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Dan Collins Article on Bz interview posted

Did you feel after the Kentucky game that the program was at a level in which it needed to be restored to respectable?
 
daaberry said:
Did you feel after the Kentucky game that the program was at a level in which it needed to be restored to respectable?
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Yes, absolutely. We got destroyed in that game with a team being led by seniors and a great PG. Did you think we were going to move up from there after losing most of that team?
 
daaberry said:
Did you feel after the Kentucky game that the program was at a level in which it needed to be restored to respectable?
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Keeping in mind the amount of players we were losing off that team? I knew it'd be a tough road back to the NCAA Tournament, yeah.
 
So what is respectable in your opinion? I honestly never thought there would be a day in which Wake would lose to teams such as Stetson & Presbyterian. So no I didn't expect to be in the Sweet 16 this season, but I didn't think Wake would be the laughing stock of the Big 6 conferences either.
 
I didn't expect it either, trust me. But I also hoped and believed that TC would be our PG early on and Tony Woods would be there to clog up the middle. We had very little depth at any position besides the 2 or 3 this year, and it hurt. Our team composition was just not good at all.
 
cookoutdeac said:
I didn't expect it either, trust me. But I also hoped and believed that TC would be our PG early on and Tony Woods would be there to clog up the middle. We had very little depth at any position besides the 2 or 3 this year, and it hurt. Our team composition was just not good at all.
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Team composition would have been better if those two were healthy and available.

Although, I still think we would have struggled at PG all year.
 
Can you really learn about winning by losing? Maybe you can. Our players should be very well informed that they are not good enough to win ACC (or Big South) basketball games at this point. They know they must get better. They've made a lot of mistakes and hopefully they have learned from them. They've seen winning teams and players in action over the course of a full season, imposing their will on them. So, yes, I do think they have learned a whole lot about what it takes to win. It's unfortunate that they weren't able to learn it from the upperclassmen on their own team, but that would have been the case regardless of who our coach was.

On the other hand, I remember Skip saying when he arrived that it was good that our players had a lot of experience, but that unfortunately, a lot of it wasn't good experiences.

Winning breeds winning and losing breeds losing. The players and Bzz better turn this thing around quick in the ooc schedule or it's never going to get better.
 
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deacvision7 said:
Team composition would have been better if those two were healthy and available.

Although, I still think we would have struggled at PG all year.
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Yeah, after seeing TC return, I think this may have been true regardless. However, I'll wait until next year to fairly judge him as a PG. He had some huge challenges to overcome, and I thought it was very gutsy for him to return in the first place.

I think Fields might contribute more than expected next year, but that's completely a hunch.
 
After Kentucky, we were looking at a typical rebuilding job, but we were in pretty good shape with 2 sophomores who had promising freshman years and a balanced freshmen class that was well-regarded with solid talent. Getting a new coach to rebuild after realizing that the previous coach couldn't do it was a good move.

Now we're to believe that the program needed to be razed and rebuilt and the man to do it is a journeyman NBA assistant/college head coach without a track record of success?

It's tough to stomach.
 
cookoutdeac said:
Yeah, after seeing TC return, I think this may have been true regardless. However, I'll wait until next year to fairly judge him as a PG. He had some huge challenges to overcome, and I thought it was very gutsy for him to return in the first place.

I think Fields might contribute more than expected next year, but that's completely a hunch.
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Yeah, I'm not trying to knock Tony at all. But I was always skeptical of people saying that all we needed was a PG and that the lowest of our 5 recruits would save the day.

I love Tony's mentality to come back and fight with and for his teammates, and I do think the PT he got this year will serve him well going forward. Looking forward to seeing him progress as a player.
 
Interesting interview, just read the whole thing. In one sense you get the feeling that Jeff feels the pressure to get things turned around soon (good). On the other side, he does seem to have kind of a short fuse, very sensitive to certain questions.

I am a little tired of hearing about Colorado's season from him. I am glad that he's proud that he turned them into an NIT program playing for an NIT Championship. Hopefully he's talking about his accomplishments here in a few years. I understand he can't brag about anything he's done at Wake Forest. But, I do feel like he's talked more about Colorado's season then ours at times.
 
PhDeac said:
After Kentucky, we were looking at a typical rebuilding job, but we were in pretty good shape with 2 sophomores who had promising freshman years and a balanced freshmen class that was well-regarded with solid talent. Getting a new coach to rebuild after realizing that the previous coach couldn't do it was a good move.

Now we're to believe that the program needed to be razed and rebuilt and the man to do it is a journeyman NBA assistant/college head coach without a track record of success?

It's tough to stomach.
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It's just hard to tell how those freshman who had two promising years were going to look as anything but role players. CJ stepped up and played pretty well out of position, Ari did not.

As promising as our freshman class was, very rarely do you see non-5 star guys contributing significantly in their first years.
 
deacvision7 said:
Yeah, I'm not trying to knock Tony at all. But I was always skeptical of people saying that all we needed was a PG and that the lowest of our 5 recruits would save the day.

I love Tony's mentality to come back and fight with and for his teammates, and I do think the PT he got this year will serve him well going forward. Looking forward to seeing him progress as a player.
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I think having Tony (who seemed to be the only natural leader on the floor) working out and practicing with the team for the whole offseason will be really, really good for everyone.
 
I'm just not sure if TC is athletic enough to be a starting PG in the ACC. He struggles to finish around the rim because he isn't quick enough off his feet or creative around the basket. Some guards can make up for that with their shooting, but he is not a good shooter either. He does have great strength though, so maybe he will use that to his advantage more going forward.

I would love to be wrong about all this though. Maybe a summer to train and fully recover will reveal a different TC next year.
 
cookoutdeac said:
It's just hard to tell how those freshman who had two promising years were going to look as anything but role players. CJ stepped up and played pretty well out of position, Ari did not.

As promising as our freshman class was, very rarely do you see non-5 star guys contributing significantly in their first years.
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I have to agree and I will admit this is one area that took me a long time to accept. I bought into a lot of the hype I read around this season's freshmen class coming in. Looking back at the class, there was no "difference" maker recruit in the bunch. Travis McKie played his butt off and JTT appeared to get better late in the year but no immediate impact player that could carry us.
 
TheIshThatSaved WakeForest said:
I'm just not sure if TC is athletic enough to be a starting PG in the ACC. He struggles to finish around the rim because he isn't quick enough off his feet or creative around the basket. Some guards can make up for that with their shooting, but he is not a good shooter either. He does have great strength though, so maybe he will use that to his advantage more going forward.

I would love to be wrong about all this though. Maybe a summer to train and fully recover will reveal a different TC next year.
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I hope so. I think he'll be a better shooter next year w/ real conditioning (most of his shots this year just seemed to fall short every time). I also like to view the fact that he could get to the basket as a positive. He just has to work on his decision making once he gets there.
 
cookoutdeac said:
It's just hard to tell how those freshman who had two promising years were going to look as anything but role players. CJ stepped up and played pretty well out of position, Ari did not.

As promising as our freshman class was, very rarely do you see non-5 star guys contributing significantly in their first years.
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Not only is that false, Wake has had a strong history of non-5 star players contributing significantly in their first years, including McKie. Kendall Marshall was a 4-star and Stoglin was 3-star and they joined 5-stars Barnes and Leslie as All-ACC.

Our freshman class was around the same level or above as plenty of players over the years who contributed as freshmen from guys like O'Kelley and JGray to Darius and Josh Howard to more recently Teague and Johnson.
 
PhDeac said:
Not only is that false, Wake has had a strong history of non-5 star players contributing significantly in their first years, including McKie. Kendall Marshall was a 4-star and Stoglin was 3-star and they joined 5-stars Barnes and Leslie as All-ACC.

Our freshman class was around the same level or above as plenty of players over the years who contributed as freshmen from guys like O'Kelley and JGray to Darius and Josh Howard to more recently Teague and Johnson.
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What did all those guys have in common?

Experienced upperclassmen around them.
 
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