Xavier (11-4, 4-4) vs Butler (7-12, 6-10), Sunday, 2/21, 7:00 PM EST (FS1)

No. As this current outlook it doesn't look promising

 

As things stand? Not a chance in hell. And yes, we cannot afford to become a non tourney team consistently. The glories of last season only last so long. As you said consistency is the key to attract talent.

IF the other situation wraps up and all is well and IF we land a couple top notch transfers? Maybe. But those are way big ifs...this roster that is returning plus the 3 freshmen coming in? No way dude. We'll finish 9th or 10th again.

 

Absolutely not. Too many things have to go right for that to happen. Even if everyone remains healthy, which definitely has not been the case recently, the margin for error to accomplish that is incredibly small. Honestly if they even make the NIT next year I think that would be a pretty big success in my opinion.

 

This freshman class and next years class are make or break. We have seen glimpses this year of all 4 freshman that they belong in the BE and can be good going forward. Can we be healthy? Will the frosh stay? And will they be given the keys next year? This off-season is so important on so many levels.


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At some levels I agree with you and at some levels I disagree. The way we are playing right now is almost exactly the same level that the 2019 team played for the last month. (from 2/12/19 til the end of the year that team was 142 on Barttorvik.com and we are 135 right now) so a team that consistently plays this badly as rebounded to be a very good team the next season as recently as last year.

I do not look at this team, however, and think that we have the same pieces returning next year as we did last year, so I do agree you can't extrapolate much from that beyond, "being bad doesn't mean that you will stay bad."

I think its likely next year is not a tournament team, but a vastly improved team.

Here's where I see upside

Myles Tate: Has the ability to create shots for himself-right now he's just not making those shots. Its not that he has to learn to make the shots, he made them in high school, its a reasonable expectation that if he gets more comfortable those will fall. All of Tate's metrics say he's a big east point guard right now, except for his shooting and defense-which will improve simply as a function of time and comfort.

Chuck Harris: Harris is a guy I see as a volume scorer who I think ideally would be a sixth man for his career. He's tremendously inefficient at everything on offense except shooting 3's, but his overall efficiency should improve with age/maturation. I think if Tate emerges as a guy who can create his own shot, Harris won't be forced to do things he's not well equipped to do. He's gotten eaten alive on defense this year, but that is an area that a summer of weights should be able to significantly help with.

Jakobe Coles-I think we are really forgetting how good he was. He was actually efficient, can score inside and out. I don't think we would have much of a dropoff at all going from Nze to Coles.

Bo Hodges-A really nice player with size who can do a bit of everything for us, and will have much more room to do it if Tate hits shots.

Wilmoth-I don't think he gets enough run right now. His length makes a big difference for us. He will become significantly more impactful even if he only gets stronger, and not better, though him getting better is a fair expectation.


So much of this rides on Tate being able to hit shots, which is not guaranteed, but is something he has already shown in his life he can do. If he's able to do that he allows everyone else to stop having to do things they are bad at doing.

With Thomas and Taylor coming in we will get more athleticism on the wings, and hopefully Taylor can score at somewhere similar to Harris this year to give us a spark.

I don't look at that as an NCAA team next year-we still need a guy who can shoot and contribute at something else when he's on the floor, and we need a guy who can reliably get us 15 a night. I do think it will be a fun team that we can enjoy, however.

 

Every BEast team has an intimidating, big strong post player, except Butler. The BEast has a long tradition of intimidating, big strong post players. Until Butler can consistently get a presence in the lane, Butler will consistently fail to win conference games.

 

One of my favorite Neil Young lines. Too bad it's so appropriate in this situation.

 

Do you mean defensively? A rim protector would certainly be nice-no doubt about it.

Offensively, we fantasize about post players when they just aren’t that big of a deal. Out of the top 40 scorers in the Big East, two are centers; Nate Watson and Qudus Wahab. Neither of those guys play for tourney teams. Guards on the other hand, occupy 25 of those 40 spots.

Good teams are generally carried by good guards. I can live with whatever our front court looks like if our guards are great, but I can’t live whatever our backcourt looks like if our front court is great.


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Yes, defensively.

 

You don’t think Wilmoth has a chance to become that?


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If he puts on some muscle, possibly.

 

I’ll have to disagree on Steele being the worst Xs and Os coach. On several occasions on an ATO, that ran a set play to either get a layup or a wide open look(although that could have been graves). While not the most likable guy at face value, I admire his fire and passion that he wears on his sleeve. Meanwhile you look over at our bench and all our coaches have their arms crossed and barely *appear* to be breathing down the refs throat.

I would say Steele is mid-tier BE coach with only having 4 HC seasons under his belt. But definitely not worst. How Leto got an extension is beyond me.



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The problem with zones is that you generally have to set them up after a made FG or dead ball. It was brick city last night and X would push. There’s no time to get in the zone because it would result in a dunk every time due to golden being the last one up the floor




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I agree with your post— to piggy back, Butler has NEVER had more talent than its opponents (2009-2011 horizon league withholding). Our strength has always been toughness, discipline, and our coaches. It’s why Butler has been regarded as a cradle of coaches the past 2 decades. What we are seeing so far is a complete breakdown of our staff. As great as Matta, Lickliter, Stevens, and Holtmann was, they all had QUALITY assistants. (Brad was there under lickliter; terry, graves, shrewsberry, Archie under Stevens; terry, Lewis, pedon under Holtmann) Brad alone didn’t take us to 2 championship games. And how many times did we have teams try to poach our assistants and sometimes succeed? Fast forward to today, how many people are knocking on our door asking for Lowery, Kampen, or Vergollo?

That being said I’m not on team #fireLJ because We can’t pay anyone **** and I think another 4-5 building seasons under a new coach will set fire to the program. While yes there are embers in the basement it’s time to throw water on it and see if a new staff can save it before it goes up in flames anyway.


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Idk but think we'll have a better chance if JaKobe is healthy. The kid was on fire at times this season. Give Tate & Harris another year together and our backcourt should get better.

 

Watch Syracuse vs Duke tonight and see how many times Syr gets beat back up the court. It's called hustle. If you can't guard a team man to man and constantly get beat by driving layups, you have no choice but to change things. Our guards are too small to switch with the bigs on screens. They need to fight through or over the screen. If they end up switching, they have to figure a way to switch back quicker.

 

No doubt hustle is needed to get a defense up an running but are you confident that all our players will hustle back? I mean they hardly get back in time as it is for their OWN man— I don’t see them hustling back to guard their zone, especially in the post. There’s just not enough athleticism and conditioning on this team.


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And woeful three-point shooting by Xavier (which I do not think the Bulldogs had much part in).


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Since we are not very good at crashing the glass on the offensive end (might be the worst in the BE), we should have no excuse for not being able to get back.

 

If you’re getting beat by guards driving off of ball screens you hard hedge. Going over the top of a screen would only exacerbate that problem.

I don’t really see that as a problem we have though.


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