Running 2011-12 College Basketball thread

Me too. At first glance you think, "that's great, where'd he find such a perfectly ridiculous face" and then you look down and it's his. Cracks me up.

 

Anyone watching BYU-San Francisco on ESPNU?

Both teams playing inbounds, 2 dribble, shoot.

76-67 Mormons with 7:00 left.

Fun to watch.

EDIT: Crazy ending......USF has 2 GREAT looks in the last 7 seconds or so......first one is halfway down and out...missed 3 that looked good......horn......85-84 BYU.

Oh......how in the blue hell does NCST piss away a 20 point second half lead at Duke?

 

Hint: It rhymes with Bark Hotbreed

 

I do believe the Andy Kennedy Death Watch is officially on at Ole Miss.

Black Bears go down 102-76 at home to Vandy in a game that wasn't that close. For the record, Vandy hit 12 of 19 from 3-pt range.

With all the baggage he's toting around, combined with lack of any substantial progress, I'd have to think Andy's gone after this year, unless they stage a dramatic turnaround in the late going. And that doesn't appear to be the way they're trending right now.

 

Choking was contagious in the ACC last night. Virginia Tech went 3 for 10 from the stripe down the stretch and coughed up a 9-point lead with 70 seconds left in Tallahassee.

 

That was not a shocking development to me. Ole Miss has had a ton of roster turnover over the years and, unless a substantial number of players are leaving because they are lottery picks (see Kentucky), that's not a good thing.

It's hard to build any continuity in a program when you have 2-3 guys leaving every summer. With the rare exception, I've always found that the better programs tend to have, in most years, about 6-7 guys who are in their third or fourth year in the program.

Now, you may come back and tell me Ole Miss has that. But that would surprise me because it seems like the "Ole Miss guy transferred" story is a necessary part of every off-season.

You could say the same thing about other programs. Arkansas was that way under Pelphrey (and hey, they have a new coach). LSU's been that way (and hey, Trent's on the hot seat too and the constant reinventing of the roster was a sore spot for fans in regards to Brady).

If you can win consistently while consistently turning over the bulk of your roster, you are an exception (probably named Calipari).

 

This is the one thing that gives me pause about Tony Bennett at UVa.

 

Bennett is a good coach, but I'm still not sure he's a good fit for the ACC ... same as Brownell at Clemson.

Tony has recruited a bunch of highly regarded HS players -- who became highly regarded primarily by being able to score in elite AAU tournaments -- but his defense-first system is such that offensively gifted players like KT Harrell/Billy Baron have been mostly glued to the bench because they don't defend their positions well.

Hence, the transfers.

I don't blame Bennett. You have to recruit elite talent to compete in the ACC. But recruiting scorers and expecting them to become bruising blue-collar "pack line" defenders is pretty ridiculous.

With Bennett's preferred style of play, I think he's a much better fit for a B1G job sooner than later.

 

If you're Bill Self — read, great personality who can recruit — it's a great job. If you're anyone else, it's an exercise in frustration. The fan base of old white farts has unrealistically high expectations that the team is destined for glory like it had in the whites-only Final Four days of yore. And the sense of entitlement those fans have is amazing to see in person. I worked there six years and witnessed it first-hand.

Weber wasn't doomed from the start, but after he failed to win the NCAA title with Self's kids, his days were numbered.

 

Interesting stuff, Hokie. (Are you one, by the way? I've always wondered since seeing your name.)

I haven't seen that take on Bennett from any UVa folks, who are all very much still backing him despite the way this season is progressing. I'll add that I think Billy Baron was a special case in that he transferred back home to play for his father. I'm actually not sure Harrell fits your example, either, in that he was averaging nearly 20 minutes a game when he left and was actually a pretty decent defender. Lord knows he'd be useful right now.

But those are far from the only transfers under Bennett. Hell, that's only half the transfers from that recruiting class. I wonder if there's some truth to what you're saying about recruits' expectations.

 

Bennett wouldn't be the first guy to have several transfers in the first few years and then get it going. Bill Self had six of the 11 guys in his first two classes at Kansas transfer and KU fans were panicking. The ones that stuck around have national championship rings. It can take a coach a couple of years to figure out how many and what type of players to sign each year.

And a few of the guys that left UVa probably wouldn't have if they could have predicted the injuries that would have led to more playing time.

 

That's what gives you pause on Johnson at LSU. You gave him a pass when he didn't see eye-to-eye with Bo Spencer, Delwan Graham and Dennis Harris and those guys left the program. They were Brady leftovers and might not have been fits with TJ from a personality/philosophical perspective (I gather that Brady favored runner/jumper athletes and Trent would prefer five guys who can catch, dribble and shoot).

What gives you pause is when he starts losing guys like Garrett Green, who was a Brady recruit but had been with Trent three years (he graduated and used his final year of eligibility to start for a good San Diego State team) and two of his big recruits: Aaron Dotson (Utah) and Matt Derenbecker (Dayton).

He recruited three wings in his first two recruiting classes and two of them left. So his teams are always young.