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Post by Big D on Jan 31, 2015 19:02:27 GMT -5
BigD, we just disagree and that is ok. This is not just this year but has been his pattern since HC. We had height last couple of years but still out rebounded in most games. You compare him to ES because he would look better. But why not compare him to RU. His style and philosophy and win-loss percentage. Dr. J, Do me a favor and look at Ralph's record once we went D1 and joined the Summiy league. People like to talk about the glory days of Raider hoops, but they are remembering our D2 days and when we were a D1 independent ant playing a schedule that was mostly the bottom feeders of D1 basketball. Once we joined the Summiy League you could see that Ralph's system was less successful than what we are doing now. Ralph never finished higher than 4th place in the Summit and that was after he had 20 years of experience. As I already stated, Donlon is far from perfect, but he is improving as a coach. I think next season is his make it or break it season.
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Post by keithfromxenia on Jan 31, 2015 21:38:36 GMT -5
big d, you act as if this year is an aberration, an anomaly. it is not. it is just more of the same. our rpi and record are pretty much what we have been getting for the past four years. ,about the same rpi and right now our record will probably end up with 18 or so wins.
you think next year will be the breakthrough year for us. am i remembering wrong or wasn't last year supposed to be a huge breakthrough year for us. didn't we have everyone back from the previous year. weren't we picked by some website as one of five mid majors to watch. excitement was high and expectations were large. and what did we get. 19 wins and an rpi of 163.
in five years bd has yet to show he can even get us back where we were when he started, let alone build us into a quality mid major program. if what we are going to get is more of the same that we have had for five years, is that all there is.
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Post by Big D on Jan 31, 2015 22:56:47 GMT -5
you think next year will be the breakthrough year for us. am i remembering wrong or wasn't last year supposed to be a huge breakthrough year for us. didn't we have everyone back from the previous year. weren't we picked by some website as one of five mid majors to watch. excitement was high and expectations were large. and what did we get. 19 wins and an rpi of 163. Last year we won 21 games and ended the year 6 points shy of getting our 3rd trip to the NCAA tournament. I'll forgive you for getting our win total wrong and leaving out that we went to the HL championship game for the second year in a row since you no longer follow the team but like to show up on the board every once and awhile to bitch and moan. I understand you want to leave our back to back trips to the HL finals out of any post you make because it is so much easier to bitch and moan like you like to do if you just ignore that fact. As I have stated in my last few posts, Donlon is far from being a great coach yet. He started his tenure here making a few big mistakes. He hired an inexperienced staff and was slow to make changes in the way he coaches. Our inexperienced coaching staff really hurt us in our first 2 classes we signed in his tenure. We did not bring in enough HL quality recruits in our first few classes. That is directly impacting us now. Instead of having 3-4 year veterans on the court right now, we are playing mostly JUCO transfers and true freshmen. We signed 5 kids that should make up our current senior class. Reggie and Kendall are all that remain of that class. Pritchett, Sledge, and Cuffee are gone. We don't have a junior on our roster right now (since Yoho is hurt) that started his career at WSU. Bowie, Drummond, Roddy, and Bramanti are all gone. You cannot develop a good mid-major program when you basically whiff on 2 classes in a row. I blame that on the staff Donlon put together. Mullins and Woods had no D1 coaching experience when Donlon hired them. They had both served on coaching staffs at UWGB and WSU respectively as director of player development or director of operations. Neither had any experience in recruiting. If you look at our last 2 recruiting classes, you can see we are starting to turn the corner and bring in some pretty good talent. The other negative result of having an inexperienced staff is that none of our assistants challenged Donlon's coaching style/decisions. I think the best thing that could have happened for Billy is the decision to add his father to his staff. He respects his father and listens to him. I think it shows in the changes he has made as a coach. If you go back and watch games from his first couple of seasons at WSU, we were pure man to man on defense and walked the ball up the court every possession and ran clock on offense. Starting last year and much more this season, we have used different zone defenses, box and one defense, and have even incorporated a little full court press. We have also tried to change things up on offense. We are trying to get the ball up the court quicker now and take advantage of fast break opportunities when they arise. He has also tried to play bigger when we have had the personel. Last year we played 3 forwards a lot towards the end of the year using either Pacher or Sledge at center with Darling and Young on the court at SF and PF. We did this some at the beginning of the year as well playing Karena, Yoho, and S. Davis together. Once again, I am not trying to sing Donlon's praise. He is far from a great coach, but I think he is improving. I like the players he has brought in this year and I expect to see better results next year.
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Post by Dr J on Feb 1, 2015 12:27:54 GMT -5
BigD, we do agree BD isn't a great coach. I would hope he would learn faster than it seems he has. But as I see things, he still reverts back to things that haven't worked for him in the past. I agree we have more height coming in next year but I wonder if he can evaluate what strengths he has and use them against the weaknesses of the opponents. A big part of a successful coach is evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of the opponent and countering them. Maybe he needs better Assistants or give them specific areas of responsibilities. I have seen evidence of this being successful at times. I don't understand why when we get a double digit lead he wants to change from what got us there until the opposition makes him change. At the present our strength is in outside shooting and speed and quickness. I still see too much standing and passing. When we have more movement and driving inside we see more fouls on the opponent. I want to see BG challenge BD to end up in a winning mode for the rest of the year. Improvement comes from adversity and challenge. A comfort zone leads to mediocrity.
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Post by wolf41 on Feb 1, 2015 16:40:32 GMT -5
BigD, The biggest single question I have is why Donlon began this season with 9 guards and only 4 big men. I know we lost Sledge late, but he added a guard to fill that loss. I know it was late for finding a big man, but he has two big men on the bench in street dress. Now I know they may not be ready, but being the 13th player on the bench would seem to be a wiser decision than adding a 9th guard who has played about 6 minutes all year. Starting the year with 4, or even 5 big men, is one of the worst, if not the worst basketball decision I can ever remember. If the Sledge issue hadn't happened, today we would be playing with three big men instead of two. There is a fundamental reason why teams play with six or more big men, injuries and illness. Why is that so hard to understand?
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Post by 86grad on Feb 1, 2015 18:58:36 GMT -5
wolf, it seems that you are implying that Stacey was given a scholarship. I am pretty sure that he is a non-scholarship player and that they are holding a scholarship or scholarships in their pocket for Ernsthausen and/or Lett. Can someone clarify this?
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Post by Big D on Feb 1, 2015 22:54:36 GMT -5
BigD, The biggest single question I have is why Donlon began this season with 9 guards and only 4 big men. I know we lost Sledge late, but he added a guard to fill that loss. Wolf, we started the year with 5 big men: Sledge, Karena, Yoho, S. Davis and R. Davis. And I have no idea what you are talking about when you say we added a guard to fill that loss. Sledge was kicked off the team in October. We didn't add a guard to replace him.
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Post by Dr J on Feb 2, 2015 0:33:04 GMT -5
He thinks the walk on from Moeller is on scholarship but he isnt
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Post by wolf41 on Feb 2, 2015 9:58:49 GMT -5
Right Dr. J. I thought I remember reading that he, Stacey, received the final scholarship. I also remember that the three senior guards we are losing will be replaced by three new guards. That would indicate that the current structure of the team will remain as it is unless Donlon is going to cut loose some of his 9 guards, not counting Collie, another guard. It would also suggest that having Stacey dressed for games in case we need him in place of all our other guards makes more sense than having the two tall men dressed for games in case we need one of them. What we have now would seem to make sense only if the coach sees little value in big men, but great value in guards. Sorry, but that is the only conclusion I can come up with.
Our team's construction is certainly contrary to almost every team in the country, although we played someone last year that had 4 or 5 guards and about 10 big men. I think it might have been UIC. If you are going with only 4 or 5 big men, I think they had better be big boned and on the husky side to minimize injuries.
It is possible to win an NCAA bid with such a team, I suppose, if everything breaks just right for WSU, but I wouldn't have much hope of advancing beyond the first round of the NCAA.
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Post by Dr J on Feb 2, 2015 11:11:16 GMT -5
Wolf, the two big men are not dressing or playing so they can have 4 years of eligibility left. I think that will be the best for the future. They will contribute much more then. This decision was made before Sledge made another bad decision. His decision not only hurt thr team but probably hurt him even more. If he had a good year he might have been able to play overseas and earn some money. That opportunity is now gone. We are going to be playing very small tonight. It will be interesting to see if BD us s some of the quickness to counter act that deficit. We need to drive inside to create fouls on their height. If we play a half court game with them a lot of people will leave at half time. The only way we will be competitive is to think offense, rebound and then defense. A good zone defense is needed to help our defensive effort against a taller team. The jumping ability of some of our shorter players can be used to help in a zone to help stop their inside game.
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Post by Fastbreak on Feb 2, 2015 13:13:13 GMT -5
I also remember that the three senior guards we are losing will be replaced by three new guards. That would indicate that the current structure of the team will remain as it is unless Donlon is going to cut loose some of his 9 guards, not counting Collie, another guard. You remember wrong. We had 4 seniors going into this season: Sledge, Griffin, Chrishawn, and Reggie. That is 1 post and 3 guards. We are replacing them with 2 posts (Lett, Ernsthausen) and 2 guards (Alstork, Hughes). Alan Vest is walking on his first year and we are trying to get another post player to walk on his first year too.
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Post by Black PantherU on Feb 2, 2015 17:32:13 GMT -5
Billy Donlon is an excellent basketball coach. That's all I need to see. Keep him around, we need WSU strong if the conference is going to get better.
Sent from my SCH-R970 using proboards
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Post by Dr J on Feb 2, 2015 18:03:21 GMT -5
Black PantherU, he is such a great coach because of his record against UWM?
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Post by raiderfan14 on Feb 2, 2015 19:22:19 GMT -5
As I read this thread I am moved to throw my full support in Billy Donlons corner. We have fans that think we were in glory days in the early 90's. We were good and it was exciting times I was there and rushed the court when we beat UIC in 92. Billy Donlon has size and skill coming in next year. I'm excited for it MORE because of the grit I see in these young men and his leadership.
My name is John Leo Berbach III and I'm a season ticket holder and proud supporter of coach Billy Donlon.
Class of 2002
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Post by keithfromxenia on Feb 2, 2015 19:31:47 GMT -5
daybreak, just so I understand. are we building our championship team with walkons???
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