I’m not putting Blake down at all, just saying that in retrospect, I think we were doubling down on similar strengths instead of diversifying the offense. Take Nick, for example. He’s a lights-out three-point shooter. That’s a different dimension. Grant is a passing bug man. Different dimension. Blake and Jake both are very capable scorers, but there’s only one ball. When one is scoring, that usually means the other isn’t.
it is interesting. we're all thinking we fill both spots with bigs. one certainly has to be big. but looks like Mooney will go best available with the other spot.
If I’m married to Beyoncé, I don’t need to try to date Gabrielle Union, too. Blake is a helluva player and I love his tenacity. I’m just saying that for this team, in retrospect, I don’t know that the fit was the best to maximize everything we had collectively, that’s all. He’s not a distributor, and that’s fine. Jacob became ONLY a distributor this year, and I’m not saying that Blake forced him to do that, but the result was the result.
So in theory you can get two more years out of both Grace and Sal if they take this year as a covid redshirt (or whatever it's being called). But I still think you have to develop more than one replacement, otherwise, the team is really restricted in 2 years to a style of play, if not sooner.
While I don't dispute the merit of your argument about Blake's value, the team didn't become magically better with the addition of Blake two years ago. It had a lot to do with the other players maturing and becoming better at their game too. Case in point, Nate dramatically raised his FT% and Grant both rebounded and passed better last year than in the two years prior, and of course, the whole team defense made a significant jump last year after being mired in crap the two years before that. Allocating all or even a meaningful portion of the turnaround to Blake discounts the other conditions that contributed to a much-improved performance.
If Grace can score 10+ a game and give us anything in the rebounding category, and Sal can avoid stupid fouls and make some FTs, I can live with that.
Me too, and that'll last us next year and maybe one after that. But then who do we have? Can't just settle for one backup to those cats.
yeah, and do we KNOW if Matt and Sal will stay for the extra year? let's say we add a grad transfer 5 this year and Kolek or Healey. next year the grad transfer is gone and Matt and Sal graduate with that choice. if they don't stay, there's no 5 on the roster. you always need THREE guys on a roster with the ability to play the 5. so we'd be scrambling for freshmen and transfers, and we know how tough it is to land ready to go 5's.
F*ck winning the whole nit. With a healthy roster, and a somewhat competent head coach/athletic department we could be doing what Loyola is doing right now. It’s really not that hard guys.
I agree. Why would anyone think if UR came back with the same players yet another year things would be different? Plus kicking the can down the road yet another year doesn’t allow the program any chance to grow. Do we really want another year where the young guys get little to no playing time because of some hairbrained idea that the NCAA had to allow an extra year of eligibility because an NCAA tournament wasn’t played? Nick Sherod was 100% right when he said it is unfair to the younger players who spend just as much time and effort as the starters thinking that they are paying their dues for future playing time.
The young guys get an extra year too, if they want it. Ultimately that could impact the incoming freshmen and the free classes behind them I guess.
To be fair, we blame Hardt for some things. Gill and even Miller aren't blameless.
The kids in the class of '22 are getting massively screwed.
I never blame refs, always free throws and rebounding. Two things a team can control.
Think about this. 1 Mooney has outlasted 3 AD's. He's the one constant in our program. Coach for life. Keeping him is more important than any other measure that can be attributed to the program.
It would be really interesting to know what Jim Miller would do/have done by now given he handed out the original contract.
I blame Mooney as much as anybody for not figuring out how to max out Gilyard’s potential.
I meant for not getting more out of him offensively this year. There had to be a better way for him and Francis to share the load. Did you think he had a great offensive year this year?
