Houston, we have a problem

[RF1]

The facts:

Miller versus Hurley at the Two year mark

2011-12 | 7-24 | Baron
2012-13 | 8-21 | Hurley
2013-14 | 14-18 | Hurley

2021-22 | 15-16 | Cox
2022-23 | 9-22| | Miller
2023-24 | 11-18 ytd | Miller

Hurley's first two seasons both showed improvement with both being superior to the last year of his predecessor. Miller is still yet to show improvement in either of his first two seasons with both registering less wins than the last year of his predecessor.

[Blue Man]

The facts:

Miller versus Hurley at the Two year mark

2011-12 | 7-24 | Baron
2012-13 | 8-21 | Hurley
2013-14 | 14-18 | Hurley

2021-22 | 15-16 | Cox
2022-23 | 9-22| | Miller
2023-24 | 11-18 ytd | Miller

Hurley's first two seasons both showed improvement with both being superior to the last year of his predecessor. Miller is still yet to show improvement in either of his first two seasons with both registering less wins than the last year of his predecessor.

This is an oversimplification.

Had we let Dave Cox finish out the string it would've looked like Baron for a little until completely falling off a cliff and then having to go find a coach and start a rebuild. So yes, I guess we could've waited out to see how far rock bottom was with Cox and wait until we had a 7 win team. I prefer not waiting to see what we already knew. It saved us several more years of apathy.

People are complacent now? Imagine what another 15 win season would do. You think people would be more excited now for this season or a slightly better record with Dave Cox in year 6? Who was going to be carrying our team? Chance "Sniper" Stephens who was a 37% shooter at Loyola Marymount?

Improvement is improvement. If you're looking at positives - we have an offense that can score. We don't have a defense at all, but the offense is an improvement. We've got more wins than last year.

It's the polar opposite of Dan - where in year 2 we had zero offense and just defensive rock fights to scratch for wins. Now we have firepower, just zero ability to stop anyone. But it's still an overall improvement.

[4Diffs]

Our boosters might have to open their wallets again to make it possible to bring in better talent.

Even then, who wants to join a losing program?

The sad part is the opposite is more likely to happen. The boosters have given like no other time in history and this is the product on the floor. This is by far the most school has ever funded the men's basketball program and they have zero to show for it. Plus there are more pressing needs such as the athletic renovations which these boosters donations may go to. At the end of the day, boosters may have deeper pockets than you and I, but they are fans just like us and many are disgusted with the product on the floor. I am one of them. Now you want them to reach deeper into their pockets? I think that will be a tough sell.

[RF1]

I applauded the Miller hire at the time and still hope he can eventually find success here. I had much lower expectations for Archie's first two seasons than most as I was expecting a rough start with discernible incremental improvement. I had no post season contention illusions but thought we would be a bit better in both of the first two seasons. My concern is that I am not seeing much improvement as we seem to be stuck in a very static low level pattern. I do not see dramatic growth and am troubled for the future as there are few if any signs right at this moment with the present program for future hope.

Miller is not going to get fired after just two years. His contract financials make firing him at any point in his five year agreement highly expensive and problematic for URI. I however think that his performance to date is not up to what reasonable expectations were for this point in his tenure. I think this opens him up to fair criticism.

[RF1]

Our boosters might have to open their wallets again to make it possible to bring in better talent.

Even then, who wants to join a losing program?

The sad part is the opposite is more likely to happen. The boosters have given like no other time in history and this is the product on the floor. This is by far the most school has ever funded the men's basketball program and they have zero to show for it. Plus there are more pressing needs such as the athletic renovations which these boosters donations may go to. At the end of the day, boosters may have deeper pockets than you and I, but they are fans just like us and many are disgusted with the product on the floor. I am one of them. Now you want them to reach deeper into their pockets? I think that will be a tough sell.

Exactly. The financial situation is actually worsening with a confluence of multiple factors. I believe the NCAA revenue units earned under Hurley expire this year. Miller's compensation is about to rise dramatically with URI having to pay out $1M (incl $500k retention bonus) more the next two seasons. The poor performance of the team with a fourth straight losing season is already affecting attendance and ticket revenue (and probably corp sponsorships as well) which will continue into next year. Money has always been tight at URI and you need look no further than the fact that Bjorn had to make a relatively small financial decision on whether to send the band to the men's and women's tournaments (he chose just the men's as there were not enough funds for both).

[RI_Bred]

I read these takes, I look at some of the posters, and I laugh.

No one was “OK” with Dan losing and most of the people complaining now were the people wanting Dan fired in February of year 5.

The revisionist history is WILD on this board.

The first 2 years of any coach are an indictment on the guy before. And as I had to post with Hurley, I’m not going to put the sins of the previous coach at the feet of the guy trying to dig us out of the hole.

Blue Man, I agree that the first 2 years is still too early to make a judgement call on Archie.

Still, I think most here, including you were expecting more improvement than what we saw this past season.

Remember this past summer we kept going back and forth and you were continuing to double-down that we were going to finish top 6 in 23-24. I know deep down you can't be satisfied with our results.
I wasn't as optimistic and didn't buy into all the hype as much.

But still even with the failures of Cox behind us, we should have expected a little more than our last 2 finishes.
Losing is one thing, but are you happy with the defensive lapses and overall effort that we have seen?
Remember this current roster is 100% on Archie and his staff.

But like I said, I will have a better idea of where this program is going after next season and for now still giving this staff the benefit of the doubt.

While I agree that I was "expecting" us to be better - I also understand the reality that we were given. Complete rebuilds take time. It took Dan 3 years before we made a "jump." And maybe people felt like we were building towards something with Dan because we were listless for so long - but for whatever reason people got frustration constipation with Cox and didn't immediately call for his head like they are with Archie.

But to pretend that this board/fanbase was some type of "happy" and "understanding" while Dan was rebuilding is a joke and revisionist history at best.

Some of us saw the writing on the wall early in year 1 with Cox - understanding that having a championship program, 3 all conference players, and the best recruiting class the school had ever seen should've netted out an immediate return to conference leadership and an NCAA birth or two. If you compare Cox years 1-2 with 3-4, you can understand where the Hurley influence wore off.

Better yet, some posters vividly described what Cox was given as a "total rebuild" because it was a coaching change. Yet those same posters are for whatever reason not giving Archie the same benefit - even though the logical fallacy is too great to ignore.

So I'm using that model as a model for my emotions regarding Archie.

Another important distinction I'm making is that Archie isn't an unknown commodity. I've seen it work for Archie. With my own eyes against some significantly better URI teams. Even at IU - he had a squad that was clearly in the field as an at large the Covid year. He then had injury issues the year after.

This season is an amalgamation of the worst things imaginable happening at the same time. Our "best" player, or certainly one of them, missed 1/2 a season of playing with this team, and essentially not playing for a year based on an NCAA technicality that affected us significantly more than other teams who had players be granted waivers.

Our starting center, went down for the whole year early on. His replacement, a stand-out freshman, has also been hurt off and on throughout the course of the year.

Our best defender, has been battling injuries and personal issues that have kept him out of games.

One of our most important players, battled a shoulder injury that rendered him basically ineffective for about 6-7 weeks of the season.

And almost our entire roster outside of that is either experiencing their first season of A10 level basketball (House, Kortright, Montgomery, Green) or first season of D1 basketball (Estevez, Fuchs, Brown, Foumena, Wright).

People are conveniently forgetting that the starting lineup that was recruited to start from day 1 was Kortright, House, Montgomery, Green, Bilau.

We got exactly zero games in with that starting 5.

Because of that, we had to play guys out of position to figure out who was going to fill that 4 spot, and it's tough to play a team focused defense when one position lacks the speed necessary.

Sure, could Archie have abandoned his defense and gone to man? I guess. But for what purpose? to get to 16 wins instead of 12? This wasn't an NCAA team regardless. People complained about Dan in the same way. "WHY WONT HE GET AWAY FROM MAN TO MAN!? HE NEEDS TO MAKE ADJUSTMENTS!" etc, etc.

Good coaches stick to their guns. Archie is playing the long game. He's got a system that has shown it can work. He's going to keep running his guys through that system while they build for something. It will pay off in the long run with guys who have played in a consistent system year to year rather than getting jumpy and making changes just to make them to get a couple more wins in a rebuilding effort.

I'm all for complaining, it's what I do best. But the lack of some posters abilities to find the horizon and just nosedive on the coach, while simultaneously pretending they weren't doing the same thing on Dan Hurley at the same time is hilarious.

All of that I can agree with. Do you feel there has been a consistent (or maybe inconsistent) lack of effort from the players? Because to me it has sure looked like it. That's a major difference from Hurley-coached teams, regardless of player personnel.

[Billyboy78]

I don't think it's a lack of talent. We have talent. We see it offensively. Could we use more talent? Of course. But that's not the problem right now. It's a lack of effort. If we score 91 points every game, we should go 31-0. Defense isn't always fun. It requires digging in and grinding........effort. I think most of these guys have enough talent (athletic ability) to be good defensive players. But most of them are not willing (a couple are) to give the effort required to be a good defensive player. The question is: why is that? We could get a nice upgrade in talent this offseason. But will it matter if the upgrades also aren't willing to give the effort defensively? The biggest question that needs to be answered is: is the lack of effort due to lack of character and desire in the players? Or do they have character and desire, but just do not want to give effort for Archie? I wish I knew the answer.

[Jersey77]

I read these takes, I look at some of the posters, and I laugh.

No one was “OK” with Dan losing and most of the people complaining now were the people wanting Dan fired in February of year 5.

The revisionist history is WILD on this board.

The first 2 years of any coach are an indictment on the guy before. And as I had to post with Hurley, I’m not going to put the sins of the previous coach at the feet of the guy trying to dig us out of the hole.

Blue Man, I agree that the first 2 years is still too early to make a judgement call on Archie.

Still, I think most here, including you were expecting more improvement than what we saw this past season.

Remember this past summer we kept going back and forth and you were continuing to double-down that we were going to finish top 6 in 23-24. I know deep down you can't be satisfied with our results.
I wasn't as optimistic and didn't buy into all the hype as much.

But still even with the failures of Cox behind us, we should have expected a little more than our last 2 finishes.
Losing is one thing, but are you happy with the defensive lapses and overall effort that we have seen?
Remember this current roster is 100% on Archie and his staff.

But like I said, I will have a better idea of where this program is going after next season and for now still giving this staff the benefit of the doubt.

While I agree that I was "expecting" us to be better - I also understand the reality that we were given. Complete rebuilds take time. It took Dan 3 years before we made a "jump." And maybe people felt like we were building towards something with Dan because we were listless for so long - but for whatever reason people got frustration constipation with Cox and didn't immediately call for his head like they are with Archie.

But to pretend that this board/fanbase was some type of "happy" and "understanding" while Dan was rebuilding is a joke and revisionist history at best.

Some of us saw the writing on the wall early in year 1 with Cox - understanding that having a championship program, 3 all conference players, and the best recruiting class the school had ever seen should've netted out an immediate return to conference leadership and an NCAA birth or two. If you compare Cox years 1-2 with 3-4, you can understand where the Hurley influence wore off.

Better yet, some posters vividly described what Cox was given as a "total rebuild" because it was a coaching change. Yet those same posters are for whatever reason not giving Archie the same benefit - even though the logical fallacy is too great to ignore.

So I'm using that model as a model for my emotions regarding Archie.

Another important distinction I'm making is that Archie isn't an unknown commodity. I've seen it work for Archie. With my own eyes against some significantly better URI teams. Even at IU - he had a squad that was clearly in the field as an at large the Covid year. He then had injury issues the year after.

This season is an amalgamation of the worst things imaginable happening at the same time. Our "best" player, or certainly one of them, missed 1/2 a season of playing with this team, and essentially not playing for a year based on an NCAA technicality that affected us significantly more than other teams who had players be granted waivers.

Our starting center, went down for the whole year early on. His replacement, a stand-out freshman, has also been hurt off and on throughout the course of the year.

Our best defender, has been battling injuries and personal issues that have kept him out of games.

One of our most important players, battled a shoulder injury that rendered him basically ineffective for about 6-7 weeks of the season.

And almost our entire roster outside of that is either experiencing their first season of A10 level basketball (House, Kortright, Montgomery, Green) or first season of D1 basketball (Estevez, Fuchs, Brown, Foumena, Wright).

People are conveniently forgetting that the starting lineup that was recruited to start from day 1 was Kortright, House, Montgomery, Green, Bilau.

We got exactly zero games in with that starting 5.

Because of that, we had to play guys out of position to figure out who was going to fill that 4 spot, and it's tough to play a team focused defense when one position lacks the speed necessary.

Sure, could Archie have abandoned his defense and gone to man? I guess. But for what purpose? to get to 16 wins instead of 12? This wasn't an NCAA team regardless. People complained about Dan in the same way. "WHY WONT HE GET AWAY FROM MAN TO MAN!? HE NEEDS TO MAKE ADJUSTMENTS!" etc, etc.

Good coaches stick to their guns. Archie is playing the long game. He's got a system that has shown it can work. He's going to keep running his guys through that system while they build for something. It will pay off in the long run with guys who have played in a consistent system year to year rather than getting jumpy and making changes just to make them to get a couple more wins in a rebuilding effort.

I'm all for complaining, it's what I do best. But the lack of some posters abilities to find the horizon and just nosedive on the coach, while simultaneously pretending they weren't doing the same thing on Dan Hurley at the same time is hilarious.

I agree with you about the fan overreaction regarding Archie and it is way too early to throw him under the bus.
Like I keep saying, I still trust this staff at least for now.

I knew it wasn't going to be a quick fix, but still disappointed in our team's play this season.

However, I don't think we have to make excuses for him regarding injuries or players availability.
Especially about Bilau, who really hasn't done anything in his 5-year career and his status was questionable at best for this season.
Green was only made available because of a court order, other than that he wasn't counted on.
Archie did say he wanted Green regardless, even if he wouldn't be eligible this season.

As discussed many times on this forum, a case can be made (many much better) for almost every team in this conference regarding injuries and player availability. It is ridiculous to even go there.

So yeah, let's see what happens next season, I am hoping for the best.

[Blue Man]

Blue Man, I agree that the first 2 years is still too early to make a judgement call on Archie.

Still, I think most here, including you were expecting more improvement than what we saw this past season.

Remember this past summer we kept going back and forth and you were continuing to double-down that we were going to finish top 6 in 23-24. I know deep down you can't be satisfied with our results.
I wasn't as optimistic and didn't buy into all the hype as much.

But still even with the failures of Cox behind us, we should have expected a little more than our last 2 finishes.
Losing is one thing, but are you happy with the defensive lapses and overall effort that we have seen?
Remember this current roster is 100% on Archie and his staff.

But like I said, I will have a better idea of where this program is going after next season and for now still giving this staff the benefit of the doubt.

While I agree that I was "expecting" us to be better - I also understand the reality that we were given. Complete rebuilds take time. It took Dan 3 years before we made a "jump." And maybe people felt like we were building towards something with Dan because we were listless for so long - but for whatever reason people got frustration constipation with Cox and didn't immediately call for his head like they are with Archie.

But to pretend that this board/fanbase was some type of "happy" and "understanding" while Dan was rebuilding is a joke and revisionist history at best.

Some of us saw the writing on the wall early in year 1 with Cox - understanding that having a championship program, 3 all conference players, and the best recruiting class the school had ever seen should've netted out an immediate return to conference leadership and an NCAA birth or two. If you compare Cox years 1-2 with 3-4, you can understand where the Hurley influence wore off.

Better yet, some posters vividly described what Cox was given as a "total rebuild" because it was a coaching change. Yet those same posters are for whatever reason not giving Archie the same benefit - even though the logical fallacy is too great to ignore.

So I'm using that model as a model for my emotions regarding Archie.

Another important distinction I'm making is that Archie isn't an unknown commodity. I've seen it work for Archie. With my own eyes against some significantly better URI teams. Even at IU - he had a squad that was clearly in the field as an at large the Covid year. He then had injury issues the year after.

This season is an amalgamation of the worst things imaginable happening at the same time. Our "best" player, or certainly one of them, missed 1/2 a season of playing with this team, and essentially not playing for a year based on an NCAA technicality that affected us significantly more than other teams who had players be granted waivers.

Our starting center, went down for the whole year early on. His replacement, a stand-out freshman, has also been hurt off and on throughout the course of the year.

Our best defender, has been battling injuries and personal issues that have kept him out of games.

One of our most important players, battled a shoulder injury that rendered him basically ineffective for about 6-7 weeks of the season.

And almost our entire roster outside of that is either experiencing their first season of A10 level basketball (House, Kortright, Montgomery, Green) or first season of D1 basketball (Estevez, Fuchs, Brown, Foumena, Wright).

People are conveniently forgetting that the starting lineup that was recruited to start from day 1 was Kortright, House, Montgomery, Green, Bilau.

We got exactly zero games in with that starting 5.

Because of that, we had to play guys out of position to figure out who was going to fill that 4 spot, and it's tough to play a team focused defense when one position lacks the speed necessary.

Sure, could Archie have abandoned his defense and gone to man? I guess. But for what purpose? to get to 16 wins instead of 12? This wasn't an NCAA team regardless. People complained about Dan in the same way. "WHY WONT HE GET AWAY FROM MAN TO MAN!? HE NEEDS TO MAKE ADJUSTMENTS!" etc, etc.

Good coaches stick to their guns. Archie is playing the long game. He's got a system that has shown it can work. He's going to keep running his guys through that system while they build for something. It will pay off in the long run with guys who have played in a consistent system year to year rather than getting jumpy and making changes just to make them to get a couple more wins in a rebuilding effort.

I'm all for complaining, it's what I do best. But the lack of some posters abilities to find the horizon and just nosedive on the coach, while simultaneously pretending they weren't doing the same thing on Dan Hurley at the same time is hilarious.

All of that I can agree with. Do you feel there has been a consistent (or maybe inconsistent) lack of effort from the players? Because to me it has sure looked like it. That's a major difference from Hurley-coached teams, regardless of player personnel.

Inconsistent for sure - but that is a part of being a young team. Yes, it's the coaches to a degree - but it's senior leadership on the floor that gets everyone to buy in.

Why did things fall apart with the Patriots with the greatest coach of all time still on the sidelines? Because you lost your best player who was completely bought in and was the coach on the field.

Since we're comparing year 2's - who did Dan have on his roster that 2nd season?

Xavier Munford - Sr. Best player. 2nd year with the team. Should've been an all conference selection. Scored 1000 points in 2 seasons.
Gil Biruta - Jr. Already an upperclassman with P6 experience. Was on the team for a year already.
TJ Buchanan - Jr. 3rd season on the team. Holdover. Leader. Future coach.

Having those 3 guys on that team took a lot of pressure off of your 2 freshman studs in EC and Hassan. You also had senior level leadership. You had a clear "go to" guy.

Again, this is year one for all intents and purposes. We brought on Archie who was out of coaching a year. We brought in a lead assistant who was out of coaching for multiple years. Our 2nd assistant was brought on late in the cycle so he was out of recruiting for a year and couldn't bring anyone.

The plan for Archie was to build a program again. Not half ass the rebuild and try to "win" in year 2 when you wouldn't be good enough for an at large anyway.

Look at the 4 year guys he's brought in and judge off of that, the rest are fillers until you can build a core.

Estevez and Fuchs are clearly future leaders on this team - but they are freshmen. One is a big. One is a scoring guard.

Look at next year's 4 year guys: one is a point guard, the other is an athletic lock-down defending wing.

If you keep those 4 guys together in this program - what do you think that team looks like in 3-4 years?

Even if you return the majority of this roster, just their ability to grow together and mature as a team will improve everyone overall. And if Hammond is the next Jeff Dowtin, we'll be in very good shape.

"Trust in Arch" is not just the "oh sick lets win more games in year 2 of a colossal rebuild" it's "trust that this guy will rebuild the program that we were 4 years ago" and that takes time.

[section(105)]

Me thinks Bluemans description of the recipe, on paper, makes sense regarding the rebuild timeline. However, the fan base, many of us, are frustrated by the loosing, the spill over from Cox years and have difficulty see the fruits of rebuild timeline. No?

[Blue Man]

Blue Man, I agree that the first 2 years is still too early to make a judgement call on Archie.

Still, I think most here, including you were expecting more improvement than what we saw this past season.

Remember this past summer we kept going back and forth and you were continuing to double-down that we were going to finish top 6 in 23-24. I know deep down you can't be satisfied with our results.
I wasn't as optimistic and didn't buy into all the hype as much.

But still even with the failures of Cox behind us, we should have expected a little more than our last 2 finishes.
Losing is one thing, but are you happy with the defensive lapses and overall effort that we have seen?
Remember this current roster is 100% on Archie and his staff.

But like I said, I will have a better idea of where this program is going after next season and for now still giving this staff the benefit of the doubt.

While I agree that I was "expecting" us to be better - I also understand the reality that we were given. Complete rebuilds take time. It took Dan 3 years before we made a "jump." And maybe people felt like we were building towards something with Dan because we were listless for so long - but for whatever reason people got frustration constipation with Cox and didn't immediately call for his head like they are with Archie.

But to pretend that this board/fanbase was some type of "happy" and "understanding" while Dan was rebuilding is a joke and revisionist history at best.

Some of us saw the writing on the wall early in year 1 with Cox - understanding that having a championship program, 3 all conference players, and the best recruiting class the school had ever seen should've netted out an immediate return to conference leadership and an NCAA birth or two. If you compare Cox years 1-2 with 3-4, you can understand where the Hurley influence wore off.

Better yet, some posters vividly described what Cox was given as a "total rebuild" because it was a coaching change. Yet those same posters are for whatever reason not giving Archie the same benefit - even though the logical fallacy is too great to ignore.

So I'm using that model as a model for my emotions regarding Archie.

Another important distinction I'm making is that Archie isn't an unknown commodity. I've seen it work for Archie. With my own eyes against some significantly better URI teams. Even at IU - he had a squad that was clearly in the field as an at large the Covid year. He then had injury issues the year after.

This season is an amalgamation of the worst things imaginable happening at the same time. Our "best" player, or certainly one of them, missed 1/2 a season of playing with this team, and essentially not playing for a year based on an NCAA technicality that affected us significantly more than other teams who had players be granted waivers.

Our starting center, went down for the whole year early on. His replacement, a stand-out freshman, has also been hurt off and on throughout the course of the year.

Our best defender, has been battling injuries and personal issues that have kept him out of games.

One of our most important players, battled a shoulder injury that rendered him basically ineffective for about 6-7 weeks of the season.

And almost our entire roster outside of that is either experiencing their first season of A10 level basketball (House, Kortright, Montgomery, Green) or first season of D1 basketball (Estevez, Fuchs, Brown, Foumena, Wright).

People are conveniently forgetting that the starting lineup that was recruited to start from day 1 was Kortright, House, Montgomery, Green, Bilau.

We got exactly zero games in with that starting 5.

Because of that, we had to play guys out of position to figure out who was going to fill that 4 spot, and it's tough to play a team focused defense when one position lacks the speed necessary.

Sure, could Archie have abandoned his defense and gone to man? I guess. But for what purpose? to get to 16 wins instead of 12? This wasn't an NCAA team regardless. People complained about Dan in the same way. "WHY WONT HE GET AWAY FROM MAN TO MAN!? HE NEEDS TO MAKE ADJUSTMENTS!" etc, etc.

Good coaches stick to their guns. Archie is playing the long game. He's got a system that has shown it can work. He's going to keep running his guys through that system while they build for something. It will pay off in the long run with guys who have played in a consistent system year to year rather than getting jumpy and making changes just to make them to get a couple more wins in a rebuilding effort.

I'm all for complaining, it's what I do best. But the lack of some posters abilities to find the horizon and just nosedive on the coach, while simultaneously pretending they weren't doing the same thing on Dan Hurley at the same time is hilarious.

I agree with you about the fan overreaction regarding Archie and it is way too early to throw him under the bus.
Like I keep saying, I still trust this staff at least for now.

I knew it wasn't going to be a quick fix, but still disappointed in our team's play this season.

However, I don't think we have to make excuses for him regarding injuries or players availability.
Especially about Bilau, who really hasn't done anything in his 5-year career and his status was questionable at best for this season.
Green was only made available because of a court order, other than that he wasn't counted on.
Archie did say he wanted Green regardless, even if he wouldn't be eligible this season.

As discussed many times on this forum, a case can be made (many much better) for almost every team in this conference regarding injuries and player availability. It is ridiculous to even go there.

So yeah, let's see what happens next season, I am hoping for the best.

Basketball is not football. Injuries happen but they certainly aren't part of the sport.

It's noticeable when your best players go down for extended periods of time. There's only 5 guys on the court. There's only 6-7 true difference makers on a team.

To have multiple key pieces - not even role players, but starters, go down for whole seasons or weeks, is not the norm. It's excusable. We've only had 3 players available for 100% of our games this year. Loyola had 6 in their rotation available. They only lost 2 of their starting 5 for 4 games. UMass? They lost 1 starter for 3 games. Otherwise their ENTIRE ROTATION has played the entire year.

How about Dayton? Oh yeah just ZERO INJURIES all year to their rotation. They've been available for 100% of the games.

It's amazing how people are continuing to look for reasons to blame Archie and then just poo-pooing away important things like the fact that the team we've been able to put on the court for a majority of the year has looked nothing like the roster that we planned to have. It's not normal to have the amount of injuries that we have.

It's the same thing that happened in year 4 with Hurley and EC. The only reason that felt bigger is because that was going to be the year we were "back" and had a chance to make a serious NCAA run.

If we had serious NCAA hopes at the onset of the year, the injuries and availability of players would be the most talked about thing. We didn't have those expectations, so it's been cast aside.

[Jersey77]

While I agree that I was "expecting" us to be better - I also understand the reality that we were given. Complete rebuilds take time. It took Dan 3 years before we made a "jump." And maybe people felt like we were building towards something with Dan because we were listless for so long - but for whatever reason people got frustration constipation with Cox and didn't immediately call for his head like they are with Archie.

But to pretend that this board/fanbase was some type of "happy" and "understanding" while Dan was rebuilding is a joke and revisionist history at best.

Some of us saw the writing on the wall early in year 1 with Cox - understanding that having a championship program, 3 all conference players, and the best recruiting class the school had ever seen should've netted out an immediate return to conference leadership and an NCAA birth or two. If you compare Cox years 1-2 with 3-4, you can understand where the Hurley influence wore off.

Better yet, some posters vividly described what Cox was given as a "total rebuild" because it was a coaching change. Yet those same posters are for whatever reason not giving Archie the same benefit - even though the logical fallacy is too great to ignore.

So I'm using that model as a model for my emotions regarding Archie.

Another important distinction I'm making is that Archie isn't an unknown commodity. I've seen it work for Archie. With my own eyes against some significantly better URI teams. Even at IU - he had a squad that was clearly in the field as an at large the Covid year. He then had injury issues the year after.

This season is an amalgamation of the worst things imaginable happening at the same time. Our "best" player, or certainly one of them, missed 1/2 a season of playing with this team, and essentially not playing for a year based on an NCAA technicality that affected us significantly more than other teams who had players be granted waivers.

Our starting center, went down for the whole year early on. His replacement, a stand-out freshman, has also been hurt off and on throughout the course of the year.

Our best defender, has been battling injuries and personal issues that have kept him out of games.

One of our most important players, battled a shoulder injury that rendered him basically ineffective for about 6-7 weeks of the season.

And almost our entire roster outside of that is either experiencing their first season of A10 level basketball (House, Kortright, Montgomery, Green) or first season of D1 basketball (Estevez, Fuchs, Brown, Foumena, Wright).

People are conveniently forgetting that the starting lineup that was recruited to start from day 1 was Kortright, House, Montgomery, Green, Bilau.

We got exactly zero games in with that starting 5.

Because of that, we had to play guys out of position to figure out who was going to fill that 4 spot, and it's tough to play a team focused defense when one position lacks the speed necessary.

Sure, could Archie have abandoned his defense and gone to man? I guess. But for what purpose? to get to 16 wins instead of 12? This wasn't an NCAA team regardless. People complained about Dan in the same way. "WHY WONT HE GET AWAY FROM MAN TO MAN!? HE NEEDS TO MAKE ADJUSTMENTS!" etc, etc.

Good coaches stick to their guns. Archie is playing the long game. He's got a system that has shown it can work. He's going to keep running his guys through that system while they build for something. It will pay off in the long run with guys who have played in a consistent system year to year rather than getting jumpy and making changes just to make them to get a couple more wins in a rebuilding effort.

I'm all for complaining, it's what I do best. But the lack of some posters abilities to find the horizon and just nosedive on the coach, while simultaneously pretending they weren't doing the same thing on Dan Hurley at the same time is hilarious.

I agree with you about the fan overreaction regarding Archie and it is way too early to throw him under the bus.
Like I keep saying, I still trust this staff at least for now.

I knew it wasn't going to be a quick fix, but still disappointed in our team's play this season.

However, I don't think we have to make excuses for him regarding injuries or players availability.
Especially about Bilau, who really hasn't done anything in his 5-year career and his status was questionable at best for this season.
Green was only made available because of a court order, other than that he wasn't counted on.
Archie did say he wanted Green regardless, even if he wouldn't be eligible this season.

As discussed many times on this forum, a case can be made (many much better) for almost every team in this conference regarding injuries and player availability. It is ridiculous to even go there.

So yeah, let's see what happens next season, I am hoping for the best.

Basketball is not football. Injuries happen but they certainly aren't part of the sport.

It's noticeable when your best players go down for extended periods of time. There's only 5 guys on the court. There's only 6-7 true difference makers on a team.

To have multiple key pieces - not even role players, but starters, go down for whole seasons or weeks, is not the norm. It's excusable. We've only had 3 players available for 100% of our games this year. Loyola had 6 in their rotation available. They only lost 2 of their starting 5 for 4 games. UMass? They lost 1 starter for 3 games. Otherwise their ENTIRE ROTATION has played the entire year.

How about Dayton? Oh yeah just ZERO INJURIES all year to their rotation. They've been available for 100% of the games.

It's amazing how people are continuing to look for reasons to blame Archie and then just poo-pooing away important things like the fact that the team we've been able to put on the court for a majority of the year has looked nothing like the roster that we planned to have. It's not normal to have the amount of injuries that we have.

It's the same thing that happened in year 4 with Hurley and EC. The only reason that felt bigger is because that was going to be the year we were "back" and had a chance to make a serious NCAA run.

If we had serious NCAA hopes at the onset of the year, the injuries and availability of players would be the most talked about thing. We didn't have those expectations, so it's been cast aside.

Our core players have been available for close to the entire season.
Green's case was different, he was ineligible.

Let's not even compare this to Hurley losing EC for the entire season and who was our best player and heart /soul of the team.

How about our conference rivals are you dismissing those same issues with them?

Dayton lost Malachi Smith for the entire season, what all-conference player did we lose for the whole year?

[ramster]

While I agree that I was "expecting" us to be better - I also understand the reality that we were given. Complete rebuilds take time. It took Dan 3 years before we made a "jump." And maybe people felt like we were building towards something with Dan because we were listless for so long - but for whatever reason people got frustration constipation with Cox and didn't immediately call for his head like they are with Archie.

But to pretend that this board/fanbase was some type of "happy" and "understanding" while Dan was rebuilding is a joke and revisionist history at best.

Some of us saw the writing on the wall early in year 1 with Cox - understanding that having a championship program, 3 all conference players, and the best recruiting class the school had ever seen should've netted out an immediate return to conference leadership and an NCAA birth or two. If you compare Cox years 1-2 with 3-4, you can understand where the Hurley influence wore off.

Better yet, some posters vividly described what Cox was given as a "total rebuild" because it was a coaching change. Yet those same posters are for whatever reason not giving Archie the same benefit - even though the logical fallacy is too great to ignore.

So I'm using that model as a model for my emotions regarding Archie.

Another important distinction I'm making is that Archie isn't an unknown commodity. I've seen it work for Archie. With my own eyes against some significantly better URI teams. Even at IU - he had a squad that was clearly in the field as an at large the Covid year. He then had injury issues the year after.

This season is an amalgamation of the worst things imaginable happening at the same time. Our "best" player, or certainly one of them, missed 1/2 a season of playing with this team, and essentially not playing for a year based on an NCAA technicality that affected us significantly more than other teams who had players be granted waivers.

Our starting center, went down for the whole year early on. His replacement, a stand-out freshman, has also been hurt off and on throughout the course of the year.

Our best defender, has been battling injuries and personal issues that have kept him out of games.

One of our most important players, battled a shoulder injury that rendered him basically ineffective for about 6-7 weeks of the season.

And almost our entire roster outside of that is either experiencing their first season of A10 level basketball (House, Kortright, Montgomery, Green) or first season of D1 basketball (Estevez, Fuchs, Brown, Foumena, Wright).

People are conveniently forgetting that the starting lineup that was recruited to start from day 1 was Kortright, House, Montgomery, Green, Bilau.

We got exactly zero games in with that starting 5.

Because of that, we had to play guys out of position to figure out who was going to fill that 4 spot, and it's tough to play a team focused defense when one position lacks the speed necessary.

Sure, could Archie have abandoned his defense and gone to man? I guess. But for what purpose? to get to 16 wins instead of 12? This wasn't an NCAA team regardless. People complained about Dan in the same way. "WHY WONT HE GET AWAY FROM MAN TO MAN!? HE NEEDS TO MAKE ADJUSTMENTS!" etc, etc.

Good coaches stick to their guns. Archie is playing the long game. He's got a system that has shown it can work. He's going to keep running his guys through that system while they build for something. It will pay off in the long run with guys who have played in a consistent system year to year rather than getting jumpy and making changes just to make them to get a couple more wins in a rebuilding effort.

I'm all for complaining, it's what I do best. But the lack of some posters abilities to find the horizon and just nosedive on the coach, while simultaneously pretending they weren't doing the same thing on Dan Hurley at the same time is hilarious.

I agree with you about the fan overreaction regarding Archie and it is way too early to throw him under the bus.
Like I keep saying, I still trust this staff at least for now.

I knew it wasn't going to be a quick fix, but still disappointed in our team's play this season.

However, I don't think we have to make excuses for him regarding injuries or players availability.
Especially about Bilau, who really hasn't done anything in his 5-year career and his status was questionable at best for this season.
Green was only made available because of a court order, other than that he wasn't counted on.
Archie did say he wanted Green regardless, even if he wouldn't be eligible this season.

As discussed many times on this forum, a case can be made (many much better) for almost every team in this conference regarding injuries and player availability. It is ridiculous to even go there.

So yeah, let's see what happens next season, I am hoping for the best.

Basketball is not football. Injuries happen but they certainly aren't part of the sport.

It's noticeable when your best players go down for extended periods of time. There's only 5 guys on the court. There's only 6-7 true difference makers on a team.

To have multiple key pieces - not even role players, but starters, go down for whole seasons or weeks, is not the norm. It's excusable. We've only had 3 players available for 100% of our games this year. Loyola had 6 in their rotation available. They only lost 2 of their starting 5 for 4 games. UMass? They lost 1 starter for 3 games. Otherwise their ENTIRE ROTATION has played the entire year.

How about Dayton? Oh yeah just ZERO INJURIES all year to their rotation. They've been available for 100% of the games.

It's amazing how people are continuing to look for reasons to blame Archie and then just poo-pooing away important things like the fact that the team we've been able to put on the court for a majority of the year has looked nothing like the roster that we planned to have. It's not normal to have the amount of injuries that we have.

It's the same thing that happened in year 4 with Hurley and EC. The only reason that felt bigger is because that was going to be the year we were "back" and had a chance to make a serious NCAA run.

If we had serious NCAA hopes at the onset of the year, the injuries and availability of players would be the most talked about thing. We didn't have those expectations, so it's been cast aside.

Dayton lost their Starting PG Malachi Smith 7 minutes into the 1st game of the season.
He was preseason 2nd Team All Conference Pick

Huge loss for the entire season

He was a Junior, previous year starting PG. They lost their lead guard unexpectedly but still recovered with Bennett doing a fine job as Smith’s replacement.

PRESEASON ALL-CONFERENCE SECOND TEAM

MalachiSmith
Jimmy Clarke III
Maximus Edwards
Khalil Brantley
Philip Alston
MaxShulga

[Rhody15]

While I agree that I was "expecting" us to be better - I also understand the reality that we were given. Complete rebuilds take time. It took Dan 3 years before we made a "jump." And maybe people felt like we were building towards something with Dan because we were listless for so long - but for whatever reason people got frustration constipation with Cox and didn't immediately call for his head like they are with Archie.

But to pretend that this board/fanbase was some type of "happy" and "understanding" while Dan was rebuilding is a joke and revisionist history at best.

Some of us saw the writing on the wall early in year 1 with Cox - understanding that having a championship program, 3 all conference players, and the best recruiting class the school had ever seen should've netted out an immediate return to conference leadership and an NCAA birth or two. If you compare Cox years 1-2 with 3-4, you can understand where the Hurley influence wore off.

Better yet, some posters vividly described what Cox was given as a "total rebuild" because it was a coaching change. Yet those same posters are for whatever reason not giving Archie the same benefit - even though the logical fallacy is too great to ignore.

So I'm using that model as a model for my emotions regarding Archie.

Another important distinction I'm making is that Archie isn't an unknown commodity. I've seen it work for Archie. With my own eyes against some significantly better URI teams. Even at IU - he had a squad that was clearly in the field as an at large the Covid year. He then had injury issues the year after.

This season is an amalgamation of the worst things imaginable happening at the same time. Our "best" player, or certainly one of them, missed 1/2 a season of playing with this team, and essentially not playing for a year based on an NCAA technicality that affected us significantly more than other teams who had players be granted waivers.

Our starting center, went down for the whole year early on. His replacement, a stand-out freshman, has also been hurt off and on throughout the course of the year.

Our best defender, has been battling injuries and personal issues that have kept him out of games.

One of our most important players, battled a shoulder injury that rendered him basically ineffective for about 6-7 weeks of the season.

And almost our entire roster outside of that is either experiencing their first season of A10 level basketball (House, Kortright, Montgomery, Green) or first season of D1 basketball (Estevez, Fuchs, Brown, Foumena, Wright).

People are conveniently forgetting that the starting lineup that was recruited to start from day 1 was Kortright, House, Montgomery, Green, Bilau.

We got exactly zero games in with that starting 5.

Because of that, we had to play guys out of position to figure out who was going to fill that 4 spot, and it's tough to play a team focused defense when one position lacks the speed necessary.

Sure, could Archie have abandoned his defense and gone to man? I guess. But for what purpose? to get to 16 wins instead of 12? This wasn't an NCAA team regardless. People complained about Dan in the same way. "WHY WONT HE GET AWAY FROM MAN TO MAN!? HE NEEDS TO MAKE ADJUSTMENTS!" etc, etc.

Good coaches stick to their guns. Archie is playing the long game. He's got a system that has shown it can work. He's going to keep running his guys through that system while they build for something. It will pay off in the long run with guys who have played in a consistent system year to year rather than getting jumpy and making changes just to make them to get a couple more wins in a rebuilding effort.

I'm all for complaining, it's what I do best. But the lack of some posters abilities to find the horizon and just nosedive on the coach, while simultaneously pretending they weren't doing the same thing on Dan Hurley at the same time is hilarious.

I agree with you about the fan overreaction regarding Archie and it is way too early to throw him under the bus.
Like I keep saying, I still trust this staff at least for now.

I knew it wasn't going to be a quick fix, but still disappointed in our team's play this season.

However, I don't think we have to make excuses for him regarding injuries or players availability.
Especially about Bilau, who really hasn't done anything in his 5-year career and his status was questionable at best for this season.
Green was only made available because of a court order, other than that he wasn't counted on.
Archie did say he wanted Green regardless, even if he wouldn't be eligible this season.

As discussed many times on this forum, a case can be made (many much better) for almost every team in this conference regarding injuries and player availability. It is ridiculous to even go there.

So yeah, let's see what happens next season, I am hoping for the best.

How about Dayton? Oh yeah just ZERO INJURIES all year to their rotation. They've been available for 100% of the games.

Dayton lost their all conference starting point guard 10 minutes into the first game of the season.

[reef]

The facts:

Miller versus Hurley at the Two year mark

2011-12 | 7-24 | Baron
2012-13 | 8-21 | Hurley
2013-14 | 14-18 | Hurley

2021-22 | 15-16 | Cox
2022-23 | 9-22| | Miller
2023-24 | 11-18 ytd | Miller

Hurley's first two seasons both showed improvement with both being superior to the last year of his predecessor. Miller is still yet to show improvement in either of his first two seasons with both registering less wins than the last year of his predecessor.

This is an oversimplification.

Had we let Dave Cox finish out the string it would've looked like Baron for a little until completely falling off a cliff and then having to go find a coach and start a rebuild. So yes, I guess we could've waited out to see how far rock bottom was with Cox and wait until we had a 7 win team. I prefer not waiting to see what we already knew. It saved us several more years of apathy.

People are complacent now? Imagine what another 15 win season would do. You think people would be more excited now for this season or a slightly better record with Dave Cox in year 6? Who was going to be carrying our team? Chance "Sniper" Stephens who was a 37% shooter at Loyola Marymount?

Improvement is improvement. If you're looking at positives - we have an offense that can score. We don't have a defense at all, but the offense is an improvement. We've got more wins than last year.

It's the polar opposite of Dan - where in year 2 we had zero offense and just defensive rock fights to scratch for wins. Now we have firepower, just zero ability to stop anyone. But it's still an overall improvement.

Totally forgot about Chance the Sniper ! Where did he end up was it Maryland with Cox ?

[Blue Man]

Me thinks Bluemans description of the recipe, on paper, makes sense regarding the rebuild timeline. However, the fan base, many of us, are frustrated by the loosing, the spill over from Cox years and have difficulty see the fruits of rebuild timeline. No?

Oh 1000% that's what's happening. Which is why I'm sort of screaming from the rooftops to remind people of that reality.

It's not fun to watch right now for sure, but it's being compounded by the fact that we all had to watch this program go from one of it's highest points to one of it's lowest in very rapid succession.

I just hate that everyone is piling on Archie for Dave Cox's failures. I mean, everyone did the exact same thing with Dan Hurley too. It was annoying to me then and it's annoying to me now.

[Jersey77]

Blue Man you don't have to try and make excuses for Archie.
He isn't getting fired anytime soon.

Let's see what happens this off-season and in 24-25.
We all hope he succeeds, and this program will be relevant again.

[ramster]

The facts:

Miller versus Hurley at the Two year mark

2011-12 | 7-24 | Baron
2012-13 | 8-21 | Hurley
2013-14 | 14-18 | Hurley

2021-22 | 15-16 | Cox
2022-23 | 9-22| | Miller
2023-24 | 11-18 ytd | Miller

Hurley's first two seasons both showed improvement with both being superior to the last year of his predecessor. Miller is still yet to show improvement in either of his first two seasons with both registering less wins than the last year of his predecessor.

This is an oversimplification.

Had we let Dave Cox finish out the string it would've looked like Baron for a little until completely falling off a cliff and then having to go find a coach and start a rebuild. So yes, I guess we could've waited out to see how far rock bottom was with Cox and wait until we had a 7 win team. I prefer not waiting to see what we already knew. It saved us several more years of apathy.

People are complacent now? Imagine what another 15 win season would do. You think people would be more excited now for this season or a slightly better record with Dave Cox in year 6? Who was going to be carrying our team? Chance "Sniper" Stephens who was a 37% shooter at Loyola Marymount?

Improvement is improvement. If you're looking at positives - we have an offense that can score. We don't have a defense at all, but the offense is an improvement. We've got more wins than last year.

It's the polar opposite of Dan - where in year 2 we had zero offense and just defensive rock fights to scratch for wins. Now we have firepower, just zero ability to stop anyone. But it's still an overall improvement.

Totally forgot about Chance the Sniper ! Where did he end up was it Maryland with Cox ?

Maryland. Playing little. Maryland as a team is not playing well

[Jersey77]

Me thinks Bluemans description of the recipe, on paper, makes sense regarding the rebuild timeline. However, the fan base, many of us, are frustrated by the loosing, the spill over from Cox years and have difficulty see the fruits of rebuild timeline. No?

Oh 1000% that's what's happening. Which is why I'm sort of screaming from the rooftops to remind people of that reality.

It's not fun to watch right now for sure, but it's being compounded by the fact that we all had to watch this program go from one of it's highest points to one of it's lowest in very rapid succession.

I just hate that everyone is piling on Archie for Dave Cox's failures. I mean, everyone did the exact same thing with Dan Hurley too. It was annoying to me then and it's annoying to me now.

Blue Man, they are piling on Archie because fans tend to overreact.

They just felt like a lot of hype was created this off-season with our roster and are now let down.
You did a pretty good job hyping this team also.

Besides that, it isn't just the losing, but they are reacting to what they feel is the lack of effort and all the defensive lapses. Which many times can be attributed to coaching.

[Rhody15]

This is an oversimplification.

Had we let Dave Cox finish out the string it would've looked like Baron for a little until completely falling off a cliff and then having to go find a coach and start a rebuild. So yes, I guess we could've waited out to see how far rock bottom was with Cox and wait until we had a 7 win team. I prefer not waiting to see what we already knew. It saved us several more years of apathy.

People are complacent now? Imagine what another 15 win season would do. You think people would be more excited now for this season or a slightly better record with Dave Cox in year 6? Who was going to be carrying our team? Chance "Sniper" Stephens who was a 37% shooter at Loyola Marymount?

Improvement is improvement. If you're looking at positives - we have an offense that can score. We don't have a defense at all, but the offense is an improvement. We've got more wins than last year.

It's the polar opposite of Dan - where in year 2 we had zero offense and just defensive rock fights to scratch for wins. Now we have firepower, just zero ability to stop anyone. But it's still an overall improvement.

Totally forgot about Chance the Sniper ! Where did he end up was it Maryland with Cox ?

Maryland. Playing little. Maryland as a team is not playing well

He hasn't played at all.

Knee injury before the season even started.

[Blue Man]

I agree with you about the fan overreaction regarding Archie and it is way too early to throw him under the bus.
Like I keep saying, I still trust this staff at least for now.

I knew it wasn't going to be a quick fix, but still disappointed in our team's play this season.

However, I don't think we have to make excuses for him regarding injuries or players availability.
Especially about Bilau, who really hasn't done anything in his 5-year career and his status was questionable at best for this season.
Green was only made available because of a court order, other than that he wasn't counted on.
Archie did say he wanted Green regardless, even if he wouldn't be eligible this season.

As discussed many times on this forum, a case can be made (many much better) for almost every team in this conference regarding injuries and player availability. It is ridiculous to even go there.

So yeah, let's see what happens next season, I am hoping for the best.

Basketball is not football. Injuries happen but they certainly aren't part of the sport.

It's noticeable when your best players go down for extended periods of time. There's only 5 guys on the court. There's only 6-7 true difference makers on a team.

To have multiple key pieces - not even role players, but starters, go down for whole seasons or weeks, is not the norm. It's excusable. We've only had 3 players available for 100% of our games this year. Loyola had 6 in their rotation available. They only lost 2 of their starting 5 for 4 games. UMass? They lost 1 starter for 3 games. Otherwise their ENTIRE ROTATION has played the entire year.

How about Dayton? Oh yeah just ZERO INJURIES all year to their rotation. They've been available for 100% of the games.

It's amazing how people are continuing to look for reasons to blame Archie and then just poo-pooing away important things like the fact that the team we've been able to put on the court for a majority of the year has looked nothing like the roster that we planned to have. It's not normal to have the amount of injuries that we have.

It's the same thing that happened in year 4 with Hurley and EC. The only reason that felt bigger is because that was going to be the year we were "back" and had a chance to make a serious NCAA run.

If we had serious NCAA hopes at the onset of the year, the injuries and availability of players would be the most talked about thing. We didn't have those expectations, so it's been cast aside.

Dayton lost their Starting PG Malachi Smith 7 minutes into the 1st game of the season.
He was preseason 2nd Team All Conference Pick

Huge loss for the entire season

He was a Junior, previous year starting PG. They lost their lead guard unexpectedly but still recovered with Bennett doing a fine job as Smith’s replacement.

PRESEASON ALL-CONFERENCE SECOND TEAM

MalachiSmith
Jimmy Clarke III
Maximus Edwards
Khalil Brantley
Philip Alston
MaxShulga

Yup, forgot about that.

Same theme though. They lost their one guy early and were able to add in a suitable replacement. But again, one injury. So I was off on that example but if I had more free time I'm sure I could find replacements. They still haven't had a single other player go down and miss a game.

The point being that our ideal starting lineup of Kortright, House, Montgomery, Green, and Bilau played zero games together.

Of our remaining starters - Kortright and House are the only ones who've been available for the entirety of the season.

Green - 13 games (5-8)
Fuchs - 5 games (0-5)
Weston - 5 games (2-3)

That matters. I can guarantee you if you have those guys available we have 4-5 more wins in there.

We didn't have Green, Fuchs, or Bilau for Charleston, Delaware, or New Hampshire. Does anyone seriously think that with those 3, or 2 of those 3, or even 1 of those 3 that we don't at least go 2-1 if not 3-0 against those teams?

It's just odd that everyone just wants to pile on Archie (there is definitely room for improvement) but yet we can't take an un-biased look at how things have shaken out with injuries as one of the reasons that this season hasn't gone the way we would've liked.

[Jdrums#3]

Me thinks Bluemans description of the recipe, on paper, makes sense regarding the rebuild timeline. However, the fan base, many of us, are frustrated by the loosing, the spill over from Cox years and have difficulty see the fruits of rebuild timeline. No?

That’s it with me, 105.

Very frustrated with the losing (more so because my window isn’t long). Despite that, I am still confident in Archie.

We have seen improvement offensively from last year to this year - and without a floor general point guard. That’s a good sign despite periodic boneheaded turnovers. However, it is our D that is very, very frustrating and is really bad.

I still think Archie can still fix the D side next season but hopefully does not have to sacrifice a lot of offense to fix it.

[reef]

My feelings are we have underachieved by a few games this year , I thought 14 wins would be about the floor a 5 game win improvement, that said I’m an Arch guy so rooting like hell for him to succeed here and hope the turnaround starts next season

[Jersey77]

Basketball is not football. Injuries happen but they certainly aren't part of the sport.

It's noticeable when your best players go down for extended periods of time. There's only 5 guys on the court. There's only 6-7 true difference makers on a team.

To have multiple key pieces - not even role players, but starters, go down for whole seasons or weeks, is not the norm. It's excusable. We've only had 3 players available for 100% of our games this year. Loyola had 6 in their rotation available. They only lost 2 of their starting 5 for 4 games. UMass? They lost 1 starter for 3 games. Otherwise their ENTIRE ROTATION has played the entire year.

How about Dayton? Oh yeah just ZERO INJURIES all year to their rotation. They've been available for 100% of the games.

It's amazing how people are continuing to look for reasons to blame Archie and then just poo-pooing away important things like the fact that the team we've been able to put on the court for a majority of the year has looked nothing like the roster that we planned to have. It's not normal to have the amount of injuries that we have.

It's the same thing that happened in year 4 with Hurley and EC. The only reason that felt bigger is because that was going to be the year we were "back" and had a chance to make a serious NCAA run.

If we had serious NCAA hopes at the onset of the year, the injuries and availability of players would be the most talked about thing. We didn't have those expectations, so it's been cast aside.

Dayton lost their Starting PG Malachi Smith 7 minutes into the 1st game of the season.
He was preseason 2nd Team All Conference Pick

Huge loss for the entire season

He was a Junior, previous year starting PG. They lost their lead guard unexpectedly but still recovered with Bennett doing a fine job as Smith’s replacement.

PRESEASON ALL-CONFERENCE SECOND TEAM

MalachiSmith
Jimmy Clarke III
Maximus Edwards
Khalil Brantley
Philip Alston
MaxShulga

Yup, forgot about that.

Same theme though. They lost their one guy early and were able to add in a suitable replacement. But again, one injury. So I was off on that example but if I had more free time I'm sure I could find replacements. They still haven't had a single other player go down and miss a game.

The point being that our ideal starting lineup of Kortright, House, Montgomery, Green, and Bilau played zero games together.

Of our remaining starters - Kortright and House are the only ones who've been available for the entirety of the season.

Green - 13 games (5-8)
Fuchs - 5 games (0-5)
Weston - 5 games (2-3)

That matters. I can guarantee you if you have those guys available we have 4-5 more wins in there.

We didn't have Green, Fuchs, or Bilau for Charleston, Delaware, or New Hampshire. Does anyone seriously think that with those 3, or 2 of those 3, or even 1 of those 3 that we don't at least go 2-1 if not 3-0 against those teams?

It's just odd that everyone just wants to pile on Archie (there is definitely room for improvement) but yet we can't take an un-biased look at how things have shaken out with injuries as one of the reasons that this season hasn't gone the way we would've liked.

If you and PRT want to keep using the injury issue as an excuse for this season, be my guest.

But in my opinion and most here there is very little merit to that.
Should we really go through every game we played and see who was healthy and who wasn't for us and the opposing team.
And then do the same for every team in our conference, their schedule, and then make a comparison. Really?

Why even bring it up, Archie isn't going away, let's see what happens in 24-25.

[RI_Bred]

Green - 13 games (5-8)
Fuchs - 5 games (0-5)
Weston - 5 games (2-3)

That matters. I can guarantee you if you have those guys available we have 4-5 more wins in there.

Based on our last game, there have been no guarantees with this team this year.

[Blue Man]

Dayton lost their Starting PG Malachi Smith 7 minutes into the 1st game of the season.
He was preseason 2nd Team All Conference Pick

Huge loss for the entire season

He was a Junior, previous year starting PG. They lost their lead guard unexpectedly but still recovered with Bennett doing a fine job as Smith’s replacement.

PRESEASON ALL-CONFERENCE SECOND TEAM

MalachiSmith
Jimmy Clarke III
Maximus Edwards
Khalil Brantley
Philip Alston
MaxShulga

Yup, forgot about that.

Same theme though. They lost their one guy early and were able to add in a suitable replacement. But again, one injury. So I was off on that example but if I had more free time I'm sure I could find replacements. They still haven't had a single other player go down and miss a game.

The point being that our ideal starting lineup of Kortright, House, Montgomery, Green, and Bilau played zero games together.

Of our remaining starters - Kortright and House are the only ones who've been available for the entirety of the season.

Green - 13 games (5-8)
Fuchs - 5 games (0-5)
Weston - 5 games (2-3)

That matters. I can guarantee you if you have those guys available we have 4-5 more wins in there.

We didn't have Green, Fuchs, or Bilau for Charleston, Delaware, or New Hampshire. Does anyone seriously think that with those 3, or 2 of those 3, or even 1 of those 3 that we don't at least go 2-1 if not 3-0 against those teams?

It's just odd that everyone just wants to pile on Archie (there is definitely room for improvement) but yet we can't take an un-biased look at how things have shaken out with injuries as one of the reasons that this season hasn't gone the way we would've liked.

If you and PRT want to keep using the injury issue as an excuse for this season, be my guest.

But in my opinion and most here there is very little merit to that.
Should we really go through every game we played and see who was healthy and who wasn't for us and the opposing team.
And then do the same for every team in our conference and make a comparison. Really?

Why even bring it up, Archie isn't going away, let's see what happens in 24-25.

I mean...yeah? Like no, it's not why we have a losing record. But to pretend that we wouldn't have 4-5 more wins.. especially if Green played the entire OOC.. is kinda ridiculous.

I'm bringing it up because this board tends to turn into a cesspool in need of someone to "blame" and is borderline unreadable when people start calling for Archie to be fired.

I have a pretty recent memory of the early Hurley years trending the same way. I remember having to actively remind people that EC's injury mattered, and so did Hassan's, and that's why we took a step back in a year, and that's why we didn't get back to the NCAA's within 4 years. Yet, the keaney blue online mob still wanted Dan fired and refused to see reason as to why we hadn't already been to the NCAA.

So call me crazy for making a very easy logical leap to compare these 2 situations, while simultaneously trying to reassure people that they felt this exact same way about Hurley - even though now they're all pretending they had totally reasonable, measured, mature takes on the state of our program from 2013- February 2017.

[theblueram]

After our 3 game win streak to start A10 conference play, we have gone 2-11. We have won 2 games since January 13. It's March 4 and I expect us to lose on Wednesday. We do have a problem and Archie needs to fix it pronto for next year.

[Jersey77]

Yup, forgot about that.

Same theme though. They lost their one guy early and were able to add in a suitable replacement. But again, one injury. So I was off on that example but if I had more free time I'm sure I could find replacements. They still haven't had a single other player go down and miss a game.

The point being that our ideal starting lineup of Kortright, House, Montgomery, Green, and Bilau played zero games together.

Of our remaining starters - Kortright and House are the only ones who've been available for the entirety of the season.

Green - 13 games (5-8)
Fuchs - 5 games (0-5)
Weston - 5 games (2-3)

That matters. I can guarantee you if you have those guys available we have 4-5 more wins in there.

We didn't have Green, Fuchs, or Bilau for Charleston, Delaware, or New Hampshire. Does anyone seriously think that with those 3, or 2 of those 3, or even 1 of those 3 that we don't at least go 2-1 if not 3-0 against those teams?

It's just odd that everyone just wants to pile on Archie (there is definitely room for improvement) but yet we can't take an un-biased look at how things have shaken out with injuries as one of the reasons that this season hasn't gone the way we would've liked.

If you and PRT want to keep using the injury issue as an excuse for this season, be my guest.

But in my opinion and most here there is very little merit to that.
Should we really go through every game we played and see who was healthy and who wasn't for us and the opposing team.
And then do the same for every team in our conference and make a comparison. Really?

Why even bring it up, Archie isn't going away, let's see what happens in 24-25.

I mean...yeah? Like no, it's not why we have a losing record. But to pretend that we wouldn't have 4-5 more wins.. especially if Green played the entire OOC.. is kinda ridiculous.

I'm bringing it up because this board tends to turn into a cesspool in need of someone to "blame" and is borderline unreadable when people start calling for Archie to be fired.

I have a pretty recent memory of the early Hurley years trending the same way. I remember having to actively remind people that EC's injury mattered, and so did Hassan's, and that's why we took a step back in a year, and that's why we didn't get back to the NCAA's within 4 years. Yet, the keaney blue online mob still wanted Dan fired and refused to see reason as to why we hadn't already been to the NCAA.

So call me crazy for making a very easy logical leap to compare these 2 situations, while simultaneously trying to reassure people that they felt this exact same way about Hurley - even though now they're all pretending they had totally reasonable, measured, mature takes on the state of our program from 2013- February 2017.

Okay so if Odom was eligible in 97-98 maybe we win a Natty, why beat yourself over it with Green.
Getting him to play at all this season was nothing but a bonus.

EC's injury was like a dagger in the heart, nothing even remotely similar to that this season.

[Blue Man]

If you and PRT want to keep using the injury issue as an excuse for this season, be my guest.

But in my opinion and most here there is very little merit to that.
Should we really go through every game we played and see who was healthy and who wasn't for us and the opposing team.
And then do the same for every team in our conference and make a comparison. Really?

Why even bring it up, Archie isn't going away, let's see what happens in 24-25.

I mean...yeah? Like no, it's not why we have a losing record. But to pretend that we wouldn't have 4-5 more wins.. especially if Green played the entire OOC.. is kinda ridiculous.

I'm bringing it up because this board tends to turn into a cesspool in need of someone to "blame" and is borderline unreadable when people start calling for Archie to be fired.

I have a pretty recent memory of the early Hurley years trending the same way. I remember having to actively remind people that EC's injury mattered, and so did Hassan's, and that's why we took a step back in a year, and that's why we didn't get back to the NCAA's within 4 years. Yet, the keaney blue online mob still wanted Dan fired and refused to see reason as to why we hadn't already been to the NCAA.

So call me crazy for making a very easy logical leap to compare these 2 situations, while simultaneously trying to reassure people that they felt this exact same way about Hurley - even though now they're all pretending they had totally reasonable, measured, mature takes on the state of our program from 2013- February 2017.

Okay so if Odom was eligible in 97-98 maybe we win a Natty, why beat yourself over it with Green.
Getting him to play at all this season was nothing but a bonus.

EC's injury was like a dagger in the heart, nothing even remotely similar to that this season.

I think about scenario #1 quite often. An alarming amount actually.

Scenario #2 is exactly my point. It was a dagger in the heart because we had NCAA expectations that season. We lost them all at once.
We did not have those expectations this season - so it's outlandish that so many people want the coach fired and feel the need to pile on when he's literally meeting the expectations.

It's NCAA or bust. So it's pass/fail. This wasn't an NCAA year, so who cares how far away this one season was from dancing?

[ram1980]

My concern is not Archie's basketball pedigree. It's does he have these players respect?
Examples: players constantly chirping at refs after fouls on them or no calls on the opponent.
Terrible defensive effort almost across the board.
Numerous times not hustling after loose balls. 2 egregious ones Sunday (Green and Montgomery).
Green smacking Fuchs in the head coming off the court last week. Then the 2 having to be separated.
Green coming off the floor Sunday , Archie coaching him on something and Green giving him the yeah right motion with his hands. After that Kenny Johnson was the communicator with Green.
Just so many examples of players thinking they are bigger than the team. Who's to blame for that and how does it get solved.
Archie was the right man for the job. Just not sure current players fit his mold. I still think he'll get there.
All I want is a competitive, entertaining team with the ultimate goal of getting back to relevance. I think it's fair to question this group.

[Jersey77]

I mean...yeah? Like no, it's not why we have a losing record. But to pretend that we wouldn't have 4-5 more wins.. especially if Green played the entire OOC.. is kinda ridiculous.

I'm bringing it up because this board tends to turn into a cesspool in need of someone to "blame" and is borderline unreadable when people start calling for Archie to be fired.

I have a pretty recent memory of the early Hurley years trending the same way. I remember having to actively remind people that EC's injury mattered, and so did Hassan's, and that's why we took a step back in a year, and that's why we didn't get back to the NCAA's within 4 years. Yet, the keaney blue online mob still wanted Dan fired and refused to see reason as to why we hadn't already been to the NCAA.

So call me crazy for making a very easy logical leap to compare these 2 situations, while simultaneously trying to reassure people that they felt this exact same way about Hurley - even though now they're all pretending they had totally reasonable, measured, mature takes on the state of our program from 2013- February 2017.

Okay so if Odom was eligible in 97-98 maybe we win a Natty, why beat yourself over it with Green.
Getting him to play at all this season was nothing but a bonus.

EC's injury was like a dagger in the heart, nothing even remotely similar to that this season.

I think about scenario #1 quite often. An alarming amount actually.

Scenario #2 is exactly my point. It was a dagger in the heart because we had NCAA expectations that season. We lost them all at once.
We did not have those expectations this season - so it's outlandish that so many people want the coach fired and feel the need to pile on when he's literally meeting the expectations.

It's NCAA or bust. So it's pass/fail. This wasn't an NCAA year, so who cares how far away this one season was from dancing?

Like I said earlier Blue Man, fans typically have unrealistic expectations about their team.
Many were looking for instant gratification especially after so much was made about our new players.

I usually take the opposite approach being more cautious.

Still most realize Archie will be here for a while and taking the wait and see approach.

But again, for the season ticketholders and those making regular donations and helping to fund the program, they do expect to start seeing some positive results.

Our forum is NCAA or Bust, but I wouldn't take it that literal.
Times have changes and most would at least want us to be competitive and at some point contend.

[Blue Man]

My concern is not Archie's basketball pedigree. It's does he have these players respect?
Examples: players constantly chirping at refs after fouls on them or no calls on the opponent.
Terrible defensive effort almost across the board.
Numerous times not hustling after loose balls. 2 egregious ones Sunday (Green and Montgomery).
Green smacking Fuchs in the head coming off the court last week. Then the 2 having to be separated.
Green coming off the floor Sunday , Archie coaching him on something and Green giving him the yeah right motion with his hands. After that Kenny Johnson was the communicator with Green.
Just so many examples of players thinking they are bigger than the team. Who's to blame for that and how does it get solved.
Archie was the right man for the job. Just not sure current players fit his mold. I still think he'll get there.
All I want is a competitive, entertaining team with the ultimate goal of getting back to relevance. I think it's fair to question this group.

I'm leaning on the 4 year guys. Who are the guys he's bringing in with 4 years eligibility, how do they fit, and does he keep them.

Estevez, Fuchs, Foumena, Dubsky

Next year with Hammond and Farrell.

If he keeps Estevez and Fuchs for the long term, and Hammond/Farrell pan out and stay, then there's your NCAA nucleus in 26/27

[rambone 78]

First, I take issue with those who think I want Archie fired after this season

Not yet.

My biggest issue is the very poor attitude displayed by several of our players

Not just the lack of talent.

I also did not expect us to contend for an NIT or NCAA berth this season.

However I did expect at least a certain level of improvement this season. Injuries haven't helped, but that doesn't come close to explaining the number of blowout losses.

Archie knows his coaching hasn't been what he and we expected also.

Everything has to be considerably better next season

Tourney level? No. But a hell of a lot closer than this season.

[theblueram]

First, I take issue with those who think I want Archie fired after this season

Not yet.

My biggest issue is the very poor attitude displayed by several of our players

Not just the lack of talent.

I also did not expect us to contend for an NIT or NCAA berth this season.

However I did expect at least a certain level of improvement this season. Injuries haven't helped, but that doesn't come close to explaining the number of blowout losses.

Archie knows his coaching hasn't been what he and we expected also.

Everything has to be considerably better next season

Tourney level? No. But a hell of a lot closer than this season.

DEFENSE. How many charges did we take this year? Bone, this team needs to nut up on defense next year or else we are in the same place. They also need to make free throws. This team is so charmin soft right now. Maybe they need Seal or SF training in the off season. I can forgive a young team, but I can't forgive effort on the defensive end.

[RI_Bred]

DEFENSE. How many charges did we take this year? Bone, this team needs to nut up on defense next year or else we are in the same place. They also need to make free throws. This team is so charmin soft right now. Maybe they need Seal or SF training in the off season. I can forgive a young team, but I can't forgive effort on the defensive end.

AMEN.

[Rhody_NYCT]

The problem with comparing Archie with anyone from the past is that college hoops has changed so much over the past few years. You really can't compare. There are so many unknowns with this sport right now. Hurley's 2nd year was not good, but he was building a roster. We don't know if that's even possible anymore. Time will tell. I don't like the new transfer rules. It's hurting the game. Even for power 5 schools, they will never have continuity like they did in the past. Maybe they can be assured of a high level of talent each year, but their chemistry might stink. And every year will be a reload, like it's been for Kentucky and it's 5 star recruits for the last decade plus. It all equates to a worse product and one that is not nearly as fun to follow. This sport needs fixing. I hope it will happen.

[Jersey77]

The problem with comparing Archie with anyone from the past is that college hoops has changed so much over the past few years. You really can't compare. There are so many unknowns with this sport right now. Hurley's 2nd year was not good, but he was building a roster. We don't know if that's even possible anymore. Time will tell. I don't like the new transfer rules. It's hurting the game. Even for power 5 schools, they will never have continuity like they did in the past. Maybe they can be assured of a high level of talent each year, but their chemistry might stink. And every year will be a reload, like it's been for Kentucky and it's 5 star recruits for the last decade plus. It all equates to a worse product and one that is not nearly as fun to follow. This sport needs fixing. I hope it will happen.

It won't, just keeps getting worse.

[rhodyrudder]

We did not have those expectations this season - so it's outlandish that so many people want the coach fired and feel the need to pile on when he's literally meeting the expectations.

It's NCAA or bust. So it's pass/fail. This wasn't an NCAA year, so who cares how far away this one season was from dancing?

He's meeting the expectations? Who cares how bad we suck at the end of year two?

We haven't been .500 or beaten fucking Brown in four years.

I get that he's not getting fired, but you have to improve. Or else people are going away.

Tell me when to watch again...

And fwiw, I don't think he should be fired right now.
But the grade is an F.

[Blue Man]

We did not have those expectations this season - so it's outlandish that so many people want the coach fired and feel the need to pile on when he's literally meeting the expectations.

It's NCAA or bust. So it's pass/fail. This wasn't an NCAA year, so who cares how far away this one season was from dancing?

He's meeting the expectations? Who cares how bad we suck at the end of year two?

We haven't been .500 or beaten fucking Brown in four years.

I get that he's not getting fired, but you have to improve. Or else people are going away.

Tell me when to watch again...

And fwiw, I don't think he should be fired right now.
But the grade is an F.

This is my point. You're conflating and cramming 4 years of losing onto Archie's shoulders even though he's been here for 2 of them.

I don't get it. I got lambasted when I was the first off the Cox train early on, and no one else joined the movement til mid-year 3 at the earliest. Why is everyone piling onto Archie in a rebuild more than they piled on Cox when he squandered a golden opportunity?

[rhodyrudder]

but you have to improve. Or else people are going away.

[section(105)]

We did not have those expectations this season - so it's outlandish that so many people want the coach fired and feel the need to pile on when he's literally meeting the expectations.

It's NCAA or bust. So it's pass/fail. This wasn't an NCAA year, so who cares how far away this one season was from dancing?

He's meeting the expectations? Who cares how bad we suck at the end of year two?

We haven't been .500 or beaten fucking Brown in four years.

I get that he's not getting fired, but you have to improve. Or else people are going away.

Tell me when to watch again...

And fwiw, I don't think he should be fired right now.
But the grade is an F.

This is my point. You're conflating and cramming 4 years of losing onto Archie's shoulders even though he's been here for 2 of them.

I don't get it. I got lambasted when I was the first off the Cox train early on, and no one else joined the movement til mid-year 3 at the earliest. Why is everyone piling onto Archie in a rebuild more than they piled on Cox when he squandered a golden opportunity?

Maybe unfairly, many including me were expecting a Dayton lite level of success?

[NYGFan_Section208]

The facts:

Miller versus Hurley at the Two year mark

2011-12 | 7-24 | Baron
2012-13 | 8-21 | Hurley
2013-14 | 14-18 | Hurley

2021-22 | 15-16 | Cox
2022-23 | 9-22| | Miller
2023-24 | 11-18 ytd | Miller

Hurley's first two seasons both showed improvement with both being superior to the last year of his predecessor. Miller is still yet to show improvement in either of his first two seasons with both registering less wins than the last year of his predecessor.

If Cox had preceded Hurley, Hurley wouldn't have exceeded his predecessor either. So, I guess...all you can really get from that is Cox > Baron?

[Jdrums#3]

The problem with comparing Archie with anyone from the past is that college hoops has changed so much over the past few years. You really can't compare. There are so many unknowns with this sport right now. Hurley's 2nd year was not good, but he was building a roster. We don't know if that's even possible anymore. Time will tell. I don't like the new transfer rules. It's hurting the game. Even for power 5 schools, they will never have continuity like they did in the past. Maybe they can be assured of a high level of talent each year, but their chemistry might stink. And every year will be a reload, like it's been for Kentucky and it's 5 star recruits for the last decade plus. It all equates to a worse product and one that is not nearly as fun to follow. This sport needs fixing. I hope it will happen.

It won't, just keeps getting worse.

Take the NBA, for example. The NBA player is an employee and has movement via free agency but there are rules, contracts regulating movement. Plus the careers are longer for rotational and higher level players.

Whereas, in college basketball players are students and have only a max of 4 yrs unless severe injury, red-shirt, Covid year (which is disappearing). As a result the NIL money making and transfer window is condensed thus creating more urgency in players (and their agents, advisors, handlers) to max out their 4 yr earning/winning window, imho.

I guess if the student athletes become employees then some common sense regulations can be put in place ? But then would you have to tweak state employment laws to institute regulations ? But then state employment laws only apply to state schools and not private schools ?

Ooph. I don’t know. I don’t have the brain power anymore to go down this rabbit hole. Any labor lawyers on KB ?

[NYGFan_Section208]

We did not have those expectations this season - so it's outlandish that so many people want the coach fired and feel the need to pile on when he's literally meeting the expectations.

It's NCAA or bust. So it's pass/fail. This wasn't an NCAA year, so who cares how far away this one season was from dancing?

He's meeting the expectations? Who cares how bad we suck at the end of year two?

We haven't been .500 or beaten fucking Brown in four years.

I get that he's not getting fired, but you have to improve. Or else people are going away.

Tell me when to watch again...

And fwiw, I don't think he should be fired right now.
But the grade is an F.

This is my point. You're conflating and cramming 4 years of losing onto Archie's shoulders even though he's been here for 2 of them.

I don't get it. I got lambasted when I was the first off the Cox train early on, and no one else joined the movement til mid-year 3 at the earliest. Why is everyone piling onto Archie in a rebuild more than they piled on Cox when he squandered a golden opportunity?

First off the Cox train is one thing...there were a good number that were never on it, and we're all still paying for it.

[bigappleram]

No serious person thinks Archie should be fired.

I've got the rosiest of keaney colored glasses but there are some issues in these 2 years that can't be ignored.

If each of these seasons had floor and ceiling expectations IMO we met the floor in both of them. So to me that's not meeting expectations.

We do have a talent identification/procurement issue. And it's not due to NIL. Look at a few of the guys we were supposedly very interested in/had visits and didn't secure: Rahsool Diggins, Dame Adelekun, Charles Pride. I think we took Bray over Diggins. Bad decision. We lost out on Adelekun and Pride to Loyola and St Bonaventure (not to some P5s throwing stacks of cash). Put those 3 guys on our team and take away any 3 and we are a better team plain and simple. Not only are those guys more productive than the alternatives we secured; they are higher IQ better basketball players full stop.

I was thrilled when Archie said at the presser he wanted to have a team that played fast, shot the ball and played with high IQ.
The roster he constructed doesn't speak to that vision at all.

By all metrics we have a bunch of OK players. But we lack the high end talent needed to win in this league. Besides Davidson is there any team we played this year and you thought we had the best player on the floor? I can't name a single other A10 team. Usually, in basketball, the team with the best player wins a lot. That needs to change or the Ws will not follow it's that simple.

We have yet to punch above our weight in securing talent. Drew Valentine finished last but he sold something to land Des Watkins and Adelekun. This is why I think we will see a staff shake up this off-season, from a talent acquisition standpoint outside of Fuchs there just aren't many highlights.
Cam is a nice player but is not even a Top 10 freshmen in the league this year. Has a lot of room to grow. Hammond next year could change that narrative.

The disadvantage Archie had vs guys like Odom and Martin was that he was out of work for a year. He didn't have any kids he could bring with him or a recruiting pipeline he could just tinker and move to another destination. That alone makes Year 1 a complete wash. But year 2 has been a massive disappointment. The part I'm surprised about is that Archie knows what the talent needs to look like to win in this league. He's done it before. Dan didn't know. He admitted in those early years that the league was better than he thought it was. Tougher to win than he thought. Archie should've known all that already which makes the many talent misses more perplexing.

I don't think building a winning team/program got easier in the portal/NIL era. Talent acquisition got easier. But building a culture, identity and team approach is still incredibly difficult. Archie deserves and will get plenty of more time. However this off-season we MUST punch above our weight in the talent acquisition department. If we don't next year won't meet expectations either. It's the Jimmys and the Joes not the X's and the O's. And he must infuse toughness, grit and a desire to defend into whoever is going to be suiting up next year.

[Taylor Swift]

Comparisons to Hurleys early teams is night and day for me. Even through the losing in Dan's early years you always had the sense we were building toward something with a culture and style of play. The team took on Dan's personality and played hard on EVERY possession regardless of opponent or score. Not so much with this group, no alphas on this team, and a few guys that seem completely disinterested on the floor.

Hurley’s first few seasons had a ton of energy and enthusiasm in the community, and this was even before social media was as big of a hype tool as it is now.

[ramster]

He's meeting the expectations? Who cares how bad we suck at the end of year two?

We haven't been .500 or beaten fucking Brown in four years.

I get that he's not getting fired, but you have to improve. Or else people are going away.

Tell me when to watch again...

And fwiw, I don't think he should be fired right now.
But the grade is an F.

This is my point. You're conflating and cramming 4 years of losing onto Archie's shoulders even though he's been here for 2 of them.

I don't get it. I got lambasted when I was the first off the Cox train early on, and no one else joined the movement til mid-year 3 at the earliest. Why is everyone piling onto Archie in a rebuild more than they piled on Cox when he squandered a golden opportunity?

First off the Cox train is one thing...there were a good number that were never on it, and we're all still paying for it.

1st off the Cox train? Is there an award for that?

I could not be 1st off because I never got on it. The poll shows 19 votes for Pitino. My Poll shows in bold for Pitino because I voted for him. If not Pitino as an option I would have gone Becker. Imagine if we had hired Pitino right after Hurley?

URI was in excellent position with back to back NCAA appearances to land a solid HC. We did not need to go “the Assistsnt Coach from your own team” route. But we did.

Back to Back NCAA Tournaments. Not just in the NCAA Tournament but winning games and playing great. A10 has won 1 NCAA game since Hurley. One.

Pitino with no issues at Iona and no issues at St John’s.

And here we are about to head into Year 7 Post Hurley.

[steveystuds06]

I don't see how injuries can be used as an excuse. Bilau started against Charleston, and we got smoked. Delaware was much better than we are. Perhaps we could have beaten New Hampshire with a healthy team, going 1-2 instead of 0-3. Bilau also played in both of our embarrassing losses to Brown. He's a decent player, but let's stop acting like losing him drastically changed our season. He's an older, banged-up big who gets hurt every single year. Also, Fuchs has had some great moments, as has Fou and even Brown in some games. This isn't like last year, where Bilau was the only D1 big man we had on the roster.

David Green certainly made us better. He's a strong offensive player. However, he and the rest of our team get absolutely abused on defense. That's why we would still lose most of these games. We must also factor in how much better Zek played without Green on the floor. Since Green became eligible, Zek has struggled. They clearly do not play well together, so who knows how many games we would have won.

We should judge the team and the players who have played most of the year. We should judge their effort and heart. My questions are: Why is the team regressing just like last year? Why is the team checking out and displaying terrible body language on the floor? Why can't we do simple things that you're taught in middle school, like boxing out, preventing the backdoor, or drawing a charge? Why is our basketball IQ so low? Why is the team arguing on the bench, and some players are bickering with Archie? Why is Archie getting outcoached in most games, especially in the second half? Make all the excuses you want, but there's no excuse for the healthy guys to play the way they have in most of our games this year. This team has looked like a poorly coached team for the second year in a row. It doesn't mean their hasnt' been moments of brilliance from Archie. I've praised him plenty, but this slump has been brutal.

It's very simple for me. Archie has to keep our key players, and he needs to land one or two immediate impact starters. If we look like this again and finish at the bottom of the A10, I'll join the people out on Archie. I don't expect an NIT or NCAA bid. A mid-level A10 finish or higher is my goal. I thought we would be a top A10 team by year 3 but no chance that's happening and I've accepted it. Maybe we can get there by year 5...

[4Diffs]

Hey look at the good news. Things are so bad they are offering $5 Bud Light, Bud Light Seltzer Michelob Ultra and Muse until last call. The beauty of supply and demand at work. What is this like 60% off the regular price.

And even better news if you are a season ticket holder, they are providing you with a season ticket holder appreciation gift, but only if you show up to the game. This might be tacky for some, but it will result in me being at the game when I had no intentions of going. My wife loves magnets and she loves the Rams head so we will be there to pick up our gift. The question is do we stay for the game (I kid, I think).

[Billyboy78]

Hey look at the good news. Things are so bad they are offering $5 Bud Light, Bud Light Seltzer Michelob Ultra and Muse until last call. The beauty of supply and demand at work. What is this like 60% off the regular price.

And even better news if you are a season ticket holder, they are providing you with a season ticket holder appreciation gift, but only if you show up to the game. This might be tacky for some, but it will result in me being at the game when I had no intentions of going. My wife loves magnets and she loves the Rams head so we will be there to pick up our gift. The question is do we stay for the game (I kid, I think).

Can you take the beers to go?