@ CMU (1/31)

[HoopsFan]

It seems the only way BG goes to Cleveland is by buying a ticket. Men or Women.

HoopsFan

[Hammer]

I can’t believe I am asking this but what is Simon’s contract situation? Is it time to throw in the towel? How many more years do we have?

[jpfalcon09]

I can’t believe I am asking this but what is Simon’s contract situation? Is it time to throw in the towel? How many more years do we have?

This is year three of five. Unless he leaves for elsewhere I don't see BG pulling the trigger. Especially with the women's program in just as bad of shape.

[guest44]

Remember all that momentum talk. Smoke and mirrors. DVDM’s hires looking worse by the day. At least Moosbrugger found Fralick.

[Hammer]

So I would assume next season is his make or break year. I just can’t imagine it being better when right now he has the best player in the league.

[guest44]

Campbell is a great player, he isn’t the best player in the league. He’d be one of the best players on Akron or Miami

[fanatic13]

I'm guessing Simon has a 5 year contract and he'll be here next year.

Lot of blame to go around but that was the worst game Towns has played this year. Let Leach and Kimbrough play some if we're not going to get anything from Ruffin. 15 points the last 4 games after 100 minutes

[fanatic13]

Campbell is a great player, he isn’t the best player in the league. He’d be one of the best players on Akron or Miami

He's probably the best player when you consider defense even if his offense is limited to driving. Regardless he's first team all mac and there's no guarantee we have that after this year

[jpfalcon09]

Remember all that momentum talk. Smoke and mirrors. DVDM’s hires looking worse by the day. At least Moosbrugger found Fralick.

I remember you touting Simon as a good coach. Not the case any longer?

[guest44]

Feels like the Toledo loss became three losses and this season is off the rails. His career record at bad jobs says he’s a good coach, but maybe I’m wrong. I’m confident he is really good at identifying talent at this level, in this dumpster fire version of college athletics. The next step these schools with no money need to take is shortening these coaches contracts for both sides. I think he would willingly leave if another opportunity came. This team wasn’t winning the MAC nor the tournament even if they had won the previous three games. We learned that when Miami came to town in December.

[hammb]

Man...didn't see any of this one. Sons class sang the anthem at the Walleye game so I was trying to follow the basketball game from inside the arena with crap cell signal. Man I don't understand the appeal of hockey at all, but thats another story...

How the eff did we lose to the bottom feeder cmu and we were up like 12 as t half!?

I have resigned myself to the fact that Simon is NOT a great coach at all. He brings in a lot of star quality MAC talent but has no ability to get that talent to gel into a team. For 3 years we've been below average in shooting. Below average in consistent effort level. Below average in role players able to make things happen around the top tier players we've had.

I think a big part of that is that our philosophy isn't really a philosophy to rely on. They wanna play fast. Play fast of makes, play fast off misses, force turnovers and run. Cool, but when you have to play half court, which you always will, then what? Give the ball to the best player and let him create...too much iso ball.

We need a legit offensive assistant or something. The effort level. This yr is night and day better than last yr but it's still not enough to avoid these long ass spells of zero offense.

[Hammer]

Man...didn't see any of this one. Sons class sang the anthem at the Walleye game so I was trying to follow the basketball game from inside the arena with crap cell signal. Man I don't understand the appeal of hockey at all, but thats another story...

How the eff did we lose to the bottom feeder cmu and we were up like 12 as t half!?

I have resigned myself to the fact that Simon is NOT a great coach at all. He brings in a lot of star quality MAC talent but has no ability to get that talent to gel into a team. For 3 years we've been below average in shooting. Below average in consistent effort level. Below average in role players able to make things happen around the top tier players we've had.

I think a big part of that is that our philosophy isn't really a philosophy to rely on. They wanna play fast. Play fast of makes, play fast off misses, force turnovers and run. Cool, but when you have to play half court, which you always will, then what? Give the ball to the best player and let him create...too much iso ball.

We need a legit offensive assistant or something. The effort level. This yr is night and day better than last yr but it's still not enough to avoid these long ass spells of zero offense.

This is a dead on assessment. I feel like we have a good coach and it somehow isn’t translating to the on court product. Is it possible he just can’t get players with length who can also shoot? If that’s the case don’t you have to adjust and figure out how to make it work with the guys you have? At any rate you can’t win in modern college basketball without three point shooters and we have none.

[hammb]

Man...didn't see any of this one. Sons class sang the anthem at the Walleye game so I was trying to follow the basketball game from inside the arena with crap cell signal. Man I don't understand the appeal of hockey at all, but thats another story...

How the eff did we lose to the bottom feeder cmu and we were up like 12 as t half!?

I have resigned myself to the fact that Simon is NOT a great coach at all. He brings in a lot of star quality MAC talent but has no ability to get that talent to gel into a team. For 3 years we've been below average in shooting. Below average in consistent effort level. Below average in role players able to make things happen around the top tier players we've had.

I think a big part of that is that our philosophy isn't really a philosophy to rely on. They wanna play fast. Play fast of makes, play fast off misses, force turnovers and run. Cool, but when you have to play half court, which you always will, then what? Give the ball to the best player and let him create...too much iso ball.

We need a legit offensive assistant or something. The effort level. This yr is night and day better than last yr but it's still not enough to avoid these long ass spells of zero offense.

This is a dead on assessment. I feel like we have a good coach and it somehow isn’t translating to the on court product. Is it possible he just can’t get players with length who can also shoot? If that’s the case don’t you have to adjust and figure out how to make it work with the guys you have? At any rate you can’t win in modern college basketball without three point shooters and we have none.

Well we have a shooter with length in Wol right now and he's 7th on the team in minutes played. I'm sorry, that is completely ludicrous. IF you have to find a way to hide him defensively, do it. Play better straight up defense around him, what he brings on the offensive end is something ONLY he brings on that end. HE should be playing among the most mins on the team, not the lowest of our regular rotation.

But I think Simon is still figuring out the MAC. The level of play here is, I suspect, a lot higher than it was at SUU, and you can't just run your way to success. Especially on the nights (and there are many) where MAC refs swallow the whistles and let things play.

In yr 1 we had 2 legit studs in Agee & Hill, but zero shooting on the floor at all and virtually no depth.
In yr 2 we had the worst body language/effort level (on defense especially) group of guys I've ever seen. Those guys should all be ashamed, so glad most are gone
In yr 3 we have a ton of talent led by a PG who is a top 5 player in this league. We have some outside shooting around him and we've got some bigs that can do things around the rim. Yet still, the lack of a cohesive offensive system is frustrating.

But ultimately, the good teams in the MAC don't just have a Mayar Wol. They've got 5-6 guys who, on any given night, can give you a 3-6 shooting night from beyond the arc. They have 2 of those guys at minimum on the court at any time. Wol & Ruffin are the only 2 we have. Thomas is the other guy shooting a competent percentage, but he barely shoots so its of little value at this point. Our best 2 don't shoot nearly as much as the good shooters on other teams (Ruffin is 22nd in league 3pa), our 2nd tier of guys shooting 3 per game (towns & Shackleford) aren't nearly good enough to be shooting so much. On the whole we shoot not nearly enough threes for modern basketball, and it's impossible to argue we should just shoot more because our guys also aren't as good doing so as the competition.

By comparison, Miami has 8 regulars shooting over 35% from 3, 6 of them donig it on over 2.5 attempts per game.
Kent has only 3 guys at 34% or better, but those 3 combine for 16 attemtps per game
Akron has 6 regulars over 35%, 4 of them shooting over 3 attempts per game

This is modern basketball...we're not playing it.

[BleedOrange]

....Miami leads the nation in FG% and 3FG%, by the way.

[Falconwriter]

Man...didn't see any of this one. Sons class sang the anthem at the Walleye game so I was trying to follow the basketball game from inside the arena with crap cell signal. Man I don't understand the appeal of hockey at all, but thats another story...

How the eff did we lose to the bottom feeder cmu and we were up like 12 as t half!?

I have resigned myself to the fact that Simon is NOT a great coach at all. He brings in a lot of star quality MAC talent but has no ability to get that talent to gel into a team. For 3 years we've been below average in shooting. Below average in consistent effort level. Below average in role players able to make things happen around the top tier players we've had.

I think a big part of that is that our philosophy isn't really a philosophy to rely on. They wanna play fast. Play fast of makes, play fast off misses, force turnovers and run. Cool, but when you have to play half court, which you always will, then what? Give the ball to the best player and let him create...too much iso ball.

We need a legit offensive assistant or something. The effort level. This yr is night and day better than last yr but it's still not enough to avoid these long ass spells of zero offense.

This is a dead on assessment. I feel like we have a good coach and it somehow isn’t translating to the on court product. Is it possible he just can’t get players with length who can also shoot? If that’s the case don’t you have to adjust and figure out how to make it work with the guys you have? At any rate you can’t win in modern college basketball without three point shooters and we have none.

Well we have a shooter with length in Wol right now and he's 7th on the team in minutes played. I'm sorry, that is completely ludicrous. IF you have to find a way to hide him defensively, do it. Play better straight up defense around him, what he brings on the offensive end is something ONLY he brings on that end. HE should be playing among the most mins on the team, not the lowest of our regular rotation.

But I think Simon is still figuring out the MAC. The level of play here is, I suspect, a lot higher than it was at SUU, and you can't just run your way to success. Especially on the nights (and there are many) where MAC refs swallow the whistles and let things play.

In yr 1 we had 2 legit studs in Agee & Hill, but zero shooting on the floor at all and virtually no depth.
In yr 2 we had the worst body language/effort level (on defense especially) group of guys I've ever seen. Those guys should all be ashamed, so glad most are gone
In yr 3 we have a ton of talent led by a PG who is a top 5 player in this league. We have some outside shooting around him and we've got some bigs that can do things around the rim. Yet still, the lack of a cohesive offensive system is frustrating.

But ultimately, the good teams in the MAC don't just have a Mayar Wol. They've got 5-6 guys who, on any given night, can give you a 3-6 shooting night from beyond the arc. They have 2 of those guys at minimum on the court at any time. Wol & Ruffin are the only 2 we have. Thomas is the other guy shooting a competent percentage, but he barely shoots so its of little value at this point. Our best 2 don't shoot nearly as much as the good shooters on other teams (Ruffin is 22nd in league 3pa), our 2nd tier of guys shooting 3 per game (towns & Shackleford) aren't nearly good enough to be shooting so much. On the whole we shoot not nearly enough threes for modern basketball, and it's impossible to argue we should just shoot more because our guys also aren't as good doing so as the competition.

By comparison, Miami has 8 regulars shooting over 35% from 3, 6 of them donig it on over 2.5 attempts per game.
Kent has only 3 guys at 34% or better, but those 3 combine for 16 attemtps per game
Akron has 6 regulars over 35%, 4 of them shooting over 3 attempts per game

This is modern basketball...we're not playing it.

How can you still be figuring out the MAC in year 3 of a 5-year contract? He should have been able to do that after one season -- and certainly after 2. To me, this shows his failings as a coach. He may identify and bring in talent (there are some very talented guys on this roster), but he apparently doesn't know how to best utilize it or get his players to play consistently well enough to beat teams they have no business losing to.

On to the next coach. And yes, I know that means waiting another 2 years. We'll also be hiring a women's coach around that same time. These hires were an absolute failure.