EagleNYC {l Wrote}:eagle9903 {l Wrote}:eagle9903 {l Wrote}:EagleNYC {l Wrote}:footer20 {l Wrote}:commavegarage {l Wrote}:61% from the line.
And your point guard goes 5-10
Don't worry, someone will post "Hanlon will never go 5-10 from the stripe again" and not understand that this team has so many weaknesses (still) and can find ways to lose.
this is fucking retarded.
Sorry for overreaction. I'm pissed. This would have been a very good win.
No need to apologize. I've been caught in the basketball negativity cycle for a long time and it's getting difficult to keep "big picture" goals in mind. You'd have to be blind not to see progress from last year to this year, but I'm afraid we're not seeing enough. What I can't stand are the excuses (youth, injuries, etc.) because every program goes through that. To make matters worse there are many ACC programs (our competition) that can pretty much bank on out-recruiting us consistently, including some who frequently land game changing talent.
I don't know how this year will play out, or next year. I'm just afraid that we're building towards a single year of a "very good" basketball team, and that's a small window. I love that we seem to have a solid backcourt now, but I'm afraid that if we don't see some more W's this year, recruiting will stagnate. I didn't expect them to hang with NC State like they did, and there are encouraging signs, but there are also discouraging signs, like the Wake game. We're going on 5 years since the last NCAA tourney appearance - Tyrese Rice played for that team. It's not easy to stay indoctrinated.
We've been impacted by four years of Spaz and Gene and it has made us reactionary to legitimate excuse which is really not better than being overly generous in excuses in my opinion. Specifically, this team was historically young last year and still is this year. You can argue that it is self inflicted youth, but I don't think that's productive at this point. I happen to believe pretty strongly that Skinner's best years were passed him. This remains essentially beyond proving so it is nothing more than an opinion, but because I believe this I had little issue with his firing other than the GDF'd manner it was conducted (a manner which coincidentally probably played a role in the inability to retain Skinner players or recruits FWIW). I further don't buy into the running off of legitimate upperclassman help (I recently read an article in which Ravenel was quoted as saying he was mad at the school for the manner of firing Skinner for instance, Reggie to a guaranteed 7 figure contract, likelihood of Rakim leaving because his high school coach was leaving). This has been discussed a lot and is again essentially unprovable and therefore a matter of opinion. Because I believe it was OK to fire Skinner and because I don't believe that Donahue mangled the aftermath as many do, I give Donahue the benefit of the youth excuse. Conversely, Spaz' youth was entirely self inflicted and illegitimate in my opinion.
There has been at least one obvious an inarguable misstep in offering Moton over Cotton. This is a head scratcher of epic proportions. Now, it could have prevented the recruitment of Hanlan and/or Rahon who are both superior players to Cotton, but it also would likely have prevented last year from being quite so disasterous.
As to the superiority of ACC peer recruitment. I dislike this argument. The Sidney Lowes and Frank Haiths of the world outrecruited Al every year they coached on paper, but Al out recruited (or coached up) to a degree that beat both when taken in the aggregate by a wide margin. It appears that Donahue shares Al's ability to identify talent and/or coach it up. I've never believed our ACC peers (other than the very top) have actually out recruited us. I was concerned that the new ACC coaches would be superior to the old and I think they are slightly but they still stink on the whole.
As to the single year window thing, I believe that was brought in by our friend carolina and her twirling agendas. She claimed that Donahue fed on the model of recruiting for one year at Cornell. It was BS when she said it the first time but it has perpetuated. Donahue won the IVY (which is kind of a big deal at Cornell) and got a consequent tourney berth three years from 2007 to 2009. That's a funny looking one year window. I would argue that our current team has at least a two year window, but really more likely a 3 year window. I see no reason it doesn't start next season and without attrition or injury definitley continue the following year. The third year, Anderson and Clifford will be gone so of course some restocking will be necessary. But 2-3 years is pretty normal for a college basketball window.
I share your concern that losses, even close losses, will prevent recruiting uptick or cause stagnation.