WICHITA STATE (11-17, 3-12), At (UAB 18-9, 10-4) Game Thread

[ShockTalk]

blah blah blah blah blah .... blah blah blah. I'm sorry your brain can't comprehend reality.

The team leading the conference by THREE FULL GAMES and has locked up the conference title with 3 to go had a full week LESS than Mills to look through the SAME portal.

So pay close attention here ... Stop with the dumbass excuse that "there was little left in the portal". Its factually incorrect and tiring to hear you try to blame Mills problems on Brown. Brown was not a good coach, he needed to go. He's not my good friend. It does appear that he's your sworn enemy though and you are putting a LOT of the blame that goes on Mills on Brown.

That is all

I not sure about the following, however.............I believe former HC McCasland and Head Assoc. Coach now Head Coach Hodge had already recruited and got commitments at least from most (if not all) of their incoming players, which Hodge (who they already knew through the recruiting process) was able to keep them. Another factor was if they were to back out, there may have not been much still available that would have been a better situation.

That's the big difference between N Tx and WSU, even though the McCasland left a week later than when Mills was hired. All Hodge had to do was hold on to the players. Mills had no connection with Brown's new recruits or if Mills even wanted any of them.

[rjl]

Paul Mills was hired on March 22. That's only a few weeks after most team's season ended, meaning the portal had only officially been open for a few weeks. It was not late in the process.

We'll see what he can do with a full staff and a few more weeks this season, but I believe it's telling that he did not "hit" on a single one of his recruits this past season. Some are better than others, but none of them are really worthy of the starting lineup on this season's pretty bad team.

[Stickboy46]

I not sure about the following, however.............I believe former HC McCasland and Head Assoc. Coach now Head Coach Hodge had already recruited and got commitments at least from most (if not all) of their incoming players, which Hodge (who they already knew through the recruiting process) was able to keep them. Another factor was if they were to back out, there may have not been much still available that would have been a better situation.

That's the big difference between N Tx and WSU, even though the McCasland left a week later than when Mills was hired. All Hodge had to do was hold on to the players. Mills had no connection with Brown's new recruits or if Mills even wanted any of them.

I'm not talking about North Texas. I'm talking about South Florida. South Florida started in a worse spot than us, Abdur-Rahim was hired a week after Mills, and they are 14-1 in conference with a 3 game lead with 3 to go.

[ShockTalk]

I'm not talking about North Texas. I'm talking about South Florida. South Florida started in a worse spot than us, Abdur-Rahim was hired a week after Mills, and they are 14-1 in conference with a 3 game lead with 3 to go.

Oops. Missed that. Continue on.

[Stickboy46]

Oops. Missed that. Continue on.

North Texas is another example but like you said, they had some advantages over Mills. The fact that we are 0-5 vs first year AAC head coaches is painful though

[Woodrow]

Went back and watched the replay of the missed one and one where the UAB player got his own rebound. Radio guys were saying he was over early. He might've been over just a tiny bit early but it wasn't that bad. What was much more egregious was Beverly and Rogers just standing there and letting him run right through them. Neither made any attempt to put a body on the free throw shooter. It's just basketball 101. Stuff that isn't being taught by this coach apparently

He definitely crossed the line before the ball hit the rim. Then he actually knocked Rogers forward about 4 feet going over his back.

[Woodrow]

I'm happier today than I was Sunday.

[BAShocker]

I really really really really don’t want to jump into this whole point guard discussion, but I can’t help it.

This is what I believe, take it or leave it.

PM thought he had Abmas pretty much in the bag. In fact, most recruiting “experts” had Abmas coming to WSU. By the time Abmas finally committed to Texas (on or about April 26th), there were few quality PG’s available.

Between that time and the time PM was hired, if you were a PG looking to play, you absolutely wouldn’t pick WSU because you would figure Abmas was going here and would get all the playing time. Other PG’s moved on.

Again, my opinion, take it or leave it.

[ShockHat]

I really really really really don’t want to jump into this whole point guard discussion, but I can’t help it.

This is what I believe, take it or leave it.

PM thought he had Abmas pretty much in the bag. In fact, most recruiting “experts” had Abmas coming to WSU. By the time Abmas finally committed to Texas (on or about April 26th), there were few quality PG’s available.

Between that time and the time PM was hired, if you were a PG looking to play, you absolutely wouldn’t pick WSU because you would figure Abmas was going here and would get all the playing time. Other PG’s moved on.

Again, my opinion, take it or leave it.

Mills had to have had even a soft commit or something from Abmas to completely ignore the position, only for Abmas to change his mind later. I mean, no blame to him, and Mills cant get too mad about that. Abmas did him good for a while already, so he probably was scrambling to figure something out by then. Enter Cortes, and enter our demise.

I’ll also add this. If Abmas actually came here, I do think we would’ve been top 4-5. He would’ve been the stabilizing leader that we need on the court, and a player that we could go to. We’ve been “in” quite a few games, only to piss it away consistently.

If there’s one spot to blame Mills on anywhere, it’s making that mistake of not having a secured decent backup option at one of the most important positions in the game.

[BAShocker]

Mills had to have had even a soft commit or something from Abmas to completely ignore the position, only for Abmas to change his mind later. I mean, no blame to him, and Mills cant get too mad about that. Abmas did him good for a while already, so he probably was scrambling to figure something out by then. Enter Cortes, and enter our demise.

I agree with that as well.

[ShockHat]

I think Mills did poorly this year. But for what it’s worth, I do think we’re seeing his worst case scenario come to life. We’ll find out soon in a few weeks with the off season.

[Dan]

PG is the most important player to have on the team. PM publicly acting like it’s not important was a big red flag for me. Even 3G struggled with his teams that didn’t have a high level PG.

[Stickboy46]

Mills had to have had even a soft commit or something from Abmas to completely ignore the position, only for Abmas to change his mind later. I mean, no blame to him, and Mills cant get too mad about that. Abmas did him good for a while already, so he probably was scrambling to figure something out by then. Enter Cortes, and enter our demise.

I’ll also add this. If Abmas actually came here, I do think we would’ve been top 4-5. He would’ve been the stabilizing leader that we need on the court, and a player that we could go to. We’ve been “in” quite a few games, only to piss it away consistently.

If there’s one spot to blame Mills on anywhere, it’s making that mistake of not having a secured decent backup option at one of the most important positions in the game.

Cortes committed to us a full 2 weeks before Abmas committed to Texas. So Cortes was intentional .. not a scramble.

No matter the reason .. if you put your eggs all in one basket ... and you don't even own that basket yet .. its 100% your fault if someone else buys that basket and you end up with no eggs. He appeared to be recruiting someone to backup Abmas so when Abmas didn't come .. we ended up with the backup he already recruited then was unable to convince anyone else to come here. He need to be recruiting starters and then let them decide on the court and in practice who is the backup and who is the starter. Hopefully he learned his lesson from his completely preventable massive failure of a year.

[molly jabali]

I am a horrible fan....it did not register with me that the game was last night.....:)

[newshock1234]

It's been a rough year but we out here complaining about a road win against a top 4 team in the AAC