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I would ask everyone to remember last years timeline and compare it to what takes place in the next two months. This year will be different.

My plan would be to keep Sisley, Ristic and Acamovic to go with the 3 freshmen and consider them players 8-13. I want to believe Mr.Carr has the global connectivity to reach out directly or hire those who have the relationships with the agencies representing the global elite level talent. Being at the front of the line for next years Euro group would behoove us. Whittle the lift in the portal down to 3 or 4 specific pieces, again hopefully by way of ties to agents.

Yes Anyone that thought the staff and roster were put together by design is mistaken. Things went wrong early and significantly with DDs plans for year one. No one intentionally starts a job, like he started this one on purpose. Once it was thrown together I think he coached his butt off though. By this time next month I believe we will be excited by the new approach, the changes in staffing and the results that come from it. We need 5 starters and the first 2 guys off the bench.

We knew this thing was going to be rough when we didn't have anyone on our staff with any real recruiting connections. Moikobu and Murphy would've created a completely different situation for us and I still believe that was what DD thought he had. Adams was going to serve a short term purpose of acclimating DD to the state and connecting him to the aau circuit in-state. But it all fell apart and Drew Adams and Nic Norton built our roster. That did force early conversations with Carr and I think there will be an NBA approach to building this roster. Did Adams make any in roads in Europe? That's the only reason to keep him. Kenny serves zero purpose. Geoff Alexander is the guy forthr FIBA circuit and Chin Coleman is an established recruiter of national perimeter talent. That's where it needs to start and someone that can hold their own in-state.... DD can coach.

Year 3 was when he list me. If he could coach that team had the talent to finish over .500.

I will have an answer by July. I've said already, Get atleast one more successful recruiter on the bench to go with Rod Clark and I think the roster will drastically improved. I think we can have a team on par with Wisconsin next year.

The question should be, "did we enjoy this style more than the last 2?" I think the answer is yes. DD can coach. It all comes down to having player acquisition studs on the bench.

They must not see any upside as a perimeter player. He is undersized for the 4 or 5 for a good Big Ten team.

There are a lot of things DD has done, post-staffing disaster, to win me over. While putting temp hires Kenny and Drew in place he engaged Carr and stayed in contact while he muddled through forming this year's roster. Then he was able to get Rod Clark. He proved to me he could coach this year. Then next year started early with Carr. I expect an 80% reboot. I appreciate Lewis for his play, but we need a euro talent acquisition guy. (Geoff Alexander) and someone that can get perimeter athletes to compliment Clark. (Chin Coleman.) The talent acquisition group should go from an absurdity to a position of strength. I'm confident that Sisley and 3 freshmen will be back. After that, I'm not sure of anyone else.

Ryan Carr and DD will/should make some staff adjustments and get some to match Clark's chops domestically and someone proven in the foreign market. This was a thrown together roster that doesn't have a player on it that can start next year. Sisley probably will because he's the most promising.

We're a great tune-up team for someone that's getting ready for a big game.

Once you get passed the first 2 months of DDs tenure, I believe he's done quite well. I think we're in the process of rectifying shortcomings as we speak. He's probably going to win 20 games with this roster. Imagine what he will do next year with a well crafted roster. I would've preferred these things had been in place last March but now DD knows exactly what to go get and the people are being put in place to get the job done.

Head coaches don't build rosters. Assistants do. They have national and now international connections that bubble up names and they go see see them. The come up with a dozen or so names in each class starting when they're incoming freshmen. They start working them it depends on the culture of whomever they're working for on who the put the most time into. DD hadn't been working players for damn near a decade and he thought he had Murphy and Moikobu coming in to build a roster for him that reflected their prowess. Rod Clark was prayer answered but too late to do anything about the 26' team. Kenny and Drew have temp contracts. 2 years each. I have to believe it's because they're were emergency filler and will be replaced. Geoff Alexander and Chin Coleman would immediately change our talent level. Along with Rod Clark, that's a serious staff. All of this will come down to money though. I believe in DD more now than i did when we hired him. He can coach an offense that can hang a banner. He needs talent acquisition specialists.

Early next season wish list. Milka, Luigi, and steal Dylan Darling from St John's. Probably 7m.

92 IU 70 Oral Gun Dana lost this team weeks ago.

I think a couple of tweaks to the staff is necessary. It's about connections and areas of expertise when building a roster. I have faith that next years roster will be more contender capable. The style of play will be easier to recruit to. One thing that hasn't been done yet, is the hiring of a European agent to a recruiting role.

We win this one and go .500 the rest of the way I think we're in. The difference in our team is Dorn. I'm not sure when Conerway comes back I'd mess with the chemistry. Having another guard off the bench would be more valuable. Jmho. If Dorn continues to play at this level with Wilkerson being more consistent, I appreciate the evolution of TDs game to garbage/glue guy... we could be interesting. If we only had a monster in the middle.

It wasn't pretty, but that team had more talent than us at home with a 14 game winning streak on their floor and we out toughed'm. We let a late lead get away but I like to call these moments "Ali/Frazier in Manila moments". We got off the stool in the end when they couldn't. Tucker doesn't have the athleticism to be a star in this league, but he's morphed his game into a dirty work, do a little bit of everything kinda player and it's working for us. Side note: Xavier Booker is one instate kid I'm glad we didn't get. Bailey looked Zach Randolph against him last night. PS. We had the better coach and assistant (Rod Clark). Rod was in Lamars ear the entire second half.

Im gonna have a late night snack. Crow, i believe.... Just beat the teams with worse records and we're in.

I've had a heckuva day. I just wonder if I'll be awake at 9pm.

He's never been a volume shooter. His numbers last year were a bit misleading. If he could knock one down from straight on and use his first step to get down hill and create off the bounce a little could give us something to exploit.

You have to look at our roster realistically. Teams at the bottom of the conference we should be able to win at home and go .500 on the road against. We don't have any conceivable way of beating a top of the conference team, because we can't match talent and/or athleticism with them. 14-9 when we get back from California. We would then need to beat Wisconsin, Oregon, Northwestern and Minnesota at home, go on the road and beat Ohio State to finish .500 in conference. Add a BTT win to give us 20 wins and we get in. That's us playing to the best of our ability. That's going 5-3 to finish the conference regular season. Disgusted with DeVries for staff and roster assembly....ABSOLUTELY. But if he can do the above with this roster he can flat out coach.

True. It's a 5hitty deal to have to find joy with "at least it's not Woody." Results will be similar. Same January nose dive. Woody had talent though. Devries doesn't, but it's his fault we don't.

The initial approach Cignetti used is starting to he copied by Penn St and Oklahoma St, I'm sure others will use it but in basketball coming from a lower level and bringing your players seems to be harder to succeed at. Iowa is in our neighborhood right now and I'm not sure he'll be able to recruit the athletes necessary to compete for conference championships with his style. That's where I think Devries can. If we have a year two roster that looks like this year's then I think our support financially isn't there.

I'm not sure how far the 3 bigs line-up goes in March but they're deep.