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State of the Buzz, Preseason

Do you approve of the job Jeff [Redacted] is doing as Head Coach?

  • Total voters
    214
  • Poll closed .
I'd agree with most here that it just doesn't make sense to be Bzz-in right now. While I don't agree at all with the arguments the Bzz-out posters are making, I can see why that position is appealing and easy to make, and I guess it's at least sort of defensible.

Here's my big issue (I talked about it a few pages back, but some points in the last few pages have come up, and I think they're frankly wrong): Nobody's arguing that the team was shit last year. Nobody should get blown out like we did. But I think there is some sort of disconnect between how much of that was on the team and how much of that was on the coaching staff. Some of it, to be sure, is on Bz. You'd be stupid to argue that. But the problems with the actual team seem to continuously be understated here.

What do you want Bz to do about ball-handling if our primary ball handlers are playing out of position because there's not a true ball handler on the roster? What do you want him to do if our front court depth is down to undersized power forwards that play face up? What do you want him to do if two clowns playing 25 minutes/game each are murdering the team both with shot selection and (lack of) defense?

You can say that it's Bz's job to teach ball handling, that its his job to get undersized and lanky bigs to play above their height, and that its his job to get through to his players so that they buy into his offensive and defensive philosophies, and you'd be right about all those things. But to say that is to ignore the progression that the team did take, and I think a lot of posters here are doing that.

We seem to universally acknowledge the huge strides that CJ, Travis, and even Ty made throughout the season, but I haven't seen credit for any of those players' progression. I think some of that had to do with those individual players' experiences on the court (for example, CJ was forced to become a better ball handler because not doing so would have been suicide), but I have to believe that some of it was coaching. I know on multiple instances last year that I remember being livid about fundamental mistakes the team was making, only to watch as the players fixed those mistakes over time (one particular one is the in-game development of Carson and Ty on defense). It didn't happen overly often, but it did occasionally happen, and I like to think that it would have happened more if the coaching staff hadn't been forced into wasting time with JTT and Ari.

This is particularly interesting to me, because while he's not getting any credit for in-game coaching (and I should reiterate again the disclaimer that getting blown out constantly means he doesn't deserve much of that credit), one of my biggest complaints about Dino-- even during that great 09-10 season-- was his ineptitude of in-game coaching. I thought he was a terrible in-game manager, and I always came away feeling that he was a terrible player teacher. There's only really anecdotal evidence to service my point here, but I can't honestly say that Bz is any worse at in-game coaching or with player development than Dino was. Dino also never had a roster quite as bad or with as many problems as Bz's last year, though, so we'll never really know that.

I realize that this will make me sound like a Bz-apologist, and to some extent, I guess I am. I don't think he's a great coach, though-- I just hope it'll be shown in the next couple of years that he's not a terrible one, either. He is what he is. I have, at the very least, been really impressed with his recruiting, and like I've said elsewhere, that's obviously going to have to be the first step in getting our program back on track.

So, obviously, I'm in the wait and see camp. I want to see what the program does over the next two years now that we have a roster that seems to be buying into his defensive philosophies (again, no real way to tell whether or not we are buying into them until the season gets under way), and now that he's really had a chance to work with and develop his roster. We'll suck this year, probably, but I am hopeful (and somewhat confident) that we'll progress nicely on the court, and develop into something that's at least not a bottom feeder.
 
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The only player I saw significantly improve as the season went on was JTT.
 
TBR said:
The only player I saw significantly improve as the season went on was JTT.
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I honestly thought he got (significantly) worse at the year went on. Some of that was him facing better competition as the year went on, but I only lost more and more faith in him.
 
I'm not gonna quote your massive post, Red Sox, but two things stood out to me.

1. Travis was solid from day 1, and his play didn't improve significantly throughout the season, you're just juxtaposing his consistent effort against the rest of the teams waning effort. I feel the same about CJ, he gave a consistently strong effort and remained a good SG playing out of position at the point.

2. Ty's "improvement" is highly debatable.

3. The team as a whole played just as badly as the end of the season as they did at the beginning, but they transitioned from having inexperience as an excuse to having fatigue and teammate distractions as an excuse.
 
RedSoxFaithful said:
I honestly thought he got (significantly) worse at the year went on. Some of that was him facing better competition as the year went on, but I only lost more and more faith in him.
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I thought he did a much better job of playing within the team and exerting effort on defense. The results weren't spectacular, but he was clearly trying very hard.
 
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CJ improved a ton as a point guard.

McKie didn't improve? Seriously? Hanging 20 points on Hampton and Elon is nothing. Putting up double figures in 6 of his last 8 ACC games, 5 of them 15 points or more - which he did ONCE in his first 8 ACC games... No improvement? Not to mention Terrell managed 15 points only twice in those 8 games, getting 20 zero times to McKie doing it twice. All we found out about Terrell was when you take away his chuck everything option he has no game to fall back on, even if once every 10 games you do get an Iowa performance.

Sometimes I wonder if people making these comments actually watched any games last year.
 
Of course "some" of the players improved somewhat. The problem was that despite their youth and the talent everybody (Ron, Dino, scouts, and Bz too) said they had, they failed to improve as much as the teams they were competing with. That's coaching.

JTT definitely was making progress. Bz's greatest achievement as Wake coach was JTT - he needed to be broken down, and he was. It remained to be seen if Bz could build him back up, and now we'll never know. Of course CJ got better at the point - he played it all season. He improved if nothing else because of reps, but with good coaching I would have expected more. McKie...he's his own beast. He brings it every game. I'm not sure he needs great coaching to improve.

Bottom line, of course we improved. The teams we were playing improved more. And if the rate of growth and improvement does not pick up, Bz is going to be a miserable failure of a hire.
 
This season and next is going to be like kids finding out Santa Claus isn't real one by one.

You want to believe and you want to have hope, but soon enough reality will slap you in the face. Just a matter of time.
 
DCDeac said:
CJ improved a ton as a point guard.

McKie didn't improve? Seriously? Hanging 20 points on Hampton and Elon is nothing. Putting up double figures in 6 of his last 8 ACC games, 5 of them 15 points or more - which he did ONCE in his first 8 ACC games... No improvement? Not to mention Terrell managed 15 points only twice in those 8 games, getting 20 zero times to McKie doing it twice. All we found out about Terrell was when you take away his chuck everything option he has no game to fall back on, even if once every 10 games you do get an Iowa performance.

Sometimes I wonder if people making these comments actually watched any games last year.
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Watched them all. McKie could be counted to work his ass off in every damn game. That attitude, coupled with the experience of play 30+mpg throughout the season, did result in a fair amount of improvement. Like CJ, I think a lot of it was simply the repetition and the attitude.

I was unfair in my earlier post. Players certainly did improve, but the JTT is the only player that I saw get better in his execution of the offensive and defensive schemes.
 
deacvision7 said:
This season and next is going to be like kids finding out Santa Claus isn't real one by one.

You want to believe and you want to have hope, but soon enough reality will slap you in the face. Just a matter of time.
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DV7, you are in for a long year, my man. I don't think you realize how low the bar was set by last year. If we somehow get 4 ACC wins (without JTT!!!), Bzzz will be called a godsend. It is not easy to be as terrible as we were last year. 1 conference win and a billion conference losses by 15 or more - in a disgustingly crappy ACC. Surpassing that is going to be called signs of progress. But surpassing that should be easier than not surpassing that.

The real problem is we did not have 8-win/1-win talent last year, we just had below average talent being put into positions they didn't understand. I hope to god that either they figure out a way to adapt to Bzz's system, or Bzz finds a way to adapt to his personnel. Based on last year, I don't think the latter is in play, so it is going to have to be the former.

I just hope we make it to the NIT at some point. Hopefully this year. With that OOC schedule and (another) crappy ACC (save Duke/UNC), it won't be impossible.
 
I love the argument that our players improved simply because of minutes on the floor coupled with their own natural ability, but the players that didn't improve, who have for the most part shown themselves to be complete ass-hats are completely attributable to [Redacted].

I'll give you that Terrell was the biggest piece of work [Redacted] had to do. Started the year as the worst defender on the team who was probably the worst decision maker Wake has ever had play that many minutes, and after the losses piled up after Iowa he actually tried to alter his game. In that sense, he "improved."

But that's still a guy who pulled down more than 2 rebounds only once in the 2nd half of the ACC schedule. Managed zero blocks the entire season. Managed more than 2 assists once in the 2nd half of ACC play. He combined for 7 points total in our two Georgia Tech debacles.

I mean, he wasn't as bad as Ari shooting 8% from deep during the 2nd half of the ACC schedule, but he was by no means an ACC caliber player on either end of the floor.
 
well, i voted Bzzz wait and see but looking at our team i am just not sure that we are any better than last season. we lost 2 of our "scorers" and i still think that JTT has tremendous potential to be a very good college BB player, too bad it won't be at WFU.

i saw very little improvement last year. sorry, i just didn't see it on the floor at the end of the season. we couldn't even stay within 20 points of the other teams! i ended the season clearly on the Bzzz-out team. i guess i just don't see anything changing and he was able to get a nice recruiting class in '12...i look forward to the BB season too much to hate the coach at the beginning of the season.

ask again if we loose by 20 to BC!
 
DCDeac said:
I love the argument that our players improved simply because of minutes on the floor coupled with their own natural ability, but the players that didn't improve, who have for the most part shown themselves to be complete ass-hats are completely attributable to [Redacted].

I'll give you that Terrell was the biggest piece of work [Redacted] had to do. Started the year as the worst defender on the team who was probably the worst decision maker Wake has ever had play that many minutes, and after the losses piled up after Iowa he actually tried to alter his game. In that sense, he "improved."

But that's still a guy who pulled down more than 2 rebounds only once in the 2nd half of the ACC schedule. Managed zero blocks the entire season. Managed more than 2 assists once in the 2nd half of ACC play. He combined for 7 points total in our two Georgia Tech debacles.

I mean, he wasn't as bad as Ari shooting 8% from deep during the 2nd half of the ACC schedule, but he was by no means an ACC caliber player on either end of the floor.
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There are two concepts at work here:
1. All Players should at least minimally improve through experience.
2. It's a coaches job to improve his players.

I think we've established that Travis was the hardest working player on the team last year, aside from Travis, I saw minimal improvement on the team. I watched almost all of the games last year and the team looked just as lost and inept at the end of the season as they did in the beginning. We did play well against Duke for a half, I give Bzz credit for that.
 
I like what I have seen from Bzzzzz so far. I'm cautiously optimistic that he can continue his current course. As of now I am Bzzzzzz In! But that could change!
 
myDeaconmyhand said:
There are two concepts at work here:
1. All Players should at least minimally improve through experience.
2. It's a coaches job to improve his players.

I think we've established that Travis was the hardest working player on the team last year, aside from Travis, I saw minimal improvement on the team. I watched almost all of the games last year and the team looked just as lost and inept at the end of the season as they did in the beginning. We did play well against Duke for a half, I give Bzz credit for that.
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even a blind Seizures will find a nut
 
Players amp themselves up to play Duke and UNC. Let's be serious...
 
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