True Grit said:
Blackie,
Serious question... I asked Delmar to share some hope, but crickets...
Are we not wandering in the wilderness now? I just don't see it with CNC and the current direction of the program. And yes... I go to games including yesterday's double header. We can't seem to get out of our way from something as big as getting our roster set for the year to something as small running a basic play at the end of the game.
True,
I don't think it is so much of wandering in the wilderness, but going through the ups and downs of trying to recover from the loss of a HOF coach and having to do it now when you have to buy players and deal with the portal. Others who have lost theirs have taken time (UT over 10 years) to get back to where they were. Tennessee, ND, NC, etc. are still not close to where they were. Even UConn is on the clock, IMO. Geno won't be there much longer. If it happened at Tennessee, it can happen at UConn.
I believe some think that because Baylor had a history of winning under KM, there would be no problem. But those recruits came to Baylor because of the coach, not what was on the front of their jersey. The magnet was the coach, not the school. I know many years ago, I starting thinking about what Baylor would do after KM retired. How could it continue under a "normal" coach....not one that had won multiple championships at a school that previously hadn't won much of anything.
We might have come up with a better plan if the departure was planned like at Tennessee, but even with their advanced notice and their legacy they still are not where they were and have had up and down seasons.
I am concerned about Baylor's future, not because of who is currently coaching, but whether we can commit the monetary resources to attract the kind of players we would need to even approach our past levels. And when UT and OU left, those dollars just got bigger because of the second-rate perception of our conference. When Kim was here we didn't have to worry about portals and NIL and while our conference was not considered top notch, it still had blue-blood names in it. We don't have the bright lights to compete with the SEC and B1G
I mentioned in another thread I could go into why I think expectations of Baylor ever getting back to where we were are conditionally unrealistic because of how the landscape has changed. But that is a very long story.
So, I don't think we are in the "wilderness". I believe we are going through the reality pains of losing KM. You can't just lose a HOF coach, especially in the unexpected manner and the underclassmen roster situation we had at the time and expect to keep the train rolling along as if nothing had happened. That has been shown over and over by other programs experiencing that situation.
We could have hired another elite coach (highly unlikely any would come), but there really are only a handful out there....and even doing that guarantees no success as to whether they could translate their success to another place. UT tried with Goestenkors and that was a disaster.
For me, I try not to worry about comparisons to the past, which I think are not only unfair, but not realistic and realize that we are not the first elite program to have to go through this. Actually, I think we have done pretty good so far just keeping our tournament streak alive. I hope that continues as we try to find our way in this new world of NIL and free agency. UT, ND, and Tennessee all missed the NCAA tourney at some point after losing their HOF coach.
This is already too long and doesn't even go into how we got established under Kim and more into how this new landscape has affected us and our peers in the XII.
Concerning you comment about the last play. Perhaps you could see something at the game, but from my TV, it looked like a pretty good call. Deng just missed the shot. She was right there. I don't know how you could ask for more.
Merry Christmas to you!
