Shockers vs Lipscomb (Monday, Nov 6th)

[shockrah]

Taylor's Cortes/NCAA Story from today:

https://news.yahoo.com/why-wichita-state-basketball-still-175537149.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall

[1972Shocker]

If we don't sign two PGs in this next class I'm going to be disappointed.

Not sure how easy it will be to sign 2 quality point guards in this day where guys are looking to go where they can and will play (a lot). I'm thinking one really high quality point guard together with a couple of good combo guards is the way to go. I believe Zion Pipkin was described as a combo guard.

[JVShocker]

I don't know. But I will say this. If it were me, and after fall grades are posted he's "ok" with the NCAA regs, then **** it and just play him. What's the NCAA going to do? Somebody gonna run into the gym and pull him off the court? They gonna make us take down our 10th place AAC finish at the end of the year? Change the book to show 5 wins were actually losses?

Just play him and tell the NCAA to come get some. ****, send the NCAA video of him playing. They had more on KU and they got off without even a warning.

Just play him. Sort it out later. Fans want to see fun exciting basketball. If he's part of the equation, let him play. It's not like half of the schools in the NCAA are following any kind of rules anyway.

[ShockTalk]

Have to throw WSU in as part of the blame too. No single party to blame .. blame really doesn't matter though. He wasn't eligible when he signed with us .. we shouldn't have expected that to change.

There could be a lot of moving parts with this (but I have no idea what is and isn't pertinent).

Did Cortes have any idea he might be borderline as a qualifier while finishing the year with OU? I assume he did. Did he know before the season was over and what he would need to do to be eligible with OU next season? OU knew he had a problem, but maybe soft peddled it by not telling him the full scope and "encouraged" that he look elsewhere? Up to this point, I view OU as the main problem with Cortes at some responsibility (if he had any kind of knowledge), and yes, OU should have been penalized for it. However, WSU did know there was a problem.

Coach knew there was a problem and that there is always a possibility it might not be fixable in the eyes of the NCAA. At this point, it falls on Coach Mills. Relying on a combo guard (Bell) and taking one of our best weapons in Rogers and adding this to his workload is on Coach. I don't count Ricks (had he stayed) or the 2 freshmen as anyone I would want to rely on for any meaningful minutes at point.

We all knew with Porter gone we lost a huge part of our offense and defense at that position. What did coach do to fill that glaring hole? We were in a position where Cortes should have been the potential backup plan along with Bell and maybe one freshman a backup to that. The fall is not as important as the spring. We'll know a lot more then. I'm hoping I eat crow on this.

[ShockHat]

I don’t know where the confidence from mills is coming from. Bell does not inspire me whatsoever. In fact, I was hoping we’d recruit over him.

Obviously need to give Mills time, but this bullshit lack of transparency that we had before with access to Eldridge and the glaring lack of any PG, it really leaves me wearing thin. I’m tired of being bottom of the league, tired of being Memphis’s ****ing beat stick. In this day and age with virtually new teams every year, I don’t buy the “build the foundation” since that foundation gets reset every year. To me, maybe I’m going overboard, but we need to be able to have Mills come in and build a team from scratch that can reach the tourney year ONE. And not having a PG for a full 10 games minimum means that is highly unlikely.

I’m ranting here, but you get the point.

[Stickboy46]

I don’t know where the confidence from mills is coming from. Bell does not inspire me whatsoever. In fact, I was hoping we’d recruit over him.

Obviously need to give Mills time, but this bullshit lack of transparency that we had before with access to Eldridge and the glaring lack of any PG, it really leaves me wearing thin. I’m tired of being bottom of the league, tired of being Memphis’s ****ing beat stick. In this day and age with virtually new teams every year, I don’t buy the “build the foundation” since that foundation gets reset every year. To me, maybe I’m going overboard, but we need to be able to have Mills come in and build a team from scratch that can reach the tourney year ONE. And not having a PG for a full 10 games minimum means that is highly unlikely.

I’m ranting here, but you get the point.

Half agree. I'd be happy if we are in NIT conversation this year. That seems reasonable to me. I'm not going to accept any of the excuses about waivers and such if we are really bad though. (Not saying he's giving any yet). Rebuilds aren't 3-5 year things anymore in the transfer portal era. If you can't rebuild year 1-2, you've lost all your momentum to grab kids from the portal.

[WINGdingBALLfling]

I don’t know where the confidence from mills is coming from. Bell does not inspire me whatsoever. In fact, I was hoping we’d recruit over him.

Obviously need to give Mills time, but this bullshit lack of transparency that we had before with access to Eldridge and the glaring lack of any PG, it really leaves me wearing thin. I’m tired of being bottom of the league, tired of being Memphis’s ****ing beat stick. In this day and age with virtually new teams every year, I don’t buy the “build the foundation” since that foundation gets reset every year. To me, maybe I’m going overboard, but we need to be able to have Mills come in and build a team from scratch that can reach the tourney year ONE. And not having a PG for a full 10 games minimum means that is highly unlikely.

I’m ranting here, but you get the point.

Gary Thompson made the Final Four his first season at WSU. No reason Mills shouldn't. /s

But for real, if the NIL money was competitive we'd be able to pull some high-quality players to make it to the NCAA, but I figure it wasn't, so are we going to blame Mills for that before his first season has even started? Plus his track record of losing players at ORU is nowhere near what has transpired at WSU these last few years, so I'm hopeful we can retain the guys we want to for the most part going forward. & I wouldn't say I'm confident in Mills, but I'm not going to blame him for our past losses to Memphis or try and read the future before a regular season game has occurred.

[pinstripers]

We do not have a point guard. That is Coach Mills' fault.

[Dan]

Suck that we’re on the receiving end, but if they NCAA wants to have any relevance at all, they need to use their teeth to crack down on making transferring so easy.

[Kung Wu]

I apologize all and will commence my self imposed one month ban. The part I thought he was okay on is true but I never fathomed there would be a secondary issue.

As Supreme Overlord of the Dorito Flavored Finger Guild, taking into account the totality of your posting history, I hereby commute your sentence to a 1 hour self imposed ban to be followed by community service consisting of at least one joke posted in the Humor thread to help get one of pinstripers terrible jokes off the current page.

[asiseeit]

I like Bell.........as a back up. I think I am going to like Mills and want him to succeed here but, in my mind, he has really rolled the dice on a couple players who seem to have impressive physical attributes but not much in the way of basketball skills. We have seen many of these raw talent types come and go quickly. Gambling on these long shot projects make no sense when the need for a decent PG was so apparent and the need for SHOOTERS.

[Atxshoxfan]

To me, maybe I’m going overboard, but we need to be able to have Mills come in and build a team from scratch that can reach the tourney year ONE. And not having a PG for a full 10 games minimum means that is highly unlikely.

Yes, you fell off the boat and landed about a mile from the boat. Even with a great point guard I wouldn't go so far as to expect an NCAA tournament bid. And given the new NIT commitment to the lower teams in the power 5, I wouldn't even expect an NIT bid.

But this could be a great year to watch the development of the TEAM

[TrackSuitAndTie]

Half agree. I'd be happy if we are in NIT conversation this year.

Non-P5 can barely get into the NIT anymore regardless.

[BOBB]

Half agree. I'd be happy if we are in NIT conversation this year. That seems reasonable to me. I'm not going to accept any of the excuses about waivers and such if we are really bad though. (Not saying he's giving any yet). Rebuilds aren't 3-5 year things anymore in the transfer portal era. If you can't rebuild year 1-2, you've lost all your momentum to grab kids from the portal.

NIT? Dude if we crack 12 W’s Imma say Mills is coach of the year material. I don’t see how we’re better than last year’s team that was .500 in conference and a game over .500 all in.

HCGM was 4-14 in The Valley his first season, with 7-8 players that start or get significant minutes on this team depending on how you feel about Phil Thomasson.

Brauer, Cousinard, Mekel, Durley are starting. Hatch, Thomasson, Aaron Ellis and Clemente are eating up minutes and fouls.

[Aargh]

The negativity on Mills is off the charts considering we don't know any of the reasons that we ended up without a PG. We almost ended up without one last year until Armchair came through with a car for him to use.

The big-dollar NIL guys here get a used car to drive while they're here. Players leaving WSU were getting nice 6-figure cash deals. They could buy a nice brand new car and still have over $100 grand in the bank.

Throwing Mills under the bus right now is not a good look when you don't know how hard he tried or whether he had the resources ($$) to land a PG. The ones we missed seemed to go to P5 schools.

By the time Mills was hired other schools probably had cash offers on the table for players they wanted. This attitude of NCAA first year or bust is delusional. K-State did it, but do you have any idea how much cash retired farmers have at their disposal? WSU does not have a history of producing a lot of wealthy alumni compared to other D1 schools in the area, and Wichitans are notoriously tight with their money.