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Next Wake Forest Basketball Coach...

Bowman's ranking also had to do with that he was 4/5* football player who had committed to UNC.
 
RJKarl said:
Bowman's ranking also had to do with that he was 4/5* football player who had committed to UNC.
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I know Bowman's story, but why would that impact his recruiting ranking?

ETA: I get it... He didn't play AAU until later in HS and also didn't attend any of the basketball showcase camps. Underexposed to hoops coaches/scouts.
 
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If a guy isn't going to play a sport in college (as they thought), he's typically not ranked highly or scouted highly in his second sport.

Didn't one of our football players score a ton of points in bball? Didn't they go deep into a state tourney? I don't think he was ranked very highly in bball in spite of his great success.
 
Wonder is Danny is pushing for Sage Surratt to fill some minutes at SG?

(I know it is not going to happen)
 
RJKarl said:
If you refuse to see the improvement in JC, Doral, Dinos, Donovan Mitchell, it's because either don't want to or don't know basketball at all.
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You can see and admit improvement in a player but still question what the coach contributed to that improvement. Lots of folks are not as familiar with Mannings work at KU with the big men as you are and, to some extent, I am, because you shared links with me a while back. Serious question though: Can you explain specifically what Manning did to help Doral improve between his sophomore and junior seasons, besides conditioning?
 
I actually meant to put this question out there prior to his success in the tourney, which will no doubt color everyone's opinion, but was curious to hear honest takes about a coach in the Bruce Weber mold. He had major success at Illinois with Bill Self's recruits (I think we all recall the ACC/Big 10 Challenge beat down in 2005) and solid success overall (winning 67.5 percent of games, NCAA tourney 6 of 8 years), but eventually was dumped due to an unwillingness/inability to bring in big recruits.

Putting the lie to the notion that major conference coaches can't have consistent success without top 100 recruits (*ahem), he has largely replicated that success at Kansas State (winning 61% of games and never losing more than 17 games), though hasn't had any NCAA tourney victories, losing in the round of 64 in 3 of the last 5 years prior to this year (I'm not including beating us last year in the play-in game). They also lost their best player, Wesley Iwundu to the NBA last year.

I think it's reasonable to say that his demonstrable coaching ability, but lack of recruiting acumen has led to consistent success, but generally a low ceiling on outcomes. Curious how comfortable you'd be long-term with an established coach that wins about 62% of games, but rarely makes a run in the tourney or produces NBA talent. Would that be enough?
 
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DeacsATS said:
Wonder is Danny is pushing for Sage Surratt to fill some minutes at SG?

(I know it is not going to happen)
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That's the guy...he averaged almost 25 ppg in three years of HS bball.

Was he red-shirted last year.
 
You can argue whether we were better than GT for 12th or 13th in the conference when Manning took over. And since he's been here, ACC standings:

12th
14th
10th
14th

"Significantly" improved the program? Yeah, no.
 
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birdman said:
You can see and admit improvement in a player but still question what the coach contributed to that improvement. Lots of folks are not as familiar with Mannings work at KU with the big men as you are and, to some extent, I am, because you shared links with me a while back. Serious question though: Can you explain specifically what Manning did to help Doral improve between his sophomore and junior seasons, besides conditioning?
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One of the biggest changes was being able to get position on offense without running over a defender. He made himself bigger and wider. Thus, he was a better target. On the boards, he used to bring the ball down too often. Now, he rarely brings it even to shoulder level. This makes passing easier and harder to steal it from him. His first two years he'd get a board or a pass and bring the ball down to where opponents could swat at it and take it away.

He also uses his hips and shoulders much better than he used to do. This creates space and allows him to get easier boards and position. On D, he didn't leave his feet as often as he used to.
 
Yep. I think when people say Manning "significantly" improved the program, they mean two things:

1. We snuck into the tournament because John Collins is by far the best player we've had in the last 8 years.
2. They "feel" significantly better about Danny Manning than they did about Bz.

Neither is a reason to want Manning to stick around as coach.
 
12,14,10 and 14 usually means a coaching change. I guess we’ve sunk so low that for Wake fans that means we’re on the road to a sustainable top 30 program.

I can guarantee you that our preseason ranking next year at best will be 10...I’m predicting 12
 
Ayo said:
You can argue whether we were better than GT for 12th or 13th in the conference when Manning took over. And since he's been here, ACC standings:

12th
14th
10th
14th

"Significantly" improved the program? Yeah, no.
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So Manning has actually taken us "to the bottom" instead of " from the bottom".
 
PhDeac said:
Yep. I think when people say Manning "significantly" improved the program, they mean two things:

1. We snuck into the tournament because John Collins is by far the best player we've had in the last 8 years.
2. They "feel" significantly better about Danny Manning than they did about Bz.

Neither is a reason to want Manning to stick around as coach.
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Neither of those is accurate for me.

I mean, I guess #2 is applicable... But I wouldn't phrase it like that. I "like" losing close games more than I enjoyed Wake Forest getting consistently curb-stomped under Bz. This season was painful... 11-20 is ugly, without question... But I still feel like next year could/should be Manning's best to date. If not, let's find a new coach.

In terms of #1... I guess that's one way to look at last season. I'd argue we handily beat preseason expectations around here... Going from 11-20 (familiar?) & 2-16 (yikes) in the ACC to an NCAA play-in game (after losing Thomas & CMM). Not any reason to throw a parade, but it was clearly progress.
 
PhDeac said:
Yep. I think when people say Manning "significantly" improved the program, they mean two things:

1. We snuck into the tournament because John Collins is by far the best player we've had in the last 8 years.
2. They "feel" significantly better about Danny Manning than they did about Bz.

Neither is a reason to want Manning to stick around as coach.
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Plus #Kenpom. At the end of year 4, we're now in the low 90's instead of the low 120's. Improvement.

There was almost nowhere to go but up. Many of the sunshine crowd talked up [name redacted]'s "improvement" after Y1, as if it was a success. What it boils down to is that a handful believe Manning walked into an impossible job and has turned it around despite the odds being stacked against him. The rest of us don't believe that the job of building a good program at Wake Forest isn't as hard as they make it sound, and point to lots of glaring deficiencies that have not improved over 4 seasons and the overall body of results as evidence that Manning simply isn't up to the task.
 
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DeacsATS said:
Neither of those is accurate for me.

I mean, I guess #2 is applicable... But I wouldn't phrase it like that. I "like" losing close games more than I enjoyed Wake Forest getting consistently curb-stomped under Bz. This season was painful... 11-20 is ugly, without question... But I still feel like next year could/should be Manning's best to date. If not, let's find a new coach.

In terms of #1... I guess that's one way to look at last season. I'd argue we handily beat preseason expectations around here... Going from 11-20 (familiar?) & 2-16 (yikes) in the ACC to an NCAA play-in game (after losing Thomas & CMM). Not any reason to throw a parade, but it was clearly progress.
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The median expectation was 17 regular season wins. We won 18.

https://www.ogboards.com/forums/sho...6-17-Wake-Forest-Basketball?highlight=2016-17
 
WFU Lurker said:
The median expectation was 17 regular season wins. We won 18.

https://www.ogboards.com/forums/sho...6-17-Wake-Forest-Basketball?highlight=2016-17
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OK, so 68% (more than 2/3) thought we'd have less wins that we did. Or, as Ayo put it at the start of this year's poll:

Ayo said:
For reference, last year the team met or exceeded 88.32% of respondents' expectations.
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You can remove the word "handily" from my post. The point still stands that the mood was pretty positive around here after the regular season.

I'm not trying to defend Manning as some great coach... I have some real questions and doubts. I just think it makes more sense to give him another season w/ the roster we'll have vs. blowing it all up. I can certainly understand those that disagree with that opinion... 11-20 (4-14) certainly doesn't inspire much confidence or hope.
 
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DeacsATS said:
OK, so 68% (more than 2/3) thought we'd have less wins that we did. Or, as Ayo put it at the start of this year's poll:



You can remove the word "handily" from my post. The point still stands that the mood was pretty positive around here after the regular season.

I'm not trying to defend Manning as some great coach... I have some real questions and doubts. I just think it makes more sense to give him another season w/ the roster we'll have vs. blowing it all up. I can certainly understand those that disagree with that opinion... 11-20 (4-14) certainly doesn't inspire much confidence or hope.
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I don't disagree with any of this. There was a very high degree of optimism around the program up until Georgia Southern.

I am in the more time camp as well actually. I just think there has been a tendency among some to reframe last year as blowing out expectations when it really didn't. In aggregate, we expected a NIT team and got an 11 seed in the NCAAT.
 
WFU Lurker said:
I just think there has been a tendency among some to reframe last year as blowing out expectations when it really didn't. In aggregate, we expected a NIT team and got an 11 seed in the NCAAT.
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:werd:
 
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