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Message: [QUOTE="billsin01, post: 2286317, member: 837"] 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: [B]1 -- We have had an extremely rough run of roster turnover.[/B] 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 [I]could[/I] 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) [B]2 -- Sanctions hurt.[/B] 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. [B]3 -- The Hop transition/non-transition played a role.[/B] 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. [B]4 -- We are only about 11 months removed from most here believing we were a potential title contender.[/B] 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. [B]5 -- Getting the right mix is difficult right now.[/B] 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. [/QUOTE]

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