Off season to do list

[Big D]

I’m still not past last nights total collapse to make a good objective post yet. I’ll try to make my thoughts on this topic known in the next few days. I would like to start a discussion on what everyone thinks our top priorities should be this off-season for Bob Grant, our coaching staff, our returning players, and our incoming recruits to make next season more successful. I know everyone is still just as disappointed as myself so I will just ask that we try to keep this discussion constructive and respectful.

[raiderrunt]

This could be a really good, positive, uplifting, and informative thread. I look forward to reading the comments.

[wsuairstrike]

There is a lot to talk about.
A few things out of our control, among many, is our conference. Am I bitter we lost as a two seed in the quarter finals, yes. But really this league should have the 1 & 2 seeds automatically advance to the semi finals. If the hl wants to have some sort of chance for teams to have a strong showing in March, that should be done for the conference tournament. CSU would be lucky to get a 15 seed, which I hope they do so the hl doesn't continue to look like trash. It also makes the regular season somewhat meaningful vs having the chance of a 5-X team advancing by just having 4 strong games. The byes seem meaningless as well if teams 5-X get a week to rest before playing in the quarter finals.

I also hope BG and others fight against adding horrible members like iupui. This conference can't take a Chicago State.

Team wise, someone else said it, this is out of our hands, but transfers. Hoping we stay strong and keep our strong core. On the bright side no transfers after a heart breaking loss. Had this been another program I don't think that would be the case the following day.

We need to increase our fan base, and we need to get younger fans. Love you all, especially the older fans, but we need to get younger in that regard. I'm not trying to hurt anyone's feelings but whenever I go to games the season ticket holders and the majority of fans, seem to be retirement age.

[Tipp City Raider]

Bob Grant has 3 major tasks this off-season. He needs to figure out how to add sports back in the next year to get us back yo the NCAA min for D1 athletics. He needs to improve our finances so we don’t need to rely on the university to cover as much of our athletic department expenses. That means finding new donors, corporate sponsors, and ways to create revenue like improving attendance and merchandise sales. Lastly, he needs to find a way to bring in new fans. That will help with attendance and donations.

[refrigeratorraider]

Scheduling. This sophomore class has played 2 seasons without a single game against a power conference team. It's also possible at the conclusion of the season, the sophomore class will not have played a single quad 1 or quad 2 game according to the NET rankings in their career. This team needs to have some challenging opponents and games. They need to be battle-tested. If/when the Raiders win the HL tournament and get back to the NCAA tournament, playing against bigger, stronger, faster, teams shouldn't be something new. They need to be experienced in close games, knowing how to pull out the win. This hurt the team this season and could have been a contributing factor against Milwaukee. The Raiders got too comfortable with big leads and cracked when games were close. The 6-point win at NKU was the only close game the Raiders won all season. I know scheduling is a very difficult thing. Give up a home game or two from the schedule. Go take a payday or schedule a 2-for-1. Do whatever is necessary. Just schedule a game or two against quality opponents. The players deserve the challenge and opportunity to prove themselves.

[OG Raiderfan]

I love Coach Nagy but I hope we see more growth in him this off-season than anyone else if we are ever going to take that next step as a program. It was talked about in the HL tournament thread already but I would like him to stop being so passive on the sidelines during games. He talks about preparing his team to play games at practice and lets them work through hard times during games. I really want to see him start using his timeouts more next year to stop other teams from going on runs and get his team back on track towards following his game plan. I really want to see him start utilizing all 13 scholarships and developing his bench. We only had 11 scholarship players this year and only suited up 10 due to an injury. Out of those 10, 6 played major minutes. 1 played regularly but few minutes. 3 barely saw the court. I get not playing the true freshman much that needed time in the weightroom but Andre Harris has been in the system for a year already and James Manns is in his 4th year in the system. Those 2 should have been ready to contribute this year. If they weren’t then it was on our staff for not developing them enough that they were ready or on our staff for not being honest with them and helping them find another program they would be better suited to transfer to so we could better utilize those scholarships.

[wsuraider09]

I don't know that anyone here can realistically expect anything different out of Nagy. There's things that he simply doesn't do, and we have to live with it. He doesn't play anything besides man defense, he doesn't call timeouts when we're struggling, and I don't think he goes to his bench enough when we can afford to do it. So those of you asking for growth or changes, I just don't think you're going to see it.

I think BG needs to work with leadership and figure out how to maximize value for every spent cent. It's no surprise that athletics have taken more than their fair share of cuts, which led to team cancelations that drop up below the NCAA minimums. Obviously we have a short waiver to return to d1 requirements, and that's got to be a priority. While we are still stretched thin, it's a tighrope, and BG has to manage that.

For the team in general, I think making it out with no major exoduses will be great. I'm worried last night may lead to some over reactions by our student athletes to seek greener pastures; hopefully Nagy can navigate that and we don't have any huge impact departures.

I was very vocal about our PG issues last off season and I think we can all agree that, while there was some flashed of brilliance, and some great games, we really missed Cole's leadership this year. There was a serious drop off in our production all around from the PG position. I think that is a position we need to figure out.

Is incoming freshman Keaton Norris the answer? Probably not as a freshman. Can Nagy squeeze more progress out of Trey Calvin? I'm not convinced he can. I'm hopeful, but not sold on it. I thought if there was a stopgap year where we needed an impact grad transfer it was last year, so I'm not convinced we will make any splashes unless there's a departure.

I know we feel like the sky is falling, but Green Bay has something like 5 players in the portal. We will probably still be the preseason favorite and everybody knows that we are always a dominant force in this league, and I don't see that changing.

Oh. And, can Love stay? That'd be swell.

[jerrygball]

I would tell the freshman that next year is going to be better for them and they'll feel more a part of this team. I can't imagine being a freshman in college in the year of Covid and starting to live your dream of playing college bball in front of no fans, with all kinds of restrictions, and instability. I know Huibrigste played a fair amount, but I thought the Raiders freshman looked more overwhelmed than previous years' classes. I think Covid probably attributed quite a bit to that, so I'm excited to see how the young players respond next year.

Trey Calvin hopefully takes the reigns and is more aggressive offensively. They need to get better at the guard position on both ends of the floor to win conference tournaments and win in March in general.

The return of fans will be great. Who knows how many will come back next year, but that will be fun to see again.

[Hoops Junkie]

Mar 3, 2021 23:14:11 GMT -5 wsuraider09 said:

I don't know that anyone here can realistically expect anything different out of Nagy. There's things that he simply doesn't do, and we have to live with it. He doesn't play anything besides man defense, he doesn't call timeouts when we're struggling, and I don't think he goes to his bench enough when we can afford to do it. So those of you asking for growth or changes, I just don't think you're going to see it..

I don’t agree with that at all. Nagy and his staff sit down with each player after the season and go over expectations for the next year and what they need to work on individually to get there. If he can except his players to work on their game and their conditioning, there is no reason for him to not look at his own shortcomings as a coach and work on that too. In part, that is where Bob Grant needs to step in. He also meets with each coaching staff and does a performance appraisal. I think he would be neglecting his own job responsibilities if he didn’t point out some of these issues with Nagy.

In regards to Nagy not being able to change, history proves you wrong. Historically Nagy does like to use a shorter bench, unless he trusts those players then he uses his bench more. Going back to his SDSU days he has used anywhere from 6-10 men in his primary rotation. If Gentry and Wampler were still on the team this year, we would be going 9 deep instead of 7 deep. It’s all a matter of trust with him. Nagy also traditionally likes to play 1 post and 4 big guards. He was able to change and went with 2 bigs this year because that is where our strength lied. Based on who comes back next year and how fast our younger big men look in the fall, we might still play 2 bigs. Nagy also traditionally liked to sign high school recruits and redshirt as many as he could. He rarely played true freshmen and he never recruited JUCOs. He took transfer players who had to sit out a year and he liked that because it gave them a chance to learn his system. Since coming to WSU he has started recruiting grad transfers. He has played more and more true freshmen and he has been recruiting JUCOs. We almost signed one last spring and I would wager that we will sign at least 1 this spring.

I don’t think Nagy likes change but I think he is capable of making some changes if needed. That being said, he is never going to play a zone defense, lol.

[Love and Raider Basketball]

1. Get fans in the Nutter Center so we can get our home court advantage back
2. Keep the core in tact
3. Add a dynamic guard via the Transfer Portal (Looking at you Amari Davis)
4. Get in some meaningful preseason tournaments. The more this team gets into one and done situations the better
5. Schedule some Power 5 teams in the OOC schedule

Look guys, I know it's hard to see right now, but we had one of the strongest years in Raider history. I don't want Nagy to change much because I believe he's the best coach we've ever had at this program. Take the lessons learned from this year, incorporate what you can and keep building. The timeout argument is so tired at this point.

While the trend of early outs in the tournament is worrisome, the tournament is always a crapshoot that's not going to change. The key is for us to get some marquee wins out of conference and for the rest of the league to get better so that we can be in the conversation for at-large bid when things like this happen.

[ohiopirate]

Mar 4, 2021 6:12:49 GMT -5 Hoops Junkie said:

Mar 3, 2021 23:14:11 GMT -5 wsuraider09 said:

I don't know that anyone here can realistically expect anything different out of Nagy. There's things that he simply doesn't do, and we have to live with it. He doesn't play anything besides man defense, he doesn't call timeouts when we're struggling, and I don't think he goes to his bench enough when we can afford to do it. So those of you asking for growth or changes, I just don't think you're going to see it..

I don’t agree with that at all. Nagy and his staff sit down with each player after the season and go over expectations for the next year and what they need to work on individually to get there. If he can except his players to work on their game and their conditioning, there is no reason for him to not look at his own shortcomings as a coach and work on that too. In part, that is where Bob Grant needs to step in. He also meets with each coaching staff and does a performance appraisal. I think he would be neglecting his own job responsibilities if he didn’t point out some of these issues with Nagy.

In regards to Nagy not being able to change, history proves you wrong. Historically Nagy does like to use a shorter bench, unless he trusts those players then he uses his bench more. Going back to his SDSU days he has used anywhere from 6-10 men in his primary rotation. If Gentry and Wampler were still on the team this year, we would be going 9 deep instead of 7 deep. It’s all a matter of trust with him. Nagy also traditionally likes to play 1 post and 4 big guards. He was able to change and went with 2 bigs this year because that is where our strength lied. Based on who comes back next year and how fast our younger big men look in the fall, we might still play 2 bigs. Nagy also traditionally liked to sign high school recruits and redshirt as many as he could. He rarely played true freshmen and he never recruited JUCOs. He took transfer players who had to sit out a year and he liked that because it gave them a chance to learn his system. Since coming to WSU he has started recruiting grad transfers. He has played more and more true freshmen and he has been recruiting JUCOs. We almost signed one last spring and I would wager that we will sign at least 1 this spring.

I don’t think Nagy likes change but I think he is capable of making some changes if needed. That being said, he is never going to play a zone defense, lol.

I agree with you. You can't come out post game and say that you made a lot of mistakes as the coach and then say "but I'm not going to change anything".

Honestly, I think we need to make sure our guys are as uncomfortable as possible about what happened Tuesday night. Don't hide from it. Don't focus on what a good season it was. It's ok to lose, but you can never get COMFORTABLE with losing. When you lose like we have the past couple years it needs to sting. I love reading in the paper that Basilie stayed on the floor for 30 minutes after the loss before going back to the locker room. I think he steps up as a huge leader for us with Love (presumably) gone next year. I think Nagy has brought a great culture to WSU. But even before he got here we were losing big games, national TV games, league tournament games that we should have won. Something needs to be done to keep it fresh in our guys' minds that isn't acceptable. Shoot, hang a picture of the scoreboard when we were up 24 points with 6.5 to play up in the the locker room. Something. Make it uncomfortable. Yes, I'm ranting and rambling and maybe these things are already happening within our program. But we are earning a reputation of coming up short when it matters in this league and it's hard to argue that label doesn't apply. Again, it's ok to lose but we need to get better from it somehow. I don't see how we continued to see the same issue of not being ready to take team's best shot on Friday and then blowing them out on Saturday this season.

With only one senior this year that is by all accounts a very nice guy - maybe we just didn't have that vocal presence in the locker room to rally the troops this year. I think we missed some leadership that I'm hoping Tanner or Grant step into next season. So trying to stay on topic of this thread - I'd like to see those guys working on their leadership traits as much as their basketball skills this off-season.

[bigredx24x]

Mar 3, 2021 22:13:37 GMT -5 wsuairstrike said:

 But really this league should have the 1 & 2 seeds automatically advance to the semi finals. 

This.  What's the point of the regular season?

[keithfromxenia]

Three thoughts. First, love, I agree with much of your post but I have changed my mind on the idea of the hl needing to get stronger. we cannot get out of the postseason tournament when it is loaded with crappy teams. I shudder to think of us trying to win it with 3-4 strong teams competing with us. We will be back to the era of one dance per decade.
Second, what this team lacks is mental toughness. We fold when on the big stage. Many years ago I thought Ed S had teams that were too “choirboyish”,they lacked that street fighter mentality that kept them from backing down in tough situations. I think we are similar right now, nobody has that “they are not going to beat us” mentality. Fridge referenced the schedule and that is part of it. Did we play a double digit net team after marshal??Did we play anyone who pushed us to perform at a higher level?? That is part of developing the mental toughness it takes to pull games out in difficult situations.

Third, maybe just maybe we are expecting too much from our program. This team lost four of its five league games to teams with a +200 net. Good teams do not lose that many games too bad teams. Maybe we should lower the bar.

[ohiopirate]

Lots of talk about scheduling but just to be fair, we were supposed to play Illinois this year before we cancelled our tournament due to Covid. But yes, we do need to keep some challenging opponents on the schedule for next year.

[hittmanraider]

I agree on the scheduling but we are a quality MM program. The Power 5 wants buy games they know they can win. We beat Georgia Tech a couple years ago and pushed Mississippi State as well. On the season ticket holder Q&A before the season, BG said we were supposed to play Virginia Tech this year and they pulled out of the game. Believe there was either a game or at least a discussion with Maryland as well.

I think a more realistic hope is to go after quality MM games - which we have been doing. Games with programs like Murray State, Belmont, Western Kentucky, etc. Also this was supposed to be the first year of the Summit/Horizon scheduling agreement, which pairs matchups between the 2 leagues. These matchups will be based on the strength of the teams. Hopefully that resumes next season and we can get a game with someone like South Dakota State, North Dakota State, etc.