porter71 wrote:

Are we still as convinced that these extensions were the right move, or do you think knowing what we know now that we should have taken a more conservative approach?

I don't think the terms were ever announced.  If all they did was slap on another year to the end of the contracts, it's really no big risk.

Knowing what we know now, the McCombs extension was likely a mistake but she had real interest from at least one P5 school last offseason.  It's kind of crazy to think how a P5 fanbase would be reacting to a team that is as allergic to scoring as we are.

Knowing what we know now, I still think the CC extension was the right thing to do.  I still believe he is an A-10 level coach and recruiter.  Loyola Chicago went 0-6 to start last conference season and finished 4-14.  Now they are 7-2.  I just think there's such a fine line between wins and losses for teams 5 through 15 in this conference that there can be these large variances from season to season.

One area to monitor for CC is going to be the portal this summer.  CC's first summer he swung and missed on a lot of guys. While we ended up with Max, we also ended up with a roster that was fundamentally flawed.  This past summer, we seemed to miss on every big except Stretch at the very end.  We all now know why Stretch was available so late.  So what I would like to see is if CC can hit on his first options, especially with respect to bigs.  If he can't make the sale in the portal then I think we can start questioning his contract extension a little louder.

Last edited by GW0509 (2/07/2024 11:09 am)

Still believe in CC and the team. It was, except for the glaring big man hole, brilliantly constructed.
Our wandering pal Joe Bamisile may have screwed that up by going to court for his right to play for 4
teams in 4 years. 
   The lack of a big man was a huge deficiency. We all knew it going in and some were quite vocal
about it. Not that we have any influence, but it was quite obvious. Nonetheless, the big man market was tough for us as is this whole new basketball world.
      Did Cohen at UMass, for example, get a better NIL deal than we could offer? Were we able to compete for transfer big men? In any case, CC may have to use his sonar finding skills to locate some sunken hidden gems like Max, Darren and Garrett, and/or get a serviceable High School big.
    In any case, as of now, CC deserves another year to show whether he is Mojo/CC or ML/Hobbs. If our non-graduating core stays, they should improve greatly next year. If they don't, it would be troublesome.
    The contract extension seemed oddly timed and we can discuss that situation in general as well as our specifics. But as pointed out above, it may be for just another year for recruiting.

Losing sucks. The way we are playing and losing sucks. However, the core of Edwards, Buchanan, Johnson, maybe the freshman guards is a pretty good foundation. I’m not sure people understand how much money players are getting now to play. CC started from scratch and has a decent war chest to fill in the holes. It’s really hard when there’s no upper class leaders or senior playing at the level we all hoped for. At least talent is here and there will be more to come.

Everybody take a deep breath before comparing CC to Mojo and JC. That’s just plain absurd

The guy has shown he is a motivator, a good recruiter amd ambassador for the program. He got guys in shape and pointed in the right direction. He is going to need to demonstrate he can overcome his stubbornness, and make changes . The jury is out on that. HOWEVERwe cannot overlook the limitations he has that are restricting his ability to make the kinds of changes needed. He’s had some key players out; he’s having to deal with Bishop essentially returning to the Bishop of his first year at GW; the bench is thin with respect to A-10 level talent and he’s got a “big man” who can’t catch a beach ball.

Some of this is of his own making for sure. You want a team to not launch crazy threes?  Then have some accountability for when it happens. Your guys can’t hit water off the side of a boat for five straight games or more? Maybe try a different game plan. Opponents beginning to go on a massive run to put the game out of reach? How about aTime Out?

There is zero chance he should be in any limbo and I am happy he got the extension. But he has to a shake off the assistant coach mentality and start demanding more of himself amd his coaches amd his senior leaders. 

If he can’t do that then it will  become apparent and organically move into a different discussion. I hope that doesn’t happen because I really do have confidence in him. But at some point he’s playing himself onto the coaching bubble.

To me this whole discussion is flat ridiculous at this point. First of all, none of you know how many years and how much money was involved in the extension. For all you know it was a vanity extension (additional year with no increase in money and no GW buyout for that year). Second, to be discussing the merits of whatever extension CC received mid-season with a 14-8 record in just his second season is near comical given the recent history of this program since the departure of ML. So if we win the next three, the extension now becomes justified? How about we wait and find out two important things - whether the extension cost GW real money if it needs to separate from CC at some point and see how CC does over the remainder of his contract. Since neither of these things are known today, this, like many discussions here, is just a lot of hot air about nothing.

In the end, it really doesn’t matter whether any of us believe that Caputo knows what he’s doing and has a plan to turns things around. What matters is whether Darren Buchanan, Garrett Johnson, Max Edwards, Jacoi Hutchinson, and Trey Autry, probably in that order, believe those things. If Caputo can convince all of those guys to stay, and can add a big or two to replace and hopefully improve on Stretch, we should be pretty good next year, and could be great two years from now. If most of those guys don’t believe in him and leave, this rebuild will be a lot longer and tougher than he imagined. We will see what happens in a couple months.

GW0509 wrote:

Alum1 wrote:

But some of it has to do with the rah rah shit coming out of Athletics. Case in point the incredibly nonsensical post about our having the “highest NET rating in GW history” the first week NET was released, when the numbers are perfectly meaningless.

Except that post is not intended for people who follow college basketball closely and know what the NET is or the fact it's only been around for 5 years.  It's intended for the casual alumni who hasn't been paying attention to the team for 5-10 years and suddenly sees not only did we finish with a .500 record last year, but this year we had the "highest NET rating in GW History!" 

It's the same thing as having an inflated OOC W/L record.  Sure, in the long run it's not helpful for an at-large bid, but I bet the team being 11-2 caught the attention of a few more people, including students, than if we had gone 7-6 and played a few more Q2 games. I even had a co-worker who knows I follow GW basketball come up to me and go "Hey GW looks pretty good.  Pretty sure they could take out Maryland this year." Little did he know we barely beat Navy and Alcorn State.

I'm reminded of what Don Draper said in Mad Men when he was pitching the "It's Toasted" campaign to Lucky Strike: 

"Advertising is based on one thing: happiness."

GW's Athletic Office is always going to publish rah rah posts saying the team went 11-2 in OOC or the stupid thing about the NET.  They're not going to include an asterisk that says 361st easiest schedule per KenPom.

 
Another apologist for bad judgement. It would have been one thing to write a post saying that GW debuted at 87, it’s early but that’s the highest debut and ranking in school history, and then put some context around it.

The alternative is a blaring headline about NET history and making yourself look like the happy idiot and losing credibility. Sorry. Stay in your lane bruh.

GWRising wrote:

Alum1 wrote:

But some of it has to do with the rah rah shit coming out of Athletics. Case in point the incredibly nonsensical post about our having the “highest NET rating in GW history” the first week NET was released, when the numbers are perfectly meaningless..

That's what College athletic departments do much like pro teams social media accounts. Accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative. It's been going on for a long-time. Not sure why you are surprised by that or why that would be unique to GW.

Also not sure why that has anything to do with the discussion since the whole discussion is nonsensical either way at this point.. As Bill Parcells once famously said "you are what your record says you are." CC will ultimately be judged on wins and losses like every other GW coach except ML (other reasons unfortunately). And the time for fair judgment is off into the future (at least a year maybe two away based on his contract). All the other promotional shit is just entertainment that you can choose to get caught up in or not for purposes of where one stands on CC.

 
I’m surprised because it was so out if the realm ridiculous, that’s why. It could have conveyed the same message without the ludicrous hype. That’s called preserving credulity.

As for why this matters to this thread, maybe take a minute to go back and read. There was reference  made to unrealistic expectations created for Chris. That’s why.

Gwmayhem wrote:

The Parcells quote works in the NFL because teams have no say as to which teams are on their schedule.  It does not work in college basketball, particularly when playing against a ridiculously soft OOC schedule. 

If this is true, then why not schedule the easiest possible games year after year?  We all know there are very clear reasons not to do this.  If CC is to ultimately be judged by his record, let it be his A10 record along with any quality teams he goes up against.  Going 11-2 was fine, certainly much better than his predecessors.  Nevertheless, anyone in a position to evaluate needs to understand why CC's 11-2 was less impressive than say Richmond's 8-5 OOC record.
 

 The OOC schedule is only 44% of the minimum schedule. Clearly, if one were to play a weak OOC schedule in hopes that they could fool everyone as to their record, it would be a foolish exercise. No one believes they can go 13-0 and then sub .500 thereafter and survive over the long haul. If you have any examples of that please provide. Yes, you are what your record says you are.

Gwmayhem wrote:

No, you're not.  Let's say GW was 5-4 in conference right now.

GW:  5-4 conference, 16-6 overall
Richmond:  8-1 conference, 16-6 overall

If you are what your record says you are, then GW and Richmond are even at 16-6.

But that's not true, and it's not only because Richmond has a superior conference record.  It's also true because by every conceivable metric aside from win-loss percentage, Richmond's 8-5 against their OOC schedule was superior to GW's 11-2 against their OOC schedule.

Claiming that a team is what its record says it is in a sport where there is such wide variances in schedules is both misleading and erroneous.

 

 
Correct GWMayhem. It’s hard to believe anyone could seriously make the reverse argument. Seriously being the operative word, I guess.