2/23 Terps vs. Canes/ Gary Williams' status debate

[Mackus]

Problem is they are just not able to produce, GW knows it recruited right over the top of them. Md also has 3-4 offers out in the current JR class so there is sure to be further attrition. I have said since day one this class was a bust with nothing more than complementary players-that being said 4 of the 5 best players on next years team will be Maze, Bowman, Gilchrist and Mosely.

They should be a very good team next year.

I really don't understand why everyone is so upset. Given the level of talent on this team this is about where they should be. I don't agree with Bryan on GW's coaching but concur that the program is not where it should be. GW can coach but you need talent.......

Agree to an extent. Gary's biggest flaw has been in recruiting. His abilities as an in-game and practice coach are unquestionable.

[inmn]

For God's sakes, nobody said that or anything close to it. Gary should be applauded and lauded and all of that stuff for everything he's done for us and he is a HOFer. However, he just doesn't have it anymore.

Unless Gary sits down and realizes that his offense is creating no shots for Hayes, the entry passes are God-awful atrocious and no one knows how to get the ball down low, and none of the players (Gist especially) really know where they should be playing, then he needs to go. If I can see from my TV that where James Gist is playing is absolutely absurd out on the key the whole time but what's even more absurd is that we can't even get a simple bounce pass to him down low and Gary can't figure out how to fix that although it's what's plagued the offense the last 4 years (although with different players all along), he needs to go. We're just getting no production out of him right now.

I was not one of those people calling for Gary's head before the title and for a while after the title I thought he was the greatest coach in the world. If you can watch how they play now though you can tell that he's not coaching them up right. Obviously they're not executing but from watching these players, this is a real talented starting 5. I think Gist will go on to be coached up and be a very solid hybrid in the NBA. I think Osby has potential as a bench 4/5, I think Vasquez will go on to be a calmer, bench-scoring 2/3, I think Milbourne will be like DJ except with better offense, and I think even Hayes has a chance to be a shooter off the bench. If you have that much talent on your team and you can't figure out how to beat VaTech, American, Ohio, and Miami....boy oh boy, you're doing something wrong. The players are plenty to blame, but it's the coaches job to get full production out of them. Gary hasn't done it for almost 4-5 years now. How long is enough to get you to agree that it's just not working out anymore?

The flex works fine, he just doesn't have the players. If someone is having an off night he can't go to the bench-there is no bench. With so few options things fall to Vasquez to create, what are you going to do they have two offensive threats. You are really hurting your arguement when you laud the starters talent: Gist and Vasquez have marginal NBA talent-Osby is way too small and Hayes is clearly not quick enough. Hayes, Osby, and Milbourne would not be starting on many top 20 teams, or ACC teams for that matter.

He has no choice but to run Vasquez at the point because Hayes is the only reliable outside shooter on the team.

[Tony-OH]

You guys can keep defending Gary, but the truth is he's the recruiter and he hasn't had Maryland as a top 25 team in years now. this program should be a perrrenial top 25 team.

His recruiting has been dismal. When you only have two decent front court player and one is a transfer, you recruited badly. Gary is a great in game coach and I think he's a good coach overall, but let's face the facts, he's a terrible recruiter and they shoud find someone to take over that portion of his job.

The depth on this team is non existent and the character of the players he brings in is questionable too. McCray, Glichrest, and now the amazingly dissapearing James Gist.

Not a good record there. sorry of the truth hurts, but I don't see how anyone can defend Gary's recruiting record.

[Mackus]

His recruiting has been dismal. When you only have two decent front court player and one is a transfer, you recruited badly. Gary is a great in game coach and I think he's a good coach overall, but let's face the facts, he's a terrible recruiter and they shoud find someone to take over that portion of his job.

You can't completely give the recruiting duties to an assitant, the HC is still very important, but bringing in Dreisell has improved recruiting tremendously.

Calling him a terrible recruiting is a bit of hyperbole, but he certainly hasn't gotten the results that we hoped for following the NC. I think the next two classes will get us back on track, and we'll have a solid bench built up with the current freshman class.

[Tony-OH]

Bryan, I thought we would be 20-8 right now, so no I am not happy.

I thought Dupree as a Top 75 recruit, would be more ready to make a regular contribution by the second half of ACC play, so no I am not happy.

I am not happy that John Gilchrest, and Chris McCray helped end our string of NCAAT apperances...

I am not happy that all the Gary bashers that were out in full-force prior to the first Final Four, are all back out making the rounds....

I am as irritated today, as I was when people told me after the StVdays Massacre, we would never win with Gary...

I am irritated that people think its a lack of talent, and don't realize that with 3 starting sophs, and 6 freshman on the bench that better days are ahead.

1994 Arkansas (31-3)

1995 UCLA (31-2)

1996 Kentucky (34-2)

1997 Arizona (25-9)

1998 Kentucky (35-4)

1999 Connecticut (34-2)

2000 Michigan St. (32-7)

2001 Duke (35-4)

2002 Maryland (32-4)

2003 Syracuse (30-5)

2004 Connecticut (33-6)

2005 North Carolina (33-4)

2006 Florida (33-6)

2007 Florida (35-5)

These are the last 14 National Championship teams… Kentucky twice, Uconn twice, Florida twice.

It is extremely hard to not only climb the mountain, but stay up there year after year… for most teams, they have to build…

As great as Duke has been during this span… 1 National Championship… far more impressive is the year to year consistency.

North Carolina might get another title this year… but plenty of fans were dumb, and thought their program was done for good when they missed the dance back to back years in '01-'02, and '02-'03..

Uconn has been as impressive as anyone for a long time… They also went to the NIT after '96-'97 and '00-'01 and did not go to post-season play at all last year… was that a knock on Calhoun?

Syracuse was in the NIT last year, 4 years after the National Championship… guess they didn't capitalize on the title…

What about programs like Arkansas, or Michigan, or Umass that had days in the sun, before falling into obscurity?

You think that is going to happen here at Maryland?

Fine, you are entitled to that opinion... but I do not agree...

Our best days are ahead, with the core of this existing team, and Gary at the helm.

We won the title, and signed back to back Top 5 to 10 recruiting classes...

The year after the Title, we lose to Michigan St in the Tourney because NCM hurts his foot...

We win at Number 1 FL, we win an ACCT.... we win 19 games back to back years, and probably should have danced both times.... we certainly would have if Gilchrest, and McCray did not have their problems.

We respond last year with 25 wins.... we sign back to back to back quality classes... and are in great shape with Kim to start 2009.

2006 - Vasquez, Hayes, Milbourne ,(Burney) Osby

2007 - Tucker, Bowie, Dupree, Walker, Burney

2008 - Mosley, Gilchrist, Maze, Bowman?

If we do not make the NCAAT this year, oh well that sucks.... but there is plenty of talent here to go forward.

Lots of good points here Chris, but when was the last time Duke or North Carolina were in the NIT? I agree with a lot of what you say, but I seriously am not happy over Gary's recruiting that got us into this mess. We are a young team, but it was because of his terrible recruiting that got us into this mess.

I'm hopeful that the draft class you talk about so much will be a big help, but what never see is a top ACC Freshman at Maryland nor did I see anyone this year that gets me excited about the future.

I truly hope you are right, and I'll be the first to tell you that I don't follow the recruiting very closely, but i do see the results and I'm getting a little tired of the Terps being afterthoughts in March.

[BaltimoreTerp]

You guys can keep defending Gary, but the truth is he's the recruiter and he hasn't had Maryland as a top 25 team in years now. this program should be a perrrenial top 25 team.

His recruiting has been dismal. When you only have two decent front court player and one is a transfer, you recruited badly. Gary is a great in game coach and I think he's a good coach overall, but let's face the facts, he's a terrible recruiter and they shoud find someone to take over that portion of his job.

The depth on this team is non existent and the character of the players he brings in is questionable too. McCray, Glichrest, and now the amazingly dissapearing James Gist.

Not a good record there. sorry of the truth hurts, but I don't see how anyone can defend Gary's recruiting record.

He's recruiting like he has in the past.

The two where he went for top athletes were the two worst classes he has had.

After he was hired, it took him until his fifth season to make the tournament. Two years were out due to the NCAA penalties, but it still took two additional years to build that team.

When you get two highly-touted classes that fail, then have a combination of small classes because of the size of the first two, and Juco needs because of their failure, you are essentially starting over again.

There are four upperclassmen out of fourteen on the roster. With the mistakes and up-and-down nature of the play, is it that hard to believe that maybe we need to let the players grow?

And, if there is anything we can all agree on that Gary Williams can do, it is develop a player that wants to be developed.

[BaltimoreTerp]

Lots of good points here Chris, but when was the last time Duke or North Carolina were in the NIT? I agree with a lot of what you say, but I seriously am not happy over Gary's recruiting that got us into this mess. We are a young team, but it was because of his terrible recruiting that got us into this mess.

Duke missed everything in 1994-95 (the fabled "back injury"). Carolina missed in both 2001-02 and 2002-03.

I'm hopeful that the draft class you talk about so much will be a big help, but what never see is a top ACC Freshman at Maryland nor did I see anyone this year that gets me excited about the future.

I truly hope you are right, and I'll be the first to tell you that I don't follow the recruiting very closely, but i do see the results and I'm getting a little tired of the Terps being afterthoughts in March.

Again the question is, as has been discussed ad nauseum, was it Gary's fault those two classes were so poor, or the fault of the players?

[sportsfan14]

Longtime lurker, infrequent poster (in fact, I think I've been quiet since that big win for my AU Eagles ). Feel like chiming in here, pretty interesting past week on this board. Sorry for making this post insane long, at least I kept it below RShack territory.

1) I'll start off with the game (which is what we should be talking about in this thread). I agree that Gist has been a huge letdown. It didn't look like he wanted the ball; he has no instinct to take over the game. And that 4th foul was a silly mistake. The rebounding was interesting too. Gist and Osby combined for 7 rebounds. They are obviously capable of much more. I'd chalk that up to a lack of effort; its not like rebounds weren't available (Vazquez and Milbourne combined for 15). The last couple minutes were very ugly. Offense couldn't get anything done, and Gary refused to stop fouling for a while. A 5 pt ACC road loss to a hot team wouldn't have looked bad. Losing by 15 will look a good bit different in the eyes of the committee, imo. On the positive note, McClinton was effectively taken out of the game. He regularly has more than 10 attempts, and was held to only 6 this afternoon. Really played some nice defense on him...if he has anything resembling an open shot, he takes it. The defense in the 2nd half was very good, overall. Box score says 39 points in each half, but IIRC the Canes scored 17 2nd half points in the final 3 minutes (which means 22 points in the other 17 minutes, for a team that averages 76 PPG).

2) As for what has happened this week. I'm really surprised by the comments on here. Pretty recently, there was nearly unanimous agreement that Duke and UNC were 1 and 2, in some order, and the other 10 could really shake out in any fashion. Maryland got hot for a few weeks, and it seems a lot of people got a little too confident. Maryland, VaTech, Miami...I'd say all 3 teams are about even. Comparing losing to either of those other teams to a varsity team losing to a JV team, for example, is crazy, imo. As an AU fan, I have no problem saying that lumping Miami and VaTech in with my Eagles is absurd. VaTech and Miami are holding their own in arguably the toughest conference in the country. I think just about all of us can agree that all 3 teams are somewhere between 30th best and 80th best out of the 340 in the country. I don't think either loss should be viewed as surprising or embarrassing. Everyone can beat anyone in the ACC this year. The Hokies have a team of all freshman, essentially, its not surprising that they are considerably better than the team that had a lackluster 9-5 non conference record. Miami was playing at home on a hot streak that included back to back ACC road wins, and a win over Duke (and as we all know, MD lost @ home to Duke, and lost on the road to VaTech). I just think there are a lot of people here who underestimated these past two opponents.

3) As for the rest of the season. I agree that this loss is damaging, but far from the end of the world. The committee knows that the ACC is, at worst, the 3rd best conference in the country. I guarantee the ACC gets more than 3 bids (UNC, Duke, Clemson). I think ACC #4 is a lock, and #5 and #6 have outside chances. The key for Maryland, obviously, is to be that team #4. Maryland is currently T-5th in ACC standings (and will probably be T-4th after tomorrow night). In the 3 remaining games, MD has games against the current 3rd and 4th place teams. The Terps control their own destiny. If they are truly the ACC's 4th best team, they'll win at least 2 of the next 3, and make the tourney. I can't see a 9 win ACC team missing out. Maryland just has to take care of business.

4) I can't believe the "fire Gary" debate has been brought back up. I feel like Bryan had that the bulk of that diatribe written up months ago, and due to MD's play, had to wait till now to use it. First of all, suggesting Maryland give Gary an ultimatum (make the tourney this year or you're fired) is a horrible idea. Making the tournament could come down to a decision by a group of people in Indiana. If Gary is fired, it should be about his coaching, not about an arbitrary definition of success in one almost randomly chosen year. College basketball is about far more than one year; determining a coach's fate based on 25 ish games is very unwise.

Even more absurd is Bryan's evaluation of Maryland's talent. I would be absolutely stunned if Eric Hayes ever makes an NBA team, and the other 4 starters probably won't get much further. I guess if you truly believe that Maryland has a starting 5 that will all be in the NBA 3 years from now, yea, Gary does deserve to be fired.

Ignoring the whole "fire Gary" part of the diatribe, I think a few of Bryan's criticisms do have merit. While Gary is a great coach, he isn't perfect. The recruiting aspect has been beaten to death...I'd rather talk about a couple of other things. As Bryan said, the press accomplished absolutely nothing. Also, the offense seems to go through stretches where it doesn't have an identity. Hayes and (to an extent) Milbourne wait for open looks; Osby and Gist are, at times, passive. The whole offense seems to hinge on Vazquez. When you think about it, Maryland has 1 player who can consistently create his own shot...its not surprising that MD has battled extended dry spells the past 2 games. I think the offense does need to be more creative. A big chunk of this is the players' fault, but Gary needs to be able to get more out of his bench. I think the bench is capable of much more than 4 points (which all came from Burney). I think the defensive end is fine though.

5) Overall, I thought Maryland would be about a 10 seed and lose in the first round entering this week, and 2 fairly close losses to comparable teams in conference don't change my thinking.

[JohnD]

Gist will get looks in the NBA, but he'll never make it out of tryout weeks. He has no jump shot. None. He'll be D-ing up Terrence Morris in Israel next year.

Bryan is crazy. The same offense that's worked for 30-some years all of a sudden doesn't? He is a kid, and it shows when he wants to talk college hoops.

And 14, that's good stuff by you.

[inmn]

He's recruiting like he has in the past.

The two where he went for top athletes were the two worst classes he has had.

After he was hired, it took him until his fifth season to make the tournament. Two years were out due to the NCAA penalties, but it still took two additional years to build that team.

When you get two highly-touted classes that fail, then have a combination of small classes because of the size of the first two, and Juco needs because of their failure, you are essentially starting over again.

There are four upperclassmen out of fourteen on the roster. With the mistakes and up-and-down nature of the play, is it that hard to believe that maybe we need to let the players grow?

And, if there is anything we can all agree on that Gary Williams can do, it is develop a player that wants to be developed.

Terp,

You continue to ignore the facts and rewrite history for your own benefit!! Miller, Francis, Baxter, Dixon in one class. Wilcox was a top 25 recruit, Blake around 50, Holden around 75, Mouton was a premium transfer, and Randle a premium JUCO. I won't even go back to the Simpkins, Booth, Smith, Rhodes, and Hipp era. He has gone after top 20 talent in the last two classes but he didn't close-Green, Koufus, the troubled kid from Pittsburgh, Wright, Freeman, Sims and many others. He's not getting the quality kids that were on his most talented teams. As to the two classes you alude to another part of his job is talent evaluation-which is different than recruiting.

Here a link to help you with your "history"

http://home.nc.rr.com/rsci/index.html

[BaltimoreTerp]

Terp,

You continue to ignore the facts and rewrite history for your own benefit!!

Those two classes weren't highly-touted? Sounds like you are rewriting my words for YOUR own benefit

Miller, Francis, Baxter, Dixon in one class. Wilcox was a top 25 recruit, Blake around 50, Holden around 75, Mouton was a premium transfer, and Randle a premium JUCO. I won't even go back to the Simpkins, Booth, Smith, Rhodes, and Hipp era. He has gone after top 20 talent in the last two classes but he didn't close-Green, Koufus, the troubled kid from Pittsburgh, Wright, Freeman, Sims and many others. He's not getting the quality kids that were on his most talented teams. As to the two classes you alude to another part of his job is talent evaluation-which is different than recruiting.

Here a link to help you with your "history"

http://home.nc.rr.com/rsci/index.html

The bolded part is the whole point. Recruting and talent evaluation ARE different. That is why we have won with Joe Smith and Juan Dixon and lost with Travis Garrison and Mike Jones.

[bryanman8]

Gist will get looks in the NBA, but he'll never make it out of tryout weeks. He has no jump shot. None. He'll be D-ing up Terrence Morris in Israel next year.

Bryan is crazy. The same offense that's worked for 30-some years all of a sudden doesn't? He is a kid, and it shows when he wants to talk college hoops.

And 14, that's good stuff by you.

Just an fyi, I'm older than "14." Please don't pull the age card again. It's like me saying you're an old man--you see things only one way and refuse to reconsider. It's just stupid, and I don't really believe that. I just think you've been blinded by Gary's NC and refuse to evaluate him for what he is right now. As Tony said, especially after the championship, with the great facilities and everything UMD has to offer, there's no way Maryland shouldn't be a perennial top 25 team, much less instead a perennial NIT team.

And we'll talk in a few years about Gist in the NBA. I think he's well fit for the fast-paced game if someone can just tell him to put on a few pounds and stay down low and live off the slam dunk rather than the jump shot. That's what 4s in the NBA are supposed to do and I see no reason he can't do that.

The flex offense can work, but Gary's version of it, at least, hasn't worked for the last 4 or so years. Entry passes are perhaps the most underrated thing in basketball. Bob Knight and others went crazy in stressing the precision it takes to make a good entry pass. For whatever reason, Gary has not been able to teach that at all. I'm a kid but I'm losing hair watching every single attempt we make at an entry pass get knocked away.

As you said, Vasquez at PG isn't working out, but at least make up your mind Gary. He had Hayes bringing up the ball at some points but Hayes has no confidence at the spot either and that didn't work. Whenever he has Vasquez at point, he runs no plays to get Hayes open shots, which should be the whole point of Vasquez playing PG anyways. Our strength is supposed to be in these two players but neither of them can make an entry pass to get the ball to our bigs or play the point with any consistency whatsoever.

As 14 said, the team has no identity. Sometimes they run some good plays to Milbourne to set up his pretty open J but then they just don't go back to it again. Half of their offensive possessions are just Vasquez dribbling down to 10 seconds and then throwing some crap up or getting another entry pass thrown to nobody in particular. I know Hayes can't create his own shot but it's absolutely mind-boggling for me to see how little he does. He was hitting the open ones in the first half so you'd think we'd go back to it but there was like a 10-minute stretch in the 2nd half where he didn't get a shot. Scheyer, Paulus, etc. for Duke are not really THAT much better than Hayes at getting off their own shots. They just play in a good offensive system that sets screens and such and does drive and dishes to get them open looks. We don't do it. At all.

Let the results speak for themselves: 3/4 straight years in the NIT. It's not an ultimatum, but 2 in a row was just about all I wanted to see, and then one trip back to the tourney was nice, although losing to Butler 2nd round is not what I expect from Maryland, I was willing to believe that Gary could take advantage of some immense talent this year and take us far. Not so. With huge games to play, after blowing games the other team never should have been in earlier like American and Ohio, I thought he had turned it around after UNC and all only for us to lose the biggest game of the season--an absolutely unacceptable home loss to VaTech. This is not Maryland basketball. Going back to the NITs this year shows that the last 4 years have been a complete waste not far after a NC and that's unacceptable.

A while ago when his status was unsure, I suggested John Calipari as a possible replacement for Gary. Now obviously that's not going to happen but he's obviously a coach who knows what he's doing in today's game. Tremendous recruiter. Understands the spread offense, drive and dishes, watching them tonight, it's incredible how many open looks from three they're getting. We need a coach that's thriving today, not one who can't figure out his own system anymore, or at least the practical application of it that leads to success.

Awful recruiter, poor talent developer aside of a few guys who his name obviously will be synonymous with, and an increasingly poor in-game coach with no good offensive system to speak of at the moment= not good. Again, it's time for a new face, because Gary nowadays=NIT for Terps basketball.

[BaltimoreTerp]

Just an fyi, I'm older than "14." Please don't pull the age card again. It's like me saying you're an old man--you see things only one way and refuse to reconsider. It's just stupid, and I don't really believe that. I just think you've been blinded by Gary's NC and refuse to evaluate him for what he is right now. As Tony said, especially after the championship, with the great facilities and everything UMD has to offer, there's no way Maryland shouldn't be a perennial top 25 team, much less instead a perennial NIT team.

And we'll talk in a few years about Gist in the NBA. I think he's well fit for the fast-paced game if someone can just tell him to put on a few pounds and stay down low and live off the slam dunk rather than the jump shot. That's what 4s in the NBA are supposed to do and I see no reason he can't do that.

The flex offense can work, but Gary's version of it, at least, hasn't worked for the last 4 or so years. Entry passes are perhaps the most underrated thing in basketball. Bob Knight and others went crazy in stressing the precision it takes to make a good entry pass. For whatever reason, Gary has not been able to teach that at all. I'm a kid but I'm losing hair watching every single attempt we make at an entry pass get knocked away.

As you said, Vasquez at PG isn't working out, but at least make up your mind Gary. He had Hayes bringing up the ball at some points but Hayes has no confidence at the spot either and that didn't work. Whenever he has Vasquez at point, he runs no plays to get Hayes open shots, which should be the whole point of Vasquez playing PG anyways. Our strength is supposed to be in these two players but neither of them can make an entry pass to get the ball to our bigs or play the point with any consistency whatsoever.

As 14 said, the team has no identity. Sometimes they run some good plays to Milbourne to set up his pretty open J but then they just don't go back to it again. Half of their offensive possessions are just Vasquez dribbling down to 10 seconds and then throwing some crap up or getting another entry pass thrown to nobody in particular. I know Hayes can't create his own shot but it's absolutely mind-boggling for me to see how little he does. He was hitting the open ones in the first half so you'd think we'd go back to it but there was like a 10-minute stretch in the 2nd half where he didn't get a shot. Scheyer, Paulus, etc. for Duke are not really THAT much better than Hayes at getting off their own shots. They just play in a good offensive system that sets screens and such and does drive and dishes to get them open looks. We don't do it. At all.

Let the results speak for themselves: 3/4 straight years in the NIT. It's not an ultimatum, but 2 in a row was just about all I wanted to see, and then one trip back to the tourney was nice, although losing to Butler 2nd round is not what I expect from Maryland, I was willing to believe that Gary could take advantage of some immense talent this year and take us far. Not so. With huge games to play, after blowing games the other team never should have been in earlier like American and Ohio, I thought he had turned it around after UNC and all only for us to lose the biggest game of the season--an absolutely unacceptable home loss to VaTech. This is not Maryland basketball. Going back to the NITs this year shows that the last 4 years have been a complete waste not far after a NC and that's unacceptable.

A while ago when his status was unsure, I suggested John Calipari as a possible replacement for Gary. Now obviously that's not going to happen but he's obviously a coach who knows what he's doing in today's game. Tremendous recruiter. Understands the spread offense, drive and dishes, watching them tonight, it's incredible how many open looks from three they're getting. We need a coach that's thriving today, not one who can't figure out his own system anymore, or at least the practical application of it that leads to success.

Awful recruiter, poor talent developer aside of a few guys who his name obviously will be synonymous with, and an increasingly poor in-game coach with no good offensive system to speak of at the moment= not good. Again, it's time for a new face, because Gary nowadays=NIT for Terps basketball.

So...you don't think it takes time for players to develop into their potential, and the ten freshmen and sophomores just might not be still growing?

[bryanman8]

So...you don't think it takes time for players to develop into their potential, and the ten freshmen and sophomores just might not be still growing?

Um, what?

Gist is a senior. He's one of the most athletic players in the country. I thought at the beginning of the year he could be an All-American. Now, yes, it is partially his fault, but he's been coached awfully too. I mean, how could we not be all over telling him to put on a lot more weight his whole time he's been here so he could get a rebound and stop being a tweener? How can we not tell him that for every time he takes a three, he runs 3 miles? How can we not get him to go straight up and draw contact instead of fading away on every shot? His potential has not been reached in the slightest, and a lot of that falls on Gary.

Plenty of teams are playing with young guards. When you consider that our soph PG and SG may be the most highly-touted guys on our team, it makes it even more clear how we should be able to get looks for the SG and teach the PG how to stop turning the ball over and get the ball to the bigs. I understand there's a learning curve and they'll be better next year. However, we should still be able to win with them, while the good bigs are here. Seriously, how is anything going to be better next season? The recruiting classes don't match up year-wise. We're losing our two best bigs, and none of the young bigs now have shown us anything. The guards coming on are supposed to be good but Gary never plays freshman anyway. This whole team will rest on GV's shoulders again and that's not nearly enough to get it done.

I think we've had quite enough patience with his awful recruiting classes and poor performance. We're supposed to be turning a corner now but instead we're getting worse with each year. No doubt, with Gist and Osby gone, I think that with Gary doing the same exact thing with the same exact system, we'll be even worse next year, just like I predicted we'd be worse last year when everyone was ranting and raving about how Hayes and GV being a year older would make us so much better while everyone underestimated greatly the effects of losing two of your most talented guys in DJ and Ibekwe.

Every year basically, we'll be losing two of the best we've got and adding guys not ready to contribute yet. Even when Kim gets here, GV and Hayes will be seniors and Kim won't be ready to play or at least Gary won't let him in all likelihood and then the next year they'll be gone and Kim will have no help around him.

This whole thing has been planned out awfully and we need someone with a fresh outlook to come in and clean up the mess.

[BaltBird 24]

So...you don't think it takes time for players to develop into their potential, and the ten freshmen and sophomores just might not be still growing?

I'd say with the way college basketball has become, pretty much a one and done or two at most type situation with most of the real talented kids bolting for the league........ the 'we are just so young' excuse might not fly. Our team is lead by two seniors and a two sophomores who played a ton last year........ That's not terribly young in basketball terms.