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Message: [QUOTE="billsin01, post: 5275803, member: 837"] I love the contrarian take here and think there is some merit to your thoughts. It's easy to join the mob and flip out when things aren't going well. Specifically, I believe you are correct in that there are challenges here that are going to make it a different era of syracuse basketball -- if we can't compete on NIL, this is a very challenging job for whoever is sitting in that head coach chair. Where I disagree is that it's too early to critique what Red is putting on the floor. While I absolutely acknowledge the NIL issues, I'm fairly certain we actively moved off of Maliq Brown and into the Eddie Lampkin business. Lampkin is a fine player and whether he is worth the money or not is not something I want to debate. But a big, physical center who doesn't move well on the perimeter is going to be tough if you see yourself as a team that plays pressure man defense. Similarly, we made a concerted decision to ride with JJ and Bell. I don't want to knock either kid personally but I'm not sure either are corner-stone players, particularly not on the defensive end of the floor (I give Bell a ton of credit, by the way, because I think he has worked hard to become significantly better on that end the past two years). I really thought we would have been well-served at bringing in some longer, athletic, defensive-minded players the past two years. Given the NIL budget, this likely means sacrificing offense, but I just don't get how you're going to run a defense that wants to limit how much help you're giving unless you've got versatile, switchable wing defenders. We had one last year (Q). We have zero this year. It just won't work that way. Lastly, I'm just completely mystified by what we are even trying to accomplish defensively. Obviously if we are not getting the talent we desire (and again, perhaps this is all NIL related, which isn't expressly Red's fault), our defense is going to suffer. But what we are running is extremely simplistic and rudimentary. Further, I would argue that you really show your chops as a coach when you have to adapt and adjust depending on the various challenges you face. We'll see what happens here, but doesn't look great on that front so far. So, I'm not entirely out on Red, but I'll acknowledge that I agree with the crew that doesn't think it looks good for him. I think 20 wins last year was nice, but that was a very flawed team with some odd personnel decisions (although Jesse returning, would have put us in the tourney discussion, IMO). This year's group doesn't look like it will sniff 20 ... 10 may be difficult. It is an uphill battle for Red, I'm afraid. [/QUOTE]

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