DukeMu said:

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Pumpkinhead said:

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DukeMu said:

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Pumpkinhead said:

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Hop said:

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_lefraud_ said:

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Double Diamond said:

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My apologies, three star recruit. Again good pick up but hardly a program shifting moment.

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Who also redshirted at Baylor...

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Two years ago....the guy lit it up at Trinity Valley and the people who rank JUCO prospects say he's the best in the country. It is strange that you cherry pick data from two years ago and skip over data that is less than two months old.

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He is rated #2 JUCO on 247 composite. It is certainly possible that he gives us something significant. You can't just assume JUCO pickups are mediocre or suck. Arkansas for example just had an NCAA team led by two starting perimeter players (Barford and Bacon) who were both highly ranked JUCO guard recruits similar to Mitchell.

Obviously, 'who knows', but If he turns out like Barford and Bacon at Arky then he'll have been a pretty good get. Would be curious if any poster here has any good personal knowledge/insight on specifically this guy's game.

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So, we're comparing the tallest midgets.

Name 1 JUCO transfer who has contribute to a national championship team since UNLV in 1990. Jimmy Butler is the only relatively recent JUCO transfer I can think of that was worth a darn in high D-1.

BK's previous JUCOs - how'd that work out for A&M?

If football, there are quite a few, including Cam Newton. This isn't football.

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If you lower your expectation bar just a tad from talking National Championships' to just 'Good JUCO players who were starters/major contributors on NCAA tournament teams', then sure there have been several cases of guys coming out of JUCO and making a difference. We'll see on Mitchell. He at least played well enough at the JUCO level that the recruiting services really liked him.

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OK. Name them without scouring Google.

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I just linked a article above ranking some guys. Actually before I did that, cheating with Google (I promise not lying!), Marshall Henderson, Early at Wichita State, and Pierre Jackson did come to mind.

Another guy without going back to google just off the top of my head was Moody at Ole Miss a couple of years back who was a stud guard out of JUCO and First Team All SEC, then guys like Barford and Bacon at Arky that I already mentioned who were on an Arkansas NCAA team last year.

At Texas A&M, of course there was AK who came out of JUCO that started on probably our best team in history. And of course the famous Logan Lee of TexAgs was also a JUCO transfer on that team. Shout out to Logan!

In the Billy Kennedy years, Jamal Jones seems like by far the best JUCO guy we've had. There haven't been a lot of JUCO guys during the Kennedy years, other than Jones I can only think of off the top of my head Andrew Young (complete bust) and that really small Harris guard who contributed at times. But Jamal Jones was by far the best of that lot...he had the talent and produced at times to be like 2nd Team Conference good.

Jucos all need to be considered case by case. Many times when someone is juco it's not a talent issue but something else

Double Diamond said:

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That Smith kid was a workout warrior. Caldwell was a workout warrior. Space was a workout warrior hit a few winners against Tennessee, not much else. I'm sure there are more. Nothing means anything till the lights go on in a real game.

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Caldwell had the perfect game to look good in a scrimmage practice. Once things get more structured- but the unnecessary circus passes kept coming and the opposing team implements a scouting report (sag on Caldwell)- suddenly he doesn't look near as good.

Obviously, I think almost everyone who posts on this message board wishes that we had a coaching staff that we were confident enough in that every offseason we always felt like we would make the NCAA tournament, and then usually did just that.

Like Texas had with Barnes for eons. Like we had for that 6 year period with BCG and Turgeon.

We don't have that with this staff. The past 3 years under Kennedy were certainly remarkably better than the first 4 years....two Sweet Sixteens out of 3 seasons for a school with a very modest basketball history like Texas A&M is a very good and notable achievement. There are several other schools in the SEC like Arky, Georgia, Ole Miss, Miss State, Tenn, Bama, Auburn, etc. who would have loved to have made the Sweet Sixteen twice out of the past 3 years...A&M did pull that off and Kennedy deserves credit for that.

But still, it is hard to have much confidence in his program. Even if Gilder and Davis come back, though I'd probably lean towards predicting an NCAA tournament season in 2017-2018, falling short and being in the NIT (or worse) wouldn't surprise me. It is so often a crapshoot and roller coaster ride with Kennedy, which is not a good sports fan feeling.

And this is coming from a poster and sports fan who tries to be pretty reasonable and give benefit of the doubt.

I don't really think my confidence in Kennedy about being consistent is going to ever change much unless he makes not only the NCAA next season, but also the season after that (which presumably means his 2019 recruiting was pretty good).

_lefraud_ said:

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hoya-ag said:

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Also, BK's next team to overachieve will be his first. Think about that. In 7 years he has not had a single team overachieve. That is almost impossible.

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This.

2016 was awesome, but I still wouldn't say that team "over achieved", if anything, they "over achieved" on the expectations that had been lowered after years 1-4. I don't think anyone thought that team would compete for a conference title, and/or earn a 3 seed for the tournament. But at the same time, a 3 seed "should" make it to the S16...

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Here are the preseason projections for that year. We were picked third behind UK and Vandy. Certainly that shows that we were thought to be able to compete for a conference title.

http://www.secsports.com/article/13926979/media-picks-kentucky-win-sec

Yea, but what I mean is, no one that closely watched the first 4 years of Kennedy at A&M (you know, the 12 or so people here) thought he would truly put together a team to compete for a conference title (regardless of how the roster looked, or what the media thought). He underachieved for his first 4 years, so it was reasonable to assume he would do the same.

Don't get me wrong, he had put together an excellent roster for 2016, and that team was thought to be good, but for the Aggie faithful, the expectations had been lowered. But given that roster and expectations from the media (not us), I wouldn't call the results of the 2016 season an "over achievement" by any stretch...just maybe relative to "our" expectations built from the previous years.

I need a drink.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but are we griping about the Mitchell signing because there hasn't been a JUCO transfer that has had a major impact on a National Championship team since 1991?

Anybody remember the grandma's lesson from the movie "Parenthood"?

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You know, when I was young, Grandpa took me on a roller coaster. Up and down, up, down. Oh, what a ride. I always wanted to go again. It was just interesting to me that a ride could make me so frightened...so scared, so sick, so excited...and so thrilled all together. Some didnt like it. They went on the merry-go-round. That just goes around. Nothing. I like the roller coaster. You get more out of it.

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Life as an Aggie basketball fan started off really bad with Kennedy after Turgeon and we didn't know if it would get better. Turgeon didn't recruit as well as he should have and Kennedy's off the court health issues didn't help us on the court or with recruiting.

Then...

We recruited really well in spite of our previous year by adding Hogg, Gilder, Davis, and Thomas but there was missteps along the way with the transfer of Robinson. Thomas ended up leaving the team at the beginning yet we also added House and Jones to the team.

We won the SEC regular season crown along with Kentucky and we went to the Sweet 16 and won a matchup with the Buddy Hield leading Sooners. We guarded Hield relatively well but forgot about guarding the other guys just the same and we lost by double digits. But not before we beat Northern Iowa in OT on a miracle comeback win.

Caruso graduated and the roller coaster reached its highest point only to go back down with a bad season due to not having a serviceable point guard. No post season for us.

Then....

We recruited decently again and added Duane Wilson, Starks, and Flagg. We had Caldwell too, but the staff showed too much loyalty to a fault and it snake bit us when he was dismissed from the team. All the time invested as well as a scholarship, gone in a puff of a smoke. <---see what I did there?

The season started off on a great foot defeating WV in Germany behind a monster game from Hogg and others. We reeled off win after win and everything seemed okay even after losing by a few to Arizona in what seemed like a true road game. Well somewhat okay because Williams regressed to a certain extent, Hogg was suspended yet once again and Caldwell was dismissed with Chandler adding to the suspension list. Then Gilder got hurt and we started the conference play 0-5 and we were suddenly in panic mode. Our team's confidence waned with each game as we muster to beat Ole Miss by one even though their last shot almost went in.

So... we started winning some games. Chandler returned to the team, Hogg was semi-serviceable again, Williams started to look like his old self and we beat Kentucky soundly at Reed. During this winning streak, our warrior and best on the ball defender, Wilson got hurt and we ended up losing our next 3 ballgames. Not a season ender at all, but the last loss to Mississippi St really hurt because we just came out flat. They took it to us and we never responded.

We righted the ship by winning the next 3 against Vandy at home (which we hadn't beaten ever since we joined the SEC), a tough coached Georgia team, and we got revenge against Alabama beating them by two. By this point, we were a lock for the NCAA tournament even though we lost on a last second drive by Collin Sexton.

We weren't so confident about our team especially how we lost against Alabama in the SEC tournament. We started the Big Dance by defeating a decent Big East team in Providence who almost won their end of season tournament. Then we did the unthinkable and beat the Tar out of North Carolina. We once again had visions of Final Four and #confettidreams in San Antonio.

Then we ran into a well coached Michigan team that was better prepared than we were and beat us soundly. So soundly that our coaching staff had no clue on how to counter their offensive attack. We regressed to the talented team that couldn't figure out how to win

And now we're riding Space Mountain and not sure if we're going up or down. Some of us don't like the ride and some of us don't care as long as the ride keeps moving. Others point that there's better rides, but it's hard to dismiss the thrill of Space Mountain. I'm guessing that some of you are tired of the ride and want to go on something else and that's perfectly fine. Either way, the thrill is there, it's just a matter of if you're willing to deal with the lowest of the lows.

If I want to ride a roller coaster, I'd go to Six Flags or Disneyland.

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We won the SEC regular season crown along with Kentucky and we went to the Sweet 16 and won a matchup with the Buddy Hield leading Sooners.

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Curious phrasing.

I thought that soliloquy in Parenthood was pretty contrived...

The sole real highlight of Kennedy's tenure was the recruiting of the fab fish. That was a strategic accomplishment that should have set the foundation for repeat trips to the NCAA. Instead it highlighted the unlikelihood that it was anything except a one-off occurrence. He needs a solid top-50 player every single recruiting class and preferably a top-100 per class as well.

He clearly doesn't like coaching in game because he responds very slowly with in-game adjustments. Maestri seems to be the guy tracking details for him and advising on managing momentum.

My central disappointment his first year is that any HC with a decent staff should have been able to rely on the staff to teach system and be at least mediocre especially with the talent we had. But like others I let that first year go because I believed our AD would manage something other than our expectations.

Woodward deeply disappointed with his inflammatory comments supporting Kennedy. Just more asking us to manage expectations downwards rather than great leadership. The longer we keep Kennedy the more he is entrenched emotionally into A&M. And while some of the memories are remarkable, the grand story arc is not. Two S16s late in a disappointing seven-year tenure are wonderful but not satisyinging.

I just keep coming back to the suspensions.

This was supposed to be THE year. All the #confettidreams stuff. The staff talking up the talent, etc. This wasn't just a regular year, everyone around the program knew this team could be special.

And we couldn't even keep the whole team on the court. Again, we had six different players get suspended at different times throughout the year. And they weren't like freshman who didn't know any better (though at separate times our entire freshman class was suspended except for Flagg.)

It was absolutely ridiculous. That's not the sign of a stable program, even if our on-court results this season were, on the whole, pretty good considering the injuries.

bobinator said:

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I just keep coming back to the suspensions.

This was supposed to be THE year. All the #confettidreams stuff. The staff talking up the talent, etc. This wasn't just a regular year, everyone around the program knew this team could be special.

And we couldn't even keep the whole team on the court. Again, we had six different players get suspended at different times throughout the year. And they weren't like freshman who didn't know any better (though at separate times our entire freshman class was suspended except for Flagg.)

It was absolutely ridiculous. That's not the sign of a stable program, even if our on-court results this season were, on the whole, pretty good considering the injuries.

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Yeah the suspensions were not good. Hopefully with Hogg and Caldwell having left, we won't see any next season. Overall they seem to be a really good group of kids.

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Overall they seem to be a really good group of kids.

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Enlighten me on how you came to this conclusion based on your observation that all but one of the class was suspended.

Is a felony required to fall out of the "good group"?

EXCELL said:

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Overall they seem to be a really good group of kids.

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Enlighten me on how you came to this conclusion based on your observation that all but one of the class was suspended.

Is a felony required to fall out of the "good group"?

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Need good guys or bad guys who are smart enough to not get caught. Dumb bad guys is the group to avoid.

EXCELL said:

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Overall they seem to be a really good group of kids.

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Enlighten me on how you came to this conclusion based on your observation that all but one of the class was suspended.

Is a felony required to fall out of the "good group"?

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I came to this viewpoint independent of the observation that all but one was suspended.

OK.

Perfectly logical ... if you're illogical.

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Need good guys or bad guys who are smart enough to not get caught. Dumb bad guys is the group to avoid.

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Ding, ding, ding.
We have a winner.

How do you think Kennedy explains this to his church backers?

Double Diamond said:

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How do you think Kennedy explains this to his church backers?

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Explains the suspensions?

Cheap shot, what does his church have to do with this???

RR

Boys will be boys?

I know I may be a little biased when it comes to walker given the fact I've watched him since his sophomore year but raw offensively is the last thing he is actually could turn out to be exactly what we need 4-man who can stretch the floor






This that look like raw offensively? 6'9 can play 2-5

as Far as the rankings go almost every national media knows he can play just didn't play on the circuit all but a couple tournament s