GWRising wrote:

Gwmayhem wrote:

So if you're CC, is this the OOC schedule you ideally want?  If everything is now decided by A10 play, then is the OOC completely meaningless?

Seems to me that generating a big upset in the OOC might be a factor to a selection committee (not THE factor, but a factor) but what I'm hearing from DC Native and Rising is that this wouldn't even matter anymore.  Am I misinterpreting?

 You are not misinterpreting based on what I have seen over the last few years. The A-10 is a one or two bid league and you had better do well as in win the regular season or the tournament. Had we beat Florida last year but had the record we had in the A-10, we were not going to the NCAA tournament. To be fair, we would have been closer but still not in. Bottom line is win your league in this era. Years ago in the old A-10 I might have had a different opinion.

The OOC is really important, as far as I'm concerned, but its importance is to prepare us for the A10 season, not to bolster our at large bid resume. For this reason, what I would like to see in the OOC schedule is as many mid-majors as possible (i.e., teams comparable to A10 teams), with 1 or 2 high majors (for fans and players, and to use as a measuring stick) and the rest LOCAL low majors (which although they don't help us much at least bring local interest to the fans and support smaller local programs).

I'll disagree with Rising, however, in that I hate it when people say the A10 is a 1 bid league. It is sometimes, but is much more often a 2 bid league, with the bids going to the best team (usually the regular season champion) and the winner of the A10 Tourney, which is rarely the same team. I would note that Joe Lunardi's way too early Bracketology includes 2 A10 teams in the field. The days of the A10 getting 4, 5, or even 6 bids are long gone, but we are still a 2 bid league and I hope we can keep in that way.

GW0509 wrote:

DC Native wrote:

All of these comments assume that Hobbs could not have gotten another head coaching job all these years, but I'm not sure that's true. I think it is entirely possible that he could have got a job as a head coach at a low major, but preferred to be an assistant coach at a P5 school. Salaries are probably comparable, if not better at the latter, and he got to coach a higher caliber of players. And maybe he thought this was a better long-term career choice than fighting for scraps and potentially failing at a low major.

One thing we used to see more of is the hiring of "retread" college coaches.  I'm thinking of guys like Oliver Purnell etc. who would be out of the game for a few years and then reappear at smaller schools.  I think with the landscape of CBB changing so much, schools are much more inclined now to hire young ACs or G League coaches who are more in tune with the current system and who do not have that legacy of operating in the old ways of building a program (FWIW, I think ML getting back into coaching would face these same headwinds). 

Hobbs is interesting because he has obviously still been around the game as an AC while the NIL and transfer portal rules have changed, but I would bet ADs are probably viewing him as part of the old guard and not someone they'd be willing to stake their own careers on.  Call it a bias, or age discrimination, but KH may just be on the wrong side of generational change in CBB.

All of this may be true now, but I'm willing to bet that back in 2012 he could have gotten a head coaching job at a school like UMES, Hampton, UVA Wise, or some other such school in the area.

I root for the name on the front of the jerseys, not the names on the back. That doesn't mean I don't have favorite players, or appreciate when players stick around, but I will be very happy with any success the team has this year, despite the turnover.

Incidentally, although the turnover in MCBB is pretty extreme these days, its part of a trend in sports in general. I don't believe the Wizards have a single player that was on the team 3 years ago. Other than Tress Way (P), the Commanders have completely overhauled their roster since Peters and Quinn arrived two years ago. Alex Ovechkin is a true unicorn, but I don't believe any of the other Caps from their championship a few years ago are still around. The Nats have completely turned over their roster in the last few years as well. Unfortunately, almost all athletes are mercenaries these days...

Congratulations to all my friends from NY! You all have waited a long time and deserve this, and I hope your team represents well in the Finals. Meanwhile in DC... Well, let's just say that I'm 53 years old and have no memory of the last time the Bullets/Wizards had a 50 win season or played in a conference championship (which last happened when I was 6).

Florida Colonial wrote:

  Rocco Miller@RoccoMiller8NEWS:
Eight squads have been confirmed for "The Dallas Tournament" in Frisco, TX. 
Colorado St, Florida Atlantic, George Washington, Loyola-Chi., Nevada, San Francisco, Tulsa, and Utah St. will headline the event. Dates range from Dec. 18-21,
first reported by @NevadaSportsNetImage

"The tournament is expected to have 16 teams but could move forward with fewer teams if it can't land 16. The participation fee for the games is $30,000 with the website "Field of 68" having non-exclusive television/broadcast rights. The contract, which Nevada signed the contract in December, states teams shall not be from the SEC, ACC, Big 10 or Big 12, making this a mid-major tournament."

Amazing how the conference of a team that has won 2 NCAA championships and 1 runner up in the last 4 years is now considered mid major…

Let’s be honest. This is not designed to help more non-P5 schools get in, but rather to weed them out before people start watching, which is in the round of 64.

The lesson to me is that there is no longer a reason to waste a scholarship on a freshman unless you plan to play him as a freshman.

Hugh wrote:

One of my biggest frustrations on this board is how the 2015-2016 season is talked about. That season for me is the biggest What If since I started following the program. That team had a starting lineup of three future NBA players and 2 four-year starters. The fact that they only got to the NIT is a HUGE disappointment! They had Sweet 16 talent and at minimum needed to be in the tournament. Everyone remembers beating Virginia and winning the NIT, but in between were really bad loses to lowly Depaul and St. Louis, and ML constantly getting outcoached in conference play. Kudos to him for assembling such a talented team, but he did less with more that year (sounds familiar). Yes winning the NIT was fun and yes it's not to be overlooked, but for 10 years now it's been masking what otherwise was a hugely disappointing season.

What irritates me is when certain posters state that we won a “national championship” in 2016, which to me is ridiculous. We won a championship (i.e., were the last team standing in a tournament), but not a national championship (i.e., were not the champions of all D1). But I never comment, as each fan has the right to value former coaches, teams, seasons, and victories as they see fit.

Having said all that, and despite the disappointment of not making the NCAA that year, for me the 2016 NIT championship is still the 3rd best highlight of a GW MBB team in my 35 years of fandom, after the 1994 Sweet 16 and 2006 undefeated A10 regular season. The 2005 and 2007 A10 Tournament championships would be next for me.