Jersey77 wrote: ↑3 years ago
Blue Man wrote: ↑3 years ago
rjsuperfly66 wrote: ↑3 years ago
So here's a question for the good of the group --- The program basically has to poop or get off the pot with Cox after next season with an extension or a termination. What do you think it would take for Cox to earn an extension?
NCAA Tournament?
Top 5 but with promising core/recruits?
Top 7 but with promising core/recruits?
Retain your key players. That has to be number one.
If you lose one of Ish, Mitchells, Walker, Martin, I think short of a miracle NCAA appearance and win you have to dump Cox. If he can't retain the talent he recruits, what does it matter?
NCAA at large at a minimum. Cox did not walk into a rebuild. When the contract was signed the "bar" we were told was A10 championships and NCAA appearances. Obviously no one takes that literally, as in we should dance every year and hang an A-10 banner, but you take that to mean that you are
competing for a title and a birth, giving yourselves a chance to make it, and getting better as the season progresses.
Cox is a clear 0-3. The reason he was remotely in the same stratosphere last year was because of Jeff Dowtin. Dave has not replaced Jeff (which would be hard to do), and the absence of someone as good as el jefe has exposed Cox for what he is as a coach - unprepared, unable to make adjustments, running a system that either doesn't work or he can't get players for.
He did not walk into a rebuild, but it is clear we are starting one now.
The question is - do you now give him 4 years after this new rebuild, and think that he'll develop and change?
Agree with the shit or get off the pot line of thinking, in 3 years I don't think anyone could point to one thing that has objectively gotten better like you could with Dan Hurley. Not in results, the eye test, recruiting, player development...nothing. Hurley had a rebuild. Cox had a turnkey program with pieces that an average coach should've been able to be on the bubble both years. Jeff, Cyril, Fatts - with Tyrese as a freshman. If Jeff was kept on the ball (which any average coach would do), that team is at least top 4 in the A10 the first year, and dancing the next.
It's like in Step Brothers when Dale farts and the tuxedos look fucked up. Losing Jeff put a lot into perspective about what this team is capable of under this coach, and I don't think you can like it.
Cox's first year we were no way an NCAAT bubble team, there were just too many teams in our conference better than us, period.
We lost 4 starters and almost all our scoring,
plus you have a coach in his 1st year ever running a program.
No telling what any coach would of done with Fatts. If he wasn't going to be on the ball, he probably would of been gone.
What was he supposed to be a CG at 5'9" who isn't a good shooter (35% FG, 28% 3pt) and mostly guarding much bigger CG's?
I am sure playing off the ball at CG would of been his best path to the next level, yeah right.
Again, the larger point being that Cox was said coach who couldn't get that done. If you keep Dan Hurley, that team dances. If you hire Rick Pitino, that team dances.
Regardless of first year head coach or not, you moved your best player at the most important position on the court, away from where he was at his best to the detriment of the team.
Also, no other coach allows Fatts to a) openly disrespect the coach and do his own thing at the end of a game, and the coach laughs about it in the presser, and b) shoot that many shots without SOME TYPE of adjustment.
Seriously do people remember how bad Fatts was his sophomore year? How many games he single-handedly lost us because he was taking 5-6 3 pointers a game and most of the year connecting at an EIGHTEEN percent?
Cox made ZERO adjustments and just let Fatts "shoot his way out of it" - aka losing games to let a player figure it out instead of COACHING.
Some of my favorites from that year for Fatts:
2-15, 0-10 from 3 against Charleston (11 pt loss)
4-15, 1-7 from 3 against Stony Brook (10 pt loss)
2-13, 1-5 from 3 against PC (9 pt loss)
4-16, 0-6 from 3 against Haw (8 pt loss)
5-16, 0-7 from 3 against GMU (17 pt loss)
3-13, 1-5 from 3 against Duq (5 pt loss) - blew a 19 point lead.
etc, etc, because I'm getting dizzy looking at how awful that season went. But all of that was before our 5 game losing streak in February.
So while I understand you saying "Cox was a 1st year coach" do you understand that many of us are pissed because those same passive, "let them do what they want" tendencies exist today.
To me that says it is who he is, he lets the players dictate what they're going to do, that's why they love playing for him. But if that won you basketball games, the highest paid state employee wouldn't be a coach.