Next Year's men's team

I was just thinking about the team that we will have for next year, and I think that it will be a solid team!!!!!! I think that we will have a great core of talent, with Hillard, Ross, Mitchell, and than if we can get some help in the late signing period, we will be a good team, but I think the key will be the recruits that we will land, and improving the second team to where there is no dropoff when they come in to give the starters some rest, and I think that is a huge part of what has hurt us this year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Go Lamar!!!!!!!!!!

 

Knightman

That was my impression when attending the Colorado State game. It appeared to me that we were one or two starters away from making a difference. We also had a drop-off when the starters came off the floor; however, there was some very good play by some of the players relieving the starters.

 

I'm hoping we have a 180 change like some of these teams with the same coach.

 

Ball State 14-14 to 29-3 (1987-1988 to 1988-1989)

Missouri 16-16 to 31-7 (2007-2008 to 2008-2009)

Washington State 11-17 to 26-8 (2005-2006 to 2006-2007)

Texas 11-17 to 26-8 (1992-1993 to 1993-1994)

LSU 12-15 to 28-6 (1998-1999 to 1999-2000)

Boston College 11-19 to 27-5 (1999-2000 to 2000-2001)

Nebraska 10-18 to 26-8 (1989-1990 to 1990-1991)

 

There are other examples involving coaching changes such as Coach Knight's first season here. The above are turnarounds with the same coach.

 

Source: realclearsports.com article "Top 10 Biggest Turnarounds in NCAA Basketball".

 

http://www.realclearsports.com/lists/turnarounds_ncaa_basketball/intro.html

 

 

It's great to see such optimism when so much negativity has been floating around. Lamar's players have played hard all season in a schedule that was definitely stacked against them. We have not seen the benefits so far this season but the experience the players got this year will serve them well going forward. I am thinking along the same lines as Knightman. Rome wasn't built in a day and the program will take more than a year and half. Fans tend to be impatient and I get that when you see other programs turn around faster but you just don't know all the details of the how or why they turned around so fast. I still think we need to withhold judgement until coach Knight's freshman class are seniors.

Not meaning to be negative but the fact is that unless some of the bottom players on the squad leave LU only has one scholarship available, so what ever recruit we get better be solid. The other current ? is what will Tyron L. do for us next year. I assume he will be eligible.

I think that one of the biggest keys for us other than what I said at the start of this post, besides continuing to get better on the defensive end for next year, is to cut the turnovers at least in half!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Go Cards!!!!!!!!!

 

Knightman

I think that we forget that we had two players who were underclassmen dismissed off the team from last year who, if they had not flunked out, would've made a big difference. We would have had an experiences point guard and size in the middle. But, coulda woulda shoulda......

Yes, that did hurt us losing two of our most experienced guys last year!!!!!!!!!! And that left a team without a leader from within the team playing new players, and the staff having no choice but to throw them in the fire, one of two things will happen when you hit the fire of the season, you will either bow up and fight, or you will wilt under the pressure!!! But I think that we will can make a splash in the late signing period with the scholarship, and improve our bench, I believe that we will have a season like the first year that Pat and the staff were here!!!!!!!!!! But that being said, I still believe that we can win some games this year!!!!!!!!!

 

Knightman

Maybe Pat Knight is a good coach but he seems totally inept at recruiting. He inherited a senior-laden team and follows that up by recruiting a lot of freshmen, which is fine if they are quality D1 players. But in the SLC it's rare that freshmen make a splash, so why didn't he bring in a mix of Juco's and freshmen?

 

So we get the debacle that was last year, so he turns around and brings in a bunch of Jucos for this year. With a couple of starters returning and a bunch of Jucos coming in they should win a lot more games. Here we are again at 3 wins for the whole season!

 

Why would anyone expect this team is 1 or 2 players away from a good team next year? Pat Knight has yet to recruit an impact player, so with only 1 or 2 scholarships available what are the odds he'll bring in a couple of impact players after posting back-to-back sub 5-win seasons?

 

A few weeks ago I thought maybe they could have a decent team next year, and maybe they'll win 10 games next year, who knows. But next year there will be a lot of seniors on the team so they'll be back to rebuilding mode after that. It's hard to get optimistic about the future.

I may be wrong but I believe to become consistent LU must recruit two to three freshmen every year and scatter JUCO kids to fill in the gaps. Recruiting seven or eight players every two years or so at the SLC level will probably never become consistent. This years team has two freshman recruits in Mattingly and Owens. While they are not making major contributions this year they appear to have the ability to improve and be significant contributors in a couple of years.

Referencing Coachacola's comments above, I was one of the ones who thought we were 1 to 2 players away. After Saturday's game, that may still be the case, but a lot needs to happen with the current players. They were not the same team I saw at CSU. I don't know if the team is calling it in after all the beat downs or what, but we should have been more competitive than that. Scoring only 11 points on our home court in a half is criminal unless college basketball goes back to the old 4 corner offense made popular by Dean Smith at North Carolina.

Referencing Coachacola's comments above, I was one of the ones who thought we were 1 to 2 players away. After Saturday's game, that may still be the case, but a lot needs to happen with the current players. They were not the same team I saw at CSU. I don't know if the team is calling it in after all the beat downs or what, but we should have been more competitive than that. Scoring only 11 points on our home court in a half is criminal unless college basketball goes back to the old 4 corner offense made popular by Dean Smith at North Carolina.

 

We can say this and that and make all kinds of excuses but at the end do the day it is on Knight. This is a joke and this is HIS doing. Fire his butt, pony up some money, and get someone worth a damn. If not, move down to division 2 or 3 or whatever and go low budget.

LU won't be worth a shit until Knight is gone,...we suck..in one of the suckiest conferences

 

Knight Sucks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Listened to the coaches show on KLVI tonight and Knight does know what is missing. He said that the kid sitting out because of the NCAA not clearing him would have been a starter. He knows that he didn't get the recruits needed the first two years. I think the basketball program is in a similar position to what the football program was during the 2012 season. It really looks bad but it might not close to turning the corner. There are eight games left this season with four of them against the top three teams in the league. So the question is can LU win at least two more games.

Pat Knight and his staff are getting well paid:

 

[table][tr][td]Patrick C. Knight[/td] [td]$204,000[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Kermit L. Holmes[/td] [td]$96,900[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Jeffrey S. Wagers[/td] [td]$89,000[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Sherron E. Wilkerson[/td] [td]$84,660[/td][/tr][/table]

 

I bet they'll be around next year. I have my doubts about a big turnaround in wins but I hope I'm wrong. In 2011 Coach Roc only won 9 games against D1 opponents, then Pat Knight came in and won 21 games. Maybe next year he can win 15+ games with the addition of a couple of good players.

 

http://www.texastribune.org/library/data/government-employee-salaries/lamar-university/departments/mens-basketball/14522/

Pat Knight and his staff are getting well paid:

 

[table][tr][td]Patrick C. Knight[/td] [td]$204,000[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Kermit L. Holmes[/td] [td]$96,900[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Jeffrey S. Wagers[/td] [td]$89,000[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Sherron E. Wilkerson[/td] [td]$84,660[/td][/tr][/table]

 

I bet they'll be around next year. I have my doubts about a big turnaround in wins but I hope I'm wrong. In 2011 Coach Roc only won 9 games against D1 opponents, then Pat Knight came in and won 21 games. Maybe next year he can win 15+ games with the addition of a couple of good players.

 

http://www.texastribune.org/library/data/government-employee-salaries/lamar-university/departments/mens-basketball/14522/

 

Don't post Gilligan's or Lowe's will run out of torches and pitchforks. :'(

Listened to the coaches show on KLVI tonight and Knight does know what is missing. He said that the kid sitting out because of the NCAA not clearing him would have been a starter. He knows that he didn't get the recruits needed the first two years. I think the basketball program is in a similar position to what the football program was during the 2012 season. It really looks bad but it might not close to turning the corner. There are eight games left this season with four of them against the top three teams in the league. So the question is can LU win at least two more games.

 

He knows we suck so let's keep him around. And this is nowhere near where the football program was or is. The football program has every excuse in the world to suck royally and it only partially sucks. The basketball program has no legitimate excuse to suck royally yet it does!!!!???

Many who were saying at the end of the 2012 football season that Woodard should be fired changed their tune by the end of this year. I don't think firing Knight this year and coming up with 200K to pay him off is worth one more year of sucking. You can't afford to dump all of the kids on scholarship either so next years team won't change much regardless of who the coach is and if (big IF) Knight finds the right piece or pieces to add we might all be surprised next year.

Coaches like to get players who fit their philosophy, so this might take awhile. The players Roc recruited should have fit his system, but IMO he did not coach them up to be successful. If Pat Knight gets his own players - which may take 3-4 years total - and are not successful, then he should be shown the door. It will take a new coach about 3-4 seasons to get the type of personnel he wants for his system. It doesn't seem like, as I see comments on this board, that there is that much patience with this process. If that's the case, we will be mired in mediocrity for a very long time.

Coaches like to get players who fit their philosophy, so this might take awhile. The players Roc recruited should have fit his system, but IMO he did not coach them up to be successful. If Pat Knight gets his own players - which may take 3-4 years total - and are not successful, then he should be shown the door. It will take a new coach about 3-4 seasons to get the type of personnel he wants for his system. It doesn't seem like, as I see comments on this board, that there is that much patience with this process. If that's the case, we will be mired in mediocrity for a very long time.

 

AB, have you seen any games? It's not about getting his players in here so he can win. If you watch the games, the guys are lack luster to say the least. They are out muscled, out hustled, not improving and in some cases getting worse, not being developed, and most should not be on a division 1 basketball team. This isn't about him not having his players so he can't win. It's about him not knowing what is or what is not a player. He does not know how to evaluate talent and he does not know how to coach what little talent he has. I would buy the argument that his issue is not having his players if he had won more games with Roc's team in his first year. That team should have won a minimum of 25 games. There was that much talent there. they made it to the NCAAs despite Knight, not because of him.

Big T, I have seen most of the games I can from long distance. Starters are adequate, albeit woefully inconsistent. There is absolutely NO help from the bench, No git-after-it as far as rebounding, a lot of unforced errors, and Mitchell hasn't met a shot he didn't like - unfortunately he misses a lot - A WHOLE LOT!!!! This is not the type of team I saw from Knight in Lubbock. I also believe the first year we had really good coaching, but this year the coaching is not effective. Turnover, maybe; but I think there seems to be a bigger issue here. Just a hunch, tho......

I really started doubting when I saw us try a three point shot very late in the game nursing a small lead against HBU at home. It showed a lack of discipline and I suspect ignoring coaching instructions.

 

Might be wrong, but we don't shoot that many threes. Why not just run time off the clock. (Might have been a shot clock issue, but I don't think so. I've slept since then, but I don't remember a bunch of passes or ball handling before throwing it up.)

 

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Knight needs to be gone. He can't recruit, and I haven't seen any clue that he can coach. LSCPA in 2012 hired a new coach with 4 weeks to recruit and ZERO returning players, and he built a team that was competitive in the toughest JUCO division in the country. There are 6-8 teams there that coulld finish in the top third of the SLC year in and year out. What's stopping PK from recruiting like that? It sure ain't LSCPA's superior facilities. There is ZERO excuse for the poor recruiting. That, and the fact that the Seahawks would run the Cardinals out of the gym.

Can't say for sure but there is a pretty good chance that most of the kids playing at LSCPA couldn't make a D1 team for academic reasons. That however is no excuse for PK not to recruit them. Their records the past several years are better than the school that we got Amos Wilson from.

if they cant meet D1 standards, why recruit em?

That's one of two main reason kids go to JUCO. Either they don't meet academic standards to get into a D1 school or they are hoping to get a look from a higher level program after proving themselves at a JUCO.