purple&orange wrote:Tom Servo wrote:Cdizzle wrote:league goals seem like very good goals to me. And I agree about NIT and NCAA needing to be the goal now. But those two are not necessarily aligned. For instance, last year Evansville tied for 2nd in the league (which is great), but had zero shot at an at-large NCAA bid, and were even hamstrung wrt NIT bid. I'm curious what gives you hope that after 10 years, something will be different in the recruiting or scheduling philosophies that will enable the achievement of the goals you listed. I get being gun-shy because 10th place seasons suck. But so does being assured mediocrity is the peak.
Recruiting and keeping a 4-man that wants to do nothing but set screens and rebound is proving difficult, which is not shocking. That's not likely to change.
Good points for sure.
You are absolutely right about the schedule last year, and that is something that has to be changed. That definitely hurt us last year and I hope that the leason was learned from it. I would think any reasonable coach and AD would understand they can never do that again. The sad thing is this year's schedule is better than last years.
His recruiting has been a little bit better as of late, that is sort of why I am hopeful. Mainly because of the 4 men that he has signed, Dru Smith, Ryan Taylor, and Silas Adheke. There are couple of other good looking prospects he has offered for 2017 that would be a great fit for the motion offense.
The 4 man thing is a problem, it's been discussed ad nausem on the Aces board for years. I just hope the two guys I listed above will be able to fill that role this year. Once recruits see a guy actually putting up stats at that spot they would be more likely to come here in the future.
I guess one thing I would add, is that I would be willing to bet the extension is only for 1 or 2 more years and it will depend on how he does in these next two seasons. If he bombs this year, they might be able to buy him out and move on for a cheap price. At least that is what I hope. Because he has to prove that he can get past the mediocre stage. A lot of people in Evansville are sick of the "little ole' Evansville" excuses and want to start seeing some results. In my eyes he has two years to prove he can be better than mediocre. If he can't do it in these next two years, that's it.
I think we are on the same page here Tom. I would love to be wrong about this but I think it's a matter of how large of a step back, not if the Aces will take this season. Not that this season should be discounted or devalued in the grand scheme of things but to move forward the team can't just have the bottom fall out and finish at or near the very bottom. Every program may have a down year, but a true program can't have wild swings of finishing 2nd, then 2nd to last for example. Even bigger than the final record is how competitive can they be? Going out and not being competitive on the road in past seasons has been a real struggle for us. How they play, can they compete says a lot about the direction of the program as well.
The scheduling, rightfully so, has been debated. I keep going back to how Evansville has played against some Power 5 teams, etc in the past. Look at the game at Arkansas this past season. It was a pretty ugly loss. I wonder if that has always been in the back of the minds putting the schedule together. I recall friends talking about how they were the "Same ole Aces" after Arkansas put it on them in December.
Time will tell about this extension. When record wise this was the best season in quite some time and you look at the W-L records the last three seasons, it's a span that hasn't been equaled since I would guess the early 90s. It's been far too long and after nine seasons I agree that the NCAA/NIT has to be the end game, along with being a player for conference titles, upper half team, etc.....basically what I would say would be a page from the Northern Iowa playbook. I look at UNI as a team that is always competitive, a tough game every time out, and a threat at Arch Madness.
Now somebody has to finish last each season but the roller coaster nature of the wild swings during what I guess I'd call a rebuild aren't indicative of a program. I can't imagine a scenario where Coach Simmons would leave the program in anything but better shape than what he found it, but if you ask me, the state of the program on March 1st, 2018 will determine who is leading the Aces in the 2018-19 season.
You are exactly right, I agree 100%.
