Motivation

[Bball]

Dement kills all motivation in all of his teams ever since he has been here. The only year that his team did well was in 98 and 99 when they had nothing to lose. They went 2-5 in the first part of the WAC.. things were dismal.. the loss to Alcorn State.. Alaska Anchorage.. crappy teams.. A dismal record.. the second half of the wac... 5-2.. beat UNLV three times.. went three rounds into the WAC only to lose to New Mexico by a few. The following year they went 21-4 before losing 5 straight at the end of the year. They should have been a top 25 team that year. EVERY single year this happens.. Things are good in the beginning.. at the end it all falls apart. The players get sick of it.. they want the season to end.... you can blame it on one group of kids but when the same trend occurs through two generations there is something wrong.. Screw recruiting tougher/better players.. SMU has had enough talent in the past 7 years to field a top 25 team. I would know.

[Stallion]

"SMU has had enough talent in the past 7 years to field a Top 25 team. I would know". ----That is the biggest bunch of garbage I think I have ever read on here.

[Bball]

Yeah but you are a moron.. so I really don't care.

[Ikus]

Originally posted by Bball:
Dement kills all motivation in all of his teams ever since he has been here. The only year that his team did well was in 98 and 99 when they had nothing to lose. They went 2-5 in the first part of the WAC.. things were dismal.. the loss to Alcorn State.. Alaska Anchorage.. crappy teams.. A dismal record.. the second half of the wac... 5-2.. beat UNLV three times.. went three rounds into the WAC only to lose to New Mexico by a few. The following year they went 21-4 before losing 5 straight at the end of the year. They should have been a top 25 team that year.

Sounds like you know something about the inner workings of the program. So what happened those two years when things went well? Why were those guys more responsive and successful? I keep reading that Coach Dement knows basketball pretty well, and knows his Xs and Os, but was there that much more talent those years?

Originally posted by Bball:
EVERY single year this happens.. Things are good in the beginning.. at the end it all falls apart. The players get sick of it.. they want the season to end.... you can blame it on one group of kids but when the same trend occurs through two generations there is something wrong.. Screw recruiting tougher/better players.. SMU has had enough talent in the past 7 years to field a top 25 team. I would know.

I agree with you. There have been several years when we should have been ranked. Hell, looking back at the last several years, we've had several good players. At the risk of overlooking some of the bench/role players who made valuable contributions, just consider the headliners: Sasser, Davis, Hancock, Ross -- we had two seasons with ALL FOUR of them on the roster! I know that in basketball it's easy to pick one or two star players and ride them, but when you have four talents like that, it's hard to believe we never made more noise.

Bball, what do you think?

<small>[ 01-23-2004, 09:36 AM: Message edited by: Ikus ]</small>

[Stallion]

and now for the truth-SMU has not had a Center or PF that was a legitimate honrable mention All-Conference player in 10 years.

[OldPony]

Guys- I believe you need to rethink what Top 25 caliber materail is. If all 4 of those guys had some experience at the same time and you put a decent center/powwer forward with them, THEN you might have been on the bottom rung of Top 25. When you look at a Top 25 team's talent, there is usually 2-3 players who could start or at least be in the rotation for a Top 10 club. I submit to you that only Sasser and Ross would have qualified in their junior & senior seasons. If you look at todays team, there is not 1 player who would be in the starting rotation (8-9 deep) for Duke, KU, UNC etc. We all like our own players and get to knows them better than those on other teams. It might make them better in our minds but if you look at this objectively, you know that what I'm saying is right. We haven't had a single player to my knowledge who has been pursued by Duke, KU, Kentucky, or UNC since Dement's arrival. Only Bhop and Simpson (maybe- though I doubt it) would have been pursued by the next level down such as UT, OSU, GT, etc. We knows you don't like Dement but no one can really think that we have had top 25 material unless they totally ignore what kind of players make up top 25 teams. Of those you named, only Sasser was a top 100 Texas recruit. Now we have Bhop. There are no more.

[Stallion]

you probably ought to throw Hancock into that mix-he was recruited by some top programs.

[Waz]

I don't think that we have had top 25 talent or that we ever will under current conditions. We also don't have numerous teams in our conference with top 25 talent on a year in year out basis. We need to look at getting the best talent that we can find by being agressive in Texas and the DFW area, sneaking a couple of top 25 caliber kids in every once in a while, winning in the WAC on regular basis 1st-4th, and sneaking into the Dance and NIT every once in a while. We are not off on that talent right now, we just aren't doing enough with it.

Look at Creighton, Pepperdine, and Gonzaga as three interesting programs that are similar to ours. Pepperdine used to lose to UCLA every year long ago, to never appear in the NCAA, Gonzaga was a stepchild to the PAC 10 and unless you were from the mid west, Creighton may as well have been an Indian. However, they were always strong programs that regularly won and were more than competitive. They would have 10 win seasons and 25 win seasons and would play in the NCAA's and NIT for a number of years and then drop off and rebuild. If you look at the last several years, you really wouldn't want to see them on your schedule unless you had to. The key to these programs is that they took/take what the top 25 didn't want, didn't discover, etc etc. and turn it into quality. They recruit to fill positions and plan ahead, ie a back up point guard. They play within themselves and don't make many mistakes. They don't have the individual talent to play a free wheeling game, so they play a game that can be recognized as basketball, vs one on one full court. These are the types of programs that SMU needs to look at for a model, not TT, Texas, Kansas, Duke, Fresno,UNLV. We are who we are, but we need to do more with what we've got.

Reading these posts, you would think our program and university couldn't possibly attract a quality coach. That is dead wrong. When Dement came here we were the pits. He wasn't even the first choice as I recall. The reputation has improved and so has the talent. I submit that another coach, next year, will over achieve with essentially the same talent and that attendence will improve proportionately. Will we draw 6,500 every night? No, but we will put between 3,500 and 6,500 in on a consistent basis and if there is something to cheer about, we will have a pretty good atmosphere that gets better as the season progresses.

Thanks Mike for what you have given the program, but we haven't improved in the last 5 years, with no sign that improvement is coming anytime soon. It is time to move on with a fresh perspective and enthusiasm.

[OldPony]

So - If the talent is there now, do we fire a new head coach if he doesn't get us to the tourney next year? TW-This IS NOT an attractive coaching job. This is a coaching graveyard unless we do a lot of things differently and most will require a lot of money. Only a naive person would take this job. It is not as good of a job as it was when we got Dement (see Blackistone's article). I beleive that the very best candidate that we could possibly get may be Tubbs and we could only get him because of his strong personal ties to Dallas and hopefully SMU. My guess is that he would turn us down too though without a long term contract and some major promises. If not, he isn't as smart as we think he may be.

[Uncle Morty]

Originally posted by Stallion:
and now for the truth-SMU has not had a Center or PF that was a legitimate honrable mention All-Conference player in 10 years.

are you absolutely positive about that one? Are you completely sure that Jay Poerner wasnt All-WAC in 1998? I mean, if you want I can look it up for you. I'll be happy to do the research, even if it takes me all day and all night. No problem, just say the word....

[TacoPony]

I fully agree with BBall. we've gotten handfuls of AP votes over the years, including this season I believe. But we haven't built enough momentum to break into the top 25 though we should have. btw in the WAC you don't need a big center or tough power forward if you have very good guards

we've had enough talent to have high expectations and we've gotten accustomed to underachieving.

Hail BBall

[Bball]

Don't listen to Stallion. I have been reading his posts and he doesn't have a clue. Just another negative fan.

Anyways. Did SMU ever deserve to be a top-25 team? No. We screwed up too much. Lost to teams that we weren't supposed to etc.

And your inquiry about the 2 years that things went well... During the 98-99 season.. when SMU started out miserably.. there wasn't a whole lot to lose.. a bunch of freshman and a few sophomores.. no expectations. Lose to Alcorn State.. lose to Alaska Anchorage.. but the pressure was not on Dement then. They didn't expect a team with only one senior w/ minimal playing time and one or two juniors to do well. The talent was there.. just not the maturity. So SMU struggled.. 2-5 in the beginning of conference.. All seemed lost and I bet that Dement actually cooled down.. his job wasn't on the line so there wasn't much to worry about. That is when Jeryl Sasser, Willie Davis, Stephen Woods and others took over and played thier hearts out to go 5-2. They were young, still had some discipline and a lot of motivation. These guys came from championship programs.. they hated losing. I still remember when Jeryl Sasser actually played defense. He was a workhorse when he was a freshman. Then SMU ended the season w/ a 2 game winning streak and a near win against New Mexico. Then came the 99-2000 season.. the best season that SMU has had in quite a while.. the beginning of the season started out great.. SMU only lost two non-conference games.. Missouri.. if any of you remember that game and barely lost and Tulane.. can't explain that one. The expectations were high that year because SMU had had such a strong showing the previous year. SMU was 21-5 (I misqouted earlier) near the end of the season on the verge of getting to the top 25. Their only losses were to Missouri (lost by three.. Niemi threw up the last shot.. why I don't know?? )and Tulane (Only other Pre-season loss) San Jose State.. Not suprising because I bet that road trip is hell.. SMU tends to lose there a lot, Tulsa and TCU. Then SMU goes and loses 4 straight.. If they would have won the last two games of the WAC then SMU would have placed first in the conference w/ a sure bet to go to the NCAA.. I guarantee you shi*t hit the fan after that.. dement probably went ballistic.. then they go to the WAC tourney.. lost to Hawaii in the first round.. Then the Fresno incident occured.. but we won't go there. Then the end of the season.. Teams don't drop off that fast.. something had to had gone on in the inside for such a drop-off to occur.. and.. From what I gather (from watching the games) Dement lost control of Sasser and Davis come their Senior years.. which was evident in the Tulsa game where they lost a sure victory by playing stupid... i could go on but I will save more for later..

<small>[ 01-23-2004, 05:31 PM: Message edited by: Bball ]</small>

[Stallion]

that's right-then SMU played Tulsa with two JUCOs at PF and Center who would go on to be First Team All-WAC and TCU with about 5 JUCOs-2 of which were JUCO All-American inside players-and received All-WAC recognition. SMU had stiffs inside along with 6-6 Willie Davis. SMU was dominated inside by far superior talent without question.

[OldPony]

I would trade talent with at least 3 teams and maybe as many as 5 in the WAC right now. There certainly is no contest with Nevada. If the WAC gets one team in the dance, how do we get in? This isn't like Gonzo or Pepperdine. Every year there are at least 3 teams who have better talent. We all got excited because of BHop's rep and that Simpson was well respected. Simpson is still soft and we don't say anything but glowing remarks about BHop. Go ahead and fire Dement. Please hold the next coach to the same standard along with Bennett and Copeland. Then Turner. Sooner or later you'll get the right one. Isn't there anyone else we can fire right now?