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Message: [QUOTE="Zelda Zonk, post: 4872711, member: 966"] i think we were somewhat "stuck" in that you don't purge a player without knowing you can improve upon that roster spot. It's not unreasonable to have thought that some of these players were going to make natural progressions. Also, the notion of the 'Syracuse family' makes it not so much of a cutthroat situation. When Pitino moved into StJ, he was a foreign entity without relationships to the incumbents. Red assumed the HC position, but helped recruit our players, helped develop them (or tried to)—it's a different thing. And then he would have had to convince impact portal transfer candidates that he had the tools and plan to improve us from a team that isn't a part of the Top 25 and isn't a tournament team. That's a lot to sell in a first year, which is why we got who we got—a guy with whom we already had a relationship, and who was coming home; our third (?) choice of Jesse replacements; and Cuffe—off an injury. Jury is still out on Chance, but he too is a bit of a reclamation project. I don't know how hard the staff worked. I think they did a decent job, considering they didn't have a HC resume as a platform. Maybe Chance is the impact piece we need to be the team most of us projected. And JJ's shooting is the other major hindrance to us being a decent team. A lot of us thought we easily had the best backcourt in the ACC. If JJ could shoot like we saw in HS, maybe we'd be in that conversation. When he can't we have a pretty poor backcourt. We assumed JT would be Buddy 2.0, and he isn't/hasn't been. Some progression should be expected. We're not getting that yet. I think Red said the offense is going to develop slower because of so much emphasis on the new defense. But, it's not just offensive schemes and plays. We're seeing steps back just in terms of skills. Basic skills. [/QUOTE]

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