Running 2010-11 BKC thread

Joke on a Providence bulletin board about Duke Mondy, who was left at the Louisville hotel last night amid rumors of criminal proceedings: "He's going to be charged with attempting to play defense." Jay Bilas last year called PC the worst Big East defensive team he'd ever seen, but he didn't witness the second half last night.
Keno's a goner, FAIC. It's not just losing games - DePaul had 5,000 rattling around the Dunk two weeks ago, and I'll be surprised if the joint's half full for Rutgers on Senior Night.
This is when you need a guy who can sell the program to the community - Keno can recruit, but he can't coach and struggles to keep the guys he recruited (I knew even when Ricky Ledo verbaled around the holidays that he'd never make it - four high schools, and he's only a junior). A guy with personality, if he isn't a 5-star tactician or recruiter, would be a BIG improvement around here.

 

You're right -- but what sane person would pay Yankee dollars to spend two-plus hours watching farking DePaul or Rutgers?

 

Terrier, who's a fit at DePaul? By now, shouldn't there be a Ray Meyer grandkid in coaching?

 

Didn't they already try that once and it failed miserably?

 

Zag, I think that was a son. He replaced dad, if I remember correctly. Have they subsequently also tried a grandkid:?

Depaul was an NBC fixture when I was growing up for whatever reason. By now, they've completely fallen off the map for me.

 

Oliver Purnell is there now. He's had some success at Old Dominion, Dayton and (to a degree) Clemson. DePaul definitely could have done worse, though it's going to take a monumental effort for them to move up the Big East standings anytime in the next 5-10 years.

 

Kid Joey at least made a couple NCAA tournaments before it fell apart on him.
The Demons have a decent freshman class, and Purnell's a proven builder (even if he's done little in the tournament). I like their future a little better than the Friars', although I won't love it until they get a campus arena or play somewhere reasonably close.
At Providence, we've accepted that it's not going to lure A-list guys. Pitino, Barnes and even Tim Welsh had some success taking B-list guys and coaching them up - it wasn't like they won a lot of recruiting battles. But seeing a guy like Bilal Dixon who showed some promise inside last year and has barely even shown up this year - that's what worries me. On nights when Brooks is merely mortal (like Marquette and Louisville), nobody's stepping up - they just stand around and watch him, even when he's being double-teamed. Gerard Coleman looked freshman All-BE in January, but has really regressed.

 

This is how you play your way into the NIT: For the third time this season, Southern Miss lost a game by one point on a 3-pointer with under five seconds to play. In January it was Memphis at home, last Saturday it was UCF on the road, last night it was UAB at home.

Unless they win Saturday at Tulsa (which I don't think is happening), Southern's probably going to have win on four consecutive days to win the CUSA Tournament to get into the NCAAs. Otherwise, it's the NIT or some other alphabet-soup tournament. They aren't getting an at-large to the Big Dance.

 

I think it was Tim Welsh who recruited a pretty good forward from my neck of the woods way, way down in the deep south. He was a consensus top 100 kid from Louisiana named Ben Perkins who was ripe for the picking because I think he was the No. 2 player in his position in the state that year and LSU took the other one (don't ask me for details on who it was because memory fails me now). It was at the same time Knight recruited Hornsby, who was at a competing schools in the same district (Tevis Stukes, eventually of Baylor, was also in that district, which is pretty good considering it was an enrollment class of very small schools of less than 400 students).

Anyway, back on point...This player, Perkins, was on the Big East all-freshman team, but then after his second year he transferred back to a state school in Louisiana. I think he was a little miffed over a decreased role or something like that.

That's the problem to me. When you have the scrounge to find players like a Providence, then you are more likely to get players who are less likely to stick around, especially if there's any adversity in their career. If Ben had the same experience at LSU, to me he would have been more likely to stick it out because he's still close to home, playing for LSU has a certain cachet in his world, etc. But he didn't go clear across the country to have his role at Providence College diminished, right?

I think that's part of what happens with some of these second-tier programs. They have to take more chances and they more often get burned with situations like this.

 

Yes, it was Joey, the son, and he wasn't terrible initially but that's a tough place to win.

 

Is there a bigger bunch of knuckleheads than Seton Hall?

I mean, every time I watch them play I say to myself "there can't be ten MORE TALENTED teams out there" and then I say "there can't be ten DUMBER and MORE SELFISH teams out there."

And tonight, they showed again what I believe to be the case - when they play well, play together, leave all the trash talk horse shit at the door and play to win, they can be a very, very dangerous team.

Unfortunately, they only show us that about once every seven or eight games.

 

You look at their off-court pedigrees, and you don't wonder, at all.