Question

[Charleston Pony]

no mention of Justin Haynes by anyone? towards the end of last season, I thought he was one of the bright spots as I looked forward to "next year". A lot of guys show their most improvement between their FR and SO years. If Haynes comes back much improved, he's going to be a factor. Same could be said for Nyakundi, except that he's already had that RS year.

[papawasamustang]

Haynes has been mentioned alot. I think alot of us expect him to be a regular or @ least get alot of quality PT. Plus, he's an awesome kid. Was very good around my kids & other small children @ one of the camps.

I see alot in both Faye & RN. Like others have mentioned, the key for them is that they become all around players & just not settling for the J. Both have the size to be mismatch nightmares if they/Doh can take advantage of it. I've seen Faye take it 2 the hole strong & I've seen him have double figure rebound games. So he is capable. With RN, I saw alot of balls taken away from him around & under the basket that he should have controlled. I hope he came back stronger & worked on his ball handling.

[PoconoPony]

I hope those of you who follow the team closely are correct in your expectations and that some of the guys finally break out and start performing up to expectations. Unfortunately, I just do not think the coaching and talent is at the level necessary to compete at the C-USA level. I could only follow the team last year on All Access which is very limiting as you cannot see the whole floor and miss much of the action away from the ball; however, I did not see many of the fundamentals of blocking out, movement without the ball, floor spacing, anticipating bounce angles/distances for rebounds.....etc. being executed consistently or very well. As a result, I came to believe it was a failure of coaching, lack of playing experience particularly for the African players and lack of instinctive athletic ability. Hope I am wrong, but I cannot see more than ten mostly cupcake wins this season.

[expony18]

- Athlon's College Basketball 2009-2010 Preview picked us to finish 6th of 12 CUSA teams.

- We have 2 new coaches that everyone is pretty excited about- Reggie and Reggie. (big article at top of bball forum)

- McCoy was picked preseason All-CUSA Team.

- MoFaye (who transferred from Ga Tech and averaged 10ppg last season for SMU) tore it up in some international hoops this summer leading his national team in scoring often hitting 20+ppg.

- Brought in a promising JUCO guard that can score and shoot from the outside.

- We return 6 of 7 scoring and minute leaders from last season. I would also think we have a good chance of having 4 double digit scorers on the team this season.

- We play in a new bball tourney in Hawaii this year that is sponsored by ESPN. We face UNLV in round 1. Also play A&M at home.

That's the good news. The bad news is:

- Doherty still has to show he can do something in terms of Wins with our improved talent.

- Papa Dia played pretty subpar last season. We need him to play to the level he is capable of, which earned him 'ships from OU and Louisville, and are not sure if he will.

- The one rotation player we did lose last season was Bamba and he was a pretty key contributor. And I will miss cheering for his blocked shots.

- Although there have been some improvements on the schedule still plenty of teams coming to Moody that most would yawn at the prospect of watching. And frankly a few that people would question if they were an actual university.

- We have not yet landed the stud recruit to pair with McCoy and our other young talent to make the next "jump".

That's a pretty high level overview of what changed from last season to this season for someone who doesn't follow very closely.

wow great post. thanks

[papawasamustang]

I hope those of you who follow the team closely are correct in your expectations and that some of the guys finally break out and start performing up to expectations. Unfortunately, I just do not think the coaching and talent is at the level necessary to compete at the C-USA level. I could only follow the team last year on All Access which is very limiting as you cannot see the whole floor and miss much of the action away from the ball; however, I did not see many of the fundamentals of blocking out, movement without the ball, floor spacing, anticipating bounce angles/distances for rebounds.....etc. being executed consistently or very well. As a result, I came to believe it was a failure of coaching, lack of playing experience particularly for the African players and lack of instinctive athletic ability. Hope I am wrong, but I cannot see more than ten mostly cupcake wins this season.

I think that CUSA is wide open. I think Tulsa, UH & Memphis are the top 3 & after that its a toss up. I think Rice will be improved & a team to watch in the very near future.
If the coaching improves (big if) & the team can avoid long scoring droughts like we have seen over the last couple of years, I think we will surprise some people (in a good way).
The other big key is this team has to start winning on the road. No road wins last season & only 1 the year before is a joke.

[PonyDoh]

It's completely wide open. UTEP will be tough as well. They may end up w/the best player in the league in Caracter. We're talented enough, but this team sorta smells like a Dement team, no inside presence. Waiting for Dia may be about as fruitful as waiting on DeWayne Floyd etc. The key is play to our strengths and make the match-ups work for us. On occasion, you're just going to be exposed, but so what. Keep after it. We need to play small and run. If we are bringing waves off the bench, it better be b/c we're pressing end to end, getting turnovers, and moving the ball up the court. Sadly, I have no idea what to expect from a Doh coached team. I'd like to see us play some damn defense and rebound, I'll say that.

[ponyscott]

I hope those of you who follow the team closely are correct in your expectations and that some of the guys finally break out and start performing up to expectations. Unfortunately, I just do not think the coaching and talent is at the level necessary to compete at the C-USA level. I could only follow the team last year on All Access which is very limiting as you cannot see the whole floor and miss much of the action away from the ball; however, I did not see many of the fundamentals of blocking out, movement without the ball, floor spacing, anticipating bounce angles/distances for rebounds.....etc. being executed consistently or very well. As a result, I came to believe it was a failure of coaching, lack of playing experience particularly for the African players and lack of instinctive athletic ability. Hope I am wrong, but I cannot see more than ten mostly cupcake wins this season.

Good observations but I really think that the two new coach Reggies will help with things like that... individual skill development was lacking for the last few years with fundamentals like you mentioned, especially with the African players. Lets see how they do once practice begins..