angryty {l Wrote}:After the Maine fiasco, I am now firmly in the camp of basketball wah-wahs. This is not to say that I am embrace the unvarnished racism of EagleOJ, but simply because all coaches come with expiration dates and Al has clearly reached his. Make no mistake, this isn't a Jortsy O'Jortsien situation. The problems with the football program Jortsy inherited and the so-called gambling scandal were so overblown that it is laughable. Jortsy inherited a program that had some decent talent and a murderous schedule. Over the course of a decade, he marginally improved the talent and severely dumbed down the schedule. There was very little appreciable increase in the coaching skills of Henning's staff to O'Brien's staff. The result was a series of very mediocre bowl appearances and the infamous bowl-win streak.
In contrast, the program that Al inherited from the worst person on Earth (a man so awful that our blessed Lord killed his wife and gave him throat cancer as retribution) was an absolute shit-show. Because of Joby's terror campaign against a school that stuck by him as he was running a national power (under Dr. Tom and Gary W) straight into the ground and allowed him the time to do nothing more than bring the program almost back to where he found it, there was nothing in the cupboard and nothing on the horizon and a complete and total sense of hopelessness after Joby finished leveling his blood libels. Al didn't complain and a few years later had pulled off a resurrection that would have impressed the Baby Jesus himself. In contrast to Jortsy, Al won conference titles and, when we moved to the ACC, has kept us in the upper echelon of the best basketball conference in the country.
With that said, here are a few undeniable facts about Al: (1) He is a terrible game coach. I have wracked my brain trying to think of one example of Al out coaching someone and can't come up with anything. I can't think of a game we stole on guile during his entire tenure; (2) Al does not develop talent. Now don't get me wrong, Al is great at identifying talent that others overlook, but he does nothing to make that talent better when it gets here. Bell, Dudley, Cookie Monster were all stars when they got here. Bell regressed, Dudley and Cookie got marginally better more a product of the physical aging process than new wrinkles in their game. And then there was *** *******, who arrived on campus with lottery pick athleticism and a 10 cent brain and only developed some additional skills when he was at the John Lucas boot camp. Take a look at Ty Rice who actually regressed from his first year to his last. Take a look at Nasty Nate, Captain Oates or Southern, who never developed anything other than what they were when they arrived on campus. Nate was a 7 footer with no low post skills who shot threes and gave five hard fouls a game. He left as he arrived. Oates was a panicky, soft, big man who was more comfortable fifteen feet away from the basket. He left the way he arrived. And Southern arrived as a heralded big man recruit and now looks like he would have a hard time cracking the starting five on a lot of MAAC teams. And then there is Trapani. Joe Trapani can play the game of basketball. He is not in the class of Bell, Dudley or Cookie Monster and he lacks *** ******* physical gifts, but he was shaping up to be an excellent college basketball player. Now he looks like the seventh man at Niagara. (3) Al's teams do not play well down the stretch of pressure cooker games. There are too many exhibits here to list, but last year against Duke, Nova and Georgetown all come to mind and they are a sliver of games in which one of Al's teams have come apart in the last minute of the game. When it happens to the same players repeatedly you can put the blame on those players, but when it happens across the years to a variety of players it is entirely on the coach.
So what to do? Al isn't getting fired this year and nor should he be. But the bitching has to start now so that if it continues next year, it is easier to make the case that he needs to go. And for all of you assholes, who for some reason don't think BC can do better, ask yourselves why Villanova, Georgetown or Gonzaga can be perennial powers despite suffering from every limitation that plagues BC and in the case of Nova and Gonzaga, even more limitations than we face. It is exponentially easier to build a basketball power than it is to build a football power. Why do you hate your alma mater so much that you don't want it to get to the next level.
angryty {l Wrote}:That is a fair point on Beline, but I think that is obviated by being repeatedly outcoached by Tommy Amaker--which is like losing tic-tac-toe to a chicken.
RyanBC {l Wrote}:angryty {l Wrote}:That is a fair point on Beline, but I think that is obviated by being repeatedly outcoached by Tommy Amaker--which is like losing tic-tac-toe to a chicken.
Well I have seen some chickens that play a mean fucking tic tac toe.
Reverend Mike {l Wrote}:Al is a great conservationist. Think of how many timeouts he has banked of the years. That speeds up the game which means less electricity consumed by television stations, viewers, the lights in Conte, etc. Greenpeace should give him a special badge or a sash or something.
And think about all the dry-erase ink he conserved by not drawing up any inbounds plays. Do you know what that stuff does to the environment?
branchinator {l Wrote}:I give Skinner next year with basically the same team + the (relatively) promising frosh. Make the tournament and he stays. Don't and it's sayonara.
branchinator {l Wrote}:I give Skinner next year with basically the same team + the (relatively) promising frosh. Make the tournament and he stays. Don't and it's sayonara.
Laughing.Jackal {l Wrote}:Ty:
I think you raise some very valid points about Al and the future of the program. I have always defended Al but these losses have given me great pause.
Two quick points:
1) I believe it is far more difficult to build a hoops program than a football program. You can miss on FB recruits because you take so many guys in. With hoops, the margin for error is slim. You miss on 1 or 2 kids and you are screwed.
2) I am starting to think that this team is not very talented. Sanders and Raji rare athletes--not hoopsters. Jackson is a player but do you see that many more players on this squad?
angryty {l Wrote}:.....all coaches come with expiration dates and Al has clearly reached his. .
angryty {l Wrote}:After the Maine fiasco, I am now firmly in the camp of basketball wah-wahs. This is not to say that I am embrace the unvarnished racism of EagleOJ, but simply because all coaches come with expiration dates and Al has clearly reached his. Make no mistake, this isn't a Jortsy O'Jortsien situation. The problems with the football program Jortsy inherited and the so-called gambling scandal were so overblown that it is laughable. Jortsy inherited a program that had some decent talent and a murderous schedule. Over the course of a decade, he marginally improved the talent and severely dumbed down the schedule. There was very little appreciable increase in the coaching skills of Henning's staff to O'Brien's staff. The result was a series of very mediocre bowl appearances and the infamous bowl-win streak.
In contrast, the program that Al inherited from the worst person on Earth (a man so awful that our blessed Lord killed his wife and gave him throat cancer as retribution) was an absolute shit-show. Because of Joby's terror campaign against a school that stuck by him as he was running a national power (under Dr. Tom and Gary W) straight into the ground and allowed him the time to do nothing more than bring the program almost back to where he found it, there was nothing in the cupboard and nothing on the horizon and a complete and total sense of hopelessness after Joby finished leveling his blood libels. Al didn't complain and a few years later had pulled off a resurrection that would have impressed the Baby Jesus himself. In contrast to Jortsy, Al won conference titles and, when we moved to the ACC, has kept us in the upper echelon of the best basketball conference in the country.
With that said, here are a few undeniable facts about Al: (1) He is a terrible game coach. I have wracked my brain trying to think of one example of Al out coaching someone and can't come up with anything. I can't think of a game we stole on guile during his entire tenure; (2) Al does not develop talent. Now don't get me wrong, Al is great at identifying talent that others overlook, but he does nothing to make that talent better when it gets here. Bell, Dudley, Cookie Monster were all stars when they got here. Bell regressed, Dudley and Cookie got marginally better more a product of the physical aging process than new wrinkles in their game. And then there was *** *******, who arrived on campus with lottery pick athleticism and a 10 cent brain and only developed some additional skills when he was at the John Lucas boot camp. Take a look at Ty Rice who actually regressed from his first year to his last. Take a look at Nasty Nate, Captain Oates or Southern, who never developed anything other than what they were when they arrived on campus. Nate was a 7 footer with no low post skills who shot threes and gave five hard fouls a game. He left as he arrived. Oates was a panicky, soft, big man who was more comfortable fifteen feet away from the basket. He left the way he arrived. And Southern arrived as a heralded big man recruit and now looks like he would have a hard time cracking the starting five on a lot of MAAC teams. And then there is Trapani. Joe Trapani can play the game of basketball. He is not in the class of Bell, Dudley or Cookie Monster and he lacks *** ******* physical gifts, but he was shaping up to be an excellent college basketball player. Now he looks like the seventh man at Niagara. (3) Al's teams do not play well down the stretch of pressure cooker games. There are too many exhibits here to list, but last year against Duke, Nova and Georgetown all come to mind and they are a sliver of games in which one of Al's teams have come apart in the last minute of the game. When it happens to the same players repeatedly you can put the blame on those players, but when it happens across the years to a variety of players it is entirely on the coach.
So what to do? Al isn't getting fired this year and nor should he be. But the bitching has to start now so that if it continues next year, it is easier to make the case that he needs to go. And for all of you assholes, who for some reason don't think BC can do better, ask yourselves why Villanova, Georgetown or Gonzaga can be perennial powers despite suffering from every limitation that plagues BC and in the case of Nova and Gonzaga, even more limitations than we face. It is exponentially easier to build a basketball power than it is to build a football power. Why do you hate your alma mater so much that you don't want it to get to the next level.
twballgame9 {l Wrote}:angryty {l Wrote}:After the Maine fiasco, I am now firmly in the camp of basketball wah-wahs. This is not to say that I am embrace the unvarnished racism of EagleOJ, but simply because all coaches come with expiration dates and Al has clearly reached his. Make no mistake, this isn't a Jortsy O'Jortsien situation. The problems with the football program Jortsy inherited and the so-called gambling scandal were so overblown that it is laughable. Jortsy inherited a program that had some decent talent and a murderous schedule. Over the course of a decade, he marginally improved the talent and severely dumbed down the schedule. There was very little appreciable increase in the coaching skills of Henning's staff to O'Brien's staff. The result was a series of very mediocre bowl appearances and the infamous bowl-win streak.
In contrast, the program that Al inherited from the worst person on Earth (a man so awful that our blessed Lord killed his wife and gave him throat cancer as retribution) was an absolute shit-show. Because of Joby's terror campaign against a school that stuck by him as he was running a national power (under Dr. Tom and Gary W) straight into the ground and allowed him the time to do nothing more than bring the program almost back to where he found it, there was nothing in the cupboard and nothing on the horizon and a complete and total sense of hopelessness after Joby finished leveling his blood libels. Al didn't complain and a few years later had pulled off a resurrection that would have impressed the Baby Jesus himself. In contrast to Jortsy, Al won conference titles and, when we moved to the ACC, has kept us in the upper echelon of the best basketball conference in the country.
With that said, here are a few undeniable facts about Al: (1) He is a terrible game coach. I have wracked my brain trying to think of one example of Al out coaching someone and can't come up with anything. I can't think of a game we stole on guile during his entire tenure; (2) Al does not develop talent. Now don't get me wrong, Al is great at identifying talent that others overlook, but he does nothing to make that talent better when it gets here. Bell, Dudley, Cookie Monster were all stars when they got here. Bell regressed, Dudley and Cookie got marginally better more a product of the physical aging process than new wrinkles in their game. And then there was *** *******, who arrived on campus with lottery pick athleticism and a 10 cent brain and only developed some additional skills when he was at the John Lucas boot camp. Take a look at Ty Rice who actually regressed from his first year to his last. Take a look at Nasty Nate, Captain Oates or Southern, who never developed anything other than what they were when they arrived on campus. Nate was a 7 footer with no low post skills who shot threes and gave five hard fouls a game. He left as he arrived. Oates was a panicky, soft, big man who was more comfortable fifteen feet away from the basket. He left the way he arrived. And Southern arrived as a heralded big man recruit and now looks like he would have a hard time cracking the starting five on a lot of MAAC teams. And then there is Trapani. Joe Trapani can play the game of basketball. He is not in the class of Bell, Dudley or Cookie Monster and he lacks *** ******* physical gifts, but he was shaping up to be an excellent college basketball player. Now he looks like the seventh man at Niagara. (3) Al's teams do not play well down the stretch of pressure cooker games. There are too many exhibits here to list, but last year against Duke, Nova and Georgetown all come to mind and they are a sliver of games in which one of Al's teams have come apart in the last minute of the game. When it happens to the same players repeatedly you can put the blame on those players, but when it happens across the years to a variety of players it is entirely on the coach.
So what to do? Al isn't getting fired this year and nor should he be. But the bitching has to start now so that if it continues next year, it is easier to make the case that he needs to go. And for all of you assholes, who for some reason don't think BC can do better, ask yourselves why Villanova, Georgetown or Gonzaga can be perennial powers despite suffering from every limitation that plagues BC and in the case of Nova and Gonzaga, even more limitations than we face. It is exponentially easier to build a basketball power than it is to build a football power. Why do you hate your alma mater so much that you don't want it to get to the next level.
I actually agree with all of this. Which is sad, since the knee jerkers don't want to discuss the legitimate criticisms of Al.
I have always said that Al should hire an old school hoop guy to be his associate head coach. Somebody like Blaney, who is the brains behind the UConn operation, and covers for the drunk. Boeheim has a similar guy, whose name escapes me. Al is ill served by having 2-3 raw young coaches on his staff and no hoops strategy guy to replace the gaping hole created by the departure of Coen.
EDIT: on second reading, I disagree that it is easier to build a basketball power. It is easier to build a program, but not a power. Less players means that small schools like Siena can get good players in hoop. In football, those guys ride the bench at big programs. On the other hand, less players mean one bad recruiting class could tank a program. So it is easier to have a good season in hoop because it only takes one or two great players (Davidson), but it is hard to sustain because there are a ton more good teams and it doesn't take much to slip up.
Best way to say it is that even in a bad year with a bad team, there is little chance that a school in the top 8 conferences will lose to anyone else in football.
twballgame9 {l Wrote}:Boeheim has a similar guy, whose name escapes me.
RyanBC {l Wrote}:angryty {l Wrote}:That is a fair point on Beline, but I think that is obviated by being repeatedly outcoached by Tommy Amaker--which is like losing tic-tac-toe to a chicken.
Well I have seen some chickens that play a mean fucking tic tac toe.
twballgame9 {l Wrote}:I have said that Al is a bad in-game coach for 10 years. I only said his success is nonetheless undeniable, and that people that think he should be fired or judge him based on post season performance are retarded. It is you that can only think in black and white, pun intended.
Eagledom {l Wrote}:twballgame9 {l Wrote}:I have said that Al is a bad in-game coach for 10 years. I only said his success is nonetheless undeniable, and that people that think he should be fired or judge him based on post season performance are retarded. It is you that can only think in black and white, pun intended.
Poor in game coach. Check
Average recruiter. Check
Questionable ability to develop talent. Check
Poor NCAA performance. Check
Yet, you want him to stick around. Your standards are even lower than I thought.
EaglesTalon {l Wrote}:BC has more wins than every other team in the ACC except Duke and UNC since the ACC expanded to 12 teams.
A poor coach would need great recruits to do that.
or
A average recruiter would need to be a great coach to do to that.
A poor coach with average recruits would not have the third most number of wins in one of the best conferences in the country over the past four years. It just does not make sense.
eepstein0 {l Wrote}:Eagledom {l Wrote}:twballgame9 {l Wrote}:I have said that Al is a bad in-game coach for 10 years. I only said his success is nonetheless undeniable, and that people that think he should be fired or judge him based on post season performance are retarded. It is you that can only think in black and white, pun intended.
Poor in game coach. Check
Average recruiter. Check
Questionable ability to develop talent. Check
Poor NCAA performance. Check
Yet, you want him to stick around. Your standards are even lower than I thought.
He's not an average recruiter (well above average) and we've had some pretty good players leave this school and go to the NBA so your talent development claim is also a bit dubious. The in-game coaching and post-season success is correct.
eepstein0 {l Wrote}:Eagledom {l Wrote}:twballgame9 {l Wrote}:I have said that Al is a bad in-game coach for 10 years. I only said his success is nonetheless undeniable, and that people that think he should be fired or judge him based on post season performance are retarded. It is you that can only think in black and white, pun intended.
Poor in game coach. Check
Average recruiter. Check
Questionable ability to develop talent. Check
Poor NCAA performance. Check
Yet, you want him to stick around. Your standards are even lower than I thought.
He's not an average recruiter (well above average) and we've had some pretty good players leave this school and go to the NBA so your talent development claim is also a bit dubious. The in-game coaching and post-season success is correct.
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