Ag_EE_88 said:

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We have to be better next year. I don't see how there is any way that we can be the same or worse and keep Buzz.

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Sure we can. You got $12 million laying around to buy out his contract?

And that doesn't include assistant salaries that you'd have to pay

But I agree. Lack of improvement next year would be horrible

I don't think that will happen though

Probably going to take an ancient African spell to see any improvement. I think we can agree on that.

Almost assuredly, yes. We faltered this year because of a lack of consistency from our seniors (Flagg and Chandler are the definition of streaky) and only really having 1 decent low-post player in Emmanuel Miller.

This season was tough, but I don't think it provided any useful information for us: we had a weird offseason on a team with a lot of young guys and had a large portion of games cancelled with few full practices. A lot of us were hopeful that Marfo would fill some of the Nebo void, but he often looked lost in conference play- sometimes transfers just don't work out on the court.

Assuming this offseason is "normal" I expect a more cohesive team next season, especially if we can find anyone with size to play next to E-man.

Ag_EE_88 said:

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We have to be better next year. I don't see how there is any way that we can be the same or worse and keep Buzz.

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Buzz will get the year after next even if we are still struggling to the same degree. I'm more concerned about the program momentum. This year was unquestionably a setback, which narrows the window of opportunity somewhat.

Despite my disappointment in how things have gone on and off the court this year, I'm still fully convinced Buzz is the right man for the job. That faith will be tested if we don't at least start to turn the corner next year.

It's a (lack of) talent issue, primarily on offense.

We don't have a point guard.

We get nothing from the Five.

With perhaps the exception of Miller, we have no one who can beat his defender off the dribble.

We make a very low percentage of open jump shots.

In conference games, we scored more than 60 points only twice.

We'll be better next year, the question is, how much better?

Need a significant infusion of talent, please.

RR

DTP02 said:

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Ag_EE_88 said:

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We have to be better next year. I don't see how there is any way that we can be the same or worse and keep Buzz.

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Buzz will get the year after next even if we are still struggling to the same degree. I'm more concerned about the program momentum. This year was unquestionably a setback, which narrows the window of opportunity somewhat.

Despite my disappointment in how things have gone on and off the court this year, I'm still fully convinced Buzz is the right man for the job. That faith will be tested if we don't at least start to turn the corner next year.

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Without a doubt

Even if we are really bad next year, we are not gonna fire Buzz. It would be too expensive

Also, given what he had to work with, most people are going to give him a fourth year regardless.

Like I said, I usually think coaches should only have three years or less to rebuild a program.

I think this program was so depleted, it might take four, and I'm willing to stay on board if that's what it takes

Captain Pablo said:

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DTP02 said:

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Ag_EE_88 said:

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We have to be better next year. I don't see how there is any way that we can be the same or worse and keep Buzz.

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Buzz will get the year after next even if we are still struggling to the same degree. I'm more concerned about the program momentum. This year was unquestionably a setback, which narrows the window of opportunity somewhat.

Despite my disappointment in how things have gone on and off the court this year, I'm still fully convinced Buzz is the right man for the job. That faith will be tested if we don't at least start to turn the corner next year.

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Without a doubt

Even if we are really bad next year, we are not gonna fire Buzz. It would be too expensive

Also, given what he had to work with, most people are going to give him a fourth year regardless.

Like I said, I usually think coaches should only have three years or less to rebuild a program.

I think this program was so depleted, it might take four, and I'm willing to stay on board if that's what it takes

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I agree that it would be very expensive. With that said, if we only win 2 conference games next year, a move SHOULD be made. There is no way that our team will have only won 2 conference games by the end of Feb. next year regardless of the situation.

I think COVID is a bigger reason why you push back the timeline than the program he inherited.

This program was not nearly as depleted as people make it out to be. We were literally 12 months removed from a Sweet 16 when Buzz was hired.

bobinator said:

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I think COVID is a bigger reason why you push back the timeline than the program he inherited.

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Agreed. I don't think Buzz has handled the "CoVID year" well at all, but in the long term outlook that really doesn't matter because we very likely won't have another CoVID year.

So the pragmatic thing for decision-makers is to extend the timeline some and put a giant asterisk next to year two.

That said, losing can become a habit, and also can cost you in terms of program momentum with fans and recruits. If that gets bad enough it can be tough to pull out of.

So you have to look at it holistically, and balance the state of the overall program with the tendency to give a mulligan for the CoVID year.

Regardless, we're a good ways off from even having that debate. I think we'll show enough signs of turning the corner in year 3 that it will be a moot point.

12 months removed from a sweet 16 doesn't mean anything with the roster turnover in college basketball, but overall I agree with your point, it's not like he inherited a team of bums.

I think the simplest way to put all my feelings on this right now is this:

We are lacking in talent and lacking in skill sets, but we should still be quite a bit better than we are. However, I'm still not particularly concerned about us long-term. I don't really know why, but I'm confident we're going to be quite a bit better next year and then should be really good moving forward after that.

MMantle said:

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It's a (lack of) talent issue, primarily on offense.

We don't have a point guard.

We get nothing from the Five.

With perhaps the exception of Miller, we have no one who can beat his defender off the dribble.

We make a very low percentage of open jump shots.

In conference games, we scored more than 60 points only twice.

We'll be better next year, the question is, how much better?

Need a significant infusion of talent, please.

RR

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Agree with all of that. I added some comments below to most of your points.

It's a (lack of) talent issue, primarily on offense.

We don't have a point guard. - Taylor, McNeilly and Obaseki can all run your offense.

We get nothing from the Five. - I don't know if Brown is going to be much of an offensive threat next year, but he can catch the ball (improvement), he can dunk it and he should be a shot blocking presence on the defensive end.

With perhaps the exception of Miller, we have no one who can beat his defender off the dribble. - Taylor, McNeilly and Obaseki have those skills. They are inexperienced at the college level, but they are guys that can get into the paint. The Juco kid can do this a little bit too from the forward spot. He isn't a big time scorer, but he can put the ball on the floor with decent handles and get into the lane.

We make a very low percentage of open jump shots. - Those three guards can shoot better than our current guards. I'm not sure Obaseki and Taylor are excellent three shooters, but you don't have to be excellent to be an upgrade. I think Robinson will help with shooting too. Remember he should be in HS. Give him an offseason with the staff and I think he will be ready to make some kind of impact next season.


We'll be better next year, the question is, how much better? - I don't know how much better we will be in terms on wins (TBD), but I think you will see young talent next year and give you reason to be optimistic about the future which we haven't seen this year. Watching this year there wasn't a lot of on the court to give you hope for the future. We will see that hope next year at the very least.

I also think Gordon (and maybe Diarra eventually) could beat guys off the dribble if he had help. Right now you can help off of everyone on the floor but Miller so even when he does beat his guy he either has another perimeter defender or the five waiting for him.

Captain Pablo said:

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Ag_EE_88 said:

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We have to be better next year. I don't see how there is any way that we can be the same or worse and keep Buzz.

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Sure we can. You got $12 million laying around to buy out his contract?

And that doesn't include assistant salaries that you'd have to pay

But I agree. Lack of improvement next year would be horrible

I don't think that will happen though

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Auburn stuck with Bruce Pearl despite him going 4-14, 5-13, and then 7-11 his first three years in conference play (16-38 record over first three seasons). In Year 4,Pearl finally got rolling and then delivered a Final Four in Year 5.

Not saying Buzz is delivering us a Final Four appearance in three years, but I can assure you that the administration will be just as patient with him as Auburn was with Pearl...and rightfully so. Like Pearl, Buzz Williams is a proven coach with a strong resume. Virginia Tech in the ACC was a tougher job to succeed in than A&M in the SEC. He deserves getting significant 'benefit of the doubt'.

This is the first time Buzz had to coach a program in a 'Panademic Quarantine Rules' environment, and maybe he just wasn't very good at coaching a team in that sort of environment. Marfo was a recruiting 'miss' IMO, but Buzz had to recruit him without the guy ever even physically visiting the campus. It was weird circumstances that if you were ever to give a mulligan to a coach for, this would be the definition of a case for a mulligan year. Hopefully, we'll not see another Pandemic affected sports season like this again in our lifetimes.

bobinator said:

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I also think Gordon (and maybe Diarra eventually) could beat guys off the dribble if he had help. Right now you can help off of everyone on the floor but Miller so even when he does beat his guy he either has another perimeter defender or the five waiting for him.

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I'll admit to only watching this team in spurts, but Gordon really seems to be struggling shaking loose from his defenders this year. I get that having scoring threats on the wings would make that easier, but he's got to get better at that ... or move to primarily playing off the ball and find other ways contribute.

Well I think part of that problem also is he's the only guy on our team you have to account for dribbling, AT ALL so if the other team has a really good on ball defender he's going to have trouble.

I'm not saying he's going to be an elite blow-by guy, he's not as quick as you'd like, but if we theoretically had a good primary one, he could be a good secondary one against the lesser defender and I think he could still develop into decent primary one if he keeps improving.

He's going to need to get better at creating space to shoot with his body, like Acie was, as an example, to make up for not being as athletic as the guys guarding him are going to be a lot of the time.

bobinator said:

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if the other team has a really good on ball defender he's going to have trouble.

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This is a good point, and although I don't know if he's always drawing the best opposing defender, putting one or two really talented offensive players on the court is going to make it so much easier for the remaining guys. I know with all the switching that takes place in modern defenses means you aren't matched up 1-on-1, 2-on-2,etc, but there could be a huge trickle down effect from just an additional threat or two.

And like many have harped on, there doesn't appear to be any sort of cohesion or clear identity with our offense this year and it's dragging down everyone on an individual level. Poor individual play is leading to poor team play, which leads to even worse individual play, which leads to a downright putrid team offense.

Having said that, his FT rate is disgustingly low for a guy who doesn't just sit in the corner waiting to shoot a 3. Don't know what sort of ceiling he has, hopefully it clicks for him next year.

Gordon is a more centered version of TJ but with a better stroke and not that different of results under pressure.

But the game against Miss State is such an outlier as a data point that it's primary value is to remind us of the games that didn't get played.

But the record is as disappointing as we expected last year's to be. The wrong kind of miracle...so to speak...

I expect next year will be far more interesting and enjoyable.

Yeah there's definitely a lot of room for improvement on what to do when he gets near the basket. He needs help, but he also needs to be a better finisher and he needs to learn to draw contact. Both him and Diarra tend to kind of throw up wild shots and avoid contact when they should just attack the defender.

Yeah I wouldn't compare those two at all.

If Gordon had Starks' first-step quickness he'd be an elite guard. That specific trait, creating space off the first bounce, was something Starks was naturally better at than probably anyone else we've had since I've been around. It was all of his decisions once he had that space that were so bad.

Yeah I would compare him more to Gilder than TJ. Gilder wasn't a guy that was gonna be a lead guard and consistently get by his man whether it be one on one or a high pick and roll, but he did everything decently well and was much better off ball. Gordon can hit that one dribble pull up but you can't do that if you're the one creating all the time.

Yes.

Team will be significantly better next yr imo. somewhere in the neighborhood of a Ten win improvement imo although this yr was covid shortened but I'm looking for middle of the SEC pack and maybe a positive late season surge .