It's happening before my very eyes...

[WFU Lurker]

That's because all you young guys are interested in is winning. You don't care how far you have to bend over to do it. I realize that all the haughty bluebloods that populate WF these days are used to having everything they want in life, but you can't be a snobby, elitist academic institution and recruit a bunch of James Johnsons to play basketball at the same time. How far did they have to torch their academic standards to get him in school, anyway? I remember that it wasn't easy. Once you start bending your rules and sacrificing your standards, though, you will do it again.....and it gets easier & easier each time you do it. That's where we were going with Dino....until the BOT and others decided that this wasn't the direction they wanted their alma mater to go. Anyone with any common sense or deductive prowess at all understands that, with a 61-31 record, Dino wasn't fired because he wasn't winning enough basketball games. I don't see why that is so hard for these WF whiz kids to understand.

Ask Ron Wellman. He certainly had a whole lot more to do with that than an assistant coach did. But, by all means, blame Dino for that. You don't have the faintest idea of the timeline for any of this stuff anyway.

Now, back to lurking. Just hard to ignore such ignorance.

 

[ThinkingWithMyDeac]

My favorite thing about the academic argument and tarnishing the school with "James Johnson" type, whatever that means since bkf hasn't stepped foot in a classroom in 100 years, I did have class with these people. Is that Wake is now an elite academic university much more so than when bkf attended Wake. Back then it was a regional non top 25, national anything. So for comparisons bkf is a "James Johnson" type student historically compared to what the university has become.

 

[FckVwls]

The culture talk started right out of the gate though. That has one of the strange things. Culture was questioned but we retained all the coaches, players, and recruits....which means to me Dino was considered to be THE "bad culture". It's almost like it got personal for Wellman and he let things get to him. I think Wellman aimed to do the Brad Stevens strategy and thought Bz was his guy (after maybe some rejections) but didn't expect all those losses to easy teams that pissed off the fans or the awkward PR. Improving culture was just all that was left standing and with awkward Bz hammering it, things just turned south fast.

I still doubt Buzz was brought in to clean up the program. I think he was brought in because Wellman thought he'd build a winner presiding over our basketball strategy shift.

 

[DeaconBrews]

Careful y'all, BKF is going to talk all sorts of shit about y'all on the fantasy baseball thread with aceeight

 

[IrishSlim]

This current team of hustling scrappers who do things the right way have their own dirty laundry, and plenty of it. (Supposedly.) Just hasn't gotten out because a surreptitious smear campaign isn't being run against [Redacted] like it was with Dino in the months after he got fired.

 

[IrishSlim]

LOL. Your youthful, blueblood arrogance is showing.

It would be "blueblooded," Benedict Bob. (Alliteration, FTW.) And I don't think you know what that word means, or are intentionally misusing it. Don't know and don't care which.

 

[Wheredeac]

This current team of hustling scrappers who do things the right way have their own dirty laundry, and plenty of it. (Supposedly.) Just hasn't gotten out because a surreptitious smear campaign isn't being run against [Redacted] like it was with Dino in the months after he got fired.

How many of our current players are on behavioral or academic probation?

 

[Ayo]

LOL, some of you Buzz apologists make out the current players as a bunch of choir boys. Believe me, they aren't.

 

[FlaccidDeac]

Actually, Turd, that is exactly what I am saying. The program was intentionally deconstructed for a variety of well documented reasons including arrests, residence hall policy violation nightmares, classroom problems and NCAA issues. And a year after bringing in a fresh group of recruits (highest rated was one 4-star recruit) we are competing with and defeating teams full of McDonald's All-Americans and upperclassmen. What am I missing other than that you just don't like [Redacted] and you would prefer instant results?

This is true. I'm not going to name names but there were players using air conditioners without a doctor's note and even some that used hot plates to make macaroni and cheese.

 

[IrishSlim]

How many of our current players are on behavioral or academic probation?

How many of our former players were on behavioral or academic probation? Feel free to use links or citations instead of gossip-peddling.

 

[Wakeforest22890]

I saw Chase Fischer hammered once underage. Illegal and recruited by [Redacted].

Two can play this ridiculous character assassination game. Ot do we have to wait a few years to peddle these rumors and observations?

 

[Wheredeac]

I saw Chase Fischer hammered once underage. Illegal and recruited by [Redacted].

Two can play this ridiculous character assassination game. Ot do we have to wait a few years to peddle these rumors and observations?

This isn't about a few guys having their Miller time.

 

[IrishSlim]

 

[Wakeforest22890]

This isn't about a few guys having their Miller time.

Well then what is it about? The guys people are saying were bad people were not removed by [Redacted] when he came in presumably indicating that he intended to allow these bad bad BAD people to stay.

 

[Wakeforest22890]

And I know BKF doesn't care about players smoking weed. Plus plenty of older people have stories about toking up with athletes.

So it's about academics? I guarantee there is almost no statistically significant difference between athletes at wake in the 2000s, athletes under Bob Knight at Indiana, and athletes under Carl Tacy at Wake. Guarantee it.

 

[ImTheCaptain]

COLLEGE KIDS BE COLLEGE KIDS

why are we even talking to this clown with 76 posts; it's probably just some AD or TOB troll

 

[KVegasDeac]

BKF- you gotta get with the program, man. If you want to see Wake succeed, you gotta realize that the Jimmy Chitwood's are an endangered species in 2014 and they aren't winning any championships.

The James Johnson's, Jeff Teague's, CP3's, and AFA's of the basketball world are going to go to school somewhere, why not give them a chance at Wake?

Am I the only old, haughty, blue-blood who feels like this? I mean, basketball is big business- winning equals A LOT of money. People buy tickets to see future NBA stars, even people who aren't necessarily Wake fans...for a small school like Wake, this is a HUGE deal for multiple reasons. We give these kids a basketball scholarship and the university makes money off of their talent...and they earn a degree because of their talent.

I'm not advocating Wake pulling a Carolina and graduating student-athletes who can't read or create fake classes to keep them eligible...but if we need to allow more academic exceptions to get future NBA and NFL stars into WFU, then I am okay with it, as long as they do what is required of them to remain in good academic standing. The worse case scenario is that a kid who might have never had a chance to attend school like WFU earns a degree.

Not recruiting kids who some deem "not worthy" of WFU is going to destroy our athletic department and it stinks of the very elitist, haughty behavior that BKF likes to bitch about.

Give me a one-and-done or a two-and-out player any day- we use them for $$$, let them use us as a springboard to the NBA. Maybe we will get an NCAA championship before I croak.

 

[Wakeforest22890]

BKF understands all that, he's just not going to watch it. I don't understand him supporting the current team though since they're attempting to do the same thing the four and five stars did (springboard to the NBA) they're just not good enough right now.

 

[ChrisL68]

Actually, Turd, that is exactly what I am saying. The program was intentionally deconstructed for a variety of well documented reasons including arrests, residence hall policy violation nightmares, classroom problems and NCAA issues. And a year after bringing in a fresh group of recruits (highest rated was one 4-star recruit) we are competing with and defeating teams full of McDonald's All-Americans and upperclassmen. What am I missing other than that you just don't like [Redacted] and you would prefer instant results?

I have asked this a thousand times, but where is the evidence of this? Kicking players off the team after they have been arrested stealing stuff and getting DUIs and such is not intentionally deconstructing a team. Those guys would have been gone under Bzzz, Dino or any coach.

 

[pourdeac]

I still doubt Buzz was brought in to clean up the program.

It depends on what you mean. I doubt Bz was brought in with the intention of completely rebuilding like we did, but there had to have been issues that needed to be fixed, otherwise a coaching change would not have occurred.

My take has been some real program problems existed, but a lot of Wellman's "problems" were related to Dino's style, not the type of off-court problems as most here define them. So Wellman thought "cleaning" up the program meant replacing Dino and that would take care of his "problems". The new coach would coach up the players and recruits back towards Wake standards, the recruits being the primary reason Dino had to be let go so suddenly. In other words, the Brad Stephens strategy itself would fix everything. Replacing Dino was the "tweak" Wellman talked about at the time. That doesn't mean having perfect players just not near as problematic in Wellman's eyes.

Bz however ended up completely rebuilding the program for whatever reason and Wellman had no choice but to go along with it....hoping for the best. Bz struggled with Ws and PR, but at least Wellman didn't have to deal with Dino, and that's probably the source of comments like "oh heavens yes". Something pretty serious happened between Dino and Wellman and whatever it was, wasn't good.......donor's wife perhaps?