bierce

Oh, poke the bear trying to hibernate in his cave, will you? I kid of course. Bobby didn't have it right when he compared me to Michael Corleone being pulled back in. We all know I do this for, I mean to, myself. I think Terry will get another season if we make the tournament and get to the round of 32 or beyond. I don't think a second weekend is a must. On the other hand, I don't think just making the tournament guarantees his job. Those are general guidelines, but there could be extenuating circumstance moving the needle one way or the other. For example, the team could go on a tear, finish +.500 in the conference, make the conference semifinals, and suffer a bad injury to leave us shorthanded in the opening round. Alternatively, we could make the tournament, win a game, lose in the second round, and wind up watching Clark ask out of his NLI while the whole team declares for the portal, saying a lot of nasty stuff on their way out. There will be other factors at play. Pope and Mark's willingness to return will be a big factor. Codie, Pryor, Vinson and Presley showing development will be another, even if it is just in practice. Big money donors will have an impact. The quality and timing of other coaches becoming available. We might have a dynamic pg on the line. Royal Ivey might show up with Khaman Maluach and the entire South Sudan U18 team in tow. Ok, that's not happening because Maluach will go first round, and I can't find if there is a U18 team in South Sudan right now. Round of 32 isn't the goal for our program, but I have a hard time seeing how we punt a coach who wins tournament games in three straight seasons. We want the program to do better. We need to see reason to not just hope for better but reasonably expect better than annual first weekend bounce outs. Can we do that with our returning players? If they include Pope and Mark, and if we have an incoming plus penetrator and distributor and an experienced big man, then yeah, maybe. We're going to see Pope and Mark declare for the draft. Maybe they will get combine invitations. Maybe they won't. What will be a lot more telling is if they declare for the draft and enter the portal.

Maybe, and especially if he secretly hopes for an early retirement. Some guys last forever, but the average length of an NFL coaching job is 3 years. I think Day knows that.

I'm guessing it will push for the NCAA to recognize Flickerball.

I was referring to the thread in which several posters were saying Day is toast because he lost 4 straight to Michigan, but OK, let's talk NFL poaching here. Day already gets 10+ million a year from tOSU. There are only 9 NFL coaches making more than that. Day probably gets a bunch of bonus money for winning the natty. He probably gets an extension with a nice pay bump. How many NFL owners and GMs will make someone with just two years NFL coaching experience (as a QB coach for the Eagles one year and the 49ers another) one of the top 6 or 7 paid coaches in the league? It could happen, but I would not bet on it happening.

Remember the thread about how Ryan Day is done at tOSU?

Or just tell the conferences that they get one automatic bid. Just one. And every team in the conference ranked in the CFP above the team that gets the auto bid and didn't play in the conference championship game is automatically disqualified. I have to think the ACC is doing nothing more than rebranding itself as the All Cowardly Conference here. SMU was not only included (wrongly) in the CFP, it was seeded ahead of the team that beat it in the ACC title game.

Not kidding. The ACC is considering making the "Championship Game" a game between the second and third place teams. https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/43483852/acc-weigh-changes-title-game-commissioner-says

Little did I know the future writers of "The Cable Guy" were in the gym at the time.

We haven't seen enough of Codie, Vinson, Pryor, Presley, and Clark to know what they will be able to do against P5 competition in 2025-26, but we do have a lot of usable parts. Adding a plus ballhandler should be top priority in the portal. Mark has another year available, btw.

The NCAA is also thinking about just junking the entire system of waivers, redshirts, and exemptions and just giving everyone 5 years, no questions asked. https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/college-sports/college-sports-leaders-considering-new-eligibility-rule-that-eliminates-redshirts-waivers-and-other-exceptions/ar-AA1xoa8j?ocid=BingNewsVerp

That isn't the rule in basketball. The NCAA is considering applying something like a 33% rule to all sports to give everyone a fifth season, but it hasn't done that yet. https://www.si.com/college/gonzaga/basketball/ncaa-to-discuss-5th-year-of-eligibility-for-all-sports-in-2025-01jgpcmthpd1 So I'm back to my question, but I suppose we can add "anticipation of the implementation of a 33% rule?" Even so, he'd be allowed to play in 2 more games.

Killed on the boards in several games. Suffered two blowouts. No Vinson even when game was well over. Is he hurt and looking for a medical hardship year, is he in trouble with coaches, or is he so unready that he doesn't get even mop up minutes?

Says the guy who always ignores the impact of Tyrone Branyan on the history of Texas Longhorn basketball.

Don't forget the contacts he has in South Sudan for recruiting among the Dinka. Not joking here. He coached South Sudan in the 2024 Olympics.

But Schlossnagle's top annual salary in his contract will still be under 3 million a year. The top basketball coaches are getting salaries in the $8-10 million range. Sark is now the 3rd highest paid coach after getting to the CFP in consecutive seasons. He didn't start that high. CDC won't pay the basketball coach Sark money, and that is what it would take to get someone like Hurley, or maybe even Lloyd, so I expect any hire will be more along the lines of what I suggested earlier--the guy pushing 50 with a great record at a lower level and some record of success at this level.

Now that you have amended this to talk salary and not buyout, then I will say the target should be Dan Hurley. He gets a little over $8 million a year and the buyout is only $4 million as of April 1, 2025. He's only 52. But I said years ago, and I will stick by my prediction that Hurley has no interest in leaving UConn. He is fully established at a basketball school in a basketball conference. He is very, very, very well paid, even if he is behind Self and the squid. He has spent his entire life in the Northeast. I don't see him having much interest in leaving. I don't see Wright leaving retirement. I don't see any amount of money getting Few out of his fishing grounds. Sometimes the ideal target for us might not find us the ideal destination no matter how much money we throw at the target. I was of a similar opinion when it came to Hoiberg years ago when we were discussing potentially replacing Barnes. He wasn't leaving ISU for anything except the NBA. I think Otzelberger is a Midwesterner and wants to stay in the Midwest, but I also think he will be approachable. So will be Tommy Lloyd.

I left 247Sports last spring for other reasons. I miss a few of the posters there. I miss Jeff. I always made a point to go say hello when I went to a basketball game, and not just because he comped me a lifetime subscription when I announced a few years back that I was leaving due to lack of basketball coverage. I guess he felt I was worth it then because of my very detailed threads on conference recruiting and bubble watch and conference basketball action. I have a hard time spending that much time researching and writing now that I have to take care of my 93 year old dad, his house, and his pecan orchard, but with my near retirement from my legal practice, maybe I'll find the time again. I have a feeling we'll win a few more games this year and be curious about the bubble. We might wind up on the wrong side of it, but I doubt we will be out of the discussion come March 1.

Money will not be an issue, but it very well may be a factor if CDC decides to make a move at season's end and finds himself choosing among several excellent candidates. $10 million less in a buyout translates to $2 million a year more in NIL for 5 years. That can go a long, long way to giving candidate 2 a better chance to quickly build a powerhouse. And it's not like Otzelberger has proven to be a tournament wizard at this point. His first ISU team did make a surprise visit to the S16 as an 11 seed, but it got there by beating a mediocre LSU team and a hideously overrated Wisconsin team that was in a bad slump. Then he lost to worse seeded teams the last two seasons. I've always said the tournament is a crapshoot, so for other reasons Otzelberger is still my #1 choice at present if a move is made, but I don't necessarily see him as so far above the competition that he is some kind of must hire. But for now, I'm going to focus on our upcoming games against Missouri and A&M. The season is far from over, even if we can all see the issues. Let's see how the next few games play out.

I agree about the average results, and I'll go you one better by saying disappointing results so far, but look at the parts you have listed. Two SGs and one combo forward are significant minutes players. Three other guys are "good pieces," You mean like role players off the bench? When two of them have to start for us and the third was starting while Mark was injured and coming back from his injury and is now injured himself? Maybe our roster is mostly Terry's fault. Maybe its largely the fault of the guys with the money not doling it out for other players Terry wanted. I think it's a mix of fault there.

I'm not the guy making the hire. CDC will be. I'm just predicting what I expect him to do. He will look for a guy 50 or under with an excellent resume at lower levels and some experience and success at this level. Without incidents of assaulting women in his past. Or not disciplining a current player for taking a firearm to a former player when the former player used it to shoot someone. Otzelberger would be a dream hire, but the buyout for someone under contract through 2032 might be too much to handle, and the buyout terms of his new extension have yet to be announced. So I'm thinking someone like McCasland. Not saying he's the guy, because I was unimpressed with Tech's offensive play against ISU after Toppin turned his ankle. It was way too dependent on iso drives like we see with Texas this year. In fact, the things that make Tech so much more successful than Texas on offense this year are Hawkins's ability to get into the paint to cause a defense to break down, and the rest of the team's ability to use that disruption to get open for easy shots and to get in position for offensive rebounds. But I then watched a lot of Tech's game against Arizona. That was a very good showing by them. But there you are looking at about $16 million in the coach's buyout (40% of remaining value of contract, and due in 60 days of resignation). And you are looking at a guy whose teams play a slow game on offense. Of course, maybe Musselman is already sick of the fires and is looking to pay big money to get out of L.A. I could say the same about Cronin, but his behavior over the last two weeks has been pretty odd.

I think I said we would never hire Jans, who I think is a very good coach, because of the incident that happened while he was coaching Bowling Green.

Weaver's primary role on this team is not as a scorer, and you know that. He's a defensive hawk, a vicious rebounder, and a guy who gets things done when things get chaotic. That is a guy we sorely missed having, especially against Tennessee. Larry might have been a recruiting miss. I don't disagree with that.

I always said that I thought we would not go 0-5. I was referring to the doomsayers on this board saying not going 0-5 would be a miracle. There was a thread about it before conference play started. Sometimes teams win as underdogs. Sometimes they lose as favorites. I know that. You know that. Statisticians know that. The point is that most of the same people having snits today were the same one saying we'd be 0-5 at this point. Are we better now than I thought we'd be? No. We are where I thought we'd be in the w-l columns. I don't think we should pat ourselves on the back for getting there while we were shorthanded, particularly after the abortion of a second half we just witnessed, but we are where I thought we would be. Now, if we could get a win in our next two games, we could be all right in trying to reach the tournament. If we don't, then I think we're probably toast.

I think I'm saying our team has shortcomings and the team and the coach need to fix them. I've never denied that. I even pointed them out before the season started. You guys are incredible. I write 8-10 paragraphs about what our team did wrong today and the few things that it did right and the things it has done well and hasn't all year, and you guys have no desire to discuss the effect of not having Weaver on the floor, the lack of rebounding, the lack of a top flight pg, or any of the possible ways to try to circumvent those problems. No, you just distill it to "the coach sucks." Fine. You think the coach sucks. You want to talk about basketball now?

You might try reading my comments above yours. Then you might consider I might have pretty objective view of our basketball program.