Let's get this its own thread too because the other threads have all gone in some weird directions. But seen a few posts about how just making the first weekend isn't good enough or whatever and thought we could start a new thread talking about that because I think it's an interesting conversation.

Let's just throw out the first two years because they no longer matter right? Surely we can all agree those years were a collective failure, the debate is really how big of a failure and whether that failure was a harbinger of future failure or not. At this point I think we can say Buzz successfully re-established the program after that point.

So, now, where are we, how do you judge the program, and is that good enough? Are you a truly a "postseason is all that matters" person? Do you view the 2018 Kennedy season as better than this season?

Post COVID tenure B+

I've never been a "postseason is everything" person. It's obviously matters a lot, I just don't think it's a good indicator of a healthy program. It's a bit of a crapshoot at times but we definitely need more success there

Regardless it was the winningest 4 years in program history. It's hard to be too upset about that. It's the healthiest the program has been in a while

I grade coaches on conference championships, national championships, and tournament wins. That would probably hold 80% of my grade

Buzz gets a C-

i would also give it a B+ four years ago we got screwed by the tourney selection committee or we would have gone to the ncaa tourney four years in a row. would love to have seen a deeper run but to me i like the consistency buzz has brought to the program. one thing about BK tenure i hated was we would be mediocre for 3 years then have a great team then bad again for a few years then a great season. personally i like the consistency of winning over the last four years.

B+ for me as well. It can't be anything higher because of the lack of tournament success, but I think the program is the healthiest and most stable it has been since I started following things (around '09). Obviously that has a lot to do with the seniors that are now gone.

Very curious to see how Buzz handles the portal this offseason. If he fails, it will not be a good omen for the future considering this is how you have to go about accumulating talent now. Build around Payne (and hold onto him) and I think we'll be set.

Aggie Dad 26 said:

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I grade coaches on conference championships, national championships, and tournament wins. That would probably hold 80% of my grade

Buzz gets a C-

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Have you looked at the % of coaches who have won national championships? Percent of coaches who have won a conference championship? It would be interesting to see what percentage of all D-1 coaches actually meet this criteria.

I think you have to establish a base-line series of expectations first before you can grade a season/stretch/coaching tenure for A&M basketball. For me, the baseline expectations for a given basketball season (without something crazy happening like multiple injuries, COVID, etc.) are:

- Minimum 20 wins
- Top 6 in the conference (although Top 8 might be more reasonable if the SEC stays this good)
- Advance in the SEC tournament
- Make the NCAA tournament and compete for the second weekend


Based of that, for me the last 3 years have been "good" or "successful" season, but not "great" seasons, and if the next 3 years mirror exactly the last 3 years from an overall results perspective, I would say that each of those seasons were also "successful" season.

BUT, I think I would be getting a little itchy about not ever making the Sweet 16. So to address the final question regarding this year (or any Buzz year) vs 2017-2018, I think I'd say I would take the 17-18 season every time over any year under Buzz (or really any year under any A&M coach that didn't end in a Sweet 16). Fair or not, when the lights are brightest and everyone is into it, thats the more memorable times.

carl spacklers hat said:

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Aggie Dad 26 said:

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I grade coaches on conference championships, national championships, and tournament wins. That would probably hold 80% of my grade

Buzz gets a C-

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Have you looked at the % of coaches who have won national championships? Percent of coaches who have won a conference championship? It would be interesting to see what percentage of all D-1 coaches actually meet this criteria.

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Don't forget tournament wins. Many coaches rack up tournament wins, S16 victories, E8 appearances

In our history we have only had two coaches win 20+ four years in a row: Buzz and Turgeon. We have only had one coach go to 4 straight NCAA tournaments: Turgeon. Buzz narrowly missed the tourney in 21-22 or it would have been 4 in a row (albeit a very low seed). I think that 21-22 season was very important. We finished the year on a very hot streak going 3-1 in the SEC tourney and then going 4-1 in the NIT. I think Buzz learned that at A&M and in the SEC you need to ladder up the non-conference. He has consistently done that every year since. Buzz has also proven to be the best conference tourney coach we have. Some may argue that its not important, but I personally think he has shown the ability to win some back to back games in tourneys. He just needs to break through in the one that matters. But his 7-5 record in the SEC tourney and his 2-3 NCAA tourney record are not bad at all. He was really close to breaking through last year and gacked the lead to get us into the Sweet Sixteen this year. I guess I am really pleased with winning 20+ games a season, playing a style that we rarely get blown out/embarrassed, and play fairly well in the tourneys. We missed a very big chance to break through that Sweet Sixteen ceiling this year. He deserves another year (at minimum) to see if he can be our first to win 20+ in 5 consecutive seasons and perhaps break through in a tourney.

I like the slow build this is on, personally.

Aggie Dad 26 said:

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I grade coaches on conference championships, national championships, and tournament wins. That would probably hold 80% of my grade

Buzz gets a C-

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Thats crazy. What grade would you give Rick Barnes' tenure at Tennessee? In 10 years, Tennessee has won 1 conference championship and has won 11 tournament games with zero Final 4s and only 1 Elite 8 (so far). I'd call it an A+, but seems like you'd just give it a "B."

TjgtAg08 said:

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Aggie Dad 26 said:

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I grade coaches on conference championships, national championships, and tournament wins. That would probably hold 80% of my grade

Buzz gets a C-

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Thats crazy. What grade would you give Rick Barnes' tenure at Tennessee? In 10 years, Tennessee has won 1 conference championship and has won 11 tournament games with zero Final 4s and only 1 Elite 8 (so far). I'd call it an A+, but seems like you'd just give it a "B."

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B+ or A-

Can you compare basketball to the old football bowl game model? Was the football season a failure if you went 9-2 and lost in the bowl game?

I'm generally on record that in most cases evaluating based only on Tournament results is a bad idea because the sample size is so small that luck, random noise, things you cant control like seeding variability or how good of a team you are matched up against or whether someone in a previous round was upset, can all have large impacts and you're already evaluating a tiny sample size of games.

I evaluate by the efficiency metrics first and foremost. That gives a pretty solid impression of how good of a team are you putting out over a whole season. How competitive are you compared to the rest of basketball.

Season Kenpom/Torvik
2025 - 18 / 21
2024 - 35 / 33
2023 - 33 / 23
2022 - 33 / 32
2021 - 137 / 122
2020 - 131 / 129
2019 - 91 / 83
2018 - 29 /27
2017 - 64 / 56
2016 - 18 / 18
2015 - 54 / 59
2014 - 110 / 103
2013 - 95 / 105
2012 - 122 / 116
2011 - 49 / 58
2010 - 16 / 12
2009 - 45 / 44
2008 - 21 / 18
2007 - 7
2006 - 31
2005 - 46
2004 - 189
2003 - 89
2002 - 213

Things like winning the regular season in the conference, or advancing far in the NCAA Tournament are more like bonus achievements that have big impact on what I feel like was achieved for that team and how good of a season it was, but in terms of where we are as a program, for me its all about whether we're achieving a baseline level of quality.

My basic goal for the program, and I'm probably 15+ years of stating it here, is to make the NCAA Tournament every year. That's not to say missing once or twice is a fireable offence, few programs are going to completely avoid down years, but we shouldn't be going three or four years without making it, and we really shouldnt be missing it every other year or anything like that either. In terms, of the numbers above, basically it means that a good year is a top 50 year, and anything below that it is not achieving what we should.

The last 4 years to me, have been a return to what we should expect coming out of a period from 2012-2021 where despite some bright spots, the program was not well.

rlb28 said:

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Can you compare basketball to the old football bowl game model? Was the football season a failure if you went 9-2 and lost in the bowl game?

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I wouldn't say it was a total failure, but losing in what was or is considered the post season should always hold more water than a season record. The sesson record includes wins against inferior, non conference programs too

Did the "9-2" record lead to a SWC championship?

I think I'm a solid B/B+ as well.

Pro:
- Made the tournament three straight years and was very close the other year, and in two of the three years we were solidly in the field without having to sweat about it.
- The team plays hard, this might not matter to some people but I'd rather watch a less talented team play hard than a more talented team not play hard even if the results are the same
- Has held on to most of our key players, which speaks to the program culture. We haven't had massive roster turnover every single year or lost our key components to the portal the last few years.
- Has really beefed up our non-conference scheduling which has really helped us
- Has adapted to the transfer portal really well other than one season, and our high school recruiting has been pretty good lately
- In a year where we had veterans and a promising roster, we did mostly live up to it, landing a 4 seed

Con:
- Worried that our current style of play is not sustainable in an era where college basketball is getting more efficient and more offensive.
- Lack of developing any sort of reliable offensive scheme
- Our high school recruiting looks good on paper but the last guy we signed out of high school to actually play meaningful minutes for the first time was Solo three years ago
- Each season until this one we had a stretch where we played just inexcusably bad for several games. Like our "bad" is worse than it should be a lot of the time.

The 2016 season is our best season since 2007 over this season. Quality wise we were very similar, but winning a championship, advancing a round further in the NCAA means it was a better year.

A- Regular season
C- Post season
B- Overall

A- Developing student athletes (would be A+ except for whatever happened with Marble)
C. Developing players

Upper quartile of the upper quartile of the SEC.

I'd call it a B+ as well. Mire tournament success would have pushed it to an A.

Buzz has us at a level that pretty good. In order ti take that next step, he'll need the tournament success.

But that will likely come if we keep making it in.

A complicated thing is that with Buzz it's hard to take a long view because I think almost everyone assumed he wasn't going to be here all that long, it just hasn't been his history. So I do get the sentiment that it felt like if we didn't make a run this year that it might not happen under Buzz, and that's leading to a lot of people's frustrations (and why a lot of people just assumed he was going to leave.)

I would give Buzz an B+ to A-, but it probably has to be A to A+ to get to the final 4 which is what I want to see.

I'm going to break this into pieces and then give an overall grade:

Recruiting - B - bringing in Payne , Phelps, and Wilcher to fill in gaps this yr was a major +. This was Buzz's most talented group. As far as the guys that haven't seen the court or very little - impossible to say. Incoming fish this yr seems positive but who can really say at this point. I'd have liked to have seen guys who didn't redshirt like McDermott and Lee get a little more playing time when possible for development and confidence purposes.Incoming transfers this offseason will be a big deal. One true well rounded guard that is good at everything would help - someone with skills and athleticism like a Walter Clayton Jr for Florida imo would change things. We need more than one incoming guard but having one guy like that is a difference maker. Having one more hoppy long armed big man that can turn away driving opponents is another need imo if for nothing else but defense and spell Payne and help keep him out of foul trouble .

Basketball tactics offense - C . Debatable how much of this was roster limited but the ball movement is not good and my personal belief is this leads to the relatively poor fg% and scoring droughts . This was offset by the emphasis on offensive boards which statistically was top in the country. Keep the emphasis on the offensive boards with better shots taken and maybe the droughts get a lot less frequent . Assists are bottom tier and that gets back to the first point - ball movement needs to be much better . Way too much isolation game with almost zero passing. It has its place but not as the core approach. Too many turnovers also an issue

Basketball tactics defense - B. Ditto how much this may be roster limited . For the most part opponents know what they will face . The overplaying and doubling down on the baseline leads to too many open shots. There were very limited changes made from the
Base defense irrespective of the opponent imo. A little less predictability and adjusting based on opponent s strengths and weaknesses might help. Maybe throw in some straight man or box in one on occasion when it fits. Statistically it's good especially when considering quality of schedule but it isn't top tier. Offensive glass crashing sometimes made us vulnerable to transition buckets as well .

Overall view of program culture from outside - this is very subjective but I believe opponents , refs, press, our fans, etc generally have a positive view of how the players and Buzz handle themselves. A lot of folks don't care about this …. Just win. I do care. I want this to be viewed positively and I don't want outright thugs no matter how much they win. Also like that Buzz emphasizes things other than basketball. I give an A here.

Overall B. Successful program with positive vibes but not championship caliber at this point.

B. Frequent tournament appearances a huge plus.

Big surprising negative is appears unwillingness to make some changes in order to maximize the program's opportunity to win (adjust his system more to modern basketball, in game coaching personnel decisions, and play harder the recruiting game).

bobinator said:

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A complicated thing is that with Buzz it's hard to take a long view because I think almost everyone assumed he wasn't going to be here all that long, it just hasn't been his history. So I do get the sentiment that it felt like if we didn't make a run this year that it might not happen under Buzz, and that's leading to a lot of people's frustrations (and why a lot of people just assumed he was going to leave.)

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He's an odd dude who has an odd career history compared to a lot of coaches. If he lets himself stay here long term, which I'm not sure he will, I think he really has the potential to be a Rick Barnes type of coach for us long term if he's willing to make a few tweaks here and there. That is not to say he's the same level of coach Rick is or we'd be consistently top 10 like Tennessee is right now, but I think he can build a really consistent program that operates at a high level, with a lot of stability.

C-

He does not correspond with his pay and there has not been a good progression as a team, during the year and as a whole. I know NIL can change things quickly but Buzz does not appear to be the type to use it well or develop players well either so we could be in a very bad place. Plus, we don't have the support we should for the program that would be beneficial amd he hasn't built or developed that either.

Is it possible that our style of offense was just a function of the players we had? I'd like to see if Buzz makes any offensive changes now that he'll have basically an entirely new squad.

Buzz gets an A+ from me when it comes to team buy-in. This is my favorite thing about him by far. We're willing to do the down and dirty work like offensive rebounds, dive for loose balls, overall hustle plays.

His offense gets a D. I've wondered though if maybe he decided that for that group of guys, the ROI on time spent working on offense wasn't gonna be worth it. It was gonna be more beneficial to work on rebounds, defense and hustle plays. That leads to other serious questions though.

All in all, I'd give him a B. Definitely room for improvement but I do like the vast majority of things I see

JJxvi said:

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The 2016 season is our best season since 2007 over this season. Quality wise we were very similar, but winning a championship, advancing a round further in the NCAA means it was a better year.

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This year, we accumulated more wins over NCAA Tournament teams prior to postseason play than the 2016 team after advancing to the Sweet 16. I have a hard time saying that 2016 was more successful because we were fortunate enough to draw an 11 seed in the second round of the tournament and played a schedule that was markedly easier than the gauntlet we ran this season.

2016:
- Beat Texas, 6 seed, lost in round one
- Beat Gonzaga, 11 seed, lost in Sweet 16
- Beat FGCU, 16 seed, lost in round one
- Beat Baylor, 5 seed, lost in round one
- Beat Iowa St., 4 seed, lost in Sweet 16
- Beat Kentucky, 4 seed, lost in round two
- Beat Vanderbilt, 11 seed, lost in first four game
- Beat Green Bay in the tournament, 14 seed
- Beat Northern Iowa in the tournament, 11 seed

2025:
- Beat Creighton, 9 seed, lost in round two
- Beat Texas Tech, 3 seed, in the Sweet 16
- Beat Purdue, 4 seed, in the Sweet 16
- Beat Texas, 11 seed, lost in first four game
- Beat OUx2, 9 seed, lost in round one
- Beat Ole Miss, 6 seed, in the Sweet 16
- Beat Missouri, 6 seed, lost in round one
- Beat Georgia, 9 seed, lost in round one
- Beat Arkansas, 10 seed, in the Sweet 16
- Beat Auburn, 1 seed, in the Sweet 16
- Beat Yale in the tournament, 13 seed

I'd give Buzz a B.

I would like to see more development offensively, more NCAA Tournament success, and some high school recruits blossoming.

I am very pleased with the sustained success and stacking multiple tournament appearances in a row.

At no time during Buzz's tenure has the operating expenses of the bball team been outside of the top 20.

2019-2020 : 13.4m (4th highest) (overall 16-14)
2020-2021 : 10.0m (12th) (overall 8-10)
2021-2022 : 13.5m (12th) (27-13)(Lost to Xavier in the NIT finals)
2022-2023 : 13.7m (18th) (25-10)(#7 seed - 1st round loss to #10 PSU)
2023-2024 : 14.3m (15th) (21-15)(#9 seed - 2nd round loss to #1 seed Houston)
2024-2025 : unknown (??) (21-15)(#4 seed - 2nd round loss to #5 seed Michigan)

1st 3 yrs unacceptable (grade D)(2022 season felt we got screwed but we were only 9-9 in a weak SEC this year)
2nd 3 yrs acceptable (grade B) (For as good as these teams were during the regular season they unperformed in the postseason)

It is an interesting exercise, but in my view, it doesn't matter. Why?

Buzz has to replace 80% of our everything RIGHT NOW. Minutes, scoring, leadership, everything (except rebounding...only needs to find like 70% of that). Right now.

The good news is the transfer portal, NIL, and Buzz's upperclass style, turning over a team is doable. See Kentucky. But will he?

Tenure Grade: agree with B- to B.

Today's Grade: incomplete

Why not? It's just for fun.

TheDecadeSapling said:

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Why not? It's just for fun.

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Oh sure...I just think his tenure resets now. Not in a "the past is past, eyes forward" kind of way that every season ending is, but in a very literal "the team has to be completely reset" way.

Aggie Dad 26 said:

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I grade coaches on conference championships, national championships, and tournament wins. That would probably hold 80% of my grade

Buzz gets a C-

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So basically 97% of coaches have a poor grade for you. I'd hate to have you as a professor.

he beefed up the schedule one time. I bet next year it's back to cupcakes

BQ_90 said:

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he beefed up the schedule one time. I bet next year it's back to cupcakes

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Let's hope so. No one wants to see us get smacked before conference.