Building a Program vs Coaching a Team

88Deac said:

The point offered in this thread was that we are starting from scratch in both football and basketball, but I don't believe that either. I would say we have fair talent, but coaching cost us a lot of games in being unable to develop players very well, and the in-game coaching was very, very poor. In football, in 10 years, Grobe went from innovative and aggressive to playing scared, ultra-conservative and predictable. Buzz was simply unable to get his players motivated and bring energy and passion, or to be mentally tough enough to play fundamentally sound. Add to that it seems we simply conceded every single road game. I'm not sure about football yet, but basketball should be at least middle of the pack in the ACC this year. I don't see DM as starting from scratch.

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Semantics are a funny thing. How does our returning talent rate compared to other teams in the ACC?

Our basketball team doesn't have a single guy who can hit a perimeter shot on the roster, one ACC-caliber starting big man (who happens to be a hothead) and one solid reserve, and a handful of multipurpose wings who have trouble scoring (the best of whom has a reputation as a raw athlete and is coming off the second ACL tear in the same knee in four years), not to mention three PGs who can't put the ball in the basket against ACC-caliber competition (and just like Greg, Shelton is a f-r-e-s-h-m-a-n!), one of whom is going to be our SG. Fair talent? Sure. I suppose that we're doing very well in relation to Charleston Southern (after all, we did poach Rondale from those pesky Bucs!), doing well in relation to Miami, doing fair in relation to BC, and bleeding profusely out of all orifices in relation to Carolina.

As for football, Cumberland has had some pretty choice comments as to how stocked the cupboard is in that regard.

For nearly $4 million/year, Buzz and Grobe left us with situations where both Manning and Clawson are basically starting from scratch:
- Manning may be starting from one of those EZ-bake cookie mixes, but dude is starting from scratch.
- Clawson has an egg, some flour, and salt and is being asked to bake a cake.

Perimeter shooting is going to be a clear weakness, no one will debate that. We need Cav and CMM to improve, and glad they are among the hardest workers around by all accounts. Hopefully with Shelton coming, he can play the point, and move CMM to 2 for the bulk of our minutes. With more focus on shooting, and being relieved of some ballhandling duties, hopefully CMM can improve the jumper. But I am also not offended with a 2 who can slash to the basket and draw fouls and finish. Having a good pure PG should help everyone. We've missed that for a while, but I am also leery of putting huge expectations on Shelton in his freshman year. Shelton and McClinton are the X-factors, and we need them to step up. Andre and DG hopefully will be at least decent 5-10mpg contributors to back up Devin. I do think a tough, demanding coach will be a huge help, though, and I think we'll see improvement on defense and on the boards, and general energy, which is going to pay huge dividends. We literally conceded our road games, even the last 2 years. You just can't do that. It is just unfathomable to me how bad we've been on the road, and how so many guys on the team just watch shots go up and hope the ball bounces to them. Our rebounding and road play was beyond abysmal and should be improved with better coaching. Assuming we have another cupcake OOC, I am guessing 20 wins and middle of the pack in the ACC. And Buzz can continue to claim that his teams do really well the year after he leaves, and take the credit.