1st year coaches

[milanbear]

so what's the point we chose a guy we knew he would make a lot of mistakes?
And after some years, when he's mature, he will jump to big name schools anyway.

And your point? The three coaches above him will be in the dance. Remember Shaka had 4 starters returning and a nice recruiting class.

are you serious??? why cant anyone give the man a break, i admit i question shaka at times but he is a first year coach, he will make some mistakes but bleeping give the guy a break

in shaka i trust, and i hope he is around for some time now

 

[Ramdog]

i am still pissed he made Ed miss that runner in the lane that would have tied it and put into the second overtime...5 foot shot and Skaka missed it...darn coaching

 

[VRam]

i am still pissed he made Ed miss that runner in the lane that would have tied it and put into the second overtime...5 foot shot and Skaka missed it...darn coaching

You mean the "piss-poor" shot, Dog? That one? Seems like we lived off those piss-poor shots the last couple of seasons.

 

[milanbear]

I think we were in contention for the caa title, just met odu one game earlier.
had we won in semi, we would also take care of WM.
so regular season did affect us, we got the 5th seed, then had to go against 1st seed in semi.

How were we not in a solid position to win a title? We played the worst team on Friday and won easily. We beat a higher seed team in the quarter finals and we lost to the eventual champion in the semis in OT. Besides not wearing white uniforms after the first round how did our regular season adversely impact competing for the tournament championship?

Obviously everyone wants to avoid the first round, but THIS season did it really have any impact on us? I didn't hear anybody say we looked fatigued, nobody got hurt, we battled GMU and won. Hofstra could possibly make that claim. Drexel surely got hurt by playing in the opening round.

How were we NOT in contention this season?

By the way...I say all of this in love!

The bottom line is people need to grow up. We are dealing with humans and not video game programs. This talk about "I expect championships every year" sounds nice and people are entitled to expect whatever they want to expect. But every year each team is different. Even if just one player leaves, that can change the whole dynamic of a squad.

I'm fine with high expectations, just have some sense and prespective about it. Teams consist of people, not robots.

I don't think the "expectation" is to win championships EVERY year, but to at least be in a solid position to win them. I give Shaka a "B" on his tournament performance, a "C" on his CAA regular season performance, and an "A" on his OoC performance. Unfortunately for us, OoC doesn't mean very much if you aren't in contention for an at-large. 5th place in the CAA is not a good position to be in if you want an at-large bid. If we were top 2 and maybe possibly top 3 this year, we'd have been in contention.

 

[SPI-DA1]

Very impressive to see Coach Smart so high up on that list. There are a lot of talented coaches listed under him. I believe Tony Bennett was a former AP coach of the year, obviously Grant was successful here as was Mark Fox at Nevada. I think Nevada is a pretty good comparison to our situation this year, and we have outperformed them.

Our league is not a push over league ...it is very competitive from top to bottom even though some of the records may not reflect it..Smart did a great job...an outstanding job...Capel won only 18 games his first year here...heck...Grant did not get to the
Dance his second year...we had a winning season.. in a conference that had 4 teams with 20 plus wins...that is 1/4 of the league...I say Good Job!

 

[vcu_dan]

Our league is not a push over league ...it is very competitive from top to bottom even though some of the records may not reflect it.

uh.....I got one word towson lol. Yes there are some very solid teams in our league but the bottom ain't exactly lighting it up. If you lose by 60 at any point in a season you are not competitive.

 

[SPI-DA1]

Our league is not a push over league ...it is very competitive from top to bottom even though some of the records may not reflect it.

uh.....I got one word towson lol. Yes there are some very solid teams in our league but the bottom ain't exactly lighting it up. If you lose by 60 at any point in a season you are not competitive.

Yeah thats just one game...but you get my meaning I'm sure..

 

[morrisar]

How were we not in a solid position to win a title? We played the worst team on Friday and won easily. We beat a higher seed team in the quarter finals and we lost to the eventual champion in the semis in OT. Besides not wearing white uniforms after the first round how did our regular season adversely impact competing for the tournament championship?

Obviously everyone wants to avoid the first round, but THIS season did it really have any impact on us? I didn't hear anybody say we looked fatigued, nobody got hurt, we battled GMU and won. Hofstra could possibly make that claim. Drexel surely got hurt by playing in the opening round.

How were we NOT in contention this season?

By the way...I say all of this in love!

We were on our third game in three days while ODU was only playing in their second game. What you are saying is that since our guys weren't collapsing on the floor or clearly sucking wind that exhaustion didn't have an effect? If having a first round bye wasn't an advantage, then it would be the bottom four teams not playing on Friday. I'm happy just as much as the next person that we beat George Mason, but in reality this was a team that we had our foot on their throat and then totally collapsed the one time we played for whatever reason. Higher seed, yes, but according to the line and in terms of talent it would have been an upset had we lost. We were favored over ODU as well and yet again, fell completely apart at the end of the game after building a double-digit lead. My question for you is, why are you so in love with every button that Shaka presses? Are you sure you aren't Norwood Teague? Don't get me wrong, I say all this in love.

 

[YouveBeenRammed]

Andy you need to post something on the Embrace the Love thread

 

[xjohnx]

We were on our third game in three days while ODU was only playing in their second game. What you are saying is that since our guys weren't collapsing on the floor or clearly sucking wind that exhaustion didn't have an effect?

It may have had an effect, but these kids are used to playing 6 games a weekend in AAU. I think the effect is highly overstated.

We were favored over ODU as well and yet again, fell completely apart at the end of the game after building a double-digit lead. My question for you is, why are you so in love with every button that Shaka presses? Are you sure you aren't Norwood Teague? Don't get me wrong, I say all this in love.

ODU was favored in that game by 1.5.

 

[morrisar]

It may have had an effect, but these kids are used to playing 6 games a weekend in AAU. I think the effect is highly overstated.

Comparing college basketball to AAU basketball is silly. The games are shorter. The rules are different. It'd be like me saying a MLB pitcher shouldn't be tired after pitching a complete game because my work's softball team pitcher throws two complete games back-to-back every week.

ODU was favored in that game by 1.5.

That's funny because the two VRN polls had VCU winning 13 votes to 2 and 8 votes to 1 respectively.

 

[Mistachill]

We were on our third game in three days while ODU was only playing in their second game. What you are saying is that since our guys weren't collapsing on the floor or clearly sucking wind that exhaustion didn't have an effect?

No need to tell me what I'm saying. I pretty much said what I'm saying, which is we played a relatively easy game against Delaware in the first round in which we played 10 players nobody played over 30 minutes. As John stated the affect was probably minimal. These guys aren't babies and I would bet dating back to the Grant years we've traditional been one of the best conditioned teams in the conference.

If having a first round bye wasn't an advantage, then it would be the bottom four teams not playing on Friday.

Again, who said it was an advantage? I'm saying in THIS instance in THIS game against THIS team playing in the first round had probably had minimal affect. Obviously playing Friday impacted Drexel (since they lost) and probably Hofstra (had a tough first round game followed by another tough OT game). Which is what I thought I posted.

I'm happy just as much as the next person that we beat George Mason...

I couldn't tell.

We were favored over ODU as well

Wrong again. I checked the line before the game (because they were pretty accurate handicapping the CAA tournament) and I was disappointed (not surprised) to see ODU was favored.

My question for you is, why are you so in love with every button that Shaka presses?

Wrong yet again. There are certainly areas to be critical of Coach Smart, but why dwell on it. It's not as if there's a lack of that on this message board. But I will defend him, Grant, Capel, even Mack when so-called fans unfairly pile on during tough times.

 

[xjohnx]

Comparing college basketball to AAU basketball is silly.

....

That's funny because the two VRN polls had VCU winning 13 votes to 2 and 8 votes to 1 respectively.

Almost as silly as trying to gauge who is expected to win a college basketball game by asking the fans of a participating team. But then again, you weren't doing that since you referenced the line

 

[morrisar]

Almost as silly as trying to gauge who is expected to win a college basketball game by asking the fans of a participating team. But then again, you weren't doing that since you referenced the line

I figured that comment would go over your head.

The point of the poll obviously wasn't to seriously gauge who was expected to win, it was to offer something "fun" for the boards. It was obvious who the posters that sleep with Shaka's jock under their pillow at night were going to vote for even if it read "VCU vs. Kansas/Kentucky/Syracuse (your choice)". Your AAU comparison did make me laugh though. Thank you for that!

Mistachill, I agree with you that we are a well conditioned team. I'd like to think that we've been the most conditioned team in the CAA for the past couple of years now. However, the fact remains that our top two players, Joey Rodriguez and Larry Sanders, each averaged 32 1/4 minutes a game heading into the ODU game while ODU's top two players, Frank Hassell and Gerald Lee, had only averaged 20 minutes each. Not to mention that their starters as a whole only averaged 21.4 minutes/game heading into Sunday. Joey and Larry played more than three times as many minutes in the two days prior than all but one of ODU's starters.

 

[Mistachill]

morrisar - and you realize the team had a week off, right? So if the numbers say they should be tired that means they had to be affected in spite of what actually happened on the court?

One question, did you attend the Delaware game?