We don't care about the Reese Cup. We starve our "minor" sports to fund BBall, FBall, Volleyball and Baseball.

Schaus has accomplished a lot here, particularly in fundraising. His hire of Saul was a bust, no question about it.

This seems like one of those weird situations where almost everyone agreed Saul was the right guy to hire. Seemed like the perfect guy for this situation, this market and at the time he was just about to hit it big. A strange mix of circumstances and bad decisions means it probably just isn't going to work out. It's one of those things. The process was pretty solid. The results just didn't follow. So they'll move on and Saul will move on. It's going to be a strangely dispassionate coaching break-ups where both sides aren't going to be salty about it, but both know it's not working.

I'm cool with them going with a more inexpensive coach, but he'd better be really young and innovative if they're going into the bargain bin.

Not to be critical here of this, but Volleyball has been a dud hire, basketball has it's dud, and football has been in a holding pattern.

On the fundraising front, we didn't even build a proper indoor practice facility with sawed off end-zones, couldn't get the thing funded so it's run by University Affairs, and our press box still has offices in it when it should be generating revenue on it. Lot of short-sighted answers, especially that AD Box which uses glorified intramural bleachers in it. No offense, even I avoided that place on gamedays......

As to his vision, how come in his 10 yeas not once has someone deemed a basketball facility urgent? No offense to football, but we botched that one and could have done the basketball facility for the same price, which would have alleviated a lot of problems at the Convo. But alas, our vision is so short sighted, along with building an academic center onto a facility that will need gutted and renovated if we're going to stay there.

Like everything at OU, let's kick the can down the road til it's urgent, then pray to god.....

This team does not resemble the Hahn era. #1 there are not 2 NBA players on the roster. #2 there is no NCAA future scoring leader type player on the roster. #3. Players like each other #4 players like the coaches, we simply are what we are right now. Some of you are like the football board, willing to throw dirt on the hard work of kids after 15% of the season.

I will give you the benefit of the doubt Billy that you weren't responding to my post but to others. Otherwise, your post makes absolutely no sense, since my post and most of the ones I have read made no critical remarks about any of the players. I was there for that Hahn era (every home game-and it is indelibly etched in my mind.) No one had anyway of knowing that Snoopy Graham and Dave Jamerson would make the NBA because the team was a train wreck. Who knows we might have a couple of diamonds in the rough on this squad?

I certainly made no disparaging remarks about any of the players and I didn't read many other posters who did. The vast majority of the concerns raised here focused on the coaching decisions. Also, I am not sure why you brought up those who post their thoughts on the football board, when they are not one in the same.

I'm not convinced that OU Sports Management students would stay all that much longer unless they had ties to the area outside of the school. Athens is not a great place for people 25-35 from a social standpoint. People will want a bigger city. Drake Bolan was an exception here as he had ties to the area and did a great job. That is until some wanna be Sherlock Holmes wasted tons of University resources to get him ousted over peanuts. Which those peanuts can lead back to lack of funding for jobs in the department.

Schaus certainly has his drawbacks as a fundraiser. It is telling that he is still in Athens. He's had tons of success in football and basketball which usually means moving on up. However, the consistency at the MAC level is a good thing in my book vs hiring young guns that leave in a few years because they are too good or too bad. That process is tough to be successful at every three years in hiring.

Exactly right. We're crepe hanging because this moribund staff is lurching toward its inevitable exit and the play on the court suggests nothing good is coming. I've never been less enthusiastic about the future of this program since I became a fan. It will be a multi-year rebuild to respectability and this season is not going to produce a lot of joy.

I definitely think there was some sort of alternate universe where Campbell stays healthy, that team wins the MAC tourney and an NCAA tournament game or at least plays a power five team tough and recruiting goes differently fresh off those good vibes and national stage.

That's why I don't judge Saul too harshly. This wasn't him being in over his head at Ohio. (Which ironically has made the ending messier. If he was a disaster, it's an easy decision. If he was great, it's an easy decision. He's put himself squarely in the Tim O'Shea "You don't dare love me but I'm just barely good enough that you can't justify firing me" zone). He hasn't recruited as well as he needs to. But there's also a not-so-hard-to-imagine scenario where it all turns out differently that has nothing to do with how he coaches the X's and O's. He was also unlucky.

God forgive me for defending TOS, but Saul isn't in the same league as our beloved punching bag. TOS made the tournament, was well above .500 both overall and even in MAC play (despite his "life on the road" stance). He had wins against Butler, North Carolina, UVA and Maryland. Oh, and he made won the MAC Tournament and made the dance in year four. You've made me long for TOS - that's how bad things are in the Convo.

C'mon! We blew an 18-point lead at home to Austin Peay only to rally and win in OT!

That's not as impressive???

Gonna be a long year.

#WhatAreWePayingAttentionToStonyBrookFor? #WhatsThePurposeOfUsingHashtagsInBobcatAttack?


Going back to typing like an adult again...Maybe it's me, but I'd be surprised if Coach Boals would come here for anything short of $450-550k that the job has paid in the last 5-7 years. Maybe I'm wrong. Working off the assumption that we're highly likely to cut whatever the coaches salary will be, I think Boals might be more than Ohio will choose to afford. Again, maybe I'm wrong.

I'd also assume that he's a guy who left Ohio State for a head coaching gig that might actually pay him LESS than he made with Thad as Associate Head Coach. I'm sure that info is out there somewhere - I haven't looked it up.

If I'm a betting man, I'm betting Coach Boals aspires to get to a P5 level job. If he does, is Ohio a better job for him, right now, than Stony Brook? 5-6 years ago, this wasn't even a debate, because it was. But, Stony Brook has done some renovations in recent years to facilities that might have changed that. They're also in a conference I'd argue that is easier to win in, and in an area that may be easier to recruit from. Again, I don't know. There's some assumption in this space that thinks he would come here just because it's his Alma Mater. Not everyone does that. I'm not sure I'd do that in his case If I were him, solely because it's his Alma mater.

Whenever Saul leaves, and that he will seems to be a forgone conclusion, the next hire is one that Schaus & Ohio absolutely can't screw up. Because they've screwed up the current situation since JG's departure in a few ways - I think that's agreed upon here. The next hire had better be able to convince the best players we currently have to stay, or it's gonna be a long, long couple years of rebuilding for the new coach. The next hires had better be able to help sell the public on coming to games, and then deliver on that sales job. And the question is, is Boals that guy to do that? Because he's an alumnus from a great team in a good era of Ohio hoops, I'd say he'd help sell the program to some of the older crowd. Short of being 5-1 this year at Stony Brook, I have no clue what kind of coach he is. Something important for my money, with a new hire, is having a brand of basketball that can be sold to younger fans/alumni/students. One that is fun to watch, because some blend of fun to watch and winning is what puts butts in the seats, right?

Lastly, to come back to things unrelated to coaches, recruiting, and winning, if they want to restore some lost luster to this program, it's time to get their act together on game day experience, and the basic aesthetics of being in The Convo. Because right now, the folks running the show can't simply blame wins and losses or coaching success or lack of, on the waning numbers of bodies in the seats. When you go to hire the next coach, you'd be wise to approach this from an all-in rebrand of the basketball program and the facility itself. Being honest, I personally have minimal faith in that actually happening, or being done close to the right way.

So it's a T-shirt pellet gun?

In a vacuum, Ohio is a better job than Stony Brook. But the choice won't be made in a vacuum. The choice Boals would be asked to make is to rebuild at Ohio or stay on at Stony Brook where's he's built some momentum and has the program on the right trajectory.

To be clear, I don't really have a dog in this fight. I thought Boals was the right guy when Christian got the job, but didn't really know much about him beyond that he came from the same tree as Groce and is an alum. I'm just not so sure we can wave a big raise in front of a guy who is building something at a school in another 1 bid league and always expect to get them. I'm not even sure, honestly, that we want to get in the habit of doing so. I prefer the TOS, Groce method of finding a respected P5 assistant and promoting them. It's cheaper and in the case of OU the results have been better.