Danny Manning Credibility Watch

Yeah Dinos leaving early was talked about almost since day 1

Manning mentioned that he was hopeful Dinos would be back for his junior year during a radio show during his sophomore season. I don't remember the exact wording Manning used.

Considering the dumpster fire Manning inherited, having ACC quality starters and backups at every position by year 4 is a lot to ask. So is going from 2 ACC wins to 9 ACC wins and a tourney appearance from year 2 to 3. He was handicapped even further with how late Dinos made his decision.

Sarr started the year hurt and had to come back earlier than originally expected. He's only just starting to look like a decent ACC bench player, but he had 4 fouls in 11 minutes last time out so the calls to "just play him more" are pretty pointless. He can't defend ACC 4's yet. Thompson has no business playing anything more than spot minutes in the ACC, yet he has to start for us. He got pulled after what, 1 minute in our last game? Mitchell has his moments but is pretty invisible most of the time he's on the floor. We just have a complete vacuum at the 4, and whether you think Dinos was awesome or not, he was at least an ACC level starter that had a very good shot at putting up 12 and 8 this year while shooting 80% from the line. If you don't think that would have a huge impact on this team then I don't know what to tell you. There's a reason he's making 7 figures playing basketball now. Not to mention there's a non-conservative version of this year where his shoulder was fully healed and Collins didn't dominate our possession and he went for more like 15/10 as we'd seen flashes of him doing in games like LSU last year.

Raw deal for Manning this year and he's not coaching his way out of it obviously.

Dinos looks like a fucking genius. I'm sure balling out and making $$ is a lot more fun than losing to Drake and Liberty and going 2-16 in the ACC.

CharlotteDeac1 said:

Dinos, outside of his abilities as a player, was a huge loss because he decided so late in the year, he was a good rebounder (that we lacked through the first few games), and we had to change our offense after losing our entire starting front court. Yes, Dinos would’ve made a world of difference for this team and we likely win our first three games. It is speculative, but speculative based on his production and probable improvement - rather than the speculation we’d still lose the first three games with him based on feelings.

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Dinos' rebounding numbers last year:
OR: 8.4%
DR: 19.9%

Thompson's rebounding numbers this year:
OR: 13.1%
DR: 16.8%

Mehhhh. Your argument is very feelings-based, too.

Really, the win probabilities of those first 3 games would not have been very different whether we had Dinos or not -- in either case, they would have been very high. The fact is we lost those 3 games inexcusably, and it's really just embarrassing that people here are trying to make excuses for it.

I don't think that anyone has argued that losing Dinos wasn't a big loss... Maybe I'm splitting hairs between "big & huge", but to throw (blame) our concerns for this team and season on just losing Dinos rings hollow. I was at the those early games and we just got our butts handed to us. Dinos would have definitely helped, but in the end I believe we should have been better prepared.

DCDeac said:

Considering the dumpster fire Manning inherited, having ACC quality starters and backups at every position by year 4 is a lot to ask. So is going from 2 ACC wins to 9 ACC wins and a tourney appearance from year 2 to 3.

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This argument, I just don't get. We're supposed to give Manning a ton of credit because of a 7-win increase between seasons when we MASSIVELY underperformed our talent in Year 2? I mean, 2-16 with John Collins on your roster is beyond pathetic.

CharlotteDeac1 said:

It was reported that Dinos told the staff he was returning what, 3-4 days before announcing he’s leaving?

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Yes he did but that was based on the information at the time he made that decision. When the Greek team he plays for subsequently doubled the offer, the staff agreed with him that he should reconsider and he did so. With the family financial position being shaky, Dino's took the offer with the staff's blessing, even though they knew it would damage the current team, it was in Dino and his family's best interest.

Ayo said:

Dinos' rebounding numbers last year:
OR: 8.4%
DR: 19.9%

Thompson's rebounding numbers this year:
OR: 13.1%
DR: 16.8%

Mehhhh. Your argument is very feelings-based, too.

Really, the win probabilities of those first 3 games would not have been very different whether we had Dinos or not -- in either case, they would have been very high. The fact is we lost those 3 games inexcusably, and it's really just embarrassing that people here are trying to make excuses for it.

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I mean, Thompson rebounded well against GS with 11, had 7 against Liberty. But I distinctly remember him getting offensive rebounds and immediately getting the ball stolen from him (because it still happens almost every time he gets an ORB). And you’re ignoring the statement about changing the focus of the offense to completely guard oriented.

Ayo said:

Dinos' rebounding numbers last year:
OR: 8.4%
DR: 19.9%

Thompson's rebounding numbers this year:
OR: 13.1%
DR: 16.8%

Mehhhh. Your argument is very feelings-based, too.

Really, the win probabilities of those first 3 games would not have been very different whether we had Dinos or not -- in either case, they would have been very high. The fact is we lost those 3 games inexcusably, and it's really just embarrassing that people here are trying to make excuses for it.

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Do those rebounding rates take into account having Collins last year vs. Moore this year at the 5? Serious question. Seems like that would matter.

I don’t think Dinos makes our current team an NCAA team, but anyone who thinks he wouldn’t have made us better this year is crazy.

The guy was a 3 year starter and a legit stretch 4 that fits into Manning’s offense perfectly. He’d have been 25 minutes per game at the 4 and a huge help to Moore underneath.

Ultimately, Sarr will get there... But he isn’t there yet. And Dinos being here would have meant Sarr playing most of the non-Moore and Dinos minutes... About what he plays now.

Dinos > Thompson, and it’s not even close.

DM hoped Dinos would be back because he hadn't signed a power forward ready to play in the ACC and knew he was screwed if Dinos left. He knew there was a chance he would leave early but didn't land another decent 4. That's the criticism. Starr might become that guy but he's not there yet.

Point of clarification:

I’m not trying to make any kind of argument for or against Manning. I just don’t like the revisionist history about Dinos. He was absolutely a good player for us and losing him in the summer hurt.

A lot of you folks are being really generous to both Dinos and DM. With or without Dinos on the team, Wake Forest should never lose to Drake.

Alex O’Connell.

It was kind of funny watching him abuse us in the first half. His number one attribute is clearly hustle.

I was trying to think of the last guy we had who’s number one attribute is hustle?

LD Williams? Levy?

I guess Donavan Mitchell, but O’Connell severely outhustled him today, too.

Maybe that is what we can look for when we desperately search for a PF after the season.

birdman said:

A lot of you folks are being really generous to both Dinos and DM. With or without Dinos on the team, Wake Forest should never lose to Drake.

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Of course not. Shit happens, though. I just think it is silly to cherry pick one game and say it should never happen. It’s college basketball.

I like to take a broader view of our shittiness. I mean, we’re 8-9 for fuck’s sake. That’s terrible.

The Liberty game is the one that bothers me the most. Getting smoked AT HOME by that team? At least Drake was away from the Joel.

Weird. I think his top attribute is being a deadly shooter. 54% from deep.

DeacsATS said:

Of course not. Shit happens, though. I just think it is silly to cherry pick one game and say it should never happen. It’s college basketball.

I like to take a broader view of our shittiness. I mean, we’re 8-9 for fuck’s sake. That’s terrible.

The Liberty game is the one that bothers me the most. Getting smoked AT HOME by that team? At least Drake was away from the Joel.

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Fine, Wake should never lose to Liberty either. I couldn't remember Liberty's name so I went with Drake. If you want a larger point, the point, with respect to Manning's credibility as a coach, is that there was at least 2.5 months between Dino's decision to leave and start of season, and any coach worth an extension would have figured out how to go 5-1, at least, to open the season. Player departures hurt, sure, but the big picture is that our coach doesn't know how to address them and build an effective game plan with the players he has.

DeacsATS said:

Do those rebounding rates take into account having Collins last year vs. Moore this year at the 5? Serious question. Seems like that would matter.

I don’t think Dinos makes our current team an NCAA team, but anyone who thinks he wouldn’t have made us better this year is crazy.

The guy was a 3 year starter and a legit stretch 4 that fits into Manning’s offense perfectly. He’d have been 25 minutes per game at the 4 and a huge help to Moore underneath.

Ultimately, Sarr will get there... But he isn’t there yet. And Dinos being here would have meant Sarr playing most of the non-Moore and Dinos minutes... About what he plays now.

Dinos > Thompson, and it’s not even close.

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Who's saying Thompson is better than Dinos? Of course he isn't. I was specifically talking about rebounding, which people here are arguing for why we lost those 3 games. And I was specifically talking about the first 3 games. The probabilities of winning those 3 games are not very different whether we had Dinos or not. They're all extremely high in either case. Trying to use the Dinos excuse for those 3 games is just stupid. Would he have helped us more than Thompson this year? Yeah, probably. But he was also on the team when we went 2-16 in the conference. From a wins and losses perspective, I'm not all that sure how many more wins we would have. You only get to play each game once, and shit happens in games sometimes. If this year's team (with Thompson) plays those first 3 games over and over, we win all 3 the large majority of the time. Bad shit could've happened in other games even with Dinos.

And Collins was 8th in the country in OR% and 37th in DR% last year. Doral is 36th in OR% and 33rd in DR% this year.

Did Manning call a single second half timeout today?

Lots of excuses being made for why we haven’t won under Manning yet. Look at what Jamie Dixon inherited at TCU. Look how he took a team that hadn’t won anything and made them competitive his first year. And now they are ranked and playing Oklahoma to the wire in Norman right now. Some coaches are winners and some are losers. We haven’t had a winner in a very long time and we don’t now. We have enough evidence to know that.