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Danny Manning Credibility Watch

Virginia was picked to finish 6th preseason & were not in the Top 25. It would be hard not to vote for Bennett as he lost one game by a single point in OT & has them ranked #1 in the country.
 
BiffTannen said:
I agree that they play too much. They play too much because they're not good enough to be getting the amount of playing time they get. ND played 3 & 4-guard sets all the time last year and it worked because they had better guards.

I already agreed with you about Crawford.

Wake Forest was Brandon's only Power 5 offer. You can say it's because everyone knew he was going to Wake, but he has a number of mid major and a couple of Ivy League offers. If ye's an average ACC guard at his size and at 9.1 points per game, so is Wilbekin at the same size and 9.0 points per game with the same number of minutes. I definitely hope he's better as a senior (and junior) because he's had lots of on the court practice to improve. He's shooting 38% from the field FFS.
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FWIW, Childress had interest from plenty of other schools, and would have had more, but he committed to Wake Forest very early on in the process. I disagree that he is a mid-major level guard. I had low expectations for him coming into Wake, but he's turned out to be a capable PG in the ACC... Not without his warts, but I like that he tends to be overly aggressive, at times.
 
DeacsATS said:
FWIW, Childress had interest from plenty of other schools, and would have had more, but he committed to Wake Forest very early on in the process. I disagree that he is a mid-major level guard. I had low expectations for him coming into Wake, but he's turned out to be a capable PG in the ACC... Not without his warts, but I like that he tends to be overly aggressive, at times.
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My recollection is that he had an offer from ECU and that was it besides Wake.

He seems like a pretty adequate ACC backup PG / 10-15 minutes a game guy and has done better more quickly than I expected, but his size limits his ceiling.
 
birdman said:
My recollection is that he had an offer from ECU and that was it besides Wake.

He seems like a pretty adequate ACC backup PG / 10-15 minutes a game guy and has done better more quickly than I expected, but his size limits his ceiling.
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Yeah, but if it hadn't been for the Wake offer he'd be starting at Kansas.
 
BiffTannen said:
Yeah, but if it hadn't been for the Wake offer he'd be starting at Kansas.
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I didn't say anything close to that. You said he was a mid-major player. I disagree with that analysis.

Not to go full RJ here, but cherry-picking the 38% shooting stat as an indictment of his entire game is silly. There are a number of ACC players having very good seasons with similarly shitty shooting numbers (granted, most of them are high volume guys - Freeman, Brissett). Childress plays solid on-the-ball defense, can handle the ball well, and shoots well from 3. I agree that he could work on his layup game, and that his size limits his upside, but he's not the issue with Wake Forest basketball right now.
 
DeacsATS said:
I didn't say anything close to that. You said he was a mid-major player. I disagree with that analysis.

Not to go full RJ here, but cherry-picking the 38% shooting stat as an indictment of his entire game is silly. There are a number of ACC players having very good seasons with similarly shitty shooting numbers (granted, most of them are high volume guys - Freeman, Brissett). Childress plays solid on-the-ball defense, can handle the ball well, and shoots well from 3. I agree that he could work on his layup game, and that his size limits his upside, but he's not the issue with Wake Forest basketball right now.
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Not to nitpick, cuz I really like Brandon's game when he's not dribbling incessantly, but he kinda is the issue insofar as our chronic dearth of back court size. We always have a poor match up almost no matter what, but then Danny likes to compound it by playing BC X 2 and Wilbekin together, or double-down on stupid with Chill, Wilby and Woods, with Craw resting. But again, that's not really Brandon's fault as he is doing probably his best, plays better D than any of our guards and generally learns quickly from his mistakes.
 
Childress committed on 10/24/14... That's the equivalent of a 2019 guy committing in October 2017.

For context, there were 8 guys in the 2019 24/7 composite top 100 that committed that early... And one of them (Pat McCaffery - #36) is going to play for his dad at Iowa and had zero other offers.

I'm not saying Childress is a top 100 guy... Just saying his lack of other offers doesn't mean much given he committed so early with his dad being on the Wake Forest staff.

I think he's an ACC-level PG. You can argue he gets too many minutes this early in his career, but I don't think you can say he doesn't belong.
 
Guys in Brandon's situation will never do well in the "rank by offers" test.

Once he verballed to Wake, no sane coach would waste even a text on him.
 
BRING HIM IN!

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Ayo said:
You said this team could finish with anywhere between 16-23 wins in the prediction thread.
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:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

Gotta hate it when the facts get in the way of a good bullshit session.
 
morrison2951 said:
Keatts should be ACC COY. Great hire by the wolpfack.

Meanwhile DM's record is headed in the opposite direction. :(
#coachingmatters
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[Redacted]'s four years at Wake - 51-76
Manning's four years at Wake - 54-70

and without John Collins playing out of his mind for 2 1/2 months I feel safe saying that Manning's record would be worse than it actually is.

Still scratching my head as to how Randolph Childress was named Associate HC after two horrible years under [Redacted] and two under Manning? Ballard and Woodberry must have thought wtf with being skipped over after both having been with Manning for several years. Ballard left after last season to coach a Div II school and Woodberry was interviewing for other jobs, namely Oral Roberts. Wouldn't surprise me if Woodberry bolts after this season.
 
thatguy2016 said:
ridiculous to claim we shouldn't have 16 wins

that would mean our current wins plus wins over:

Georgia Southern, at home
Liberty, at home
Drake, at a neutral site

and two of:
NC State at home or away
Notre Dame without Colson at home
Virginia Tech at home
Clemson at home
Tennessee at home
BC on the road

of course we should have at least 16 wins
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AT LEAST!
 
Why the Deac Not said:
Thanks for responding thoughtfully and without being defensive or overly contentious...this is the kind of dialogue that I think separates our fan-base from your typical school, public #filth or private (see the Fighting Illini delusion board), but apart from all that, you make some good points that lay out the challenge for a school of Wake's size. Talent is certainly 85-90% of the formula, but I think you would agree that we will always fight an uphill battle there. Even in our best years, we've always been thin on depth and relied heavily on 6 and 7-man rotations. So it seems funny to me that Danny seems to be so enthralled with entertaining 8-10 man rotations where the experience and talent quotients are severely questionable. I didn't mind the first couple of years as I knew our talent was severely lacking and we were playing a lot of young players. But even when we were exceeding expectations to a degree in year 2 -- upsetting the likes of IU and UCLA -- we still had the frustration of Manning trying to make TVH into the next Great White Hope and stealing minutes from the likes of a young John Collins, who should have had more rope to hang himself in the fouls department. So what if he fouled out more? We weren't supposed to win on paper.

See it's stuff like this that makes me worried as these types of questionable decisions keep manifesting themselves over and over and over, no matter what the personnel. And then on top of the weird minutes management, we are seemingly pounding round pegs into too-small square holes with respect to our offensive sets. Danny is stubborn and rigid when it comes to adjusting game plans unless we are going against a Syracuse-type team who plays one way religiously because a) they can due to better talent and b) they have a legendary coach (love him or hate him) who gets results with less even when that talent might be a bit thin (the last two years notwithstanding). Danny has barely implemented a 2-3 zone in four years and gave up ostensibly on a match up zone concept that was seemingly helping the team right the ship earlier in the year. He obviously falls back on a 4-guard offense and we still chuck almost as many threes as we did last year when we had a guy in the middle scoring 20 ppg. No matter how much Doral improves, he will never come THAT close to being John Collins. Therefore, if Hoard isn't 85-90% of the player we think he is, we will probably be staring down the barrel of another 12-16 win season.

And to your point about scrapping it now in favor of a young up and comer, I know what you're saying and I'm not sure on that either. I'm more in the camp of bringing in a guy like Crean, who has shown he can take talent into the 3rd round of the NCAA and see what he can do with this roster. I think the chances of holding onto Hoard and Mucius are a lot greater with a veteran coach like Crean than say Wes Miller or Kelsey, who may be perceived as incoming talent as more of a "restart button" option for the program. Obviously nothing is guaranteed, but I'm tired of the "re-sets" with less than proven coaches when we probably should have hired a guy like Jamie Dixon after Pitt foolishly fired him for one bad season. The guy can flat out coach and I shouldn't have to hope above all hope that Wellman is smart enough to recognize that type of coaching talent who can make a difference when the recruiting deck is stacked against you in a power conference with traditional blue bloods who will ALWAYS have more talent, even if you have your "dream" FIVE in the fourth or fifth year of the cycle.

I know the plan was to get "more with less" with Coach Redacted, but my God, why is our AD so oblivious as to how to lure the next Skip Prosser or Tom Crean or Jamie Dixon to this University??


ETA: I realize Dixon wasn't available when we were hiring in 2014, but would have been nice to get someone of his ilk. Perhaps we put too many eggs in the "snag Shaka" basket and didn't have the right game plan once again (think Brad Stevens? vs Redacted) in the event that plan came up short. I feel like we'll go through this again at the end of next year, and then again in 2024 as long as Wellman is around.
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Agreed on the non-poison dialogue, I try (and often fail) to not get caught up in arguments where fellow Wake grads and fans mock and deride each other in response to bad sports performances... Kinda crazy when you think aobut it. Anyway, there's one quote in there I disagree with (that many have written and Ph holds as gospel): "stealing minutes from the likes of a young John Collins, who should have had more rope to hang himself in the fouls department. So what if he fouled out more? We weren't supposed to win on paper. "

My first curiosity when I read quotes like that is whether people were as (embarrassingly, perhaps) committed to watching all of our games back then as I was. I don't think I've missed any game that had any type of coverage in a long while, even if many were taped and watched later or replayed on watchespn. I even shelled out the cash for that random tournament early this year. Not that it makes me right, but I can't express how hard it is for me to believe someone watched Collins that much as a freshman and didn't see how not ready he was for ACC play. I mean, great that he helped us barely make the tourney last year then got drafted, but he was awful on defense last year. And he was awful after drastic, massive improvement on defense compared to his freshman year. Simply quoting foul numbers seriously misrepresents the liability he was on the floor, eerily similar to Doral last year. And as you say - we were supposed to lose anyway so let him foul out and give the other team more points and free throws... but why? I assume to develop him faster. And yet he jumped to the league the following year, kinda destroying this year's team. I'd argue that it's fairly obvious Collins developed in the gym polishing his post moves and in the weight room filling out his frame, not in the extra 5 minutes of playing time he could have fouled guys more during his first year. To me though, if you watched the games, the take that he was great as a sophomore so obviously we misused him as a freshman is crazy. Yes, he had nice stats offensively in limited minutes and tons of potential. So do lots of players. But if a current player hip checks a guy in consecutive possessions on lazy rotations or poor positioning, or just gets dominated by an opposing player, everyone wants them benched because that's what coaching is. But if that player turns out to be good next year then it's bad coaching in hindsight. Plus this entire discussion ignores the whole Devin Thomas thing particularly when you dig into their conference minutes.

I also really do not subscribe to the "blue bloods will always have more talent" argument. Maybe they will always have more 5 star one-and-dones, but UVA's success has had every bit as much to do with talent as it has coaching. Look at the players to roll through there on Bennett's watch - Mike Scott, Joe Harris, Justin Anderson, Mike Tobey, London Perrantes, Malcolm Brogdon (NBA ROY), Anthony Gill, Akil Mitchell... I don't even know how many of those guys are still in the NBA right now - 5? People act like Kyle Guy is some coaching success story because he's a 6'2" white kid. Never mind he was a McDonald's AA and almost won a dunk contest coming out of high school and that their #2 guy in that class was right where Chaundee Brown was ranked for us (and averaged only 4 points a game his first year, guess he was coached poorly). If anything UVA shows that you can be a "2nd tier" ACC school and still bring in top 50 talent that is more of the 3/4 year, maybe-NBA quality and win a lot. And through 4 years Bennett and Manning will have managed the same number of NCAA tourney games - 1, and the same number of embarrassing losses - 1. Yes, Bennett's overall numbers in years 1-4 crush Manning's, but he inherited more talent and didn't get left at the altar until Justin Anderson later left one year early. As a Virginia native with tons of UVA friends, the angst after year 4 isn't that far off from Wake fans this year.

Maybe Manning's ceiling is better recruiter, shittier coach than Bennett. Who knows if that's true or what the actual results would be, but that's my hope. Plus coaches can improve strategy and in-game decisions easier than they can suddenly become famous NBA/College legends, just like Chaundee Brown was a better defender than Mitchell Wilbekin was the day he stepped on Wake's campus.
 
DCDeac said:
Agreed on the non-poison dialogue, I try (and often fail) to not get caught up in arguments where fellow Wake grads and fans mock and deride each other in response to bad sports performances... Kinda crazy when you think aobut it. Anyway, there's one quote in there I disagree with (that many have written and Ph holds as gospel): "stealing minutes from the likes of a young John Collins, who should have had more rope to hang himself in the fouls department. So what if he fouled out more? We weren't supposed to win on paper. "

My first curiosity when I read quotes like that is whether people were as (embarrassingly, perhaps) committed to watching all of our games back then as I was. I don't think I've missed any game that had any type of coverage in a long while, even if many were taped and watched later or replayed on watchespn. I even shelled out the cash for that random tournament early this year. Not that it makes me right, but I can't express how hard it is for me to believe someone watched Collins that much as a freshman and didn't see how not ready he was for ACC play. I mean, great that he helped us barely make the tourney last year then got drafted, but he was awful on defense last year. And he was awful after drastic, massive improvement on defense compared to his freshman year. Simply quoting foul numbers seriously misrepresents the liability he was on the floor, eerily similar to Doral last year. And as you say - we were supposed to lose anyway so let him foul out and give the other team more points and free throws... but why? I assume to develop him faster. And yet he jumped to the league the following year, kinda destroying this year's team. I'd argue that it's fairly obvious Collins developed in the gym polishing his post moves and in the weight room filling out his frame, not in the extra 5 minutes of playing time he could have fouled guys more during his first year. To me though, if you watched the games, the take that he was great as a sophomore so obviously we misused him as a freshman is crazy. Yes, he had nice stats offensively in limited minutes and tons of potential. So do lots of players. But if a current player hip checks a guy in consecutive possessions on lazy rotations or poor positioning, or just gets dominated by an opposing player, everyone wants them benched because that's what coaching is. But if that player turns out to be good next year then it's bad coaching in hindsight. Plus this entire discussion ignores the whole Devin Thomas thing particularly when you dig into their conference minutes.

I also really do not subscribe to the "blue bloods will always have more talent" argument. Maybe they will always have more 5 star one-and-dones, but UVA's success has had every bit as much to do with talent as it has coaching. Look at the players to roll through there on Bennett's watch - Mike Scott, Joe Harris, Justin Anderson, Mike Tobey, London Perrantes, Malcolm Brogdon (NBA ROY), Anthony Gill, Akil Mitchell... I don't even know how many of those guys are still in the NBA right now - 5? People act like Kyle Guy is some coaching success story because he's a 6'2" white kid. Never mind he was a McDonald's AA and almost won a dunk contest coming out of high school and that their #2 guy in that class was right where Chaundee Brown was ranked for us (and averaged only 4 points a game his first year, guess he was coached poorly). If anything UVA shows that you can be a "2nd tier" ACC school and still bring in top 50 talent that is more of the 3/4 year, maybe-NBA quality and win a lot. And through 4 years Bennett and Manning will have managed the same number of NCAA tourney games - 1, and the same number of embarrassing losses - 1. Yes, Bennett's overall numbers in years 1-4 crush Manning's, but he inherited more talent and didn't get left at the altar until Justin Anderson later left one year early. As a Virginia native with tons of UVA friends, the angst after year 4 isn't that far off from Wake fans this year.

Maybe Manning's ceiling is better recruiter, shittier coach than Bennett. Who knows if that's true or what the actual results would be, but that's my hope. Plus coaches can improve strategy and in-game decisions easier than they can suddenly become famous NBA/College legends, just like Chaundee Brown was a better defender than Mitchell Wilbekin was the day he stepped on Wake's campus.
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You can write another book defending Manning but 99% of WF fans disagree agree with you.
 
I would say that 80% of wake basketball fans think manning sucks and have lost interest. SO thats not 99% but its also not overwhelming
 
This board is not representative of the general fan. 80% may be concerned, but 80% don't think he sucks. He's shown some problems, but let's see what happens when he has players.

As I have said repeatedly- No NCAAT, No Job after next year.
 
Small sample size alert:

Pretty much every Wake fan I knew growing up doesn't give a shit about basketball anymore. And a lot of them are out on Wake sports completely. Although I do know someone's dad who keeps his Wake basketball season tickets "because he's retired and they're so cheap". So Wellman has that going for him.
 
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