For those playing along at home, VU still has two remaining roster spots

[Obvious]

Ideally, if they are used correctly, you are correct, especially with QMB, who did every hustle thing he could to make up for his lack of athleticism and scoring ability. But CJS played Thomas like a starter, not a 4th or 5th option. Remember that Thomas started 17 games last season, the same number of games that Jordan Wright started and he played almost the same number of minutes as Wright. Thomas basically started the first half of the SEC season over Manjon. Only at the end of the season did Thomas' PT go down, but that was due to his 3 pt shooting going from bad to horrible, hitting just 6 of his last 32 attempts.

I guess I don't have any reason to believe that West, Taylor, Rivera-Torres or Presley will be any less of a team guy, but do have a lot of reason to believe they each will be a better defender, and better shooter than what Thomas showed last season.

Additionally, he wasn't pushed out - he has chosen to leave. Why are you standing up so hard for someone who doesn't want to play for us anymore? IMO CJS gave him more PT than he deserved, and to repay that Thomas put his name into the portal. If he goes to some school in Canada I'll understand somewhat, but only Ezra Manjon shot the three worse than Thomas did, nobody had a lower rebounding rate, and only Stute and Dia shot the ball worse from inside the arc. All of this and he still got the 5th most minutes of anyone on the team, ahead of Robbins, QMB and Smith, as well as Shelby, Dort, Lewis and Dia. Too me it seems rather ungrateful for all the faith CJS put in Thomas despite being in a two year slump that probably hurt the team overall. CJS gave Thomas more opportunity to break out of the slump than most any coach in the country would have.

Now, if CJS told Thomas he wasn't going to get a scholarship next season, I'll gladly apologize to Thomas, but I would be surprised if CJS would do this as he has displayed more integrity than that. But if CJS told Thomas that he would have to accept a smaller role and that caused Thomas to transfer (which feels much more likely), then I will shed zero tears as CJS showed Thomas plenty of faith through a ton of PT despite poor shooting.

Quite frankly, I think we lucked out that Thomas didn't see how well he was being treated by CJS and instead of accepting a smaller role more befitting of his talent level, he decided to transfer, and we don't have to worry that if one of the newcomers doesn't pick up the system immediately that CJS will just default to Thomas like he did this season. I just don't see how we can again afford to have a player play over 20 minutes per game and shoot 30% from three while bringing almost nothing else to the floor.

First of all. I didn’t say that Thomas was forced out. I did hear from a good source that he was told that he likely wouldn’t get nearly as much PT as he did this year next year. Not sure about the scholarship. Again. If he decided on his own, to leave, I’m fine with that. If he was told that with a healthy ‘and it would be better for you to transfer’, I do have a problem with that. Bryce Drew tried to force Joe Toye to transfer and Joe went to David Williams who shut it down. But the damage was done. Joe was a popular player and the team didn’t appreciate the effort.

I always thought Joe Toye was near a breakout season had he been with Stallings a little bit longer.

[Vandy187187]

I posted in another thread that over the past few years I found it troubling we couldn't keep our Frosh. I chalked it up to wrong fit wrong team. But after 3 empty classes after 3 years something is off. It can't just be NIL, it can't just be Vandy. Who else is losing 4-5 transfers many of which are STARTERS and the early Stack class. Everyone else already left and now the leaders are leaving. Who is at fault nobody knows. But nobody stayed that should have stayed. Even QMB said he would stay and didn't an apparent 180* turn. Wright leaves, Lawrence leaves. Those were the big 3 that stack said he would build a program around. Nobody stayed. Nobody.

Here we are 4 open roster spots, 5 incoming Frosh. 3 of the 5 of last year's Frosh stayed. So we have Manjon, Smith, and all. newbies on the roster. Lovely, 5 years in. Whose fault is it? At some point results matter. results were fantastic in March '23 but look terrible moving forward.

[Jason94]

Ideally, if they are used correctly, you are correct, especially with QMB, who did every hustle thing he could to make up for his lack of athleticism and scoring ability. But CJS played Thomas like a starter, not a 4th or 5th option. Remember that Thomas started 17 games last season, the same number of games that Jordan Wright started and he played almost the same number of minutes as Wright. Thomas basically started the first half of the SEC season over Manjon. Only at the end of the season did Thomas' PT go down, but that was due to his 3 pt shooting going from bad to horrible, hitting just 6 of his last 32 attempts.

I guess I don't have any reason to believe that West, Taylor, Rivera-Torres or Presley will be any less of a team guy, but do have a lot of reason to believe they each will be a better defender, and better shooter than what Thomas showed last season.

Additionally, he wasn't pushed out - he has chosen to leave. Why are you standing up so hard for someone who doesn't want to play for us anymore? IMO CJS gave him more PT than he deserved, and to repay that Thomas put his name into the portal. If he goes to some school in Canada I'll understand somewhat, but only Ezra Manjon shot the three worse than Thomas did, nobody had a lower rebounding rate, and only Stute and Dia shot the ball worse from inside the arc. All of this and he still got the 5th most minutes of anyone on the team, ahead of Robbins, QMB and Smith, as well as Shelby, Dort, Lewis and Dia. Too me it seems rather ungrateful for all the faith CJS put in Thomas despite being in a two year slump that probably hurt the team overall. CJS gave Thomas more opportunity to break out of the slump than most any coach in the country would have.

Now, if CJS told Thomas he wasn't going to get a scholarship next season, I'll gladly apologize to Thomas, but I would be surprised if CJS would do this as he has displayed more integrity than that. But if CJS told Thomas that he would have to accept a smaller role and that caused Thomas to transfer (which feels much more likely), then I will shed zero tears as CJS showed Thomas plenty of faith through a ton of PT despite poor shooting.

Quite frankly, I think we lucked out that Thomas didn't see how well he was being treated by CJS and instead of accepting a smaller role more befitting of his talent level, he decided to transfer, and we don't have to worry that if one of the newcomers doesn't pick up the system immediately that CJS will just default to Thomas like he did this season. I just don't see how we can again afford to have a player play over 20 minutes per game and shoot 30% from three while bringing almost nothing else to the floor.

First of all. I didn’t say that Thomas was forced out. I did hear from a good source that he was told that he likely wouldn’t get nearly as much PT as he did this year next year. Not sure about the scholarship. Again. If he decided on his own, to leave, I’m fine with that. If he was told that with a healthy ‘and it would be better for you to transfer’, I do have a problem with that. Bryce Drew tried to force Joe Toye to transfer and Joe went to David Williams who shut it down. But the damage was done. Joe was a popular player and the team didn’t appreciate the effort.

You said "I'm not ok with pushing them out", which implies that you think they were pushed out. And I questioned who pushed them out, as I had heard nothing of the sort, and it would make zero sense given how much playing time Thomas was given that he was pushed out. Why would any coach need to tell any player that nowadays? All you have to do is make it clear that they will see less PT and they will automatically enter the portal. You don't even have to say that and some will leave anyway.

Given what is going on, it seems like CJS has the opposite problem of keeping players around to the point where it would be laughable that he is trying to force any out. If any more leave he will struggle to get full scrimmages with scholarship players.