Where this program stands

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commadore
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Re: Where this program stands

Post by commadore »

buffy wrote: Thu Apr 29, 2021 8:54 pm I've thought about this awhile. Scottie, Dylan and Isaac are selfish children. We would've been a decent team next year. Their teammates, who aren't good enough to whore out their services somewhere else have been abandoned. These teammates now get to look forward to a bunch of loses instead of the hope of building something together. It's shitty. I don't really buy any of the other explanations. Life is hard. Suck it up and work through it. (Clearly assuming there's nothing fundamentally jacked up with CJS behavior)
In other words: Sweat dries, Blood clots, bones heal, Suck it up Buttercup. :)


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Re: Where this program stands

Post by Jason94 »

buffy wrote: Thu Apr 29, 2021 8:54 pm I've thought about this awhile. Scottie, Dylan and Isaac are selfish children. We would've been a decent team next year. Their teammates, who aren't good enough to whore out their services somewhere else have been abandoned. These teammates now get to look forward to a bunch of loses instead of the hope of building something together. It's shitty. I don't really buy any of the other explanations. Life is hard. Suck it up and work through it. (Clearly assuming there's nothing fundamentally jacked up with CJS behavior)
That may be a little harsh, but ultimately true. I haven't heard anything to suggest that CJS necessarily caused them to leave, but retaining people is easily (if not more) important than recruiting (though maybe not to the extent that it is in business). And the overall state of the program remains the responsibility of CJS. It is certainly different than not being able to get kid into school - they were already enrolled (and to my knowledge in good academic standing).

The reality is that even though a lot of it may not be CJS' doing, he is staring at a third consecutive difficult season, and will be looking to replace two of our best players the following season as Chatman and Robbins are only available for a single season. It could very well be a fourth consecutive season of having to replace the leading scorer and hoping for a very large jump in production from someone to replace that. His ability to continue to attract SEC quality players to the program will definitely be challenged the longer he has to wait for that breakthrough season. 2022 could have been it but now we will never know.
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Re: Where this program stands

Post by buffy »

I'm just thoroughly butt hurt. :) I just would like to expect more from kids. But you know, they're just kids.
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Re: Where this program stands

Post by charlestonalum »

At the risk of over simplification aren't there only 2 strategies?
1. Go for one and done and rebuild every year
2. Go for 3 stars, develop over 4-5 years and build a team
It would seem the latter us best suited for where we are than the first - now that we have seen results with both.
The Vanderbilt coach has academics, the SEC, and team success to sell as opposed to a finishing school for the NBA.
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Re: Where this program stands

Post by UltimateVUFan »

charlestonalum wrote: Fri Apr 30, 2021 6:06 am At the risk of over simplification aren't there only 2 strategies?
1. Go for one and done and rebuild every year
2. Go for 3 stars, develop over 4-5 years and build a team
It would seem the latter us best suited for where we are than the first - now that we have seen results with both.
The Vanderbilt coach has academics, the SEC, and team success to sell as opposed to a finishing school for the NBA.
Except that wasn’t VU the only school in the NCAA to put players in the lottery in the last two drafts or some such anomaly? The track record of putting guys into the NBA the past few seasons has been fine, but the team success has been dismal. (So he could sell NBA placement, but it sure seems detrimental to the state of the program. What a weird turn of events the past few seasons have been...)
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Re: Where this program stands

Post by Jason94 »

UltimateVUFan wrote: Fri Apr 30, 2021 12:32 pm
charlestonalum wrote: Fri Apr 30, 2021 6:06 am At the risk of over simplification aren't there only 2 strategies?
1. Go for one and done and rebuild every year
2. Go for 3 stars, develop over 4-5 years and build a team
It would seem the latter us best suited for where we are than the first - now that we have seen results with both.
The Vanderbilt coach has academics, the SEC, and team success to sell as opposed to a finishing school for the NBA.
Except that wasn’t VU the only school in the NCAA to put players in the lottery in the last two drafts or some such anomaly? The track record of putting guys into the NBA the past few seasons has been fine, but the team success has been dismal. (So he could sell NBA placement, but it sure seems detrimental to the state of the program. What a weird turn of events the past few seasons have been...)
Jay Wright has made a career of the latter model - lot of three and four year players up through his second championship, where the level of talent has accelerated so much that he is starting to get guys who are ready for the NBA almost immediately.

Even teams that do get one and done players have to supplement their roster with solid 3 and 4 year players, guys like Jeff Roberson.

Roster management is one of the major responsibilities of a HC and it has been a disaster the last three seasons. CJS shouldn't actually get a lot of the blame for this, but if he cannot address the issue that we have in this area it is difficult to see how he will have success.
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Re: Where this program stands

Post by dore74 »

This is the best discussion on the state of Vanderbilt hoops i have seen, period, full, stop. Jason you are wonderful to follow. Buffy, who i have developed much respect for over the years, being so negative is a real downer.

Agree with the points about how weird it is that we have had all these first rounders and have throughly sucked at the same time, how depressing the experience must be for the kids on the team and how the world, in some ways, has moved to a place that makes college hoops a game played more of a mercenaries (ok being a bit dramatic, would be professionals) rather than kids who attend VU.

This really is Coach Stackhouse's make or break year. The fact that he couldn't keep Disu with a decent cast coming in, even if Buffy's take is correct, is not good. If Pippin isn't drafted and leaves anyway, same demerit on the staff. On the other hand, we could have a group of no names with enough skill that with some good coaching becomes a .500 SEC team next year. More realistically, another low single digit SEC win season and here comes a new staff and we start the dang process all over again...

Anyway, thanks for sharing our misery you all, much appreciated.
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Re: Where this program stands

Post by UltimateVUFan »

dore74 wrote: Fri Apr 30, 2021 2:21 pm On the other hand, we could have a group of no names with enough skill that with some good coaching becomes a .500 SEC team next year. More realistically, another low single digit SEC win season and here comes a new staff and we start the dang process all over again...
I’m not sure I agree that this year is the make or break year for Stack. He inherited a bit of a dumpster fire. If Pippen doesn’t return and he coaches the team to a .500 SEC record I think he could conceivably get more than one SEC CoY vote from the league’s coaches. If he improves at all on this year’s mark, I suspect he will have earned at least one more season before his seat starts to heat up, but with the caveat that there should be minimal unexpected roster turnover. He has a solid recruiting class shaping up for 2022. He’s in an odd boat there, too, as several other high level recruits have VU in contention, but he may have a limited number of scholarships to dole out. It will be interesting to watch how the rest of the recruiting cycle unfolds.
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Re: Where this program stands

Post by Jason94 »

UltimateVUFan wrote: Fri Apr 30, 2021 3:12 pm
dore74 wrote: Fri Apr 30, 2021 2:21 pm On the other hand, we could have a group of no names with enough skill that with some good coaching becomes a .500 SEC team next year. More realistically, another low single digit SEC win season and here comes a new staff and we start the dang process all over again...
I’m not sure I agree that this year is the make or break year for Stack. He inherited a bit of a dumpster fire. If Pippen doesn’t return and he coaches the team to a .500 SEC record I think he could conceivably get more than one SEC CoY vote from the league’s coaches. If he improves at all on this year’s mark, I suspect he will have earned at least one more season before his seat starts to heat up, but with the caveat that there should be minimal unexpected roster turnover. He has a solid recruiting class shaping up for 2022. He’s in an odd boat there, too, as several other high level recruits have VU in contention, but he may have a limited number of scholarships to dole out. It will be interesting to watch how the rest of the recruiting cycle unfolds.
Isn't that the definition of "make or break" though? If he has another 3-15 season and his "commits" end up signing elsewhere, it is conceivable that a move could be made. It would be a shame if this happened, as CJS has shown a very good ability to develop player and a pretty good in-game coach. But ability to manage the roster is also among his responsibilities, and he needs to have something to show for three years of effort besides another 3 win SEC season.
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Re: Where this program stands

Post by MrMemorial »

The ability to win close games will be critical. The addition of veterans like Chatman And Robbins could help.

Some of last year's losses:
@UK by 3
Miss. St. by 3
@Florida by 7
@Georgia by 3
@Auburn by 6
UK by 4
@Bama by 4

Seven SEC games that were lost by an average of 4.28 points per.

That ended up being the difference between 16-9/10-7 and where we ended up.

Also, FT shooting HAS to be better. Clevon and Evans were abysmal at the line last season: 53% & 50% plus QMB's I won't mention. Chatman shot 78% as a Soph. but slumped last season on free tosses while Robbins is a tad below 70% (typical for a big guy) while Frank has no sample size in college for FT's. Not sure if 4 points per game can be made up with better FT shooting, but it's possible by making more front ends of 1-&-1's

I'm not sure if the sports archive I looked at was correct, but it says Bralee Albert has never missed a free throw in college? Maybe the end of the game is the time to have him in, not the first half.
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Re: Where this program stands

Post by Jason94 »

MrMemorial wrote: Fri Apr 30, 2021 3:38 pm The ability to win close games will be critical. The addition of veterans like Chatman And Robbins could help.

Some of last year's losses:
@UK by 3
Miss. St. by 3
@Florida by 7
@Georgia by 3
@Auburn by 6
UK by 4
@Bama by 4

Seven SEC games that were lost by an average of 4.28 points per.

That ended up being the difference between 16-9/10-7 and where we ended up.

Also, FT shooting HAS to be better. Clevon and Evans were abysmal at the line last season: 53% & 50% plus QMB's I won't mention. Chatman shot 78% as a Soph. but slumped last season on free tosses while Robbins is a tad below 70% (typical for a big guy) while Frank has no sample size in college for FT's. Not sure if 4 points per game can be made up with better FT shooting, but it's possible by making more front ends of 1-&-1's

I'm not sure if the sports archive I looked at was correct, but it says Bralee Albert has never missed a free throw in college? Maybe the end of the game is the time to have him in, not the first half.
I think we discussed this a while back, but actually our ability to avoid blowouts is probably more critical than close losses, which is a pretty random thing (as was demonstrated in that thread). We need to bring our getting outscored by an average of 8 points per 100 possessions to somewhere around even. That would very likely lead to a lot more wins, but is a pretty large task.

I would probably be more concerned about how many FT's we attempt than the overall percentage, and if Pippen returns we will be fine in both categories, but if not we are likely to have issues in both. Outside of Wright (who is marginal) nobody returning gave the opponents any reason to foul them, and led to FT%'s that didn't really mean anything due to sample sizes (getting to the line on average less than 1 time per game).

Albert's sample size is so small that his FT percentage probably isn't significant, though it is good that he is able to hit them despite almost never getting to the line. The main issue with keeping him in the game is that he was 3-21 from the field last season, despite taking an almost insignificant volume of shots. Basically a player who isn't a threat to shoot and isn't much of a threat to make a shot when he does, which is why nobody bothers to foul him.
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Re: Where this program stands

Post by alathIN »

buffy wrote: Thu Apr 29, 2021 8:54 pm I've thought about this awhile. Scottie, Dylan and Isaac are selfish children. We would've been a decent team next year. Their teammates, who aren't good enough to whore out their services somewhere else have been abandoned. These teammates now get to look forward to a bunch of loses instead of the hope of building something together. It's shitty. I don't really buy any of the other explanations. Life is hard. Suck it up and work through it. (Clearly assuming there's nothing fundamentally jacked up with CJS behavior)
I share your disappointment - with those three plus the transfers this could have been a really good team and Vanderbilt fans are overdue for some goodness.

But I'm not so critical of the players. If you think about how miserable The Year of Covid has been for everyone, then multiply that by being a college athlete living in a strictly monitored bubble, mostly online classes, no social life, and homework and practice are as hard as ever, their misery index is probably higher than the average American's and it's easy to see how they'd get fed up. Not to mention all the losing they have endured.
I work in health care, and it's been a pretty difficult year for me - but I'm 56 and probably better equipped with patience and maturity to cope - plus realize that moving to a different hospital would not really change my circumstances.
But it is not hard to understand why an 18-20 year old would get fed up, say "this sucks," and want to change their environment.
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Re: Where this program stands

Post by buffy »

dore74 wrote: Fri Apr 30, 2021 2:21 pm This is the best discussion on the state of Vanderbilt hoops i have seen, period, full, stop. Jason you are wonderful to follow. Buffy, who i have developed much respect for over the years, being so negative is a real downer.

Agree with the points about how weird it is that we have had all these first rounders and have throughly sucked at the same time, how depressing the experience must be for the kids on the team and how the world, in some ways, has moved to a place that makes college hoops a game played more of a mercenaries (ok being a bit dramatic, would be professionals) rather than kids who attend VU.

This really is Coach Stackhouse's make or break year. The fact that he couldn't keep Disu with a decent cast coming in, even if Buffy's take is correct, is not good. If Pippin isn't drafted and leaves anyway, same demerit on the staff. On the other hand, we could have a group of no names with enough skill that with some good coaching becomes a .500 SEC team next year. More realistically, another low single digit SEC win season and here comes a new staff and we start the dang process all over again...

Anyway, thanks for sharing our misery you all, much appreciated.
Yeah, I know. A bit uncharacteristic. But man, it just feels like everybody is just hyper selfish and completely unconcerned about how their actions affect others. You just want to sit there and say, "why don't you kick my dog on your way out the door." It's not that it's unfixable, I just don't see how its fixable in the short to medium term. I think you need a coach that "get's it" regarding Vanderbilt. I think CJS has all the talent he needs. There's just a finite window of time a coach can sell a narrative and CJS' time is getting short.
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Is there another Power 5 school

Post by DeefromAtlanta »

Whose football and Men's and Women's basketball programs are all in such a state of flux?

Yes, we've made new hires in two of the three (and most feel good about the hires), but I doubt there is another program that has been what this athletic department has been through over the past three years.
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