Made this for fun and figured I'd share and will update if needed.

We have two sets of players that have played together before: Clemence and Griffin at Kansas and Agee and Hill at Bowling Green (though they played for different teams last season.) We also have a pair that played for the same school but not together now in Federiko Federiko and Pop Isaacs who did not overlap at Tech.

cool!!

Crazy enough that it just might work. At least we're going through this coaching change in the transfer era.

There was a fear we'd fill out our team with Samford level players or at least be forced to do so. I feel a lot better about this whole thing now...

The Collective said:

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There was a fear we'd fill out our team with Samford level players or at least be forced to do so. I feel a lot better about this whole thing now...

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agree 100% when tbis process started i thought the likely hood of the three players from samfkrd ending up in college station was pretty high. not that it would have been bad but bucky hasn't had to go after fill
in players he has brought in guys who are players who have played and had success on good teams.

totally exceede expectations so far.

TBF, it would be nice to have those guys from Samford, and I wouldn't consider them filler. All 4 of them committed to power conference programs (A&M, Michigan State, USC, and Virginia Tech)

One thing I'm excited about because I was worried about it is that we've signed enough quality guys to have good practices heading into the season.

This isn't a hot message board topic but it's hard to have good practices, especially when you're installing new offensive and defensive systems, if you only have a handful of good players. You're either always splitting them up and it's hard for them to build chemistry or they're just killing the backups in practice and not getting better. I think this was actually a big problem Buzz's first few seasons.

bobinator said:

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One thing I'm excited about because I was worried about it is that we've signed enough quality guys to have good practices heading into the season.

This isn't a hot message board topic but it's hard to have good practices, especially when you're installing new offensive and defensive systems, if you only have a handful of good players. You're either always splitting them up and it's hard for them to build chemistry or they're just killing the backups in practice and not getting better. I think this was actually a big problem Buzz's first few seasons.

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Totally get the point. But I think practices are still going to be challenging given the new system Bucky runs. It's not a super easy, iso intensive system. Requires a lot of coordination and effort. I would have actually preferred to get another Samford player or two that can at least run practice like it needs to be run. I am thrilled about the talent, first step. This second piece of generating hunger in these guys and the way to practice might take another 12 months to get there. Maybe I am just setting the bar too low, but I think it will take more time than usual here. Of course, I'm the same guy that wants Earley fired yesterday (or last month), so...

Yeah, obviously that part is still a challenge, I'm just talking about from a depth standpoint.

Take Buzz's first season. This defense requires a lot of communications and chemistry, so you want your best players practicing it together, so you run some fives with Nebo, Flagg, Mitchell, Jackson and Miller together, well that means they're practicing against Gordon, Chandler (both Freshmen), Aku, Gultekin and French. Going to be hard to get better doing that without gimmicks like putting extra guys on the court or something which then also throws off your rotations and timing.

Or if you want to split the teams evenly, now you're not building on-court chemistry as well between your best players and you're having to use at least a few players that you're rarely putting on the floor in games.

It's an underrated part of good teams, but being able to truly challenge each other in practice is worth a lot.

I also expect one TexAgs point from Method Man for using his preferred Texas abbreviation

bobinator said:

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I also expect one TexAgs point from Method Man for using his preferred Texas abbreviation

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Did you know 80% of Texans live in our sliver of East Texas??

https://www.ryanjhite.com/2025/02/18/why-most-texans-live-in-the-east-the-geography-history-and-economics-behind-texass-population-divide/

bobinator said:

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It's an underrated part of good teams, but being able to truly challenge each other in practice is worth a lot.

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Totally agree. What you are describing is how I think of UH and all their success. Those 5 on 5 sessions are crushers with good (seasoned) talent across the board. It's also one reason that a new coach going with exclusively high school talent often doesn't work and takes forever (and creates more risk) to be successful.

bobinator said:

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I also expect one TexAgs point from Method Man for using his preferred Texas abbreviation

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It's glorious! That said, I started calling them tu again after the Schloss debacle.

Quote:

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One thing I'm excited about because I was worried about it is that we've signed enough quality guys to have good practices heading into the season.

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Most obvious case I've ever seen of this was when I retired and moved to a small town in Texas, they ran a 98% run offense. Maybe there were reasons, like we didn't have a sole who could pass, but the result was that our defense could not stop a pass. I don't think they won a game that year.

A 'starting five' as it stands today would maybe be:

Isaacs (from Creighton, 6'2")
Lane ( from North Alabama, 6'0'') or Hill (from NC State, 6'4")
Griffin (from Kansas, 6'6")
MM (from Indiana, 6'9")
FF (from Texas Tech, 6'11")

??

That seems like could be a pretty salty lineup.

bobinator said:

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One thing I'm excited about because I was worried about it is that we've signed enough quality guys to have good practices heading into the season.

This isn't a hot message board topic but it's hard to have good practices, especially when you're installing new offensive and defensive systems, if you only have a handful of good players. You're either always splitting them up and it's hard for them to build chemistry or they're just killing the backups in practice and not getting better. I think this was actually a big problem Buzz's first few seasons.

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That was a major problem under BK. The first 3 years he didn't have enough quality guards- even for games (mediocre walk-ons played a bunch). Certainly not practice

They are going to be running a lot of suicides in practice.

Really great, Bobinator, but if I squint from far away it looks like a bunch of guys circling the drain that is Texas A&M!

To make it all inclusive, Jeremiah Green could be shown with an arrow coming from "High School" and Chris McDermott could be shown with an arrow coming from A&M and returning to A&M.

That chart sucks. Bring back bob's simple diagrams.

This is way too informative for a basketball board chart.

Your charts used to be funny.

Better?