@UMBC 7pm (ESPN3)

[McFan]

A lot of what's been said would make me feel better if this conference wasn't so horrible. Look we've lost Northeastern and BU since we joined. These were clearly two of the better teams in the conference. One championship in six years, ok. Think what would have happened had we not stumbled up Jacob Iati. Let's remember he was bolted to the bench until there were injuries and wasn't even supposed to play last year.

 

It's a dead horse but I just expected more. More regular season wins. More fans in the crowd. More exciting brand of BB. More consistency.

 

It's tough to go back in time but if somebody would have said that BU and NE are gone from the conference and UA is going to struggle to be a .500 team I would not have believed it. Yet here we are.

Would you rather have a record like BUMA and NU? OK. In the twelve years we were in the conference together, BUMA went to the NCAAs twice. How many did we have again?

BUMA won 4 1/2 regular season championships in eight years ending in 2004, did they 'build' on them, no, none since.

 

Northeastern was a dominant team - from 1980-1993, nothing since.

 

Or would you rather have BUMA's attendance (729 per game this year)? And they've got a lot more resouces and a higher budget than we do.

 

My point of bringing up those two programs wasn't to compare UA to them, it was to show that the conference as we exist is not very good (understatement). With these two teams out of the conference I expect more than what I am seeing on a consistent basis.

 

Does BU's BB team have more resources? I know the school and some programs do but not sure if BB gets much attention.

[McFan]

UA's men's bb team is average in a low level conference. The Universities leaders have picked football and women's basketball to be our showcase teams. I would not be surprised to see the women move to a "better" conference.

 

It's quotes like this that drive me nuts. HOW ARE THE WOMEN MOVING TO A BETTER CONFERENCE WITHOUT THE REST OF THE SCHOOL?

 

And as a general rule, and following up on Dane Pound's general post expressing bewilderment, do you guys really think mid-low majors ALWAYS hit well with recruits. Further, most people whining now were praising the coaching job of our staff last year after losing what many thought were the most prolific scorers on the team.

 

It's like a group home for bi-polar on this board lately.

 

Again, I'm not all too happy with the season but let's not let facts get in the way: THIS TEAM HAS BEEN MISSING KEY PLAYERS OR HURT SINCE THE FIRST QUARTER OF THE SEASON. IT ALSO HAD TO REPLACE 6 PLAYERS BY A COACH WHO WAS BASICALLY A LAME DUCK. I can tell you this: When i was being recruited in H.S. if a coach was sitting on 1 year contract...there was no way I would have went that school.

 

We have what is considered to be a very solid four year class coming in that will try to mesh with some nice young pieces we have now. Bet your collective asses on this: When that class is sophs/jrs. with this years crops of frosh, if they aren't winning...Brown will likely be out.

 

That's not emotional, it's subjective but without letting W/L constitute my view of the team, solely. If by then you can't win...then something is seriously wrong.

 

This is all well and good. I'll even go so far as to say I'm probably the most bi-polar poster here. When you look at the reasons with a narrow view they all make sense. When you take a look at the bigger picture it becomes infinitely harder to ignore, 4 winning seasons in going on 13 years granted the first 2 or 3 are probably a write-off, no one was winning here. The complete domination of this program by UVM, SBU and BU before they left has been demoralizing. The recruiting strategy has been flawed for a long time...juco galore. Listen, next year there is no PG and no C on this team who won't be new to the roster. I can already see how this will probably go, you can't win 'ish without a PG.

 

I don't even say he needs to be top 3 every year in conference...I don't. I understand there are dips and there are down cycles but 4 winning seasons? We haven't won the regular season or even been close since Jamar left. He is under .500 in the AE. Think about that...in the AE he is under .500 both overall and since Jamar left.

 

Truth is there is a lot to be concerned about here long term. Attendance hasn't gone up one iota. Brown has an uncanny knack for winning the big game in the AE tourney, when he gets there, he is money! For that he is to be applauded...you can't take away from him. As I said previously, the highs are highs but the lows and struggling to stay .500 are far to frequent.

 

Where have we averaged in attendance compared to the league? Hmmm?

 

Let's face facts: Until we are playing bigger name teams...our attendance will be the same. Sure, if we are dominating you MAY get 500 or so more per game on average...but we will never, ever, ever average near "Sell-Outs" with this schedule in this decade. Too many casual fans unfortunately would choose a Siena game due to history.

 

As for JUCO's. I agree and disagree. I don't particularly love it UNLESS you say, "F IT...I'm recruiting the smartest juco (hoops IQ smart) I can...and I'm gonna live and die by them." I don't like that Brown takes forever to play these kids though I understand they may not get team concepts or even true organized basketball concepts. So, if you recruit a JUCO they better be high IQ guys and "need" guys.

 

That said-- we have a huge amount of JUCO's on this roster because of Brown's lame duck status. Again, I was recruited (in multiple sports). I remember heading up to Bridgeport with my dad and the Coach told us he was on a year-to-year contract. Aside from the poor academics, there was no way we were going to put my college years in the hands of someone who may be gone...especially with only a partial scholarship.

 

UA SHOULD HAVE MADE A MOVE...ONE WAY OR THE OTHER...WITH BROWN'S CONTRACT. Leaving him dangling out there was recruiting suicide. Heck, even in professional sports it's "FREE AGENT" suicide.

 

I guess my issues w/ this post are we continue to compare (attendance in this case) to a league that is frankly embarrassing. Also, averaging 500 more a game would be awesome. I haven't checked overall attendance but I'd guess that as a 25% increase. Sign me up.

[McFan]

Simple question:

 

Did you expect the rotation to be as injured (and it is clear we lost key guys) as it was AND to have a rotation completely look different than when we had early in the season.

 

In short, if you were presented with our mid-year to current rotation prior to the season...WHAT RECORD AND WHAT PLACE WOULD YOU HAVE PREDICTED THE TEAM TO FINISH?

 

These are good questions that I'm not sure I can answer. Some half way responses:

 

I expected us to handle BU, UMBC and UMass Lowell.

I'm surprised we beat SBU.

I expect a D1 team to have something more on the bench. No backup PG and no backup C.

Sam is clearly not the same. Hooley may be injured but his numbers have not suffered that much, if at all. I didn't expect much out of Devlin. Puk, DJ, and GJ are fine (as far as I know), as are the bench guys, with the exception of Devlin. So are we really that unexpectedly injured? I think it is more of underperformance or lack of talented players.

[McFan]

Tied for 5th in a BAD league; no way around it--this team just sucks. But unlike many of you, I refuse to blame coach. There are many factors beside W&L's to evaluate when looking @ a "college" coach. But my intent is not to get into that argument again/now, but to say as the saying goes, you can not fire the entire team, so blame the coach. It has kind of been an unwritten rule on this blog to NOT criticize players/kids/students. But without naming names some {maybe even many} players on this team have NOT played up to potential; and others have only played well inconsistently. It is easy to blame the coach and/or recruiting, but again there may be numerous other factors why a player does not reach his potential (maybe he is having girl friend problems, maybe he hated his mother growing up--who knows? {great scene in the "the Natural" of a shrink counseling the team in the locker room "losing is a disease"}. Getting off track obviously, but my point the players play the game--not the coaches. Last year, I got blasted when I said I thought a certain player was not as good as a lot of people thought. My point is maybe some of us on this blog should reevaluate our player assessments. After all we are the "experts"?

 

OT but last point. I would venture to guess that over the last 8or10 years, we have a better out of conference record than vermont {but do not really care to take the time to investigate, because I really do not care that much about vt}. In fact, (I could be wrong) but again would venture to guess counting jamar years and going forward we have the best overall ooc record of any AE team.

 

In this case the coach is the GM however so he gets even more of the blame than at the higher level.

[McFan]

UA's men's bb team is average in a low level conference. The Universities leaders have picked football and women's basketball to be our showcase teams. I would not be surprised to see the women move to a "better" conference.

 

It's quotes like this that drive me nuts. HOW ARE THE WOMEN MOVING TO A BETTER CONFERENCE WITHOUT THE REST OF THE SCHOOL?

 

And as a general rule, and following up on Dane Pound's general post expressing bewilderment, do you guys really think mid-low majors ALWAYS hit well with recruits. Further, most people whining now were praising the coaching job of our staff last year after losing what many thought were the most prolific scorers on the team.

 

It's like a group home for bi-polar on this board lately.

 

Again, I'm not all too happy with the season but let's not let facts get in the way: THIS TEAM HAS BEEN MISSING KEY PLAYERS OR HURT SINCE THE FIRST QUARTER OF THE SEASON. IT ALSO HAD TO REPLACE 6 PLAYERS BY A COACH WHO WAS BASICALLY A LAME DUCK. I can tell you this: When i was being recruited in H.S. if a coach was sitting on 1 year contract...there was no way I would have went that school.

 

We have what is considered to be a very solid four year class coming in that will try to mesh with some nice young pieces we have now. Bet your collective asses on this: When that class is sophs/jrs. with this years crops of frosh, if they aren't winning...Brown will likely be out.

 

That's not emotional, it's subjective but without letting W/L constitute my view of the team, solely. If by then you can't win...then something is seriously wrong.

 

This is all well and good. I'll even go so far as to say I'm probably the most bi-polar poster here. When you look at the reasons with a narrow view they all make sense. When you take a look at the bigger picture it becomes infinitely harder to ignore, 4 winning seasons in going on 13 years granted the first 2 or 3 are probably a write-off, no one was winning here. The complete domination of this program by UVM, SBU and BU before they left has been demoralizing. The recruiting strategy has been flawed for a long time...juco galore. Listen, next year there is no PG and no C on this team who won't be new to the roster. I can already see how this will probably go, you can't win 'ish without a PG.

 

I don't even say he needs to be top 3 every year in conference...I don't. I understand there are dips and there are down cycles but 4 winning seasons? We haven't won the regular season or even been close since Jamar left. He is under .500 in the AE. Think about that...in the AE he is under .500 both overall and since Jamar left.

 

Truth is there is a lot to be concerned about here long term. Attendance hasn't gone up one iota. Brown has an uncanny knack for winning the big game in the AE tourney, when he gets there, he is money! For that he is to be applauded...you can't take away from him. As I said previously, the highs are highs but the lows and struggling to stay .500 are far to frequent.

 

I get the lame duck recruiting issue, but explain how BU and UVM do it. One on their third coach and the other was basically on life support. For BU to be competitive w/ us is shocking. Agree?

[McFan]

Guess who is procrastinating from snowplowing.

[UA'08]

Same story different day.

[Clickclack]

Same story different day.

 

They survived...

[UA'08]

Same story different day.

They survived...

Yup 20pt lead cut to 1 at one point. A win is a win. Enemma continues to impress me.

Edited February 15, 2014 by UA'08

[BestDaneSinceHamlet]

So many examples of why Brown is a bad coach with good athletes in this one. Rundown after my tennis game.

[Clickclack]

Same story different day.

They survived...

Yup 20pt lead cut to 1 at one point. A win is a win. Enemma continues to impress me.

 

Yeah I like him...pure stroke. As all freshmen plenty of room to improve but he has a chance to be a nice player, more then a shooter.

[Dane Pound]

Same story different day.

They survived...

Yup 20pt lead cut to 1 at one point. A win is a win. Enemma continues to impress me.

 

As well as Gary Johnson has played this year I hate to say it but our best lineup offensively is with Dallas on the floor.

[BestDaneSinceHamlet]

So they built a big lead running the floor and when they slowed it to half court things fell apart. No change in tempo by Brown

 

His faith in Puk baffles me. He cant shoot and can't muscle inside. And when he tries he looks like Stanley from The Office dribbling.

 

If you're gonna keep pounding it inside then switch out Johnson for Ennema and have a kickout shooter. Then again once it goes inside to Puk it never comes out and rarely goes in. It will be interesting with Rowley Jr next year in the middle since he can hit from three. At least that will spread the middle. But since Johnson can't hit they clog the middle

 

Just terrible talent management by Brown. He has a physical team with speed. Yet he's playing the half court set with only two shooters. Counterintuitive.