I've always thought it is wrong to say Dane is a "good recruiter."

You could say Dane recruits talented players. But what's the value of talent with no system to develop or use their talents? In my mind a good recruiter is someone who can find the right pieces for their scheme. Bennett is currently starting/rotating an overlooked 3 star (Kihei Clark) and two 2 star transfers from mid majors (BVP and Gardner) in a conference where most teams have only 4 or 5 star recruits.

Kelsey is using a former d2 player (Bolon), and a decommit from Winthrop (Burnham) to crush the CAA. A good recruiter is someone who knows how to use the recruits.

(02-07-2023 02:42 PM)Tribe32 Wrote:  Not counting transfers, name one player that he recruited that has worked out. Don't say Ben Wight, because he was Kemp's recruit while he was at Ohio and who brought him here when Ohio pulled the offer.

I can name ten who haven't worked out or the jury is still out.

I am calling for Dane's head as much as the next guy but I don't think this is an entirely fair framework to evaluate a coach on.

First, I don't know why we'd disregard transfers, who have to be recruited all the same--with the amount of tampering that goes on, that's done well before players enter the portal. It's not like we wouldn't hang the banner if we won the championship with 13 hidden gems plucked off a P5 bench. They recruited three transfers with three years of eligibility presumably because they believed in them; if they thought the portal didn't matter they'd just fill empty roster spots with all seniors and take more bites at the high school apple, so I wouldn't judge them solely on Strategy A when they're also devoting resources to Strategy B.

Second, by a player "working out" I presume you're referring to someone that gets recruited, trained *and* retained. That third element is harder than ever in the world where every player is always a free agent and a giant percentage of players are switching teams every year. We certainly have not retained many of our players (Kochera, Lewis, Covington, Hatton, Loewe, Stone, whatever the heck happened with Thornton Scott, and any seniors who refuse a 5th year we might like to have) but I don't know how it compares to the "new normal" for programs for our level. There's certainly some bias involved: players with more promise are more likely to draw interest from enticing programs. Would we really have kept Knight or Thornton for four years if they could have ever been immediately eligible elsewhere?

With respect to training, I think most of us are agreed the staff is not maximizing the potential of our guys or utilizing them in optimal ways in-game. With respect purely to recruiting, though, I think we've done pretty decently. Year 1, it would've been nearly impossible on that timeline to find winning players (and they still got Wight, who I know is Kemp's, but, well, hiring assistant coaches with good relationships is part of being a good coach). I thought Kochera, Lewis and Karasinski were good recruits for this level, and Lemond might be one of the best in our last ~15 years. Obviously, with those latter two (and the other two freshmen), it's too son to say whether they can actually become effective players here *if* Dane is retained (which I am increasingly doubting).

I am going to use the UNCW team to make my point about our coaching staff. UNCW is one of the four best teams in our league (based on my personal fear factor I would group Charleston, Towson, and Hofstra tightly together and then put UNCW a smidgen below as 4th). You can probably throw a blanket over teams 5-13. I have thoroughly watched all 80 minutes of our two games against the Seahawks, the first on Flo and the second in person. After watching these two games, and with no disrespect to our friends to the south, there is hardly any difference between the talent on their roster and the talent on ours. Both games were extremely close and, except for the deficit that we had to overcome in the first half last Saturday, the margin between the two teams at any given point over the two games never hardly varied by more than 5 points. Yet UNCW is 9-3 (19-6) and we are 4-8 (9-16). There has to be a reason.

W&M is currently favored in 2 of last 6 games.
That probably still avoids the 12/13 play in as long as we beat Elon once
Finish in 9th 10 or 11
We’d be 11-20 counting the 2 non D1 scrimmages.
And 6-12 in conference
After last year’s 5-27, 4-10 conf, 9th place, and Tourney loss.

And it may not even be D’s fault, in reality D might be outperforming what anyone else we can afford could do. If we want the performance standard raised we have to raise all standards and pay for it.

(02-07-2023 04:07 PM)FauqDawg10 Wrote:  

(02-07-2023 02:42 PM)Tribe32 Wrote:  Not counting transfers, name one player that he recruited that has worked out. Don't say Ben Wight, because he was Kemp's recruit while he was at Ohio and who brought him here when Ohio pulled the offer.

I can name ten who haven't worked out or the jury is still out.

I am calling for Dane's head as much as the next guy but I don't think this is an entirely fair framework to evaluate a coach on.

First, I don't know why we'd disregard transfers, who have to be recruited all the same--with the amount of tampering that goes on, that's done well before players enter the portal. It's not like we wouldn't hang the banner if we won the championship with 13 hidden gems plucked off a P5 bench. They recruited three transfers with three years of eligibility presumably because they believed in them; if they thought the portal didn't matter they'd just fill empty roster spots with all seniors and take more bites at the high school apple, so I wouldn't judge them solely on Strategy A when they're also devoting resources to Strategy B.

Second, by a player "working out" I presume you're referring to someone that gets recruited, trained *and* retained. That third element is harder than ever in the world where every player is always a free agent and a giant percentage of players are switching teams every year. We certainly have not retained many of our players (Kochera, Lewis, Covington, Hatton, Loewe, Stone, whatever the heck happened with Thornton Scott, and any seniors who refuse a 5th year we might like to have) but I don't know how it compares to the "new normal" for programs for our level. There's certainly some bias involved: players with more promise are more likely to draw interest from enticing programs. Would we really have kept Knight or Thornton for four years if they could have ever been immediately eligible elsewhere?

With respect to training, I think most of us are agreed the staff is not maximizing the potential of our guys or utilizing them in optimal ways in-game. With respect purely to recruiting, though, I think we've done pretty decently. Year 1, it would've been nearly impossible on that timeline to find winning players (and they still got Wight, who I know is Kemp's, but, well, hiring assistant coaches with good relationships is part of being a good coach). I thought Kochera, Lewis and Karasinski were good recruits for this level, and Lemond might be one of the best in our last ~15 years. Obviously, with those latter two (and the other two freshmen), it's too son to say whether they can actually become effective players here *if* Dane is retained (which I am increasingly doubting).

This is a good post. Your points about how Dane gets the most out of the kids is spot on. My point was that many of the HS recruits don't work out, but that is limited to the long term tenure here. Some quit and others transferred as freshmen and sophomores. What makes me sick, is that many have left and are doing well at their new schools.

(02-07-2023 06:19 PM)Sic Semper Tyrranis Wrote:  W&M is currently favored in 2 of last 6 games.
That probably still avoids the 12/13 play in as long as we beat Elon once
Finish in 9th 10 or 11
We’d be 11-20 counting the 2 non D1 scrimmages.
And 6-12 in conference
After last year’s 5-27, 4-10 conf, 9th place, and Tourney loss.

And it may not even be D’s fault, in reality D might be outperforming what anyone else we can afford could do. If we want the performance standard raised we have to raise all standards and pay for it.

No offense, but I think we could give the job to a random person off the streets and call it an unpaid intern job and get results as good as Dane has gotten.

I think at least half of the CAA is in the bottom 100 among NCAA tourney teams. That is really, really bad and sadly we still can't beat most of them.

Just rip the band-aid off and cut our losses. Hopefully we can get a decent hire and be somewhat relevant again in 3 or so years.

Truly anyone could do better at this point. If you put in a zone d with Mullins and Nelson at the top and played Tony's hybrid Princeton offense with only one "big" we'd easily win 4 of 6. It doesn't take much bball knowledge to realize neither side is working well for us. Sacrifice D to play fast paced O and Dorsey and Nelson would be in the 20s every game, Mullins would force turnovers and take it to the rack like Britt used to do. We've seen bits but our painfully slow pace brings us down.

I wish Dane many future successes as an assistant at d1 or maybe a shot at head of d3. Paulsen getting canned at Mason should've been the writing on the wall for Dane. Significantly more success at a higher level with this bleh system still didn't earn him an extension.

(02-08-2023 10:27 AM)W+M4TW Wrote:  Truly anyone could do better at this point. If you put in a zone d with Mullins and Nelson at the top and played Tony's hybrid Princeton offense with only one "big" we'd easily win 4 of 6. It doesn't take much bball knowledge to realize neither side is working well for us. Sacrifice D to play fast paced O and Dorsey and Nelson would be in the 20s every game, Mullins would force turnovers and take it to the rack like Britt used to do. We've seen bits but our painfully slow pace brings us down.

I wish Dane many future successes as an assistant at d1 or maybe a shot at head of d3. Paulsen getting canned at Mason should've been the writing on the wall for Dane. Significantly more success at a higher level with this bleh system still didn't earn him an extension.

With the exception of teams in the league that have a real inside presence (Towson, Drexel, Delaware) that demand that we matchup with front court manpower, we are a much better team playing with only one interior player on the court at a time. If the two games against UNCW does not prove this point, I do not know what does. Rice looked as good Saturday as I have seen him since he has been here. He found openings in the defense and went straight to the rim. Same, finally, for Mullins, whose full speed 360 dribble at mid court at the end of the game certainly shows a pretty good level of athleticism. Having Nelson, Mullins, and Rice on the floor at the same time was actually quite enjoyable, and I did not see a noticeable absence of defense while the three were on the court at the same time. The one big mistake that I think that Dane made on Saturday when he decided to go small was to not have Jack in the game instead of Gabe. If defenses are making a concerted effort to defend Gabe's 3's and are succeeding, Jack is a much better player to have on the court with the 3 guards.

The management of our personnel throughout the season has just been so frustrating to watch. The personnel that we had on the floor for the majority of Saturday's game could win 5 of our last 6 games IF we could just start doing what it appears we can do the best. And that team might be fun to watch in March!!

(02-08-2023 12:39 AM)WMtribe17 Wrote:  I think at least half of the CAA is in the bottom 100 among NCAA tourney teams. That is really, really bad and sadly we still can't beat most of them.

In the NET through yesterday, 7 (a majority) are in the bottom 75 of 353 teams. They are North Carolina A&T in 289th, Northeastern in 290th, you in 307th, Stony Brook in 324th, Elon in 327th, Hampton in 351st, and Monmouth in 354th.

Man, that IS bad, when Monmouth is #354 out of 353 teams. That must put them below an empty spot.

You think THAT is bad, wait until we lose to them at home to finish our season.

(02-09-2023 09:22 AM)billymac Wrote:  Man, that IS bad, when Monmouth is #354 out of 353 teams. That must put them below an empty spot.

The 353 is now 363 for this year.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Given who we play the rest of the season, we're only going to get worse unless with run the table.

(02-09-2023 01:01 PM)wmmii Wrote:  

(02-09-2023 09:22 AM)billymac Wrote:  Man, that IS bad, when Monmouth is #354 out of 353 teams. That must put them below an empty spot.

The 353 is now 363 for this year.

I made a typo.