Conference thread

I'm all for being critical of Schmidt and wish more of our fan base and media would be(ser SBUnfurled's excellent post how Schmidt has gotten a pass on this NIT news) but I think rebuilding rosters and having multiple players in the portal is just reality every team has to face now. And it maybe worse for A10 teams, with players getting poached by P6 or players leaving for more PT in lower conferences.
I think if you break each down each transfer I'm not sure the results would be different with a different coach.
Ie. The 4 seniors from 2022 all transfered to P5 schools and what I understand they all hot NIL deals we couldn't match.
Quadry Adams - absolutely sucks not a d1 player.
Linton Brown - on his 3rd school out of d1. Also from some things I heard it wasn't surprising to me he left.
Jordan Saizanou - maybe could have stayed but has only averaged slightly more than 3pts per game
Winston- He was a star this year at Coppin State who had a successful 1-13 record in the MEAC. This was also his 3rd school after Robert Morris was too competitive for him to stay at.
Vasquez - from all reports I heard he wasn't academically ineligible. And UAB is his 4th school after a stint in JUCO
Luc can anyone blame him for leaving? If he stayed it would be 2nd straight year he would be recruited over. And honestly people here like him more than I do. I thought his 22-23 stats didn't match what I saw on the court.
Max- out of D1 he would have been 3rs seeing center.
Chad- no idea why he's leaving but my guess he knows a 6 figure NIL deal is headed his way.
Rumple, Mellouk and Hill who knows. I thought Mellouk could.have offered something if used right(maybe this one is on Schmidt). Not sure Rumple is A10 caliber plus he's always hurt.
My point is I don't think there much that could have been done to keep the players we would want to stay and for most of the others I don't think they move the needle if they did stay.
Barry is the only one right now who hurts.
 
Barry hurts to a degree but doesn’t Kaba coming in play his position? He looks great by all reports.

Then we’d have the same thing next year with a logjam at the wing between Barry, Kaba and Assa. Maybe he just didn’t want to go through that again
 
brownindians85 said:
BF, there's some truth to that but 3rd isn't wrong either. And look back to mid to late 10s and there were 2-4 guys leaving annually already. There were guys we'd gladly have taken a few more years, Winston and Vasquez come to mind. We've got an HC with a really abrasive personality and that didn't fly then and certainly won't in this era.
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In the case of the two players mentioned, academics were a big issue. There was a reason Vasquez wound up at a JUCO after cycling through commitments (Hofstra; Tarleton State) without officially enrolling.
 
tastylicks said:
Barry hurts to a degree but doesn’t Kaba coming in play his position? He looks great by all reports.

Then we’d have the same thing next year with a logjam at the wing between Barry, Kaba and Assa. Maybe he just didn’t want to go through that again
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You would have thought those 3 and Thompson would have made up the starters and reserves for the 3 and the 4 positions.
Has there been any news on how good Thompson may or may not be?
 
Does anyone at the school have any clue? Put this in the NIT in the rearview mirror and speed away from it a quick as possible. If someone was going to issue a statement today it should have been Schmidt its just odd to have the university president get involved in an athletics mess when you have already made a change in the AD's office.
 
Jive36 said:
Does anyone at the school have any clue? Put this in the NIT in the rearview mirror and speed away from it a quick as possible. If someone was going to issue a statement today it should have been Schmidt its just odd to have the university president get involved in an athletics mess when you have already made a change in the AD's office.
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No. The upper admin does not seem to have a clue.
 
Jive36 said:
Does anyone at the school have any clue? Put this in the NIT in the rearview mirror and speed away from it a quick as possible. If someone was going to issue a statement today it should have been Schmidt its just odd to have the university president get involved in an athletics mess when you have already made a change in the AD's office.
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I agree. The statement was both bizarre and weirdly timed. Jeff made his voice heard when Manhertz "resigned." The only person I want to hear from is the person who pulled all the strings to get us into this mess -- Schmidt.

Otherwise move on. Makes us look even more small potatoes than we actually are.
 
Bonafanatic said:
I agree. The statement was both bizarre and weirdly timed. Jeff made his voice heard when Manhertz "resigned." The only person I want to hear from is the person who pulled all the strings to get us into this mess -- Schmidt.
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Schmidt would like to respond but he just doesn't have the time. He's too busy pounding the pavement chasing kids in the portal and fundraising for the university to make a statement.
Or he knows he's Teflon and doesn't give a fuck.
 
I’m going against the grain. Cringeworthy, sure, but I don’t think this was out of cluelessness so much as pandering. We have a lot of donors who think the NIT is sacred because it used to be, and that MS is above criticism. Read: we are small potatoes, and we have a lot of donors who think small potatoes, and it perpetuates itself. And it isn’t just the old timers or Bona’s. It’s an affliction of many WNYers.

This statement is to double down on appeasing them, out of fear over losing a donation over this. The people who criticize Schmidt, in general, are the same ones who don’t need an apology to realize that pulling donations hurts no one but ourselves. So this isn’t targeted at us.


As for MS? I think in his poor man’s Belicheckian school of thought, he genuinely doesn’t think he needs to say anything. So you could probably chalk that up under doesn’t give a shit.
 
I mean does Schmidt need to respond? I think people truly think we had a team of 13 guys that were itching to play and Manhertz & Schmidt pulled the rug out from under them.

Like it or not, Schmidt's not much of a bullshitter. He knew he probably had only a few guys willing to play based on internal conversations that'll never be known to us. Why should Schmidt apologize? It's a new era and it stinks, but he had zero leverage with the two syracuse seniors and the outgoing transfers.

I think Manhertz's departing message said all you need to know. He said the NIT meant more to the fans than it did they players on the team. Well, you can't force these guys to play and if you know you can't field a team, you don't participate.

Not apologizing for Schmidt, but he's really not the one that didn't want to play.
 
I didnt mean to suggest that Schmidt should speak on it. But IF the school was going to continue to address the issue that message might have been better served coming from him. At this point anything Schmidt adds would probably end up throwing players under the bus which is another bad look.
 
I agree, Jivre. In an ideal world: “We’d gauged from private conversations that we had a lot of guys ready to start their next chapter. As the HC it’s on me to keep our guys focused and engaged in the season until it’s officially over. I’ve learned some things that I plan to use to do a better job of that in the future”

In the real world, I can’t hear him saying that, so anything else will be hollow at best and scapegoating at worst. At this point, I give him the benefit of the doubt that some version of the above has at least been considered in private, and hope for a better batch of apples next go-round.
 
Community Bank 3Pt Tee said:
I agree, Jivre. In an ideal world: “We’d gauged from private conversations that we had a lot of guys ready to start their next chapter. As the HC it’s on me to keep our guys focused and engaged in the season until it’s officially over. I’ve learned some things that I plan to use to do a better job of that in the future”

In the real world, I can’t hear him saying that, so anything else will be hollow at best and scapegoating at worst. At this point, I give him the benefit of the doubt that some version of the above has at least been considered in private, and hope for a better batch of apples next go-round.
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Is anyone under the impression Schmidt may be skipping town? We might have zero players returning next year and yet we haven’t had a single player on a campus visit to date. That might be important to because we have TEN scholarships to fill.

Just seems odd that Assa would hit the portal this far into the game. There haven’t been any surprising defections yet, so I wonder what’s prompting him to move on.

It’s still so odd there hasn’t been this much turnover at other schools in our own conference yet. Something just seems off, and if players don’t want to play for Schmidt any more, then I don’t know what you can do about that.
 
There are 1000+ names in the portal. We are not alone. It is odd that we have lost everyone that wasnt nailed down but we are not alone here.
 
Bona03 said:
There are 1000+ names in the portal. We are not alone. It is odd that we have lost everyone that wasnt nailed down but we are not alone here.
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For sure. Most teams will have 2-4 players in the portal.

The alarming thing is we are losing guys that are guaranteed to play 30+ mins a night. Again, it's odd that we lose our entire team two out of the last three years. Of course not all the defectors are transferring, but they are gone nonetheless.
 
Are you suggesting Schmidt is retiring or moving to a new job? I'm not sure what opening current or potential he would be that interested in. Maybe Charleston?
 
Jive36 said:
Are you suggesting Schmidt is retiring or moving to a new job? I'm not sure what opening current or potential he would be that interested in. Maybe Charleston?
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I have no inside information at all.

The only thing I can speculate on is either his players simply do not like playing for him or in his system, or he’s once again blindsided by this mass exodus and is behind the eight ball for assembling next year’s team. Yes, I know it’s still early, but SBU Unfurled’s graphic from early this week showed the SBU has ZERO campus visits lined up yet for transfers.

Does that seem odd to anyone?

It’s obviously not late in the recruiting period by any stretch, but we have TEN vacancies and it does not appear that we are close to signing anyone. Teams in the NCAAT have already signed more players than us. It looks like we’ve been in contact with 11 players to date, but most of those guys have heard from 10-15 schools.

I don’t think Schmidt is retiring and it is even less likely he’d leave for a new job, but the timing of Assa’s departure just doesn’t sit well with me.
 
I'm surprised it took this long, but his decision would have been more surprising had he stayed, given the additional turnover. No connection to teammates or the school with everyone gone. 2 of the 3 younger guys we do have, a threat to his position. Tons of potential but it felt like something wasn't clicking with him. Not sure if that was fit, coaching, personal on him, all 3. Time will tell. He'll get a look from good programs.

At this point, we'll see where we are in a year. If the floor is falling out from underneath us again, it's going to be hard to continue to give MS any benefit of the doubt. For now, I'll sit back and see how it unfolds. We tend to always be late in the recruitment game, so I'm not concerned yet about a lack of visitation.
 
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While I sure Schmidt's system(not the Soviet one) and personality runs some players the wrong way, he'll most likely be here through the 2027 season. Unless he gets feed up and leaves early, but honestly I don't see someone who is looking at retirement turn down a guaranteed $.5 to $2 mil a year.
I also think blaming everything at Schmidt's feet ignores some other issues and to ignore them is wrong.
1) Transfers are a systemic problem in modern basketball
And more related to Bonas and if these next 3 aren't improved it may not matter how player friendly or how good of a X and O coach the next guy is.
2) while the RC may not be a total dump, it's tired and needs a good face lift. Not much has changed since I was a student in the mid 90s and what upgrades have been made are the bare minimum for a D1 program on Bonas level. Programs like St Joe's Duquesne and now LaSalle have made recent upgrades. And others have much nicer arenas.
2)Practice facilities/locker rooms are not to standard we want our program to be. Let's face it this need to revamped and improves almost annually..
3)NIL I've been on the zoom calls and they mentioned $$$ amounts and they admit we're not the highest in the A10. And I'm afraid they're not in the top 5 or 6. And quit frankly I'm not sure how sustainable our grass roots NIL efforts without another sugar daddy other than Woj.
 
1946TobaccoBowlMVP said:
While I sure Schmidt's system(not the Soviet one) and personality runs some players the wrong way, he'll most likely be here through the 2027 season. Unless he gets feed up and leaves early, but honestly I don't see someone who is looking at retirement turn down a guaranteed $.5 to $2 mil a year.
I also think blaming everything at Schmidt's feet ignores some other issues and to ignore them is wrong.
1) Transfers are a systemic problem in modern basketball
And more related to Bonas and if these next 3 aren't improved it may not matter how player friendly or how good of a X and O coach the next guy is.
2) while the RC may not be a total dump, it's tired and needs a good face lift. Not much has changed since I was a student in the mid 90s and what upgrades have been made are the bare minimum for a D1 program on Bonas level. Programs like St Joe's Duquesne and now LaSalle have made recent upgrades. And others have much nicer arenas.
2)Practice facilities/locker rooms are not to standard we want our program to be. Let's face it this need to revamped and improves almost annually..
3)NIL I've been on the zoom calls and they mentioned $$$ amounts and they admit we're not the highest in the A10. And I'm afraid they're not in the top 5 or 6. And quit frankly I'm not sure how sustainable our grass roots NIL efforts without another sugar daddy other than Woj.
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Can't disagree with much in your post besides Schmidt's contract. Unless he has a great connection with next year's team, I really feel like next year could be it for him.

He's made a lot of $, and I get the obvious incentive to stick it out for as long as he can, but he seemed pretty miserable this past year. Sure Woods, Pride and Assa may have been the reason behind that and they're all gone, but who's to say the next group isn't just as bad?

I really don't get how much it would cost just to get new bleachers in the lower bowl. High schools do it all the time. Just a more rounded blues would be great and not a massive tunnel where the most expensive seats in the house reside would be nice.
 
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