Brass Cannon

The fact that even bad Troy is getting 20 minutes a game would suggest that JBJ would still have gotten his playing time.

I'd make a witty retort but the fact you don't understand Kenpom is good enough for me.

I think it does Iowa I think has to win this if they want the outright title.

I don't think Kenpom values how teams are playing lately honestly I think the Badgers have a far better chance than us

Iowa still has a tough schedule Wisconsin tonight for example.

  My favorite part of this whole event was years later he was doing a press conference and he had to move a chair and he said something along the lines of "thats the farthest ive thrown a chair in quite some time"

  I agree we did take it harder, because that was our one season where we might do something.  2002 was such miracle run, we overachieved so it wasn't heartbreaking.    I just constantly think of UK.  They got one with Tubby, and then sorta suffered and kept him around too long.  Something I feel are doing with Crean.  They hired Billy G, and he wasn't the guy.  For many reasons both on and off the court he wasn't the guy, and as soon as they realized that having learned their lesson they got rid of him.    I feel like we need to learn from UK without compromising our ethics, which is something we did with Sampson.    I sometimes wonder if Zellers first year had gone different, would we have Brad Stevens now.  Would we be perennial contenders?   Would we trade the Watshot for Brad Stevens, I think I would.    I just go back to this, has Tom Crean ever won 6 games in a row against Tournament level competition regardless of home or away.  I don't think he has.  That sorta shows hes never going to do it. 

  Pretty damn good with somebody elses players with a team that had missed the tourney the year before.  There was real growth the second year.     But you missed the point of that post I think.      Wow I forget that he had made the tourney his final year.    Still pretty good that Sampson matched Davis's performance his first year, after losing some important players. 

  Yeah, but heres the gist.    At Murray state he had only 1 defense in top 100.  At Texas hes not had a single 1 out of the top 100.  With 2 of those 4 being below 50.  And another 2 still 60 and below.  Thats a trend showing real improvement.    Its looks to me like he suffered on the offensive end his first 3 years to build something.  And then the offensive numbers have gone down.    But even his worst year at texas would be his second best at Murray state.  Thats real improvement, thats a trend that even as he is building the program and having growing pains hes better than he had been. 

  Sadly under Sampson I don't think we were mediocre or even if we were we weren't going to be for long, but he was cheating which is unacceptable.  I am only 29, and I can only vaguely remember a time where we were a national power, I feel like it all started to slip away around 93.  To the point that by the time I was a teenager our national relevance was all gone. 

  Well then perhaps Crean should have recognized that and not taken Hulls out after he had led the comeback. 

  Did you just resort to "Link or it didn't happen".  He was lost out there, an injured Jordan hulls spurred a come back by running the offense better than him.  And I love Jordan hulls, but he is not a floor general by any stretch of the imagination. 

  2 groups of five years of data is not a good year.  That is a Trend. 

One more thing Id like to say on Kennedy is that people like to give Crean a pass on his first 3 years.  Lets do the same with Kennedy.  Years 4 and 5 at Texas and Murray State.    Texas he averaged 61st on offense.  38.5 on defense and 41.5 together in Kenpom.  At Murray state 102 offense 81.5 defense and 86th together.   Thats about a 40 point jump after he had time to build the respective programs.    Is that hes learning and becoming a better head coach?  Or is it the better resources at a bigger name school?   It doesn't really matter, because either way the right guy will do better here as opposed to where he had been. 

Says the guy that says we risk becoming mediocre if we don't stick with the mediocrity. 

  Or our 5 star PG hadn't been prepared and thats why the offense ran better with an Injured Jordan hulls running it.  So of course after we went on a run to tie it Crean pulled Hulls and put Yogi back in. 

  See i think this obsession with giving coaches 6 years is part of this fanbases problem.  When we realize somebody is the wrong person you get rid of them.  Thats how employers work also, you sometimes have to fire people before lining their replacements up.    And how can you say Kennedy's numbers are the same.  His average defense at Murray state was 144.4, at Texas its 51.8.  His average offense 146 at Texas opposed to 162.8 at Murray state.    Plus at Murray state he only had 1 top 100 offense hes already had 2 at Texas and its moving in the right direction. And top 100 defenses every year at Texas as opposed to only once at Murray

  I don't look down on their zone.  I look down on coaches who know they are playing Syracuse for 5 days and don't bother teaching their kids the basics of breaking a zone. 

Prohm at Iowa state also improved Iowa states D this year dramatically while improving their offense.  But its too soon to say if that will be carried forward and sustained

  Oh I'm sorry I didn't realize that somebody else constructed that team.  Or that just because your guards are short means you shouldn't make adjustments to try and beat the zone. 

  By year 16 Coach K had also been to 4 final fours and was 1 year away from a championship.  Not fair to compare Creans 9-16 against Ks first 9 years.   Its not proof of support for Drew, but illustrates why its silly to judge a coach by how he performs with a team with no resources in their first few years of coaching. 

  Syracuse had NBA talent, they also somehow surprised Crean with a Zone. 

I might point to Kennedy at A&M though.  He has them higher than he had Murray State.  And hes got their offense 30+ spots higher than he ever had Murray state. And he has their D right where he had his best Murray states D.  Both top 50 atm also something he never accomplished at Murray State. 

  Define across the board?   Hes had 2 shots, hes ran into the steamroller that is MSU and last years Maryland team. Coach K didn't even make the NCAA tourney until his 9th year.  You going to hold a guys first 3 years against him?   I don't have access to Kenpoms advanced metrics.  But even if its not Drew, we need to try somebody new because Crean is not the guy.  Drew did have them playing with the 41st best offense his first year.  Perhaps its a personnel issue.  He can't recruit guys who are both good at offense and defense to Valpo, maybe he could here.    When I realized my ex wasn't the one I didn't keep dating her till I found the one.  I broke up with her and went looking again you don't stay with the wrong person just because you don't know who the right person is. 

  Yeah but how often do we force teams to play our pace on a neutral court?  And theres a reason they are rated higher than us in Kenpom, because the gap between our offenses is smaller than the gap between our defenses.