You mean kids struggling to play a full game after recovering for illness means the second half gets sloppy? Color me shocked. Jack’s first chance to have a full recruiting cycle and develop kids we have our first winning season in over a decade. Based on signings, we’re looking at continuing the upward trend. But let me guess, you thinks it’s ugly because it’s not what Miami basketball looked like in 1999. You don’t care we’re one of the best teams at protecting the basketball, you care that we don’t have a huge center and don’t run high-low every time down the court.
1 Like
How many programs in the MAC have had their leading post player miss workouts from COVID? And their leading scorer right before conference play started? And then another top scorer? This is sports now. Since 2020 it hasn’t been about who’s best, it’s been about who’s available. The same Precious Ayah that everyone complained about when he joined because of how awkward and unathletic he looked is one of the best post defenders in the MAC. There’s one person I can point to on the team and say they haven’t improved under Owens. Not many teams can say that. As someone who loves analytics, numbers need context. And ignoring the impact of COVID on the roster is silly.
1 Like
Yeah, and look where the eagles are. Meanwhile the Bengals stuck with a coach because his quarterback blew out a knee and the roster had other issues. One of them is still in the playoffs and in a great position for years to come. The other isn’t.
Nobody improved under Marvin Lewis. Marvin was predictable. Marvin never adapted as the sport around him changed. Sounds like a lot of folks here.
1 Like
Fair point. Change is hard for anyone, even those who demand change. While I don’t think you can ever ask for or want unified agreement on any topic save for a few, (as that would be the epitome of boring) I think it’s great that people care enough to engage as that’s darn hard to do given the attention span most of us have today is not unlike a house fly’s. That you have created a forum where people care on any level about anything is a win in my book.
I am not one of those who has commented much (if at all) as to the talent level Jack has been able to recruit, as I don’t follow college sports in detail enough anymore to form what would pass for a valued opinion.
At the same time, although I am definitely guilty of being one of the nostalgia crowd that frequents these boards, I don’t view myself as unrealistic in expecting Miami to be a cut above mediocre in our major sports. No, I am not expecting the next coming of Wally and the 1999 season as referenced above, but I would be pretty happy with the teams we fielded for most of the early 2000’s up to around 2010.
We had winning records each year between 2003 and 2009 while playing an SOS between 88 and 131… This year our SOS is 304 last time I saw it with a projected year end SOS of 241. Part of that is due to the new landscape of college hoops whereas mid majors have a tough time getting quality OOC D1 opponents. Part of it is due to our fall from grace in hoops which is not Jack’s fault.
All that said, with schedules like these I would hope we’d do a little better, and if Jive’s analysis about the impact of players out with illness is accurate, hopefully we will see a very competitive MAC team as the season Progresses.
I am guessing almost every team in our conference except Toledo has been impacted by covid.
Look I want this group to be successful but why cant we hope for better than this?
And I dont understand the arguments on Beverly-Curry-Weathers. Those 4 guys combined played a grand total of 2 seasons for us. That seems like a lot of wasted effort
Dumb take…
That would be incorrect as always, Jive…I think I was actually in fact dead on on my take of Bellarmine and your precious BPI/predictor…and where this club was headed unfortunately after a tough four to five game losing streak, and that was generally pre-Covid impacts.
Come on…the rest is just fans being fans on a message board and you act like they are shocking takes…it’s easy to be the nice guy continually and not be critical…but there’s no delusion here, nor in the realm of what Steve Kerr would be talking about…Miami has been the worst program in MAC for a decade (no delusion there), having our best winning percentage since 2008 @ potentially one game over 500 is supposed to excite…Miami needs to prove they can win games, string them together and develop some frontcourt players finally.
That’s a bball program…why they (OU) can do that at our sister school…and we cannot, is not acceptable. The Convo is cool, but not that great…while Jack’s a nice guy… at some point you have to not be 7-7, 12-11, 16-15, etc. EVERY SCHOOL in the MAC has had COVID impacts.
Exactly…I don’t recall any of these comments…shit did Curry even suit up here?
I thought we were ALL excited for the answer at PF, that never happened…or am I mixing a recruit up, here? The kid who transferred and played football at UC (now, most thought he needed to drop a couple Lbs…then again he quit bball and smartly played football @ UC, wish it was at Miami but whatever).
If we have a chance tomorrow, our ‘stars’ need to play like them, smart and with a great game plan. Dae Dae and Lairy need to go off, but Dae Dae under control…otherwise we need Dalonte to be 20 and 10 Dalonte.
1 Like
@JiveHawk I like your takes, but this one is putting lipstick on a pig. Miami basketball’s ceiling right now is .500. That’s simply not fun or exciting or something fans need to celebrate or protect.
And as I mentioned earlier, none of our wins are against anyone significant unless you count a weak Georgia Tech team. We are padding our record with losing mid-major teams played in Millett and against D3 programs. If we continue along that track our basketball program will remain irrelevant and we might as well go ahead and add a women’s hockey program to the mix @JiveHawk. At least it would be popular with our majority female student body.
Why do you keep doubling down on such a dumb take? I don’t get it.
1 Like
So what would be so wrong with having a womens hockey team to share Goggin? No need to build any new infrastructure. Miami already has had a championship caliber women’s club hockey team during the past several years. Three ACHA National Championships in four years since 2013. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if you didn’t know this, since you are persistent in arguing that womens hockey is a “dumb idea.”
http://pointstreaksites.com/view/mu_womens/about-us-254/history-230
Women’s hockey is up to 18 scholarships, plus you’d have to pay a coaching staff and the logical conference to join, the WCHA, is all in Minnesota except for OSU and Wisconsin.
In a world where Miami had unlimited resources, sure women’s hockey would be great. But even some of the Big Ten teams with men’s hockey don’t have varsity women’s hockey.
I guess it’s still a man’s world. Right ladies?
That’s not it at all. Miami doesn’t have the resources to add an additional sport right now, especially one that is pretty expensive from a scholarship and travel perspective. That is the same truth for a new men or women’s sport.
Cutting any sport to add a new sport is pretty silly, unless you are cutting a sport losing a lot of money to add a cheaper sport while staying in compliance with NCAA rules. That wouldn’t be the case.
I know all of that, but thanks. And it’s still an incredibly dumb idea.
1 Like
A continuing saga of .500 and below basketball would certainly make it appear so to proponents of a womens team. It we were subsidizing basketball and winning it might look differently. But we’re not.
We can’t drop basketball without leaving the MAC and thus also forfeiting the TV deal, revenue distributions from March Madness and also from the CFP (pretty sure non Notre Dame independents don’t get CFP money).
Also women’s hockey would probably be as expensive
as basketball, or more, with less upside. For example Ohio State is 17-3 this season and averaging just 333 in attendance.
1 Like
IIRC, you were one of the biggest critics of Curry and Barba. Amazing how quickly you forget. “These kids will never turn this program around,” pretty well summarizes your comments on them.
Let me make my point even more obvious. This forum has more threads on kids they think we should’ve offered instead of kids that have committed.
As for “getting excited about .500 basketball,” nobody is saying to get excited about it. What is being said is building a program that has, “been the worst in the MAC in the last decade,” isn’t a one season job. It’s getting players in. It’s hitting .500 for the first time in a decade. It’s then continuing to build on it. Teams that have one breakout season after years of trash go right back to trash. It didn’t build consistency. It doesn’t build culture. It’s beating one team you shouldn’t. Then doing it twice next season. Then having confidence that any game can be a win.
This is how you make .500 basketball your floor.
1 Like
This is a strange hill to die on. Plus, last I checked (just now), Miami has 7 men’s teams and 9 women’s teams.