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There was a recent update from Ed Miller I believe it was saying we are considering redshirting Clark and Anichebe.

If that is true, what the hell is going on with our program right now?

Between Anton never developing one inch, Pimentel and the Mitchell both being kicked off the team, Moseley not qualifying academically, Baze getting arrested, our unbelievable lack of depth at the big man position, we really need to start examining where this program is headed.

This isn't going to be remotely good enough to get it done in CUSA. Hell, if it wasn't for us absolutely LUCKING into Painter deciding to transfer, there is a very good chance we would have been one of the worst teams in college basketball this coming year.

And I've made this point and I'll make it again, we've also been saved tremendously by getting guys like Loughton and Lee from overseas by sheer dumb luck. They both turned into All-CAA first teamers, but they could have easily ended up as Janko's, Sam Harris's or Anton's just as easily and then where would we be?

If Anichebe really isn't ready to play D1 ball THIS year that means our entire back court will be Painter and a very undersized and unskilled Nick Wright, a complete stiff in Larsen and an already injured and undersized 3 who will be forced to play the 4 in Ross.

I've been saying for years that Blaine is a weak recruiter and while he has managed to find some diamonds in the rough like Frank, Lee and Loughton, the last real top notch recruit he landed was Dahi.

Shaka is recruiting circles around him up at VCU. I've said it before and I'll say it again, with the resources this program has at it's disposal, with the TED, with the recruiting pipeline in the 757, with the alumni and fan support, a practice arena on the way, there is absolutely no way in hell we should struggle this mightily to land big recruits.

Like I said, if we don't absolutely luck into Painter, there is every chance in the world we are a sub 200 rpi team this year. Hell, even with him, we are so thin up front and are going to be relying on a true freshman PG all season, we might not crack the top 100 for the first time in quite a while.

And then things only get worse after that when Wright and Larsen and Painter leave, leaving us with absolutely NOTHING up front on a team that is supposedly built around having tough and rugged big men. How has it come to that?

I didn't even mention guys like Josh Hicks, Immama, Jason Thompson etc. I'm sorry, but Blaine has been absolutely asleep at the wheel when it comes to recruiting and there is no excuse for it whatsoever.

Reading that article that Anichebe won't even be ready to go was really the nail in the coffin for me. Blaine has had 12 years to have NCAA tourney success and he managed to beat an overrated Notre Dame team by 1 point and we easily could have lost that game as well. We won't be anywhere near the NCAA tourney anytime soon either the way things are currently going.

I was very glad to hear that some of the bigger contributors are also unhappy with the direction the program is taking and that they are not interested in giving Blaine some lifetime contract or other such nonsense.

If the measuring stick is 2 years, I have zero doubt Blaine will be gone in 2 years because let's face it, we are nowhere NEAR an NCAA tourney team right now. We weren't last year, we aren't this year and we definitely will not be next year when we are starting a RS freshman at Center and a 6"6 SF as our starting PF.

Unless Blaine decided to implement and ENTIRELY NEW SYSTEM and play to the strengths of our current players (which would be running a full court press style defense)

with Palmore or Hill at PG, Batten at the 2, Bacote at the 3, a mix of Wright and Ross when he gets healthy and the 4 and Painter as an athletic, floor running 5, we are going to be looking at a .500 season fellas.

If Painter, who's never averaged more than 20 minutes/game in a season, gets in any kind of foul trouble having to play over 30 minutes a game, we could easily be a below .500 team.

We are once again going to take advantage of a horrible CAA to manage to get to .500, but I imagine OOC we have a losing record and next year, our first in CUSA, we get absolutely trounced with no big men to speak of.

So let's have a real discussion about this. No one in there right mind can deny that Blaine WAS successful a few years back by bringing in some diamonds in the rough like Loughton, Lee, Baze, Hassell etc. but that model just isn't going to work forever.

At some point you need to start landing some guys with credentials. For whatever reason, Blaine hasn't been able to do that. I still honestly believe in my heart of hearts he was expecting to get out of Norfolk a few years back and move on to a bigger school because of all the success he had and it just never happened. When that happened, he almost became a lame duck. Recruiting fell way off, we've had transfers and academic problems, behavior problems (Baze, Wright suspended, quite a few others) and things are NOT headed in a positive direction despite what even the most ardent ODU homers want to trick themselves into believing.

I was really hoping Anichebe might have been another Hassell/diamond in the rough. And who knows, maybe he will end up as such. But how much time do we give Blaine to get the ship righted? Again, without lucking into Painter, we will have gone from an NCAA tourney team to a CBI team to a team that would have been one of the worst in the country this coming year without Painter. Instead we MIGHT luck into a CBI bid again and then the year after that, we will be facing a sub .500 scenario.

With the resources we have and all the other things mentioned before, it is just flat out unacceptable to have the program in the shape it is in currently. We don't have a single player who Blaine recruited who is All-CAA calibur. The only guy who is transfered here because of a sick family member.

So.....how long do we give him? 2 years? 3? Or do we just bring in some new blood after this year? People can point to the CAA titles and then I can point to the 1 NCAA tourney win in his 17 years as a coach and say "yeah, Jeff Capel had that too" and that argument will go nowhere.

So instead of talking about the past and using it as an excuse for the current state of the program being acceptable, let's talk about how exactly we see this playing out. Does anyone see the future as positive right now? We've lost 4 recruits in the last 3 years to grades, behavior problems or just flat out not being good enough. We also had to reclassify another guy just to get him out of here quickly enough that we can get someone else in here to take his place.

Does that sound like a place that a program like Old Dominion should be, because that is REALITY right now folks. We honestly don't have a clue what this team is going to be like over the next couple years and that should never be the case. We should ALWAYS be at least half way decent because of what we are working with. The Ted, the Hampton Roads pipeline, the fan and alumni support, the season tickets and money provided to the program. All that should be pushing us towards being a mid major superpower.

Instead we've won a single NCAA tourney game under Taylor in 12+ years and are headed completely in the wrong direction and would be FAR WORSE if not for some blind luck with overseas recruits that lucked out and a transfer who's relative got sick.

I'm sorry, but for me, that isn't good enough for Old Dominion basketball. I'd love to hear counter arguments but don't just give me "Blaine's earned the time to rebuild" because I'm sorry, he really hasn't. With the incredible amounts of talent we've had, to only have 1 NCAA tourney win by 1 freaking point against an overrated Notre Dame team, I'm sorry, I think we can do better. VCU did better, GMU did better, I think Drexel will do better this coming year......and if we want to compete in CUSA, we are going to need to do much better.

I'm sure the same people who had a problem with me voicing my opinion before will still feel the same way now, but there will be no personal attacks, let's just discuss this like adults, we are all ODU fans afterall and we all just want what is best for the program. So if you really think we are headed in the right direction, please tell me why you think so.

1) You need a hobby... that was a book.
2) Wood Selig sucks.... we are getting left behind... all the schools are picking better conferences and were stuck in the CAA.... Wood Selig should be fired.... why did we bring him here.... the sky is falling.... our coaches and athletic dept suck.... we should move the FBS now.... what are we waiting for....

You're a good enough guy... met you at the CAA Championship couple years back.
"Sanders go back to the D-League"....
but when you post that no one is doing their job in conference realignment/move to fbs for months and throw everyone in the program under the bus.... your next 10 paragraph doom and gloom rant might be met with eye rolls.

Let's just see what happens.

I'll copy/paste what I posted to MonarchNation. Essentially, our team is 6 deep, 7 when Ross comes back. Ross is tentatively scheduled to return "in December" (nothing from Miller or anyone else in regards to Ross's MRI on Monday). We play road games at Cleveland State 11/17 and at Murray State on 11/24. We may be able to get away with 6 players for a few of the early cupcakes, but these two are almost guaranteed losses. December is shear hell. We don't know when Ross will return in December or if he will be 100%. We will likely go 1-6 in December if we play with 6 players (if we manage to get by W&M). I hope Taylor isn't throwing the season:

So it is plausible we could have:

Starting
Palmore
Batten
Hill
Wright
Painter

Bench
Bacote
Ross (injured)
Anton (Not a good player)
McEwen (makes Wright look like Fat Albert)

Redshirt
Mosely
Clark
EK
A Walk-on

So right now our bench consists of 1 healthy player worthy of minutes and a true freshman at that. I frankly don't see how we can get away with red shirting either Clark or EK. If we run into any foul trouble or an injury and we have to start taking off redshirts anyway. Might as well let them play from the get go.

Razor,

I share your frustration in not landing the big recruit. However, I think that you've been sucked in a little by VCU's fluke Final Four run. VCU has clearly built off of that run as well as the move to the A10. How long it will last remains to be seen.

I would suggest, however, that Blaine's 3 CAA titles in 7 years, on his rivals home floor, buys him some time. We are clearly rebuilding right now, and will have 6 freshmen on our opening day roster. If EK can develope, and we can land one or two complimentary bigs (or even a blue-chipper, which will be fine with me), we'll be right back to fighting for conference titles.

As far as NCAA Tourney wins go, I've already pointed out the good fortune (and favorable draw) of VCU in 2011. ODU got stuck with Butler in the first round, and fell 0.7 seconds short (to a team that went on to trounce VCU and make it to the title game). We were also beaten by a very good Michigan State team in 2005 because of their big guards, and still had a chance to pull the upset. We all want to get to a Final Four, but that takes a little luck and a good draw. ODU has had neither under BT. Hopefully, that will change when we start bringing on CUSA recruits.

Acknowledging that we are rebuilding after graduating arguably the best team we've ever had, I would ask that you lay off the "fire BT" and "demote our point guard" threads after every loss we get this year. Personally, I think that we will do better than most expect this year, but we are rebuilding, and we need patience.

Just my 2c worth...

If you notice it wasn't Miller who said Clark might redshirt, it was some other writer/blogger.

I don't think we can afford to RS Clark.

We'll have a 3 man rotation for the 4 and 5 spots, Deshawn, Nick and Ross. Deshawn and Nick at the 5 (scary to think of Nick as a 5), and Nick and Ross at the 4. With Stu and Anton getting little minutes except to give those 3 a breather.

We'll have Palmore, Bacote, Batten, Clark and Hill to man the 1, 2 & 3 spots. Got to have 5 for 3 spots, can't play a full season with just 4. Blaine would be shuffling people even faster than ever....

From what I heard, Pim unfortunately had a bad attitude on campus from day one. Then he gets paired with Key as a roommate. And Key brought that Pheobus 'tude and posse and Pim was doomed. You can do a lot of research, but no way you can predict 100% how a kid will handle being away from home. I don't for one minute believe Pim would have been offered if they knew he would turn into a complete head case. For instance, look at Chris Weber, he was supposedly a pillar of his community in HS. He went to church several times a week. College coaches starting going to church to appeal to him and sway him to come to their school. Does anyone think by his actions in college and the pros that he was the choirboy everyone thought he was in HS? I bet few people saw that coming.

I've basically come to the conclusion that this season the only thing I'm excited about are seeing is what Painter has got and seeing how these young guys gel out there. I don't expect any kind of postseason at all. But on the flip side I do think these guards can be very explosive and this season we might catch some teams on their heels. Assuming BT adjusts the tempo of play, and I have to think he realizes we can't bang down low for 40 minutes this year, we could be a 18 to 20 win team.

Read on MN or somewhere that BT is on the hot seat right now and had "checked out" as you alluded to. I can't argue with you that our recruiting has been less than stellar for sure. But we did end up landing some very talented guys in the backcourt. All we need now is a couple solid bigs to come in and we're right back on track.

p.s. razor, adjust the subject so people can reply easily w/out having to rename the subject. Your subject is 3 characters too long after it automatically puts in the RE:. Thanks!

Getting all of the "top" recruits means jack if they don't fit the system. A good number of these NBA-caliber kids can't play Taylor Ball. And that's a good thing.

We saw last year what happens when the team revolves around a superstar. Sure, we're decent, but it's not ODU basketball. Four years and two CAA championships ago, I was crying the same thing you were. But winning b2b titles in a tough league opened my eyes and proved to me that championships are built through the coaching staff, not the players.

What Blaine has done with this program is amazing. Shall we go back to the Capel era? For one, who are we to act like we know better than he? Secondly, you're going to rag on him for redshirting a player? Really? How short-sighted is that? Do you remember what redshirting did for Frank and Baze? How about what it did for Batten? Or Ross, to an extent? Heck, even Ben Finney got a year to grow at Hargrave.

It takes more than a year to learn this system, but when you get 5+ guys who figure it out, you win league titles and build teams capable of pushing the eventual national runner up to the very brink of elimination in the big dance.

I recognize your right to an opinion, but here's mine: we are incredibly lucky to have Blaine Taylor as our head coach. He will have his name on a campus facility one day.

(10-31-2012 08:52 AM)smudge12 Wrote:  Can someone please summarize? Thanks.

+1

Wow, that was a long post.

I could only read through half of it so I'll address the first half. Razor, I've met you quite a few times and you're very passionate about ODU. That's good!

But step back and look at what we were saying the past 10 years. All bigs and no guards. Well, it looks as if the guards have been recruited. He obviously put an emphasis on this. I'm sure we will land some decent bigs in the next year. We can't have everything. We aren't Duke, UNC, Kansas, etc...
Who knows EK might be that diamond in the rough with some seasoning.

(10-31-2012 08:52 AM)smudge12 Wrote:  Can someone please summarize? Thanks.

Blaine Taylor sucks.

We haven't played one game yet and some think the season is down the drain, wow just wow. The players and mostly the upperclassmen think we are much better than people are giving us credit for. If you think Painter is the high point this year, you are wrong. I'm betting we have an underclassmen avg more points.

Our tempo will be much quicker, once everyone is playing. Nothing like pass BT teams.

Razor talks about getting high level recruits. We just put a player in the NBA. We found him, nobody had scouted him, use a redshirt year and developed the guy. We develop players, we don't give a hoot about a recruiting services.

Razor the year VCU went to the Final Four, we had a better team. We beat them twice, seeded higher and even after their improbable run we still had a RPI 10 points better. So because BT hasn't killed the NCAAs, he sucks. I guess Oliver Purnell sucks big time, he has never won a game.

Have any of you guys bashing the team seen one freaking practice. Do any know how hard this team worked off season. Before you throw the season away let's see what happens. We got scorers and ball handlers, like never before. Kids I saw last winter like Clark, and thought this kid would need to redshirt just to get in shape. He's looking great, shots falling, very solid fundamentals. Bacote will be money, the kid just scores.

I'm going to enjoy watching this class progress. Really that's one of the enjoyments I get, is watching these guys develop into good ball players and great young men.

(10-31-2012 09:19 AM)Gilesfan Wrote:  

(10-31-2012 08:52 AM)smudge12 Wrote:  Can someone please summarize? Thanks.

Blaine Taylor sucks.

True, but calling him an "elephant in the room" is a little unfair. He could have an overactive gland, or slow metabolism. Maybe his body changed when he was pregenant.

I'm sure there's also excuses for why he's fat.

I just don't have high expectations for this season. I just hope they're not throwing the season away with the lack of an auto-bid. The roster turnover and lack of depth just does not leave much to be excited about. I just hope this team is competitive and has improved recruiting for when we begin CUSA.

I think the opening line of my response came across more negative than intended. I just don't have high expectations given the circumstances. Extremely young and thin front court. I hope our guard play is what I'm excited to see though and people do sleep on us.

I feel sorry for Blaine. We haven't even tipped-off the season and Razor is already in mid-season form. It's going to be a loooooong year.

(10-31-2012 09:35 AM)DaBigBlue Wrote:  We haven't played one game yet and some think the season is down the drain, wow just wow. The players and mostly the upperclassmen think we are much better than people are giving us credit for. If you think Painter is the high point this year, you are wrong. I'm betting we have an underclassmen avg more points.

Our tempo will be much quicker, once everyone is playing. Nothing like pass BT teams.

Razor talks about getting high level recruits. We just put a player in the NBA. We found him, nobody had scouted him, use a redshirt year and developed the guy. We develop players, we don't give a hoot about a recruiting services.

Razor the year VCU went to the Final Four, we had a better team. We beat them twice, seeded higher and even after their improbable run we still had a RPI 10 points better. So because BT hasn't killed the NCAAs, he sucks. I guess Oliver Purnell sucks big time, he has never won a game.

Have any of you guys bashing the team seen one freaking practice. Do any know how hard this team worked off season. Before you throw the season away let's see what happens. We got scorers and ball handlers, like never before. Kids I saw last winter like Clark, and thought this kid would need to redshirt just to get in shape. He's looking great, shots falling, very solid fundamentals. Bacote will be money, the kid just scores.

I'm going to enjoy watching this class progress. Really that's one of the enjoyments I get, is watching these guys develop into good ball players and great young men.

+1000

I'm wondering if he's not writing off this year as to have a better lineup for our first year in CUSA play.

(10-31-2012 12:02 PM)Old Dominion Navy Wrote:  I'm wondering if he's not writing off this year as to have a better lineup for our first year in CUSA play.

Stupid for 2 reasons:

1. We won't have Painter or Wright next year so the lineup won't be better no matter what he does.

2. Next year we have all season to gel and get ready to compete for a bid in the CUSA tournament. This year we need an at large.

Hopefully Miller is talking out his ass and Clark and EK will be playing.

If Taylor was going to throw the season he should have told us beforehand as opposed to telling us his goal was an at-large bid. I wouldn't have bought season tickets if I knew the season was going to be thrown.

I pretty much agree with what you've said, Razor. Blaine is a terrible recruiter and the program is not in good shape at the moment. Last year was painful to watch on the offensive end. Hopefully the addition of Palmore and Painter will soften the loss of Bazemore and Cooper. It will be interesting to see Painter play in Blaine's "system." He is more skilled offensively than Cooper; but he is not the banger/rebounder that Cooper was. The absence of Ross to start the season is tough because now we don't have a truly athletic slashing/defensive presence that we've had for some time now. I'm just excited to see how Palmore handles the PG job as a true freshman. Hopefully we have a great game manager for the next four years in Palmore.

The one part of your post I found funny was the bold portion:

(10-31-2012 03:54 AM)Razor Ramon Monarch Wrote:  I've said it before and I'll say it again, with the resources this program has at it's disposal, with the TED, with the recruiting pipeline in the 757, with the alumni and fan support, a practice arena on the way, there is absolutely no way in hell we should struggle this mightily to land big recruits.

An actual practice facility is a lot different than blue prints in the eyes of recruits.

How the hell is Blaine not a good recruiter? And how on Earth is the program not in good shape? These are baffling statements.

Sure, we had a down year last season, but EVERY program has a down year or two. Before last season, we had graduated the two winning-est classes in Monarch history, both of which brought home a CAA title. How many former ODU coaches can boast back-to-back CAA championships?

Zero.

So don't say he can't recruit or the program is in bad shape. It's called rebuilding. It's not about finding the most talented players, it's about finding the best players for this program. And Blaine has shown over and over again that he can do that as well as anybody at the mid-major level.