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Danny Manning Credibility Watch

Keeping Dino's staff was weak. Keeping players he would later say never fit his system was weak. Manning brought in players and they managed to practice - that point makes zero sense. If Bz wasn't capable of bringing in better players than the garbage he got from Dino then it just proves the point further. And no, when you're brought in for your ability to identify talent, you don't have to just swallow every opinion of your inherited staff. That's just ridiculous.

It never gets old hearing how great Dino's recruiting was. When he had Skip to make the big decisions, he was great recruiter. When he ran the show, he was great at finding horribly overrated guys who had no business at Wake. It's not like those guys left and found success elsewhere like so many predicted.

Defending Bz and his first 2 years of recruiting compared to Manning is a curious position. And by curious, I mean completely fucking crazy.

To be fair, DCDeac, Jeff Battle was actually the great recruiter. Where's he recruiting now?
 
We can't shoot. Not Manning's fault.

Last year would have been turrrrrible if not for Coron Williams.

Also, there were so many issues in the program last year that I am surprised anyone stayed at Wake after [Redacted] firedresigned. The change Manning and staff have brought to our very troubled program is major and it's going to take a while to become the norm.

Give it time. I like Manning and I like where he's been and who he has been taught by...he's a career winner.

While I agree that this is a risky hire, I feel good about the outcome.
 
We'll be fine once we bring in some shooters. Gawd, I hope we bring in some shooters. Last night's game had me pining for the services of Marc Blucas. Then I turned on the CSI ep on my DVR and BOOM, there he was on my screen. Spooky.

We need to recruit more 6' 3" "centers" from central PA!! ;)
 
Sidney-Lowe.jpg

If Danny Manning pulls a Sidney Lowe, it will actually be an upgrade over the REDACTED era.

This is not a FIRE MANNING thread by any means but more of a What The Hell thread. I was hoping to see improvement over the off-season and players being able to play in a system that they want to play in. Instead, the big men have not developed under what is considered a great big man developer and the promise of being a great defensive and rebounding team has been nothing to but a promise. We see flashes but the product is terrible. I know it is a long season and the talent is poor, but this is where we have to develop toughness and that apparent lack of player development over the off season is why I put Manning's credibility on watch.

I would put Wellman on watch as well but that time has already passed.
 
My point is, if you know you have a bad situation you change it. You don't say, "oh man, this sucks, but I'm scared of change because it could be worse!" That is a chicken shit attitude and gets you into trouble.

Too bad this logic and course of action doesn't apply to our Presidency.
 
I think this year was a throw away year from the start.. with the lack of talent on this team and a new coach, it is hard to imagine anyway we would have a winning record.. even coach k couldnt do shit with this talent.. now in 2 years and 2 good recruiting classes with actual nationally ranked players in the top 100.. we will be a better team with a better coach.. those who are actually thinking buzz is a better coach is ridiculous
 
If Danny Manning pulls a Sidney Lowe, it will actually be an upgrade over the REDACTED era.

This is not a FIRE MANNING thread by any means but more of a What The Hell thread. I was hoping to see improvement over the off-season and players being able to play in a system that they want to play in. Instead, the big men have not developed under what is considered a great big man developer and the promise of being a great defensive and rebounding team has been nothing to but a promise. We see flashes but the product is terrible. I know it is a long season and the talent is poor, but this is where we have to develop toughness and that apparent lack of player development over the off season is why I put Manning's credibility on watch.

I would put Wellman on watch as well but that time has already passed.

manning never said the team would be "great" at anything. just that with the current make up of the team they would have to play all facets of the game, especially defense, hard.

manning has to get some good kids to unlearn what they "learned" under [Redacted]. that includes a hell of a lot of "what not to do" stuff. boy does he have his work cut out for him.
 
If Danny Manning pulls a Sidney Lowe, it will actually be an upgrade over the REDACTED era.

This is not a FIRE MANNING thread by any means but more of a What The Hell thread. I was hoping to see improvement over the off-season and players being able to play in a system that they want to play in. Instead, the big men have not developed under what is considered a great big man developer and the promise of being a great defensive and rebounding team has been nothing to but a promise. We see flashes but the product is terrible. I know it is a long season and the talent is poor, but this is where we have to develop toughness and that apparent lack of player development over the off season is why I put Manning's credibility on watch.

I would put Wellman on watch as well but that time has already passed.

If you wanted marginal improvement, that went out the window when Cavanaugh and Moto split. And really, you would probably have gotten marginal improvement in Bz's fifth year, with the additions of a couple of decent recruits.
 
Where is BabyDeac when you need a little insight? I am sick of looking at Devin being Devin. He should sit or leave.
 
apparently he did sit the last 8 1/2 minutes he had available to play. hope that wakes him up.
 
He's pushed another player with both hands the last two games. I had rather see Greekdeac and Andre get knocked around in the post than watch Devin act out again.
 
An uphill battle compared to the traditional top 10 programs? Sure. But, but otherwise, recruiting to Wake is on par with or massively easier than most schools we play. Pre-Buzz we were easily one of the top 25 teams in nation during the Odom/Skip/Dino years when looking at the number of weeks spent ranked in the top 25, top 10, #1, etc.

I love WFU basketball (well, I want to at least; man did I get spoiled in my 4 yrs), but we really need to temper our somewhat skewed perception of our national reputation. While it is certainly Top 25 worthy during stretches over the past 6 decades or so, it has been anything but consistent. And a lot of that is because we only seem to get that really good, historically better than normal class, once every 3 or 4 years. We haven't been able to follow up our best classes in consecutive years often enough.

Just as in pro sports, where some drafts are much better than others, it isn't as simple as always getting Top 50-125 talent especially when that 75-125 from one year might be a lot worse than the year before. That's why we'll never be in the same class as UNC, Duke, UK, KU etc. We might sneak into the Top 20 in terms of recruiting classes in a given year, but we need to do that 3 straight years (and 3 of every 5 at least) to sustain a level of success that a lot of you think we should have.

Is that realistic considering some of the challenges we face? IDK, but at the very least I'm hopeful that Manning will give us that short-term 2-3 year talent jump through recruiting that we so desperately need.
 
I love WFU basketball (well, I want to at least; man did I get spoiled in my 4 yrs), but we really need to temper our somewhat skewed perception of our national reputation. While it is certainly Top 25 worthy during stretches over the past 6 decades or so, it has been anything but consistent. And a lot of that is because we only seem to get that really good, historically better than normal class, once every 3 or 4 years. We haven't been able to follow up our best classes in consecutive years often enough.

You realize that this is true for most anyone who's not a perennial top 10 team, right? We've been far more consistently good than most.

Hell, from 1949 to 2015, we've had the 29th most appearances in the AP Top 25 poll:
http://collegepollarchive.com/mbasketball/ap/app_total.cfm#.VH9oWGPp-70

From Dave Odom (1990) until now we are:
21st in Top 25 appearances
20th in Top 10 appearances
22nd in Top 5 appearances
22nd in #1 appearances

I'm not sure about you, but it sure as hell seems to me like we've consistently been one of the top 25 programs in the nation.
 
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Hell, remove the [name redacted] years, and from 1990-2010 we are:

13th in Top 25 appearances
13th in Top 10 appearances
16th in Top 5 appearances
19th in #1 appearances

I think, on the contrary, many Wake fans don't give LOWF credit for just how consistently good we've been because we, rightly so, compare ourselves to the success of Duke and UNC. Compared to most of college basketball, Wake has been excellent and offers tons of recruiting advantages that the vast majority of other college teams don't have.
 
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Also, there were so many issues in the program last year that I am surprised anyone stayed at Wake after [Redacted] firedresigned. The change Manning and staff have brought to our very troubled program is major and it's going to take a while to become the norm.
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such as?
 
Hell, remove the [name redacted] years, and from 1990-2010 we are:

13th in Top 25 appearances
13th in Top 10 appearances
16th in Top 5 appearances
19th in #1 appearances

I think, on the contrary, many Wake fans don't give LOWF credit for just how consistently good we've been because we, rightly so, compare ourselves to the success of Duke and UNC. Compared to most of college basketball, Wake has been excellent and offers tons of recruiting advantages that the vast majority of other college teams don't have.

Like I said, we've had good stretches, but there are definite peaks and valleys, even for our successful coaches. And our valleys always seem deeper than what a consistently good program seems to experience. Some here seem to think we should be a Top 20 team every year. I disagree with that. The landscape has changed and there is far more parity across the spectrum and the ACC as a conference isn't as dominant or as thoroughly good from top to bottom. Take away NCSU and I would be willing to be most of those "middle of the pack" ACC teams of the mid-90s would be way better than an also-ran ACC team these days.

My bigger point is that, often times, after a really good 3-4 year stretch, we drop back down the rung until the next superstar (Howard, CP3, Teague) pulls us out of the trough of mediocrity. And with the way things are today, with so many more mid-majors running quality programs, I just don't see Wake doing consistently better than say, that unparalleled stretch of success from '91 through '97. Prosser came close but didn't quite pull it off. Although he might have taken us to greater heights had he lived to see JT, JJ & AFA take the court.

And what recruiting advantages am I overlooking? Last time I checked, we're an even more demanding academic institution with the same arduous pre-req demands and heavy course load (with language requirement). When the majority of teenagers wanna goof off and chase girls, I'm not sure how Wake will ever be near the top of that priority list for the average student-athlete.
 
My bigger point is that, often times, after a really good 3-4 year stretch, we drop back down the rung until the next superstar (Howard, CP3, Teague) pulls us out of the trough of mediocrity.

This happens with most programs save for those few at the top who reload almost every year. See the percentages below...we're right at the 50% mark with all of the other teams not ranked in the top 9. Holy hell, look at the 12 names that appear above us on this list. It's the royalty of college BB. Until Buzz showed up, our "bad" years were still much much better than the vast majority of college basketball.

What part of 13th in Top 25 appearances over a 20 year period do you not understand? You're underestimating Wake far more than I'm overestimating.

2wgspia.png
 
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