Future?

[shoxlax]

I think this year's problems started when we recruited Darral and Daishon and ended up with a seven member junior class. Nothing against Darral and Daishon. With Daishon's departure we still ended up with a 6 man senior class. Seems like a gamble towards big rewards last year and the year before. That was a decision that would have included Marshall, Heier, Brown, Linstead and Jans. Our reward was a MVC co-championship, AAC second place and one NCAA victory. This year we're paying for that gamble. We can throw in all the variables of transfers, NBA and lost recruits but isn't part of running a program having contingencies for such occurances? Balanced classes being the most obvious?

Valid points all. In addition we had coaches coming and going which didn’t help the collective thought process much.

[forevershockerfan]

Calling all recruits that can match the results of players such as Baker, FVV, Cle, Cotton, Hall, Shaq, and LS. I remember getting excited about LS playing his Junior and Senior years here early on before realizing he was all the way to the NBA and now making millions. As long as Coach Marshall is here, our future is bright and will be an uphill battle for another Season, prolly 2. Another big transfer, or even Juco, that can come in and improve our rotation inside next Season would suit me fine. I'm greedy, make it 2 more bigs to compliment JE in the trenches? Dunno, but I'm open to any needed changes 3G sees fit when it is all said and done at the end of this Season.

[pie n eye]

When there's such a gamble on one great year with the unbalanced classes and the need to rebuild in the next year, and a team with an NBA stud and 4 Sr's on the floor can't win a single game in the tourney. Yep, I'm saying that last year was an underachieving year. The top 25 all year was fool's gold because the team was not that good. They were incredibly better on paper than on the court, so they got a lot of publicity and a lot of great press.

I don’t get the “such a gamble” on one great year comment. It fees like a projection. Yeah, it sucks that we had so many guys in one class (5) but I don’t know where the idea that it was planned as a master stroke “all in” move came from. Seems like it just happened that way through a series of events, some within our control, some not. I mean since Marshall has been here we’ve had a recruit die in a pick up game, one almost die in a practice if not for Todd Fagan, a player temporarily paralyzed in a game to the point we didn’t know if he’d ever play again, and a guy decommit a couple months before the season began.

I know we aren’t the only program that has issues but my point is that sometimes **** happens. You just have to deal with it the best you can. Over the past 10 years it’s worked out for us more often than not. This year isn’t working out as well. It sucks but what can you do now?

Also, like someone else said, basing your opinion of an entire season on the outcome of one game seems like a bad gauge. We had a really good team last year. Was it overrated by some? Maybe. Was it disappointing we lost in the tourney? Yes, but they were still a good team and to say otherwise is kinda silly.

Perhaps you should have visited the AAC message board, where Shocker fans were convinced that our second unit would walk away with the championship of the league.



Shocker fans have been critical of Jacobsen at UNI for having one great year with a senior-loaded team and then fading badly the next year.

No offense but who gives a flying fart about what Shocker fans were saying on an AAC message board? Anyone saying the things you claim isn’t worth listening to and their words certainly have no bearing on anything in reality.

With the Jacobsen stuff, again who cares what they’re saying? Marshall is not Jacobsen. We had a run of seven straight NCAA tourneys (could have been more) preceded by an NIT champ and NIT appearance.

You’re better than that.

When there's not an MVC-level PG on the team and next our best hope is that a Fr PG runs the program, that's a huge problem.

MVC has had some pretty good point guards over the years.

[_kai_]

Gregg isn't the one pounding the pavement finding these guys, that's the assistants. It's pretty hard to recruit when you have every assistant quit on you.

Maybe there's an underlying reason why the entire coaching staff left....

[FadedCrown]

They all left for better jobs?

[molly jabali]

Gregg isn't the one pounding the pavement finding these guys, that's the assistants. It's pretty hard to recruit when you have every assistant quit on you.

Maybe there's an underlying reason why the entire coaching staff left....

Interesting.....the ones who get lead jobs, understandable...the others?

Might be the Kellen factor....:)

[captain]

I wish that I was optimistic like many of you. I honestly do. However, when I watch the games, look at our roster, and see what we have coming in next year, I don't see an NCAA tournament in the next 3-4 years. Not . . . even . . . close.

The games we have won this year have been the result of one or both of our seniors going off. It is not because of consistent growth on the court with respect to any of our underclassmen as individuals - or as a group. While neither of the seniors have star talent or seem to exhibit any strong leadership skills (and they both drive me absolutely crazy), their absence next year is likely to cause an even further regression - UNLESS, the repercussions from the extremely poor PG play are even greater than I think.

I give 3G a lot of credit for taking this program to a level that I did not think was possible. I also think that it is fair to place the blame for this downturn at his feet. While I have issues with coaching style, composure and other things, it is the recruiting that I keep coming back to. While others have noted the unexpected changes at the guard positions from last year (some which may be self-inflicted), he still recruited guards who have such gaping holes in their games (shooting, size, defense, leadership, passing, etc.) that they aren't capable of playing lots of minutes at this level for at least a few years (if ever). Then, when I don't see any real development of those players, I can't be at all optimistic about the future.

[pie n eye]

How have we stacked up to those 50-100 programs the last 10 years?

[Dan]

In short bursts, we’ve done ok. In the past we got to sharpen our metal against MVC level. We’re on another level now. These coaches in the AAC have time to scout us and figure out our weaknesses. If you think 3G is such a mastermind that he can conquer this conference with unheralded recruits, I think it’s a very naive stance.

[pie n eye]

Maybe so.

21, 10, 13, 13, 6, 17, 11, 27, 64, 134

Those are our final KenPom rankings for the last ten years. We were top 30 eight of those years, five in the top 15. That spans both the pre and post Ron/Fred era. KP isn’t everything but it matches up pretty well with my belief that we’ve long had a team good enough to compete in any league in the country.

Is that a product of the MVC like you said? I think KP takes strength of schedule and opponent into consideration. Although we did finish second in the American last year with a top 25 KP. How do you think the prior seven teams would have faired in the league last year or this year?

[Stickboy46]

I don’t get the “such a gamble” on one great year comment. It fees like a projection. Yeah, it sucks that we had so many guys in one class (5) but I don’t know where the idea that it was planned as a master stroke “all in” move came from. Seems like it just happened that way through a series of events, some within our control, some not. I mean since Marshall has been here we’ve had a recruit die in a pick up game, one almost die in a practice if not for Todd Fagan, a player temporarily paralyzed in a game to the point we didn’t know if he’d ever play again, and a guy decommit a couple months before the season began.

I know we aren’t the only program that has issues but my point is that sometimes **** happens. You just have to deal with it the best you can. Over the past 10 years it’s worked out for us more often than not. This year isn’t working out as well. It sucks but what can you do now?

Also, like someone else said, basing your opinion of an entire season on the outcome of one game seems like a bad gauge. We had a really good team last year. Was it overrated by some? Maybe. Was it disappointing we lost in the tourney? Yes, but they were still a good team and to say otherwise is kinda silly.



No offense but who gives a flying fart about what Shocker fans were saying on an AAC message board? Anyone saying the things you claim isn’t worth listening to and their words certainly have no bearing on anything in reality.

With the Jacobsen stuff, again who cares what they’re saying? Marshall is not Jacobsen. We had a run of seven straight NCAA tourneys (could have been more) preceded by an NIT champ and NIT appearance.

You’re better than that.



MVC has had some pretty good point guards over the years.

Keep in mind that the bolded freak accident is the reason that Nurger was part of last years Senior class and not this years ...

[pie n eye]

Gregg isn't the one pounding the pavement finding these guys, that's the assistants. It's pretty hard to recruit when you have every assistant quit on you.

Maybe there's an underlying reason why the entire coaching staff left....

What do you mean the entire coaching staff left?

Brown, Okon, and Smith have been here for a while.

Jans (twice) and Forbes left for an opportunity to run their own program.

Donnie Jones wanted to work with a long time friend and, if you take what’s posted on SN as gospel (I don’t), he wasn’t much of a loss. Could have been mutual?

Linstead was here for several years as well. Maybe he got a pay raise, maybe more responsibility, I don’t know. You seem to know something, why not educate me?

Heiar sticks out as the strange one since his was a somewhat lateral move but IIRC Jans was made AHC, then Heiar announced he was leaving, then Jans took the NMSU job. In that order. It would be understandable if he felt the AHC job should’ve been his so he moved on. What’s one supposed to do? Jans is a beast, he was the obvious choice between the two. Again, seems like a circumstance of poor timing.

Not to mention Jans sent us his top lieutenant. Why would he do that if it was such a horrible environment?

But hey, I don’t have any insight or special connection to the program. Seems like you do so there must be some systemic issue with Coach.

[1972Shocker]

I would point out that Okon and Smith are not allowed to do any recruiting off campus. I think _kai_ was primarily focusing mostly on the impact on recruiting that the turnover in assistant coaches has.

Now whether or not _kai_ has any inside knowledge of an underlying reason why we have had the degree of turnover I could not say. Clearly the reasons Forbes and Jans left are clear. The opportunity to run their own show and make more money. I thing the reasons you cite for Heiar, Jones and Linstead are mostly on point although Jones and Linstead may have received a little nudge from Gregg to find a better fit. But that is total speculation on my part.

[_kai_]

1972Shocker That was my primary point.

Lindsted was the main recruiter, and the pipeline for international players that Okon isn't involved in, as well as the connection to place players at Sunrise. He upgraded jobs to work for Rick Jr?... Lateral move at best imo.

And Jans was our guru at scouting, and which coach currently is doing that and also working on set plays? Jans found Baker.

We had a lineage of assistants that were high level JUCO HC's mainly at Chipola. The JUCO pipeline has dried up. Heiar is sorely missed.

I don't know anything. I'm just saying it's worrisome when it's not just an entire roster overhaul, but a coaching staff overhaul, and we definitely downgraded HARD on coaching talent. Apologies to the current staff, but this ain't the staff that brought in Ron, Fred, Cle, Carl, Darius, Malcolm, on and on.

[pie n eye]

_kai_ Your initial post stated that all of these guys “quit” on Marshall and implied some sinister underlying reason.

I don’t classify moving to a head coaching position as quitting. Nor do I think the situation with Heiar qualifies as quitting (again, I don’t know the full story, maybe he did). Did Linstead and Jones quit? Was it a mutual decision? I don’t know. So what’s the underlying reason, why is Isaac Brown still here, and why did Jans recommend Gudino?

As far as saying we downgraded HARD on coaching talent, I’m going to give these new guys longer than 8 and 6 months on the job before writing the book on them.

No doubt Jans and Heiar were great assets and it’s always tough to lose talented coaches who have been around a long time, especially when they leave at the same time, but you can’t hold people back from pursuing their own career.

[pie n eye]

Future?

It’s not perfect but I look at this season as kind of a combination of Marshall’s first and second at WSU. The former coach (then it was Turgeon, this time it’s himself) didn’t leave him a ton to work with. McDuffie is PJ, Samaje is Brauer. The young guys, the building blocks of the first wave of the Shocker renaissance – Toure Murry, David Kyles, Garret Stutz, Aaron Ellis, Graham Hatch, JT Durley – are represented by Burton, Dennis, Mit, Udeze, Stevenson, and IPBC. **

We weren’t very successful either year but made it to .500 in year two and a CBI Second Round. At this point, I imagine the 2018 Shockers will end up with a record more like the 2007-2008 Shockers (11-20, 4-14) but we’ll see. Getting to .500 by season end feels like it would be a huge accomplishment for this team.

I’ve said it several times this year that, while it still might be a down year relative to our lofty expectations, if we had two of Shamet, Reaves, Lomax, or Teddy I think this season would look much different right now. But we don’t and so we’re left with what we’ve got and it hasn’t been great.

Write off the Shockers future based on this year if you want. I don’t see it that way and I think that, as long as Marshall is our coach, we are more likely to be back to competing for conference titles and NCAA banners in a few years than we are to fall into the abyss.


**Hell, some, maybe all of these guys may not be back next year. I don't know.

[1972Shocker]

That's a good post but having a plan to get our classes more balanced is IMHO something that would improve our chances for more consistent success on a more continuous, longer term basis. Now what's the best way to go about doing that is probably above my pay grade.

We have the same, perhaps worse, situation with the women's basketball team. While WBB doesn't generate much revenue every dollar it does generate is a dollar less the MBB program has to subsidize. At this point the product the Lady Shocks are putting on the floor just isn't very entertaining.

In any case, these pig in the python recruiting classes increase the risk having a boom and bust cycle every 4 years. Regardless of the reasons it has happened it has happened and I for one would like to see the head coaches make an effort to fix this. However, I really don't know for sure whether either HCGM or HCKA considers the class imbalance on their rosters a particularly important issue or not. I suppose it is somewhat of a sensitive area for coaches to address publicly.

[ShockerFever]

Hey Shoxlax, I’m the “numbnutz” that thinks we need to turn over 5 or 6 guys. What’s your plan? Keep em all? I’m sure all these 15% three point shooting guards are going to grow a couple of inches and be shooting 35% next year. I’m sure our PF who has been in the program 2 years will grow two inches and develop an amazing outside shot over the summer. And 4 centers is a great plan. Come on man! We have a bunch of MVC level players on the team now. These guys have about a 6th place AAC ceiling. They don’t have the physical size and athleticism for this league. We had some successful players that were undersized but they had some amazing quality such as Frankamp’s shooting ability or Cotton’s athletic ability. Very few of current guys demonstrate an amazing “got to have” quality.

Im not advocating getting rid of people for the sake of getting rid of people, but if we have the opportunity to upgrade a position over the spring we have to do it. We are not going to get where we want to be by standing pat with this roster.

We aren't Kentucky. We aren't Duke. They can get away with rosters full of 4 and 5-star freshmen sloshing their way through the seasons for tournament berths and high seeds. We have a roster full of 2 and 3 star freshmen. BIG difference. They are FRESHMEN. What you're seeing is the result of a lot of freshmen playing their first year of D-1 basketball and it happening at basically every position all at once. Also, this is what not having a true PG points to. It also is a direct result of having only 2 seniors, one that can only score (and has regressed doing much else) and one that thinks he can score (and not much else). All of that combines to the results given thus far. You typically see pretty decent improvement just from experience into the sophomore years. We'll add by subtraction next year. Hopefully better team chemistry and better team ball will automatically elevate the offensive side of things.

We're never getting 4 and 5 star rosters. Ain't happening. Maybe a 4-star here and there would help plug in some gaps but if you think 1 4-star is going to elevate a class full of freshmen and inexperienced JUCOs in their first year, you're gonna be severely disappointed.

[Stickboy46]

and as I stated earlier. Even with all those great players ... Kentucky has missed the tourney more recently than us. Crap happens.

[im4wsu]

Another difference between the 4- and 5-star recruits and the 3-star recruits is the level of summer league coaching, play and competition. The elite are playing essentially D-1 basketball. Not all freshmen have equal experience!

[vancedave56]

I'm not sure if we are setting a season low record for assists, or if the total is just below average. But, it seems to me our assist totals are very low. Is this due to the lack of a true point guard, not sharing the ball, or just not shooting well? Probably all 3, OK. It does seem to me that we just do not share the ball well at all. Hopefully we can improve on this the rest of this season and not wait until next year.

[pinstripers]

BREAKING: Tulane lands top-100 junior Elijah Wood, he told Stockrisers and Prep Hoops.

[pie n eye]

Share the load, Master Frodo.

[1979Shocker]

We've had PG problems ever since FVV graduated. Landry Shamet was forced into playing the PG position because we didn't have anyone else capable of playing it, and Landry did a great job. But he was a shooting guard and that's what he now plays in the NBA.

We knew that Landry was probably going to leave early for the NBA, so we were hopeful that Austin Reaves could fill the PG position and at the same time bring in a actual PG. We thought we had our dream PG in Alex Lomax, but we had the "perfect storm" of bad luck. Austin Reaves decides to transfer and Alex Lomax decommits after Penny becomes the Memphis head coach. So we had to scramble to come up with another PG. We get Ricky Torres, a Juco All-American. But so far, he really hasn't worked out for us.

What we really needed for this year was a PG who already had a year in the Marshall system. But unfortunately, we don't have that PG.

[wusphlash]

I often wonder if our PG situation would have been better had DJ Bowles not had his issues and been able to shadow Fred for 3 years. One of those things we'll never know.

[MadDog]

Fev, I agree with you that we’re never going to have a roster full of 4 and 5 star recruits. I also agree that our roster is primarily 2 and 3 star guys. I don’t think we can be successful in the AAC with a roster of 2 and 3 star guys. I think that realistically we should be able to maintain a roster with three ( 4) star guys and the rest 3 star given our recent history, fan support, name recognition, national exposure, etc.