Fire Autry | Page 103 | Syracusefan.com

Fire Autry

A Facebook memory popped up just now… 14 years ago today I took my then-4 year old son to MSG to watch us beat the snot out of St. John’s. The Garden was at least 75% SU fans. Fab Melo threw down a thunderous dunk in the second half and the place exploded.

Man, I really miss that. It’s been ages since there was that kind of excitement surrounding the program.
 
How easy to say now. This board itself was very supportive of the Autry hire. Congrats on you 20/20 hindsight.
Many in this board raised concerns about hiring Red (or GMac) as JB’s replacement. Concerns that have ultimately become a reality.

After Red was announced as the hire, most on the board gave him support. He was the HC, didn’t make sense fighting it. He started off well with some good roster moves (landing JJ, retaining Judah), which garnered additional support.

However, the luster wore off after his first season. Many in this board started to realize Red wasn’t the guy by the first month of his second season. He should have been fired last year (there was clear pressure to do so) but they decided to give him another year. NIL was raised and a roster with talent was put together, clearly an upgrade from last season.

However, the results have been horrible. The common denominator is Red as a HC. We can only deduce he doesn’t have the skill to succeed as a HC at this level. He was given EVERY opportunity to succeed and failed. I don’t feel bad he’s going to get fired. He’s not bigger than the program.
 
Anyone with a brain knew Red was the worst coach ever after the Lemoyne game last year. Hard to understand leadership's blindness to the obvious. Lots of enablers involved in this program. It's yucky, they need outside help.
I understand where the administration was coming from when they brought Autry back for year 3.

They felt that he was under resourced in terms of NIL money, and in terms of support staff. They felt those factors were the critical reasons why we had a subpar roster last season. It’s almost as if there was guilt about it. Now, we can disagree with that and put the blame far more on Red for not addressing those lacking resources (I do) but I understand the admin’s perspective.

So they hired a GM, dumped a lot of money into player compensation, brought in a new S&C guy, and told Red he could add to his staff (he declined). Clearly the intent was to build a far better roster than last year and leave no doubt as to where culpability lies if this season doesn’t go well.

It hasn’t gone well and we know beyond a shadow of a doubt what the cause now.

I know everyone is mad at enduring another lost season. I do get why a university like SU wanted to play out one more year to know for sure about Red.
 
I understand where the administration was coming from when they brought Autry back for year 3.

They felt that he was under resourced in terms of NIL money, and in terms of support staff. They felt those factors were the critical reasons why we had a subpar roster last season. It’s almost as if there was guilt about it. Now, we can disagree with that and put the blame far more on Red for not addressing those lacking resources (I do) but I understand the admin’s perspective.

So they hired a GM, dumped a lot of money into player compensation, brought in a new S&C guy, and told Red he could add to his staff (he declined). Clearly the intent was to build a far better roster than last year and leave no doubt as to where culpability lies if this season doesn’t go well.

It hasn’t gone well and we know beyond a shadow of a doubt what the cause now.

I know everyone is mad at enduring another lost season. I do get why a university like SU wanted to play out one more year to know for sure about Red.

Terrific post. Nobody's happy to be where we are, but they wanted him to succeed. So did all of us, once he was the choice
 
I understand where the administration was coming from when they brought Autry back for year 3.

They felt that he was under resourced in terms of NIL money, and in terms of support staff. They felt those factors were the critical reasons why we had a subpar roster last season. It’s almost as if there was guilt about it. Now, we can disagree with that and put the blame far more on Red for not addressing those lacking resources (I do) but I understand the admin’s perspective.

So they hired a GM, dumped a lot of money into player compensation, brought in a new S&C guy, and told Red he could add to his staff (he declined). Clearly the intent was to build a far better roster than last year and leave no doubt as to where culpability lies if this season doesn’t go well.

It hasn’t gone well and we know beyond a shadow of a doubt what the cause now.

I know everyone is mad at enduring another lost season. I do get why a university like SU wanted to play out one more year to know for sure about Red.
Similar story to Dino. They added Anae and Beck to the offense. Added more staffers etc and still didn't really improve on certain things.

Gave more resources to leave no doubts.
 
I understand where the administration was coming from when they brought Autry back for year 3.

They felt that he was under resourced in terms of NIL money, and in terms of support staff. They felt those factors were the critical reasons why we had a subpar roster last season. It’s almost as if there was guilt about it. Now, we can disagree with that and put the blame far more on Red for not addressing those lacking resources (I do) but I understand the admin’s perspective.

So they hired a GM, dumped a lot of money into player compensation, brought in a new S&C guy, and told Red he could add to his staff (he declined). Clearly the intent was to build a far better roster than last year and leave no doubt as to where culpability lies if this season doesn’t go well.

It hasn’t gone well and we know beyond a shadow of a doubt what the cause now.

I know everyone is mad at enduring another lost season. I do get why a university like SU wanted to play out one more year to know for sure about Red.
the most reasonable, non-emotional post in this thread (and others). kudos.
 
the most reasonable, non-emotional post in this thread (and others). kudos.
Agreed good post and agree some people in some the other threads are absolutely going off their rockers. People act like how things have turned out was intentionally done by Red and stuff. And before some of you say this board is tame comparatively just stop...doesn't matter or make some responses ok.
 
How easy to say now. This board itself was very supportive of the Autry hire. Congrats on you 20/20 hindsight.
I thought it was a horrible hire the second it was announced. Red was my favorite player when I was in high school but he should have never been SU’s head coach under any circumstance.
The fact he was given the job shows how whacked out the priorities are on the hill.
 
told Red he could add to his staff (he declined).

Nice post! I forgot about this piece. Was there ever any info (insider or public) regarding why Red decided not to expand the staff?

I wonder if it was pride/ego? Had someone in mind that turned down the opportunity? Or legitimately thought it was not a need?

It seemed crazy at the time, but even more insane to me now. It’s your make or break year, you’d think Red would want to take advantage of all the resources at his disposal.
 
Many in this board raised concerns about hiring Red (or GMac) as JB’s replacement. Concerns that have ultimately become a reality.

After Red was announced as the hire, most on the board gave him support. He was the HC, didn’t make sense fighting it. He started off well with some good roster moves (landing JJ, retaining Judah), which garnered additional support.

However, the luster wore off after his first season. Many in this board started to realize Red wasn’t the guy by the first month of his second season. He should have been fired last year (there was clear pressure to do so) but they decided to give him another year. NIL was raised and a roster with talent was put together, clearly an upgrade from last season.

However, the results have been horrible. The common denominator is Red as a HC. We can only deduce he doesn’t have the skill to succeed as a HC at this level. He was given EVERY opportunity to succeed and failed. I don’t feel bad he’s going to get fired. He’s not bigger than the program.
I wanted no part of red, wanted a national search. Knew it would not go well, but once he is your coach you only choice is to support him.
 
How easy to say now. This board itself was very supportive of the Autry hire. Congrats on you 20/20 hindsight.
No, your echochambered memory saw the “board itself” as “very supportive” of the Autry hire. There was a large, loud, and vocal part of this fanbase that was not for this or any continuity hire from the onset.

However he is one of our own so you’ve gotta support it once it was set in stone, that’s what fandom is. In the same breath, we’re just fans. we can only hope to know what’s best, and to some extent just like recruiting it can be a crap shoot when hiring an unknown/inexperienced head coach so there was always the chance of him surprising the side that was against him being hired. It is what it is, it would’ve been awesome to go from JB to Red like duke has seamlessly done, Like the Steelers had done for 60 years.m, unfortunately we’re where we are now.
 
Path of least resistance.

They weren't "tied," it was a choice.
I also just can’t stand hearing that take as an excuse to the program because they put themselves in that place. You aren’t forced to name a coach in waiting, it’s not even all that normal. We for some reason did so twice, and when faced with the inner details of both events, it was an embarrassing failure both times.
 
You know what's great? Going back in time and reading a lot of posts about how SU wasn't doing that bad, all things considered, and that we're turning the corner, just wait and see! Look at these players we have coming in! Best class in years!

Well, we might finally be turning that corner. Only has taken 12 years.
 
It’s fascinating that Red finally seems to be acknowledging the realities about our lack of ball movement, cutting and screening. Is this a recent revelation for him? Lol. Or something he’s known all along but wasn’t able to coach the players to execute properly? Maybe he realizes that he got pretty good talent in the portal but not complimentary talent?

This is what he told the PS after the game:
“Our guys just stood,” Autry said. “A lot of guys are used to playing with the ball in their hands. When that happens, they stand up. Now we don’t have any movement.

“That’s the thing we have to work on. We have a lot of guys that like to play with the ball in their hands.”

Shouldn’t we have been working on this in the preseason? We should be running way more off-ball screens and sets for Kingz and Donnie and Betsey and exploit mismatches much better. But all of that has to start over the summer but certainly by the fall.
 
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It’s fascinating that Red finally seems to be acknowledging the realities about our lack of ball movement, cutting and screening. Is this a recent revelation for him? Lol. Or something he’s known all along but wasn’t able to coach the players to execute properly? Maybe he realizes that he got pretty good talent in the portal but not complimentary talent?

This is what he told the PS after the game:
“Our guys just stood,” Autry said. “A lot of guys are used to playing with the ball in their hands. When that happens, they stand up. Now we don’t have any movement.

“That’s the thing we have to work on. We have a lot of guys that like to play with the ball in their hands.”

Shouldn’t we have been working on this in the preseason? We should be running way more off-ball screens and sets for Kingz and Donnie and Betsey and exploit mismatches much better. But all of that has to start over the summer but certainly by the fall.
Yes, but it's lack of discipline more than anything else. And lack of good basketball IQ. I'm thinking somewhere there is a book or online program of all the plays that Red has rolled out to these guys. But, and I don't want to blame this all on JJ, but he's been here the longest and is the least disciplined player and not a great role model for these other players.
 

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