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Mens: Belmont @ RC - Sat 12/14 6pm ESPN+

sman, I understand now. And I agree - i was very hopeful about the off season acquisitions. I was not convinced Dusan was going to play any D or rebound, BUT I thought he was a polished scorer that would provide that every game - and you can get by a little with one weak link if you can convince of effort. My HOPE was that Glou would be like a bigger version of Dji that could also score. If that occured think we were looking at a pretty decent team. But whereas almost every single player exceeded our projections, the opposite. And nothing out of GW2 or White - was thinking at very least one of these guys was going to be an impact player.

BUT - most of us just going off some highlights. Coaches have to evaluate and have lots of game tape.
I wasn't expecting much out of GW2. He has to be 40 some years old, right? 😀😀
 
very little college game tape on AP and GW3 unfortunately. we made assumptions based on the schools they were coming from.
B Artis has been hurt.
in the 2nd half Saturday, Dusan looked like the guy I was hoping for. tough physical drives. showed fire.
I like what Dusan has shown at times. He has had some impressive drives to the basket, and seems to be the only guy with any size who can drive to the basket. He just can't get his 3s to fall, and we desperate need him and others to start making them.
 
I like what Dusan has shown at times. He has had some impressive drives to the basket, and seems to be the only guy with any size who can drive to the basket. He just can't get his 3s to fall, and we desperate need him and others to start making them.
The reality is that we (and Moon) GROSSLY overated the transfers. Its happened for awhile (Roche being a prime recent example) but King was the tonic that cured all ills. Just like the once in a while tourney appearances fool us on Moon.

But back specifically to the transfers. GW3 and AP literally played zero so there was no reason to have the unbridled enthusiasm we had for them. Dusan was a scorer (and not much else) for a VERY bad IVY league team (#336 in net). No real reason to EXPECT he could be a major player for a team with much higher ambitions. B Artis was similarly a decent (only decent, not great by a long shot) player also on a VERY bad team. And Beagle was decent (only decent) on a pretty bad team. Importantly, they were players on bad (2 out of 3 were net 300+ and the other around 250) teams. As we have now learned, its bad business to assume that major players on these teams weren't in part the reason the teams were bad. Its irrational to assume that our transfer was/is great but everyone around him was the problem.

Hope for any/all of these guys was fine. But we confuse hope with expectation. And we were bitten in the ass big time this year. We had no basis to expect anyone in this group would be "King-like" . King's profile was much better and in the end he exceeded even our wildest HOPES. Thats just not going to happen every year (or maybe ever again) unless you somehow believe that Moon has somehow acquired the portal Midas touch. And its clear now that isn't the case!

Portal reliance is a very dangerous game for mid-majors and we are solidly there, which scares the crap out of me because Moon's one strength in my mind is his ability to build loyalty from his players and get them to buy into his systems - - - given time to that!! The state of the game and our decision to play along doesn't bode well! I am thinking we zigged to playing along when we should have zagged to building with HS recruiting. Especially if Moon is going to be our guy!
 
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Bottom line - way too much hype and expectations during offseason. People want to be optimistic, but reality set in quickly. And the reality is too many standard deviations from hype and expectations. Folks - this ain’t Houston, but we have a real problem in our men’s bb program. That shouldn’t surprise anyone.
 
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