(12-04-2013 11:44 PM)owl40 Wrote:  Isn't Braun in final year of contract? If so, hard to see it getting extended with more losses like this.

Extend him??? Braun has many losses like this during his six years. I'm not sure how he made it back this year, other than he must have MANY years left on his contract ($$$).

2008–2009 Rice 10–22
2009–2010 Rice 8–23
2010–2011 Rice 14–18
2011–2012 Rice 17–15
2012–2013 Rice 5-26

Use the A&M and Notre Dame payout from '13 and '14 and buy him out.

Braun has a contract through 2016.

(12-05-2013 12:01 AM)At Ease Wrote:  Braun has a contract through 2016.

Another Greenspan error?

(12-05-2013 12:01 AM)At Ease Wrote:  Braun has a contract through 2016.

Talk about a gut punch.

(12-05-2013 12:02 AM)Wiessman Wrote:  

(12-05-2013 12:01 AM)At Ease Wrote:  Braun has a contract through 2016.

Talk about a gut punch.

There still is a buyout price; the university made a mistake, so pay him off. Rice can't wait another 5 years to get to 0.500 then another 5 to get to the NIT.

(12-05-2013 12:07 AM)WIowl Wrote:  

(12-05-2013 12:02 AM)Wiessman Wrote:  

(12-05-2013 12:01 AM)At Ease Wrote:  Braun has a contract through 2016.

Talk about a gut punch.

There still is a buyout price; the university made a mistake, so pay him off. Rice can't wait another 5 years to get to 0.500 then another 5 to get to the NIT.

This I agree with. I mean, I understand the financial side, but when an enterprise becomes so moribund that it is beyond salvaging, it's time to cut your losses.

(12-04-2013 11:55 PM)Wiessman Wrote:  He replied that that always happens when teams with even semi-decent perimeter games come into Tudor, because it is a shooter's gym and everyone knows

I'm not much of a basketball guy, but I sure don't understand WTF that means. A gym is a gym, or , at least I would like to hear what I completely don't get.

The player told me that because of Tudor's size (small) and lighting (baskets show up well against the background on both ends), players who play in really cavernous gyms come in and immediately gauge the basket well. There's no adjustment period. Many guards apparently even look forward to playing at Tudor.

This would appear to nullify what little home-court advantage we might otherwise have against good teams. Hence, we need to start building a solid perimeter game on both ends of the court.

Yes, we need to let Braun go at the end of the season. A new coach is needed to show that we are willing to change the direction of the MBB program from being cellar dwellers.

(12-04-2013 10:50 PM)Tiki Owl Wrote:  

(12-04-2013 10:40 PM)Mademen Wrote:  

(12-04-2013 10:33 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  This is an absurdly bad result.

Ron Cottrell has been the best basketball coach in the city for about a quarter century. Don't disrespect the Huskies. You guys will feel better about yourselves after you destroy Houston's worst basketball coach's team at an empty Toyota Center in about 10 days. UH is a special kind of terrible and is now without its 2nd best player for about 6 weeks.

The yearly "return of Phi Slamma Jamma" on Coogfans at the beginning of each season has to wait another year. Agree about Cottrell though. Can't understand why someone hasn't snapped him up.

I like the new players but the play is so uneven it is hard to tell if we are making progress or not. Next year's recruits are supposed to be even better but until we find an identity on the court it may not help. And I am beginning to think that the only way to get past Morcos is to let Braun go. It seems to have worked thus far purging the Greenspan era.

(12-04-2013 10:48 PM)son of SID Wrote:  I follow the women's team avidly, and make a few men's games. A loss to HBU was not expected at all. The "Marcos era" has really set us back. Hope we can dig our way out. I've seen us lose a ton of games in my 56 years as a fan, and am less and less motivated to go to men's games. However ,"Rice fight never die !"

There is no Morcos era, there is only the Braun era.

What level of success was expected (in hindsight) in the environment created by Morcos and Greenspan? I'm not trying to excuse Braun, but it seems like there were some events affecting the team a couple of years ago that he could not control.

this loss and losing last year vs St. Thomas are the moral equivalent of losing to SW Tx state (or whatever their current name is) in FB in the mid 80's. The question now before us is whether these two years are worse than two of the Bob Polk teams or a couple of years in the mid 60's, when they won 3 games in the SWC, pre-integration mind you.

(12-05-2013 09:17 AM)Caelligh Wrote:  What level of success was expected (in hindsight) in the environment created by Morcos and Greenspan? I'm not trying to excuse Braun, but it seems like there were some events affecting the team a couple of years ago that he could not control.

I have a hard time hashing out my feelings about the path we should take with Braun.

On one hand, we had only had one +.500 season in his tenure, and in the end, the buck stops with him.

On the other hand, he had to deal with a potentially racist-remark making AD that he had no major hand in hiring, as well as a toxic, and potentially vindictive former assistant that may have done a very good job of hiding his true colors during the interview process.

Braun has both gotten me extremely excited for Rice MBB, and extremely depressed because of Rice MBB.

(12-05-2013 12:35 AM)Wiessman Wrote:  The player told me that because of Tudor's size (small) and lighting (baskets show up well against the background on both ends), players who play in really cavernous gyms come in and immediately gauge the basket well. There's no adjustment period. Many guards apparently even look forward to playing at Tudor.

This would appear to nullify what little home-court advantage we might otherwise have against good teams. Hence, we need to start building a solid perimeter game on both ends of the court.

Thank you for this explanation. It didn't make sense to me either as the rims are the same and the baskets the same height, but "seeing the basket better" makes sense, especially with such a nuanced thing as smoothly shooting at such a small target. Confidence builds and mechanics are smoother.

If so, then we should emphasize more recruiting of pure super lights-out shooters, which we seldom seem to ever have more than one or perhaps two decent ones on the teams. Wonder if an old style Loyola-Marymount no defense at all approach would make more sense in our gym with the number of home games? I'm usually a fan of sound fundamental basketball with crisp passing and movement without the ball, but it would get our scoring average up, especially in light of the new defense/hand-check rules being called this season.

(12-05-2013 09:50 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(12-05-2013 09:17 AM)Caelligh Wrote:  What level of success was expected (in hindsight) in the environment created by Morcos and Greenspan? I'm not trying to excuse Braun, but it seems like there were some events affecting the team a couple of years ago that he could not control.

I have a hard time hashing out my feelings about the path we should take with Braun.

On one hand, we had only had one +.500 season in his tenure, and in the end, the buck stops with him.

On the other hand, he had to deal with a potentially racist-remark making AD that he had no major hand in hiring, as well as a toxic, and potentially vindictive former assistant that may have done a very good job of hiding his true colors during the interview process.

Braun has both gotten me extremely excited for Rice MBB, and extremely depressed because of Rice MBB.

I have very mixed feelings about Braun. On the one hand, he should have been successful by now, on the other the whole Morcos thing set the program basically back to where it was after the "year in the wilderness." I can't fully blame him for Morcos, and can't blame him at all for Greenspan's stupidity. But I can't fully release him from responsibility either.

I saw Kazemi and Oraby play at a tourney game in Vegas a few years ago, and the actual game play was so terrible it didn't even look like basketball at many times. They were young, but my impression was that Kazemi was highly overrated, and I could not for the life of me figure out what good Oraby was except for height. He could barely dribble or shoot. Kazemi had nothing as far as a shot beyond arm's length reach of the basket, so his utility was limited.

In his defense, I have to say I really like the players on this year's team, but they are basically a freshman-dominated team. I like the new recruits Braun has on the horizon. I'm still unsure about Braun's X-s and O's in game coaching skills. Many times, his coaching reminds me of Wilson. Has horses at times, but can't get over the hump.

Much as I'm not a fan of Bailiff, he has a much harder and more complex matrix of factors to put together than Braun does in basketball. When you can have a guy like Brad Stevens take Butler to the top and keep them there a few years, it is harder to see why Rice cannot get the job done in basketball since 1970.

If we hire a new coach, then it HAS to be an improvement: take what's here and immediately take the next step up. This is possible, but I'm not the one to figure out how or who. We've started over too much recently min basketball. I'd hate to lose some of these guys we have to transfer. Any new guy better have a superior recruiting ability to what we have and a way to keep them on campus.

That said, I hope Karlgaard keeps the pressure on Braun to perform better and let him know the time is nearly up.

(12-04-2013 11:55 PM)WIowl Wrote:  

(12-04-2013 11:44 PM)owl40 Wrote:  Isn't Braun in final year of contract? If so, hard to see it getting extended with more losses like this.

Extend him??? Braun has many losses like this during his six years. I'm not sure how he made it back this year, other than he must have MANY years left on his contract ($$$).

2008–2009 Rice 10–22
2009–2010 Rice 8–23
2010–2011 Rice 14–18
2011–2012 Rice 17–15
2012–2013 Rice 5-26

Use the A&M and Notre Dame payout from '13 and '14 and buy him out.

The rationale I would use if the decision was made to let him go would be that we got a few free or nearly free seasons at the beginning of his original contract due to the Cal subsidy of his salary, so if you average it out it hasn't cost us as much over the life of the contract. Still, 2016 is a long time if things don't get a whole lot better soon.

Hope these young players mature quickly, they have some lumps to take, many are freshman, and I think Obi in particular is adjusting well to the competition considering he did not play in a top HS classification. Drone I expected more of from than we have seen so far.

eta: spelling

(12-05-2013 09:17 AM)Caelligh Wrote:  What level of success was expected (in hindsight) in the environment created by Morcos and Greenspan? I'm not trying to excuse Braun, but it seems like there were some events affecting the team a couple of years ago that he could not control.

Setting aside Greenspan for the moment, Marco Morcos was a problem of Braun's own creation. The expectations for Braun should be that he have a successful program along with graduating players... if he chooses the difficult path by hiring Morcos, then that makes his job a little tougher, but shouldn't change the expectations.

In the context of other issues, Greenspan really looks like a blip on the radar. Players leaving were primarily due to the players that we recruited, secondarily due to Morcos leaving and Morcos generally acting like a douchebag. Another secondary reason is Greenspan being Greenspan ... which of those had a bigger influence may be an open question.

I'd be fine with letting Braun go...losses like these are unacceptable. I do worry about losing his recruiting ability, though; that's one area in which he's done very well

(12-05-2013 11:05 AM)07owl Wrote:  I'd be fine with letting Braun go...losses like these are unacceptable. I do worry about losing his recruiting ability, though; that's one area in which he's done very well

recruiting players that don't stay is not recruiting in my book. His record is horrendous and was so even before last years disaster.

(12-05-2013 11:13 AM)texowl2 Wrote:  

(12-05-2013 11:05 AM)07owl Wrote:  I'd be fine with letting Braun go...losses like these are unacceptable. I do worry about losing his recruiting ability, though; that's one area in which he's done very well

recruiting players that don't stay is not recruiting in my book. His record is horrendous and was so even before last years disaster.

Prior to last year, players who left were of little consequence. It's par for the course in basketball these days to force out the lowest producing scholarship players to spec on incoming frosh, if the staff believes that they will be more useful.