2023-2024 Games of Interest

[SHOXAAC]

Your honor, as Exhibit A, may I introduce the Louisville Cardinals. Won 4 games (overall) in year 1 and 7 games (so far) in year 2 of their new coach.

Why don't you present Exhibit A, section B where Kenny Payne isn't exactly a reputable college coach yet. He came with I think a couple years as an assistant in the NBA.

[ShockerFever]

A number of successful first year coaches also aren't rocking large NIL packages.

There are a lot of variables and moving parts. I don’t care what era we’re in. If you’re ready to come after a coach with pitchforks in his first year, then good luck getting a decent candidate to follow, unless you’re unloading a trunkful of money, which I’m guessing we won’t.

[Dan]

we're in unchartered territory, so difficult to do any past comparisons. Also, we have no idea how Charlotte or USF will be next year. I think we're gonna see a lot of instability among a lot of programs year over year and it has as much to do with constant roster churn as it does with coaching. How coaches handle churn and keep up with recruiting in spite all of this will determine their value. All I know is we have Paul Mills at least 3 years and I hope he gets better results next year.

[SubGod22]

We apparently no longer look for decent candidates so I guess it's all moot at this point.

I've said he gets at least three years, but I'm not going to kneel and blow him while the product sucks like some on this board do. There has been very little on the court that has been the least bit encouraging outside of a couple of fluke nights where they shoot out of their ass. That's not really that bright since it's not something to hang your hat on.

Previous coaches who struggled showed improvement and you could see what they were doing. Right now every game is pretty much SSDD. Some of us will continue to call out the bullshit we're watching and some of us will continue to bury our heads in the sand and pretend everything is fine.

I don't want to have to go through another coaching change. I want Mills to be successful. Nothing about him says that he will be and nothing I'm seeing indicates that we will move in that direction eventually. This spring will tell us a lot and I'm not seeing any reason to be optimistic at this point.

This team flat out sucks and that's not about the talent level, which is lacking in areas to be sure. Coaching has appeared to be next to non-existent.

And with how Saal has currently done things, I wouldn't trust him enough to unload a trunk full of money on him even if I had that ability. And obviously, those with the money feel the same way.

[shocker43]

We apparently no longer look for decent candidates so I guess it's all moot at this point.

I've said he gets at least three years, but I'm not going to kneel and blow him while the product sucks like some on this board do. There has been very little on the court that has been the least bit encouraging outside of a couple of fluke nights where they shoot out of their ass. That's not really that bright since it's not something to hang your hat on.

Previous coaches who struggled showed improvement and you could see what they were doing. Right now every game is pretty much SSDD. Some of us will continue to call out the bullshit we're watching and some of us will continue to bury our heads in the sand and pretend everything is fine.

I don't want to have to go through another coaching change. I want Mills to be successful. Nothing about him says that he will be and nothing I'm seeing indicates that we will move in that direction eventually. This spring will tell us a lot and I'm not seeing any reason to be optimistic at this point.

This team flat out sucks and that's not about the talent level, which is lacking in areas to be sure. Coaching has appeared to be next to non-existent.

And with how Saal has currently done things, I wouldn't trust him enough to unload a trunk full of money on him even if I had that ability. And obviously, those with the money feel the same way.

You put yourself on a really weird pedestal.

[Dan]

Mills seems like a smart guy. Whether he has the ability to coach at this level is a big question mark. I'm just hoping he's smart enough to recognize his recruiting errors and self correct in the offseason.

[Stickboy46]

I wasn't overly crazy about the Paul Mills hire, but your constant berating is so old. You have beat the "this first year coach at ABC school has blah-blah record and is in first place in the conference" horse to death. Did you like Mark Turgeon? He was 4-14 his first year at WSU and finished nearly last in the MVC. He didn't have a conference winning record until year 3. How did you feel about Gregg Marshall? He was 4-14 his first year and finished nearly last in the MVC. He didn't have a conference winning record until year 3. I am cherry picking here just like you are. Again Stick, I am neutral about Mills. We are so on the outside looking in to the basketball program at WSU. We don't know the details of the dynamics around the period of time we were searching for a coach. I certainly have questions about some of the decisions Mills has made this year. Hell, I had issues with some of the decisions Turgeon and Marshall made as well. Crap, now I think about it, I have issues with my own decisions at times. I know this is a fan board, but you don't even attempt to balance out your disdain for Mills. Maybe once or twice you actually made a neutral comment about him, but man...Did he piss on your Poast Toasties in college, or steal your girl friend in the 5th grade? Maybe you don't care to have a credible reputation on this board. But when you live so far off center on the leader of our basketball program, you can't expect for people to take you seriously. I don't expect you to take my comments to heart. Haters are haters. I just wish you would come at it with some excepted style and grace. Now back to eating my bon bons in my parents basement.

Its also constantly annoying constantly hear "You can't expect a coach to win year one". It works both ways. The constant berating of anyone that isn't just writing off 3 years of the shockers because they haven't moved out of the early 2000s is so old. Its a two way street. If someone says you can't win year one .. that's not true. Literally just have to look at our own conference. So let's call it what it is. It's not that Mills didn't "do the impossible" its that he did an awful job this year recruiting and so far coaching. He has three years. His clock doesn't start in year 3 though. His clock started on day one. This year is a complete and utter failure so far.

The comparisons to Marshall and Turgeon don't work. Its a completely different world. We are likely going into a massive rebuild for next year. If we take the 2-3 year build approach, we will likely be in ANOTHER massive rebuild in year 3 or year 4 if we aren't winning. Transfer portal and likely unlimited transfers changes the expectations of coaches.

I ask you .. what has Mills done that i SHOULD have given him credit for? Landing Ridgnal is one. But he also doesn't play him in crunch time. We are 1-8 in conference, 8-13 vs D1 teams. We have 2 good wins (top 100) all year. We have lost to 7 teams outside the Top 100. What exactly should I be giving him credit for so far. I said I liked the 2 recruits, but those are freshman. While not impossible, the chances of them being impact player next year is very low. I'd LOVE to have things to give him credit for .. but he hasn't earn much if any credit for anything this year.

I'm not a hater, i'm just more realistic than most of the forum.

[Stickboy46]

Mills seems like a smart guy. Whether he has the ability to coach at this level is a big question mark. I'm just hoping he's smart enough to recognize his recruiting errors and self correct in the offseason.

Yea, no one is challenging anything about Mills character or brains or anything like that. He seems like a good guy, very smart. That doesn't win games. Recruiting and on court coaching has been suspect. The fact that he really didn't even do much at ORU doesn't help either. He seems to have a pretty low to average normal performance with a handful of peak performances from his teams.

[Atxshoxfan]

Mills seems like a smart guy. Whether he has the ability to coach at this level is a big question mark. I'm just hoping he's smart enough to recognize his recruiting errors and self correct in the offseason.

His recruiting errors? He had to try to make a dinner out of the leftovers from a crowded pot luck. The bread was gone and the only meat left was in some tuna Casserole.
I don't think we can judge Mills on anything yet.

[Stickboy46]

His recruiting errors? He had to try to make a dinner out of the leftovers from a crowded pot luck. The bread was gone and the only meat left was in some tuna Casserole.
I don't think we can judge Mills on anything yet.

Yea that excuse doesn't fly. Others had no problems with the same or less time. Call it what it is. A massive recruiting failure this year. No reason to call it anything else. He has a chance to fix that in March and April

[Atxshoxfan]

Yea that excuse doesn't fly. Others had no problems with the same or less time. Call it what it is. A massive recruiting failure this year. No reason to call it anything else. He has a chance to fix that in March and April

Don't really care if it flies with you. You have proven to be a HCPM hater from the get go. Reasonable people take time to give judgement. Thank God, else we would all go to hell at about the age of 17-18.

[Stickboy46]

Don't really care if it flies with you. You have proven to be a HCPM hater from the get go. Reasonable people take time to give judgement. Thank God, else we would all go to hell at about the age of 17-18.

I don't really care whether you incorrectly think I'm a hater. That says more about you than me.

Yet again, other schools with way less tradition than us and in way worse shape than us had no problem with less time Mills. Mills didn't take this year pro-bono. He's getting his million plus dollar check so results should at least be trending in the right direction.

If you polled everyone at the end of last year who you would have liked to come back and who you would want gone, I think the general consensus would have been the only player on the "want back" list that we kept would have been Rogers (maybe Pohto). Even with that low bar, the only player he managed to recruit over was Abidde it appears. There is no other way to describe that than a recruiting failure.

Too many people can't separate disappointment with the results from hate for the person. The results aren't acceptable, Mills shouldn't think he has 5 years to turn it around and make us competitive. We need to be trending the right way this year. Otherwise it's a compounding problem. If you aren't trending to being relevant, players are going to look elsewhere, fans aren't going to come back, NIL is going to get worse. You have a very short window to generate hype around the program before things start to snowball in this day and age.

[Dan]

His recruiting errors? He had to try to make a dinner out of the leftovers from a crowded pot luck. The bread was gone and the only meat left was in some tuna Casserole.
I don't think we can judge Mills on anything yet.

I assume he must have been recruiting while at ORU and could have brought along some of the better recruits, but alas we got Harlond Beverly and Bijan Cortes. It's not like he started from ground zero. He also could've brought in some assistants that had recruits in their back pocket. Not sure if that happened either.

[Stickboy46]

I assume he must have been recruiting while at ORU and could have brought along some of the better recruits, but alas we got Harlond Beverly and Bijan Cortes. It's not like he started from ground zero. He also could've brought in some assistants that had recruits in their back pocket. Not sure if that happened either.

I still find it interesting that no one wanted to follow him too. Abmas obviously had NIL funds to get but Issac McBride would have likely been our best player. I would have also loved to have the shooting ability of Thompson.

[pinstripers]

I still find it interesting that no one wanted to follow him too. Abmas obviously had NIL funds to get but Issac McBride would have likely been our best player. I would have also loved to have the shooting ability of Thompson.

Seems like a huge red flag