originaloverthehilltop1 wrote:yeah. lets just ignore the fact that it is hard to sign top players who think they are a year from the nba while u are a non p5 program that is prohibited from post season play and/or under probation, with reduced scholarships to boot. that's all the fault of the assistant coach left behind to pick up the pieces. anything short of a top 20 finish is inexcusable.
having said that, somebody lay out the timetable and milestone improvements we should be looking for (and when) starting with exit of l brown and probation penalties and show when and how the improvement should manifest.
we need a timetable and evaluation schedule. anybody game? inquiring minds want to know.
Let’s not act like any good recruits are going to care if a team has reduced scholarships; if anything, that sanction gives them a chance to get on the floor sooner. Also, Jank would have you believe that missing two scholarships per year is a death knell for a program, but most teams only go 8-9 deep anyways.
As for your timetable, well....
After 2016-17, Jank’s first class consisted of Landrum, Douglas, Ray, and Chargois. Safe to say there were some blown evals there. An absolute whiff of a class if not for Mike coming aboard as a transfer.
The 2017-18 season saw some highs (beating then #2 Arizona, blowing out USC and winning at Wichita) but the cracks were starting to show. We also lost games we should have won to UNI and WKU in Atlantis, lost to Tulane and Temple at home and got blown out by 20 at Cincy (sound familiar?). Then in the Wichita game Jarrey went down with the knee injury. Shake’s injury a few weeks later sealed that season’s fate. I’m largely willing to give Jank a pass for that season’s on court performance because we lost our two best players, but again some cracks were starting to show before they went down.
In the 2017-18 recruiting cycle, Jank signs Feron during the early signing period (good). Then, knowing that Jarrey will be rehabbing his second ACL injury all offseason and likely not back for the beginning of the regular season and that the team would need an infusion of talent, Jank goes and signs Jahmar Young and CJ White, both of which had extremely underwhelming offer lists and would not be expected to contribute in year one. He also signed Nat Dixon as a grad transfer — another blown eval. Overall, not a good class, especially given the circumstances.
The 2018-19 season sucked, to put it nicely. We started the season 2-3 with losses to Southern Miss, Lipscomb and Bradley and needed a last second shot to beat Wright State. We went 10-8 at home and got embarrassed in prison yard like fashion at Memphis and UCF.
The 2019 cycle brought us some pieces. Davis is a stud, Jolly is a player, and Smith is at least talented and had a good offer list — I think he could develop into something. Jasey looks...not great, Bandoumel is JAG and who knows about McNeill — he was a volume scorer on an awful Cal team. McBride was a really perplexing take at the time (very beginning of the cycle and his offer list was like Canisius and an Ivy); but whatever, Jank is good for at least one (and usually several) head-scratchers per class.
As for the on court product this year, well let’s see.....we got absolutely destroyed by Georgetown at home, lost games we should have won on the road to mediocre teams in Georgia and ECU, and eeked out a win over a pretty bad Vandy team (although they still had Nesmith at the time). Our OOC was one of the worst in the nation and you’ve gotta think Jank did that on purpose to save his job. As a result, we have no shot at an at-large bid in early February but after that Temple debacle on Saturday it’s not like this team is anywhere close to being tournament caliber. Davis has completely saved Jank’s bacon, if not for his waiver our record might be reversed right now. Defensively, we’re a mess and offensively it seems that we just try to out talent other teams rather than scheme up and take advantage of mismatches. I don’t know how anyone could watch this team and think it’s anywhere close to being well-coached.
In conclusion, Jank almost completely screwed up two recruiting cycles (2017 and 18) really set this thing ablaze. He will whine and moan about sanctions, but the real sanction was how bad of a job he did evaluating and recruiting in those two cycles. And I know for a fact that assistants have complained about the guys he’s elected to pursue and offer and others he’s passed on (Hello, Marcus Sasser!). He effectively took a 24 month vacation from recruiting...how is ANYONE okay with that level of effort from a guy making seven figures? We’re 16-6 now, if we’d played a half decent OOC like we should have, we’d probably be 13-9 or 12-10.
The real question is, what kind of program does David Miller want at SMU? If he’s content with NIT appearances and Jank-level recruiting, we should probably adjust our expectations (and spending habits) accordingly. The product on the court over the past three seasons sure as hell doesn’t line up with the ticket prices that resulted from the reseat. If David thinks SMU has to potential to be a top ten team (like we’ve been before in recent history) and competing for NCAA tournament berths year in and year out, and that’s what he wants to see, then Jank should be getting his walking papers in a few weeks.