Ashley Hodge said:

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ejboy4410 said:

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What is the likelihood of Josh O coming back and of him being able to play next year?

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Josh isn't the issue, he loves Baylor and the coaches love him.

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Ya, I understand what you're saying.

In general I'm biased towards as much continuity as possible. I think you need 9 guys that can contribute. I'd love to see Wright, Love, Josh O, Asamota and Celestine come back. Besides Wright, the rest can be key bench contributors that have been in the Baylor system for at least a year. Focus your portal efforts 3 starters (Center, Power Forward and a combo guard) with multiple years of eligibility.

TWD 1974 said:

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TWD 1974 said:

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IowaBear said:

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I'd give my left nut to have another Johnathan Motley.

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I'd settle for another Lomers if he can get here by Saturday.

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Had to check. Old Dominion. 14pts. 12 rebounds. Got us to the sixteen for the first time. Talk about a big win for the program.

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That was such a great game and performance by Lomers, I was in the sub watching it at a watch party. Such a hype moment to watch that and Kansas fall together.

Still love seeing Lomers around the program he's the man.

Wright is the key as several have already mentioned. I would like to see Josh finish his career here and keep developing Asemota. Everyone else is replaceable.

The roster currently has 3 impact players and ideally we would have 5. No reason to focus on transfers with 2 or 3 years of eligibility since the Portal incentivizes movement.

Agree 100%, Ashley, about us trying to recreate the 2021 roster. We need to recalibrate. Having the special blend of those 3 guards of Mitchell, Butler and Teague, really 4 with Flagler added, plus Vital and all he uniquely brought to the table, is not walking through that door again. We need the active, athletic high motor bigs and wings our next opponent UH keeps producing. That is the future as you say.

FFA0329 said:

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Agree 100%, Ashley, about us trying to recreate the 2021 roster. We need to recalibrate. Having the special blend of those 3 guards of Mitchell, Butler and Teague, really 4 with Flagler added, plus Vital and all he uniquely brought to the table, is not walking through that door again. We need the active, athletic high motor bigs and wings our next opponent UH keeps producing. That is the future as you say.

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We had a few of them. Jonathan Tchamwa Tchatchoua got injured catastrophically, and it effectively tanked one season and arguably the next one. Jeremy Sochan and Yves Missi developed so far ahead of schedule that they ended up going pro after one season. Hopefully, Yessoufou can be the next version of that trend, but we need to add 2-3 more big men around him.

And to add to that list, Bridges. He was terrific defensively with his length, ability to defend multiple positions, and ability to get deflections. Losing Josh O was a huge blow obviously, but replacing Bridges with Celestine was a decision that crippled us from the jump.

True. Well said on the last paragraph, I agree. A lot of parallels with Aranda in that way but he had to rightly pivot. Got to keep the main thing the main thing. The rest is great but if they can't play…

Agree on depth too. Will be hard. Probably need a really good scoring guard that isn't Tounde (preferably with size), a big, a wing or 4. All of those need to be solid to very good. That's tough.

Probably also need an additional role playing tough forward for depth. Assuming Carr can spell Wright at point probably okay there. Love totally uncertain but you can't count on him to be a go-to if he is back. Would be a scoring punch guy unless he has a miraculous recovery and defy all odds.

FFA0329 said:

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Agree 100%, Ashley, about us trying to recreate the 2021 roster. We need to recalibrate. Having the special blend of those 3 guards of Mitchell, Butler and Teague, really 4 with Flagler added, plus Vital and all he uniquely brought to the table, is not walking through that door again. We need the active, athletic high motor bigs and wings our next opponent UH keeps producing. That is the future as you say.

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Bingo!

I think some of our fans are in denial, thinking we are right there with UH with guys we already have on the roster like Love, Celestine, Asemota, an injured Josh, etc. or we simply need a couple of transfer pickups.

Meanwhile, the facts are:

-- If we lose tomorrow night (high likely), the best we can finish is a tie for 6th, while the worst is tie for 7th;
-- We will finish NINE games behind UH, after finishing 4 behind them last year;
-- We finish 3 games behind 5th place, so we were nowhere close to that;
-- We literally didn't beat any of the 5 teams who will finish above us;
-- Had we let the TCU game slip away, we could have easily finished in 9th place;
-- and from this team we lose the two players most all of our fans would agree are the best two: Edgecombe and Omier.


Pretty much everyone in the Big 12 has a "good" roster. If you want to be where Houston is, you need to have a fully functional roster with a great player or two and supported by some really good high motor athletic players. Hell, even the Saunders kid from BYU made us look slow and lacking of motor. We have a potentially great player in Wright next year. But that's pretty much where it ends. Maybe Yessoufou will surprise and perform at a high level?

While the concept of continuity is nice, if there isn't a significant talent infusion from the transfer portal this ship is sailing straight for the middle of pack or even lower again next year. I'm okay with that if the talent infusion is such that it represents guys we can grow with for a couple of years and we truly are building for the future or can display some type of viable roster construction strategy to carry us into the future.

Drew and his coaching style are what they are. I've come to accept the defensive skills of the '20 through '22 squads were almost entirely due to individual player talent rather than coaching so I'm not counting on development there. It will have to come from proper selections of individual defensive skills in the transfer portal. That's why running it back with certain guys who we already know have severe limitations is not the answer. Those guys have already proven they aren't good enough to get you in the Top 5 in the conference.

Excellent post.
One thing I will say is I don't personally think Houston has a great player on their roster. They have a few good players Cryer and Roberts. But this isn't a very talented Houston team. What they are is relentless defensively and on the boards. No team is going to out work Houston. They get beat by team who simply have enough talent to overcome being out worked. Not going to be a popular take but Sampson I think knows how to get more out of his guys than Drew does especially defensively.

Kind of agree but Sampson doesn't have 1 nba guy on his roster (the defensive forward they have could sneak in eventually). The talent level isn't great but the talent is completely maximized.

They have special development, fire, and effort. They have a bunch of solid, solid guys. Gets absolutely every ounce of ability out of those guys, which only happens with continuity. He's only had I think 1 one year guy in forever (we've had 7+?). I think that's why everyone is emphasizing it right now. Also absolutely no wasted roster spots.

But I agree the talent level needs to increase broadly. Omier and VJ are top 10 in the country for best 1/2 combo. After that the drop off is way too steep. Way too poor from 3, not enough shot makers. Not enough naturally fiery guys.

We actually have something very attractive to transfers: a proven winning coach, an elite atmosphere and conference, and PLAYING TIME.

The pendulum has swung too much in the other direction with this fanbase. Yes, Drew isn't a hardass, defensive-minded first, second, and third, toughness over everything coach like Sampson. But the man can coach defense. He completely remade the 2009-2010 team on the fly and had them playing lights out zone defense.

He was the one who initiated the switch to "no middle" defense in 2019-2020. He didn't create the defense, but it worked with our personnel, and he recognized that. We're not going to be a great defensive team every year, but acting like Drew is a subpar defensive coach is doing him a tremendous disservice.

Even this year's team, who no one would argue is a plus defensive team, is squarely in the middle of the pack when it comes to teams in tourney contention.

Mitch Henessey said:

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The pendulum has swung too much in the other direction with this fanbase. Yes, Drew isn't a hardass, defensive-minded first, second, and third, toughness over everything coach like Sampson. But the man can coach defense. He completely remade the 2009-2010 team on the fly and had them playing lights out zone defense.

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I don't support going that far as those teams rarely win national titles. Offensive talent with toughness is probably the best combo. But we all want to see consistent effort and it's just too sporadic. I also consider sustained concentration part of that.

The issue is if you look at the defensive metrics on Bu since 10', more often than not they aren't very good. No doubt they've had some good units mixed in. From 20-22 they were elite. But the data just doesn't support consistency and that's the frustration.

No reason the defense shouldn't be top 50 every year. Top 25 at least half the time.

Quinton said:

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Mitch Henessey said:

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The pendulum has swung too much in the other direction with this fanbase. Yes, Drew isn't a hardass, defensive-minded first, second, and third, toughness over everything coach like Sampson. But the man can coach defense. He completely remade the 2009-2010 team on the fly and had them playing lights out zone defense.

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I don't support going that far as those teams rarely win national titles. Offensive talent with toughness is probably the best combo. But we all want to see consistent effort and it's just too sporadic. I also consider sustained concentration part of that.

The issue is if you look at the defensive metrics on Bu since 10', more often than not they aren't very good. No doubt they've had some good units mixed in. From 20-22 they were elite. But the data just doesn't support consistency and that's the frustration.

No reason the defense shouldn't be top 50 every year. Top 25 at least half the time.

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We're 62nd on defense this year, according to KenPom. If we were top 50, we'd no doubt be a lock tourney team. The margins when you're not a top 20 team really are razor thin.