prefers the outside!
 
BradleyBrave said:
It's both, but ultimately it's one man's program and one man's responsibility.
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I agree 100% with that statement as JL is responsibile for who he has recruited and how he has decided to play them. Individually, we have good recruits. But they are an unbalanced starting 5 ... which is JL's fault and in my opinion what will end up costing him his job ... whether it is after this season or next year.

Regarding the things the players control. I'm not sure if they have good chemistry. I know that this team does not have consistent heart. Sorry if that sounds harsh to say about college kids, but we have seen Bradley teams with a lot more heart than this team.

This team is what ... 10-11. From my arm chair (literally) turning this season around will require a whole lot more lineup experimenting than we have seen and require JL to go outside his comfort zone and change his subsitution patterns. You can't yank your big guy out every time they make a mistake like he has done with DC last year and AT this year. If you are not one of JL's favorites, he has a very short leash.

I would go AT (5), WE (4), TB (3), AW (2), and SM (1). I think WE would be much more effective if he has another big guy out there. You have DSE, CR, and SS coming off the bench. I could be way off, but for the sake of seeing what would happen, I would try a bigger line up for 2-3 games. At 10-11, what is the risk.
 
Dallas Brave said:
I agree 100% with that statement as JL is responsibile for who he has recruited and how he has decided to play them. Individually, we have good recruits. But they are an unbalanced starting 5 ... which is JL's fault and in my opinion what will end up costing him his job ... whether it is after this season or next year.

Regarding the things the players control. I'm not sure if they have good chemistry. I know that this team does not have consistent heart. Sorry if that sounds harsh to say about college kids, but we have seen Bradley teams with a lot more heart than this team.

This team is what ... 10-11. From my arm chair (literally) turning this season around will require a whole lot more lineup experimenting than we have seen and require JL to go outside his comfort zone and change his subsitution patterns. You can't yank your big guy out every time they make a mistake like he has done with DC last year and AT this year. If you are not one of JL's favorites, he has a very short leash.

I would go AT (5), WE (4), TB (3), AW (2), and SM (1). I think WE would be much more effective if he has another big guy out there. You have DSE, CR, and SS coming off the bench. I could be way off, but for the sake of seeing what would happen, I would try a bigger line up for 2-3 games. At 10-11, what is the risk.
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can you tell I agree....see my signature :)
 
Dallas Brave said:
I agree 100% with that statement as JL is responsibile for who he has recruited and how he has decided to play them. Individually, we have good recruits. But they are an unbalanced starting 5 ... which is JL's fault and in my opinion what will end up costing him his job ... whether it is after this season or next year.

Regarding the things the players control. I'm not sure if they have good chemistry. I know that this team does not have consistent heart. Sorry if that sounds harsh to say about college kids, but we have seen Bradley teams with a lot more heart than this team.

This team is what ... 10-11. From my arm chair (literally) turning this season around will require a whole lot more lineup experimenting than we have seen and require JL to go outside his comfort zone and change his subsitution patterns. You can't yank your big guy out every time they make a mistake like he has done with DC last year and AT this year. If you are not one of JL's favorites, he has a very short leash.

I would go AT (5), WE (4), TB (3), AW (2), and SM (1). I think WE would be much more effective if he has another big guy out there. You have DSE, CR, and SS coming off the bench. I could be way off, but for the sake of seeing what would happen, I would try a bigger line up for 2-3 games. At 10-11, what is the risk.
Click to expand...

I think it is time we give up on the notion of AT becoming a "5" at BU. If he has gained 40 lbs. since he's been here (which I think is a myth...), then he's still 50 pounds short of where he needs to be to try and defend players like Odiakosa, Egleseder, Lawson, Carmichael, etc. in the post...He would get absolutely destroyed if we put him out there in meaningful situations against other centers in the Valley.

Labelling AT as a 'big guy' is an insult to the word big. Our coaching staff is not stupid. They see how limited Singh is physically...They see how overmatched Egolf can be, at times, in the post against the top centers in the Valley. If AT was capable of giving us anything at all this year, he would be in there...He's not, so I think it may be time to stop waiting on him to be some sort of answer at the "5"...We need to bring in a minimum of 2 JUCO bigs that will be capable of giving us minutes in the post next year, IMO. And if AT's scholarship is one of the spots that we need to use to bring in a contributor for next year, so be it. Three years in the program, and he still can't give us a single meaningful minute...time to cut bait, and bring in some bench players that actually have value...IMO.
 
ER3 said:
I think it is time we give up on the notion of AT becoming a "5" at BU. If he has gained 40 lbs. since he's been here (which I think is a myth...), then he's still 50 pounds short of where he needs to be to try and defend players like Odiakosa, Egleseder, Lawson, Carmichael, etc. in the post...He would get absolutely destroyed if we put him out there in meaningful situations against other centers in the Valley.

Labelling AT as a 'big guy' is an insult to the word big. Our coaching staff is not stupid. They see how limited Singh is physically...They see how overmatched Egolf can be, at times, in the post against the top centers in the Valley. If AT was capable of giving us anything at all this year, he would be in there...He's not, so I think it may be time to stop waiting on him to be some sort of answer at the "5"...We need to bring in a minimum of 2 JUCO bigs that will be capable of giving us minutes in the post next year, IMO. And if AT's scholarship is one of the spots that we need to use to bring in a contributor for next year, so be it. Three years in the program, and he still can't give us a single meaningful minute...time to cut bait, and bring in some bench players that actually have value...IMO.
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Well, JL said on his radio show a couple of years ago that AT was the most talented big man he'd coached next to POB. I've heard AT might not work as hard all the time as he needs to, but if he's as talented as JL said, shouldn't that at least garner him some minutes? What does Sam Singh give you that AT couldn't?
 
ER3 said:
I think it is time we give up on the notion of AT becoming a "5" at BU. If he has gained 40 lbs. since he's been here (which I think is a myth...), then he's still 50 pounds short of where he needs to be to try and defend players like Odiakosa, Egleseder, Lawson, Carmichael, etc. in the post...He would get absolutely destroyed if we put him out there in meaningful situations against other centers in the Valley.

Labelling AT as a 'big guy' is an insult to the word big. Our coaching staff is not stupid. They see how limited Singh is physically...They see how overmatched Egolf can be, at times, in the post against the top centers in the Valley. If AT was capable of giving us anything at all this year, he would be in there...He's not, so I think it may be time to stop waiting on him to be some sort of answer at the "5"...We need to bring in a minimum of 2 JUCO bigs that will be capable of giving us minutes in the post next year, IMO. And if AT's scholarship is one of the spots that we need to use to bring in a contributor for next year, so be it. Three years in the program, and he still can't give us a single meaningful minute...time to cut bait, and bring in some bench players that actually have value...IMO.
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I agree with what needs to happen in the offseason. But before I cut bait on AT, I would give him a chance to make it. We haven't seen the guy play without the threat of getting yanked if he misses a play ... how can any kid play basketball knowing that you get immediately benched if you make a mistake? You might think he doesn't deserve minutes, but I want to see him him play meaningful minutes before making my own conclusion. We have seen enough on WE and SS to know that they can not handle the 5 spot when they are the only big guy on the floor. If you don't start AT, then start SS and WE and use AT off of the bench. The main point is to have two big guys on the floor at the same time. Maybe it won't work ... but we know the alternative is 10-11 which isn't that great either.
 
I'd like to get a real 5 with our last scholarship and perhaps we also may want to play AT at the 4. Kevin Garnet plays the 4! Let's not worry that he has the length of a 5 so he should play the 5. He has the body mass of a 3 so that averages to a 4. I'd also like to see us play WE and SS at the same time for some reasonable minutes. What do we have to lose?
 
BradleyBrave said:
Well, JL said on his radio show a couple of years ago that AT was the most talented big man he'd coached next to POB. I've heard AT might not work as hard all the time as he needs to, but if he's as talented as JL said, shouldn't that at least garner him some minutes? What does Sam Singh give you that AT couldn't?
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Myself and the people in my section at home games have been asking ourselves this same question for two years now.
I don't have an answer to that question...but the coaching staff has gotten the opportunity to watch these two guys play on the same floor in practice every day for 2+ years now...and for 2 years now in games, the answer has never been "AT" when Les looks down the bench for meaningful minutes in the middle.
I am with you in the sense that it is 'sink or swim' time for AT...Play him now...give him minutes now and expose him in one way or another so you know what to do with his spot heading into next year....minutes now will give him the chance to show that he has some value heading into next year or the minutes will show that he is simply not ready to be a D-I player and we can move on...We simply have no depth anywhere on this team...and we can't go into next year with a scholarship tied up in a guy like AT that has given us nothing more than walk-on minutes for two years.
 
I think AT looks quite a bit better than SS every time he steps on the floor. It has to be that he's not earning playing time in practice... and if that's the case, I respect the coach's decision on the matter. If you reward poor effort with playing time, you'll end up losing the whole team altogether.
 
I watch A.T. when he comes into a game and he needs to be a lot more physical then he is at this level as he lets himself get pushed around, he is never in good position to play defense or rebound, the offensive rebound he got at ISU fell into his lap about 4ft. away from the basket, he should be able to get above the rim for putbacks if he was playing full tilt , he is plenty quich enough and has great jumping ability but he just does not seem like he wants to mix it up inside which is what he needs to do if he expects to play.
 
The difference being that this season even when a rebound falls in SS's lap, he's not getting them. I really don't know what's going on with Sam. He was serviceable last year, but it's just not working this season.
 
Braves4Life said:
That was a rather irresponsible comment on Les' part, IMO, that has come back to haunt.
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I am not so sure this was JL's exact quote...can you cite where this comment was ever referenced?
If it's just a circulating rumor that he said this, then I would tend to be skeptical...
 
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