Transfer portal 2023
- Thread starter loca2874
- Start date
They had better caliber players than quite a few teams that had better records.… and the league wasn’t very good last season either. I agree that the talent wasn’t where it needed to be; however, there was absolutely some signs of poor coaching. Part of that was a general lack of effort in the early season.
Better caliber players than quite a few teams? I want what you're smoking.
No way! I saw quite a lot of BB last season, including the JUCO teams that played
against Pearl River (Carlous Williams)....Of all the teams I saw, College and JUCO,
maybe we could have matched up well with a couple of the JUCOs...
A couple of players that if healthy in all respects could of really helped, didn't....
The rest of the team wasn't talented enough and didn't have enough usable
players to overcome that....I kept wondering during the season if we were any
better than the worst of the Jim King teams...I really don't think we were......
I have to disagree here. Jesiah McWright is definitely a serviceable player and I expect him to make an impact this coming season. I think people got stuck on Knight starting early instead of him and by the time he started to develop people had stopped watching. He’s got good size and quickness and can play good D. He’s got a decent outside shot also, he’s not Steph Curry but I expect him to average 30+% from deep.
People who expected an instant turnaround were dreaming, new coaches have a very limited time to put together a team as they come in just before the spring signing period with little time to recruit and therefore have to rely somewhat on what they have returning. Konkol brought in two players he had been recruiting for La Tech, convinced a Haith recruit to stay and convinced the best returning shooter to withdraw from the portal. He then brought in a late JUCO to fill out the roster. That’s about what we could expect in that short time frame.
It didn’t work out and he saw what he had and he knew he had to refresh the team so he hit the recruiting trail. The fall signing period saw him bring in two highly regarded freshmen and what I think is a really good JUCO player. Then in the spring he got some 4-star redshirt freshman to come in from “P5” programs where they didn’t get playing time and filled in with some upper classmen with promise. Did he hit a home run or foul out? We won’t know until the games start in the fall but looking at the roster I am way more optimistic than most of you.
The team had enough talent to win more than 5 games. I stick to that sentiment. The offense was run terribly, the defense lacked grit, and most of that had to do with commitment and determination, not athletic prowess or playmaking.
Your entitled to your opinion and your correct that there are coaches that would have won a few more games with that squad, but at what cost would be my concern. Too many guys last year simply did or do not do what they wanted while on the court. It simply became a waiting game for the staff have the opportunity to clean house. Pretty clear that those that were most guilty landed in spots that are much less desirable than TU due to their lack of team concept or major deficiencies in their game. That’s not saying that all who departed fit that mold, but a number that needed to be leaders on the court fit it.
Or coaching. The players that hung around were resistant to Konkol's coaching and they just stopped working hard, you could see that on the court. Which is why 95% of them were encouraged to hit the portal.
I agree with you on most of these points, but that strengthens the argument that we had the wrong players due to deficiencies and character.
I'm afraid you're debating a strawman, I haven't seen anyone post anything even close to that. I'm skeptical of Konkol but I 100% agree with this particular point, which is why I said I was hoping for a 3 year turnaround. I think that's reasonable.
I could be convinced on McWright having the potential to develop into a serviceable player, but even with 1 decent guy returning instead of 0, last year was a disaster. And yes, I know that's opinion and not fact.
I'm not hung up on W/L, my hope for last year was we'd lay the groundwork for the roster moving forward. Whether that happened with 5 wins or 15 didn't matter much. So my belief that last year was a failure is based on the failure to make any progress on the roster, not W/L.
I don't think we'll know until this time next year how Konkol is going to work out but he's put himself in a tough spot. I know that harshes some people's blue and gold buzz but it's a lot more realistic view. My opinion.
My expectation for last season was .500 and no post season. I think .500 the first year is completely achievable for most decent coaches in this day and age of free transfers and players looking for better situations / more playtime.
If the team gave up on Konkol last season, that was Konkol's own fault. He recruited or re-recruited / purposefully retained a healthy portion of that team. Any time you bring in 5 players, that an entire starting lineup's worth of potential contributors. If you don't bring in kids that can win you games who's fault is it?
If the team gave up on Konkol last season, that was Konkol's own fault. He recruited or re-recruited / purposefully retained a healthy portion of that team. Any time you bring in 5 players, that an entire starting lineup's worth of potential contributors. If you don't bring in kids that can win you games who's fault is it?
Nearly everyone on this board that experienced Nolan’s first year thought we would win 20 games minimum. Though most have experienced short term memory loss since last season.
Do you mean Nolan would win 20 back in 80-81?
If so I agree! But only after watching that team play
I meant there were a lot of people on this board, either posting or liking, the idea that all we had to do was fire Haith, bring in four or five players, keep one or two on the roster, and we would be a tourney team in '22-23, just like the NIT year was such a shocking and exciting year. Some of our fan base are like alcoholics or heroin addicts looking for that first high again. Our effing soccer team is wearing 1981 basketball throwback uniforms this year for crissakes.Do you mean Nolan would win 20 back in 80-81?
If so I agree! But only after watching that team play
It was a tempting thought, especially when espoused by knowledgable and well intentioned people. But the state of the program on and off the court just didn't support something like that in today's game. And it demonstrated a lack of understanding of why we hired someone like Konkol in the first place. We have to get the fundmentals right, on and off the field, then the success will follow. It aint gonna be easy. Or pretty. But we will be better for it, regardless if Konkol is the right guy or not. And at some point, but not today, it will be up to him to decide whether he has what it takes to be more than a bridge coach or not. Wilson too for that matter.
They WILL win at least 20 games this year and make it to some sort of post season tournament and then everyone can stop melting down!!
You can “schedule” 20 wins. See DW. I’m much more interested in how we compete in conference.
I did not expect the team last year to make the tournament, but I am always hopeful. I didn’t expect a complete collapse. It is true that the coach needs to get his type of players on the court. I also subscribe to the fact that if you were a really good coach you could get your players where they need to be. My hopes are not that high I just want to do better than last year. Sad thing is that is what I wanted last year but we were worse last year.
Next year is not the year we've all been waiting for. That's year 3 or 4. This year, like last year, is 100% about building a roster that will get us where we want to be then. That's more important than W/L, in general or in conference. For example, what's the balance between playing the LaTech guys who are one year stop gaps vs young guys who will be worse this year but maybe/hopefully the future? That'll be interesting to see.
My guess that I feel strongly about is that worse, worse case we'll end up no worse than 5 fewer wins than last year. There are some benefits to rock bottom...
Last edited:
A) I haven’t seen anyone on this thread say they though we would get to the post season, the year after Haith won single digit games.
B) I think you make a lot of excuses for coaches’ poor performance unless their name is Phillip Montgomery.
You're traveling through another dimension -- a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That's a signpost up ahead: your next stop: the Twilight Zone!
I still don’t think I understand the notion that a coach should just get a pass for a year. We weren’t particularly talented, BUT there are things like poor effort and poor response to adversity that a coach should always be accountable for. Just based on those two things alone we didn’t get as much as we could have out of our team. Hopefully things are better this year but even ignoring our record it was not a good year 1 for our coach. We have better players now so we should see instant significant improvement.
Konkol did a poor job last year. Not sure anyone would dispute that. Does he get a first year pass given the circumstances …..yes. I do believe the passes should be over though.
I agree with you to a point. We can’t base a coach off one year. But I agree that it hasn’t bode well for him so far. As far as the better players goes, we haven’t seen them play a game. If your basing it off of the play of Embrey-Simpson, then yeah we probably have the dream team. Lets get a couple game in before we start deciding if we got the better players.
I’m saying it was his decision to retain Simpson, just like it was his decision to re recruit the ball hog.
Correct but he was in a predicament because of how late he was hired. So he was in salvage mode.
Danny Manning was hired 8 days in the calendar year after Konkol was. He brought in Shaq Harrison, Rashad Ray, Kauri Black and Pat Swilling, all who played significant minutes and helped the team go .500…He also retained all of Wojciks recruits (which Konkol did not do with Haith’s)
I’m a bit flustered when people treat Konkol’s first year like it was this big insurmountable obstacle.
Was it a tough situation to walk into? Absolutely. Was it handled as well as it should have been? No.
Thats not to say this year won’t be better. I have high hopes with the transfers we got.
Last edited:
Fair assessment but in fairness to Konkol, Manning didn't have to deal with NIL or college free agency (which the transfer portal essentially is).
Shouldn't the portal have made it easier for Konkol? He had access to a lot more guys than Manning did.
Wojcik was actually a pretty damn good recruiter, but a terrible terrible bench coach.
Most coaches would try to see what they have in year 1....now he knows.
It is certainly a different recruiting environment, but the difficulties also come with opportunities that Manning (or others before him) didn’t have….
I call it a wash In terms of difficulty.
Lot of competing factors for last year's team, but there's no question the new rules have helped him this year. No other time in college basketball history could we have gotten transfers from Michigan, Clemson, TCU, St Johns, and an all-conference player from LaTech all in 1 offseason. We'll see how it all works together, but I give credit to Konkol for the work completely remodeling the roster. It's exactly what needed to be done.
