Official: USF vs SMU game thread

[DanFreibergerForHeisman]

And when the coach says they can’t practice he does not mean they just sit in a recliner. They do practice but they cannot replicate game type situations.

good point

[ponyte]

I'm not down on this team. We basically had to throw freshmen and Spoh to the lions when key players went down. That and the limitations on scholarships were huge.

THey played hard and had to gel as a team on the fly. That is asking a lot from kids wth limited to no experience. ANd yes asking a kid that was playing high school a year ago to be the physical equivilent of a Jr or Sr. college player is unfair but Jank had no choice.

We didn't have the year we wanted but we have a lot of experience coming back. Now use that experience to improve in the off season.

[dr. rick]

completely agree with ponyte... experience will help next year's team.

[DanFreibergerForHeisman]

completely agree with ponyte... experience will help next year's team.

I hope so. It should.

[PonyLawExpress]

I think the experience will help this team for next season and I am not a believer of the sky is falling for the program, but we need to upgrade our roster. Outside of Chargois our other freshman drastically under performed this season. They were all bottom half of the AAC level freshman, outside of Chargois (I ranked them). That isn't acceptable for 75% of your freshman class if you want to be a perennial power. I still think Douglas will be pretty solid and Landrum could be a good bench role guy, but they aren't guys to build a program around. They are role guys to put around you studs. That is fine, but we need to add more studs.

We need Hunt to be one of those guys and we need to add another this class. I. Mike will be a huge addition next season, but this offseason will be crucial for Jank to grab another big time player of two for next season and get a HUGE 2019 class.

[DanFreibergerForHeisman]

I think the experience will help this team for next season and I am not a believer of the sky is falling for the program, but we need to upgrade our roster. Outside of Chargois our other freshman drastically under performed this season. They were all bottom half of the AAC level freshman, outside of Chargois (I ranked them). That isn't acceptable for 75% of your freshman class if you want to be a perennial power. I still think Douglas will be pretty solid and Landrum could be a good bench role guy, but they aren't guys to build a program around. They are role guys to put around you studs. That is fine, but we need to add more studs.

We need Hunt to be one of those guys and we need to add another this class. I. Mike will be a huge addition next season, but this offseason will be crucial for Jank to grab another big time player of two for next season and get a HUGE 2019 class.

There do seem too be a lot of dissenting opinions on William Douglas. It will be interesting to see if he can find a role off of the bench.

Chargois will be good. Possibly very good.

I do agree overall this class was disappointing. I hope it isn't an indicator of things to come.

[JasonB]

Seriously guys...

1) Don't judge Jank on previous classes because of the restrictions. Have a little judgement on the frosh that came in this year, because it was only partially impacted. Fully judge on the ones that sign the next two years. But as you are judging, don't forget to add Whitt and Mike to the list.

2) Someone said 3-9 before, but I'll argue that Ray would have had a bigger impact that William Douglas if he had stayed healthy.

3) Guess when frosh build their confidence? When they play against good players at practice. Not from games. Not running full practices had a huge impact on the frosh. That is why you don't see a ton of development for Douglas and Landrum specifically over the last few weeks. Although I think Landrum improved significantly more than Douglas did.

4) When Jank is saying he had 3 healthy players for practice, I think he is actually counting Isiah Mike in that number. Anyone notice the rolling ping they were using on Landrum's back during the game?

The only reason we will have any frosh leave is if Jarrey and Shake come back and we need spots. I expect us to have a high end transfer come in every season, because we have a great rep in that market now.

[Pony81]

I supposed I'm disappointed that our 7 scholarship players - of whatever vintage - couldn't beat the worst team in the league. I thought our program was better than that despite all the problems.

The announcer of the USF game has Chagois on his all AAC freshman team and I would agree. However, Douglas is the big disappointment. He was a borderline top 100 recruit that shows very little confidence in his game. I'm sure on a deep team he would have played very little and would have time to develop and not be "exposed" for lack of a D1 game.

I. Mike and Hunt have got to be high level mid-major D1 players .... immediately. Otherwise next year is going to be a repeat.... Hope we can find one more recruit who can immediately contribute in 18-19.

[horsemanx]

I supposed I'm disappointed that our 7 scholarship players - of whatever vintage - couldn't beat the worst team in the league. I thought our program was better than that despite all the problems.

I feel the same way. Hopefully we are only 1.5 classes away from being competitive in The American and making the NCAA Tournament again.

[Pony_Law]

It’s hard to evaluate when you have 7 scholarship players at least 1 of which was significantly hurt but played anyway. I’m not buying the sky is falling at all. Think we will be right back into tournament talk next year if healthy.

[Charleston Pony]

A lot depends on whether Jarrey comes back and is healthy but with Jarrey, Whitt, McMurray, Mike and Chargois, we should field a pretty competitive starting 5 next year. Just going to need 4-5 more guys who can contribute significant minutes. Now if Shake decides to come back, I agree we could have the makings of a tournament team again.

[SMU Section F]

I don't think "the sky is falling" at all since next year's team will look very different (and hopefully be a lot healthier), but a double-digit loss to USF should not happen. Feel bad for the guys ending the regular season that way, since I think they feel the same way... overall a rough year, but I have faith that we'll bounce back considerably in 2018-2019.

[JasonB]

A lot depends on whether Jarrey comes back and is healthy but with Jarrey, Whitt, McMurray, Mike and Chargois, we should field a pretty competitive starting 5 next year. Just going to need 4-5 more guys who can contribute significant minutes. Now if Shake decides to come back, I agree we could have the makings of a tournament team again.

You can see here that Guard is our biggest problem. Jarrey, Mike, and Chargois will rotate with each other at the 4-5. Next year's recruits are all forwards, so they don't help. So you have Whitt. McMurray I still think should come off the bench on a good team. Landrum can't start if McMurray is starting. Douglas isn't anywhere close to a starting spot. If Shake comes back, we might be okay, but otherwise guard is a big issue. Need a last minute HS recruit or a JUCO transfer.

[PonyLawExpress]

A lot depends on whether Jarrey comes back and is healthy but with Jarrey, Whitt, McMurray, Mike and Chargois, we should field a pretty competitive starting 5 next year. Just going to need 4-5 more guys who can contribute significant minutes. Now if Shake decides to come back, I agree we could have the makings of a tournament team again.

You can see here that Guard is our biggest problem. Jarrey, Mike, and Chargois will rotate with each other at the 4-5. Next year's recruits are all forwards, so they don't help. So you have Whitt. McMurray I still think should come off the bench on a good team. Landrum can't start if McMurray is starting. Douglas isn't anywhere close to a starting spot. If Shake comes back, we might be okay, but otherwise guard is a big issue. Need a last minute HS recruit or a JUCO transfer.

Yep. Landrum and Douglas, unless they drastically improve shouldn't be playing more than 10-12 minutes a game next year on a championship level/tournament team. They both have some major gaps in their game. We desperately need to close on one of the impact guards we are recruiting. We could use a physical, rebounding big as well, but its not crucial like needing to add talent and a shooter/scorer to our backcourt. We also really need Hunt to be ready to play 15mins per game and I. Mike to be every bit as good as advertised if not better.

Jank has to add some talent to our roster this season. Our talent level is slowly depleting each year and it needs to stop.

[SoCal_Pony]

Sorry, I misplaced my PF BS decoder ring. Someone help me out with this...

‘They’re young, they’ll be fine, give them a year to improve, we should be ‘competitive’ next year, blah blah blah.

What the $*%# does that exactly mean????

We just got run over by a very bad USF team. Douglas will be better next year.....you realized he just scored 0 points against a lousy team Sagarin has ranked #258. He’ll get better, does that mean he scores 4 points next time??? Give me a break.

CP, ‘we’ll be competitive next year????, you mean middle of the pack in a 2-bid conference?, is that really our goal here.

Jank has completely struck out these past 2 years with HS signees. Charg showed glimpses early in the season but disappointed over most so IMO the verdict is out on him on if he’ll be good (he is) or great (major contributor on a Top 15 team).

Love me some Jank, but a repeat of this season should get him fired. Maybe Hart can make another splash hire and parlay that into yet another ticket increase.

Disappointed in our team, disappointed in our Athletic Department.