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Official 2022-23 College Basketball Thread: UCONN - One Shining Moment

ignorance is sad. Maybe most Wake alums are ignorant

impotence is much more sad. Imagine knowing exactly what WF needed to do for more than 30 years, having it be the most important issue of your life, and being 100% powerless to move the needle at all towards what one has known with certainty is the right path for all that time
 
Personally, I will not be worried about Forbes if he doesn't make the tournament this year.

I understand turnarounds can be done quicker in this current day and age than in the past, but we had a complete dumpster fire when he came in, coupled with a global pandemic where he didn't get to recruit face-to-face, nor meet his team until shortly before the first season began.

In his first full season he brought in the ACC POY in Alondes, and a first round NBA draft pick in Jake LaRavia, along with an ACC COY award and an Elite Eight NIT appearance. He had one of the biggest turnarounds in NCAA history year-over-year, and once again brought in at least two meaningful transfers, along with two freshmen, and a transfer from Marist who look to be the future.

He has won everywhere he has been, and averaged over 25 wins per year in full seasons along the way.

I would say he has objectively exceeded expectations so far, and until he proves me wrong, I will support him.
 
Turnarounds can be done quicker but it's much harder to make the NCAA Tournament than 20 years ago.
 
At the risk of getting you pummelled Deacsfan27, I largely agree with you.

Although many will fabricate otherwise, I certainly don't want to fire Forbes if he misses in Year 3. But IMO we will need to see serious progress in year 4. Making the NCAA tournament or getting close to making it with several key players set to return and a good recruiting class for year 5, to merit a Year 5.
 
Another good point - parity has increased tremendously in the past 15-20 years. Just this year, off the top of my head, P5 teams have lost to:

Bellarmine
Wright State
App State
Troy
Stetson
Maine
Prairie View A&M
UC Irvine
UC San Diego
Northwestern State
FGCU
Sam Houston State
Grambling
 
We will need to get a guard and a big man in the portal next year, but a core lineup of:

Jao
???
Hildreth/Monsanto
Klintman
Carr/Bradford

Looks pretty good to me.
 
I think plenty of Wake fans are interested in a smaller stadium. I think most Wake fans on here are uninterested in engaging DR on the topic who has decimated this particular horse into a pulp. Similar to how most Wake fans probably feel about Wes in general: would like to pull for him, but the schadenfreude associated with him and DR's obsession is too much to pass up.
 
At the risk of getting myself pummeled, I'd love to see us build a different arena... I just don't think that's the #1 priority right now. And I have zero say in whether or not it happens, anyway.

If you need to pay elite high school recruits to join your program via NIL, then we need to allocate $$$ to that.
 
Yeah. It's literally a "put up or shut up" issue. Fans would love a new smaller stadium, but spending on one would be a waste. But if DR and a group of donors foot the bill for one, it would get a ton of support. Otherwise, it's not worth talking about.
 
Deacsfan27 said:
Another good point - parity has increased tremendously in the past 15-20 years. Just this year, off the top of my head, P5 teams have lost to:

Bellarmine
Wright State
App State
Troy
Stetson
Maine
Prairie View A&M
UC Irvine
UC San Diego
Northwestern State
FGCU
Sam Houston State
Grambling
Click to expand...
saw on twitter that the swac is 3-0 vs the Pac 10 at home. that would have been unheard of 10 years ago.
 
I would love a new, fancy, smaller stadium.

At this time it's kind of a chicken/egg situation imo though: we need to win to get money/people invested, and we need money/people invested to win (maybe?). Barring a big donor making another huge splashy buy, we have to raise that capital to build the arena.

We also have to cut ties with the Joel, which we now own. So we either repurpose that usage/knock it down to build the smaller complex/realize that's a sunk cost and try to lease it back to the city for concerts/other events for it to remain profitable.

There are plenty of people on here who know way more about the innerworkings of all that than I do though surely. I'm just speculating.
 
we have such a small fanbase that big money donors are few and far between. they've already shelled out a lot for training facilities, but it's clear now that NIL investment is key to winning, so are those folks gonna be interested in going down that path or helping out with another facility?
 
DR is such a one trick pony with the home court arena issue.

No one here opposes building a new arena. Sounds great. Assume most of us give to the Deacon Club and WF every year. Even so, we were not involved in the decision to build the awesome football facilities, the amazing tennis facilities, the incredible baseball facilities, the state of the art new basketball lockerroom/lounge facilities. It's my understanding that all of those facilities and the other athletic department upgrades started with a massive initial gift, by a donor or group of donors, and then some of those upgrades were finished as the result of a campaign. It will be the same with a new basketball facility.

Could not be happier with John Currie as the leader of the WF athletic department. When he feels he has the initial donation in place and the ability to start a campaign to build an arena, he will do it. I will gladly contribute toward that project. If DR is so well-connected, why does he even waste his time here? Carrot-top needs to waddle on over to campus with a big fat check and tell President Wente and AD Currie to start digging the foundation.

For DR to come here and act like this group of fervent WF fans somehow failed the WF basketball program, by not self-funding the arena is asinine. If it was that easy, why doesn't the wildly successful DR with all his wildly successful MAGA and LIV friends fund it? Otherwise, STFU.

If you can't enjoy WF basketball because the team plays in the Joel, go watch Cincy finish 7th in the AAC again in the 13,447 seat Fifth Third (stupid name) arena, which is within 900 seats of the size of the Joel. The never-ending attacks on the one group that would support building a new WF basketball arena is so misguided and dumb.
 
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I don't think too many people would say they don't want a new stadium but there is a huge disagreement on it being the #1 issue for the programs success.

1a - Coach/staff that can recruit and find talent
1b - Coach/staff that can coach and develop a team
2 - Get talent
3 - have success and build upon it
4.
5. Program history
6
7
8. New stadium

  • Example #1 Wake was, I believe, one of the top 20/25 programs for a 20 year period, then we violated 1a and 1b, which impacted 2
  • Example #2 Baylor (10k stadium) was crap for 20 years in current stadium until Drew came 1a and 1b, then got 2 and 3
  • Example #3 TCU - Sucks for years in their 7k stadium, hire Jamie Dixon 1a/b, getting 2 now getting 3
  • Example #4 dook - kaye in legendary, Cameron, nearly gets run out of town after 3 years because of 1a and 2. Certainly a different time but before the 78 season dook was 128-122 in the previous 9 years, so that stadium didn't propel them to a dynasty (3 years winning with Foster then 3 crap years with kaye after that).

In this unscientific survey the most common factor was getting a coach that could accomplish 1a, 1b, 2 and 3 in 3-5 years which is probably more affected by program history in how fast you can build.
 
2022-Jamaica-classic-bracket-poster.png
 
Colorado is a weird team.

Beat #208 UC Riverside
Lost to #300 Grambling State by 9
Beat #7 Tennessee
Lost to #149 UMass

Now beating the piss out of #46 Texas A&M
 
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