So Far We Have the #9 Portal Class...

[Orangezoo]

What would we consider to be Gerry's best win as head coach?

We will likely need him to reset that bar over and over again in the OOC part of the schedule if we hope to make the tournament.

If we are going to be honest with ourselves the answer should be “who cares”. His best wins as coach here are all that matter now.

 

[OttoinGrotto]

If we are going to be honest with ourselves the answer should be “who cares”. His best wins as coach here are all that matter now.

Considering that is something that qualifies a person to be the head coach of a major program, I think we should care.

 

[Orangezoo]

This is a solid take.

I think it's pretty simple though. Everything comes down to whether we make the tournament. Any judgment before that does or does not happen is inevitably premature.

Barring some kind of surprise, it looks like we have the core of the team. It seems that anyone we add from here is likely coming off the bench.

Do we have enough talent to comfortably say we look like a tournament team?

Again, it's a premature judgment, but there are a lot of "ifs" when you look at our players, and a critical mass of those "ifs" need to happen to be tourney bound.

Ideally we would have a lot fewer "ifs."

I suspect this is one of the weakest rosters we'll field in my lifetime. We saw that Gerry can win the MAAC conference tournament when he's the conference's top NIL dog. It is an unknown what he can accomplish at Syracuse with however our resource level compares with the rest of the ACC.

Absolutely. On paper without seeing the development and off season improvement that would change it from weakest to not weakest it’s up in the air. If we have 2-3 mil left we better spend the rest though too.

 

[Nicknack]

USF went on an impressive run in the American and then underwhelmed for 35 minutes against a undermanned Louisville team. BH isn’t proven or a fraud because of it. Gerry isn’t proven or a fraud because they did what they did or because Duke took them for granted.

All this stuff is fluid in the moment subject to further evidence. Schertz now will have more money but be without Avila. He could see his SL team lose 13 games this year and everyone is shocked.

I don't disagree. Of course Gerry isn't a fraud and he's also not proven because of that game. That was my point (but some on this board think it did validate him - many posts support this).

 

[Cusefan0307]

Considering that is something that qualifies a person to be the head coach of a major program, I think we should care.

You could ask the same question if we hired Luke Murray or Bryan Hodgson.

 

[OttoinGrotto]

You could ask the same question if we hired Luke Murray or Bryan Hodgson.

We could.

And Luke Murray doesn't have any wins as HC so his best answer is likely the NCAA championship as an assistant, and Hodgson's answer is more impressive than Gerry's.

 

[Orangezoo]

Considering that is something that qualifies a person to be the head coach of a major program, I think we should care.

So unless my memory deceives me the best wins of Gerry, Schertz and BH at the D1 level are all conference wins except for BH beating SL with his Ark st team in the NIT and Schertz winning his first tourney game against Georgia this year. I’d argue that itself is maybe one of the biggest challenges with all 3 hires if that’s what you look at. It also makes sense as to why JS was the most realistic competition here too.

Edit- JS had his Indiana state team make a run beating P5 NIT teams while at Indiana State so that would be the most impressive list of wins for all 3 options.

 

[RedtheGOB]

The question is, why didn't Gerry outcoach Indiana? The Hoosiers were pretty mediocre yet led Siena by 26 at the half.

For that matter, why didn't he outcoach the Bonnies, Colgate, Vermont, Iona, Merrimack (x2), Sacred Heart, St. Peter's, Quinnipiac, and Fairfield?

Siena had a wonderful 32 minutes against Duke. They should all be proud of that.

But if people are going to point to one close loss as "proof" of something, then it's strange to ignore the other 11 losses. Many of which were to vastly inferior teams compared to Duke.

It's a reasonable take. I would say this.

Coaches are measured on both how quickly they get their team of mercenaries ready in November and then how strongly they finish.

I think GMac will struggle with the 1st part and he's not alone really, but no one can deny the way they were playing their best ball in March.

For the MaaC tourney and Duke it wasn't just vibes either or the comments that are like "oh these guys will run through a wall for Gmac". What I saw was the games that mattered GMac and his staff managed to take the best players on the court for the other team out of the game. They did all the little things right, every rebound, every free throw. Lot of what Zoo just said.

One of the more shocking stats I can't get out of my head is that in their conference championship they outrebounded Merrimack 50-26. The guards had 16 rebounds / 8 each / 2 Off boards each. With Duke the entire lineup rebounded evenly again with the guards pulling down a handful each. I'm not sure if people have looked at how our guards have rebounded over the last few years but it's embarrassing.

Shooting %'s and "offensive talent", which in my opinion is how the portal rankings are made can be offset with fundamentals like team rebounding, making free throws and obvi we are building a defensive focused roster.

 

[Orangezoo]

We could.

And Luke Murray doesn't have any wins as HC so his best answer is likely the NCAA championship as an assistant, and Hodgson's answer is more impressive than Gerry's.

Just because BH coached in a better conference? I think that’s a debatable comparison. He didn’t have his team beating better programs. He also took a team only one year removed from a very successful year.

JS had the best record and resume. That doesn’t really have any challenge when you look at what he has done.

 

[Orangezoo]

The question is, why didn't Gerry outcoach Indiana? The Hoosiers were pretty mediocre yet led Siena by 26 at the half.

For that matter, why didn't he outcoach the Bonnies, Colgate, Vermont, Iona, Merrimack (x2), Sacred Heart, St. Peter's, Quinnipiac, and Fairfield?

Siena had a wonderful 32 minutes against Duke. They should all be proud of that.

But if people are going to point to one close loss as "proof" of something, then it's strange to ignore the other 11 losses. Many of which were to vastly inferior teams compared to Duke.

We could go around in circles here. Why did BHs team start 8-6 and only look like a consistently good team once conference play got going ? USF and Siena both found their footing around the same time of the year last season between games 15-18.

 

[OttoinGrotto]

Just because BH coached in a better conference? I think that’s a debatable comparison.

Well, yeah.

Better conference means the wins against conference opponents on average will be better than the wins accomplished in a lesser conference.

 

[Orangezoo]

I think it’s fair to say a lot of people are still feeling pretty sour we didn’t get BH or JS. It’s probably not going to be a productive conversation until November at this point. I do think there are some here much more excited about the PC roster and I think that would be misguided given its propped up more by the portal rankings sites than the actual quality and fit of the players.

 

[Orangezoo]

Well, yeah.

Better conference means the wins against conference opponents on average will be better than the wins accomplished in a lesser conference.

True but you aren’t getting or recruiting 7 or 8 guys who are going to win night in night out in the American when you play in the MAAC either. So different competition and different level of player to compete. I get your point for sure it’s just we are debating on margins vs a clear cut proven vs unproven commodity.

Overall I guess Im not sure what we are trying to get at here other than to openly admit we have a lot of people who still think we hired the wrong guy. That should just be the open tagline. Nothing wrong with anyone who feels that way either. It’s annoying if people feel upset or frustrated that there is a list who range from angry to just skeptical because we didn’t hire BH, JS or PMJ

Also how do you handicap the injuries and missed games when evaluating Gerry last year? No Ducharme all year , no Goodrick since halfway through Vermont, injury to Jackson plus Mulvey missed some time too and took a while to get back up to speed and Chandler is out the last regular season game through whole post season.

If we took one starter at least and 3 or 4 other expected contributors off of both USF and SL last year how would their season play out?

 

[AlaskaSU]

It's a reasonable take. I would say this.

Coaches are measured on both how quickly they get their team of mercenaries ready in November and then how strongly they finish.

I think GMac will struggle with the 1st part and he's not alone really, but no one can deny the way they were playing their best ball in March.

For the MaaC tourney and Duke it wasn't just vibes either or the comments that are like "oh these guys will run through a wall for Gmac". What I saw was the games that mattered GMac and his staff managed to take the best players on the court for the other team out of the game. They did all the little things right, every rebound, every free throw. Lot of what Zoo just said.

One of the more shocking stats I can't get out of my head is that in their conference championship they outrebounded Merrimack 50-26. The guards had 16 rebounds / 8 each / 2 Off boards each. With Duke the entire lineup rebounded evenly again with the guards pulling down a handful each. I'm not sure if people have looked at how our guards have rebounded over the last few years but it's embarrassing.

Shooting %'s and "offensive talent", which in my opinion is how the portal rankings are made can be offset with fundamentals like team rebounding, making free throws and obvi we are building a defensive focused roster.

Gerry cares about efficiency. No one cared about efficiency last year.

 

[SuFTW]

The question is, why didn't Gerry outcoach Indiana? The Hoosiers were pretty mediocre yet led Siena by 26 at the half.

For that matter, why didn't he outcoach the Bonnies, Colgate, Vermont, Iona, Merrimack (x2), Sacred Heart, St. Peter's, Quinnipiac, and Fairfield?

Siena had a wonderful 32 minutes against Duke. They should all be proud of that.

But if people are going to point to one close loss as "proof" of something, then it's strange to ignore the other 11 losses. Many of which were to vastly inferior teams compared to Duke.

Siena outscored Indiana in the second half 40-35, seems like he made good adjustments for the second half.
It’s not one game as proof he is a great coach or should be the hire, it’s demonstrating that the ability to coach is there.

 

[sufan59]

I think it’s fair to say a lot of people are still feeling pretty sour we didn’t get BH or JS. It’s probably not going to be a productive conversation until November at this point. I do think there are some here much more excited about the PC roster and I think that would be misguided given its propped up more by the portal rankings sites than the actual quality and fit of the players.

I wouldn't say it's only because we didn't get BH or JS. BTW, big BH guy here and yes I do think he will be successful at Providence (not sure it's going to be as immediate as there fan base think it will be, but we will see). I sense some skepticism built up here disguised by some bitterness for how the Red tenure went down. Gerry is here first and foremost because he has shown that he is on an upward trajectory as a head coach. The job just isn't attractive enough to an outside candidate to take it when Gerry is sitting there in the shadows because there is a narrow minded virus in this fan base and the family. This is really evident now because there is a two way front scrutinizing for what I suspect different reasons everything Gerry is doing at this moment. If it was an outsider, it would just be a different two way front scrutinizing everything.

Gerry in his first month at Syracuse is absolutely lockering the line of thinking by Red and Syracuse fans over the last decade and people are beyond confused. I think Red is learning this from a far and probably by Ryan Odom as he reflects what went wrong in his tenure (it's not all about resources, it's how he allocated resources). Gerry is attaching himself to talent that he can afford to build a successful product around, Red could not. I don't know how Gerry first season will go, but he and his staff are putting themselves into a really good position by building this thing up the right way through smart roster building and resource allocation. The biggest thing for Gerry next season is getting Sadiq and Kiyan buying into his plan and being elevators for this team and not deterrents because I think they are in for a culture shock. Gerry is taking on risk to ensure he converts those two players ( I think this will more so be about Kiyan than Sadiq) to his way of seeing the game versus what they have been taught. I'm starting to think Gerry's influence for the decade prior before he left for Siena, while it wasn't as good as people wanted, kept the boat above .500. Maybe prolonged the Boeheim era.

 

[CuseFaninVT]

The question is, why didn't Gerry outcoach Indiana? The Hoosiers were pretty mediocre yet led Siena by 26 at the half.

For that matter, why didn't he outcoach the Bonnies, Colgate, Vermont, Iona, Merrimack (x2), Sacred Heart, St. Peter's, Quinnipiac, and Fairfield?

Siena had a wonderful 32 minutes against Duke. They should all be proud of that.

But if people are going to point to one close loss as "proof" of something, then it's strange to ignore the other 11 losses. Many of which were to vastly inferior teams compared to Duke.

These were exactly the questions in my head before we hired Gerry.

 

[bnoro]

I think it’s fair to say a lot of people are still feeling pretty sour we didn’t get BH or JS. It’s probably not going to be a productive conversation until November at this point. I do think there are some here much more excited about the PC roster and I think that would be misguided given its propped up more by the portal rankings sites than the actual quality and fit of the players.

You brought up Hodgson.

All of Scooch's points were valid and none of them mentioned Hodgson.

 

[Scooch]

Siena outscored Indiana in the second half 40-35, seems like he made good adjustments for the second half.
It’s not one game as proof he is a great coach or should be the hire, it’s demonstrating that the ability to coach is there.

Seriously? They were down TWENTY SIX at the half. You think Indiana was playing balls out in the 2nd half? Or were they simply managing their enormous lead?

 

[Orangezoo]

You brought up Hodgson.

All of Scooch's points were valid and none of them mentioned Hodgson.

Didn’t say he did nor that points weren’t valid . My point stands reflective of the board and outside hire.

I also think my question about injuries and associated handicap are a valid question. Take out a starter and 3 expected key contributors and then losing a couple others for multiple games. How would other coaches in our search radius for the job have faired in a similar circumstance this past year which is the year being most leaned on in debate?

 

[bnoro]

Didn’t say he did nor that points weren’t valid . My point stands reflective of the board and outside hire.

I don't think anyone is sour about Hodgson or Schertz. I think it's more people pushing back against the Gerry hyperbole, as the curtain is already slipping when it comes to NIL, while others talk him up like he can't do anything wrong.

We are concerned fans that want to see our program winning again.

 

[Cappy3]

Maybe. Shelstad was not the right PG for them. They have a bunch of big names but it’s a lot to fit together.

The way you build a super expensive team - look instead at St John’s. 4 or 5 now overseas guys in their core 8 so far. When comparing the two that’s money more well spent come next March I bet. The two additions we added if successful over the next year or two are hopefully our doorway into a pipeline every year. Paired with working the talent with the programs we retain strong relationships with in the Northeast and DMV.

Seems like you don’t like anyone’s portal signings but ours. Not sure I trust your evaluations more than the various scouting services.

 

[MikeSU02]

The question is, why didn't Gerry outcoach Indiana? The Hoosiers were pretty mediocre yet led Siena by 26 at the half.

For that matter, why didn't he outcoach the Bonnies, Colgate, Vermont, Iona, Merrimack (x2), Sacred Heart, St. Peter's, Quinnipiac, and Fairfield?

Siena had a wonderful 32 minutes against Duke. They should all be proud of that.

But if people are going to point to one close loss as "proof" of something, then it's strange to ignore the other 11 losses. Many of which were to vastly inferior teams compared to Duke.

Siena finished 3rd in a low major conference.

The focus on Duke versus any other game or the overall picture is crazy.

Doesn't mean he won't be successful, but the cherry picking is crazy for GMac and our roster (especially the Siena guys).

There are people talking about having upwards of 3-4 guys in our usual rotation from a LOW MAJOR team.

I don't think people are grasping the level of winning-the-lottery type luck that would take.

 

[FasterCuse]

He is the head coach. EVERYTHING is on his shoulders. That's what being the head coach means.

I can't disagree with that, but there are some market factors at play as well. It's like saying the CEO of RC Cola isn't doing enough because his revenues don't equal the revenues of Coca Cola.

 

[Cappy3]

Siena finished 3rd in a low major conference.

The focus on Duke versus any other game or the overall picture is crazy.

Doesn't mean he won't be successful, but the cherry picking is crazy for GMac and our roster (especially the Siena guys).

There are people talking about having upwards of 3-4 guys in our usual rotation from a LOW MAJOR team.

I don't think people are grasping the level of winning-the-lottery type luck that would take.

And, even though they won the MAAC tournament, they were seeded 16. Which says something about how the tournament selection committee viewed either Siena, the MAAC, or both.