How many years are fans willing to give JB to turn this around?

[AlaskaSU]

The NCAA sanctions were meant to hurt the team, and they did. They have ended now, can people stop taking up trashing JB where the NCAA left off and give him a chance post sanctions.

Unfortunately, the effect of the sanctions linger on. Our reputation has been sullied. There are no shortages of people with axes to grind.

 

[Delmar]

"How many years are fans willing to give JB to turn this around?"

Whatever it takes, bro. Whatever it takes.

 

[OrangeDW]

Expectations are pretty low (at least for me) this year. If we don't show major improvement next year, with more recruits in the pipeline, it will be extremely difficult to support JB.

There's no excuse for any coach that plays in front of 30,000 people in the best basketball conference in the country not to have a top 25 team.

I don't buy the sanctions excuse. We fielded a team last year redshirted a top 50 recruit. The talent was here.

Moyer's injury was a big part of the redshirt though.

 

[orangedave]

People can kill my post I don't care. I don't want to turn this into a bash JB thread, but at some point I want to win more games than we have recently and compete near the top of the conference.

You say you don't want to turn this into a bash JB thread but I find it hard to believe that you didn't anticipate it becoming that

 

[Briancuse]

well, the absolute ceiling is always 41.
not having seen the full schedule, at the moment I think 9 conference and 10 OOC wins is the lower bound and 12/12 the upper bound of my expectations for the regular season.

In all honesty if Jb is able to win 20 games with this team, it might be his best coaching job ever.

 

[pfister1]

But, the sanctions occurred on JB's watch. One can't blame the sanctions, without blaming JB.

95% of us have moved on from the sanctions and made peace with JB over it. From my perspective part of making that peace was accepting that there were going to be bumps in the road over the next several years resulting from the sanctions. It isn't realistic to think that the ship was going to sail smoothly through the sanctions.

I feel like the overhang of the sanctions and the succession plan have started to clear. Personally I'm giving him a mulligan this season assuming no disasters unrelated to simply being overmatched. If he isn't able to restock the shelves beginning for next year, then I am going to start to get worried about his ability to continue to do the job at a high level.

 

[pfister1]

The NCAA saying that's the case, doesn't make it so.

There was practically nothing JB could have done to prevent the infractions that the program was dinged for. "Promoting a culture of compliance" is not a real thing that real people can really do in real life.

That's ridiculous. You must not be living in "real life". You show an interest in holding your subordinates to following the rules and you promote a culture of compliance.

The real question in my mind is not whether you can promote a culture of compliance, but whether the NCAA itself meets this standard? I don't believe they do. I think they promote a culture of "do what you think you can get away with"

 

[billsin01]

I'm not pretending the most recent F4 didn't happen, but, getting there as a 10 seed is extremely unlikely and not a recipe for success.

I absolutely get what you're saying and agree with it, but we are seeing a pretty competitive tournament up through the 12 and sometimes 13 seeds pretty routinely now.

'17 -- South Carolina absolutely punked Duke as a 7 and went to the final four last year. Wisconsin made a run as an 8.
'16 -- cuse.
'15 -- MSU was a 7 in the final four
'14 -- UConn wins the title as a 7 over UK as an 8 and Dayton made the elite 8 as an 11.
'13 -- Wichita State was a 9 in the final four.
'12 -- top seeds roll for the most part
'11 -- VCU and Butler as whatever seeds they were 11 and 9 I think?

Whatever, your point is valid and we all want a top 4 seed but I do think playing well down the stretch is the far more important factor. If we're going to have a bad loss in the preseason and struggle at times during the regular season but win a game in the ACC tournament after playing well in February -- I'm not that concerned with going in as an 8. It's far from ideal but it's not like the second weekend is a complete pipedream.

 

[weedsportwarriors]

JB is SU basketball!! You give him along as he wants as long as he is still getting top 100 recruits coming in and we are at least in the talk as a tournament team every year.

 

[billsin01]

Cmon on man.

Talent has been a huge advantage.

Also we had a better offense before. It has deteriorated and if it has deteriorated because of talent that is on the coach who was mailing in recruiting.

I'm responding to other posts in this thread and tend to fall more toward the 'JB apologist' side than the 'JB kinda sucks' side, but I just wanted to point out that posts like this are so lazy and full of holes that they make what is a perfectly reasonable discussion about the state of this program and the future nearly impossible to keep on track. Seriously, if you're going to post 15 times in a thread, put some effort into it.

 

[Alsacs]

I'm responding to other posts in this thread and tend to fall more toward the 'JB apologist' side than the 'JB kinda sucks' side, but I just wanted to point out that posts like this are so lazy and full of holes that they make what is a perfectly reasonable discussion about the state of this program and the future nearly impossible to keep on track. Seriously, if you're going to post 15 times in a thread, put some effort into it.

Okay boss thanks for flaming and not providing anything.

If you actually read which I don't know if you did you would the see the context to what my post was responding too.

However I should know better than expect a person to actually you know read the context. I won't expect more from your posts in the future. Good job trying to tear my post down for likes though.

 

[Bayside44]

I absolutely get what you're saying and agree with it, but we are seeing a pretty competitive tournament up through the 12 and sometimes 13 seeds pretty routinely now.

'17 -- South Carolina absolutely punked Duke as a 7 and went to the final four last year. Wisconsin made a run as an 8.
'16 -- cuse.
'15 -- MSU was a 7 in the final four
'14 -- UConn wins the title as a 7 over UK as an 8 and Dayton made the elite 8 as an 11.
'13 -- Wichita State was a 9 in the final four.
'12 -- top seeds roll for the most part
'11 -- VCU and Butler as whatever seeds they were 11 and 9 I think?

Whatever, your point is valid and we all want a top 4 seed but I do think playing well down the stretch is the far more important factor. If we're going to have a bad loss in the preseason and struggle at times during the regular season but win a game in the ACC tournament after playing well in February -- I'm not that concerned with going in as an 8. It's far from ideal but it's not like the second weekend is a complete pipedream.

More than ever the March games for us seem to be matchup / system driven before talent.

Always want a mid-tier p5 school as opposed to a mid-major stacked with 23 year olds (the last Dayton game aside).

 

[SoBeCuse]

I absolutely get what you're saying and agree with it, but we are seeing a pretty competitive tournament up through the 12 and sometimes 13 seeds pretty routinely now.

'17 -- South Carolina absolutely punked Duke as a 7 and went to the final four last year. Wisconsin made a run as an 8.
'16 -- cuse.
'15 -- MSU was a 7 in the final four
'14 -- UConn wins the title as a 7 over UK as an 8 and Dayton made the elite 8 as an 11.
'13 -- Wichita State was a 9 in the final four.
'12 -- top seeds roll for the most part
'11 -- VCU and Butler as whatever seeds they were 11 and 9 I think?

Whatever, your point is valid and we all want a top 4 seed but I do think playing well down the stretch is the far more important factor. If we're going to have a bad loss in the preseason and struggle at times during the regular season but win a game in the ACC tournament after playing well in February -- I'm not that concerned with going in as an 8. It's far from ideal but it's not like the second weekend is a complete pipedream.

Good points for sure. I just want to get into the Tourney, obviously. Anything can happen in there. I think we ALL felt doom and gloom knowing that the team was pretty flawed and suspect as that 10 seed staring at Michigan St. in that second round. MSU was a complete team with all the horses but just for that one game could not stop MTSU who was on fire start to finish. I think Wichita St. was grossly underseeded that year as well. Doesn't matter. Just get in and let it play out.

I also want to stress that I don't hate Boeheim or don't appreciate what he has accomplished. I think my issues are more with the stylistic/philosophical aspects of basketball under him. All zone, looking sluggish to start games and halves often, eroding fundamentals, not enough diversity built into the offense, etc. I'm just tired of it. But, I won't be any less of a fan nor will sit quiet if there are problems. Cheers.

 

[billsin01]

I don't want to belabor this too much longer. Sanctions played a part but I think it is also a perfect storm of guys not ready declaring and being somehow viewed as NBA prospects, poor recruiting, coaching, etc.

Sanctions I believe made this place unattractive and an easy target to recruit against. Rarely are all coaches on the road simultaneously so, IMO, that shouldn't be a valid excuse as mentioned by Francis and others in the know.

Dajuan never being able to contribute and constantly hurt was a major blow. Amazing kid with his drive, work ethic, etc. Unbelievable, really. Guys like Ennis and Lydon nailed it. They weren't going to get better here and improve their draft stock so they bolted. CMac and Malachi probably hurt the team the most since they were bodies with significant upside if they stayed another year or two, IMO.

But, the 2013 class was pre-sanctions and was an absolute debacle. When four of those guys never did much (including Robey) or left then it is hard to recover from that. Sanctions has nothing to do with that.

Sanctions has nothing to do with not being able to draw up something on offense to be able to beat UConn in the game that set the game 0f basketball back a few decades. UConn has two significant players out, doesn't even have a FG the last two minutes of the game (!!), and it is a dire struggle to get to 50 points. Sanctions has nothing to do with getting slaughtered and quitting early in the games by St. John's/BC1/ND. Much of this is on the coaches, imo. The team showed some heart in those comebacks @a bad NC St. and a decent Clemson team but the damage was already done from those other games mentioned above.

I'm much more concerned with quality of play this season than W/L frankly. I have no idea what to expect from this team. I just want to see players looking like they know what they are doing, having some sort of alternate plan and ability to adjust if a team plays tough M2M and overplays passing lanes like South Carolina, etc. I don't care how many new pieces you have. Players need to be able to know what they are doing out there and not look lost with everybody standing around. That's coaching and entirely unacceptable at this level, even in December, to be looking like that.

I definitely like some of the pieces for sure like Brissett, Bourama, Marek, etc. Battle will be fantastic but I hope he doesn't wear down and somebody else can emerge to shoulder the load. LGO!

I like this post. For me, I think people need to take a step back, take a breath and realize that these types of stretches happen in programs. They may not happen for a loooonnnngggg time if you are truly a phenomenal blue blood program and all the cards fall in your favor. UCLA with it's run under wooden, Cal seems to constantly attract top talent, Bill Self continues to own the B12, K has not consistently fielded dominant teams but they find ways to win a ton of games almost every year, Roy gets a lot of grief here but his roster management has been masterful the past few seasons at UNC -- talented veterans are HUGE currency in today's college game.

But Wright had an ugly stretch at Nova, UNC was a mess until Roy straightened it out, MSU is great and we'd love to watch teams play like Izzo's play but they've had some ugly years, Florida fell off for a while until last season, UK had an ugly stretch pre-Cal (at least by their standards), etc.

Bottom line -- most programs have bad stretches. The other disappointing reality is that our down stretch seems likely to continue for another season thanks to the absolutely befuddling TT situation.

But to speak to the Cuse specifically, I think it's fine to criticize the program. I love JB but the dude has warts as a head coach. I'm not sure that's even debatable -- sanctioned two times, I think he's more flexible than people think but he's still obviously a bit more on the rigid side, it's fair to question his rotation at times, drawing up plays in end-of-game/half situations seems almost impossibly bad, etc.

But there are a few things I think people need to keep in mind when evaluating where we stand today:

1 -- We have had an extremely rough run of roster turnover. Everyone loves to point to recruiting but we've had lulls and big misses before. One thing that's really hurt is how many players have left before before delivering an all-conference type season OR left well before we or the staff would have reasonably projected based on their profiles (think Ennis as a one-and-done or Lydon). I mean, if guys like Grant, Lydon, McCullough, Richardson, etc. had put together a truly outstanding individual season before leaving (think Rak's senior year, G's senior year, Ennis' frosh season) OR simply returned for a year and put together the type of season we all thought they could have had, we may not be having this discussion. I'm absolutely fine with kids doing what they want to do, but let's at least acknowledge that it makes it difficult for the staff to plan for and to build any sort of continuity. I think what we're seeing is an adjustment period to the current attrition rate of players. (and that's not even accounting for completely confusing teenage kids like TT randomly deciding seton hall is a better fit)

2 -- Sanctions hurt. This has been brought up 9 zillion times, but I think sometimes folks miss the real factor of the sanctions, namely it's more difficult to cover up inevitable recruiting misses. Don't think there's any way to argue that our recruiting has struggled a bit the past few cycles, but it's also important to point out that when you're missing a bunch of schollies, those misses are magnified. Now I think it's completely fine to blame JB for the sanctions, but as far as being fit to still run this program at a high level, I think you at least have to acknowledge that we need to see the program for a couple years post-sanctions before we declare the game has passed JB by.

3 -- The Hop transition/non-transition played a role. I may be the only one who sees it this way, but a lot of what people believe is JB's recruiting laziness, in my mind may be attributed to his attempt to let Hop take more of the lead on the trail. Perhaps it was a bad plan and recruits saw it in a negative light, but that process makes much more sense to me than JB suddenly decided he didn't feel like recruiting anymore. I mean, particularly when you look at the past several months -- JB is suddenly at the camps again, we get back involved with Tucker, lose late after Duke offers late in the process (not much you can do about that even with JB in his prime), recover to get Dolezaj, pull in a potentially solid grad transfer in Thorpe, fight to the end on Swider and pick up Bazely in the aftermath and have ourselves in pretty decent shape for some more solid '18/'19 recruits. I mean, we'll see how we finish on the recruiting trail the next couple seasons but it certainly appears like JB is up to the task.

4 -- We are only about 11 months removed from most here believing we were a potential title contender. This is the one that cracks me up the most. A bunch of the folks in the 'JB has lost it' camp were also in the 'we are going to surprise' camp last summer after White finally committed. I mean, we were coming off a final four and had a team many thought could potentially go to a final four. It sucks that it didn't work out that way and obviously the past few regular seasons have been largely brutal, but it's worth pointing out that a program's outlook can change rapidly these days.

5 -- Getting the right mix is difficult right now. I don't use this to excuse JB, but it's worth pointing out that Duke was absolutely loaded last year ... and lost eight -- EIGHT -- regular season games and nine total without even making the sweet 16. That's with two lottery picks (3 first-rounders total), a guy who probably would have been a lottery pick had he left before last season, a really, really solid veteran (Jefferson) and some other big-time recruits (Giles, Jeter, etc.). I mean, that's a potential title team that still lost nine games and failed to reach the sweet 16. Point is, finding the right mix ain't easy.

Anyway, I'm with everyone -- the past few years have been dismal outside of the final four run. To me, what we really need to get fixed is our play in the pre-conference season. I mean, our ACC performance (outside of the ACC tourney) has actually been pretty good overall given the strength of the conference. But we need to get back to putting ourselves in a good spot after the pre-conference slate. That's the one thing I find hard to write off in any way.

 

[billsin01]

Good points for sure. I just want to get into the Tourney, obviously. Anything can happen in there. I think we ALL felt doom and gloom knowing that the team was pretty flawed and suspect as that 10 seed staring at Michigan St. in that second round. MSU was a complete team with all the horses but just for that one game could not stop MTSU who was on fire start to finish. I think Wichita St. was grossly underseeded that year as well. Doesn't matter. Just get in and let it play out.

I also want to stress that I don't hate Boeheim or don't appreciate what he has accomplished. I think my issues are more with the stylistic/philosophical aspects of basketball under him. All zone, looking sluggish to start games and halves often, eroding fundamentals, not enough diversity built into the offense, etc. I'm just tired of it. But, I won't be any less of a fan nor will sit quiet if there are problems. Cheers.

Yeah, you're not consistently going to struggle most of the year and then start knocking off top seeds on a final four run very often. I just meant that the real key is getting in and playing well. Luck is a huge part of that tournament every year -- sometimes you love your matchups, sometimes they suck.

But I don't think JB is above criticism at all. Really would love to see us get back to winning our games pre-conference. Also would love to see us adjust some of our stylistic/philosophical decisions. The counter I would have here is that we are guaranteed nothing in life after JB. Replacing him is much more difficult in practice than in theory, IMO.

 

[SoBeCuse]

I like this post. For me, I think people need to take a step back, take a breath and realize that these types of stretches happen in programs. They may not happen for a loooonnnngggg time if you are truly a phenomenal blue blood program and all the cards fall in your favor. UCLA with it's run under wooden, Cal seems to constantly attract top talent, Bill Self continues to own the B12, K has not consistently fielded dominant teams but they find ways to win a ton of games almost every year, Roy gets a lot of grief here but his roster management has been masterful the past few seasons at UNC -- talented veterans are HUGE currency in today's college game.

But Wright had an ugly stretch at Nova, UNC was a mess until Roy straightened it out, MSU is great and we'd love to watch teams play like Izzo's play but they've had some ugly years, Florida fell off for a while until last season, UK had an ugly stretch pre-Cal (at least by their standards), etc.

Bottom line -- most programs have bad stretches. The other disappointing reality is that our down stretch seems likely to continue for another season thanks to the absolutely befuddling TT situation.

But to speak to the Cuse specifically, I think it's fine to criticize the program. I love JB but the dude has warts as a head coach. I'm not sure that's even debatable -- sanctioned two times, I think he's more flexible than people think but he's still obviously a bit more on the rigid side, it's fair to question his rotation at times, drawing up plays in end-of-game/half situations seems almost impossibly bad, etc.

But there are a few things I think people need to keep in mind when evaluating where we stand today:

1 -- We have had an extremely rough run of roster turnover. Everyone loves to point to recruiting but we've had lulls and big misses before. One thing that's really hurt is how many players have left before before delivering an all-conference type season OR left well before we or the staff would have reasonably projected based on their profiles (think Ennis as a one-and-done or Lydon). I mean, if guys like Grant, Lydon, McCullough, Richardson, etc. had put together a truly outstanding individual season before leaving (think Rak's senior year, G's senior year, Ennis' frosh season) OR simply returned for a year and put together the type of season we all thought they could have had, we may not be having this discussion. I'm absolutely fine with kids doing what they want to do, but let's at least acknowledge that it makes it difficult for the staff to plan for and to build any sort of continuity. I think what we're seeing is an adjustment period to the current attrition rate of players. (and that's not even accounting for completely confusing teenage kids like TT randomly deciding seton hall is a better fit)

2 -- Sanctions hurt. This has been brought up 9 zillion times, but I think sometimes folks miss the real factor of the sanctions, namely it's more difficult to cover up inevitable recruiting misses. Don't think there's any way to argue that our recruiting has struggled a bit the past few cycles, but it's also important to point out that when you're missing a bunch of schollies, those misses are magnified. Now I think it's completely fine to blame JB for the sanctions, but as far as being fit to still run this program at a high level, I think you at least have to acknowledge that we need to see the program for a couple years post-sanctions before we declare the game has passed JB by.

3 -- The Hop transition/non-transition played a role. I may be the only one who sees it this way, but a lot of what people believe is JB's recruiting laziness, in my mind may be attributed to his attempt to let Hop take more of the lead on the trail. Perhaps it was a bad plan and recruits saw it in a negative light, but that process makes much more sense to me than JB suddenly decided he didn't feel like recruiting anymore. I mean, particularly when you look at the past several months -- JB is suddenly at the camps again, we get back involved with Tucker, lose late after Duke offers late in the process (not much you can do about that even with JB in his prime), recover to get Dolezaj, pull in a potentially solid grad transfer in Thorpe, fight to the end on Swider and pick up Bazely in the aftermath and have ourselves in pretty decent shape for some more solid '18/'19 recruits. I mean, we'll see how we finish on the recruiting trail the next couple seasons but it certainly appears like JB is up to the task.

4 -- We are only about 11 months removed from most here believing we were a potential title contender. This is the one that cracks me up the most. A bunch of the folks in the 'JB has lost it' camp were also in the 'we are going to surprise' camp last summer after White finally committed. I mean, we were coming off a final four and had a team many thought could potentially go to a final four. It sucks that it didn't work out that way and obviously the past few regular seasons have been largely brutal, but it's worth pointing out that a program's outlook can change rapidly these days.

5 -- Getting the right mix is difficult right now. I don't use this to excuse JB, but it's worth pointing out that Duke was absolutely loaded last year ... and lost eight -- EIGHT -- regular season games and nine total without even making the sweet 16. That's with two lottery picks (3 first-rounders total), a guy who probably would have been a lottery pick had he left before last season, a really, really solid veteran (Jefferson) and some other big-time recruits (Giles, Jeter, etc.). I mean, that's a potential title team that still lost nine games and failed to reach the sweet 16. Point is, finding the right mix ain't easy.

Anyway, I'm with everyone -- the past few years have been dismal outside of the final four run. To me, what we really need to get fixed is our play in the pre-conference season. I mean, our ACC performance (outside of the ACC tourney) has actually been pretty good overall given the strength of the conference. But we need to get back to putting ourselves in a good spot after the pre-conference slate. That's the one thing I find hard to write off in any way.

Good stuff. I tend to agree your number 3. I think initially JB was open to the succession plan and just turned it over to Hopkins to lead. Aspects of bad and good with that. Then I think recruiting cooled off a bit when both were with the Olympics and the more and more Hop wanted to get to UW. Anyways, the plan was botched. I don't blame the staff for QG, losing Swider, etc. The putting all the eggs into one basket is a bad strategy but that's his preference.

No question finding the right mix is very difficult. It's looking like the trend is shifting to the teams with the more experience/sustained improvement/staying true with their systems and personnel suited for it, are the ones with the continued deep postseason success lately...like Villanova, UNC, Wisconsin, and Louisville (we'll see with them). I enjoy all of this discussion, frankly.

 

[billsin01]

Okay boss thanks for flaming and not providing anything.

If you actually read which I don't know if you did you would the see the context to what my post was responding too.

However I should know better than expect a person to actually you know read the context. I won't expect more from your posts in the future. Good job trying to tear my post down for likes though.

OK, fine, we can discuss. JB has been 'mailing it in' on the recruiting trail. I get that this is a popular sentiment but I would argue that it may have been more of an effort to have Hopkins take the lead since he was going to be the head coach this year. The decision may have been a poor one, but it makes more sense to me than JB arbitrarily deciding not to recruit anymore. No one has offered any sort of explanation as to why JB would have just written off recruiting and then suddenly decided to recruit again.

And 'talent has been a huge advantage'? In what sense? All the lottery picks and NBA all-stars we've sent to the league since the mid-90s? I mean, we were loaded in the late-80s/early 90's but since then? Really? Even our recent run of 1st-rounders included a bunch of guys that were good but not great college players (grant, lydon, richardson, mccullough)

And 'we used to have a better offense'? We've had teams that ran more (I'd love to see more of that) and we had the 09-10 group that ran a ton of high-low with RJ and Onuaku, but what are the differences you're referring to in terms of our basic offensive approach?

My only point is that they feel like your opinions, which is fine, it's a message board. But they feel like thin, generalized statements as opposed to reasoned arguments. Apologies if that offends.

 

[Bayside44]

OK, fine, we can discuss. JB has been 'mailing it in' on the recruiting trail. I get that this is a popular sentiment but I would argue that it may have been more of an effort to have Hopkins take the lead since he was going to be the head coach this year. The decision may have been a poor one, but it makes more sense to me than JB arbitrarily deciding not to recruit anymore. No one has offered any sort of explanation as to why JB would have just written off recruiting and then suddenly decided to recruit again.

And 'talent has been a huge advantage'? In what sense? All the lottery picks and NBA all-stars we've sent to the league since the mid-90s? I mean, we were loaded in the late-80s/early 90's but since then? Really? Even our recent run of 1st-rounders included a bunch of guys that were good but not great college players (grant, lydon, richardson, mccullough)

And 'we used to have a better offense'? We've had teams that ran more (I'd love to see more of that) and we had the 09-10 group that ran a ton of high-low with RJ and Onuaku, but what are the differences you're referring to in terms of our basic offensive approach?

My only point is that they feel like your opinions, which is fine, it's a message board. But they feel like thin, generalized statements as opposed to reasoned arguments. Apologies if that offends.

JB and Hop looked to have a difference of opinion in recruiting. Remember with Coyle JB was gonna be a goner and he was trying to load up on the last run to glory with guys like Quade where Hop was attempting to look a few years into the future.

 

[Waltdods]

1 -- We have had an extremely rough run of roster turnover. Everyone loves to point to recruiting but we've had lulls and big misses before. One thing that's really hurt is how many players have left before before delivering an all-conference type season OR left well before we or the staff would have reasonably projected based on their profiles (think Ennis as a one-and-done or Lydon). I mean, if guys like Grant, Lydon, McCullough, Richardson, etc. had put together a truly outstanding individual season before leaving (think Rak's senior year, G's senior year, Ennis' frosh season) OR simply returned for a year and put together the type of season we all thought they could have had, we may not be having this discussion. I'm absolutely fine with kids doing what they want to do, but let's at least acknowledge that it makes it difficult for the staff to plan for and to build any sort of continuity. I think what we're seeing is an adjustment period to the current attrition rate of players. (and that's not even accounting for completely confusing teenage kids like TT randomly deciding seton hall is a better fit)

I would add to this that there is just luck in recruiting. SU had a tough stretch in the post-championship years with a ton of misses (the disappointing '03 recruiting class followed by the atrocious '04 class, strong but somewhat slow-acting '05 class, and then disappointing '06 class) that was then followed by years of hit after hit after hit. The luck kind of turned the other way with the '13 class (which looked a lot like the '03 class - a big class with a lot of excitement that largely failed to live up to expectations and really hurt the program), followed by basically a complete strike-out in '14. I'm not sure there's much more to this than bad luck, exacerbated by the sanctions. This year is another big class, especially if you count Moyer - hopefully it looks a lot more like '07 than '03 or '13.

 

[billsin01]

JB and Hop looked to have a difference of opinion in recruiting. Remember with Coyle JB was gonna be a goner and he was trying to load up on the last run to glory with guys like Quade where Hop was attempting to look a few years into the future.

yeah, could be, though I think it's simply difficult to look into the future with rosters now. Kids don't want to wait for PT. And kids who are projectable and get onto the floor early, even if they're really raw, tend to turn heads at the next level. But, somehow you need to derive some semblance of continuity. To me that's what the moves for Howard Washington (even though he was obviously not Plan A) and Hughes and Buddy might offer to a certain degree.

 

[billsin01]

I would add to this that there is just luck in recruiting. SU had a tough stretch in the post-championship years with a ton of misses (the disappointing '03 recruiting class followed by the atrocious '04 class, strong but somewhat slow-acting '05 class, and then disappointing '06 class) that was then followed by years of hit after hit after hit. The luck kind of turned the other way with the '13 class (which looked a lot like the '03 class - a big class with a lot of excitement that largely failed to live up to expectations and really hurt the program), followed by basically a complete strike-out in '14. I'm not sure there's much more to this than bad luck, exacerbated by the sanctions. This year is another big class, especially if you count Moyer - hopefully it looks a lot more like '07 than '03 or '13.

I'm not sure you can chalk it up entirely to luck -- I mean, if you believe that the staff has an ability to evaluate talent, then some of it has to fall into the poor evaluation category. But obviously luck is involved to a degree (good and bad). My guess is this class -- moyer included -- won't be viewed as the class that resurrects this program, but I'd say the hope is that it at least yields a solid piece or two that the staff can pair with a couple of big-timers in '18 and put us back on the map. But, to your point, it's hard to know.

 

[SU Dreaming]

JB leaves when Buddy leaves and/or if they win it together before Buddy's senior year

 

[JLine]

Wow. This thread is embarrassing. If I were a fan of another school, then I'd be laughing.

Some level headed folks, but just unreal. Really don't have any words to say how disturbing some posts are. I guess just keep on dissecting JB, the basketball program, and all the supposed doom. Unbelievable.

Syracuse basketball. Top 10 program of all time. Yet, we have a negative thread about one of the all-time greatest coaches in history. Who built it. Who is still one of the top 5 coaches in CBB. Just unreal to me, but carry on. I really have to doubt that people even know basketball. Eh, I'll stop. Enjoy.

 

[SoBeCuse]

Wow. This thread is embarrassing. If I were a fan of another school, then I'd be laughing.

Some level headed folks, but just unreal. Really don't have any words to say how disturbing some posts are. I guess just keep on dissecting JB, the basketball program, and all the supposed doom. Unbelievable.

Syracuse basketball. Top 10 program of all time. Yet, we have a negative thread about one of the all-time greatest coaches in history. Who built it. Who is still one of the top 5 coaches in CBB. Just unreal to me, but carry on. I really have to doubt that people even know basketball. Eh, I'll stop. Enjoy.

The fact that you call this thread disturbing is disturbing. Nobody is really bashing. Just good honest discussion, frankly. Carry on!

 

[OrangeDW]

Wow. This thread is embarrassing. If I were a fan of another school, then I'd be laughing.

Some level headed folks, but just unreal. Really don't have any words to say how disturbing some posts are. I guess just keep on dissecting JB, the basketball program, and all the supposed doom. Unbelievable.

Syracuse basketball. Top 10 program of all time. Yet, we have a negative thread about one of the all-time greatest coaches in history. Who built it. Who is still one of the top 5 coaches in CBB. Just unreal to me, but carry on. I really have to doubt that people even know basketball. Eh, I'll stop. Enjoy.

Yeah, I mean...I guess I don't really see cause for concern anymore. There was. Probation hurt us. So if anyone was concerned a few years ago, it was with good reason. But it feels like we're coming out of it now. The players on the floor are the most important thing. Seems like we're getting them again.