abdulrahman wrote:
steve19981 wrote:
I keep seeing year 3 of the rebuild cited. Thats true. Its where we are. I wrote a piece last year on wwtr following some extensive research that suggested the first year you should even expect some success after a coaching change is year three. Often times coaches don't break through till year 4 or even 5. I'll post a link when I can. I'm not trying to make excuses but the way ferry attacked this, its really like year 2. Again, no excuse, but people did give credit to him for at least giving Ron's kids a chance. He has one player playing like a true upper classman and two who do at times. That's out of four upper classmen who have more than 10 games under him. Thats on Ferry, but its also why I'm not panicking right now. This team has a lot if room to improve.
Steve, I admire your optimism !!  however ...  I don't have as much faith as you that coach Ferry will be able to get this team to show real significant improvement as the year progresses. Currently they look like one of the worst teams in America ( not sure who they could be fairly certain of beating ). Merely being competitive may be an improvement.

The shortcomings are just so numerous :

1) An aversion to playing real defense, at least for more than a couple of minutes at a time.
2) Not valuing possession of the ball -  shot selection is questionable to say the least .
3) Coach's seeming inflexibility in lineup construction.  We have been over this many times no need to rehash it here.
4) Player regression , instead of anticipated progression.  For example Ridenour, McCoy, Gill to name just a few.
5) No home court advantage.  Don't minimize this one, but sometimes a call or two that would be expected to go the "Home team's " way in a close game invariable goes against DU, especially at the Palumbo tomb. 
6) No identity of playing style. Can't really see where the team is headed either.  Are they a proficient , high scoring up tempo team -  not really ( probably not even really close at this point )
7) They are generally speaking, a low IQ basketball team.  They don't seem to think the game real well .

I'll stop there as it is becoming a bit depressing.
Optimism isn't the word I would use to describe my take on this situation. Patient is.

Here is my thing. Ferry at least recognizes what is wrong and he seems to talk the talk. Now, he needs to show us that he can walk the walk and teach these guys to play better. Almost everything you mention above is a question mark, but until he shows he can't do that with players with significant experience, then I'll become much more concerned.

The only thing I don't agree with is player regression. Ridenour hasn't gotten any worse. He's just been squeezed because there are more complete players ahead of him. Gill's not where he needs to be but I think he all around looks better than he did last year. If he were shooting just slightly better I don't think anyone would be saying anything about it. He's just not as advertised. Still he's shooting more two point shots, getting to the line at a higher rate, and he's dished out as many assists as he's turned the ball over. He's also setting better screens. Problem is he's not playing physically enough and that's glaringly obvious in a larger, more post minded role. McKoy is the only one who is truly playing worse. Sure, some has to do with the space by Ovie, but he's missing open bunnies like every game is the last three minutes against St Louis. He's not even getting to the FT line.

Again, Colter is the only guy playing like a veteran all the time right now. Jones and Mason do at times with Jones showing a little more all around toughness than Mason. It's amazing how much players who have been there and look like they have will help make Ferry look a lot better.