What now?

[waterhead]

Originally Posted by justinhub2003

Listen.

No one is working against the team lol. If Zach And Diarra transfer from cincinnati because of Bearcattalk then we have way more power then even the coaches do.

I mean, terry Nelson publicly saying Trevor Moore should transfer to NKU on the other hand is whole other story.

I don't know what parents and players all listen to. But if they are having doubts and their doubts are re-confirmed on message boards and the parents or friends are out there reading along...who knows.

It's probably a long shot... All I know is it cannot be helping in any way. It can only hurt and it's COMPLETELY unnecessary at this stage!!

[waterhead]

Originally Posted by cincyalum2014

All I was saying was I wouldn't be shocked if Harvey decided to leave, I don't think he will... I know JB has said Zach came to his office and expressed his frustration with not playing. He did get a 2nd chance to play here and think he along with MAW and Davenport are the future of this team.... but that is how college basketball is now, kids don't get what they want so they leave, instead of waiting your turn.

Hell I have heard the parents aren't all that happy either so I understand. But I don't think we should fuel a fire especially when his play so far hasn't warranted a lot of playing time and he's still probably getting up to full speed after injury.

There were a lot of players over the years in the Cronin era that actual good play on the BB court would have given reason to think about transfer for lack of playing time. This is not the case with Harvey or Diara. They both need to keep their butts in the gym and try harder to work into the lineup. If they leave it will be an easy out and not on the coach IMO.

[justinhub2003]

Our defense is going to be tested.

So far this season we've played just one top 50 offense and that was ohio State.

#5 offense OSU: 45 second half points allowed

We've just 2 top 100 offenses:
#93 offense BGU: 43 second half points, plus 19 points in a 5 min OT allowed
#52 Offensive Xavier: 41 second half points allowed

The rest are 100 or worse:
#148 offense Vermont: 46 second half points allowed


Colgate is top 100: at #83 in offense
Tennessee is top 50: at #33 in offense
Iowa is top 5 and the best we've seen: at #4 in offense.



We absolutely need to either change our defensive plan or do something to figure this terrible brand of defense that we play. Bad defense blew half time leads in 3 of the 4 big games that we've played.


It seems our 1st half defense is good and then teams figure it out and we don't make any adjustments on that side of the ball.


This isn't a coincidence, this is a pattern against good teams.


To me.. we need to return to UC basketballs root and play way way better defense because we can win just doing what we are doing on offense if we just figured out our defensive issues

[justinhub2003]

Originally Posted by waterhead

Hell I have heard the parents aren't all that happy either so I understand. But I don't think we should fuel a fire especially when his play so far hasn't warranted a lot of playing time and he's still probably getting up to full speed after injury.

There were a lot of players over the years in the Cronin era that actual good play on the BB court would have given reason to think about transfer for lack of playing time. This is not the case with Harvey or Diara. They both need to keep their butts in the gym and try harder to work into the lineup. If they leave it will be an easy out and not on the coach IMO.

And i never said Harvey SHOULD transfer, I said I hope he sees the light at the end of the tunnel. But in the press conference or post game, I can't remember, but brannen pointed out that Harvey was just in his office and he was explaining that he does has a plan for him. Kid is top 50 and not playing. So I was saying I could see him exploring his options.


As Diarra, he wasn't recruited by Brannen. I could also understand if he wanted to play in a different system.

[waterhead]

Originally Posted by justinhub2003

Our defense is going to be tested.

So far this season we've played just one top 50 offense and that was ohio State.

#5 offense OSU: 45 second half points allowed

We've just 2 top 100 offenses:
#93 offense BGU: 43 second half points, plus 19 points in a 5 min OT allowed
#52 Offensive Xavier: 41 second half points allowed

The rest are 100 or worse:
#148 offense Vermont: 46 second half points allowed


Colgate is top 100: at #83 in offense
Tennessee is top 50: at #33 in offense
Iowa is top 5 and the best we've seen: at #4 in offense.



We absolutely need to either change our defensive plan or do something to figure this terrible brand of defense that we play. Bad defense blew half time leads in 3 of the 4 big games that we've played.


It seems our 1st half defense is good and then teams figure it out and we don't make any adjustments on that side of the ball.


This isn't a coincidence, this is a pattern against good teams.


To me.. we need to return to UC basketballs root and play way way better defense because we can win just doing what we are doing on offense if we just figured out our defensive issues

My opinion on this is to play 2 different brands of defensive BB 1st half vs 2nd. Then any game planning by the other coach would be mitigated. Especially on D. Maybe man to man 1st half and zone the next or something like that. We can't allow the other coach to make good working solutions to what was going wrong at half time.

[waterhead]

Originally Posted by justinhub2003

And i never said Harvey SHOULD transfer, I said I hope he sees the light at the end of the tunnel. But in the press conference or post game, I can't remember, but brannen pointed out that Harvey was just in his office and he was explaining that he does has a plan for him. Kid is top 50 and not playing. So I was saying I could see him exploring his options.


As Diarra, he wasn't recruited by Brannen. I could also understand if he wanted to play in a different system.

Honestly I don't think it matters if we are saying should, could, would. We should be saying that any player that is under performing should work to do better and leave it at that. Transfer is an easy out most of the time. It's an excuse that says I was good enough but was (for some absolutely asinine reason) wasn't being played enough by the coach who wants to win as many games as he can.

The coach(es) most times will play the guy that gets the best results. For the most part Cronin got it right even if it took longer than we would have liked at times. There may have been a couple of times he got it wrong. But Harvey and Diara are nothing like the situations of Cumberland (frosh), Evans (frosh), Caupain (frosh), etc. Harvey has well established good players in front of him. Diara is not out performing his peers.

[cincyguy13]

Originally Posted by justinhub2003

Mick was using his normal formula of one high level player per class.
He got Jacob Evans
He got Jarron
He got Keith Williams (who is the star of this team at the moment)
He got a 4 star pg in Logan Johnson
He got Samari Curtis who was a 4 star by some scouts


If he doesn’t leave: the only likely departure Is fredericks

Logan might have stayed, hard to say. He left for personal reasons but I’m a sure new coach didn’t help

So your talking about a lineup of:
Logan
Jarron
Keith
Tre
Nysier

With Diarra, Trevor, Curtis, Jaevin Cumberland, & Ellie

And yes I included Jaevin because the talks of him coming to cincinnati to play with Jarron literally had nothing to do with John Brannen. Brendal mentioned the smoke surrounding Jaevin coming long before mick left on the skinny podcast.

That above team makes the tourney and is In the top 25 all year.


So with that said, if that above team Is a tourney team and Is top 25, and what your saying is true that mick just gave up on getting players, then it instead validates him as a very high level coach to squeeze that kinda result out of the scrubs he recruited since Gary Clark.


Stop implying that mick left the cupboard bare. How many new coaches around the country got to say they returned their top 3 leading scorers?

Mick inherited a young shitty team at UCLA and they still lost their top 3 scorers, Aaron mckie lost his leading scorer., Travis Steele lost blueitt and macula,

CJB was given an incredible start to his tenure with Keith and Jarron and Tre. He literally has his prototypical player that he wants in Keith Williams and he didn’t even have to recruit him.



Like I get it, the sky isn’t falling yet. But it has taken the fun and excitement away from the basketball program a little bit.

But its also hard for me to hear you out on micks recruiting being an after thought, when in the early signing period we have 3 guys signed but only 1 has a few high major offers.

The returning 3 leading scorers thing is one of the dumbest things and you keep saying it. Tre Scott is in no way a good scorer. Never has been, never will be. He had a solid year last year but I wouldn’t even say he is an above average scorer. Keith has had his best 2 games under brannen but was never a great scorer before this year and Jarron is hurt or something. Not saying the cupboard was completely bare but the 3 leading scoring is extremely misleading and doesn’t even make sense. Returning leading scorers doesn’t mean anything if they aren’t good at scoring the ball.

[cincyguy13]

I think our chances of making the tourney are very slim. If Jarron is hurt, We don’t have any chance against better teams and we need a couple good wins. It would take Harvey and Davenport playing a lot better, Jarron getting healthy and motivated, and Tre actually playing well and I haven’t seen many signs of these things happening.

[TheLongHaul]

Normally I'm a big fan of having tough OOC schedules and front loading them to get the team battle tested and find out what they need to work on. Cronin's scheduling in the past has been about 90% cupcakes prior to conference and this happened to be the one year they have started with a very tough schedule. And this probably was the worst year to do it. With prior years schedules Harvey would have had a chance to get a lot of PT early in the year but you just can't do that against good teams. I'm sure Brannen is reminding him of this, and I'm sure he'll get PT in games such as Saturday.

[justinhub2003]

Originally Posted by cincyguy13

The returning 3 leading scorers thing is one of the dumbest things and you keep saying it. Tre Scott is in no way a good scorer. Never has been, never will be. He had a solid year last year but I wouldn’t even say he is an above average scorer. Keith has had his best 2 games under brannen but was never a great scorer before this year and Jarron is hurt or something. Not saying the cupboard was completely bare but the 3 leading scoring is extremely misleading and doesn’t even make sense. Returning leading scorers doesn’t mean anything if they aren’t good at scoring the ball.

Got it... so stating facts is dumb ?


I can’t help it thst Tre Scott is worse under Brannen then he was under mick.

Tre Scott had a 114 offensive rating his sophomore year
113 his JR year

And now this season has a 98.4... which is by far the worst of his career.


He was a good passing big but his assist rate is the lowest of his career.


I’m 100% positive Tre turns it around.


Your out here crucifying Tre Scott, even though he’s the one who learned a new system after 4 years of an old one and your giving zero grace. But people giving all kinds of excuses for CJB and this terrible start isn’t his fault.

Tre and Jarron have had career worst numbers under Brannen’s system, and Keith has improved. But he was already improving year over year. His jumps from freshmen to sophomore was incredible and were seeing a star player being born for what should be an amazing senior season.

Listen.... you can spin it how ever you want. The reality is UC returned its top 3 scorers, it’s leading assist guy and its leading rebounder.

Lololol and one of those guys was z as preseason all American and nod your acting like the returning players don’t matter:

Kenpom’s started us 24th in kenpom because the metrics said we should be good.


And I love how you try to invalidate the top 3 scorers returning. Like yea, if Brannen inherited a team who returned its 3 best players from a team that won 5 games, then I’d see your point. But that’s not the case, he returned 3 leading players from a 28 win team and one of them was a preseason all American. I don’t understand how your trying to spin this.