The year is over and I put together some summaries of returning players as well as coaching comparisons.
Coaches after 3 years on the job:
Coach Total W-L Conf. W-L Conference Titles
Hunter 43-38 24-24 0
O'Shea 58-37 27-22 0
Groce 56-48 23-25 1
Summary: O'Shea was clearly the biggest winner, Groce won 1 title. Who's the best? I guess one would have to vote for Groce. Now we could get into the discussion over which coach inherited the best returning class? Then we could move on to add other parts to the conversation, like OOC scheduling, however at the end of the day it's the W-L record that we always look at.
I will mention that years 4, 5, & 6 were good for Groce's predecessors.
Player Summary: Comparing only the returning players who played last year.
DJ................ Scoring down 2pts per game, FG % +1%, 3PT FG % -2%
EVO............. Scoring +9pts, FG% +4%, FT% +25%, RBS +3.5%
Keely........... FG% -4%, FT% +30%
Overall........ Evo improved the most, DJ's performace dropped off a little from last year, and Keely overall did not
improve.
Next Year: We certainly have to replace 2 major players. We will still have a young team and we have to improve in many facets, defense, reduction of scoring droughts,& learning "How To Win". We have numerous transfers, and are still unproven. We have no center of relevance returning to take Washington's place. Evo is not a center & Keely is weak and can't score or rebound. Jacobs obviously has "no game" as substantiated by his lack of PT this year, even in blow outs. We need a JC transfer who can play the position, if only to rebound and play D.
Nick is a bright spot for us, but even he needs to be more consistant. All DJ has to do is improve his shooting and he will become MAC player of the year. I would like to think that Evo will continue to improve however I would be pleased if he plays all of next year like he did the last half of this year. I don't think we saw much from the other players that saw PT this year to be optimistic about. If just 1 of those guys could improve like Evo did in his second year I would be pleased.
Finally, we must have our full compliment of scholarship player for next year, walk-ons just aren't good enough to give the coaching staff enough "go to options" in game situations. This situation hurt us this year, and we all know the reasons why we were in this predicament. We were basically at a competitive disadvantage.
I expect us to be picked to finish in the middle of the east bracket 4 or 5th.
GO BOBCATS