I'm not expecting us to be a a national championship contender but I do expect for us to be better than a perpetual bubble team. Next year will tell the tale.
Commentary on CAG Not Being Fired This Year
- Thread starter RTR91
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Look at this team healthy and ask yourself if it is a bubble team. Very doubtful.
I realize injuries had an affect on the season but that's part of the game. Injuries do not explain the inexcusable losses to Tulane and the Barn.
ETA: We were arguably a better team last year and we were a bubble team then.
So a top 25 team losing to a bubble team isn't excusable because of an injury? See Kentucky. Kansas lost to TCU. Michigan lost to Penn state. Both were top 5 teams losing to teams winless in the conference. Big upsets have happened all over college basketball this year.
I don't know....call me "Titantic"....I'm going down with CAG.....I'm convinced he's a man of character and conviction and will not sacrifice either of the sake of a W-L record. That doesn't make him a great coach by today's standards.....but I'm impressed with his convictions and willingness to stand by his standards. Yeah, I know, that's not a popular view these days.....but it's something I value.
Are you claiming we were a top 25 team when we lost to Tulane and Auburn, both of which were bubble teams? Or are you comparing Carl Engstrom to Nerlens Noel?
Yes, upsets happen every year. That's the nature of a basketball season and is to be expected. I'm not saying the loss of Engstrom didn't hurt us in the Cincy game (we probably win with him) and the following Dayton game. Also, it put us behind the 8-ball once we started league play. What I'm saying is the losses to Tulane at home (a full month after Swede's injury) and that abortion of the barn game are inexcusable. The terrible stretch in December put us squarely on the bubble with very little margin of error. You just can't lose multiple winnable games like that when you're already on the edge.
Finally, the teams you mentioned above have the capital to take an upset loss. One bad loss does not a season make, but several of them do when you don't have many quality wins on your resume. See our season.
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I agree with you ccc; I've never met him but I'm a Grant fan. There are bigger things than W' and L's. I've been to 17 games since he became our coach (I know that's not as many as some others, however, we've won every one of them 
) and I like him more each time I watch him work. As a rule, our team plays hard and competes every night, which is not something I could say for his predecessor. He brings confidence, discipline and a positive work ethic to the court, which are also things I value. I hope he stays here for a good while.
) and I like him more each time I watch him work. As a rule, our team plays hard and competes every night, which is not something I could say for his predecessor. He brings confidence, discipline and a positive work ethic to the court, which are also things I value. I hope he stays here for a good while.
We finished tied for second in the SEC. We lost in OT at LSU and by a point at UT. One more basket in those games and we are co-champs. I know we still lost those games, but we were very close to winning the conference. To even think about firing him at this point is crazy.
To the people that claim we are also a basketball school, we do not have the tournament history anywhere close to most of the teams we have lost recruits to. Go look at the Robert Foster board and see how people reacted to posters saying Pitt had a lot to offer as a football program and history wise. That's what it is like when saying Alabama is a basketball school. We've had great seasons and players but we have never been dominant or consistently good for multiple years. Most of these recruits aren't old enough to know our good ole days. I know I'm not
Are you saying you know Alabama has basketball history? Several times Alabama finished second in the SEC when only 8 or 16 teams went to the tournament. Bama has more basketball history than many realize or want to realize.
I think CAG deserves at least one more year to see if this team can do better. Having said that, this season we regressed. CAG has been here four years and during the regular season we've gone 16-14, 20-10, 20-10, and this year 20-11. While it's true it is a twenty win season, most anyone will tell you we regressed this year. While I expected about 20 wins, what was most disappointing was our lack of consistency, we had no "killer instinct", and our inability to rise to the occasion. We couldn't put two halves together much less two games ( heck,sometimes we couldn't put together two halves of half's:smile. The same team that beat Kentucky at home (our only win over a top 50 rpi team),lost to Tulane at home. We beat absolutely no one other than UK that we shouldn't have but lost 5 or 6 we shouldn't have. Save the two point loss to Cincy, 4 of our losses (Mercer,Dayton,Tulane,Auburn) were inexplicable, in 4 of our losses (Missouri, VCU, UF, OM) we were "manhandled", and two of our losses (LSU, UT) should've gone the other way.We win 4-5 of those and we're not on the bubble. We had no ability to finish. We'd get a double digit lead, then go in a daze. We didn't show up at least three times at CC and at least four times on the road. Then we went down on the plains when we needed to win badly and laid an egg.
Youth and injury excuses may suffice when you're over matched talent wise, but the way we've looked at times this year these excuses won't cut it. We're paying CAG millions a year, it's not unreasonable to expect better than we saw this year for whatever reason. No one expected Bama to win a NC this year...but we shouldn't lose at home to Mercer either.
. The same team that beat Kentucky at home (our only win over a top 50 rpi team),lost to Tulane at home. We beat absolutely no one other than UK that we shouldn't have but lost 5 or 6 we shouldn't have. Save the two point loss to Cincy, 4 of our losses (Mercer,Dayton,Tulane,Auburn) were inexplicable, in 4 of our losses (Missouri, VCU, UF, OM) we were "manhandled", and two of our losses (LSU, UT) should've gone the other way.We win 4-5 of those and we're not on the bubble. We had no ability to finish. We'd get a double digit lead, then go in a daze. We didn't show up at least three times at CC and at least four times on the road. Then we went down on the plains when we needed to win badly and laid an egg.Youth and injury excuses may suffice when you're over matched talent wise, but the way we've looked at times this year these excuses won't cut it. We're paying CAG millions a year, it's not unreasonable to expect better than we saw this year for whatever reason. No one expected Bama to win a NC this year...but we shouldn't lose at home to Mercer either.
We have never recovered from that 2004 Elite Eight season. As weird as that sounds, it's the truth. Gottfried rested on his laurels after that season, and by the time he was dismissed, the program had hit rock bottom. The same thing will happen at NC State in a few years, just wait and see. As far as CAG is concerned, I say give him two more seasons and then re-evaluate. The entire SEC is just dreadful right now, so in light of that, I can see giving him more time. If nothing else, he did at least manage to clean up the wreckage left by CMG. If it were up to me, the (immediate) coaching change would be made in baseball, not basketball, but I digress. Don't get me started on the state of that program.....
We have never recovered from that 2004 Elite Eight season. As weird as that sounds, it's the truth. Gottfried rested on his laurels after that season, and by the time he was dismissed, the program had hit rock bottom. The same thing will happen at NC State in a few years, just wait and see. As far as CAG is concerned, I say give him two more seasons and then re-evaluate. The entire SEC is just dreadful right now, so in light of that, I can see giving him more time. If nothing else, he did at least manage to clean up the wreckage left by CMG. If it were up to me, the (immediate) coaching change would be made in baseball, not basketball, but I digress. Don't get me started on the state of that program.....
Pretty spot on about the Gottfried years toward the end. Two things really hurt him IMO. One, he insisted on staying with the high-post offense... something which really hindered quick development among incoming big guys. Two, he got to a point of entitlement... and lost his edge. CMG seemingly was a mirror image of Houston Nutt in football. In years when his teams were supposed to be awesome, they underachieved... in years when they were supposed to be down, they overachieved. Fans who are passionate about their sport hate that kind of trend. Ditto on "who would we get to replace Grant"... you don't let a coach guy unless you KNOW you can replace him/her with a better one.
He insisted on the high post when we obviously didn't have the personnel to run it. One, year, I forget which, we had a couple of injuries and just couldn't run it and he was forced to go to a motion offense. Our offensive productivity instantly shot up. The next year, he went back to it...
1 tournament appearance in 4 years is not success. We paid him for the NCAA tourney to be a foregone conclussion and it has been far from it. He is paid in the top 20 of all coaches and I expect results to match the pay. Again if he hasn't produced in his 6th year, it will be time to make a move then, not this year. I did not expect we would be in the final four this year, but I did expect not to lose 4 game to teams that should have never had a chance against us. We both agree that we should keep him, but we disagree whether this year has been a success. I obviously do not think so and you are ok with mediocrity.
As a couple of pointed out, if CAG was removed this year or next or the next, he will land at another school (like CMG did) and take that team to the sweet 16 in the first year. Why does this happen?
The big thing for me about the high post offense was the amount of time newcomers take in learning the offense. For just about all of our incoming bigs over the years, only one (McDyess) really excelled by the end of the season. In the age of "one and done players", a program like UA doesn't have the luxury of wasting that first year on learning the system. While you can do that at a place like Duke or Kansas, you simply can't at the level our program operates. When you get a Richard Hendrix, a program like UA needs him to contribute immediately... not wait a year "getting it". If CMG was still here, we could expect zero impact from our two incoming bigs... no matter how talented they are.
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