PITT Round 2 Post Game

[orangecuse]

I'm not defending Red as he has been horrible this season and it's his program. Still I don't think that any coach would have made much of a difference because we simply don't have any talent. None at all. Zero.
I dont have a clue what the staff was thinking but wow I've never seen a worse SU team in my life.

Your anthem!

 

[bnoro]

A-State Head Men’s Basketball Coach Hodgson Receives Contract Extension - Arkansas State University

JONESBORO, Ark. (1/30/25) – Arkansas State Vice Chancellor for Intercollegiate Athletics Jeff Purinton announced Thursday that head men's basketball coach Bryan

astateredwolves.com

Hoping this is a good thing and he’ll stay there for a couple more years until we are done with the Red experiment.

Just to get more $$$ of a buyout. P4 comes in, he's gone.

 

[Madbiker]

We have Carlos, Taylor and Euro Dude on the floor at the same time and we expect to win games in the ACC? Please. The 2nd half last night was unwatchable. Non of these are ACC level players. Several others also but I won't name the names. We all know who they are. Very poorly constructed roster -- for whatever reasons. It's unfathomable the severity of the decline of our program.

 

[CuseMan4]

We have Carlos, Taylor and Euro Dude on the floor at the same time and we expect to win games in the ACC? Please. The 2nd half last night was unwatchable. Non of these are ACC level players. Several others also but I won't name the names. We all know who they are. Very poorly constructed roster -- for whatever reasons. It's unfathomable the severity of the decline of our program.

To be fair, you already named names, then said you wouldn’t name names. So I think you should name the rest of the names. You know what I’m saying?

 

[Madbiker]

To be fair, you already named names, then said you wouldn’t name names. So I think you should name the rest of the names. You know what I’m saying?

There are 3 ACC caliber players on this roster. Freeman (who we lost to injury), Lampkin and JJ.

 

[NineOneSeven]

To be fair, you already named names, then said you wouldn’t name names. So I think you should name the rest of the names. You know what I’m saying?

I’ll name names. When we were truly competing at the highest level of D1 basketball and regularly in the top 25 (what’s that again?), here is where these pieces would be imo.

JJ- 6th man type role, possibly starter depending on the 1 and 3.
Lampkin- backup center, possibly starter depending on the 4.
Freeman- could certainly have been “token” starter but he’s definitely starting caliber and a top 7 rotational guy.
Bell- 8th man, gets run sporadically to see if his shot is on otherwise a few DNPs.
Petar- 10th man depth role, sees some PT across season but many DNPs. (Still young, not well rounded enough.. yet)
Davis- same as above. (Too undersized for this level)

Moore- redshirt type year.

McLeod- not on team or no run.
Taylor- not on team or no run.
Cuffe- not on team or no run.
Carlos- not on team or no run.

 

[Cusefan0307]

I’ll name names. When we were truly competing at the highest level of D1 basketball and regularly in the top 25 (what’s that again?), here is where these pieces would be imo.

JJ- 6th man type role, possibly starter depending on the 1 and 3.
Lampkin- backup center, possibly starter depending on the 4.
Freeman- could certainly have been “token” starter but he’s definitely starting caliber and a top 7 rotational guy.
Bell- 8th man, gets run sporadically to see if his shot is on otherwise a few DNPs.
Petar- 10th man depth role, sees some PT across season but many DNPs. (Still young, not well rounded enough.. yet)
Davis- same as above. (Too undersized for this level)

Moore- redshirt type year.

McLeod- not on team or no run.
Taylor- not on team or no run.
Cuffe- not on team or no run.
Carlos- not on team or no run.

You’re being generous.

 

[NineOneSeven]

You’re being generous.

I thought so too. Even with that, I’m still seeing half the starting lineup missing and over half of a standard 9 man rotation!

 

[orangecuse]

I am sure GERG was a smart guy. Won a few Super Bowls. Record breakingly terrible head coach. Not much of a coordinator post- Syracuse either. Scott Shafer was a very very good defensive coordinator and a very very inept head coach. And that is just Syracuse in the past 20 years. Do we need more examples? There are some people not cut out to be the head coach. Red is clearly one of them. I'd take my chances on someone that is a successful head coach at a lesser program (although probably already a better team, unfortunately) before another assistant.

It's quite apparent that Red's "Seat On The Bus" is not one of a head coaching material, at least not at this highest level. Solid/competent leadership would easily see the writing on the wall.

In fact, leaders of companies that go from good to great start not with “where” but with “who.” They start by getting the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats. And they stick with that discipline—first the people, then the direction—no matter how dire the circumstances.

Get the right people on the bus in the right seats | Jim Collins | Kinesis

When performance drops, most business leaders ask "what should we do?" Discover the much more relevant - and important - question you should consider first.

www.kinesisinc.com

 

[Irishsecra1]

Spot on. If Red comes back I am not and I am sure there are many others who won’t. The dome will be very empty and the BoT will be bewildered as to why. I can’t believe such educated people cannot see what’s right in front of them.

I will stay as a season ticket holder merely because I like my seats and frankly I endured 10 years of a football dumpster fire, so I can certainly do another 2 years of this.
That being said, very few probably have my attitude.

One thing that I have noticed all year is how few people are parking at Manley. And how there is literally no wait to board the buses to go to the Dome, and frankly a very short wait to go back to Manley.

So, forget about loss of ticket revenue. At $30 a game per car, there are losing massive parking revenue as well. And dont get me started on lower concession revenue. No real lines any more.

 

[AcAndAc]

Look, SU is not a state school. The pot of money is not, tell the state legislature we need more. I am not sure we want to be paying two head coach salaries at this time. These are bad times for hoops. By all accounts we have an excellent women's coach who does not have the resources to keep or get most of the players she wants. The men's team does not have the alumni support to compete dollar wise with Duke, or the Big or SEC Schools. I have no idea how our overall NIL compares to peer schools like BC, Pitt, or the other non- state schools with hoops and football. The boosters have really gotten behind football which is the economic reality of college sports now. Don't want to be left out in the cold, you better have good football with resources to sustain it.

Why do we always fall for this line of thinking? If we were debt collectors, we would all walk away saying "Sorry, boss, nothing we can do... the guy said he was broke."

Syracuse wastes more money every year than most of us will every earn or need in a lifetime. They do not need taxpayer dollars to run a program. And, if it is true that we are this broke, let's just stop the pretending altogether... drop down to MAAC...compete with Canisius again and charge $15 for tickets, etc. You cannot have it both ways.

The ACC teams average 11,000 per game in 2023-2024. Syracuse averaged... 20,288. 9,000 extra per game over 16 games = nearly $3M at $20/ticket (after all, only low-life losers who can only afford cheap seats stop going to games because the team stinks). Explain to me, again, why we are lacking money???

UConn averaged 13k per game. That is 7,000 less tickets sold. $2.5M difference. I get that this money does not get funneled into NIL. But it absolutely gets funneled into the coaching hire. We should have a very expensive coach relative to our peers. Not LESS expensive. And it is not like UConn gets the ACC revenue that we do.

Official attendance is already down 2,000 per game. That is $500,000 at $20/ticket. When we are down to 15,000/game next year, will it wake someone up???

We need to put the pressure on them to make the right moves... and not just blindly accept their crying poor. The leadership made this stupid decision to hire Red... they have to find/eat the money to undo it. The fans did not hire Red. If our ticket money does not matter, then stop charging us.

 

[OttoinGrotto]

I will stay as a season ticket holder merely because I like my seats and frankly I endured 10 years of a football dumpster fire, so I can certainly do another 2 years of this.
That being said, very few probably have my attitude.

One thing that I have noticed all year is how few people are parking at Manley. And how there is literally no wait to board the buses to go to the Dome, and frankly a very short wait to go back to Manley.

So, forget about loss of ticket revenue. At $30 a game per car, there are losing massive parking revenue as well. And dont get me started on lower concession revenue.

There is definitely an ecosystem to think about. Game attendance going down has pretty far reaching impacts economically.

 

[MSOrange]

I would not be opposed to having Fran Brown as a part of any future search committee.

Me neither actually. There are certain things that crossover - does he have seem to have a good NIL and recruiting plan as it relates to challenges specific to Syracuse?

 

[RF2044]

There is definitely an ecosystem to think about. Game attendance going down has pretty far reaching impacts economically.

That's where I'm at, as well.

This decision from on-high doesn't just happen in a vacuum. It isn't just "give him another year and hope that things improve." Although I believe that we will [NC State is coming up], it is entirely possible that we don't win another game for the rest of the season. We are also probably going to get bounced in the 1st round of the ACCT, as the final qualifying seed.

Enthusiasm will be at an all time low. So... yeah, the BOT can run it back, but there will be consequences in terms of fan engagement / revenue.

 

[Irishsecra1]

No one legitimately knew for sure what kind of head coach Red would be, or for that matter GMAC.
JW chose to take a flyer on one because he wanted to keep it in the family after the messy retirement/firing of JB.
They chose Red because they believed he was the better recruiter and had the most seniority.
They did not prioritize intangibles because they did not believe it was as important.

But Fran showed with the football program that these things matter.

Being a good recruiter (Red does this I believe - but if you recruit crappy talent are you really that good?)
Being a good evaluator of talent (Red stinks at this per todays product)
Being a good game day coach (Red stinks at this and this is the one area that I believe Fran will show second year improvement)
Having a disciplined culture that emphasizes the brotherhood of the team, leadership, all pulling together and never giving up (Fran gave us DART which reaped us huge benefits last year and will most likely help some of our players make it to the NFL , Red does not emphasize discipline (Bell with his temper tantrum), I have no idea if there is an oncourt leader, and sometimes this team seems to give up after half time.

I understand why they chose Red even though I would have preferred GMAC.

The question is how far is SU willing to go down the rabbit hole to give Red one more year.

 

[Zelda Zonk]

I'm not defending Red as he has been horrible this season and it's his program. Still I don't think that any coach would have made much of a difference because we simply don't have any talent. None at all. Zero.
I dont have a clue what the staff was thinking but wow I've never seen a worse SU team in my life.

Sincere question: what is “talent?”

I think a lot of people use that word to represent physical gifts. Being able to jump over people, dribble past people, make creative passes, and to shoot at a high percentage.

But, we’ve played teams with similar or worse athleticism and we still show less fundamental ability to do fundamental things. And aren’t these fundamental things the kinds of things that should be taught? Coached? Practiced? The kinds of execution issues that coaches work with players on, so they understand how to do things?

If we all agree we’ve never seen a worse SU team in our lifetimes, isn’t a good percentage of that about how they play? I’m still seeing some of the same issues I noted at the beginning of the season. Some things are better, which demonstrates it’s not about athleticism/talent. And talent itself isn’t always an innate, genetic thing. Talent can and must be developed as well. Jerami Grant is a common example here. He came to SU with the same physical gifts as when he left. But, he’s a vastly different player now than then. Development is partially about maturing, experience, and also coaching—learning how to maximize your abilities. Learning how to minimize and/or hide your flaws.

Honestly, to speak to your last sentence—I think we took who we could afford, who was somewhat familiar to us, and we had a misguided attempt to replicate a foe’s success with a similarly built player. All of that is a combination of naïveté, poverty, and laziness… and then we applied poor coaching on top.

All of this is say that, Yes, I think another coach would have made a difference. Probably not enough to get us into the NCAAs, but certainly worth a handful more wins on the season.

 

[Cusefan95]

My daughter has been a grad student member of the BOT. They care about athletics. When teams do well interest in the school skyrockets with applications and everything else that comes with it.

Honestly…I would prefer to hear that they don’t care about athletics. At least then the decisions that get made would be easily explainable.

If they care and are making the decisions that are being made, there’s two possible reasons - one is that Syracuse isn’t in a financial position to make good decisions. The other is total incompetence. I suspect it’s a combination of those two, not really either/or.

 

[Don]

Wildhack didn't find Fran Brown, everybody knows Dan Mullen was the first choice there was a 2000 post response post to prove it.

Sad State of affairs for the team that once was.

 

[Millhouse]

We're getting awfully close to information-shaming and "DuDe, WhO'S YoUr sOuRcE?" territory here.

Dial it back, folks.

I think you should dial it back

 

[Cusefan95]

Lost revenue may force his hand. 8k less attendees per game times $40 times 20 games is a loss of $6.4m in revenue. Doesn’t make a $2-3m buyout look too bad.

Sadly, we’ve been down this road before with football - so we know how this plays out:
1) Keep Red because all that is looked at is the immediate cost of letting him go.
2) Be shocked when revenues plummet “unexpectedly” the following year.
3). Get friendly media to run articles about how bad the attendance decrease is on finances and how it’ll make it hard to recover -the “blame the fans” strategy in action.
4). Get angry and bitter those stupid fans aren’t coming back to watch a garbage product. May be time to remind them they live in a one horse town and need to get a life, although that’s optional.
5). Finally get around to firing Red…but wonder why the fans don’t magically return. You did what they wanted, right? (Ignoring the 2-3 years of almost compulsive bridge burning that’s gone on).

I don’t think Syracuse basketball is going to recover. Ever. If I’m wrong, it’ll likely only be because “ever” was too long - but a three decade trudge through the wilderness like Houston went through is probably our best case.

 

[Hopkins16]

This is so stupid. Red's issues have nothing to do with being a JB disciple. Last time I checked, if it was not for JB, most people today would not care about SU Hoops. If Autry was half the coach that JB was, we would not be having these discussions.

JB rarely ever engaged with his assistants during a game, and others on this board have said that the assistants generally run the practices while JB watches from afar. To say that being under a coach for many years doesn’t have an impact on an assistant is stupid. If it was not for JB, most long time fans would care about SU hoops as they did years ago.

 

[AcAndAc]

JB rarely ever engaged with his assistants during a game, and others on this board have said that the assistants generally run the practices while JB watches from afar. To say that being under a coach for many years doesn’t have an impact on an assistant is stupid. If it was not for JB, most long time fans would care about SU hoops as they did years ago.

I remember before JB ever proved he could get to a final four--he was plenty criticized. But the mood since 1987 has been entirely positive. Any long time fan would gladly take Buddy or Julie or Fido Boeheim coaching this team to 25+ wins a season... much less any assistant "tainted" by association with JB. Wins cure everything, which is why losing is (not surprisingly) killing Red's support. Beyond that, when fans see the mistakes and the coaches do not, it is unfixable.

Beyond that, if Red was running JB's systems, only then would there be an issue with having been under JB. Red has purposefully distanced himself from JB and the zone. So, you've already got the anti-JB and it is not working.

 

[RF2044]

Sadly, we’ve been down this road before with football - so we know how this plays out:
1) Keep Red because all that is looked at is the immediate cost of letting him go.
2) Be shocked when revenues plummet “unexpectedly” the following year.
3). Get friendly media to run articles about how bad the attendance decrease is on finances and how it’ll make it hard to recover -the “blame the fans” strategy in action.
4). Get angry and bitter those stupid fans aren’t coming back to watch a garbage product. May be time to remind them they live in a one horse town and need to get a life, although that’s optional.
5). Finally get around to firing Red…but wonder why the fans don’t magically return. You did what they wanted, right? (Ignoring the 2-3 years of almost compulsive bridge burning that’s gone on).

I don’t think Syracuse basketball is going to recover. Ever. If I’m wrong, it’ll likely only be because “ever” was too long - but a three decade trudge through the wilderness like Houston went through is probably our best case.

See, I disagree with your final paragraph.

College basketball teams CAN turn things around quickly. BUT nothing will change until there is actual change.

That means hiring a proven coach, with a proven track record and viable systems on both sides of the ball. It means establishing a core program identity [not just talking high level about an identity], and recruiting quality system fits to establish the foundation. And then using a GM like Kline to help identify potential transfers to supplement the nucleus, who also fit the system.

Right now, we're stuck in limbo. It almost sounds like people are just hoping that Kline is going to help us pull in so much talent, that we'll overcome Red's glaring and obvious limitations as a coach. That is unlikely.

Again, nothing will change until tangible change is made.

 

[baggerbob]

Not there yet unfortunately. This team is still playing a half or 10 mins of hoops per game.

I expect the low point will be in the Players Era tourney next Thanksgiving where we finish somewhere around 17th-18th place after multiple blowouts during the week.

The shark being jumped will be the pain we feel during the noncon when we see a repeat of this year and then have to wait until the axe falls on Autry.

All during those weeks we'll have to listen to all the people screaming how they were right and gloating about how they knew Autry was not the right choice years ago posting over and over again.

Unfortunately the sooner Red is gone the sooner the program can start trending back towards being respectable.
Another season of Red could send us down the path Ewing took Georgetown .

 

[RF2044]

Unfortunately the sooner Red is gone the sooner the program can start trending back towards being respectable.
Another season of Red could send us down the path Ewing took Georgetown .

It already has.

And very similar to how people in the Georgetown administration made excuses for Ewing's inadequacies because he was a program icon, the same seems to be happening here in our situation.

Which in all likelihood will lead to a third year, which will [again, in all likelihood] continue our program's decline.