godanesgo99

25 minutes ago, Clickclack said:

Poff had a great year showed a ton of potential...I remember when Undercuffler was in a similar situation and the kids career folded like a deck of cards in part under GaLosers leadership. Who's to blame? Who knows...but offensive line was dreadful and 'Cuff really fell off. 

Well he did lose a bunch of great receivers to graduation and the pros which hurt Cuff and made it hard for him. It almost seems that he was an avg arm with great targets to make catches. 

Can you share the text. Not in the mood to try and beat the paywall.

We all knew this was out there, just interesting it is now going to court. Wonder what new info is there.

41 minutes ago, HOF2013 said:

This is a recruiting thread not a negative anti thread.  Please open another trhead for this stuff.

The comment, question, and answer were directly related to recruiting. I do not accept your policing of the board. They were relevant to the topic. I agree that various things need to be kept separate, and this thread is about recruiting and recruits, but relevant conversation is acceptable in my mind.

1 hour ago, UA'08 said:

Do the SEFC renovations happen regardless of Benson?

In their current form and timeline, maybe not, but they are badly needed, so if think a more competent AD would have gotten it done. Maybe even faster or better. We will never know.

Yes he deserves credit for getting it done, but who knows what if ...

9 minutes ago, statefan said:

Never

I get that feeling, and right up until the end most people were calling for a lifetime contract for WB, but when he was gone those same people started saying that he was getting stale and it was time.

I'm not a LAX guy, but have really enjoyed the games I've been to. That North Carolina game in the cold rain was one of the best events I've ever attended. That was a long time ago now though.

I don't profess to know how to get this program back to the heights it has seen, but going from perennial power to middle of the pack of the AE means something needs to change. 

What can the staff do to reverse the tide? I get lots of other traditional "power" conference schools are adding the sport, but up until recently UA was a destination dream school for LAX stars. It isn't that way anymore and almost feels like we squandered the success we had and lost the opportunity to make this a flagship program that brings national accolades for athletics and helps the growth of the other programs. 

People in the know: what do they need? Maybe we can hire some of the past all-time LAX greats that are playing professionally to be part time recruiters of top talent? I know basketball schools use NBA alum to attract new students. Should we follow that lead? We have some of the greatest LAX players of all time as alum. Something tells me that they would be successful recruiters.

We spend tons of time in the fall and winter sports forums talking about the issues we all have with Benson and wondering/pleading for the school to move on from GG and potentially DK as well.

When does it become time to start questioning if it's time to move on from Marr? Marr is the most successful coach at UA in the D1 era. One could argue that the run WBB had with all the consecutive tourney appearances, but that was with a couple coach's (Mac and Abe). WB had some great highs for MBB, but those were sandwiched between some pretty hard times.

No other program at UA can claim it was ranked #1 in all of D1 that I can think of. The final four run was amazing. What was it 5 elite 8 appearances? A team consistently ranked in the top 25 for over a decade?

If the team doesn't win the AE this year, that will make it 5 years since the last tournament appearance. 

When do we start calling for a change here? 

14 hours ago, Clickclack said:

Why is GaLoser still recruiting and hasn't been fired is beyond me...

Cause we can't afford to fire him, and Benson wanted to give him one more shot (#3), thus both of the extensions before the end of his last contracts - as a lame duck recruiting is hard. I can understand the first one along those lines, but the second one? It's time to "clean the garage" per my comment in the other thread.

Maybe the BPF can hold a fundraiser like a bake sale to raise the needed funds. Might be able to increase the profits if we made the baked good "special" with recently legalized substances. At least then the fans would have a good time watching us lose and the concession business would do better.

On 12/2/2022 at 9:54 AM, MRuler 79 said:

Be glad he is not in the portal. Why would he? He was Rookie of the Year and is the guaranteed starter for the next 3 years. If we can manage to put a defense together and replace Sibley at RB we "should" have a winning product. Also the CAA is not what it once was and we may have a a legit shot to be very good over the next three seasons

We have been saying this for years. We have a rookie QB that sets touchdown records and leads us to the second round of the playoffs, but then the team gets worse and worse. Right now the only silver lining seems to be we are one year closer to having a new head coach. While Benson may not have the balls to fire a friend, worst case we are one more year close to retirement. I mean GG isn't getting any younger.

Win, but not a friend: get fired. (I'm in the camp that it was time to move on from WB, but either way he was a winner who seemed to get the most out of what he had)

Lose, but be a friend: lifetime contract.

GG has had some great pieces but always seems to find a way to get less than the sum of all the parts. The opposite of WB.

When I clean out my garage it tends to get messier before it gets cleaned. At one point it will look like a disaster that can never be fixed then magically it all comes together. I think the school needs to "Clean the Garage" and start over fresh. Short term it might hurt, but frankly it can't get any worse than these last 3-5 years of UA sports.

You think we have problems and BC has problems? Check out the comment thread on this year's Louisville team. Very strange year in college basketball to say the least....

Change a few names and a few stats I'd swear they were talking about this UA team. 

I wonder how much losing an entire year of high school and AAU basketball to COVID has affected the play of today's kids. 

5 hours ago, cwdickens said:

As of this morning, only 107 seats available for Saturday's game .... could Saturday be the largest crowd that UAlbany MBB plays in front of all year?  Who knew we were such a draw....

What was the attendance for the LCC game? 

As I said before the game, they would have a shot in the game if they made shots. The overall shooting percentage is misleading. They went periods where nothing would happen right, and periods where they looked good. All or nothing. They fought back, and yes the bench played for a while, but the team had gotten to within 15 and at the line after being down a lot more. Were on a run when the bench came in. There were definitely some good signs. They showed they can do it for stretches in every game. This was another case of having several extended stretches of nothing, and the inability to get a basket to end a run. No middle ground with the team.

Just now, jimbo said:

This team can’t shoot for Si#$@……bottom line. 

They are better at shooting than playing defense. That's not saying much.

I might be wrong, as I'm now watching for the movement. The set up is there, but I'm not seeing the cuts and rotations, although that could be why it's not working lol. This is really the new school of basketball. I saw a video about St. Joseph's College of Maine from a few years ago that really showed how to make it work.

47 minutes ago, Dane96 said:

This game had every single thing that is wrong with this program on display.  First, I want to acknowledge this is a difficult schedule.  Second, I want to say that Neely's absence hurts but I honest to god don't believe he, alone, would have changed the fortunes of the team.

This team:

-poorly constructed

-filled with athletes but low Basketball IQ

-seemingly has no limitation for shooting- we just take outside shot after outside shot and we are not good at it.

-has players who think they can take on a whole team (looking at you Davis-- kid has not stopped (from exhibition to OOC) taking on 3-4 guys at a time.  That works in D3 (maybe) but not in D1

-has no real ball movement

-has no real offensive sets (at least that I am seeing)

-is undersized

-has no defensive accumen

These fall on the staff.  Why?  Because in the era of the portal, you should be able to build a competitive team if you can recruit.  It doesn't take 5 years anymore.  Look at it this way, if Neely isn't injured...DK must have been betting on big leaps from Little and Reddish (I think he even as quoted as believing that would occur) and figured that Davis and Kellogg were going to contribute heavily, in addition to Beagle.

It is not translating...

I may have argued with some of these points in the past, but I just can't.

I really think I've figured it out though. It really looks like they are trying to run a version of the 5 out Motion offense. This means no real set plays and is designed for creativity. It relies less on ball screens and pick and rolls and is more about spacing and set directions of motion. The problem is that they aren't moving the ball and are using the setup as an excuse to play hero one on one ball. I have seen them run it well on a few possessions against American and FAU, but for the most part it just turns into someone forcing a three or driving into multiple bodies.

If this isn't what they are attempting to do, then they are even worse than I thought lol. You will notice on most plays there is no one in the paint and all offensive players are outside of the three point line (or one guy in the "dunker" spot) This requires strict spacing or turns into turnovers and forced shots... Exactly what's happening. 

Combine that with extremely poor defensive positioning and help rotation and you have a recipe for disaster. Only chance to win is if someone on the team gets hot from outside.

FYI: just an untrained observation. I probably need to go back and watch how they set up to confirm what I think I'm seeing.

Another terrible defensive half. UMass shoots almost 70% from the floor in the half. I guess they only shot 20% for three, but I thought they made more than 1-5.

Definitely hard to watch this team play. I feel like I'm watching 8th grade CYO against the varsity team.

5 hours ago, Eli said:

It doesn't matter if our offense is fine...our defense is non-existent. This will be a bloodbath.

In reality, I agree. Trying to remain positive and hope for a breakout.

I'm gonna go against the grain and call an upset win tonight. While I've been one of the lone mostly positive posters (while being very critical at the same time) and it's not all the surprising for that type of prediction from me based on that, I can see UMass sleeping on how bad the team has been and some of these shots starting to fall. The team is too talented to miss this many easy shots. Hopefully it happens as a team playing as a team and not because someone played hero ball. Winning as a team would bode well for conference play. Winning because one player got hot and took over will signal more of the same. A loss tells us nothing as we aren't supposed to win anyway.

7 hours ago, tnehurley said:

Jamel Horton was last year’s defensive POY, but of course he’s long gone. UA will not win that award this year! 351 out of 363 is awful. ROY with Beagle looks like a good bet, though.

I know he was, it was just a tongue in cheek joke when I realized just how bad the defensive ratings were. I mean comically bad. 

At least last year we knew the defense would keep us in games and even when over matched we could have a shot to pull an upset win over much better teams. Combine strong defense with poor offensive luck from the other team and you can have a terrible team beat a great team. This team right now looks bad offensively AND defensively. 

If Vegas put an over/under on the number of wins this teams gets out of the rest of the schedule at 4 (that is FOUR) I am thinking right now that the under would be a smart bet. I see wins vs. LIU Brooklyn and home games against New Hampshire and NJIT. We are projected to lose every other game. Most by double digits. I am not even really confident in those three. I see a scenario where Presbyterian is the only D1 win of the year. 

If everyone thinks the complaints are harsh now. Wait until the team finishes 6-26 after a first round AE tournament exit. Thats 4-26 against D1 programs. 

I still have on purple and gold glasses on and I am still holding out hope for DK to figure out how to get to this teams potential, but right now the confidence is extraordinarily low. 

Was just looking at Bart Torvik rankings. After this game, UA is now 351 on defense. Out of 363. Didn't we have the league defensive player of the year last season?

On 12/1/2022 at 10:09 AM, Dane96 said:

 

Nm

While he is right, Kaloyeros was a genius and did some great things for the University and was a good leader for that part of the school, bringing him back would be a terrible idea. Not sure the headlines of convicted felon brought back would sit well with all of the other negative UA news in the press lately.

36 minutes ago, Ron said:

They give us no reason to contribute to GDAC yet our seat preference in the updated arena will depend on our contributions.  All the floor seats are empty at HVCC, sold to businesses who don't come to the games.  They should open the floor seats up a few minutes after the game starts.

Or run some form of in game promotion for them. Wait till the under 12 minute media time out for late arrivals, then choose fans from the crowd to come on the floor to shoot free throws for a pair of upgraded seats for the second half during the under 8 or under 4 media timeouts. If there are 30 open court side seats, choose 20 people to come down and have each shoot a free throw. Give the first 10 to make a free throw a pair of seats, leaving 10 seats still open in case someone with courtside seats shows up in the second half.

Kill two birds with one stone. Fill the courtside seats for the important second half and any home court advantage that adds, and create some more fan interaction and fun at the games. Win win.

1 hour ago, UA'08 said:

What I don’t understand is they can potentially have two back to back ROY. I’d say he can recruit, but is completely lost on coaching.  

This is why I have remained positive. His recruiting has brought multiple great athletes/players. His connections in the basketball world bode well for future recruiting and the future of the program.

Last year's class of Neely, Reddish, and Little should be a real solid foundation. Neely was more polished to start, but both Reddish and Little are still projects with the world of potential in their hands. Reddish needs a cooler head and Little needs to improve his defense and team offense.

This year's class of Jackson and Beagle both look great as well. Beagle is obviously the more finished and could be all conference as a freshman, much less rookie team and ROY. Jackson has shown flashes and just needs time to adjust to D1. 

Next year's class of Margoupis, Robinson, and Adnan looks pretty strong as well. This should be a great core for the next few years and give us a contending team in the AE, if not a top team in the AE.

Fill the rest with transfers and the team should be solid. Ketner is a solid AE role player. Edmead is fine as a third PG. He has shown flashes and did well in the NEC. Kellogg isn't ready yet, but seems fine as a practice player, end of the bench guy that could grow into something solid. Amica isn't the same after the injuries, but he can still be good. Hutch is all hustle and always does well in conference play. Drumgoole was a great transfer to get, but is still a little overly aggressive. Davis and Patel are exactly what we want as grad transfers. Players that can step in right away and fill the holes we haven't filled with younglings or to replace someone who graduated or transferred out.

Looking at our roster, it should be good enough to do ok in a tough OOC. Still probably lose more than they win with this schedule, but not get blown out by everyone, then get 9-11 wins in conference and be a threat in the conference tournament. 

Yes losing Neely due to injury hurts and having him and Beagle down low together could cause fits for opponents with both of them being threats outside and in, but injuries happen. I don't think Neely's injury can be blamed for the team performing THIS poorly. In my mind it's all coaching. It's all getting the most out of your players. It's being able to make in game adjustments. It's about teaching how to stay strong and stick to your game plan during adversity. It's about being able to focus the team to stay away from 90% of the hero ball. I say 90% because sometimes you need a player to step up and take over the game.

I don't think WB gets a roster this talented or athletic, but give the team to him and he would have gotten the most out of it. Some of the 1 on 1 isolation play we have seen dominate every game would have landed many of these guys on the bench until they figured it out - even if they were the best on the team. Remember when WB benched Nichols when he went through his isolation crazy circus shot phase? He Sat the entire first half of the SBU game. Brown gave him a shot in the second half and he played calm and collected and led the team to a great comeback. Without putting him on the bench that game to make the attitude adjustment, I'm convinced we never make it to the championship game against UVM that year, and never pull off the "almost" upset.

I said from day 1 we needed to give DK 3 years to develop from a top assistant to a head coach. So while we are only 1.5 years in, we need to recognize that there hasn't been any improvement in his leadership. I know the lawsuit has to be distracting and has to be having an effect on what he does, but it's crunch time for him. Rise above the distractions and become the leader that this team needs or crumble under the pressure and he suffers an even bigger setback to his career. He will get an opportunity as an assistant somewhere again even with the lawsuits due to his connections, but he won't find another HC job anywhere unless it's a D3 or JUCO. 

If he could figure out how to thrive under the pressure despite the distractions and really coach and lead these guys forward to a winning conference record: I'll give him tons of credit. I'll root for him to come back next year and continue to grow. He does that and opportunities at the highest level will open up for him regardless of how the lawsuit ends up. It's really do or die for him. A career defining moment.

He is currently down 5 with a minute and a half left on the clock. Can he perform the comeback? Can he be Hooley at the buzzer or will he be Hartford leaving D1 in disgrace?

As I said, I've been about as positive as can be, and I said we needed to give him 3 years to learn and grow, but I don't think any of us saw us having a team ranked around 340. It's just terrible at this size school, this size market. My patience that was supposed to be three years is starting to look like 1.5 years.

Just rewinded to show my son some replays. How to run an offense and how not to defend. Leaving them soooooo wide open on every play.