State of the Program

[BCPanther]

I note Tom Schellhardt's name for the first time here in a long time. I agree. He poured cold water on a lot of things that Rick Hartzell was trying to do. Don't know how justified it was. I do remember like 10,000 seats filled in the dome for basketball.

6000 of those were free tickets which wasn't sustainable but the program certainly had buzz.

I got stuck in a YouTube rabbit hole the other night and stumbled on to the ESPN broadcast of the Wichita home game that year. It opens with Mark Adams talking about the McLeod Center and how 'when you look at the toughest places to play and best environments in The Valley, if the Roundhouse is #1, then this place is 1A. You just don't win here'

We HAVE to get back to that. I mean we've got losses to Nicholls, Vermont, Stony Brook, McNeese (pre-Will Wade) and USF (pre-Abdur-Rahim RIP) in the last 5 years and that simply can't happen if you want to be a Top 50 program consistently.

[CletusCat]

Wow. Everyone is dead on with these assessments. I would like to highlight the point made earlier about new coaches coming into the league, having great success and moving on while we continue to tread water. That has been extremely frustrating. I believe in Jake but he set the bar and right now he is not reaching it with the on court performance.

[SteinPizza]

Also, watching new coaches come into the league and kick ass immediately at Drake, Indiana State, etc while our veteran program treads water has been extremely frustrating to see. And we are continually told to be patient, and it takes time to build a roster/depth. Come on.

I completely agree with this. The common denominator between some of the recent Drake (both DeVries and McCollum) and Indiana State teams was excellent use of the portal to build MVC champ level rosters. My impression is Jake’s been slow to embrace it. Hopefully getting players like Bond becomes more common going forward.

[CyCarp]

I completely agree with this. The common denominator between some of the recent Drake (both DeVries and McCollum) and Indiana State teams was excellent use of the portal to build MVC champ level rosters. My impression is Jake’s been slow to embrace it. Hopefully getting players like Bond becomes more common going forward.

You know, the funny thing is that we've always said that we want a great atmosphere and keep kids around. If you keep them around for 3-4+ years you're going to have a veteran let team and likely more success. We didn't really have many guys transfer out (and transfer up) prior to last year. The only I can remember is Noah Carter - and he has issues of his own with his dad. Crazy how we "didn't need the portal" because we didn't lose guys, but in hindsight, it probably did more harm than good.

[DecadePanther]

I completely agree with this. The common denominator between some of the recent Drake (both DeVries and McCollum) and Indiana State teams was excellent use of the portal to build MVC champ level rosters. My impression is Jake’s been slow to embrace it. Hopefully getting players like Bond becomes more common going forward.

The other thing to factor in here is both of these programs have recently built state of the art practice facilities. That gives them a huge leg up in today’s recruiting world. Facilities are the biggest reason why we’re behind. Fix them and the titles will be back.

[BCPanther]

The other thing to factor in here is both of these programs have recently built state of the art practice facilities. That gives them a huge leg up in today’s recruiting world. Facilities are the biggest reason why we’re behind. Fix them and the titles will be back.

Its not a coincidence that Drake emerged from 50 years of being dog **** once they heavily invested, built a beautiful practice facility and started working on renovating the Knapp.