Last and final shot at a road win this season

[BleedOrange]

Just making a point to those that are unhappy that it always could be worse
Roll Along

I also love the notion that winning hurts the program. It is a perspective from way deep down the rabbit hole.

I understand why the notion seems bizarre.

Here's the POV: The fans want a competitive program and, based on his tenure, have completely given up on Orr as a coach that can produce such a program. The men's program under Orr is an established and proven mediocrity - substandard by MAC standards. The fans that follow the program closely are convinced that Orr will never produce a competitive MAC program, despite actually winning some games here and there. So, each additional year with Orr as head coach is a throw-away year, futile, destined to be another <.500 season with players not developing and teams remaining uninspired. The waiting continues.

However, while the men's program clearly has been disappointing, it is not SO bad (like Northern Illinois) that it would be considered a complete disaster. It is imaginable that the Administration might find Orr's performance "just acceptable enough" to NOT let him go. Then the waiting is then prolonged, and that's the major fear.

Fans want to begin competing asap, and this cannot happen until Orr leaves. So, the motivation is for the case against Orr to be a clear as possible. The fans have given up on Orr's program and have psychologically sacrificed the short term for the long term.

$.02.

[factman]

If he is so good at "fundraising", why is he cutting scholarships and budgets in any sports? Baseball is not the only one!

[guest44]

While we are comparing ourselves to Northern Illinois, we do have several things in common. They hired a recently fired coach who had been at "BCS conference" school. The program Patton inherited was a complete trainwreck with no fan base. Orr inherited very little talent, a joke of a facility, but kids who had been coached really hard. IMO, a way better situation. Northern hit rock bottom, BG is buying time until it hits rock bottom. Oh, and both coaches' kids play/played on the team. Clearly, Orr is not Patton level awful, but he had a new arena, decent tradition, and plenty of time to do better than this with 4 of his own seniors, and a future as bright as storm cloud.

[AyZiggy97]

While we are comparing ourselves to Northern Illinois, we do have several things in common. They hired a recently fired coach who had been at "BCS conference" school. The program Patton inherited was a complete trainwreck with no fan base. Orr inherited very little talent, a joke of a facility, but kids who had been coached really hard. IMO, a way better situation. Northern hit rock bottom, BG is buying time until it hits rock bottom. Oh, and both coaches' kids play/played on the team. Clearly, Orr is not Patton level awful, but he had a new arena, decent tradition, and plenty of time to do better than this with 4 of his own seniors, and a future as bright as storm cloud.

If I thought the underclassmen on the roster lacked talent, I might have a dim outlook too. But I kinda think the right coach, whoever that is, could make BG a challenger next season. They'll need a point guard ready to play, but the other four positions are pretty good. I just don't see the program in decline. Stagnant, certainly, but not in reverse.

But, yeah, Orr should have been let go after last season. If they don't have a really good next five weeks, then he'll deserve to be released again. I at least want the him and the team to surprise me.

[guest44]

How will next years team be any better offensively? Crawford is what Crawford is, but I'd argue without him this is at best a 5 to 7 win team. Will Chauncey Orr score 15ppg when Calhoun isn't drawing double teams? Who will make 3pt shots at even a decent rate? Heck, I'm worried next years team will struggle to get the ball past half court at times. Clarke has talent, but has alot of turnovers in he short amount of time played. I'll believe it when I see it in regards to freshman making any impact.

[BGSUFanatic7]

They may not be better than this year's team next season. But AyZiggy97 makes a good point and I've been thinking like this for a while now. The underclassman on this team are actually pretty good. Chauncey Orr is averaging about 10ppg in MAC play. And I'd make the argument that he would score more without Crawford and Calhoun. He's shooting close to 50% this year and he is extremely efficient. If he shot more, which he will in his Junior and Senior years, I think he definitely could average around 15+ points a game.

Adding to that Sophomore class, Richaun Holmes is someone that I think everyone agrees on. He is an incredible athlete and he is putting up national numbers in blocked shots while only playing about half the game. He rebounds incredibly well, especially offensively and his jump shoot is decent. Again, I think everyone would agree that this guy could be great and already is very good. Anthony Henderson also has shown signs and starting a lot of games as a Sophomore will only help. He can hit the 3 and is a pretty good offensive player and gets rebounds too. He still needs to develop but he is a bright spot.

You add in a guy like Denny who can shoot the lights out. Develop Tisdale/Clarke into decent guards and continue to improve Parker. Maybe add in a freshman or 2 for the 2014 class that can help contribute a little bit right away and that team could potentially be pretty darn good.

I don't think it will be next year. But the thinking makes sense. This Freshman/Sophomore class right now is actually very talented and has shown a lot, even under Orr who is known for never picking up impact freshman or developing players well. Time will tell, but in a couple of years and a new coach and I think this team could be a winning team.

[BleedOrange]

This is what we have coming back. I think this is a reasonable collection of MAC talent, although the upperclassmen haven't developed:

Henderson 6-1
Clarke 6-1
Orr 6-4
Sealey 6-4
Parker 6-7
Holmes 6-8
Black 6-10


...and this is what we have coming in, with the last 2 being huge question marks due to lousy HS stats:

Tisdale 6-5
Denny 6-1
Maybelen 6-9
Gomez 6-10

If Orr leaves at the end of this season, it's hard to say how many of these guys will stick around. If everyone returned, 2 scholarships would be available.

[BGWriter]

If anyone, including the Fundraiser, does a rational, logical evaluation of Orr's tenure at BG, the only conclusion to be reached is: he has vastly under-performed during his time here and a change is needed for this program to move forward.

I don't know how anyone could reach a different conclusion based on Orr's record alone. Factor in that you have a new facility you're trying to fill with people, and if you are a smart investor, you have to realize an energetic, younger man is needed to get things revved up.

Orr is not that man. He's someone coasting toward retirement.

The longer this gets pushed back, the more time is wasted and the more money is lost because of (1) declining interest from fans and (2) a bad/poor reputation among players; all of which makes crawling out of the hole even more difficult.

It's time to cut the cord and bring in someone new, REGARDLESS of how this season finishes out.

[bgsufalcon24]

Here's something to consider. Compared to 5-8 years ago, where are all the teams in the MAC now.

They're pretty much all in the same place. Ohio and Akron are good. The whole west division is bad, as is Buffalo. BG is the mediocre team they've always been. The only teams that have really changed position are Kent and Miami, and I would argue that both are in a short lived down cycle, especially Kent which is good every year sans this one.

I'm not sure this hierarchy in the MAC will ever change, quite frankly. It would take a real game changer of some kind, like hiring the next Jim Boeheim or Mike Kryzewski, to get a team like Northern Illinois, Ball State, or Central Michigan to the top of the MAC in men's basketball. It might not be that drastic for BG, but overcoming the likes of Akron, Kent, and Ohio on a yearly basis is damn near mission impossible. We're just not a basketball school like they are. We don't have their tradition, we don't have their fanbase, we don't have the same commitment from our administration as they do. We have a shiny new arena, and that's great and all, but that alone won't get us to the top of the conference.

BG would do well to make Orr walk after this season if we truly want to be elite. If he stays, clearly that means that the administration is happy being a .500-ish team in the MAC, just so long as we aren't horrible like we were under Dakich's 2nd reign.

EDIT: Honestly, if football and hockey were good to great every year (throw women's basketball on there as a bonus), I would be fine with men's basketball going .500 all the time because football and hockey have and always will be the true money sports at BGSU. But those two programs, especially hockey, has not shown that they can be good year in and year out. In fact, most years they're terrible, although hopefully Bergeron will be able to put the icers onto a different course entirely now. So that puts pressure on men's basketball to succeed.

[guest44]

Real shocking that BG is in the same place as 5-8 years ago. Same coach.

[AyZiggy97]

I'm guessing the fans in Athens don't care that their football coach was fired from a BCS school or that their basketball coach was fired from a non-BCS school.

[guest44]

Ya, but both has sustained success before that. Both had built programs. Orr had done neither.

[ZoombaFalcon]

Exactly which school was Jim Christian fired from? He left Kent and and TCU on his own if I recall correctly.

[AyZiggy97]

Exactly which school was Jim Christian fired from? He left Kent and and TCU on his own if I recall correctly.

I thought he left TCU on his own the way Dan Dakich left BG on his own. But I could be wrong. I'd also argue that Bob Devaney and Tom Osborne had more to do with building Nebraska's program than Frank Solich.

I'm not defending Louis Orr. He's had enough time to turn BG around. But sometimes coaches from BCS schools get raw deals from their fan bases.

[BGSUFanatic7]

Sticking up for Orr is worthless at this point. Sure, some of the blame can be put on the players. But when your recruiting those players and coaching them, you expect to see improvement and that simply has not happened consistently or even at all whatsoever. We also live in a world where the Head Coach takes the blame. He's been here for quite a while now and his losing record is getting extremely old.

Yes, people on here often blame him for too much. But at this point there is nothing left to do. No coach in division 1 basketball should have a job after 1 winning season in 6 years.