What would it take...

3,144 Views | 39 Replies | Last: 6 yr ago by mgmgrand
bobinator
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This is kind of based off of some of the comments in the other thread and it's not unlike some conversations that have been going on since last season, but I figured it's September, why not kick up a new thread.

What would it take this season for you to think "Okay, Kennedy might have stumbled a few times, but we're on a solid foundation now." Or basically, for you to be okay/optimistic/etc with having Billy Kennedy as our coach for the foreseeable future.

Elite eight? Sweet 16? Or are you basing it more on the regular season results since the tournament can be a crapshoot?
GE
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As long as recruiting keeps going like it is and there are no major roster holes like PG last season, I am very confident in the future of the program. I believe BKs teams have and will continue to perform consistent with the level of roster talent. As long as recruiting is great, we will be great.
Pumpkinhead
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If we miss the NCAA this season then hopefully they replace him.

If we barely squeak into the NCAA and lose in first round, I'm sure they'd keep him but I'd not be very comfortable with the situation.

If we perform in at least a reasonable ball park given the talent level (top-4 in SEC, #5 seed or higher NCAA bid, win at least one game in NCAA)...and the 2018 recruiting class snags at least one clear Top-100 recruit plus a couple of other decent prospects, then I'm optimistic as a fan for now. That would be two NCAA trips and 1 NIT in the last 4 years.
mallen
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As long as the potential is there for Kennedy to best anything the program has done in the past, then I feel confident in Kennedy's leadership. I stated several years ago that Kennedy would set records here before he leaves. To some extent he has done that with a major conference championship and most single season wins in school history. I still expect more records to be set before he retires.
bobinator
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I guess I should have started with a question of how confident are you right now in Kennedy's leadership of the program, I sort of assumed that everyone was sort of luke-warm, but that appears to not be the case.
mhayden
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The difficult part of the question is the "this season", as many of us would feel much more comfortable with a string of Round of 32 visits rather than another Sweet 16 but then two tournament misses as the biggest question about Kennedy (which really isn't a question IMO) is his ability to consistently put out an above average team even if everything doesn't go exactly right.

So because of that, for me to think Kennedy is the man for the job for the foreseeable future, I'd have to see a Final Four this season -- or (knock on wood) a couple of setbacks to the roster that Kennedy overcomes and gets us to a Sweet 16.

Otherwise it's not really going to change my opinion that he's a coach that can only excel when his roster lines up perfectly.

But if Kennedy puts up a Sweet 16 appearance this year and follows it up with two more NCAA Tourney first weekend ousters... then I'm actually fine with him as well. Just show me that you can get us to the tournament 70% of the time and I think most Aggies will be happy.
bobinator
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I probably could have taken out the this season thing, I didn't necessarily mean for it to be this-season-specific if your "what you need to see" is longer term.
halfastros81
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With the talent that's been assembled and assuming no major issues or injuries I think the team needs to at a minimum make the NCAA tourney this yr. Once in the tourney it's about seeding and matchups so it's hard to say what success would or would not look like.

For our program I think they should be making the tourney more than they don't make it. In that sense BK has not really measured up to expectations so far but the trend a tleast appears to be up.
hoya-ag
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I am not sure I can peg it to results even though I know that is what ultimately matters. Honestly I am not sure that any success this year short of a conference title or elite 8 would tell me much about his ability to coach given the strength of our roster. I think he has proven himself to be a good recruiter--better than BCG or Turgeon IMO. And recruiting is a huge part of this game. But until he does more with less or significantly exceeds expectations, I am not going to think he is anything more than an average coach.
mhayden
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bobinator said:

I probably could have taken out the this season thing, I didn't necessarily mean for it to be this-season-specific if your "what you need to see" is longer term.

For me to be OK with Kennedy as the coach for the forseeable future, making the tournament 70%+ of the time with a second weekend appearance every 4th year or so would be fine by me.

Doesn't mean I don't think we could do better or want for more... but it would be much like Turgeon in that I could see his deficiencies but could live with them.

Mind you that me just being OK with being in the tournament (rather than advancing deep in it) is likely a result of how bad the last 6 years have been. Had you asked me this same question soon after the departure of Turgeon I likely would have set the bar higher.

But for now I'd be happy just be consistently good again, not necessarily great.
Hop
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GE said:

As long as recruiting keeps going like it is and there are no major roster holes like PG last season, I am very confident in the future of the program. I believe BKs teams have and will continue to perform consistent with the level of roster talent. As long as recruiting is great, we will be great.

Frankly, I'm on this line of thinking. I'm more looking at recruiting as a barometer than the 2017-2018 season. The last 2-3 classes were still attributed primarily to Stansbury and Keller. I'm a little concerned with this 2018 class. There hasn't been a lot of buzz surrounding A&M on the recruiting trail in this cycle. They have 3-4 solid four-star types visiting this month and I guess Grimes still has A&M in his top group, but if they lose out on 2-3 of these five, they will be scrambling to finish out this class that can keep the current talent level from dropping when Williams, Hogg, and possibly Davis leave after next season.
bobinator
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I kind of go back and forth every so often on how confident I am in where the program stands at the moment. Last year really bothers me, because fielding a team without a point guard is really really bad. And even if we would have had Caldwell, that's one true freshman point guard. That's still not a great situation to put yourself in. And then even without a point guard, I don't think we were quite as good as we should have been.

But, I think if we put ourselves in position to be a sweet 16 team (top 4-5 seed) then I'll be pretty confident moving forward. I tend to not worry about tournament results much unless we just absolutely no show effort wise because of the sample size.

What I'd REALLY like to see is us upset one of those big names on our schedule, Kansas or Arizona. Maybe USC if they're as good as some people think. That's been the one thing that nags at me with Kennedy is that we don't beat teams that are better than we are. We've been close a few times, but couldn't finish. If we showed that occasional big-game ability then I'd be really confident about where we're headed.

The other thing I'd like to see this year is our younger players get better over the course of the season.
bobinator
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How much will on-court results affect that class? I know that basketball recruiting is sometimes oddly divorced from results.
wacarnolds
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Quote:

What would it take this season for you to think "Okay, Kennedy might have stumbled a few times, but we're on a solid foundation now." Or basically, for you to be okay/optimistic/etc with having Billy Kennedy as our coach for the foreseeable future.
Top 2 in SEC + top 4 seed in NCAAT + a recruiting class that somewhat accounts for the talent leaving the program after this year
Hop
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bobinator said:

How much will on-court results affect that class? I know that basketball recruiting is sometimes oddly divorced from results.
It won't affect a majority of the class since the early signing period comes before the start of the season. The recruits who wait to sign in the spring are the super elite guys that A&M isn't going to get anyway. A good season could help with some spring JUCO's and certainly any good graduate transfer post guys...because that's what they will need the most.
billydean05
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I believe with the talent we have on this roster, we should be ranked in the top 25 most of the year. Be competitive in most every game. Make the NCAA tournament and think we should probable make the Sweet 16, though that is not a requirement because the draw can dictate that.

Through Kennedy's tenure we have not performed as well as the talent level and having no goals for the program that is concrete invites failure, so I challenge people to come up with SMART Goals for the basketball program under Kennedy.

Watkins recruited well. Recruiting well does not make a successful coach.
Pumpkinhead
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nm, Hop answered it.


GrayMatter
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For me it would take consistency in order for me to be confident with this coaching staff. You could have marquee wins throughout the season and not be in the tournament that's a fact. A conference championship in a major sport is a big deal so I'm probably more confident than most in that regards. However, you kind of have a WTF moment when you follow it up the next year with neither an NCAA tournament bid or an NIT bid.

I don't follow recruiting because to me it's a big crap shoot unless you're talking about a once in lifetime player, but then again you know those guys are a one and done player. If you can consistently get one and done players ala Calipari then that's the end goal for any school: to be a destination school and once you reach that status then you know you're among the college basketball elite. I digress...

Consistent recruiting along with consistent results of reaching tournament bids regardless of outcome would make me confident. Like one of you has said, once you're in a tournament you could get lucky and/or hot and beat a few blue bloods and suddenly find yourself in the Final Four trying to go for all the marbles or you could lose in the first round as a single digit seed. The tournament is a whole other world.

Pumpkinhead
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billydean05 said:

Watkins recruited well. Recruiting well does not make a successful coach.
As has been discussed on this board countless times, Watkins is NOT a very good example to bring up as a bad coach. He was somewhat an outlier even in the category of bad coaches. Not sure he'd have even been able to coach the Golden State Warriors to the NCAA tournament (okay, I'm exaggerating on that one...*probably* having Durant/Curry/Green/Thompson would have been sufficient to get the Aggies to the NCAA tournament as long as Watkins understood his role was to stay out their way and focus only on stuff like refilling their Gatorade bottles during timeouts).
greg.w.h
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The framing of the question suggests there is a reason the committed fan base isn't "all in." I think doing a five-year NCAA run starting this year erases doubts. Though without an occasional S16 or better there will still be questions (see Turgeon.)

An equally good question is how to build fan base support moving forward to support AD spend on the coach and program and potentially reach the point where coaches stop stepping through rather than staying. Regularly going to the NCAAs is probably necessary but doesn't seem sufficient in an "only if" sense. Without that BK might be the best long-term choice for going every other or third year.
Method Man
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One season's results would never make me think that.
AggieTFA06
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This season- final 4

future seasons- at least 3 straight NCAA tournament appearances
To 1,000,000 touchdowns ...and beyond
Expert Analysis
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You dont become a better coach over the course of a season or two and you cant teach old dogs new tricks. Some people still think Sumlin can improve, he is what he is. Kennedy is no different. Good assistants can be game changers, but they wont stick around. I feel basketball will continue to underperform to the talent level just like football. What would change my mind is continued good recruiting and outperforming expectations/talent level. Kennedy has underperformed every year so far.
Edit, to be fair expectations were met 2 years ago.
Expert Analysis
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My expectations for this year are to compete for the SEC title and top 5 NCAA seed.
bobinator
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Expert Analysis said:

Edit, to be fair expectations were met 2 years ago.
This sort of depends on what we mean by expectations. Like our expectations or the expectations of the national media, because if it's the latter, then he outperformed them in 2015-16. We weren't ranked to start the season and we ended up a 3 seed.

To be honest I'd think by anyone's expectations we probably outperformed them in 2015-16. I don't think a lot of people even here thought we'd be a 3 seed caliber team.

And I don't mean the question as like all of a sudden at season's end you're going to think Kennedy is the best coach in college basketball or anything. Obviously it's about success over the course of several years, but it's more about what could he do this season to make you think that he's probably going to have that success.

Pumpkinhead
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bobinator said:

Expert Analysis said:

Edit, to be fair expectations were met 2 years ago.
This sort of depends on what we mean by expectations. Like our expectations or the expectations of the national media, because if it's the latter, then he outperformed them in 2015-16. We weren't ranked to start the season and we ended up a 3 seed.

To be honest I'd think by anyone's expectations we probably outperformed them in 2015-16. I don't think a lot of people even here thought we'd be a 3 seed caliber team.

And I don't mean the question as like all of a sudden at season's end you're going to think Kennedy is the best coach in college basketball or anything. Obviously it's about success over the course of several years, but it's more about what could he do this season to make you think that he's probably going to have that success.


Actually Bob, if I recall, I think we got bumped to #25 in the AP poll right before the season started. I do seem to recall that we were ranked somewhere in the twenties when we played our first real game (versus the horns in Atlantis thing).

But yeah, if you go off our pre-season rankings (both nationally and predicted finish in the SEC conference), that team exceeded both of those predictions.
bobinator
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We entered the AP poll in week 3.
Expert Analysis
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The media is not going to rank us very high coming off years of being terrible...we arent tu football!
I wonder what our expectations thread said for that year, i would guess they were to be top 4 in sec, easily make the dance. We almost got bounced in second round, would have been unforgivable, a miracle saved kennedys job.
bobinator
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You think we'd have fired a coach who made the second round of the tournament?
greg.w.h
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I think Expert's comment suggest a line of reasoning we haven't discussed yet:

Perhaps that team succeeded specifically through the collection of a variety of individual coaching guidance to various players coupled with practical application on the floor based on a LOT of hard knocks experience. Essentially the team overcame the direct coaching by executing well enough to require very little direct guidance.

The notion Admon was coached up into essentially aggressive street ball in defending the inbounds is ludicrous. The idea instead that he had developed the instinct and sensed he needed to immediately switch styles to something very familiar makes a lot more sense. Not that the more immediate coaching didn't focus on technique and repetition in normal game situations. Just seems unlikely you can roleplay that specific site action effectively. It had to be a deeper instinct.

That better explains BKs career tendency to go overt three or four years and to go with more upperclassmen when a one-and-done-based team is somewhat less likely to go with more upperclassmen (largely due to the better athleticism leaving and less physically talented players earning playing time cerebrally rather than physically.)
Pumpkinhead
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Expert Analysis said:

I wonder what our expectations thread said for that year, i would guess they were to be top 4 in sec, easily make the dance.
* TexAgs after Season 1 - Impossible for a man with Parkinsons to handle D1 program coaching stress for very long.

* TexAgs after Season 2 - Kennedy will never even make NIT. Is as bad as Watkins. And impossible for a man with Parkinsons to handle D1 program coaching stress for very long.

* TexAgsafter Season 3 - Kennedy will never even make NIT. Is as bad as Watkins. And impossible for a man with Parkinsons to handle D1 program coaching stress for very long. Perhaps Stansbury is a HCIW.

* TexAgs after Season 4 - Kennedy will never make the NCAAT, even with decent roster. He may be slightly better than Watkins, but not by much. He must not be listening to Stansbury. And impossible for a man with Parkinsons to handle D1 program coaching stress for very long. Perhaps Stansbury is a HCIW.

* TexAgsafter Season 5 - Okay Kennedy is definitely not as bad as Watkins. But thank you Rick Stansbury.

*TexAgs after Season 6 - Can't make NCAAT unless he has Rick Stansbury or a perfectly built roster. And impossible for a man with Parkinsons to handle D1 program coaching stress for very long.

JJxvi
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I dont think Parkinsons really even comes up anymore as a factor does it?
bobinator
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Yeah. People absolutely talk about it whenever we aren't playing well. They usually couch it as "being concerned for Kennedy and his family first and foremost" but it definitely comes up.
txag72
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Sweet 16 expected, win only 1 disappointing. Win none equals fail and good bye. Too much talent and experience not to expect coaching to be top 16 minimum. As far as the next recruiting class there will be some holes to fill but mostly for depth purposes. I don't expect an A@M to recruit top 25 every year, too many want immediate PT.
JJxvi
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We're going to the final 4 and if you disagree then you are a worthless pot banger with BAS.
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