BBall Recruiting Thread 2k19 - Charles Coleman de-commits to Wake. :(

[RChildress107]

Are you serious, RC? Everybody you argue with agrees with the bold. Everybody agrees on the first two. We argue about the third.

jaybone, add that offense's failure to execute down the stretch.

Revisionist history but glad “everybody” has come around. I’ve never argued the third. Looks like we can all move on.

 

[PhDeac]

There are teams that had top-10 ranked players who then went as top draft picks that didn't even make the tournament in any respect. And yet there are people here harping that Manning should have done more than a First Four appearance with a 3-star recruit (who become almost ACC POY as a sophomore) and a bunch of other parts. Those other parts consisted of Dinos, Arians, Woods, Crawford, and Doral. Now, maybe we could have played better D, but the one thing that team really lacked was athletic wings. Our backcourt was slow and unathletic. You need guys to guard the perimeter and stop dribble drives.

Manning should talk to his recruiting guy about getting better players.

 

[PhDeac]

Revisionist history but glad “everybody” has come around. I’ve never argued the third. Looks like we can all move on.

That’s hilarious. The core argument has been whether or not Manning should be the head basketball coach at Wake Forest not whether he can spot talent or coach big men one on one.

 

[Why the Deac Not]

While on one hand I don't want to compare Danny Manning, a relatively young coach to the Jerry Glanville I remembered who seemed like an old man then, it seems ridiculous for me to try and buy any narrative that paints Danny Manning as a young coach able to grow into this role. He's 50 years old. Every year he is the head coach at Wake he is one year removed from whatever program building/sustaining he observed first hand at Kansas..

Believe it or not, Glanville was only 51 at the beginning of that '91 season so 50 when he became Falcons' HC. Even more incredible is the fact that he has returned to coaching at the age of 76, as the DC for the Hamilton Tiger Cats. Speaking of stripes, it's interesting that a guy who cut his teeth on defense and worked his way up the ranks to becoming a fairly respected DC for the Houston Oilers ended up "changing his stripes" and abandoning any semblance of emphasis on defense when becoming HC in ATL. They instituted the Run n' Shoot offense (although they did not lead the league in passing, but were 6th) and hung their hat on the talent they had on that side of the ball.

So I guess you could say that both Glanville and Manning, if nothing else, know how to recognize when they have a lopsided amount of talent on one side of the ball, so to speak, and go "all in" on that unbalanced approach. But neither is going to learn much that is new and will rely on things they have learned and gleaned at this point. Like jaybone stated, Manning has done nothing to give us any assurance in terms of trying to change or renew his focus when it comes to the defensive side of the game. I'm sure the old mantra of "just guard your man" will be echoing loudly in the cavernous Miller Center gym until they tip off for real this October.

 

[Why the Deac Not]

There are teams that had top-10 ranked players who then went as top draft picks that didn't even make the tournament in any respect. And yet there are people here harping that Manning should have done more than a First Four appearance with a 3-star recruit (who become almost ACC POY as a sophomore) and a bunch of other parts. Those other parts consisted of Dinos, Arians, Woods, Crawford, and Doral. Now, maybe we could have played better D, but the one thing that team really lacked was athletic wings. Our backcourt was slow and unathletic. You need guys to guard the perimeter and stop dribble drives.

More missing the forest through the trees...sigh.

 

[RChildress107]

Manning has underachieved every year he has been at Wake. His adjusted defensive ranks are:
2015: 125
2016: 128
2017: 176
2018: 130

That's absolutely pathetic, and he's shown that he's been a terrible defensive coach with a variety of rosters.

Is the latter supposed to be evidence for the former.

“The Cavs underachieved in the 2016 finals. They were outscored by an average of 7 points per game and down 3-1 after 4 games.”

 

[MichDeac25]

More missing the forest through the trees...sigh.

No, I'm a realist. That roster had flaws. There were limitations all season long when you watched the games. And then guess what, without JC and a 4 on the roster, they blew, despite the emergence of Doral.

I'll be curious as to whether we'll suck on D this year as well. We will have very athletic wing players with size for the first time. Our frontcourt concerns me. But Sarr and Smart both are long. Smart's emphasis is D. If we still absolutely suck on D, let's talk.

 

[RChildress107]

That’s hilarious. The core argument has been whether or not Manning should be the head basketball coach at Wake Forest not whether he can spot talent or coach big men one on one.

Which is a different argument than whether Manning has been a very good leader of the program.

 

[RChildress107]

No, I'm a realist. That roster had flaws. There were limitations all season long when you watched the games. And then guess what, without JC and a 4 on the roster, they blew, despite the emergence of Doral.

I'll be curious as to whether we'll suck on D this year as well. We will have very athletic wing players with size for the first time. Our frontcourt concerns me. But Sarr and Smart both are long. Smart's emphasis is D. If we still absolutely suck on D, let's talk.

Nah dude, a halfway decent coach would have had that team in the top 20, no question.

 

[CumberlandDeac]

Is the latter supposed to be evidence for the former.

“The Cavs underachieved in the 2016 finals. They were outscored by an average of 7 points per game and down 3-1 after 4 games.”

I was mostly commenting on MichDeac's statement that "we could have played better D" with reference to the adjusted defensive numbers.

Our poor defensive play is certainly a reason we've underachieved. You can't tell me the roster we had last year should have gone 4-14 in the ACC and been 89th in KenPom.

 

[MichDeac25]

I was mostly commenting on MichDeac's statement that "we could have played better D" with reference to the adjusted defensive numbers.

Our poor defensive play is certainly a reason we've underachieved. You can't tell me the roster we had last year should have gone 4-14 in the ACC and been 89th in KenPom.

Bryant Crawford was the 99th ranked player in his class. Get that through your heads. Players at that ranking are mixed bags. People act like he was this top-40 player. He was a good player with various lapses. He was the second best player on our team other than Doral. Chaundee was a freshman top-40 player. Those guys are also mixed as freshman. He wasn't a top-15 immediate stud.

 

[RChildress107]

I was mostly commenting on MichDeac's statement that "we could have played better D" with reference to the adjusted defensive numbers.

Our poor defensive play is certainly a reason we've underachieved. You can't tell me the roster we had last year should have gone 4-14 in the ACC and been 89th in KenPom.

If you overachieve on one end of the floor and underachieve on the other then simply saying “we underachieved on one end of the floor” isn’t evidence of whether you over or under achieved as a whole.

We are talking about 16-17 right now. That team greatly overachieved relative to preseason expectations, slightly overachieved expectations based on the roster’s actual talent level, and slightly underachieved relative to its ceiling. The last of those is true of every college basketball team, the first two are not.

The 17-18 team greatly underachieved relative to expectations and to its ceiling, it underachieved to a lesser extent relative to the roster’s actual talent level (which in a normal year would have been around 60th).

 

[Ayo]

Bryant Crawford was the 99th ranked player in his class. Get that through your heads. Players at that ranking are mixed bags. People act like he was this top-40 player. He was a good player with various lapses. He was the second best player on our team other than Doral. Chaundee was a freshman top-40 player. Those guys are also mixed as freshman. He wasn't a top-15 immediate stud.

You're seriously making an argument that we didn't necessarily underachieve last year?

 

[Why the Deac Not]

If we still absolutely suck on D, let's talk.

We will. Count on it.

 

[Why the Deac Not]

We are talking about 16-17 right now. That team greatly overachieved relative to preseason expectations, slightly overachieved expectations based on the roster’s actual talent level, and slightly underachieved relative to its ceiling. The last of those is true of every college basketball team, the first two are not.

No matter how many times or ways you state these tenets, there is nothing here in the way of evidence that proves Manning is a good coach. Cumulatively speaking, over the four years, there is far more evidence to show that he is not. A team can "overachieve" its lousy coaching, as the 16-17 team often did. They had some nice shooters (I give Danny all the credit in the world for convincing Austin Arians and Key Woods to come here) and Collins was a rare kind of talent whose potential was far undervalued by most "experts." That's not to say Danny was some kind of sage soothsayer in offering John a schollie. It was pretty damn evident from his tape and HS performance he could play. Even if you can somehow prove that the 16-17 team "underachieved relative to its ceiling" it doesn't really help Danny's case. But in retrospect, I'm of the opinion that that team actually overachieved relative to its ceiling (and how high of a ceiling is .500 in the ACC anyway when we were only demonstrably better than maybe 5 teams??)...they ended up being who we often were afraid they might really be, to paraphrase the late Denny Green. They were a talented and somewhat cohesive offensive group with no concept or semblance of a defensive identity aside from keeping John out of foul trouble so he could out-jump people on the glass and start our fast break.

 

[RChildress107]

And given that no one is arguing that Manning is, or ever will be, a great or even good defensive coach I’m not sure why y’all bring it up so much. He’s got the D’Antoni double of not being a good defensive coach and playing offensive minded guys no matter how bad their defense.

His only path to a good defense is recruiting two way guys so that his best offensive lineups also happen to be his best defensive ones.

 

[MichDeac25]

You're seriously making an argument that we didn't necessarily underachieve last year?

I think the team cratered without Dinos and Collins. Yes. I also think there were massive chemistry issues emanating from Crawford. We sucked at the 4 all year long. Our backcourt was slow and short. Our frontcourt was Doral.

 

[Why the Deac Not]

And given that no one is arguing that Manning is, or ever will be, a great or even good defensive coach I’m not sure why y’all bring it up so much. He’s got the D’Antoni double of not being a good defensive coach and playing offensive minded guys no matter how bad their defense.

His only path to a good defense is recruiting two way guys so that his best offensive lineups also happen to be his best defensive ones.

Then what exactly is it that you're always arguing?? You argue so much, I don't even remember what your hypothesis was.

 

[RChildress107]

No matter how many times or ways you state these tenets, there is nothing here in the way of evidence that proves Manning is a good coach. Cumulatively speaking, over the four years, there is far more evidence to show that he is not. A team can "overachieve" its lousy coaching, as the 16-17 team often did. They had some nice shooters (I give Danny all the credit in the world for convincing Austin Arians and Key Woods to come here) and Collins was a rare kind of talent whose potential was far undervalued by most "experts." That's not to say Danny was some kind of sage soothsayer in offering John a schollie. It was pretty damn evident from his tape and HS performance he could play. Even if you can somehow prove that the 16-17 team "underachieved relative to its ceiling" it doesn't really help Danny's case. But in retrospect, I'm of the opinion that that team actually overachieved relative to its ceiling (and how high of a ceiling is .500 in the ACC anyway when we were only demonstrably better than maybe 5 teams??)...they ended up being who we often were afraid they might really be, to paraphrase the late Denny Green. They were a talented and somewhat cohesive offensive group with no concept or semblance of a defensive identity aside from keeping John out of foul trouble so he could out-jump people on the glass and start our fast break.

Sure. If you are coming up with some arbitrary definition of coaching and calling the rest of a coaches responsibilities something else. At the end of the day though, the coach is responsible for his team’s performance. So in that broader sense, a team cannot “overachieve it’s lousy coaching”.

 

[birdman]

Great post. I especially agree with the bold.

Agreed. The weird thing is that Mebane posted a quote from JC about how he came to Wake because he had faith in Manning as a big man coach which started this whole argument over again. Manning is probably a really good big man offensive coach. Manning might be a better than average talent evaluator, especially for big men. Manning is most likely not head coaching material because he only seems to excel and two, relatively small, components of the job. None of these things are contradictory. The most relevant thing to note on this thread is, Manning has not successfully used his reputation as a good big man coach to recruit a series of excellent big man prospects, which should also translate into recruiting good guards that want to play with excellent big man prospects. That is a seriously perplexing failure.