This season is almost a "Perfect Storm" of situations that built and fed off each other.
Cooz - Turgeon was his "Dad" away from home. It's like his Mom got a divorce, and remarried. Now Marshall is his "Dad" and is pretty demanding. It's probably not a good situation for coach or player. Some chemistry issues wouldn't be surprising.
Thomasson - Has had 3 coaches in 5 years. Is probably playing at the level of his abilities.
Braeuer - Approached the coaching change like basketball was a business. Would have been the Senior leader who directed the rest of the team in running the new system. Early in the season there were a lot of posts saying that if Braeuer went down, this season was going down. It happened.
Mekel - Learning to be a D1 PG. His pre-enrollment hype was ridiculous. It was said he was an NBA-potential PG. That was ludicrous, but Mekel is being held to that expectation.
Original: Graham and Hatch - Edited: Durley and Hatch: (More editing: This is like seeing Superman and Clark Kent chatting)- Can produce some Offense - unfortunately they produce Offense on both ends of the court. Give them a lot of minutes and the scores for both teams are probably 20 points higher, but the W/L record would probably be the same.
Griskenas and Clemente - Working 1 JuCo in can be tough. 2 is a risk. Griskenas was just starting to look like he belonged on a D1 court when he got hurt. Clemente plays hard and works hard, but a 6'6" PF whose best Offense is in the paint will have trouble putting up points.
Orukpe and Ellis - Both could probably have used a RS year. Ellis was forced on the court before he was ready and Orukpe never showed up.
You can go down the roster player by player - take a worst case scenario and it about applies.
I'm not going to put blame on the coaches or the players. A lot of good things had to happen for this to be a winning season. A lot of bad things had to happen for this to be a bottom-of-the-Valley season. A lot of bad things happened. The bad things built on each other to the point where WSU can put 5 players on the floor, but can't put a "team" on the floor.
How many times has WSU had to alter their depth chart because of injuries to walkons?
Cooz - Turgeon was his "Dad" away from home. It's like his Mom got a divorce, and remarried. Now Marshall is his "Dad" and is pretty demanding. It's probably not a good situation for coach or player. Some chemistry issues wouldn't be surprising.
Thomasson - Has had 3 coaches in 5 years. Is probably playing at the level of his abilities.
Braeuer - Approached the coaching change like basketball was a business. Would have been the Senior leader who directed the rest of the team in running the new system. Early in the season there were a lot of posts saying that if Braeuer went down, this season was going down. It happened.
Mekel - Learning to be a D1 PG. His pre-enrollment hype was ridiculous. It was said he was an NBA-potential PG. That was ludicrous, but Mekel is being held to that expectation.
Original: Graham and Hatch - Edited: Durley and Hatch: (More editing: This is like seeing Superman and Clark Kent chatting)- Can produce some Offense - unfortunately they produce Offense on both ends of the court. Give them a lot of minutes and the scores for both teams are probably 20 points higher, but the W/L record would probably be the same.
Griskenas and Clemente - Working 1 JuCo in can be tough. 2 is a risk. Griskenas was just starting to look like he belonged on a D1 court when he got hurt. Clemente plays hard and works hard, but a 6'6" PF whose best Offense is in the paint will have trouble putting up points.
Orukpe and Ellis - Both could probably have used a RS year. Ellis was forced on the court before he was ready and Orukpe never showed up.
You can go down the roster player by player - take a worst case scenario and it about applies.
I'm not going to put blame on the coaches or the players. A lot of good things had to happen for this to be a winning season. A lot of bad things had to happen for this to be a bottom-of-the-Valley season. A lot of bad things happened. The bad things built on each other to the point where WSU can put 5 players on the floor, but can't put a "team" on the floor.
How many times has WSU had to alter their depth chart because of injuries to walkons?
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