Red or Players, which is it

[benjams77]

Al the posts I see and there alot of posters jumping on both sides of this. I think its gotta be one or the other

 

[SUGIANT]

Won’t vote because there’s a 3rd option, new coach, good talent, team needs to gel. For instance I question Jim’s desire to be a team player. good talent there, coaches are trying to correct, Jim not interested. It’s kind of unfair to try to put it all in buckets. Sure Reds staff needs to get better, but they are short at 5, and maybe Benny adds by subtracting.

 

[br801]

Al the posts I see and there alot of posters jumping on both sides of this. I think its gotta be one or the other

How about circumstances have resulted in the loss of four players who were being counted on to be significant contributors, so there's no way to make this a binary issue?

 

[benjams77]

Won’t vote because there’s a 3rd option, new coach, good talent, team needs to gel. For instance I question Jim’s desire to be a team player. good talent there, coaches are trying to correct, Jim not interested. It’s kind of unfair to try to put it all in buckets. Sure Reds staff needs to get better, but they are short at 5, and maybe Benny adds by subtracting.

I would agree with there being circumstances but from many many posts alot of people are arguing one way or the other on this issue, like we need better players or we need a new HC.. I am def on the side that Red is doing a nice job in his first year with this bunch.. He could have went the way of Kenny Payne and the Ville

 

[BBQuse]

Al the posts I see and there alot of posters jumping on both sides of this. I think its gotta be one or the

I don't think we have enough data to know if it's one or the other. We are (slightly) incrementally better than the past couple of years -- winning tight games we have lost, but also seemingly having no chance against top-20 teams. I think that indicates that the talent is adequate, but just not enough to take the next step, and coaching is adequate to win the ones we should (mostly), but not good enough to out-coach more talented teams. But it's just too early to judge Red in my opinion.

 

[OptimusOtto]

I would agree with there being circumstances but from many many posts alot of people are arguing one way or the other on this issue, like we need better players or we need a new HC.. I am def on the side that Red is doing a nice job in his first year with this bunch.. He could have went the way of Kenny Payne and the Ville

Or Kyle Neptune

 

[CardiacCuse]

the coach put this team together

most posters who were following during portal season were begging for a scoring forward and a decent center...and we got mcleod and ...crickets...

so...red doesnt get a pass from me in terms of talent...

it was inexplicable that he chose to ride with this forward corps and this center squadron...the guards are fine, imo.


it is hard to tell just how uncoachable these players truly are...but the combination of this staff and these players seems like the players are uncoachable...which, again, goes back to the coaches...bc they put this roster together...

most every other team seems better coached...this was also true during JBs last years and why i wanted a different coach.

so bc of that...I think it is coaching problem...and a player problem...but the coaches choose the players...so it is ultimately a coaching problem. a serious one that I am not optimistic about

give them a mulligan for this season and see how they do next

if these issue dont get better...it is 100% the coaches

 

[Brooky03]

I don’t think there were any (realistic) expectations that Red would do more with roughly the same talent that JB had. So, the fact that we’re not worse than last year’s team, at the very least, can’t be a point against Red.

A combination of some of the new players not being as good as we had hoped and bad luck with injuries would point to the players/talent. But none of this exists in a vacuum. It doesn’t HAVE to be one or the other.

The team is playing how we’d expect this caliber of players to play, imo. Red isn’t getting more or less out of them, with the awareness that he’s a first time Head Coach who inherited a bit of a mess, at least in the short-term.

 

[blust2i3d4]

Cannot choose. No one is perfect. Both sides made mistakes. I would chose the option that both perform OK. Not outperform or underperform.

 

[upperdeck]

You could argue that the in ability to play man is why we played zone.. Or did we recruit players who played bad zone thus they play bad man.

The same lack of court awareness reflects in the offense and the rebounding and the defense.

Unless you expected the roster to flip 75% from last year not sure why anyone cant expect anything more.

Other than the losses be blow outs I think the have played better than I expected in large portions of the games. If we dont lose to BC and were 7-5 thats not bad for a team with issues.

Clemson is pretty good with close losses but does that matter when they are 5-6?

 

[MikeSU02]

Both of these guys start:
Justin Taylor career PER/TS%: 9.5/47.5%
Chris Bell career PER/TS% (even with last night's flame throwing): 11.4/53.6%

Red has to grow. But let's be real.

 

[M2MPrinciples]

 

[XC Cuse]

Id say 75% on players, between injuries, and guys like Taylor not contributing a lot, and Bell being hot and cold, and Judah and JJ not playing good enough defense. And departures like Benny

Then 25% on Red for playing Taylor way too much, or not getting Cuffe some run when the guards are getting torched.

He gets a real center, and a more consistent forward, whether that be Bell becoming that or someone else, that solves majority of issues

 

[IraSez]

I would agree with there being circumstances but from many many posts alot of people are arguing one way or the other on this issue, like we need better players or we need a new HC.. I am def on the side that Red is doing a nice job in his first year with this bunch.. He could have went the way of Kenny Payne and the Ville

Agreed, we lost 3 players who were thought to be part of a 10 man rotation (McLeod, Westry, Benny). Carey is still a work in progress and he now appears to be our 7th man. No idea what's going on with Cuffe but I keep trying to figure out what Kansas saw in him. Hopefully we will see that someday. At the beginning it looked like depth might be much better than in the past. Now...not so much.

 

[Cusefan0307]

No one in their right mind thought Bell or Taylor would be starters at the beginning of the season. With a locked in Benny and healthy Westry everyone assumed they would get minutes over both. That’s not even counting the McLeod injury which is forcing Brown to be an ironman undersized center.

 

[Chip]

It's his first year as a head coach, he had a Maui draw with several top 10 teams, he's trying to change the culture and style of the team, he lost a star center to a bidding war, and had to dismiss a malcontent.

We're 15-8. Did you know that we've only been better than 15-8 after 23 games one time in the past 9 seasons? That would be 16-7 in 2018-2019.

I'm gonna go ahead and give him some more time. Unreasonable as it may sound.

 

[rrlbees]

No one in their right mind thought Bell or Taylor would be starters at the beginning of the season. With a locked in Benny and healthy Westry everyone assumed they would get minutes over both. That’s not even counting the McLeod injury which is forcing Brown to be an ironman undersized center.

I thought bell would start. I thought Westry would be the first guy off the bench and able to come in for any of the 1, 2 or 3.

 

[baggerbob]

Cannot choose. No one is perfect. Both sides made mistakes. I would chose the option that both perform OK. Not outperform or underperform.

Losing Jesse late changed everything about the team.

 

[Newhouser]

It's too early to judge Red. Not too early to judge the players who have all been in fifty some odd games. We need coaching but our talent has a low ceiling.

 

[rrlbees]

Both of these guys start:
Justin Taylor career PER/TS%: 9.5/47.5%
Chris Bell career PER/TS% (even with last night's flame throwing): 11.4/53.6%

Red has to grow. But let's be real.

JJ is pretty much in that same boat.

 

[Sherman20]

How about circumstances have resulted in the loss of four players who were being counted on to be significant contributors, so there's no way to make this a binary issue?

Losing Chance, McLeod and now Benny has definitely lowered the ceiling for this team. Benny and McLeod were no great shakes, but they gave us depth, a frontline presence, rebounding help and rim protection. All were expected to play key roles.

 

[Sherman20]

No one in their right mind thought Bell or Taylor would be starters at the beginning of the season. With a locked in Benny and healthy Westry everyone assumed they would get minutes over both. That’s not even counting the McLeod injury which is forcing Brown to be an ironman undersized center.

Disagree with you on Bell. I think most of us thought he would start because he's our only real legit outside threat, and that Chance would come off the bench, because you could plug and play him at PG, SG or SF depending on who's not playing well. Q has sort of filled in with that role. But Chance would have given us another option.

 

[Sherman20]

It's his first year as a head coach, he had a Maui draw with several top 10 teams, he's trying to change the culture and style of the team, he lost a star center to a bidding war, and had to dismiss a malcontent.

We're 15-8. Did you know that we've only been better than 15-8 after 23 games one time in the past 9 seasons? That would be 16-7 in 2018-2019.

I'm gonna go ahead and give him some more time. Unreasonable as it may sound.

Danny Hurley was 16-17 (6-12 in the AAC) and 19-12 (10-8 in the ACC) in his first two years at UConn.
He lost to some AWFUL American conference teams that first season.
Red can win here if he can recruit well and build a smart, versatile roster.
JB proved the heights that the Syracuse program can ascend to if the right moves are made.

 

[cusefan88]

A large freshman class was brought in last year and he's giving them all of fair shake now to do right by them when they signed with Cuse.

Including Benny, my guess is another 3-5 players also depart for a variety of reasons.

 

[Chip]

Danny Hurley was 16-17 (6-12 in the AAC) and 19-12 (10-8 in the ACC) in his first two years at UConn.
He lost to some AWFUL American conference teams that first season.
Red can win here if he can recruit well and build a smart, versatile roster.
JB proved the heights that the Syracuse program can ascend to if the right moves are made.

It may turn out that he’s not a great head coach. Who knows.

But people should stop living and dying with every game in this inaugural season. Especially when he’s winning at a better clip than the last two seasons.

Vent your frustrations in the game thread and then move on. He needs more time to be evaluated. And he’s one of us, so give him the benefit of the doubt for now.

Or don’t.