#11 Baylor (19-7; 8-5) hosts #2 Houston (23-3; 10-3) Saturday February 24 at 11am CST. The game will be televised on CBS.
KenPom Prediction: Houston 70 Baylor 67
Torvik Prediction: Houston 69 Baylor 64
Evan Miyakawa: Houston 73 Baylor 68
Haslametrics: Houston 68 Baylor 64
Coaches
Houston: Kelvin Sampson (68); 754-348 overall (255-77 at UH); 17 NCAAs; 7 Sweet 16s; 4 Elite 8s; 2 Final 4s
Baylor: Scott Drew (53); 460-250 overall (440-239 at Baylor); 11 NCAAs; 5 Sweet 16s; 3 Elite 8s; FF; 1 National Championship
Head to Head: 6-1 Sampson
Houston Starters
Guard: Jamal Shead (SR) 6-1 200 lbs; 13 ppg; 4 reb; 6 asst; 45% FG; 35% 3pt; 80% FT
Guard: LJ Cryer (SR) 6-1 200 lbs; 15 ppg; 2 reb; 2 asst; 40% FG; 38% 3pt; 86% FT
Guard: Emanuel Sharp (SO) 6-3 205 lbs; 13 ppg; 4 reb; 38% FG; 35%pt; 84% FT
Forward: javier Francis (JR) 6-8 240 lbs; 6 ppg; 6 reb; 61% FG; 54% FT
Forward: J’Wan Roberts (SR) 6-7 235 lbs; 9 ppg; 7 reb; 2 asst; 55% 52% FT
Houston Bench
Guard: Mylik Wilson (SR) 6-2 175 lbs; 4 ppg; 3 reb; 39% FG; 20% 3pt; 63% FT
Forward: Joseph Tugler (FR) 6-7 230 lbs; 4 ppg; 4 reb; 53% FG; 46% FT
Guard: Ramon Walker (JR) 6-4 210 lbs; 2 ppg; 3 reb; 33% FG; 30% 3pt; 65% FT
Guard: Damian Dunn (SR) 6-5 205 lbs; 7 ppg; 2 reb; 36% FG; 32% 3pt; 67% FT
Baylor Starters
Guard: RayJ Dennis (SR) 6-3 180 lbs; 13 ppg; 4 reb; 7 asst; 49% FG; 38% 3pt; 71% FT
Guard: Jayden Nunn (JR) 6-3 190 lbs; 11 ppg; 3 reb; 2 asst; 48% FG; 45% 3pt; 68% FT
Guard: Ja’Kobe Walter (FR) 6-5 185 lbs; 14 ppg; 5 reb; 2 asst; 39% FG; 32% 3pt; 85% FT
Forward: Jalen Bridges (JR) 6-9 225 lbs; 11 ppg; 5 reb; 2 asst; 45% FG; 39% 3pt; 86% FT
Forward: Yves Missi (FR) 6-11 220 lbs; 11 ppg; 6 reb; 2 blocks; 65% FG; 59% FT
Baylor Bench
Guard: Langston Love (SO) 6-5 210 lbs; 11 ppg; 3 reb; 46% FG; 49% 3pt; 79% FT
Forward: Caleb Lohner (JR) 6-8 235 lbs; 2 ppg; 2 reb; 54% FG; 22% 3pt; 79% FT
Forward: Josh Ojianwuna (SO) 6-10 240 lbs; 5 ppg; 3 reb; 79% FG; 59% FT
Guard: Miro Little (FR) 6-4 185 lbs; 2 ppg; 47% FG; 38% 3pt; 72% FT
So much anger.Oldbear83 said:
Pantspisser69: "this team is in free fall ,,"
We lose in overtime to the #1 Kenpom team and you - yet again - prove you neither understand how to tell if a team is good or not, nor do you support them.
All you do is ***** and moan, which means after every win you are nowhere to be found.
I wish you'd realize that about Jesus' words too.Oldbear83 said:
Context matters, son.
So He does not mean what He says about what he wants us to do?BusyTarpDuster2017 said:I wish you'd realize that about Jesus' words too.Oldbear83 said:
Context matters, son.
BusyTarpDuster2017 said:
Hey, we lost, but that was one heck of a game to watch, and a good one for national exposure. It was thoroughly entertaining overall, and ultimately isn't that what matters? And I think Baylor really learned something from this, which will help in the tournament.
BusyTarpDuster2017 said:
Hey, we lost, but that was one heck of a game to watch, and a good one for national exposure. It was thoroughly entertaining overall, and ultimately isn't that what matters? And I think Baylor really learned something from this, which will help in the tournament.
Yes, he does. In its context.Oldbear83 said:So He does not mean what He says about what he wants us to do?BusyTarpDuster2017 said:I wish you'd realize that about Jesus' words too.Oldbear83 said:
Context matters, son.
Telling that you follow me to a sports thread to vent your spleen on a religious discussion.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Yes, he does. In its context.Oldbear83 said:So He does not mean what He says about what he wants us to do?BusyTarpDuster2017 said:I wish you'd realize that about Jesus' words too.Oldbear83 said:
Context matters, son.
Have you gouged out your eyeball yet?
Context matters, son.
Our issue is that we are elite on one end and below average on the other. We can score on pretty much anyone. We showed this in the second half against Houston, which plays the best defense of any team in the nation. But we give most of what we score back on the other end, which puts us in one close game after another.TeamPlayer said:
We are a really good basketball team. But we're just not elite and have trouble closing out tight games. Our only OT win is vs. the worst team in the Big 12.
I hope Missi and Walter stick around for another year, but both are projected as lottery picks, which is great for them, horrible for us. Recycling our roster every year gives us zero chance for a deep tournament run.
We really can't complain. Houston has 5 seniors in its rotation of 8 players. Our freshman missed a potential game-winning free throw, lost the ball on the way up for a wide open dunk, and had a silly goaltend. It makes a difference.
I think next year's team can flip the "woe is us, we have to rebuild every year" narrative. Yes, we lose a ton of production, but, we're bringing in a number of multi-year players, along with Edgecombe, who's likely a one-and-done.bear2be2 said:Our issue is that we are elite on one end and below average on the other. We can score on pretty much anyone. We showed this in the second half against Houston, which plays the best defense of any team in the nation. But we give most of what we score back on the other end, which puts us in one close game after another.TeamPlayer said:
We are a really good basketball team. But we're just not elite and have trouble closing out tight games. Our only OT win is vs. the worst team in the Big 12.
I hope Missi and Walter stick around for another year, but both are projected as lottery picks, which is great for them, horrible for us. Recycling our roster every year gives us zero chance for a deep tournament run.
We really can't complain. Houston has 5 seniors in its rotation of 8 players. Our freshman missed a potential game-winning free throw, lost the ball on the way up for a wide open dunk, and had a silly goaltend. It makes a difference.
When you play a bunch of tight games, you're going to lose some.
We can play with anyone in the country. But we're also capable of letting teams that we're significantly more talented than hang around. It's hard to make a run in the tournament that way. Our tournament ceiling is heavily matchup dependent IMO.
And yes, because of the way we recruit, we will be starting all over again next year.
We had one one-and-done player in Scott Drew's first 18 years at Baylor (Quincy Miller). There were only two others over that period who were even projected to be (Perry Jones and Isaiah Austin), and both stayed a second year. To act as though our recruiting philosophy hasn't changed since the championship is disingenuous.Mitch Henessey said:I think next year's team can flip the "woe is us, we have to rebuild every year" narrative. Yes, we lose a ton of production, but, we're bringing in a number of multi-year players, along with Edgecombe, who's likely a one-and-done.bear2be2 said:Our issue is that we are elite on one end and below average on the other. We can score on pretty much anyone. We showed this in the second half against Houston, which plays the best defense of any team in the nation. But we give most of what we score back on the other end, which puts us in one close game after another.TeamPlayer said:
We are a really good basketball team. But we're just not elite and have trouble closing out tight games. Our only OT win is vs. the worst team in the Big 12.
I hope Missi and Walter stick around for another year, but both are projected as lottery picks, which is great for them, horrible for us. Recycling our roster every year gives us zero chance for a deep tournament run.
We really can't complain. Houston has 5 seniors in its rotation of 8 players. Our freshman missed a potential game-winning free throw, lost the ball on the way up for a wide open dunk, and had a silly goaltend. It makes a difference.
When you play a bunch of tight games, you're going to lose some.
We can play with anyone in the country. But we're also capable of letting teams that we're significantly more talented than hang around. It's hard to make a run in the tournament that way. Our tournament ceiling is heavily matchup dependent IMO.
And yes, because of the way we recruit, we will be starting all over again next year.
That's been our recruiting philosophy, year in and year out. But people like to discount the fact that Missi and Sochan developed ahead of schedule. Literally no one in the entire world had Sochan, a high 3* prospect from Poland, on their draft board prior to 2022. And he went Top 10. No one had Missi, a 4* prospect who had only played two years of organized basketball and reclassified to join the team this year, as a first round pick, and he will be.
You (and others) are attributing unexpected positive outcomes (players developing and drastically outperforming their recruiting rankings) as intent, when that line of reasoning couldn't be further from the truth. We've never recruited more than one "one-and-done" player in any recruiting class since Drew has been here, and that trend continues next year.
It's equally as disingenuous to not acknowledge that literally everything about roster building has changed since the time we won a championship.bear2be2 said:We had one one-and-done player in Scott Drew's first 18 years at Baylor (Quincy Miller). There were only two others over that period who were even projected to be (Perry Jones and Isaiah Austin), and both stayed a second year. To act as though our recruiting philosophy hasn't changed since the championship is disingenuous.Mitch Henessey said:I think next year's team can flip the "woe is us, we have to rebuild every year" narrative. Yes, we lose a ton of production, but, we're bringing in a number of multi-year players, along with Edgecombe, who's likely a one-and-done.bear2be2 said:Our issue is that we are elite on one end and below average on the other. We can score on pretty much anyone. We showed this in the second half against Houston, which plays the best defense of any team in the nation. But we give most of what we score back on the other end, which puts us in one close game after another.TeamPlayer said:
We are a really good basketball team. But we're just not elite and have trouble closing out tight games. Our only OT win is vs. the worst team in the Big 12.
I hope Missi and Walter stick around for another year, but both are projected as lottery picks, which is great for them, horrible for us. Recycling our roster every year gives us zero chance for a deep tournament run.
We really can't complain. Houston has 5 seniors in its rotation of 8 players. Our freshman missed a potential game-winning free throw, lost the ball on the way up for a wide open dunk, and had a silly goaltend. It makes a difference.
When you play a bunch of tight games, you're going to lose some.
We can play with anyone in the country. But we're also capable of letting teams that we're significantly more talented than hang around. It's hard to make a run in the tournament that way. Our tournament ceiling is heavily matchup dependent IMO.
And yes, because of the way we recruit, we will be starting all over again next year.
That's been our recruiting philosophy, year in and year out. But people like to discount the fact that Missi and Sochan developed ahead of schedule. Literally no one in the entire world had Sochan, a high 3* prospect from Poland, on their draft board prior to 2022. And he went Top 10. No one had Missi, a 4* prospect who had only played two years of organized basketball and reclassified to join the team this year, as a first round pick, and he will be.
You (and others) are attributing unexpected positive outcomes (players developing and drastically outperforming their recruiting rankings) as intent, when that line of reasoning couldn't be further from the truth. We've never recruited more than one "one-and-done" player in any recruiting class since Drew has been here, and that trend continues next year.
We went from having experienced, largely developmental teams (not unlike this year's Houston squad) to recycling the top of our roster every single season.
It's not just Houston. There are teams all over the country -- and all over our own conference -- with experience. We've lost to several of them.Mitch Henessey said:It's equally as disingenuous to not acknowledge that literally everything about roster building has changed since the time we won a championship.bear2be2 said:We had one one-and-done player in Scott Drew's first 18 years at Baylor (Quincy Miller). There were only two others over that period who were even projected to be (Perry Jones and Isaiah Austin), and both stayed a second year. To act as though our recruiting philosophy hasn't changed since the championship is disingenuous.Mitch Henessey said:I think next year's team can flip the "woe is us, we have to rebuild every year" narrative. Yes, we lose a ton of production, but, we're bringing in a number of multi-year players, along with Edgecombe, who's likely a one-and-done.bear2be2 said:Our issue is that we are elite on one end and below average on the other. We can score on pretty much anyone. We showed this in the second half against Houston, which plays the best defense of any team in the nation. But we give most of what we score back on the other end, which puts us in one close game after another.TeamPlayer said:
We are a really good basketball team. But we're just not elite and have trouble closing out tight games. Our only OT win is vs. the worst team in the Big 12.
I hope Missi and Walter stick around for another year, but both are projected as lottery picks, which is great for them, horrible for us. Recycling our roster every year gives us zero chance for a deep tournament run.
We really can't complain. Houston has 5 seniors in its rotation of 8 players. Our freshman missed a potential game-winning free throw, lost the ball on the way up for a wide open dunk, and had a silly goaltend. It makes a difference.
When you play a bunch of tight games, you're going to lose some.
We can play with anyone in the country. But we're also capable of letting teams that we're significantly more talented than hang around. It's hard to make a run in the tournament that way. Our tournament ceiling is heavily matchup dependent IMO.
And yes, because of the way we recruit, we will be starting all over again next year.
That's been our recruiting philosophy, year in and year out. But people like to discount the fact that Missi and Sochan developed ahead of schedule. Literally no one in the entire world had Sochan, a high 3* prospect from Poland, on their draft board prior to 2022. And he went Top 10. No one had Missi, a 4* prospect who had only played two years of organized basketball and reclassified to join the team this year, as a first round pick, and he will be.
You (and others) are attributing unexpected positive outcomes (players developing and drastically outperforming their recruiting rankings) as intent, when that line of reasoning couldn't be further from the truth. We've never recruited more than one "one-and-done" player in any recruiting class since Drew has been here, and that trend continues next year.
We went from having experienced, largely developmental teams (not unlike this year's Houston squad) to recycling the top of our roster every single season.
You keep holding Houston up as this paragon of team-building. Their roster was constructed mostly by necessity, not by design. Their highest recruited player recently was Jarace Walker, a one-and-done. Their current roster is comprised of fine players, but most of them were guys that they signed after they missed on their top targets, and they got the transfer portal to fill the rest of the class. Most of their transfer guys aren't multi-year guys either, which you've repeatedly criticized us for doing.
All credit to Kelvin Sampson and staff. They've developed well. But you're fooling yourself if you think that they wouldn't have signed higher rated players if they could have.
Name one instance I've EVER said this the "only way we can" build a roster. I'll wait.bear2be2 said:It's not just Houston. There are teams all over the country -- and all over our own conference -- with experience. We've lost to several of them.Mitch Henessey said:It's equally as disingenuous to not acknowledge that literally everything about roster building has changed since the time we won a championship.bear2be2 said:We had one one-and-done player in Scott Drew's first 18 years at Baylor (Quincy Miller). There were only two others over that period who were even projected to be (Perry Jones and Isaiah Austin), and both stayed a second year. To act as though our recruiting philosophy hasn't changed since the championship is disingenuous.Mitch Henessey said:I think next year's team can flip the "woe is us, we have to rebuild every year" narrative. Yes, we lose a ton of production, but, we're bringing in a number of multi-year players, along with Edgecombe, who's likely a one-and-done.bear2be2 said:Our issue is that we are elite on one end and below average on the other. We can score on pretty much anyone. We showed this in the second half against Houston, which plays the best defense of any team in the nation. But we give most of what we score back on the other end, which puts us in one close game after another.TeamPlayer said:
We are a really good basketball team. But we're just not elite and have trouble closing out tight games. Our only OT win is vs. the worst team in the Big 12.
I hope Missi and Walter stick around for another year, but both are projected as lottery picks, which is great for them, horrible for us. Recycling our roster every year gives us zero chance for a deep tournament run.
We really can't complain. Houston has 5 seniors in its rotation of 8 players. Our freshman missed a potential game-winning free throw, lost the ball on the way up for a wide open dunk, and had a silly goaltend. It makes a difference.
When you play a bunch of tight games, you're going to lose some.
We can play with anyone in the country. But we're also capable of letting teams that we're significantly more talented than hang around. It's hard to make a run in the tournament that way. Our tournament ceiling is heavily matchup dependent IMO.
And yes, because of the way we recruit, we will be starting all over again next year.
That's been our recruiting philosophy, year in and year out. But people like to discount the fact that Missi and Sochan developed ahead of schedule. Literally no one in the entire world had Sochan, a high 3* prospect from Poland, on their draft board prior to 2022. And he went Top 10. No one had Missi, a 4* prospect who had only played two years of organized basketball and reclassified to join the team this year, as a first round pick, and he will be.
You (and others) are attributing unexpected positive outcomes (players developing and drastically outperforming their recruiting rankings) as intent, when that line of reasoning couldn't be further from the truth. We've never recruited more than one "one-and-done" player in any recruiting class since Drew has been here, and that trend continues next year.
We went from having experienced, largely developmental teams (not unlike this year's Houston squad) to recycling the top of our roster every single season.
You keep holding Houston up as this paragon of team-building. Their roster was constructed mostly by necessity, not by design. Their highest recruited player recently was Jarace Walker, a one-and-done. Their current roster is comprised of fine players, but most of them were guys that they signed after they missed on their top targets, and they got the transfer portal to fill the rest of the class. Most of their transfer guys aren't multi-year guys either, which you've repeatedly criticized us for doing.
All credit to Kelvin Sampson and staff. They've developed well. But you're fooling yourself if you think that they wouldn't have signed higher rated players if they could have.
This idea that we are building our roster the only way we can in the NIL/portal era is bull***** Plain and simple.
We are choosing to rely on one-year players super heavily (freshmen and transfers). And it hasn't worked particularly well for us.
I don't think teams with freshmen in prominent roles are built to win in March. It's that simple. And teams with multiple freshman starters are always at a disadvantage to their more experienced peers.Mitch Henessey said:Name one instance I've EVER said this the "only way we can" build a roster. I'll wait.bear2be2 said:It's not just Houston. There are teams all over the country -- and all over our own conference -- with experience. We've lost to several of them.Mitch Henessey said:It's equally as disingenuous to not acknowledge that literally everything about roster building has changed since the time we won a championship.bear2be2 said:We had one one-and-done player in Scott Drew's first 18 years at Baylor (Quincy Miller). There were only two others over that period who were even projected to be (Perry Jones and Isaiah Austin), and both stayed a second year. To act as though our recruiting philosophy hasn't changed since the championship is disingenuous.Mitch Henessey said:I think next year's team can flip the "woe is us, we have to rebuild every year" narrative. Yes, we lose a ton of production, but, we're bringing in a number of multi-year players, along with Edgecombe, who's likely a one-and-done.bear2be2 said:Our issue is that we are elite on one end and below average on the other. We can score on pretty much anyone. We showed this in the second half against Houston, which plays the best defense of any team in the nation. But we give most of what we score back on the other end, which puts us in one close game after another.TeamPlayer said:
We are a really good basketball team. But we're just not elite and have trouble closing out tight games. Our only OT win is vs. the worst team in the Big 12.
I hope Missi and Walter stick around for another year, but both are projected as lottery picks, which is great for them, horrible for us. Recycling our roster every year gives us zero chance for a deep tournament run.
We really can't complain. Houston has 5 seniors in its rotation of 8 players. Our freshman missed a potential game-winning free throw, lost the ball on the way up for a wide open dunk, and had a silly goaltend. It makes a difference.
When you play a bunch of tight games, you're going to lose some.
We can play with anyone in the country. But we're also capable of letting teams that we're significantly more talented than hang around. It's hard to make a run in the tournament that way. Our tournament ceiling is heavily matchup dependent IMO.
And yes, because of the way we recruit, we will be starting all over again next year.
That's been our recruiting philosophy, year in and year out. But people like to discount the fact that Missi and Sochan developed ahead of schedule. Literally no one in the entire world had Sochan, a high 3* prospect from Poland, on their draft board prior to 2022. And he went Top 10. No one had Missi, a 4* prospect who had only played two years of organized basketball and reclassified to join the team this year, as a first round pick, and he will be.
You (and others) are attributing unexpected positive outcomes (players developing and drastically outperforming their recruiting rankings) as intent, when that line of reasoning couldn't be further from the truth. We've never recruited more than one "one-and-done" player in any recruiting class since Drew has been here, and that trend continues next year.
We went from having experienced, largely developmental teams (not unlike this year's Houston squad) to recycling the top of our roster every single season.
You keep holding Houston up as this paragon of team-building. Their roster was constructed mostly by necessity, not by design. Their highest recruited player recently was Jarace Walker, a one-and-done. Their current roster is comprised of fine players, but most of them were guys that they signed after they missed on their top targets, and they got the transfer portal to fill the rest of the class. Most of their transfer guys aren't multi-year guys either, which you've repeatedly criticized us for doing.
All credit to Kelvin Sampson and staff. They've developed well. But you're fooling yourself if you think that they wouldn't have signed higher rated players if they could have.
This idea that we are building our roster the only way we can in the NIL/portal era is bull***** Plain and simple.
We are choosing to rely on one-year players super heavily (freshmen and transfers). And it hasn't worked particularly well for us.
I've consistently said we've chosen to go after one one-and-done player per year, and supplement with 2-4 year guys around that. We've just gotten unlucky, or our staff is elite at identifying and developing talent with guys who they thought would be around for multiple years. I'd imagine it's a bit of both. You're over indexing on that fact and extrapolating it as a fatal flaw in coaching. It's really puzzling, because you're normally a pretty astute observer of the game.
In the past 10 years, which is an eternity in college basketball:bear2be2 said:I don't think teams with freshmen in prominent roles are built to win in March. It's that simple. And teams with multiple freshman starters are always at a disadvantage to their more experienced peers.Mitch Henessey said:Name one instance I've EVER said this the "only way we can" build a roster. I'll wait.bear2be2 said:It's not just Houston. There are teams all over the country -- and all over our own conference -- with experience. We've lost to several of them.Mitch Henessey said:It's equally as disingenuous to not acknowledge that literally everything about roster building has changed since the time we won a championship.bear2be2 said:We had one one-and-done player in Scott Drew's first 18 years at Baylor (Quincy Miller). There were only two others over that period who were even projected to be (Perry Jones and Isaiah Austin), and both stayed a second year. To act as though our recruiting philosophy hasn't changed since the championship is disingenuous.Mitch Henessey said:I think next year's team can flip the "woe is us, we have to rebuild every year" narrative. Yes, we lose a ton of production, but, we're bringing in a number of multi-year players, along with Edgecombe, who's likely a one-and-done.bear2be2 said:Our issue is that we are elite on one end and below average on the other. We can score on pretty much anyone. We showed this in the second half against Houston, which plays the best defense of any team in the nation. But we give most of what we score back on the other end, which puts us in one close game after another.TeamPlayer said:
We are a really good basketball team. But we're just not elite and have trouble closing out tight games. Our only OT win is vs. the worst team in the Big 12.
I hope Missi and Walter stick around for another year, but both are projected as lottery picks, which is great for them, horrible for us. Recycling our roster every year gives us zero chance for a deep tournament run.
We really can't complain. Houston has 5 seniors in its rotation of 8 players. Our freshman missed a potential game-winning free throw, lost the ball on the way up for a wide open dunk, and had a silly goaltend. It makes a difference.
When you play a bunch of tight games, you're going to lose some.
We can play with anyone in the country. But we're also capable of letting teams that we're significantly more talented than hang around. It's hard to make a run in the tournament that way. Our tournament ceiling is heavily matchup dependent IMO.
And yes, because of the way we recruit, we will be starting all over again next year.
That's been our recruiting philosophy, year in and year out. But people like to discount the fact that Missi and Sochan developed ahead of schedule. Literally no one in the entire world had Sochan, a high 3* prospect from Poland, on their draft board prior to 2022. And he went Top 10. No one had Missi, a 4* prospect who had only played two years of organized basketball and reclassified to join the team this year, as a first round pick, and he will be.
You (and others) are attributing unexpected positive outcomes (players developing and drastically outperforming their recruiting rankings) as intent, when that line of reasoning couldn't be further from the truth. We've never recruited more than one "one-and-done" player in any recruiting class since Drew has been here, and that trend continues next year.
We went from having experienced, largely developmental teams (not unlike this year's Houston squad) to recycling the top of our roster every single season.
You keep holding Houston up as this paragon of team-building. Their roster was constructed mostly by necessity, not by design. Their highest recruited player recently was Jarace Walker, a one-and-done. Their current roster is comprised of fine players, but most of them were guys that they signed after they missed on their top targets, and they got the transfer portal to fill the rest of the class. Most of their transfer guys aren't multi-year guys either, which you've repeatedly criticized us for doing.
All credit to Kelvin Sampson and staff. They've developed well. But you're fooling yourself if you think that they wouldn't have signed higher rated players if they could have.
This idea that we are building our roster the only way we can in the NIL/portal era is bull***** Plain and simple.
We are choosing to rely on one-year players super heavily (freshmen and transfers). And it hasn't worked particularly well for us.
I've consistently said we've chosen to go after one one-and-done player per year, and supplement with 2-4 year guys around that. We've just gotten unlucky, or our staff is elite at identifying and developing talent with guys who they thought would be around for multiple years. I'd imagine it's a bit of both. You're over indexing on that fact and extrapolating it as a fatal flaw in coaching. It's really puzzling, because you're normally a pretty astute observer of the game.
What we're doing doesn't win in college basketball. And it's not how we built any of the teams that made deep tournament runs.
Apparently, our definitions of prominent roles are very different. I'm not talking about having a freshman starter here or there, which several of these have had. I'm talking about having a freshman leading you in field goal attempts, which none of these teams had. Only Duke was even close. I'm talking about having multiple freshman in your top five minutes leaders, which only Duke had.Mitch Henessey said:In the past 10 years, which is an eternity in college basketball:bear2be2 said:I don't think teams with freshmen in prominent roles are built to win in March. It's that simple. And teams with multiple freshman starters are always at a disadvantage to their more experienced peers.Mitch Henessey said:Name one instance I've EVER said this the "only way we can" build a roster. I'll wait.bear2be2 said:It's not just Houston. There are teams all over the country -- and all over our own conference -- with experience. We've lost to several of them.Mitch Henessey said:It's equally as disingenuous to not acknowledge that literally everything about roster building has changed since the time we won a championship.bear2be2 said:We had one one-and-done player in Scott Drew's first 18 years at Baylor (Quincy Miller). There were only two others over that period who were even projected to be (Perry Jones and Isaiah Austin), and both stayed a second year. To act as though our recruiting philosophy hasn't changed since the championship is disingenuous.Mitch Henessey said:I think next year's team can flip the "woe is us, we have to rebuild every year" narrative. Yes, we lose a ton of production, but, we're bringing in a number of multi-year players, along with Edgecombe, who's likely a one-and-done.bear2be2 said:Our issue is that we are elite on one end and below average on the other. We can score on pretty much anyone. We showed this in the second half against Houston, which plays the best defense of any team in the nation. But we give most of what we score back on the other end, which puts us in one close game after another.TeamPlayer said:
We are a really good basketball team. But we're just not elite and have trouble closing out tight games. Our only OT win is vs. the worst team in the Big 12.
I hope Missi and Walter stick around for another year, but both are projected as lottery picks, which is great for them, horrible for us. Recycling our roster every year gives us zero chance for a deep tournament run.
We really can't complain. Houston has 5 seniors in its rotation of 8 players. Our freshman missed a potential game-winning free throw, lost the ball on the way up for a wide open dunk, and had a silly goaltend. It makes a difference.
When you play a bunch of tight games, you're going to lose some.
We can play with anyone in the country. But we're also capable of letting teams that we're significantly more talented than hang around. It's hard to make a run in the tournament that way. Our tournament ceiling is heavily matchup dependent IMO.
And yes, because of the way we recruit, we will be starting all over again next year.
That's been our recruiting philosophy, year in and year out. But people like to discount the fact that Missi and Sochan developed ahead of schedule. Literally no one in the entire world had Sochan, a high 3* prospect from Poland, on their draft board prior to 2022. And he went Top 10. No one had Missi, a 4* prospect who had only played two years of organized basketball and reclassified to join the team this year, as a first round pick, and he will be.
You (and others) are attributing unexpected positive outcomes (players developing and drastically outperforming their recruiting rankings) as intent, when that line of reasoning couldn't be further from the truth. We've never recruited more than one "one-and-done" player in any recruiting class since Drew has been here, and that trend continues next year.
We went from having experienced, largely developmental teams (not unlike this year's Houston squad) to recycling the top of our roster every single season.
You keep holding Houston up as this paragon of team-building. Their roster was constructed mostly by necessity, not by design. Their highest recruited player recently was Jarace Walker, a one-and-done. Their current roster is comprised of fine players, but most of them were guys that they signed after they missed on their top targets, and they got the transfer portal to fill the rest of the class. Most of their transfer guys aren't multi-year guys either, which you've repeatedly criticized us for doing.
All credit to Kelvin Sampson and staff. They've developed well. But you're fooling yourself if you think that they wouldn't have signed higher rated players if they could have.
This idea that we are building our roster the only way we can in the NIL/portal era is bull***** Plain and simple.
We are choosing to rely on one-year players super heavily (freshmen and transfers). And it hasn't worked particularly well for us.
I've consistently said we've chosen to go after one one-and-done player per year, and supplement with 2-4 year guys around that. We've just gotten unlucky, or our staff is elite at identifying and developing talent with guys who they thought would be around for multiple years. I'd imagine it's a bit of both. You're over indexing on that fact and extrapolating it as a fatal flaw in coaching. It's really puzzling, because you're normally a pretty astute observer of the game.
What we're doing doesn't win in college basketball. And it's not how we built any of the teams that made deep tournament runs.
2015 Duke - 3 freshmen in prominent roles (Jahlil Okafor, Justice Winslow, Tyus Jones)
2016 Villanova - 2 freshmen (Jalen Brunson, Mikal Bridges)
2017 North Carolina - 1 freshman (Tony Bradley)
2018 Villanova - 2 freshmen (Omari Spellman, Collin Gillespie)
2019 Virginia - 1 freshman (Kihei Clark)
2021 Baylor - 0 freshmen
2022 Kansas - 0 freshmen
2023 UConn - 2 freshmen (Alex Karaban, Donovan Clingan)
So, there's two teams in ten years that haven't heavily featured at least one freshman or more in key roles. One happens to be us. You can say, "I don't like teams that rely on freshmen in key roles." But you cannot state, "what we're doing doesn't win in college basketball," because that's just pulling stuff out of thin air, and it's not backed by reality.
If a freshman is in your top 7 in your rotation, that's a prominent role. Full stop. Other than KU this season, I cannot think of a single high level team that doesn't go 7-deep.bear2be2 said:Apparently, our definitions of prominent roles are very different. I'm not talking about having a freshman starter here or there, which several of these have had. I'm talking about having a freshman leading you in field goal attempts, which only Duke had on this list. I'm talking about having multiple freshman in your top five minutes leaders, which none of these teams had. Only Duke was even close.Mitch Henessey said:In the past 10 years, which is an eternity in college basketball:bear2be2 said:I don't think teams with freshmen in prominent roles are built to win in March. It's that simple. And teams with multiple freshman starters are always at a disadvantage to their more experienced peers.Mitch Henessey said:Name one instance I've EVER said this the "only way we can" build a roster. I'll wait.bear2be2 said:It's not just Houston. There are teams all over the country -- and all over our own conference -- with experience. We've lost to several of them.Mitch Henessey said:It's equally as disingenuous to not acknowledge that literally everything about roster building has changed since the time we won a championship.bear2be2 said:We had one one-and-done player in Scott Drew's first 18 years at Baylor (Quincy Miller). There were only two others over that period who were even projected to be (Perry Jones and Isaiah Austin), and both stayed a second year. To act as though our recruiting philosophy hasn't changed since the championship is disingenuous.Mitch Henessey said:I think next year's team can flip the "woe is us, we have to rebuild every year" narrative. Yes, we lose a ton of production, but, we're bringing in a number of multi-year players, along with Edgecombe, who's likely a one-and-done.bear2be2 said:Our issue is that we are elite on one end and below average on the other. We can score on pretty much anyone. We showed this in the second half against Houston, which plays the best defense of any team in the nation. But we give most of what we score back on the other end, which puts us in one close game after another.TeamPlayer said:
We are a really good basketball team. But we're just not elite and have trouble closing out tight games. Our only OT win is vs. the worst team in the Big 12.
I hope Missi and Walter stick around for another year, but both are projected as lottery picks, which is great for them, horrible for us. Recycling our roster every year gives us zero chance for a deep tournament run.
We really can't complain. Houston has 5 seniors in its rotation of 8 players. Our freshman missed a potential game-winning free throw, lost the ball on the way up for a wide open dunk, and had a silly goaltend. It makes a difference.
When you play a bunch of tight games, you're going to lose some.
We can play with anyone in the country. But we're also capable of letting teams that we're significantly more talented than hang around. It's hard to make a run in the tournament that way. Our tournament ceiling is heavily matchup dependent IMO.
And yes, because of the way we recruit, we will be starting all over again next year.
That's been our recruiting philosophy, year in and year out. But people like to discount the fact that Missi and Sochan developed ahead of schedule. Literally no one in the entire world had Sochan, a high 3* prospect from Poland, on their draft board prior to 2022. And he went Top 10. No one had Missi, a 4* prospect who had only played two years of organized basketball and reclassified to join the team this year, as a first round pick, and he will be.
You (and others) are attributing unexpected positive outcomes (players developing and drastically outperforming their recruiting rankings) as intent, when that line of reasoning couldn't be further from the truth. We've never recruited more than one "one-and-done" player in any recruiting class since Drew has been here, and that trend continues next year.
We went from having experienced, largely developmental teams (not unlike this year's Houston squad) to recycling the top of our roster every single season.
You keep holding Houston up as this paragon of team-building. Their roster was constructed mostly by necessity, not by design. Their highest recruited player recently was Jarace Walker, a one-and-done. Their current roster is comprised of fine players, but most of them were guys that they signed after they missed on their top targets, and they got the transfer portal to fill the rest of the class. Most of their transfer guys aren't multi-year guys either, which you've repeatedly criticized us for doing.
All credit to Kelvin Sampson and staff. They've developed well. But you're fooling yourself if you think that they wouldn't have signed higher rated players if they could have.
This idea that we are building our roster the only way we can in the NIL/portal era is bull***** Plain and simple.
We are choosing to rely on one-year players super heavily (freshmen and transfers). And it hasn't worked particularly well for us.
I've consistently said we've chosen to go after one one-and-done player per year, and supplement with 2-4 year guys around that. We've just gotten unlucky, or our staff is elite at identifying and developing talent with guys who they thought would be around for multiple years. I'd imagine it's a bit of both. You're over indexing on that fact and extrapolating it as a fatal flaw in coaching. It's really puzzling, because you're normally a pretty astute observer of the game.
What we're doing doesn't win in college basketball. And it's not how we built any of the teams that made deep tournament runs.
2015 Duke - 3 freshmen in prominent roles (Jahlil Okafor, Justice Winslow, Tyus Jones)
2016 Villanova - 2 freshmen (Jalen Brunson, Mikal Bridges)
2017 North Carolina - 1 freshman (Tony Bradley)
2018 Villanova - 2 freshmen (Omari Spellman, Collin Gillespie)
2019 Virginia - 1 freshman (Kihei Clark)
2021 Baylor - 0 freshmen
2022 Kansas - 0 freshmen
2023 UConn - 2 freshmen (Alex Karaban, Donovan Clingan)
So, there's two teams in ten years that haven't heavily featured at least one freshman or more in key roles. One happens to be us. You can say, "I don't like teams that rely on freshmen in key roles." But you cannot state, "what we're doing doesn't win in college basketball," because that's just pulling stuff out of thin air, and it's not backed by reality.
I think our best use of a one-and-done talent in the Scott Drew era was Quincy Miller, who was the fifth-best player on that team and relied on only to do what he did well -- score the basketball. I'm fine with freshman role players. Freshmen should not be leading your team in any usage category.
2016 -- Brunson and Bridges were fourth and seventh in field goal attempts for Nova.
2017 -- Bradley was tied for seventh in field goal attempts for UNC.
2018 -- Spellman and Gillespie were fourth and seventh in field goal attempts for Nova.
2019 -- Clark was sixth in field goal attempts for Virginia
2020 -- Baylor didn't rely on any freshman
2021 -- Kansas didn't rely on any freshman
2022 -- Karaban and Clingan were fourth and eighth in field goal attempts for UConn
You're proving my point. Of these teams, none won the way we've tried to win the last three years. They had talented freshmen role players, which is fine. We're recruiting freshman to be heavy-minutes, heavy-usage guys. And almost none have been consistently up to that task.
No spleen here, just pointing out your hypocrisy. And the fact that Jesus' exact words were for you to gouge your eye out. Better get to it.Oldbear83 said:Telling that you follow me to a sports thread to vent your spleen on a religious discussion.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Yes, he does. In its context.Oldbear83 said:So He does not mean what He says about what he wants us to do?BusyTarpDuster2017 said:I wish you'd realize that about Jesus' words too.Oldbear83 said:
Context matters, son.
Have you gouged out your eyeball yet?
Context matters, son.
Having a role and having a prominent role are not the same things. Being a rotation player is not a prominent role. My goalposts have never moved. My opinions on freshmen in college basketball are well established and exceptionally consistent.Mitch Henessey said:If a freshman is in your top 7 in your rotation, that's a prominent role. Full stop. Other than KU this season, I cannot think of a single high level team that doesn't go 7-deep.bear2be2 said:Apparently, our definitions of prominent roles are very different. I'm not talking about having a freshman starter here or there, which several of these have had. I'm talking about having a freshman leading you in field goal attempts, which only Duke had on this list. I'm talking about having multiple freshman in your top five minutes leaders, which none of these teams had. Only Duke was even close.Mitch Henessey said:In the past 10 years, which is an eternity in college basketball:bear2be2 said:I don't think teams with freshmen in prominent roles are built to win in March. It's that simple. And teams with multiple freshman starters are always at a disadvantage to their more experienced peers.Mitch Henessey said:Name one instance I've EVER said this the "only way we can" build a roster. I'll wait.bear2be2 said:It's not just Houston. There are teams all over the country -- and all over our own conference -- with experience. We've lost to several of them.Mitch Henessey said:It's equally as disingenuous to not acknowledge that literally everything about roster building has changed since the time we won a championship.bear2be2 said:We had one one-and-done player in Scott Drew's first 18 years at Baylor (Quincy Miller). There were only two others over that period who were even projected to be (Perry Jones and Isaiah Austin), and both stayed a second year. To act as though our recruiting philosophy hasn't changed since the championship is disingenuous.Mitch Henessey said:I think next year's team can flip the "woe is us, we have to rebuild every year" narrative. Yes, we lose a ton of production, but, we're bringing in a number of multi-year players, along with Edgecombe, who's likely a one-and-done.bear2be2 said:Our issue is that we are elite on one end and below average on the other. We can score on pretty much anyone. We showed this in the second half against Houston, which plays the best defense of any team in the nation. But we give most of what we score back on the other end, which puts us in one close game after another.TeamPlayer said:
We are a really good basketball team. But we're just not elite and have trouble closing out tight games. Our only OT win is vs. the worst team in the Big 12.
I hope Missi and Walter stick around for another year, but both are projected as lottery picks, which is great for them, horrible for us. Recycling our roster every year gives us zero chance for a deep tournament run.
We really can't complain. Houston has 5 seniors in its rotation of 8 players. Our freshman missed a potential game-winning free throw, lost the ball on the way up for a wide open dunk, and had a silly goaltend. It makes a difference.
When you play a bunch of tight games, you're going to lose some.
We can play with anyone in the country. But we're also capable of letting teams that we're significantly more talented than hang around. It's hard to make a run in the tournament that way. Our tournament ceiling is heavily matchup dependent IMO.
And yes, because of the way we recruit, we will be starting all over again next year.
That's been our recruiting philosophy, year in and year out. But people like to discount the fact that Missi and Sochan developed ahead of schedule. Literally no one in the entire world had Sochan, a high 3* prospect from Poland, on their draft board prior to 2022. And he went Top 10. No one had Missi, a 4* prospect who had only played two years of organized basketball and reclassified to join the team this year, as a first round pick, and he will be.
You (and others) are attributing unexpected positive outcomes (players developing and drastically outperforming their recruiting rankings) as intent, when that line of reasoning couldn't be further from the truth. We've never recruited more than one "one-and-done" player in any recruiting class since Drew has been here, and that trend continues next year.
We went from having experienced, largely developmental teams (not unlike this year's Houston squad) to recycling the top of our roster every single season.
You keep holding Houston up as this paragon of team-building. Their roster was constructed mostly by necessity, not by design. Their highest recruited player recently was Jarace Walker, a one-and-done. Their current roster is comprised of fine players, but most of them were guys that they signed after they missed on their top targets, and they got the transfer portal to fill the rest of the class. Most of their transfer guys aren't multi-year guys either, which you've repeatedly criticized us for doing.
All credit to Kelvin Sampson and staff. They've developed well. But you're fooling yourself if you think that they wouldn't have signed higher rated players if they could have.
This idea that we are building our roster the only way we can in the NIL/portal era is bull***** Plain and simple.
We are choosing to rely on one-year players super heavily (freshmen and transfers). And it hasn't worked particularly well for us.
I've consistently said we've chosen to go after one one-and-done player per year, and supplement with 2-4 year guys around that. We've just gotten unlucky, or our staff is elite at identifying and developing talent with guys who they thought would be around for multiple years. I'd imagine it's a bit of both. You're over indexing on that fact and extrapolating it as a fatal flaw in coaching. It's really puzzling, because you're normally a pretty astute observer of the game.
What we're doing doesn't win in college basketball. And it's not how we built any of the teams that made deep tournament runs.
2015 Duke - 3 freshmen in prominent roles (Jahlil Okafor, Justice Winslow, Tyus Jones)
2016 Villanova - 2 freshmen (Jalen Brunson, Mikal Bridges)
2017 North Carolina - 1 freshman (Tony Bradley)
2018 Villanova - 2 freshmen (Omari Spellman, Collin Gillespie)
2019 Virginia - 1 freshman (Kihei Clark)
2021 Baylor - 0 freshmen
2022 Kansas - 0 freshmen
2023 UConn - 2 freshmen (Alex Karaban, Donovan Clingan)
So, there's two teams in ten years that haven't heavily featured at least one freshman or more in key roles. One happens to be us. You can say, "I don't like teams that rely on freshmen in key roles." But you cannot state, "what we're doing doesn't win in college basketball," because that's just pulling stuff out of thin air, and it's not backed by reality.
I think our best use of a one-and-done talent in the Scott Drew era was Quincy Miller, who was the fifth-best player on that team and relied on only to do what he did well -- score the basketball. I'm fine with freshman role players. Freshmen should not be leading your team in any usage category.
2016 -- Brunson and Bridges were fourth and seventh in field goal attempts for Nova.
2017 -- Bradley was tied for seventh in field goal attempts for UNC.
2018 -- Spellman and Gillespie were fourth and seventh in field goal attempts for Nova.
2019 -- Clark was sixth in field goal attempts for Virginia
2020 -- Baylor didn't rely on any freshman
2021 -- Kansas didn't rely on any freshman
2022 -- Karaban and Clingan were fourth and eighth in field goal attempts for UConn
You're proving my point. Of these teams, none won the way we've tried to win the last three years. They had talented freshmen role players, which is fine. We're recruiting freshman to be heavy-minutes, heavy-usage guys. And almost none have been consistently up to that task.
You changing the criteria after you get called to the carpet on it is becoming your MO around here lately. It's sad. You're better than that. Be better.
Again, wrong topic. Your spleen is making you miss a good gameBusyTarpDuster2017 said:No spleen here, just pointing out your hypocrisy. And the fact that Jesus' exact words were for you to gouge your eye out. Better get to it.Oldbear83 said:Telling that you follow me to a sports thread to vent your spleen on a religious discussion.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Yes, he does. In its context.Oldbear83 said:So He does not mean what He says about what he wants us to do?BusyTarpDuster2017 said:I wish you'd realize that about Jesus' words too.Oldbear83 said:
Context matters, son.
Have you gouged out your eyeball yet?
Context matters, son.
bear2be2 said:Having a role and having a prominent role are not the same things. Being a rotation player is not a prominent role.Mitch Henessey said:If a freshman is in your top 7 in your rotation, that's a prominent role. Full stop. Other than KU this season, I cannot think of a single high level team that doesn't go 7-deep.bear2be2 said:Apparently, our definitions of prominent roles are very different. I'm not talking about having a freshman starter here or there, which several of these have had. I'm talking about having a freshman leading you in field goal attempts, which only Duke had on this list. I'm talking about having multiple freshman in your top five minutes leaders, which none of these teams had. Only Duke was even close.Mitch Henessey said:In the past 10 years, which is an eternity in college basketball:bear2be2 said:I don't think teams with freshmen in prominent roles are built to win in March. It's that simple. And teams with multiple freshman starters are always at a disadvantage to their more experienced peers.Mitch Henessey said:Name one instance I've EVER said this the "only way we can" build a roster. I'll wait.bear2be2 said:It's not just Houston. There are teams all over the country -- and all over our own conference -- with experience. We've lost to several of them.Mitch Henessey said:It's equally as disingenuous to not acknowledge that literally everything about roster building has changed since the time we won a championship.bear2be2 said:We had one one-and-done player in Scott Drew's first 18 years at Baylor (Quincy Miller). There were only two others over that period who were even projected to be (Perry Jones and Isaiah Austin), and both stayed a second year. To act as though our recruiting philosophy hasn't changed since the championship is disingenuous.Mitch Henessey said:I think next year's team can flip the "woe is us, we have to rebuild every year" narrative. Yes, we lose a ton of production, but, we're bringing in a number of multi-year players, along with Edgecombe, who's likely a one-and-done.bear2be2 said:Our issue is that we are elite on one end and below average on the other. We can score on pretty much anyone. We showed this in the second half against Houston, which plays the best defense of any team in the nation. But we give most of what we score back on the other end, which puts us in one close game after another.TeamPlayer said:
We are a really good basketball team. But we're just not elite and have trouble closing out tight games. Our only OT win is vs. the worst team in the Big 12.
I hope Missi and Walter stick around for another year, but both are projected as lottery picks, which is great for them, horrible for us. Recycling our roster every year gives us zero chance for a deep tournament run.
We really can't complain. Houston has 5 seniors in its rotation of 8 players. Our freshman missed a potential game-winning free throw, lost the ball on the way up for a wide open dunk, and had a silly goaltend. It makes a difference.
When you play a bunch of tight games, you're going to lose some.
We can play with anyone in the country. But we're also capable of letting teams that we're significantly more talented than hang around. It's hard to make a run in the tournament that way. Our tournament ceiling is heavily matchup dependent IMO.
And yes, because of the way we recruit, we will be starting all over again next year.
That's been our recruiting philosophy, year in and year out. But people like to discount the fact that Missi and Sochan developed ahead of schedule. Literally no one in the entire world had Sochan, a high 3* prospect from Poland, on their draft board prior to 2022. And he went Top 10. No one had Missi, a 4* prospect who had only played two years of organized basketball and reclassified to join the team this year, as a first round pick, and he will be.
You (and others) are attributing unexpected positive outcomes (players developing and drastically outperforming their recruiting rankings) as intent, when that line of reasoning couldn't be further from the truth. We've never recruited more than one "one-and-done" player in any recruiting class since Drew has been here, and that trend continues next year.
We went from having experienced, largely developmental teams (not unlike this year's Houston squad) to recycling the top of our roster every single season.
You keep holding Houston up as this paragon of team-building. Their roster was constructed mostly by necessity, not by design. Their highest recruited player recently was Jarace Walker, a one-and-done. Their current roster is comprised of fine players, but most of them were guys that they signed after they missed on their top targets, and they got the transfer portal to fill the rest of the class. Most of their transfer guys aren't multi-year guys either, which you've repeatedly criticized us for doing.
All credit to Kelvin Sampson and staff. They've developed well. But you're fooling yourself if you think that they wouldn't have signed higher rated players if they could have.
This idea that we are building our roster the only way we can in the NIL/portal era is bull***** Plain and simple.
We are choosing to rely on one-year players super heavily (freshmen and transfers). And it hasn't worked particularly well for us.
I've consistently said we've chosen to go after one one-and-done player per year, and supplement with 2-4 year guys around that. We've just gotten unlucky, or our staff is elite at identifying and developing talent with guys who they thought would be around for multiple years. I'd imagine it's a bit of both. You're over indexing on that fact and extrapolating it as a fatal flaw in coaching. It's really puzzling, because you're normally a pretty astute observer of the game.
What we're doing doesn't win in college basketball. And it's not how we built any of the teams that made deep tournament runs.
2015 Duke - 3 freshmen in prominent roles (Jahlil Okafor, Justice Winslow, Tyus Jones)
2016 Villanova - 2 freshmen (Jalen Brunson, Mikal Bridges)
2017 North Carolina - 1 freshman (Tony Bradley)
2018 Villanova - 2 freshmen (Omari Spellman, Collin Gillespie)
2019 Virginia - 1 freshman (Kihei Clark)
2021 Baylor - 0 freshmen
2022 Kansas - 0 freshmen
2023 UConn - 2 freshmen (Alex Karaban, Donovan Clingan)
So, there's two teams in ten years that haven't heavily featured at least one freshman or more in key roles. One happens to be us. You can say, "I don't like teams that rely on freshmen in key roles." But you cannot state, "what we're doing doesn't win in college basketball," because that's just pulling stuff out of thin air, and it's not backed by reality.
I think our best use of a one-and-done talent in the Scott Drew era was Quincy Miller, who was the fifth-best player on that team and relied on only to do what he did well -- score the basketball. I'm fine with freshman role players. Freshmen should not be leading your team in any usage category.
2016 -- Brunson and Bridges were fourth and seventh in field goal attempts for Nova.
2017 -- Bradley was tied for seventh in field goal attempts for UNC.
2018 -- Spellman and Gillespie were fourth and seventh in field goal attempts for Nova.
2019 -- Clark was sixth in field goal attempts for Virginia
2020 -- Baylor didn't rely on any freshman
2021 -- Kansas didn't rely on any freshman
2022 -- Karaban and Clingan were fourth and eighth in field goal attempts for UConn
You're proving my point. Of these teams, none won the way we've tried to win the last three years. They had talented freshmen role players, which is fine. We're recruiting freshman to be heavy-minutes, heavy-usage guys. And almost none have been consistently up to that task.
You changing the criteria after you get called to the carpet on it is becoming your MO around here lately. It's sad. You're better than that. Be better.
You're just being obtuse at this point.Mitch Henessey said:bear2be2 said:Having a role and having a prominent role are not the same things. Being a rotation player is not a prominent role.Mitch Henessey said:If a freshman is in your top 7 in your rotation, that's a prominent role. Full stop. Other than KU this season, I cannot think of a single high level team that doesn't go 7-deep.bear2be2 said:Apparently, our definitions of prominent roles are very different. I'm not talking about having a freshman starter here or there, which several of these have had. I'm talking about having a freshman leading you in field goal attempts, which only Duke had on this list. I'm talking about having multiple freshman in your top five minutes leaders, which none of these teams had. Only Duke was even close.Mitch Henessey said:In the past 10 years, which is an eternity in college basketball:bear2be2 said:I don't think teams with freshmen in prominent roles are built to win in March. It's that simple. And teams with multiple freshman starters are always at a disadvantage to their more experienced peers.Mitch Henessey said:Name one instance I've EVER said this the "only way we can" build a roster. I'll wait.bear2be2 said:It's not just Houston. There are teams all over the country -- and all over our own conference -- with experience. We've lost to several of them.Mitch Henessey said:It's equally as disingenuous to not acknowledge that literally everything about roster building has changed since the time we won a championship.bear2be2 said:We had one one-and-done player in Scott Drew's first 18 years at Baylor (Quincy Miller). There were only two others over that period who were even projected to be (Perry Jones and Isaiah Austin), and both stayed a second year. To act as though our recruiting philosophy hasn't changed since the championship is disingenuous.Mitch Henessey said:I think next year's team can flip the "woe is us, we have to rebuild every year" narrative. Yes, we lose a ton of production, but, we're bringing in a number of multi-year players, along with Edgecombe, who's likely a one-and-done.bear2be2 said:Our issue is that we are elite on one end and below average on the other. We can score on pretty much anyone. We showed this in the second half against Houston, which plays the best defense of any team in the nation. But we give most of what we score back on the other end, which puts us in one close game after another.TeamPlayer said:
We are a really good basketball team. But we're just not elite and have trouble closing out tight games. Our only OT win is vs. the worst team in the Big 12.
I hope Missi and Walter stick around for another year, but both are projected as lottery picks, which is great for them, horrible for us. Recycling our roster every year gives us zero chance for a deep tournament run.
We really can't complain. Houston has 5 seniors in its rotation of 8 players. Our freshman missed a potential game-winning free throw, lost the ball on the way up for a wide open dunk, and had a silly goaltend. It makes a difference.
When you play a bunch of tight games, you're going to lose some.
We can play with anyone in the country. But we're also capable of letting teams that we're significantly more talented than hang around. It's hard to make a run in the tournament that way. Our tournament ceiling is heavily matchup dependent IMO.
And yes, because of the way we recruit, we will be starting all over again next year.
That's been our recruiting philosophy, year in and year out. But people like to discount the fact that Missi and Sochan developed ahead of schedule. Literally no one in the entire world had Sochan, a high 3* prospect from Poland, on their draft board prior to 2022. And he went Top 10. No one had Missi, a 4* prospect who had only played two years of organized basketball and reclassified to join the team this year, as a first round pick, and he will be.
You (and others) are attributing unexpected positive outcomes (players developing and drastically outperforming their recruiting rankings) as intent, when that line of reasoning couldn't be further from the truth. We've never recruited more than one "one-and-done" player in any recruiting class since Drew has been here, and that trend continues next year.
We went from having experienced, largely developmental teams (not unlike this year's Houston squad) to recycling the top of our roster every single season.
You keep holding Houston up as this paragon of team-building. Their roster was constructed mostly by necessity, not by design. Their highest recruited player recently was Jarace Walker, a one-and-done. Their current roster is comprised of fine players, but most of them were guys that they signed after they missed on their top targets, and they got the transfer portal to fill the rest of the class. Most of their transfer guys aren't multi-year guys either, which you've repeatedly criticized us for doing.
All credit to Kelvin Sampson and staff. They've developed well. But you're fooling yourself if you think that they wouldn't have signed higher rated players if they could have.
This idea that we are building our roster the only way we can in the NIL/portal era is bull***** Plain and simple.
We are choosing to rely on one-year players super heavily (freshmen and transfers). And it hasn't worked particularly well for us.
I've consistently said we've chosen to go after one one-and-done player per year, and supplement with 2-4 year guys around that. We've just gotten unlucky, or our staff is elite at identifying and developing talent with guys who they thought would be around for multiple years. I'd imagine it's a bit of both. You're over indexing on that fact and extrapolating it as a fatal flaw in coaching. It's really puzzling, because you're normally a pretty astute observer of the game.
What we're doing doesn't win in college basketball. And it's not how we built any of the teams that made deep tournament runs.
2015 Duke - 3 freshmen in prominent roles (Jahlil Okafor, Justice Winslow, Tyus Jones)
2016 Villanova - 2 freshmen (Jalen Brunson, Mikal Bridges)
2017 North Carolina - 1 freshman (Tony Bradley)
2018 Villanova - 2 freshmen (Omari Spellman, Collin Gillespie)
2019 Virginia - 1 freshman (Kihei Clark)
2021 Baylor - 0 freshmen
2022 Kansas - 0 freshmen
2023 UConn - 2 freshmen (Alex Karaban, Donovan Clingan)
So, there's two teams in ten years that haven't heavily featured at least one freshman or more in key roles. One happens to be us. You can say, "I don't like teams that rely on freshmen in key roles." But you cannot state, "what we're doing doesn't win in college basketball," because that's just pulling stuff out of thin air, and it's not backed by reality.
I think our best use of a one-and-done talent in the Scott Drew era was Quincy Miller, who was the fifth-best player on that team and relied on only to do what he did well -- score the basketball. I'm fine with freshman role players. Freshmen should not be leading your team in any usage category.
2016 -- Brunson and Bridges were fourth and seventh in field goal attempts for Nova.
2017 -- Bradley was tied for seventh in field goal attempts for UNC.
2018 -- Spellman and Gillespie were fourth and seventh in field goal attempts for Nova.
2019 -- Clark was sixth in field goal attempts for Virginia
2020 -- Baylor didn't rely on any freshman
2021 -- Kansas didn't rely on any freshman
2022 -- Karaban and Clingan were fourth and eighth in field goal attempts for UConn
You're proving my point. Of these teams, none won the way we've tried to win the last three years. They had talented freshmen role players, which is fine. We're recruiting freshman to be heavy-minutes, heavy-usage guys. And almost none have been consistently up to that task.
You changing the criteria after you get called to the carpet on it is becoming your MO around here lately. It's sad. You're better than that. Be better.
Ok, man.bear2be2 said:You're just being obtuse at this point.Mitch Henessey said:bear2be2 said:Having a role and having a prominent role are not the same things. Being a rotation player is not a prominent role.Mitch Henessey said:If a freshman is in your top 7 in your rotation, that's a prominent role. Full stop. Other than KU this season, I cannot think of a single high level team that doesn't go 7-deep.bear2be2 said:Apparently, our definitions of prominent roles are very different. I'm not talking about having a freshman starter here or there, which several of these have had. I'm talking about having a freshman leading you in field goal attempts, which only Duke had on this list. I'm talking about having multiple freshman in your top five minutes leaders, which none of these teams had. Only Duke was even close.Mitch Henessey said:In the past 10 years, which is an eternity in college basketball:bear2be2 said:I don't think teams with freshmen in prominent roles are built to win in March. It's that simple. And teams with multiple freshman starters are always at a disadvantage to their more experienced peers.Mitch Henessey said:Name one instance I've EVER said this the "only way we can" build a roster. I'll wait.bear2be2 said:It's not just Houston. There are teams all over the country -- and all over our own conference -- with experience. We've lost to several of them.Mitch Henessey said:It's equally as disingenuous to not acknowledge that literally everything about roster building has changed since the time we won a championship.bear2be2 said:We had one one-and-done player in Scott Drew's first 18 years at Baylor (Quincy Miller). There were only two others over that period who were even projected to be (Perry Jones and Isaiah Austin), and both stayed a second year. To act as though our recruiting philosophy hasn't changed since the championship is disingenuous.Mitch Henessey said:I think next year's team can flip the "woe is us, we have to rebuild every year" narrative. Yes, we lose a ton of production, but, we're bringing in a number of multi-year players, along with Edgecombe, who's likely a one-and-done.bear2be2 said:Our issue is that we are elite on one end and below average on the other. We can score on pretty much anyone. We showed this in the second half against Houston, which plays the best defense of any team in the nation. But we give most of what we score back on the other end, which puts us in one close game after another.TeamPlayer said:
We are a really good basketball team. But we're just not elite and have trouble closing out tight games. Our only OT win is vs. the worst team in the Big 12.
I hope Missi and Walter stick around for another year, but both are projected as lottery picks, which is great for them, horrible for us. Recycling our roster every year gives us zero chance for a deep tournament run.
We really can't complain. Houston has 5 seniors in its rotation of 8 players. Our freshman missed a potential game-winning free throw, lost the ball on the way up for a wide open dunk, and had a silly goaltend. It makes a difference.
When you play a bunch of tight games, you're going to lose some.
We can play with anyone in the country. But we're also capable of letting teams that we're significantly more talented than hang around. It's hard to make a run in the tournament that way. Our tournament ceiling is heavily matchup dependent IMO.
And yes, because of the way we recruit, we will be starting all over again next year.
That's been our recruiting philosophy, year in and year out. But people like to discount the fact that Missi and Sochan developed ahead of schedule. Literally no one in the entire world had Sochan, a high 3* prospect from Poland, on their draft board prior to 2022. And he went Top 10. No one had Missi, a 4* prospect who had only played two years of organized basketball and reclassified to join the team this year, as a first round pick, and he will be.
You (and others) are attributing unexpected positive outcomes (players developing and drastically outperforming their recruiting rankings) as intent, when that line of reasoning couldn't be further from the truth. We've never recruited more than one "one-and-done" player in any recruiting class since Drew has been here, and that trend continues next year.
We went from having experienced, largely developmental teams (not unlike this year's Houston squad) to recycling the top of our roster every single season.
You keep holding Houston up as this paragon of team-building. Their roster was constructed mostly by necessity, not by design. Their highest recruited player recently was Jarace Walker, a one-and-done. Their current roster is comprised of fine players, but most of them were guys that they signed after they missed on their top targets, and they got the transfer portal to fill the rest of the class. Most of their transfer guys aren't multi-year guys either, which you've repeatedly criticized us for doing.
All credit to Kelvin Sampson and staff. They've developed well. But you're fooling yourself if you think that they wouldn't have signed higher rated players if they could have.
This idea that we are building our roster the only way we can in the NIL/portal era is bull***** Plain and simple.
We are choosing to rely on one-year players super heavily (freshmen and transfers). And it hasn't worked particularly well for us.
I've consistently said we've chosen to go after one one-and-done player per year, and supplement with 2-4 year guys around that. We've just gotten unlucky, or our staff is elite at identifying and developing talent with guys who they thought would be around for multiple years. I'd imagine it's a bit of both. You're over indexing on that fact and extrapolating it as a fatal flaw in coaching. It's really puzzling, because you're normally a pretty astute observer of the game.
What we're doing doesn't win in college basketball. And it's not how we built any of the teams that made deep tournament runs.
2015 Duke - 3 freshmen in prominent roles (Jahlil Okafor, Justice Winslow, Tyus Jones)
2016 Villanova - 2 freshmen (Jalen Brunson, Mikal Bridges)
2017 North Carolina - 1 freshman (Tony Bradley)
2018 Villanova - 2 freshmen (Omari Spellman, Collin Gillespie)
2019 Virginia - 1 freshman (Kihei Clark)
2021 Baylor - 0 freshmen
2022 Kansas - 0 freshmen
2023 UConn - 2 freshmen (Alex Karaban, Donovan Clingan)
So, there's two teams in ten years that haven't heavily featured at least one freshman or more in key roles. One happens to be us. You can say, "I don't like teams that rely on freshmen in key roles." But you cannot state, "what we're doing doesn't win in college basketball," because that's just pulling stuff out of thin air, and it's not backed by reality.
I think our best use of a one-and-done talent in the Scott Drew era was Quincy Miller, who was the fifth-best player on that team and relied on only to do what he did well -- score the basketball. I'm fine with freshman role players. Freshmen should not be leading your team in any usage category.
2016 -- Brunson and Bridges were fourth and seventh in field goal attempts for Nova.
2017 -- Bradley was tied for seventh in field goal attempts for UNC.
2018 -- Spellman and Gillespie were fourth and seventh in field goal attempts for Nova.
2019 -- Clark was sixth in field goal attempts for Virginia
2020 -- Baylor didn't rely on any freshman
2021 -- Kansas didn't rely on any freshman
2022 -- Karaban and Clingan were fourth and eighth in field goal attempts for UConn
You're proving my point. Of these teams, none won the way we've tried to win the last three years. They had talented freshmen role players, which is fine. We're recruiting freshman to be heavy-minutes, heavy-usage guys. And almost none have been consistently up to that task.
You changing the criteria after you get called to the carpet on it is becoming your MO around here lately. It's sad. You're better than that. Be better.
My point has always been about usage rates. Keyonte George and Ja'Kobe Walter's usage rates were/are way to high for a team trying to win a championship.
Kevin Durant, Michael Beasley, Trae Young and Cade Cunningham couldn't get their teams past the first weekend. We're relying as heavily on lesser players to do it for us.
You can watch it with your eyes gouged out?Oldbear83 said:Again, wrong topic. Your spleen is making you miss a good gameBusyTarpDuster2017 said:No spleen here, just pointing out your hypocrisy. And the fact that Jesus' exact words were for you to gouge your eye out. Better get to it.Oldbear83 said:Telling that you follow me to a sports thread to vent your spleen on a religious discussion.BusyTarpDuster2017 said:Yes, he does. In its context.Oldbear83 said:So He does not mean what He says about what he wants us to do?BusyTarpDuster2017 said:I wish you'd realize that about Jesus' words too.Oldbear83 said:
Context matters, son.
Have you gouged out your eyeball yet?
Context matters, son.
This is a good team, and with the right matchups, it could make a deep run in March. I hope we get those matchups and do.TeamPlayer said:
Again, we have a really good team. I wish we were better. We have to keep measured expectations on this team given our youth. And Love keeps getting hurt.
It could be worse. Look at Michigan basketball. Or A&M. Or our own God forsaken football program. Much worse.
