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I can't help but wonder what the season holds for senior Robert Brown. If he starts the season the way he finished last season, he will be in early contention for some serious post-season awards.

But I'm worried.

In past seasons, I have witnessed several bright, up-and-coming juniors fade in their senior seasons under Coach Haase. Jordan Swing, CJ Washington, Preston Purifoy, & Rod Rucker all had significant statistical drops from their junior to senior seasons. There are different reasons this happened to these players: change of system, more players taking shots/minutes, personal issues, etc... only the players and coaches really know what caused the drop-off.

My hope is that this season will be the one where we finally see a senior become all he can be under Coach Haase.

Anyone want to share your take on this?

Every player has a "ceiling of performance" with some higher than others. If a player reaches his/her ceiling, it is easier for opponents to play to what they have left. The great players continue to improve their game even into the pros while some are as good as they will get at a lower level.

One of the challenges of recruiting is for a coach to know when a player is "as good as he/she will get" and the ones who have growth left. High school all everything can be less than great in college or great in college but only so-so in the pros. The examples of this are legion for both types of players.

It's been a trend, but it isn't a serious concern to me yet. Each of those guys had better, younger players behind them. Brown should be the leader of this team. I can't see him having the drop offs any of those other guys did.

(10-05-2015 12:26 PM)UABslant Wrote:  I can't help but wonder what the season holds for senior Robert Brown. If he starts the season the way he finished last season, he will be in early contention for some serious post-season awards.

But I'm worried.

In past seasons, I have witnessed several bright, up-and-coming juniors fade in their senior seasons under Coach Haase. Jordan Swing, CJ Washington, Preston Purifoy, & Rod Rucker all had significant statistical drops from their junior to senior seasons. There are different reasons this happened to these players: change of system, more players taking shots/minutes, personal issues, etc... only the players and coaches really know what caused the drop-off.

My hope is that this season will be the one where we finally see a senior become all he can be under Coach Haase.

Anyone want to share your take on this?

The lockerroom cancer from that season is currently wishing he hadn't flung his laptop into the Aegean so he could google-translate "Know the game" into Greek.

(10-05-2015 01:36 PM)58-56 Wrote:  The lockerroom cancer from that season is currently wishing he hadn't flung his laptop into the Aegean so he could google-translate "Know the game" into Greek.

He might have been the senior to break the senior slump. Woulda coulda shoulda.

In retrospect, that was the best thing that could have happened to the team last year. We wouldn't have advanced any further in the NCAA tournament with him, so the season ended about as well as we could have hoped. He would have put up some stats on that team, but we would have lost a lot of experience that was gained through growing pains last year. I'm interested to see how far this team has come in the offseason.

I suspect that Brown's numbers might drop off a bit this year, if only because a more talented player (Lee) on the team has a year of experience under his belt and his numbers will increase. Last year, Brown was the player that had the most experience and more was expected from him. He stepped up admirably. He will still be great this year, but not as much will be required of him as this becomes Lee's team.

Brown's numbers weren't great during the regular season last year, but he played at such a high level during the playoff run that reverting back to his norm will feel like a step back.

I don't see those other guys as indicators of a trend.

(10-05-2015 11:21 PM)jthrashr Wrote:  Brown's numbers weren't great during the regular season last year, but he played at such a high level during the playoff run that reverting back to his norm will feel like a step back.

I don't see those other guys as indicators of a trend.

Also, he's a much better player than all of those guys.