2021 Non-WSU NCAA Tournament Discussion

[pie n eye]

Wow, what a tweet, John. So informative and insightful. Really answers a lot of questions I had.

[SB Shock]

That is a pretty good insight into the covid situation - 0.002%

Looks like Louisville did not get the call - so no replacements teams. Tourney field is locked down.

[MikeKennedyRulZ]

Pretty impressive by the NCAA so far.

[molly jabali]

Well .. they fired their coach mid year already ...

I'm sorry....I'm lost...are you talking about Miller?

[Shockm]

I'm sorry....I'm lost...are you talking about Miller?

I think they're talking about ******* doing an investigation on the Penn State Coach (don't know his name), because they have so many transferring, not the Indiana Coach.

[molly jabali]

I think they're talking about ******* doing an investigation on the Penn State Coach (don't know his name), because they have so many transferring, not the Indiana Coach.

Thank you...I would have never gotten that...

[Stickboy46]

That is a pretty good insight into the covid situation - 0.002%

Looks like Louisville did not get the call - so no replacements teams. Tourney field is locked down.

Super surprised by this. Let's see how it plays out throughout the weeks.

[SB Shock]

Super surprised by this. Let's see how it plays out throughout the weeks.

I am too. I actually figured there would at least be 1 team (from a lower conference) that would get booted.

Norlander has said

“Virginia (and all teams) are not yet in the clear, though, of course. Keep in mind teams need to continue to produce negative tests in order to avoid potential contact-tracing pitfalls. UVA is still not in Indianapolis; its players won’t leave quarantine until Thursday.”

[SkoShox]

ACC player of the year Moses Wright is out vs Loyola with a positive covid test. Not a great start!

[Woodrow]

Western Kentucky just beat St Marys in the 1st round of the NIT. WK has a 6'10" center named Charles Bassey who averages 17.7 points and 11.5 rebounds on the season. He is legit. Why can't we find any bigs that have that kind of size and skill. Love our guys but we really need to have a front line bigger than 6'8" and 6'6".

[The Mad Hatter]

Basset was the #6 player in the nation and it was a huge surprise when he chose WKU. Setting aside whether his recruitment was on the up and up, WKU being in the NIT would suggest that Stansbury is better at recruiting than coaching.

[calfan]

Hatter, no offense but Stansbury is a really goood coach. Take a glance at his resume. This year Kentucky and Duke are not in the tournament. I think their coaches car recruit and coach, IMO.

[The Mad Hatter]

My main point was not to knock Stansbury, although his WKU results are a little like Penny's at Memphis (really good on paper, but not as good as you would expect given the talent brought in). My main point is that it is silly to act like WSU should have a Bassey since WKU does, which was the implication of the original post.

[Shockm]

My main point was not to knock Stansbury, although his WKU results are a little like Penny's at Memphis (really good on paper, but not as good as you would expect given the talent brought in). My main point is that it is silly to act like WSU should have a Bassey since WKU does, which was the implication of the original post.

Woody's point was that we should have BIGS with more size (I'm guessing he means taller shot blocking types) and better skills (not so sure whether we bring up Bassey). I would agree that we should be able to have players taller than 6'8 and at least the same offensive skills as Udeze who can also protect the rim on defense. We've had BIGS who could compete with Bassey's before and could do more things than currently. Udeze has done well, especially the past 5-6 games with what the skills he has. However, We had more last year with Jamie, and his rim protecting abilities, and we need to have more of that again next year.

[The Mad Hatter]

Woody's point was that we should have BIGS with more size (I'm guessing he means taller shot blocking types) and better skills (not so sure whether we bring up Bassey). I would agree that we should be able to have players taller than 6'8 and at least the same offensive skills as Udeze who can also protect the rim on defense. We've had BIGS who could compete with Bassey's before and could do more things than currently. Udeze has done well, especially the past 5-6 games with what the skills he has. However, We had more last year with Jamie, and his rim protecting abilities, and we need to have more of that again next year.

The original post literally says of Bassey "why can't we find any bigs that have that kind of size and skill." The post clearly was not simply saying that we need improvement in our post size, but questioning why we didn't have a Bassey of our own. Obviously we need to be working on post recruiting, but using Bassey as the illustration makes the opposite point because it serves as a reminder that posts of that size and skill are generally top 10 recruits in the nation.

The original post was seemingly made without any awareness of Bassey's recruitment history and so implied that if a team like WKU could get that kind of size and skill, why can't we. Anyone who knows about recruiting would tell you that big men of that size and skill and extremely rare, so if you are not landing top 10 recruits, you are either recruiting guys with that size that you hope will develop skill or recruiting undersized guys with proven skill. Sometimes you strike gold as we did with Jaime, but it's not like there is this huge pool of Bassey-like players that are there for the taking.