UNI MBB offseason thread

[BCPanther]

The Three Year Slump thing is pretty common. It's happened to TONS of coaches in about the same time frame that Jake is going through it. Its part of being somewhere long term. Here are some examples.

Ben Jacobson
Year 11- 14-16
Year 12- 16-16
Year 13- 16-18

Jud Heathcote-Hall of Fame-Michigan State
Year 11- 11-17
Year 12- 10-18
Year 13- 18-15

Gene Keady-Hall of Fame-Purdue
Year 11- 17-12
Year 12- 18-16
Year 13- 18-14

Bob McKillop-Hall of Fame-Davidson
Year 9- 15-17
Year 10- 21-10
Year 11- 17-10
Year 12- 17-12

Rick Byrd-Future Hall of Fame-Belmont
Year 11- 15-11
Year 12- 9-18
Year 13- 14-13
Year 14- 7-21
Year 15- 13-15
Year 16- 11-17

Lou Henson-Hall of Famer-Illinois
Year 11- 14-13
Year 12- 16-14
Year 13- 13-14

They all got remarkably better after these stretches. It's just something about that time frame.

[BCPanther]

Also, I hope Gregggg is enjoying the AAC. Like everyone knew it is a better conference but travel is a nightmare. No rivals, no one cares about them etc.

Not to mention, with there worst team in recent memory they would have rolled through the awful MVC this year and made the NCAA tournament.

They would not have rolled through the Valley. The middle of the American is right on par with where the Valley is this year and the bottom of that league is significantly worse than our worst teams. That whole league is pulled up by 30 NET slots because of Houston, UCF and Cincinnati. Wichita's record against those 3? 1-3. Plus they only played Houston and UCF once. How many games did they win against teams with a winning league record? 1. That same UCF game in Wichita.

4 of their 10 conference wins were against East Carolina and Tulane who finished a combined 14-48 with NET rankings of 260 and 298, respectively. By comparison, Evansville was 208 and didn't have the fortune of playing 3 top 25 teams to pull their ranking up.

This is also how conferences are scamming the system but that's a totally different discussion for a different day. Add that to the fact that the NET basically incentivizes playing nobody, playing every game at home and winning every game at home against those nobodys by at least 10 and you can see why mid-majors don't have a shot going in.

[Wxcpanther]

The rest of your post is true, but none of it backs up your initial claim that we have some of the best coaches in the country. The best coaches in the country rarely have 3 years slumps. We wouldn't be the first program to have it's coach lose his edge after getting the huge bucks, it's quite common actually. And we're really only a Seth Tuttle away from being a pretty mediocre program the last 8-9 years. Lucky for us the money schools rarely take a chance on a small school kid.

As has been stated a million times, all coaches that stay at mid major programs go through (as BC has put it on here countless times) a "program reset". It literally happens all the time. I'm forgetting, was Seth Tuttle on the 15-16 team that was less than a minute from the sweet 16 and beat UNC and a top 5 ranked ISU? No? Huh...

[Wxcpanther]

Sorry BC, should have known you were on top of it already, didn't bother to hit to go to the last page 😅

[InterludePanther]

In your Bob McKillup example he went 17-10 and 17-12 in years 11 and 12 and BOTH of those years he WON THE LEAGUE. In your Rick Byrd example the years you reference (11-16) were their first 5 years IN DIVISION I! I bet he wasn’t the highest paid coach in his conference...wait, he coudln’t Be because They had just came up from NAIA and were a D1 independent with no conference.

[SteinPizza]

They would not have rolled through the Valley.
.

It would’ve been interesting to see WSU square off against Loyola the last couple of years. If WSU stays in the league, Loyola still has the recruiting success that led to their rise. Despite an up/down year and the sh&t game they lost against Bradley, Loyola is still a team with some long athletes and a tough post player. They’re also the most mentally tough team in the league, as evidenced by their road record the last two seasons.

[orangetennis]

Look guys, let's not start looking for reasons that support how great coach Jake is in spite of his recent failures. We all agree that he's a great coach. He has proved it through the years. But at the heart of creating a culture of success is holding people accountable, consistently.
Historically coach Jake has been great, but over the last few years he hasn't been. It's okay to hold him accountable for his recent performance. It doesn't mean we don't support him or think he's capable. To the contrary, he has set the bar high for himself (and his salary), and we expect him to reach those lofty standards year after year. It's a performance business and he hasn't performed near his expected level in quite some time now. Holding him accountable will do more to spur his return to success than providing excuses for him.

[skydog0784]

Look guys, let's not start looking for reasons that support how great coach Jake is in spite of his recent failures. We all agree that he's a great coach. He has proved it through the years. But at the heart of creating a culture of success is holding people accountable, consistently.
Historically coach Jake has been great, but over the last few years he hasn't been. It's okay to hold him accountable for his recent performance. It doesn't mean we don't support him or think he's capable. To the contrary, he has set the bar high for himself (and his salary), and we expect him to reach those lofty standards year after year. It's a performance business and he hasn't performed near his expected level in quite some time now. Holding him accountable will do more to spur his return to success than providing excuses for him.

Agreed, well said.

[CyCarp]

Honestly, I would bet if you ask Jake, he expects better. Hopefully next year is a big step forward.

[BCPanther]

I haven't held back criticism of Jake. I've pointed out over and over that it has to get better and get better quick.

That said, taking the extreme negative position isn't exactly fair either. Next year looks to be a much improved year in which we should compete for a league title. For as disappointing as this year was, we played a game on February 27th that could have helped us win a league title. All you can ask is to be playing meaningful games in February and March and we certainly did that this year.

[InterludePanther]

I haven't held back criticism of Jake. I've pointed out over and over that it has to get better and get better quick.

That said, taking the extreme negative position isn't exactly fair either. Next year looks to be a much improved year in which we should compete for a league title. For as disappointing as this year was, we played a game on February 27th that could have helped us win a league title. All you can ask is to be playing meaningful games in February and March and we certainly did that this year.

Your thoughts are fair but I just feel like when Jake’s salary went up fans weren’t allowed to raise expectations. He’s the HIGHEST paid coach in the league. We don’t pay him to “play meaningful games in Feb-March” in the 14th best league in the country with no teams higher than 130 in the NET rankings. If we let him walk in 2016 we could pay someone $400,000 (Hogan, Green, DeVries) to go 41-49. That’s people’s frustrations...and they’re fair.

[Wxcpanther]

So I was listening to the "On UNI Podcast" this afternoon, if you haven't listened I highly recommend it. Great insight from Cole Bair and Nick Petaros, the Gazette and Courier UNI beat writers respectively. Well, Cole dropped a bit of a bombshell that pertains to something that has been discussed at length on Panther Nation. He stated that when he was discussing the new offense with Seth Tuttle and Eric Crawford for his article, Seth told him the original offense is designed for TWO POST PLAYERS! That it takes on a whole new shape with 2 post players because there is way more activity and movement. That's huge! If that's the case, I'd imagine the rotation looks like this.

starting 5:
Austin
Luke
Isaiah
Trae
AJ

Bench:
Tray (Croft), JD, Biggie (maybe Cole overtakes Biggie for this spot?), Spence, and Carter.

there is a lot of talent on that roster.

[06panther10]

I’m sorry, there is just no way that Austin and Luke are playing together, much less starting. We would get killed defensively.

If the 2nd “big” is Biggie, Henry, or Carter I can see that working just fine. We can’t have 2 of Austin, JD, or Luke on the floor at the same time.

[Wxcpanther]

I’m sorry, there is just no way that Austin and Luke are playing together, much less starting. We would get killed defensively.

If the 2nd “big” is Biggie, Henry, or Carter I can see that working just fine. We can’t have 2 of Austin, JD, or Luke on the floor at the same time.

You almost had me, then you put Biggie in over Luke. Luke is a better defender across the board, including on the perimeter. Henry maybe, but definitely not Biggie, and putting Carter in there would be no different than what we did this year. He is a Trae type player

[BCPanther]

Your thoughts are fair but I just feel like when Jake’s salary went up fans weren’t allowed to raise expectations. He’s the HIGHEST paid coach in the league. We don’t pay him to “play meaningful games in Feb-March” in the 14th best league in the country with no teams higher than 130 in the NET rankings. If we let him walk in 2016 we could pay someone $400,000 (Hogan, Green, DeVries) to go 41-49. That’s people’s frustrations...and they’re fair.

I can respect this.

Only disagreement, The people that are paying Jake's salary are all in. They love the guy and he's earned every dime. This money isn't money that's coming from the a single ticket sold or donation made. Short of a giant scandal (most unlikely thing ever) or a true Lowery style cratering (also unlikely) he's going to be here for the next 20 years. There are going to be some valleys ( pun not intended).

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