Oh my goodness.

Back in 03 I was about the only guy on this board who thought BCG was a great hire. I got fried for it.

I was slow on Melvin simply because Melvin had inherited a death trap program. He also inherited a an AD that really didn't care about BBall.

The last year of MWs reign was he decisive year and it was obvious to all. Nobody was going to accuse of us showing racial bias and not giving him a full chance. He took his team of recruits and some good talent and went 0-16. Obvious he just couldn't run with these dogs.

Now Billy comes into just a great situation, a know lose situation really. There was talent here, AW, Acie (I don't care what anyone says. YOU ARE NOT A FIRST ROUND DRAFT PICK IN THE NBA WITH OUT SOME SERIOUSlY TALENT). When BCG came I predicted, rightly so (check my thread in M&W on Nov 2nd 2003) that BCG would have us in the upper echelon in the Big 12 in a minimum of three years and that we would be kicking OU's butt within that time. I owned Plano Guy, total domination HEHHEHE!

I was confident in this because Billy's is simple guy, he in not an X and O guy.

HT you show you arse when you say BCG knows more bball then Fran does football. That's dumb. BCG has never been a tactical guy. He is an simple guy, intencity and defense, He spends the bulk of his time on that.

He believe in toughness and desire and getting after it. Well I know those would work well here. The talent was there and that talent was beat down when he came. Perfect scenario for him. Perfect culture too at A&M for BCG.

The kids bought in because they had no legitmate reason not too!

Bottom line Billy is not a great player developer, he is not a great X and O guy. His strong points are getting kids to buy in play hard, smart and together. He is charming and came across as really genuine guy. Well he blew his cover and chased the next pretty skirt. He did so in a very nasty way.

Now Billy is no longer and unknown. There is a dosier being created on him and his teams.

Bottom line you can't win every game on hustle and defensive intensity. UNLESS YOU HAVE THE SUPERIOR TALENT>

Billy got too big for his own britches, bought in to his own hype too much.

Billy has standard lines now. That most basketball savey people recognize as BS coach speak.

'we got whipped'. Well that's true BCGs answer to that is to play harder next time, Practice harder, drive em harder. Well that's not always the answer. He takes blame well, That too is his schtic. "it's all on me he says, from time to time". However he doesn't adjust what he does. He doesn't change systems to meet his personnel or to match up with another teams weakness. He is going to run his defensive system regardless if he is getting hammerred on mis match at a spot.

His offense is very simple and really quite easy to defend. THOSE SYSTEMS AND HIS WAY ARE NOW BOOK> He is not going to sneak up on any one.

Vandy had a great defensive plan last night and they executed it really well. Take Patterson out of the game, pressure Crawford and Bradley and you are going beat KU most the times.

Simply put Billy is an effort guy, not that great of a tactician as far as game planning.

He had Acie Law here, a really smart PG. he had Wright a very talented wing. He just made those guys tough and kept it simple.

That will work some but once they get the book on you and they blow your charm cover. Well, things will get dicey. THEY HAVE!

Turgeon on the other hand has show a great ability to adjust, It is very very hard to take over for a god! Most die there, Turge felt the pressure, admitted it, begin to deal with truth. We HAD NO PG and then did something great, ADJUSTED TO IT and embraced it.

The team has become HIS TEAM. However he didn't try to bash them into his mold. That is why we didn't lose to Gardner Webbs.

We got full of ourselves because of fairly weak OCC (THAT BCG MADE) and the one team AZ that had the guards to expose that weakness DID.

Knight saw it and exploited it as well.

Now Turge adjusted, and got through that time. We still have weaknesses. Sloan is no where near a finished work. Jordan has LONG WAY TO GO.

I bet if BCG were here, Jordan wouldn't play much at all, unless he felt he had to because of DJ's 5 star status. Holmes, Roldand, Walkup, Jr. would all be languishing with out much PT.

Jones would still be fouling out of about every game and his knees would be bothering him.

That's just Billy.

Bottom line I wouldn't trade Turge for Billy now that I see how things are heading. Turge has more coaching savey and more character. I am happy with the change.

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I predict 5 basketball elitist posts, and 15, "you know nothing about college basketball" comments before this thread is over.

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so true....

That's a pretty good analysis, OPAG. I totally agree with about 90% of what you said and a lot of the balance.

My appraisal of MT's stock has gone WAY up because he changed how he approached our D starting with the Baylor game. That's something that would NEVER have happened with BCG at the helm. As you and I have previously pointed out, BCG's stubborness is legendary and, IMO, his Achilles heel. While BCG was a defensive-based coach, MT was an offensive-based coach. He's changed by putting a LOT more emphasis on D. It's a big feather in his cap.

OPAG, great post. I'm anxiously waiting for HT's response; however, I've heard that Billy G. is depressed about the game, so HT may be a little busy...

Nice post, OPAG, and thanks for taking the time to actually type out what I have been too lazy to do. Because of the nature of this board, especially when it comes to Gillispie, I never go into that much detail, but your observations are almost exactly what I would have typed if I had been so inclined.

Perhaps because of my ACC upbringing prior to moving to Texas, I am a bit more of a fan of the basketball coaching tree that produced Turgeon than I am of the methods BCG employs. In my opinion, Turgeon's approach will take one further for longer than Gillispie's, though Gillispie will always have you in the hunt. I don't say this to deride others' opinions that Gillispie's methods are better, but I do not take their accusations that my opinion is wrong lightly, either.

I would be more than happy to debate these opinions in a respectful manner. However, if those certain posters insist on taking any criticism of BCG as some kind of "anti-A&M" position, I can drop into the gutter just as quickly.

Your call which one it is.

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HT you show you arse when you say BCG knows more bball then Fran does football. That's dumb. BCG has never been a tactical guy. He is an simple guy, intencity and defense, He spends the bulk of his time on that.

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so playing solid intense man D is simple to teach and execute?

interesting.

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He had Acie Law here, a really smart PG. he had Wright a very talented wing. He just made those guys tough and kept it simple.

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making those guys "tough" took a TON of work, most of which he doesn't get credit for. AW was a complete ****** under MW. sat out from 18 or so and shot a fade most touches, wouldn't rebound, rarely took it to the hole and D was scarce. his one year improvement was nothing short of remarkable. same with AK.

i'll COMPLETELY agree that bcg isn't a tactitian on the offense end in some cirucmstances, but he has drawn up some great sets to meet shot/game clock or situational requirements before that have worked wonderfully or were great plays.

few are better at working the officials than bcg. he was up there with knight and sampson in that regard. no one really discusses this.

his clock management, game management skills were solid, imo. no one talks about this.

its funny that those saying i see no faults in bcg's game. i was critical of the offensive stagnation last year and i was boggled at how his teams "attacked" the press with a pass to the corner of the baseline, almost feeding the initial trap. i said this many times.

trust me, i have my issues with bcg, but he made up for them with unbelievable recruiting, player development, some of the best man in the nation, and unmatched intensity.

the problem is that some want frame arguments. first its that i just ***** after losses. well, no. that's not the truth...not even close. i was more upset after wins with fla a&m and CU than i was upset after the zona loss. i was very excited after the baylor loss with the improvements i saw, just wish i'd seen them earlier.

like i said, more than anything, his comments tossing his players and depth under the bus are what has rubbed me the wrong with this guy. i liked him up until then amd while i still like the guy in some respects, it'll take some doing to get those out of my mind and imo, we won't have a clue as to how good of a coach and recruiter this guy is until at least 2 years down the road.

y'all take care.

[This message has been edited by houstontexan (edited 2/13/2008 2:10p).]

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making those guys "tough" took a TON of work, most of which he doesn't get credit for.

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I don't understand what you're saying. Gillispie got 100% of the credit for this. He took an 0-17 team to .500 in conference and to the NIT the very next year. He WAS the story. So much so that he ended up at UK in 3 years.

The A&M teams he had were all about toughness and I heard that every time they took the court.

Ha I even remember one announcer commenting that they 'turn off your gas' or something like that. His teams defined toughness and intensity.

[This message has been edited by PJYoung (edited 2/13/2008 2:17p).]

guess you missed the tirades after the tech game.

AK was GREAT when he got here, and acie and AW were money players with ice water in their veings before bcg ever stepped foot on campus.

his development of their talents was more out of circumstance, or so many argued.

I remember watching AK when he first got here, and thinking....why on earth is this scrub on the court. He looked lost.

I can't remember a player who kept improving each game like he did...for two years.

HT - Were the Aggies poorly prepared against ttech? Yes. When ttech started running that motion offense, we looked lost, and yes, the score didn't resemble just how bad we got beat. MT has since made some adjustments and has us playing sound bball, both on the offensive and defensive end. This is undeniable.

What is also undeniable is your man crush on BCG. Bottom line, they were unprepared last night and didn't make any adjustments. BCG was known, from time to time, to get stubborn here and not make any adjustments (see our two losses to ttech last year where we outclassed them at every position and still lost - even thought ttech was better last year than they are this year). Whenever you get drummed by 40+ and only have 11pts at halftime, you can't just say "The kids weren't playing good D" or "Vandy was hot and they're a damn good team" or "nobody stepped it up for UK."

Call a spade a spade. It was a crappy performance by the UK staff and the the players, just like our performance against ttech was attributable to both the coaches and players.

And to say ttech played a poor game against us and still handed us our ass is silly. They shot 45% from the field and 80% from the line - both pretty solid numbers. They only turned the ball over 11 times, again a pretty solid number.

Just call it like it is - along with his players, BCG did a piss poor job last night.

[This message has been edited by Jason Stegent (edited 2/13/2008 3:34p).]

Come HT I am old Varsity HS basketball coach. I know a little bit about this.

BCG IS NOT A TATICAL GUY. FRAN IS IT'S SIMPLE AS THAT.

Fran really knows football. Your analogy was poor and just off.

To answer your question yes it is easier to coach toughness and get a kid to play out to their abilities WHEN YOU RUN SIMPLE SYSTEMS!

DUUUUH! You can focus on the mental aspects more.

Look I could coach BCG's way. I could, he does nothiing that I don't know and recognize, Now Turgeon, no sir. He runs cirles around Billy when it comes to tactics and x's and o's.

That is no offense to Billy, that's just the truth. I am like Billy, hard nosed fundamental D. However, a good motion offense causes me to ADJUST some of my defensive game plans.

The point is that a diverse offense really makes it hard to defend. If they know what you are going to run all the time and how you want to run it a good coach will exploit you. They will exploit you on defense and offense AND THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED TO BILLY LAST NIGHT.

He got smoked on the tatical coaching end of things. Guess what if he doesn't add some wrinkles to his game, HE IS GOING TO GET SMOKED RIGHT OUT OF UK unless he can just our recruit everbody.

I am telling you as far a coaching the game goes Turge is WAY AHEAD OF BCG.

XL is right -- he stated concern over MT during the losing streak, but never jumped off of the bus. That is for other posters on here (gopitt and Andy Pipkin comes to mind).

OPAG is correct as well MW is a horrible coach. BCG is a coach that overcomes his inability to make adjustments with very hard nosed play and defense. With the right players, he is fine. With a group of highly spoiled players, well...

MT is a good (and rapidly improving) coach. From the early commits, he can recruit. He makes good adjustments, and now seems to be 'getting it' in terms of how he needs to coach in the big 12. I am optimistic that he will become a great coach for us, but I had little doubt there will be bumps along the way.

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Back in 03 I was about the only guy on this board who thought BCG was a great hire. I got fried for it.

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You weren't the only one who liked the selection. There were just many that wanted a big name. I was convinced after talking with several coaches in the state...they all loved him.

Great post OPAG. Appreciate BCG for what he did for our program but also allow Turgeon the time to learn the conference and recruit to his system. IMHO we will be better off as a program 3 years from now based on the efforts of Mark Turgeon building on the foundation of the program started by BCG (improved facilities, fan base, etc.)Judge Mark Turgeon then.

not a tactitian at all outside D, huh?

Define tactitcian?

There are two types.

1. Those that can make a good in game decision in the heat of game. Like Billy calling for a foul on Sasha Kahn.

That was really good idea, and in that since a great tactical decision.

2. There are pre game tactical stratgies that you create for specific opponents.

Now BCG may be a good tactician, I just don't see that he is at all.

He comes in to each game fully expecting that his defense and offensive scheme is going to be enough. If it doesn't work he has shown no ability to change a scheme or divise a specific strategy to change things up.

I mean you have to adjust some times. If you can't get up in the grill of a PG because he beats you off the dribble, you need to adjust your scheme. I don't know if Billy teaches recognition very well. That's a big part of defensive coaching. Towards the end of the year last year the teams that beat us did so the same way. Spreading the floor and the drive to the hoop.

It became redundant. Funny tu couldn't do that this year. In fact nobody has done that well. Why? because the way Turge defends that.

Our help defense on the guard play IS HEAD AND SHOULDERS BETTER THEN LAST YEAR.

Now we have not had the same high consitent intensity that we did under BCG. However, we have been in the last 5 game, overall a better defensive TEAM then we were last year.

Why was Pompey on the bench while watching Memphis grab 5 offensive rebounds to win the game again?

I want to go on record that BCG is a good coach and some ways EXCEPTIONAl.

However he is no John Wooden YET and I really don't think he deserves those type of kudos.

I think Turgeon is a really good coach. Not great, YET.

I think he is a better coach to run and extablished program. I believe he adjust better.

When it come to getting a group of guy play with all out intencity few, if anyone is better then BCG.

However some time that can be used against you. You no the old addage.

"When they over play, make them Pay" Sometimes BCG team has defenisve break downs because they have intensity with out discipline and smarts.


I am more Turgeon's style of man defense, I just want my guy to stay between his man and the basket. and communicate well on picks and screens and just keep a body between the man and the basket.

If you need to back off a half step to adjust for kids quickness then do it. Make him beat you from outside and then adjust if he does.

How do you adjust you get a guy in his face and give him quick help and rotate like mad. make the kid work hard for everything and then usually he gets a little tired and his bombs aren't going in any more.

I didn't see much of that from Billy, He just seemed to have one speed and one way. Full on in your face. Well good teams and good coaches will exploit that.

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Or do you tell her she'll get the testosterone the old fashion way only.

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Every kid needs a coach to max out his potential.

Saying that Acie wouldn't be the player he is today under Watkins for four years is understandable.

Saying that Acie wouldn't be the player he is today under any other coach except for BCG is a different thing completely.

Who is to say a number of other competent coaches couldn't have pushed him to the same or similar levels. I don't think anybody can say definitely at this point that Turgeon couldn't have gotten as much out of him.

[This message has been edited by bendover (edited 2/13/2008 8:40p).]

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still don't see how houstontexan can have as many posts as he/she has.......

what's the count now? 30,000+

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Based on his start date, houstontexan averages 16 posts a day, every day, 365 days a year.

That means, assuming an average 8 hour sleep cycle, one post per hour for every waking hour.

Anniversaries, Holidays, work days. . .

. . .every day.

wow.

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I think Turgeon is a really good coach. Not great, YET.

I think he is a better coach to run and extablished program. I believe he adjust better.

When it come to getting a group of guy play with all out intencity few, if anyone is better then BCG.

However some time that can be used against you. You no the old addage.

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translate this. tia.

as far as my post count, i blame a few friends and the fact i can rattle off 4 to 5 posts in a couple minutes in retort. while i wish i had only this in my life, unfortunately listenign to people dog "KU" and their coach just doesn't cut it for me.

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Now BCG may be a good tactician, I just don't see that he is at all.

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honestly, if he doesn't have the approval as a tactitian from a washed up "varsity" coach like yourself, he might as well just give up.

again, there's more to life than running, or in mark's case, trying to run, the motion offense.

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Now BCG may be a good tactician, I just don't see that he is at all.

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BCG is a defensive genius; don't you remember what he did to Durant in Reed last year. Yes, Durant scored, but majority of it was when the game was over. We won by 20 and should have been by 40 with all of the bad calls against us.

[This message has been edited by czar_iv (edited 2/14/2008 7:52a).]

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again, there's more to life than running, or in mark's case, trying to run, the motion offense.

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The opposite is also true. I give BCG high marks for his defensive intensity, much lower marks for his offensive schemes and abilities.

Occasionally, his stubbornness about only man-to-man (an affliction we have found to be true about many of the top coaches) gets him into trouble, but overall, his defense is simple, but tough...except maybe this year, where some days there is no defense at all.

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XL is right -- he stated concern over MT during the losing streak, but never jumped off of the bus. That is for other posters on here (gopitt and Andy Pipkin comes to mind).

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Wx guy, you're going to ruin their fantasy trip.

HT, if BCG is such a defensive genius, then why Vandy's bench burn Kentucky for 50 in the second half? You can't use one game of success (shutting down Durant) as indicative of BCG's genius and then dismiss the bad games, especially in light of your qualification that Durant DID score. That logic is, quite frankly, idiotic.

Oh, and by the bye, we recently destroyed UT as well sans the best point guard in the country.

MaroonOut05,

I didn't say Turge was a bad coach. But you have to admit BCG did a really good job defensive with less talent than Turgeon.

BCG was horrible his first year at UTEP and then had the biggest turnaround the following year in D-1 history. Leading them into the NCAAs.

A&M was 21-10 with Billy in his first season at A&M, but that came with the padding of a cup-cake OOC scheduling which played perfectly to his advantage (Penders is doing the same this year and may cost us).

BCG will need at least a season for his players to capture his system. Ala Rick Adelman.


I also think this A&M team is better than last years team after watching a few of their games. Just don't run into Memphis again in the South Regional at Reliant (will be Texas probably).


I know one things for sure:

Kentucky will get in the NCAAs and Houston won't. Even though we blew them out.

Disagree Shocker. It takes a year for player to buy into Billie's STYLE or not! It has nothing to do with system.

His system as I stated before is fairly simple.

Defense is simple but to creat good team defense takes a lot of reps, a lot communication and understanding.

Billy focuses on this and intencity. Still, I have not seen him adjust his defense to meet a certain situation.

I mean when you are getting killed by dribble penetration over and over again. YOU NEED TO ADJUST HOW YOU DEFEND IT!

We did show that ability last year. tu won by going to the rack and Durant getting NBA favorable officiating (Sorry that's just the truth) Memphis beat us off the dribble. OSU beat us off the dribble. Tech beat us twice off the dribble attacking the rack.

When that happens you adjust. Drop another half step back and make the dude beat you with a jumper. If the does that then you are going to have to have spy on him that comes quickly to help out a defender.

You adjust from a straight man to man to kind of match up zone.

We showed no ability to adjust and force dribble penetrators to give up the ball of making prove they can hit the J.

Now against AU this year, we got beat because there two big guns got hot as fire and we just got in funk, Same happened with KSU. I mean they throwing everything in. When we tried to adjust they were getting rebounds. Same with Baylor.

It's finally against tu that we really started to get it. Well that's because a BCG coached team NEVER DID GET IT> Sorry this is the truth.

Billy runs simple sceams and his main fortee's are.

1. Getting players to play all out almost all the time.

2. Doing a few things and being profecient at them. He is a high low guy and runs this with multiple plays, He doesn't run much of anything else. Offenses agains Zone are pretty standard to the most part. If you run a 3-2 zone you are going to run some sort of 2-3 offensive set against it and look for crip passind and then bounding boards, especially back side. This is recognition and adjustment. It's also elementry!

3. BCG is very good at finding and recruiting talent. Probably his one greatest asset as a coach.

These three assets can make him very good, However no one is going to call Billy and X and O genius. There are no real defensive geniuses in basketball. Offensive geniuses yes! But this isn't like football there is only 5 guys in a limited space and the fundamentals are the same. Defense is pretty much the same from elementry up. There just isn't a lot of sophistication about it. NOW EXECUTION. YEA that'w where the rubber hits the road. And a big part of exectution is adjusting to the team you are playing against. It comes down to matchups. Coaches earn their pay there.