Coaching.

Posted by: @gthomas

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Coaching.

He knows how to coach.  He took Drake to the dance 3 times and they had only been there like once before in decades.  WVU vastly over performed last season given the talent they had and should made the tournament.

DeVries did make a catastrophic error in not bringing in more size and it could prove to be fatal this season.  Doubt he makes that mistake again.

This team is too easy to guard. Switch everything on the perimeter and stay attached to Devries and Wilkerson and you see the result. Wilkerson inability to finish at the rim makes him completely one dimensional on offense. Conerway is the only guy on this team that can attack the rim.

@dbmhoosier I'll be very interested to see. For any B10 fan, it was a glaring oversight. I think he got used to playing small ball @ WVU and thought he could make it work here and I think it will cost him, so I hope to see him adjust. Something Woody and Archie didn't really do. Frankly, I'd liked to have seen him playing with lineups more. He has kept a consistent starting 5 and seems to have favored rotations that don't change a lot (Sisley and Alexsis usually come in together, for instance). I couldn't begin to explain last night why Alexsis was on the bench late in the game, when he'd obviously been more effective than Bailey. I do think he's a good coach, but a lot of good coaches have failed at this level. If he adjusts and adapts I think will determine if he can succeed here.

@kkott well said and pretty much my sentiments exactly.  Last night was a head scratcher in many ways and also validation that the roster construction is a bit of a hot mess. With our resources, there's ZERO reason that we should be sitting here with such a glaring weakness that could've/should've been addressed.  I really think coach is a good one, but if he allows this to happen again, I'll be out sooner rather than later.

@mtbrider I can understand it with having to construct an entire roster via the portal, but I think anyone familiar with the B10 recognized that glaring hole inside. Otherwise, I think he built a roster that could do good things, but we need someone who's both comfortable on the perimeter screening, but who can defend the paint. The sucky thing is, it didn't have to be a star, just someone who is rugged and can defend and rebound. Alexsis is clearly more that guy than Bailey, so it's hard for me to understand why he's not playing more or starting. I think Bailey is being wasted by not having someone like this, because he's being asked to do things I just don't think he's capable of, in defending the paint and rebounding. I think we could maximize his skills if we were playing him alongside someone who was a willing screener on the offensive end, and defended the post. Alexsis is the closest thing we have to that guy on this roster, so I'd like to see he and Bailey play together, but again, lack of depth is preventing that. That other foreign kid must be really far away to not be trying him some with this roster, is my thinking. He pretty much put together a college version of Golden State but missed on a Draymond Green or Kevon Looney type player.

I'm concerned about how I'm going to spend my time this winter when both the men and women are horrid in the conference season.  At least the women have been competitive the past several seasons, but they're going to struggle in the B1G as well.

@kkott The fact that he either didn't want to bring Hansberry, even Powell, with him to IU, or that he or his program wasn't something they wanted to continue playing under... both enormous red flags, at this point.  This team lacks strength and athleticism.  I don't think Powell probably would bring much more than someone like Miles does...but the fact that he never considered CDD or IU, when he's the type of athlete you need to win at the high major level...alarming.  Hansberry, as we've discussed, is the bigger head scratcher though.  He's averaging 16 and 8 for Virginia Tech, and is the exact type of player we need.  And he played a lot last year under DeVries at WVU.  

Combine that with IU not landing anyone like that in the 26 class.  It points to CDD potentially not valuing that need.  There absolutely had to be 6-7 to 6-8 physical bigs in the portal for him to get last offseason.  And after missing out on all of them, you'd think he'd have made sure to get a top 150 guy like that from the HS ranks.  Now he's going to have to overpay for one or two of them via the portal.

I've had a night's sleep since last nights debacle.  And I think I'm more fired up than I was right after the game.  Probably because I had gotten myself so excited with how they had been playing, for the most part.  But last nights game, unfortunately, validated the Incarnate Word and Lindenwood poor performances, as something that is actually a flaw with this team.  For whatever reason, they're inconsistent in their ball and player movement, and in their defensive and rebounding intensity.  That's a tough thing for a coach to change, as its often wired in to the players themselves.  If its not "coached out", foundationally, during the summer and early practices, it's unlikley to be solved once the season starts.

@iunorth Yeah, I was excited because I thought we'd be getting someone from WVU who could help us. Agree, it's a red flag. I know Harris made a video questioning if DeVries was really hurt, and I also heard that CDD didn't meet with the team after announcing he was leaving, which I'd hoped wasn't true, or that the U forbid it, but that's a bigger red flag to me. Regardless, if those guys didn't want to play for him, the need still existed so it's on him for not addressing it.

@iunorth 

I'm with you ... I have no faith in this roster and now I'm beginning to doubt CDD. I've argued here and elsewhere that since this Summer.  The undersized front court is a major red flag to me.  You're telling me with the budget we had all we could entice to come is Bailey and Alexis and Harris.  That has to be something other than a money issue. I didn't love the hire and didn't hate it it was meh to me.  Now we are seeing the same type of melancholy, lackluster level of effort and determination we saw the last 8 years.  Don't see us making the tournament 

@kkott I don't buy any sour grapes from WVU's fans or former players. They've been absurd.

TD faking the injury is so outlandish. Whats the purpose? His dad just started a new job at WVU and they decide to tank his first year there so that TD can get another year with the hope that they have a better job to jump to? It makes no sense.

I find it extremely unlikely that DDV did not meet with the team after deciding to leave. Why would he not do it? It makes no sense and is just another BS concoction from crazy WVU fans.

The last point you make is the critical one, though. It doesn't matter if he did or didn't decide to bring frontcourt help from WVU if he didn't adequately replace it in the portal regardless. I would imagine its a combo of:
- VERY weak portal last year

- Needed to fill all 13 scholarships from scratch with less money (compared to peers) than the Bigfoot years

- Not wanting a slow-footed stiff that can't catch the ball and not having enough athletic bigs available that he could afford or could convince (not an excuse but just guessing at what happened).

@hoosiers94 I wouldn't say "no faith"... i think I'm at a point where my optimism for just how good we could be, THIS YEAR, has been shaken so badly that its hard to get the good vibes back.  Obviously if they get the Marquette game offense back, and the KState game defense back, and that team shows up for most games the rest of the year, we'll win more games than we lose, and it'll be a fun overall start to the CDD era.  But after last night, and how foundational our issues looked to be... its hard to see that right now.

I do think CDD is a good coach, though.  And once faced with the realities of missing out on a guy like May last year.  He's probably about as good a coach as we could have gotten for the time and situation.  He can make IU great, I'm sure.  But he needs to get some size and strength on his roster to do it.  

@dbmhoosier As I've mentioned, I think DD will do fine. However, I don't believe he's a program changer, which is what IU needs. I admit that, as a member of Team McCollum, I may be a bit biased in my assessment; I view BM as a program changer.

I realize I'm crying over spilt milk. Sue me.

@gthomas McCollum's team got exposed, maybe worse than IU's did, in his first B10 game.  Having said that, I agree, I think McCollum will end up being a "statue" guy in Iowa City.  And would have eventually gotten IU to perennially competing for B10 titles, and occasionally natty's.

It looks like Dusty May might have been the biggest miss through all this.  I wasn't as certain about him as some were.  But man, sure looks like we missed a monster of an opportunity with him.

CDD... lets see how he adjusts after his first loss.  And then how the rest of the year goes.  And then how he builds his next roster.  If we're a bubble team or worse, and then if we doesn't address the physicality and size concerns for his next roster... Yikes... 

@iunorth I don't buy into the BenMC hype as much. I think he'll do well there but their offense has been beyond stagnant multiple times now with single digit points through most of a half. People would be frothing at the mouth here over that.

DDV is going to have to display competitive games against UofL or UK in the coming weeks to pacify most right now which is a tall order. We can't fully flop this year OR next season will need to be a FF calibre team or I just can't see DDV lasting. The fans, what is left, will have given up and recruiting will be dead.

He's got to get into the same general stratosphere as May, Kelsey, Pope which isn't unreasonable. We've seen it done in this new era so we have solid early benchmarks.