I found myself very appreciative of a recent post by GW Mayhem (copied below, in response to the Dude).  Because it was buried in the Dayton game thread that most people have likely abandoned reading to some extent, I wanted to highlight it as its own post.

The quote is edited for relevancy, with only the pertinent examples left.  The context is that we have a good deal of talent, a capable coach, and an inability to translate it to wins.  What's left have been important questions of whether JC is capable of turning the program around (which I believe he is).

Here's the quote:

Gwmayhem wrote:

  You have to be able to create a system, have the players buy into that system, learn to play together as a team and establish continuity.  If you approach each season with wholesale changes to your roster, it makes it difficult to achieve the needed continuity.  

Want GW examples?  Hobbs brought in Pops, Mike Hall, Omar, Dokun and Alex K. for his second season and the team went from 12-16, 5-11 in the conference to 12-17, 5-11 in the conference.  And that team also had Chris Monroe and TJ Thompson.  The following season, Chris was gone but JR and Carl arrived.  More importantly, Mike/Pops/Omar had a season under their belts and were learning to play together.  Their sophomore season, the team improved to 18-12, 11-5 in conference.  Mo Rice joined the following season and the team won its first A10 Championship, going 22-8, 11-5 in conference.  Mo was quite good but could not be considered singularly responsible for the improvement in 2004-05.  By now, Pops, Mike, Omar, JR and Carl all had two seasons playing together.  The following season saw the team go 27-3.

In 2012-13, Mike Lonergan brought in 6 freshmen, of which four would turn out to be Joe, Pato, Kevin and Kethan.  Let's all remember Zeke Armwood who became eligible that season.  The result of all this talent:  a 13-17 season (10-21 a year prior) and a 7-9 conference record (5-11 a year prior).  Some improvement to be sure but nothing to write home about.  How could this be with all of this talent?  The answer is that this talent needed to learn to mesh, or play together.  The following season, the only notable addition was Mo Creek and that team reached the NCAA's, going 24-9 and 11-5 in the conference.  Could the addition of talented Mo Creek be solely responsible for an increase of 11 wins over the prior year, given that all of the other talent was already in place?  Of course not.  The fact is that the team grew together, developed, hit the weight room, became more familiar with how to play with one another, and gained the knowledge of how to best mask their teammates weaknesses. 

Today, the nucleus of this team is in place with James, Jamison, Ricky, Amir (pending health), Tyler, Lincoln, Chase, Hunter, and Noel all being able to play with one another for two more seasons at a minimum, and three high school players on track to join the team within the next two years.  We of course could lose some players to transfer but losing 1-2 of these players would be very different than losing 4-5 of these players.  The key again is to establish continuity and have these players learn how to play together.  Taking your lumps when a team is first learning how to play together is nothing new.  My sense is that there is more than enough talent on this team right now, and one can only get excited about the newcomers scheduled to arrive, to believe the future is bright.  It's hard to watch the team consistently lose but I feel that if we can keep this team together, the dividends will follow.  If it becomes the norm to see 4-5 guys leave the program annually, particularly if these guys are rotation players, it will be very hard to watch this program continue to "start over" each season. 

I think this is one of my favorite posts.  While I don't always agree with GW Mayhem's opinions, I think this is spot on.  It is not at all out of the realm of possibility that we can look at our past as a reason for continued optimism.  

Thanks, Mayhem.