Boeheim, SU Basketball at a Crossroads | Page 5 | Syracusefan.com

Boeheim, SU Basketball at a Crossroads

valid points. but a typical first year ACC coach is taking over a program that has tanked. not one who's head coach is finally retiring after 40 + years at the same school . secondly JB received a huge bump in his recruiting efforts by the births of both the carrier dome and ESPN and the big east . i stand by my original premise. JB inherited a program in damn good shape . 4 straight NCAA tourney appearances (including a FF) and a 74% winning mark . big crowds. excited fans.
how will JB handle the transition and leave is the question.
So, in your opinion, if Hop had stayed and the retirement had proceeded as planned, would Hop have inherited a team in better or worse shape than JB had? And all things considered (league, carrier dome rehab, how recruiting has changed, and more pressure on college hoops in general) would it be easier or harder for Hop to succeed?
 
Why?


Have you been watching the last 4 years? We've lost double digit numbers of games and have been a .500 team in the ACC for most of that time.
 
That's why we need a grad transfer pg, I look at this way, we get Tucker/Ayala, we are probably a bubble team, add a pg in addition to those guys, we might be pretty decent, if we don't add anyone, good news BC, you are no longer the worst team in the Acc.


We're not getting Ayala. He's decided to stay Class of '18.
 
So, in your opinion, if Hop had stayed and the retirement had proceeded as planned, would Hop have inherited a team in better or worse shape than JB had? And all things considered (league, carrier dome rehab, how recruiting has changed, and more pressure on college hoops in general) would it be easier or harder for Hop to succeed?

Hop checked out last year. It showed in the recruiting.
 
No. But let's not forget that JB recruited the core of those teams that let him win 100 games so fast.


Well, I think some balance is in order - yes, JB recruited Louie and Bouie for his inaugural team, but he was left Jimmy Williams (his leading scorer), Marty Byrnes, Dale Shackleford, Larry Kelly and Ross Kindel. Williams was his leading scorer and Byrnes and Kelly both averaged double figures. So Danforth left him some good parts to build with.
 
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How does recruiting look really bleak for 2018?


Because we've not been in contact with some of our supposed "top" targets.
 
I wasn't going to go down that road but there was always the talk that jb was really running the show at the end of roy's run. Jb even said, I think in his book, that he coached the practices and Roy walked around the offices at Manley. But to the larger point, with the addition of Orr and Bouie, our team had a totally different look in 1977 than we did in '76. Our '76 team sucked. By far the worst Syracuse team of my lifetime. Byrnes improved greatly (also grew about 3 inches) The program was just different. Once again, I don't know how old you are or if you watched those teams, but if you did, you should know.


The '76 team didn't "suck". We still won 20 games. We got a lot better the next few years, but we weren't crap.
 
Have you been watching the last 4 years? We've lost double digit numbers of games and have been a .500 team in the ACC for most of that time.

In fact, since starting out 25-0 during the 2014-2015 season, we've lost 42 games. Bleak.

I'm not suggesting that Jim Boeheim isn't capable of turning things around. He's Jim freaking Boeheim--HOF coach, and one of the top 10 best college coaches of all time, IMO. But in order to do so, we need to land talented players, and the class of 2017 that we've lined up thus far doesn't fill several key team needs for next year and beyond. If we bounce back and finish strong this spring, I'll be a lot more confident about how the next few years might go as JB winds down his career. If we don't land a few guys we've targeted, we'll be in full on scramble mode again this off-season.
 
I don't disagree with that. My point is that Hop seems to skate without any blame at all. And he was not going hard the last two years the way he should have been.


Well, I think the reason for that was because he knew JB didn't want to go, and JB felt like he was being railroaded by the NCAA and the Administration. Who wants to get caught in the cross-fire, and wind up being the guy "who pushed JB out"?
 
Not necessarily. Stay tuned.


I just read an interview with him a day or two ago, saying he needed to build up his body to be ready to play NCAA ball and so he was going to prep school. I've been reading that consistently for a month. Has he changed his mind very recently?

Because we've been asking for a while now, and he hasn't given a single interview I've seen that says he is seriously considering it. In fact, the last interview I read made it sound like he wouldn't mind the extra year of prep so more schools could see him and he could get more offers.
 
The '76 team didn't "suck". We still won 20 games. We got a lot better the next few years, but we weren't crap.
terrible team. What good team did the '76 team beat. Jb says it was one of the worst teams we have had. I agree with him. What player did we have on that team that would start on last years team? Shack? As a frosh? Maybe but probably not. We won 20 games playing a schedule that let's be honest, was a joke.
 
Because we've not been in contact with some of our supposed "top" targets.

Reading the recruiting board it seems like we've been touch with and gone to watch a lot of players.
 
Don't agree with this at all. Things aren't always as they seem.
From reading the board lately, I just assumed it had been scientifically proven.
 
I just read an interview with him a day or two ago, saying he needed to build up his body to be ready to play NCAA ball and so he was going to prep school. I've been reading that consistently for a month. Has he changed his mind very recently?

Because we've been asking for a while now, and he hasn't given a single interview I've seen that says he is seriously considering it. In fact, the last interview I read made it sound like he wouldn't mind the extra year of prep so more schools could see him and he could get more offers.

Skuttlebutt is that he wanted to play in an AAU tournament this past weekend. If he reclassified to class of 2017 or announced that was his intention, he wouldn't have been eligible to participate in the event.

Now that the tournament is in the rear view mirror, we should see some activity soon -- as in, possibly this week. Or not, which would validate what has been written.
 
Skuttlebutt is that he wanted to play in an AAU tournament this past weekend. If he reclassified to class of 2017 or announced that was his intention, he wouldn't have been eligible to participate in the event.

Now that the tournament is in the rear view mirror, we should see some activity soon -- as in, possibly this week. Or not, which would validate what has been written.
The scuttlebutt was correct. However, the kid is sending mixed signals now. We are still on him but I am not as optimistic (nor are they) as I was before last week.
 
The scuttlebutt was correct. However, the kid is sending mixed signals now. We are still on him but I am not as optimistic (nor are they) as I was before last week.

All I can say is that if he ends up staying in the class of 2018, this is the second time this recruiting year that the staff has gone all in / felt like they were in great position with their target and had him in the bag at PG, and the second time they got burned. I'll be pissed that we didn't actively explore any of the other guard options that shook free this spring, like Waters / Batts in lieu of again putting all eggs in one basket when numerous attractive options were out there.
 
Have you been watching the last 4 years? We've lost double digit numbers of games and have been a .500 team in the ACC for most of that time.

And? We've been under the cloud of an NCAA investigation and severe sanctions for most of that time, too, which everybody seems to be conveniently forgetting or astoundingly glossing over. We misjudged a PG recruit who was expected to lead the team for at least two years, also, during this timeframe (Hop's fault).

The sanctions are coming to an end, recruiting doesn't look as hopeless as some are insisting it is, and we finally have a foundation of talented young players expected to stick around for a while. To think the program is sliding downhill at an unstoppable pace is at least as foolish and short-sighted as thinking the opposite.
 
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This thread and others on the board lately are classic examples of throwing something against the wall and seeing if it sticks.
Or as the present day description goes, "fake news".
 
In fact, since starting out 25-0 during the 2014-2015 season, we've lost 42 games. Bleak.

I'm not suggesting that Jim Boeheim isn't capable of turning things around. He's Jim freaking Boeheim--HOF coach, and one of the top 10 best college coaches of all time, IMO. But in order to do so, we need to land talented players, and the class of 2017 that we've lined up thus far doesn't fill several key team needs for next year and beyond. If we bounce back and finish strong this spring, I'll be a lot more confident about how the next few years might go as JB winds down his career. If we don't land a few guys we've targeted, we'll be in full on scramble mode again this off-season.

I despise the completely arbitrary since starting out 25-0 nonsense. Oh Lord
THAT 25-0 START HAPPENED. It was part of that season in the ACC.
You can't simply choose to only count what happened AFTER that start, as if some sort of magic switch got flipped someplace on the day we lost to freaking BC in the God-forsaken mismatched uniforms. :bang:

But yes - our overall results the past few seasons, have left something to be desired, especially compared to the level of the prior 5-6 seasons.
And while the Final Four run was amazing, it did somewhat mask the fact that even that season was somewhat underwhelming.

The next few months will be quite telling.
Either JB and crew can restock the cupboards with Tucker, etc, and/or some more quality Grad transfers, or we're looking at yet another .500 conference season & a bubbletastic overall record (at best),
 
This thread and others on the board lately are classic examples of throwing something against the wall and seeing if it sticks.
Or as the present day description goes, "fake news".
Your right we haven't had 3 double digit loss seasons in a row something that never happened before in JB's tenure. We aren't staring a 4th double digit season loss in a row in the mirror.

The program is smooth sailing. The players are developing and recruiting has been fine all day long.

What is Fake News?
 

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