Paul Mills Not Hot Seat

[asiseeit]

The only person i see mentioning KP in the last few pages ... is you?

WOW! You have presidential press secretary skills.

[Stickboy46]

WOW! You have presidential press secretary skills.

I mean, i really don't see people disagreeing with you? Most of the grumbling here is about coaching or about the guards. Most are agreeing that KP isn't the problem. Or Ballard. KP is a perfectly average player. Which on this team means he's one of the strengths because the rest of the team is below average or bad.

So really .. I was just saying I'm not sure exactly where the KP tirade is coming from. I don't see anyone really blaming KP for our struggles. That's mainly on Mills for lack of adjustment or Cortes, Bell, Rogers, and Beverly for constantly making dumb plays or turning the ball over.

[Shocktoberfest]

I want to thank you all for venting on Shockernet. It is incredibly therapeutic for me. I don't have many folks around me who really give a crap so you all are my support group. Gracias!

[pinstripers]

Maybe there was a verbal with Turg and he pist back?

[wsushockerdude]

Maybe I wasn't in the know as much as I thought, but I certainly never heard that Turg was offered the job. This IB revisionist history is quite crazy though....sure, the team showed improvement from the start of the season to the end. That's not hard when you lose to Alcorn State to kick things off.

[Topshock]

Clamoring no ... but realizing we actually would have been better with IB this year? Yes. Also realizing the bet to fire IB last year instead of this year is not paying off at all.

Why would anyone expect a first-year coach to have a better year than one in his fourth?

If (and I agree it is a BIG if) we see the program turn around next year and show that it has a promising future, then the decision to get started on the process this year was absolutely the correct decision. The first year of a new coach is almost always challenging.

I share your concern as to whether Mills has the gonads to get rid of players that have no future playing in the American.

[Aargh]

I'm not sure whether you are trying to say we should cut Mills slack for this or not? There is no rule he can't be out recruiting before all coaches are in place. If he really didn't do any recruiting before getting his coaches .. thats a REALLY bad sign. He should have been out recruiting the moment his signature went on the contract.


To be clear, i agree with the rest of your post for the most part.

I'm not and never did cut him one second of slack for not getting a staff together. The sooner a staff gets put together, the sooner you've got 4 guys hitting the recruiting trail instead of one or two.

Until conference play started, I wanted to be and was optimistic and hopeful. Then I got pretty much kicked in the teeth for having that attitude. Another thing that has a really bad look is players coming out of the tunnelwith no energy, goofing off during warmups and starting off games and second halves pretty lackadaisical. That seems to be reflection of Mills' involvement during games.

Mills has seriously damaged his ability to recruit with the on-court results this year. I keep waiting to hear that Pipkin and Williams have decommitted. Couldn't blame them. Mills can sell a lot of PT to potential recruits, but he may have trouble selling them on wanting that PT.

[wsushockerdude]

I guess I'm just a bit surprised at the levels of frustration with the fanbase. It took Turgeon two full seasons before his third when he got above .500. Took Marshall two seasons to hit .500. This just takes time.

Is the level of play certainly frustrating? You bet. I'm not happy either. But we're not a powerhouse school. This program has had it's fair share of down seasons, as most on this board would be very quick to remind you. Pointing fingers at Saal and HCPM this early is a little odd to me - don't forget our dear friend Boatright.

[Stickboy46]

Why would anyone expect a first-year coach to have a better year than one in his fourth?

If (and I agree it is a BIG if) we see the program turn around next year and show that it has a promising future, then the decision to get started on the process this year was absolutely the correct decision. The first year of a new coach is almost always challenging.

I share your concern as to whether Mills has the gonads to get rid of players that have no future playing in the American.

The IB thing is a pretty big tangent. A lot of the conversation isn't whether we should have kept IB forever instead of Mills but instead was it a smart move to move on from IB last year instead of this year. There was a lot of reasons why keeping HCIB one more year might have been a smart move (contract considerations, timing with potential candidates, the general improvement of the team throughout last year etc). The only reason it really made sense is if you had a home run hire lined up. We did not. It's an extreme gamble to do it for a coach with very limited success in a conference well below the AAC.

That's really my only comment when it comes to HCIB. He wasn't the right long term solution.

[Atxshoxfan]

Why do most of you always single out KP???? Only played 12 minutes and only missed the one shot mentioned which was a good shot. When they double him down low that leaves us with four on three around the perimeter but there is no ball movement to find that open shooter. Kudos to KP for drawing two men on him all the time. It's the other four that are NOT performing well in the offense.

Maybe because you could replace him with a 6'6" guy and get more production on offense. He never.....I repeat, never goes strong to the hole. He dances around like a 6'0" guard when he's inside of 10' of the goal.
He does rebound well and he gets 1 or 2 nice passes a game. But that's about it.

[TrackSuitAndTie]

Maybe I wasn't in the know as much as I thought, but I certainly never heard that Turg was offered the job. This IB revisionist history is quite crazy though....sure, the team showed improvement from the start of the season to the end. That's not hard when you lose to Alcorn State to kick things off.

Per Bart Torvik, WSU was the 63rd best team in D1 over its last 10 games in 22-23. Finished the season 86th overall.

Is that good enough for IB to be the guy long-term? Absolutely not. Is that better than what we have now? Absolutely yes.

For reference this year's team is the 204th best team in D1 over its last 10 games, 151st overall on the season.

It's not a stretch to question why Kevin Saal didn't give IB one more season, based WSU's financial situation.

[SubGod22]

I guess I'm just a bit surprised at the levels of frustration with the fanbase. It took Turgeon two full seasons before his third when he got above .500. Took Marshall two seasons to hit .500. This just takes time.

Is the level of play certainly frustrating? You bet. I'm not happy either. But we're not a powerhouse school. This program has had it's fair share of down seasons, as most on this board would be very quick to remind you. Pointing fingers at Saal and HCPM this early is a little odd to me - don't forget our dear friend Boatright.

Is there anything about the play on the court that is encouraging?

I'm sick of people, and you're far from the only one, comparing Mills to Turgeon and Marshall when they started. I've said it before and I'll say it again, both of those coaches may have lost early, but you could see what they were trying to build from day one. Those teams fought for every damn thing and while they may not have had the talent to win as many games as we would want, there was never a single question as to the effort being given or the direction the program was moving. Those teams also showed improvement throughout the season. It may or may not have resulted in wins, but you could see progress. You could see light at the end of the tunnel. You could see that the ship was no longer rudderless.

You can't say any of that about this years team and this staff. So while wins and losses may be similar in the struggle, the product on the court is nowhere near the same. The building towards the future is nowhere close to the same. I'd take those early year teams from Turg or 3G over the **** show we have right now. And if they played each other, I'd throw money on those earlier teams over the one we have now.

[TrackSuitAndTie]

I share your concern as to whether Mills has the gonads to get rid of players that have no future playing in the American.

Mills doesn't even have the gonads to start his depth players when the effort level is abysmal so I wouldn't hold my breath that he'll be sending guys to the portal.

[Wichita Willy]

My issue with IB was doing the same thing over and over and just saying we need to get better. Right now I feel the same about PM. A couple of weeks ago he said he was going to mix it up. What that meant was change a couple of starters but continue to do the same thing. I want a real mix up. Give Joy and Bamba a chance. I wanted a coach that had fire coming out of his nostrils and what I feel we got is IB 2.0.

[asiseeit]

Maybe because you could replace him with a 6'6" guy and get more production on offense. He never.....I repeat, never goes strong to the hole. He dances around like a 6'0" guard when he's inside of 10' of the goal.
He does rebound well and he gets 1 or 2 nice passes a game. But that's about it.

I'd refer you to the cumulative stats and the fact he almost always has to deal with double teams. Name a 6'6 guy on this team who would produce more as a center on either end of the court? If you know of one please contact the coaching staff asap. For that matter, a player of any height outside of QB who at best can only play 20-25 minutes.