Remember Oliver Luck?

[orangecuse]

We have a full roster, the vast majority of which were recruited after sanctions.

JB only plays 7 or 8 guys. The sanctions never winnowed the roster down to 8 scholarships. As long as I’ve followed SU hoops there’s always been 2 or 3 guys buried deep on the bench that never played. It’s a very deep list. You can’t tell me that losing a couple of scholarships a year crippled the program to this level.

Here’s the reality. Hop left. He was our best recruiter and practice coach. He ran the practices for years. There’s no guy on the staff that’s stepped up to fill the void he left. Recruiting has fallen off along with player development. The result is what you see on the court today.

 

[Shark58]

sanctions didnt crush Louisville

 

[two3zone]

I was the one calling for JB to be fired over two years ago, receiving month-long bans by the moderators here for all the posts. I don't think I'm the shoulder they're looking for- and Shiftys is a s**tty bar anyway.

Wings aren't bad. But it's a ishhole.

 

[Consigliere]

Sanctions were a huge problem because we had to play so straight and narrow after them lest we risk a third round for this coach that we couldn’t compete for recruits

I don't think the driving factor behind any roster deficiencies is the impact of the sanctions but it certainly is a factor. The fact that there are no seniors on this year's roster is at least in part tied to scholarship limits on the 2016 class. Compound that with the fact that we do not have a plug-and-play defense. It often takes a year or two for players, particularly front court players, to become proficient in the intricacies of the zone. Transfers and early exits only exacerbated the problem. Our system requires some degree of roster continuity and in this early exit culture I'm not sure we can get back to that.

 

[Alsacs]

I don't think the driving factor behind any roster deficiencies is the impact of the sanctions but it certainly is a factor. The fact that there are no seniors on this year's roster is at least in part tied to scholarship limits on the 2016 class. Compound that with the fact that we do not have a plug-and-play defense. It often takes a year or two for players, particularly front court players, to become proficient in the intricacies of the zone. Transfers and early exits only exacerbated the problem. Our system requires some degree of roster continuity and in this early exit culture I'm not sure we can get back to that.

We returned our entire starting 5 last year from the 2017-2018 season and the team wasn't good.
That is why last year should have sent off alarm bells. That team was ranked preseason and it underachieved.
That is why expecting things to be better off next year before we see it can't be expected. It's gotta be seen to be believed after 5+ years of stagnation.

 

[Brooky03]

Sanctions are an excuse.

Excuses are weak.

Dude: *is shot in the heart*
OrlandoCuse: Why are you dying?
Dude: Because I was shot in the heart.
OrlandoCuse: Stop making excuses.

scene

 

[007]

Wasn't he the lead on the committee? Idk I just remember him making it public that he had it out for JB. If this is what he wanted he sure succeeded.

Oliver Luck was not even on the Infractions Committee that made the initial punishment ruling, or the Infractions Appeals Committee.

 

[Cusefan0307]

We returned our entire starting 5 last year from the 2017-2018 season and the team wasn't good.
That is why last year should have sent off alarm bells. That team was ranked preseason and it underachieved.
That is why expecting things to be better off next year before we see it can't be expected. It's gotta be seen to be believed after 5+ years of stagnation.

We should have won at least 22-25 games last year and 16-17. Both teams underachieved IMO. Boeheim’s lineup at the beginning of 2016 cost us the season.

 

[Brooky03]

We have a full roster, the vast majority of which were recruited after sanctions.

JB only plays 7 or 8 guys. The sanctions never winnowed the roster down to 8 scholarships. As long as I’ve followed SU hoops there’s always been 2 or 3 guys buried deep on the bench that never played. It’s a very deep list. You can’t tell me that losing a couple of scholarships a year crippled the program to this level.

Here’s the reality. Hop left. He was our best recruiter and practice coach. He ran the practices for years. There’s no guy on the staff that’s stepped up to fill the void he left. Recruiting has fallen off along with player development. The result is what you see on the court today.

You're ignoring the highly restrictive sanctions on travel and recruit visits. People crushed the staff for going all-in on certain recruits too early, to the exclusion of other recruits. When we missed on those recruits, we had no backup plan. Why did we have no backup plan? Because the staff literally didn't have the resources available to them to cast nearly as wide a recruiting net as they usually would.

THE SANCTIONS WERE WAY WAY WAY WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY MORE THAN SCHOLARSHIP LOSSES. Sorry for yelling.

And playing 7-8 guys has nothing to do with the number of scholarship spots available. You need those extra scholarship spots to weather roster attrition, especially unexpected early departures. These bad Syracuse teams of late have also been some of the youngest teams we've had. That's largely attributable to scholarship restrictions. They've also had a bunch of grad transfer rent-a-players, again directly attributable to the sanctions.

Cuse teams in the past would often get upperclassman production from guys occupying the last 2 or 3 scholarship spots as freshman. The sanctions prevented the team from carrying guys like that or forced the staff to play guys like that earlier than they were ready because there's nothing else available. Marek would be an excellent upperclassman role player getting like 10 minutes a game. Thanks to the sanctions, he's being leaned on for big minutes a lot of the time.

Are the sanctions the only contributing factor to how much we suck? Nope. Are they the biggest factor and did they cripple the program enough to make recruiting elite talent nearly impossible post-sanctions? Undoubtedly. Cannot be denied.

JB needs to adapt his offensive and defensive coaching. He's not getting the job done in the X's and O's department. The staff needs to recruit better. Even adjusting for the limitations and the damage to the program's prestige, they're underachieving. The players we do have aren't getting better as quickly as we need them to, if they're getting better at all. This is all true. The sanctions are 50%+ of the reason we're in the boat we're in right now. This is also true.

 

[HOFCeluck]

I think people are completely overlooking the fact that sanctions (that we brought on ourselves by, you know, breaking the rules.) are a big part of this.

 

[Brooky03]

Maybe JB shouldn’t have put the program in a position to get whacked with sanctions, again. It still blows my mind how there was next-to-zero talk of removing him. How many coaches survive major sanctions, let alone twice.

That the punishment didn’t fit the crime doesn’t absolve him from the fact that we never should have been in that position to begin with.

It's hard to say JB put the program in position to get whacked with the most recent sanctions. He bears responsibility for the 90's sanctions, but there wasn't a whole lot he could have done about the recent ones. He and coaches in other sports thought they were following the drug testing policy set forth by the Athletic Department. The Athletic Department dropped the ball by enforcing a different policy than what they had on the books. Hard to put that on JB. Billy Edelin got paid (not much) to 'work' at a YMCA. What's JB supposed to do about that? The Director of Basketball Ops interfered with Fab Melo's essay. The claim that JB could have even known about Fab's academic situation if he wanted to is dubious, at best. But he did hire the guy so he gets the ricochet blame.

Being frank, and looking at this through non-orange tinted glasses, the infractions Cuse was hit for were weak as hell. The punishment, in fact, did not fit the crime. The only infraction that touched 'cheating' territory was Fab's essay, and the dude was suspended a bunch of games anyway, so it's not like he helped the team a whole lot in his 2nd semester sophomore year (the time he was ineligible).

 

[Alsacs]

You're ignoring the highly restrictive sanctions on travel and recruit visits. People crushed the staff for going all-in on certain recruits too early, to the exclusion of other recruits. When we missed on those recruits, we had no backup plan. Why did we have no backup plan? Because the staff literally didn't have the resources available to them to cast nearly as wide a recruiting net as they usually would.

THE SANCTIONS WERE WAY WAY WAY WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY MORE THAN SCHOLARSHIP LOSSES. Sorry for yelling.

And playing 7-8 guys has nothing to do with the number of scholarship spots available. You need those extra scholarship spots to weather roster attrition, especially unexpected early departures. These bad Syracuse teams of late have also been some of the youngest teams we've had. That's largely attributable to scholarship restrictions. They've also had a bunch of grad transfer rent-a-players, again directly attributable to the sanctions.

Cuse teams in the past would often get upperclassman production from guys occupying the last 2 or 3 scholarship spots as freshman. The sanctions prevented the team from carrying guys like that or forced the staff to play guys like that earlier than they were ready because there's nothing else available. Marek would be an excellent upperclassman role player getting like 10 minutes a game. Thanks to the sanctions, he's being leaned on for big minutes a lot of the time.

Are the sanctions the only contributing factor to how much we suck? Nope. Are they the biggest factor and did they cripple the program enough to make recruiting elite talent nearly impossible post-sanctions? Undoubtedly. Cannot be denied.

JB needs to adapt his offensive and defensive coaching. He's not getting the job done in the X's and O's department. The staff needs to recruit better. Even adjusting for the limitations and the damage to the program's prestige, they're underachieving. The players we do have aren't getting better as quickly as we need them to, if they're getting better at all. This is all true. The sanctions are 50%+ of the reason we're in the boat we're in right now. This is also true.

Some fact checking.
We only used all 13 scholarships on actual players 1 time from 2005-2014 the preceding decade to sanctions.
JB typically rewarded walkons with scholarships to help the APR.

Second, we had 2 assistant coaches recruiting while JB and Mike Hopkins were with Team USA in 2016 in Brazil.

So the reductions on the road weren’t hurting as much.
Also the PS did an article on how JB since he was the father of a kid in AAU was allowed to watch those games and not count as a coach on the road.
So technically that helped get an extra coach at AAU tournaments.

The NCAA overpunished us. That doesn’t mean we didn’t commit violations though.

Sanctions hurt the program but they aren’t why recruiting is down now.

 

[dasher]

Some fact checking.
We only used all 13 scholarships on actual players 1 time from 2005-2014 the preceding decade to sanctions.
JB typically rewarded walkons with scholarships to help the APR.

Second, we had 2 assistant coaches recruiting while JB and Mike Hopkins were with Team USA in 2016 in Brazil.

So the reductions on the road weren’t hurting as much.
Also the PS did an article on how JB since he was the father of a kid in AAU was allowed to watch those games and not count as a coach on the road.
So technically that helped get an extra coach at AAU tournaments.

The NCAA overpunished us. That doesn’t mean we didn’t commit violations though.

Sanctions hurt the program but they aren’t why recruiting is down now.

We disagree. I think the sanctions did what they were put in place to do. Hurt us. And hurt us badly.

 

[orangecuse]

Some fact checking.
We only used all 13 scholarships on actual players 1 time from 2005-2014 the preceding decade to sanctions.
JB typically rewarded walkons with scholarships to help the APR.

Second, we had 2 assistant coaches recruiting while JB and Mike Hopkins were with Team USA in 2016 in Brazil.

So the reductions on the road weren’t hurting as much.
Also the PS did an article on how JB since he was the father of a kid in AAU was allowed to watch those games and not count as a coach on the road.
So technically that helped get an extra coach at AAU tournaments.

The NCAA overpunished us. That doesn’t mean we didn’t commit violations though.

Sanctions hurt the program but they aren’t why recruiting is down now.

I completely agree. I recall Jay Bilas commenting on Mike & Mike shortly after the sanctions were announced that he clearly felt the penalties did not meet the crime so to speak. However, in him saying that, he also opined how it shouldn't impact Syracuse too significantly due to JB's style/system; i.e. seldom ever having a strong bench and consistently only playing about 7 guys (meaningful minutes) typically.

Clearly, IMO, the more tangible and significant reason why we are where we are today is due to the flat out recruiting misses, specifically our failure in landing a legitimate D1/P5 guy at the 5 spot since Christmas, and at the lead/point guard position since Ennis.

 

[Brooky03]

Some fact checking.
We only used all 13 scholarships on actual players 1 time from 2005-2014 the preceding decade to sanctions.
JB typically rewarded walkons with scholarships to help the APR.

Second, we had 2 assistant coaches recruiting while JB and Mike Hopkins were with Team USA in 2016 in Brazil.

So the reductions on the road weren’t hurting as much.
Also the PS did an article on how JB since he was the father of a kid in AAU was allowed to watch those games and not count as a coach on the road.
So technically that helped get an extra coach at AAU tournaments.

The NCAA overpunished us. That doesn’t mean we didn’t commit violations though.

Sanctions hurt the program but they aren’t why recruiting is down now.

Sanctions are the reason recruiting was down while the sanctions were in place. Thy only reason? No. The biggest reason? Yes. Not really an opinion I'm onboard with changing, even in light of the 'fact check.'

The failures in the last recruiting class or two can be attributed to other factors in larger and growing proportions. Hop leaving and being mildly successful, which pulled his SU recruits with him to the west coast, is a big factor. The current recruiters being inexperienced and less than stellar salesmen doesn't help either. And multiple atrocious seasons of bad looking basketball hurts; as does JB's age.

The sanctions aren't wholly responsible for the shortcomings one moment and then not responsible the next, though. It's more nuanced than that and the impact of the sanctions will gradually lessen over time. The team would not be nearly as bad as it is right now if the sanctions weren't in place and/or weren't as overly severe as they were. Yes or no? If yes, then saying we suck because the sanctions made it harder to not suck is in bounds and entirely fair. I see no possible way that answer could be 'no.'

 

[HOFCeluck]

Sanctions are the reason recruiting was down while the sanctions were in place. Thy only reason? No. The biggest reason? Yes. Not really an opinion I'm onboard with changing, even in light of the 'fact check.'

The failures in the last recruiting class or two can be attributed to other factors in larger and growing proportions. Hop leaving and being mildly successful, which pulled his SU recruits with him to the west coast, is a big factor. The current recruiters being inexperienced and less than stellar salesmen doesn't help either. And multiple atrocious seasons of bad looking basketball hurts; as does JB's age.

The sanctions aren't wholly responsible for the shortcomings one moment and then not responsible the next, though. It's more nuanced than that and the impact of the sanctions will gradually lessen over time. The team would not be nearly as bad as it is right now if the sanctions weren't in place and/or weren't as overly severe as they were. Yes or no? If yes, then saying we suck because the sanctions made it harder to not suck is in bounds and entirely fair. I see no possible way that answer could be 'no.'

We lost literally one guy because of sanctions.

 

[orangecuse]

We lost literally one guy because of sanctions.

Yep. I believe we prioritized Battle over Huerter.

 

[orangemass]

Andrew Luck?

 

[dollarbill44]

recruits also know that JB's shelf life is likely to expire soon. he won't see them graduate. mike hopkins offers coaching stability for the near future.he ain't going nowhere.

Do you mean that he IS going somewhere?
Ain't going anywhere = staying put
Going nowhere = staying put
Ain't going Nowhere = going somewhere?

 

[CousCuse]

We returned our entire starting 5 last year from the 2017-2018 season and the team wasn't good.
That is why last year should have sent off alarm bells. That team was ranked preseason and it underachieved.
That is why expecting things to be better off next year before we see it can't be expected. It's gotta be seen to be believed after 5+ years of stagnation.

Our point guard had a broken foot. But you knew that.

 

[Brooky03]

We lost literally one guy because of sanctions.

Not true

 

[jdubs30]

Not true

Huerter

 

[CousCuse]

BJ was forced out too to room. I believe he's on an NBA team now. That's 2 players we lost right there and they're both pro's now.

 

[Brooky03]

Huerter

and

 

[Alsacs]

BJ was forced out too to room. I believe he's on an NBA team now. That's 2 players we lost right there and they're both pro's now.

We chosen to push BJ out. That is on us. We could have kept him and the lost scholarship would have rolled over to another year. We ended up getting that scholarship back on appeal.
It’s on our fault for losing him.

My god you excuse everything and put no blame on us. That isn’t how life works.