As this unprecedented disaster rolls on to its inevitable conclusion and RU MBB plummets to the bottom of Division I, long-suffering fans are feeling totally frustrated, embarrassed and (most of all) helpless. Their only outlet is on these message boards. Some posters are sharply and repeatedly focused on firing Eddie, and certainly there is a rising demand for that to happen as the losses pile up. Some talk about the unbelievable rash of injuries, often while still calling for the Coach’s head. For others, the present is so unbearable that they focus exclusively on tiny rays of light in the future, such as, we’ll have a lot of players returning next year, or, somewhere on the horizon, we’ll have new facilities. Still others, in their dismay over RU MBB, return to meaningless statistical comparisons, inevitably jumping back to Craig Littlepage’ s final season, (which, BTW, is an increasingly irrelevant comparison; the present situation is way worse, both for this season and for the future; enough with the Littlepage thing). My personal observations follow:
To me, there is one circumstance that overrides everything else: the strong probability of transfers decimating the roster of returnees, both in terms of numbers and talent. Yet not that many fans are focused on this.I think it’s likely that Sanders, after the nightmare season and the suspension, will chose to move his considerable talents into a better program (that would give him a choice of more than 350 other teams). Freeman, with a couple of seasons left, would be another prime candidate, and who knows among Laurent, Williams, Foreman? While RU MBB, thankfully, is not even in the same universe as the notorious 2003 Baylor mess—complete with numerous NCAA violations, not the least of which was murder—the end result could be the same. By that I mean a depleted roster that in Baylor’s case had all of 5 players returning. Those who post here under the assumption that most of our best players will stick with this program are being naïve. If we end up with a badly depleted roster and have to play our 3 untested rookies a lot, we could be in for another horrible outing. That would make it harder than ever to recruit, regardless of who is our head coach.
I also want to comment on the injury situation. I am not of the school of thought that says “so what, every team has injuries,” and a while back, one fan even listed the number of players injured for a whole bunch of NCAA teams, to “prove” that other programs labored under this handicap. Folks, I have followed college basketball for more than 50 years and RU MBB for 45. In all those decades, I have never, ever, seen such a destructive injury situation. This is because the injuries were so heavily concentrated in the frontcourt; 5 of our entire 6 person Frontcourt roster went down, 3 of them for the entire, or nearly the entire, basketball season. For long periods of time we have been Lilliputians playing against giants. How the hell do all 3 centers manage to go down, 2 for all or most of the year? How much can you play 6 or 7 players before they get gassed? Only a tiny fraction of college basketball powerhouses would have the frontcourt bench depth to remain minimally competitive under these circumstances
Coaches: I have reluctantly come to agree that Eddie is probably not the guy who can lead us to even modest success, because he is too damaged after this season. But it doesn’t matter as much as some Eddie-haters think, in terms of whether or not he stays for one more year, because an outstanding coach is just not going to come here. Why, for example, would Tommy Amaker risk his career when he has a great program at Harvard that regularly goes to the NCAA tournament? Or Mike Lonergan? Being in the B1G is no lure if your program can’t win a single game, no matter how hard Pat Hobbs might try to assure him otherwise.
So what’s the bottom line? I truly hate being this bleak, but the situation is like nothing that has occurred before in the program, including post-Mike Rice and FHJ before that. I am afraid that we are in for more years of pain. There’s no quick fix, even with a coaching change. If I am wrong and all of our key players stick with the program, I’ll be delighted, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.
To me, there is one circumstance that overrides everything else: the strong probability of transfers decimating the roster of returnees, both in terms of numbers and talent. Yet not that many fans are focused on this.I think it’s likely that Sanders, after the nightmare season and the suspension, will chose to move his considerable talents into a better program (that would give him a choice of more than 350 other teams). Freeman, with a couple of seasons left, would be another prime candidate, and who knows among Laurent, Williams, Foreman? While RU MBB, thankfully, is not even in the same universe as the notorious 2003 Baylor mess—complete with numerous NCAA violations, not the least of which was murder—the end result could be the same. By that I mean a depleted roster that in Baylor’s case had all of 5 players returning. Those who post here under the assumption that most of our best players will stick with this program are being naïve. If we end up with a badly depleted roster and have to play our 3 untested rookies a lot, we could be in for another horrible outing. That would make it harder than ever to recruit, regardless of who is our head coach.
I also want to comment on the injury situation. I am not of the school of thought that says “so what, every team has injuries,” and a while back, one fan even listed the number of players injured for a whole bunch of NCAA teams, to “prove” that other programs labored under this handicap. Folks, I have followed college basketball for more than 50 years and RU MBB for 45. In all those decades, I have never, ever, seen such a destructive injury situation. This is because the injuries were so heavily concentrated in the frontcourt; 5 of our entire 6 person Frontcourt roster went down, 3 of them for the entire, or nearly the entire, basketball season. For long periods of time we have been Lilliputians playing against giants. How the hell do all 3 centers manage to go down, 2 for all or most of the year? How much can you play 6 or 7 players before they get gassed? Only a tiny fraction of college basketball powerhouses would have the frontcourt bench depth to remain minimally competitive under these circumstances
Coaches: I have reluctantly come to agree that Eddie is probably not the guy who can lead us to even modest success, because he is too damaged after this season. But it doesn’t matter as much as some Eddie-haters think, in terms of whether or not he stays for one more year, because an outstanding coach is just not going to come here. Why, for example, would Tommy Amaker risk his career when he has a great program at Harvard that regularly goes to the NCAA tournament? Or Mike Lonergan? Being in the B1G is no lure if your program can’t win a single game, no matter how hard Pat Hobbs might try to assure him otherwise.
So what’s the bottom line? I truly hate being this bleak, but the situation is like nothing that has occurred before in the program, including post-Mike Rice and FHJ before that. I am afraid that we are in for more years of pain. There’s no quick fix, even with a coaching change. If I am wrong and all of our key players stick with the program, I’ll be delighted, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.
