When defending a position that isn't grounded in anything other than perception, yeah, you're wasting your time.

The #25 ranking in the Coache's Poll was nothing more than a nod to what we accomplished in the Dance.  Prior to those two wins, we weren't garnering an ounce of attention.

But he has, as best I can tell, not won a single signature OOC game

Just to play devil's advocate, I thought Akron's win against Mississippi State last year to start out the season was a good win for Akron.

I will say this though.  As we have seen so far this season, until JC does win a significant OOC game, JC will be vulnerable to the kind of arguments Redrustler's making.  Redrustler is right in this regard, our OOC record so far this year isn't as good as last year's, our MAC record this year notwithstanding. 

But our MAC record this season is historically good-can't knock that at all!!  8-1 MAC on the road???  Seriously??  TOS would've killed for that record.

I think we can all agree-GO CATS!!!

I'm going to bring back a point I made on an earlier thread this year.  I believe an apt comparison would be the NY football Giants.  Two seasons ago they muddled along and just barely made the playoffs. They got hot at the right time and went on to win the Super Bowl.  They easily could have lost to the 49'ers, but scratched out a win.  This year, with essentially the same roster, they again performed in a similar fashion, not making the playoffs.  Did Tom Coughlin become a bad coach? No.  Some players, notably Eli Manning, did not perform as well. It is hard to duplicate performance from one year to the next.  Why should 18 to 22 year olds be any different.  Walt Offut still plays hard and is a great kid.  Will he ever have a game again like he did against UNC? Probably not. That's the nature of athletics.  Nick Kellogg started to miss 3s.  Who knows why.  He wasn't trying to miss.  There is no explanation for Ivo's troubles this year that I am aware of.  If he played better, who knows what might have happened this year?  Yes, there might be different  results with JG this year, but to expect last year to be duplicated is just foolish.  OU caught lightning in a bottle last year.  It was a great ride.  Cherish the memories.  But to expect the same or similar results will probably set you up for unhappiness.  Celebrate whatever this group of young men has and will accomplish this year.

So you just agreed with me. Just like the Giants could win the World Series without World Series talent, Ohio can make the Sweet 16 without having Top 16 talent.

Sorry but that''s simply not true.  He may tweek it or use certain parts of it more but he starts implimenting his system at Day 1.  Why?  Because if he doesn't then the team is going to suffer for it long term. Next year's team will go through the same growing pains that this team has.   Christian's system is his system because he knows it and coaches it well.  Not ony that but his asistant coaches know it and know it well and can teach it.  Next year's team will be better for it because they've had an extra year in the system.   Roy Williams didn't arrive at UNC and leave Matt Dougherty's system in place because his players were familiar with it. He started teaching his system.  Coach K arrived at Duke and taught his system.   John Groce arrived in Athens and started teaching his system. Danny Nee...the same.   Christian isn't coaching just for this year. He's coaching for next year and the year after that.  T.J. Hall, Ricardo Johnson, Jon Smith,  Stevie Taylor, Nick Kellogg, Treg Setty, Kadeem Green and Javarez Willis will be much more comfortable in the system next year because of it.   And hopefully everything will click with this group this year...just like it has two of the last three years.   

Because the goal is getting in position to get to NCAA and play in the NCAA. But once you get to the tournament championship games or in the NCAA tournament, its really a crap shoot/luck of draw/randomness on success. I think the coach has little affect on the results of those games.

I disagree with you on this point. John Groce wins were based on more than the draw/randomness. As was Tony La Russa in baseball..  A good coach makes a huge difference in my opinion.

Touché and amen!!!!

Please keep coming with the argument that we were not 16 last year.   Oh, I'll concede that the pollsters never put us that high.  But that is opinion.  The only fact here is that we made the Sweet 16.

But you are correct in your opinions.  So, I guess that football did not beat Penn State last year.  Because surely our talent is not at the level to beat Penn State.

You people who are so damned certain that you're right--I'm enjoying pigsticking in the eye here.  At least I'll admit to what is a fact and that most of the arguments (excpet the extremes) here are plausible.  Those of you who are so sure that your opinions are correct are fun.

But wrong.


And, it would be nice of some of you 'certains' to address my question of why a better seaons than we've had should not have been expected from any team that 1) won a single NCAA tourney game last year and 2) returned essentially the whole team from last year, and 3) is mostly made up of jr's and seniors.

There is a difference between making the Sweet 16 and being one of the 16 best teams in the country, or even in the tournament. Being in the Sweet 16 LITERALLY MEANS that [you were either (a) a conference's automatic bid or (b) good enough to be selected as an at-large bid despite losing in your conference tournament] AND that you won your Round-of-64 and Round-of-32 games. Might we have been the 4th best team in the country last year? I don't personally think so, but in the championship tournament we only lost to UNC, who only lost to Kansas, who only lost to National Champion Kentucky. Of course, we might have only been the 61st best team in the tournament (leaving aside the "first 4" games), having only beat Michigan (who beat no one else) and South Florida (who only beat Temple). I don't think thats the case either. Short of a 64-team round robin, I don't know of a definitive way of saying that we were/were not one of the 16 best teams in the country last year, or in the tournament, but we were one of the last 16 teams in.



Coaches change. Opponents change. Guys get hurt. And, yeah, our returners would be expected to improve RELATIVE TO THEIR QUALITY LAST YEAR. But you know what? The other team wants to win too. So they're going to try to do so, and they're going to watch tape of that explosive team that came out of no where to make the sweet16 and they're going to gameplan against them. And yes, their guys got better in the offseason too, again, relative to their quality last year.

But the question isn't whether "Player-X 2013" is better than "Player-X 2012". We'll assume that he is. The scenario is more on the order of this: "OHIO-Player-X 2012" was "a" better than "AKRON-Player-X 2012" If "OHIO-Player-X's" improvement works out to be "b", and if "AKRON-Player-X's" improvement works out to be "c", then the question becomes: Who is the better player in 2013, OHIO-Player-X or AKRON-Player-X.

To solve this, we'd use the equation: (OHIO-Player-X-2012 + "b") - (Akron-Player-X-2012 + "c")

(1) If that equation equals "a", then even though both players have improved, they still have a similar talent gap as before. (2) If that equation results in a number that is greater than "a", then the OHIO player has improved more than the Akron player. (3) If that equation results in a number that is less than "a" then the Akron player has improved more than the OHIO player. REMEMBER, IN ALL 3 SCENARIOS BOTH PLAYERS IMPROVED THEIR GAME ON 2012.


Or think of it another way. IF we say that last year's OHIO players were better than last year's AKRON players (including the influence of coaching), at what percentage of their optimal capacity (taking into account their best-possible hand-eye coordination, aerobic and anaeroboic training, muscle memory, mental processing, etc) were they playing, and at what percentage was Akron's guys playing at? Maybe we're both at 50% of max and each have a lot of room to improve. Or maybe they were at 50% and we were really firing on all cylinders and were playing at 95% of max. If its the second, then Akron's got more room to improve with maturity than we do. And thems the breaks.

Wow! a road victory against a good team! Amazing, I did not know it was possible.

Yeah, sticking around for 60 years or however long goes a long way to racking up career wins. He's also the guy who batted his pitcher 8th for no real reason, threw triple switches around like they were going out of style, and left the best hitter on the bench in the All-Star Game (with only home field advantage in the World Series at stake) because he wanted to save him for extra innings that never happened because, again, he left the planet's best baseball player on the bench.

He won three titles because he had awesome players and more than a little luck, not because he knew things nobody else did.

There are a lot of terrible managers who are high up on the all-time wins list (Dusty Baker! Bobby Valentine!). And that doesn't change the fact you argued the coaches poll is objective. The coaches poll!

Can one conservatively embellish? Discuss.

Yes, I know you think that. What else is new?