Heineken-Ashi said:

---

You guys were sure last year that Manny was trash and would transfer.

Who knows how long it will take him to settle in. But the one thing he has going is age, maturity, and experience. I'd be willing to guess his game clicks A LOT earlier than last year.

---

It's his fourth season.

I don't get how he doesn't have at least some ability to hide himself in a game at this point. Play defense, set some screens and take open shots (which he's actually pretty good at), etc.

Like Carter was out there 30 minutes and you barely noticed him. He wasn't catastrophic on defense, he hit a few open shots, he got a handful of rebounds, just a basic replacement level game from your three spot. That's not ideal all the time, but it's fine.

But Manny is either good or absolutely cataclysmic.

Manny plays street in the offseason and has to relearn everything at the end of summer every year and it takes him to February to start clicking. My best guess as to what we see as fans.

greg.w.h said:

---

Manny plays street in the offseason and has to relearn everything at the end of summer every year and it takes him to February to start clicking. My best guess as to what we see as fans.

---

Yup.

He still plays like a junior high kid. Leroy Jenkins style. Gimme the ball and let me score.

It's infuriating.

I agree that he didn't play well, but it was just one game y'all, maybe don't draw huge conclusions about MO with such a small sample size.

Thing is it's not really a small sample size is it? Like MarcAg said, this is how he plays most of the time.

Now of course he could come back over the next month and ball out of control and then we'll all be singing his praises, but it's definitely concerning, especially since we don't know when Phelps is going to play.

A lot of the hope of this team being a top four seed type of team is based on Manny being at least decent most of the time.

The Marksman said:

---

I agree that he didn't play well, but it was just one game y'all, maybe don't draw huge conclusions about MO with such a small sample size.

---

Did you get the Men In Black memory wipe?

bobinator said:

---

Thing is it's not really a small sample size is it? Like MarcAg said, this is how he plays most of the time.

Now of course he could come back over the next month and ball out of control and then we'll all be singing his praises, but it's definitely concerning, especially since we don't know when Phelps is going to play.

A lot of the hope of this team being a top four seed type of team is based on Manny being at least decent most of the time.

---

I mean my answer is that ... most of us are just accepting it because what else are we gonna do?

Method Man said:

---

He still plays like a junior high kid. Leroy Jenkins style. Gimme the ball and let me score.

---

Nicely done with the Leroy Jenkins reference!

I can still visualize that egg room…

When you can't make a single bucket in the last 5+ mins of a game, I don't care who you are, you should be a little concerned.
That's not the kind of thing that "just happens" to a respectable team

stallion6 said:

---

bobinator said:

---

You can cast stones at people by saying they are casual basketball fans but it doesn't take a basketball expert to see we have flaws and some of the flaws are consistent with previous years.

---

---

I don't know how saying I didn't "see the point of people losing their minds" turned into "don't think anyone should be annoyed/frustrated/whatever word and should just ignore this loss."

Obviously there's things to be concerned about, Manny's play is definitely concerning like I've mentioned and the fact that Hefner played 15 minutes is annoying also.

What I was talking about were the several, not just like one rando, but several posts that were along the lines of calling this loss inexcusable and lumping it in with some of our early season losses from a few years ago and going way off the deep end.

Much of it stems from simply it being an early season loss for one of the highest pre-season ranked teams in Buzz tenure.

Every season is going to have ebbs and flows, but part of what actually getting great fan support in the southwest requires is having a ranked team. Sure, tournament seeding is really the only thing that matters to the fans who are going to watch the games anyways. But if you want good turnout, you can't be an unranked team in Texas (and that's not even getting into our style of play).

In something like 90 weeks of basketball under Buzz, these are our rankings:

2019-20 - never ranked
2020-21 - never ranked
2021-22 - never ranked
2022-23 - ranked #24 in second week poll, dropped out rest of year until final 3 polls (#25, #24, #18)
2023-24 - Preseason #15, fell out of Top 25 never to return by Dec. 10.

So while the tournament appearances (cusp in '22, appearances in '23 and '24) lead to fan interest, we've been unable to sustain any kind of actual in-season success.

It doesn't matter how many times I post this, or where, but the almost universally accepted Aggie belief that "Buzz teams start slow" is not quite true as a sweeping statement.

2019-20: First impressions are huge, and Buzz's first A&M team most definitely started slow. 3-5 start in the non con, 6-5 overall in the non con. Went 10-8 in conference, which was only the 3rd time in 10 years we won 10 or more in conference, so definitely started slow and finished "better" than we started. Fits the stereotype.

2020-21: Horrible lost Covid season, could throw it out really. But went 5-1 in the non con and 2-9 in conference. Didn't beat anyone of note in non-con, but only lost @ TCU and every other game was a large, comfortable win. Can't say we started slow and got better this year. Does not fit the stereotype.

2021-22: Went 11-2 in the non con, losses to Wisconsin and TCU in tourneys. Beat Butler, Notre Dame, New Orleans, Oregon State but not a stellar non con slate. went 9-9 in SEC with a disastrous 8 game losing streak in conference. But we did get red hot at end of year. So we had a solid start, stellar finish, with a big mid season slump. Does not fit the stereotype.

2022-23: Started slow, 2-2 start with bad Murray St and Colorado losses, and 8-5 overall in non con with Wofford loss. Finished back half red hot going 15-3 in conference and first NCAA bid for Buzz at A&M. Fits the stereotype.

2023-24: Played a much harder non con than typical, had a non con injury or two. Lost to #19 FAU, @ Virginia, @ #4 UH, and Memphis. But beat Ohio St, SMU, Penn St, Iowa State. Went 9-4 non con and then went 9-9 in conference with a 5 game losing streak late in the conference schedule. Does not fit the stereotype.

2024-25: For the first time under Buzz we lost the first game of the year. Who knows what awaits.

In 5 years I would only say twice did we start the season slow - either first handful of games or entire non con slate - and finish clearly stronger through conference play. There is another stereotype that could be considered equally as applicable - we have a devastating losing streak in conference. What might be a more true stereotype is that the Ags seem to play at their very best right at the VERY END of the year, like last few conference games onward into postseason. That has happened 4 of 5 years.

You can really roll with it from two different angles. In a lot of years we've "finished strong" (though I'd say getting curb-stomped by Penn State was hardly a strong finish), but finishing strong can also mean you were underachieving previously.

Which often leads to these cliche "team buy in" stories. Team obviously wasn't "bought in" during COVID. In 2022 they pulled off 8 straight... Then lost 8 straight... Then won 7 straight.

It's mostly just noise.

It doesn't matter how many of us say it, people have just decided it's true.

It's like the 2022-23 season when a lot of people acted like it was ridiculous that the committee was punishing us for losing to Wofford. It wasn't JUST that we lost to Wofford, that team also got its doors blown off by Colorado and Boise state. That was a bad team for two months, not a good team that had a bad day.

Agree that the fan buy in thing is probably what's most annoying about the UCF loss. If you play a power conference team in a true road game in non-conference, there's a good chance you're going to lose that game, and if we lost it in mid-December nobody would care. But it does kill some fan momentum when you're ranked #13 and you lose your first game of the year to an unranked team. That I definitely get.