I am so beyond tired of this argument.
Old Dominion is 12-3 and projected to win Conference USA and are ranked 66th in Pomeroy ahead of schools like Wisconsin, Boston College and South Carolina. They are a good program and look to be even better next year.
Georgia State is ranked 151st in Pomeroy (39 spots ahead of us) and in my extremely early projects charts as the most likely Sun Belt champion next year which is better than I can say about us.
Clark went to Portland, yes, but only as a flyer. He unfortunately will never play basketball again and that was set the moment that he reinjured his knee for the hundredth time in practice last summer.
Nix just kind of always stunk and was a favor to Ontario Lett. I'm not surprised that he is struggling.
Manigault is the weirdest case. He still holds offers coming out of JUCO from TCU and Washington State but his play hasn't been encouraging. And yet those offers are still there so we can't exactly discount them either.
All in all though, most of the players who left outside of the injured one traded up in the world.
I am beyond it too. Dixon couldn't recruit to compete in this conference, PERIOD! He was bringing in MAC and NEC caliber recruits and that is why he is gone. If he was bringing in players to compete in the ACC,( Yes the ACC is the conference we are in) he would still be here. He knew that he was not going to succeed and bailed. So why the hell would you defend these guys when they are a big part of the reason he left!
So many of you just don't get it. We made the conference move for the money it would generate on the football side. In doing so, we hung our hoops program out to dry. If you want to compete in the ACC it takes high end talent. We haven't seen real basketball players who could compete in this conference since Lamar Patterson and Talib Zanna. Jamie could no longer get them and he gave up, because the task was to big for him.
Stallings is in the hot seat now and hasn't been here very long yet, but, early returns on his recruiting are not very good. It has to be better, or we won't compete for along time. I don't feel like these young guys are worse than what Jamie was getting, but they have a long way to develop to make solid ACC status.
For those who want him fired, I am not sure what to tell you. Maybe he deserves more time. The two for next year seem like a step up from this years class. Maybe we take baby steps for a couple of seasons before we land some higher quality players, or maybe it doesn't happen at all.
Bottom line, many want a new coach and improved recruiting almost immediately. This is just so unrealistic. Who is knocking down Pitt's door right now to come in and be our coach, that would instantly upgrade our recruiting? It just aint out there! This is going to be a long and painful rebuild that likely involves several coaches and more than a few years.
We joined this conference with the reputation of a solid program behind a fixture for a coach who became the face of the program. That same coach was unable to adapt to the conference change. Upon leaving, the university completely shit the bed with its hiring procedure. When you move up to play with the blueest of the blue bloods from tobacco road, you had better meet the challenge by having your administration poised and ready to make the most important hire for what lies ahead. Instead ours failed miserably, with no plan in place, and now the program is losing attendance, many loyal followers, and most importantly hope.
The task at hand here is monumental, and there are many reasons for it. If you are racking your brain to defend Dixon's recruiting misses, your brain has been working on the wrong set of problems. The damage has been done to the program, and those Jamie recruits contrary to your belief, were not going to save it. Try using your noggen to come up with a plan to save the program, you would be better served spending your time on that.
