therc
Junior Member
Posts: 390
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Post by therc on Jan 16, 2009 19:45:32 GMT -5
We know how fond Schmidt, for whatever reason, still is for Hall. Therefore, I won't bother suggesting cutting his minutes in favor of Benson, who we know is a capable reserve and who, in case you left early, buried three consecutive outside jumpers in the final minutes against Duquesne. I like Tyler Benson. Nice kid. But capable reserve? I don't think so. TB plays hard, but he's nowhere close to having Atlantic-10 talent, and I think coach understands that. He LIVES behind the perimeter on offense, and it's almost like playing 4-5. You're shorthanded when he's in the game. Oh, and since I didn't leave early against Duquesne, let me point out that I could have easily made those threes in the final minutes. Shouldn't be that hard when no one is guarding you. Just bringing some reality in here..... |
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Post by mcspin on Jan 17, 2009 9:48:02 GMT -5
The team is ahead of the last few years - no doubt. However, is it as good as it's record? I don't think so. A very weak non-conference schedule has not prepared it for A-10 play. To me, they have that deer-in-the-headlights look. They're tentative, unsure and moving without confidence. They need to develop some swagger. In a rebuilding year, I think you do this with the guys who show the most potential and who will be around the longest, not the guys about to graduate from the program.
Sorry, but I would give very little playing time to Benson or Carter. I wouldn't sit a guy for making a mistake, but I'd have his butt on the bench in a hurry for not giving max effort. Schmidt pulls guys too quickly for errors. They appear to be petrified of doing something wrong and being forced to sit. Every time Eleby has a poor result, his fault or not, he looks to the bench with agony on his face. He has no confidence and expects to sit at the slightest mistake, as far as I can see.
If Schmidt wants this team to be a force in the next couple years, I think he has to have more of a "let them play" attitude, especially the young guys with the most potential. Sure, you have to look for the hot hand, and punish a lack of effort, not every mistake.
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Post by magnusbu on Jan 17, 2009 10:05:34 GMT -5
I gaurentee the media outlets that said 7-10 years did factor in coaching changes, at least 1. Lets face it St. Bonaventure is a middle ground for coaches because of what we pay. If they do well it means a nice pay day ahead for them, if not then they pretty much disappear. O'Brien, Baron, Chapman, DeCarli, Soloman. Now consider that it would have taken a miracle for us to recover within 3 years so basically whatever up and coming coach that took the job was almost gaurenteed to struggle and thus disappear from the head coaching circuit. I doubt that Schmidt would have taken the job right after the scandal, but after 4 years of Solomon and all the penalties gone, it was less of a risk for Schmidt to take the job.
I think if Schmidt is the one that fully recovers the program then 7 years is right, but if we need another coaching change then 10 years would fit. The more years that pass, the less risky it is to take our head coaching job.
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avonfan
Sophomore Member
Posts: 124
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Post by avonfan on Jan 17, 2009 12:07:58 GMT -5
Couldn't agree more. Coach loves to frown ceaselessly when anybody makes a mistake on time-outs. After a while, that gets to a player: a look of panic followed by disdain and now lack of hustle.
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Post by Chuck on Jan 17, 2009 12:27:04 GMT -5
Interesting thread with a wide range of opinions. Completely agree with Orangehater, we are in year 2 of recovery from the scandal. Do not understand all the pessimism. Schmidt was left a far more depleted squad than even Solomon had for his first year and he leads the team to 8 wins. Already this season he has 10 wins and is 1-2 in the A-10 with both losses coming against teams that are undefeated in A-10 play.
Understand and mostly agree with Bart's post. He has valid criticisms and I think many of the criticisms can be attributed to this team lacking a leader. Other than Benson, this team does not have a veteran player that can lead by example. As for Benson, a player has to be more than a bench player to be a leader. Everyone is underestimating the loss of Michael Lee, Tyler Relph and Z. Team is missing them as shooters, but most of all for their veteran presence.
Comment "scandal was the death sentence" is not accurate. The death sentence was the hiring of Solomon. Proof is recovery did not occur until Solomon was fired. Also disagree with the assumption Bonas is only a breeding ground for a successful coach. Look at Mihalich at Niagara, he is a proven coach, who is content with being a coach of a team from the MAAC. Even Baron was content with being coach of the Bonnies, until he was pressured to leave by Wickenheiser.
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Post by pete on Jan 17, 2009 14:59:32 GMT -5
"I gaurentee the media outlets that said 7-10 years did factor in coaching changes,"
I think you are making things up
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Post by magnusbu on Jan 18, 2009 16:44:11 GMT -5
Yeah I'm completely making things up and quite a few people are hallucinating and actually believe that the main recovery we are in is from Solomon and not from the scandal. I agree that with a better coach than Sol we could have recovered quicker, but who should that coach have been? Somebody better prove to me that we could have hired a much much much better coach than Sol (a 3rd asst. from a big school). Face it we needed a coach that wouldn't do anything stupid to get us into further trouble. Someone to ride out the probation period unscathed. Well we made it and now its time for a real coach to actually take a shot at improving the quality of the program. Oh and I never said that the "scandal was the death sentence" I did say it was almost the death sentence.
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Post by magnusbu on Jan 18, 2009 16:47:30 GMT -5
Oh well end of discussion. Great win last night. Moving forward. Let's Go Bonas!!!!
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Post by mikenice on Jan 18, 2009 19:04:31 GMT -5
Remember when we got rid of Solomon it was on the heels of him bringing in his "most heralded recruiting class"?
Matt Morgan
D. Cook
Eleby
Those were Solomon's best recruits. We all know that, not only did Schmidt upgrade the talent level TREMENDOUSLY, he also had to fill out a depleted roster.
The first class is a wash, because anyone hired just before the spring, without a big name and at a program in the dumps, is lucky to land one worthwhile player.
You bring as many new players into a program at once, like Schmidt has, and you have to believe they'll be all over the board in terms of style, ability and IQ. Schmidt can't be exactly picky finding guys who fit his system. Right now, I think he's just concentrating on getting the best athletes. You look at a Michael Davenport. He may not have been the best guard on the coaches board, but he's a highly athletic guard with good size, coachable, and a four year player.
You overcome a lot of mistakes with athleticism. Lord knows this team isn't the brightest.
Next year's class is going to be critical because there's a large junior class. I hope Schmidt doesn't load it one way of the other with freshmen or jucos, though I don't expect too many jucos over the long haul.
I'm just happy we can finally pick apart strategy and player deficiencies since the Solomon era had neither strategy nor talent to even discuss.
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Post by magnusbu on Jan 19, 2009 9:35:20 GMT -5
Large recruiting classes have been a major part of the past 6 years. Quite a bit of that has to do with players coming and going. Hopefully we are over that trend and only need to fill one more spot for next year. Although I wouldn't be suprised to see 1 or 2 players defect at the end of this season. Let's hope no one leaves, but you never know especially when you bring in a hugh class its hard to get all of them on the same page and maintain them on the same page. A blessing in disquise has been the redshirt of Leonard and Simmons. With Leonard's redshirt that moves the Jr. class to 4 Matthews, Hall, Blackburn, and Thomas. 4 is high but 5 is a lot. Right now the So. class totals 2 Eleby and Leonard. So, the way I see it this year is adding another Juco for our last scholarship would not be a terrible thing as long as they are an immediate impact player. That would really round out the classes a bit. The Fr. class is at 3 Nicholson, Davenport, and Cook. And next years Fr. class is currently at 3 Simmons, Conger, and House.
I guess thats the good thing about where we currently are at for next season. For next season I really don't think it matters how we go about filling that final scholarship although I would like to see some better guards on board. We haven't been able to say that in quite a few years. But, we may already have some of those answers in Simmons, Conger, Leonard. I guess PG or a big PF/C would be nice. Someone to complement Nicholson.
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Post by Chuck on Jan 19, 2009 12:13:49 GMT -5
In defense of Magnus, I found the original post that stated it would take 7 years for the Bonnies to recover. The post was made after Solomon's 3rd year with the Bonnies. Following is a copy of of the post with link below. "The day Coach Sol was hired, a very good friend of mine, who is now the advance scout for the Boston Celtics (and a former head coach in both the Ivy League and MAAC), told me that it would take 7 years to "right the ship" at Bonas. He said that Bonas would need to show patience with Sol." This poster's last post was almost 2 years ago where he identifies "2 well placed individuals" that informs him the Bonnies, Duquense and LaSalle are going to be removed from the A-10. This discussion of 7-10 years recovery is covering up the real issue. The fact is there was not any evidence of recovery after Solomon's 4 years and actually things were getting worse. Solomon was not an unethical coach like VBK or a bad coach like DeCarli or Chapman. Solomon was an incompetent coach which is proven by him losing 14 players and 4 assistant coaches in 4 years. We will never know how much farther along the Bonnies would be if they chose someone other than Solomon. What we do know it is not possible to choose someone worse. bonabandwagon.proboards91.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=1434#9616 |
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Post by magnusbu on Jan 19, 2009 13:42:46 GMT -5
I'm sure I could name a few worse choices we could have made for coach. Harrick was looking for a job, O'Brien could have came back, Tark, or any other coach that has been known to bend the rules a few times. Imagine if we hired one of those guys and they did some "outstanding" recruiting and we got caught with another infraction. I don't think the NCAA would take that very well and we probably would see the death penalty. And no I don't think Sol was a good coach. He was an adequate hole filler to get us past the probation period. So my main point is that it would have been hard to convince a better coach with a spotless reputation to take the job and it may have spelled disaster to get a better coach with spots on his resume to take the job.
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therc
Junior Member
Posts: 390
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Post by therc on Jan 19, 2009 14:03:46 GMT -5
Since we're getting into this argument.
I have more of a problem with HOW Solomon was hired than the fact that he was hired at all. The "committee to hire the next head coach" included people like former Bona ideal man of the year (or whatever they call it) and former team manager Tim McArdle and a bunch of other guys that - while they may be nice people - have NO qualifications to choose a head coach. None whatsoever.
That said, there were certainly better candidates out there. And magnus, your point about hiring Harrick or O'Brien, while valid, doesn't really fly here because there was NO WAY we were ever going to hire a coach that had their kind of reputation after what had happened.
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Post by magnusbu on Jan 19, 2009 14:42:37 GMT -5
Yeah I agree that the hiring process was not the greatest, but I think at the time we were still without a president and an AD. We may have had people filling in at those positions but they really were not cut to choose a head coach at that time. We should have hired some sort of outside expertise.
Remember that hindsight is 20/20 also. Solomon was originally looked at as a decent hire. I think we all realized that he was a risk being that he was coming from a 3rd asst. job to a head coaching job. No real good way to tell from the get go if he would be a good head coach or a bad head coach. The only thing that was really certain about him was that he was not the type to cheat to get the program ahead. Well we found out that he stinks as a coach and could not keep players around for whatever reason.
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