The entire tourney is a rousing success because Syracuse got beat!! One thing that appears to be happening a little more every year is, you don't see the fear in the supposedly little guys eyes anymore. They are not awestruck by the other teams name and All-Americans. In the Kansas game --- Kansas shot a higher field goal %, made 10 more free throws and outrebounded Bucknell---what more would you expect from a top team?? Kansas did not play a bad game statistically nor did Bucknell play a great game statistically. Sounds like a win to me, but Bucknell never collapsed under the weight of those Kansas stars!! Thanks in large part to ESPN, America thinks there are really only about 25 basketball teams in the whole country, so when a team wins that isn't on ESPN every week, it's unbelievable. I don't know whether it's AAU ball and all these players play against big time players for several years in high school, so it's no big deal anymore or what, but it appears for the most part, the fear is gone!!!

Just watched the Illini and Wolfpack. Saw a familiar face Jack Ingram had a good game off the bench.

Hard to believe based on what most on the board said, "good to get rid of that white stiff, he would have never been anything more than an 8-10 minute guy at a program as good as Tulsa. It's a good thing he went to Illinois so he got a few more mintes in the NCAA tourney!! It's a good thing AK, Aliou Keita, left too and went to a lower class program like N. Iowa, more his style, didn't really belong at Tulsa, not good enough, but a nice guy. He was a black stiff, I guess. N. Iowa was in the NCAA. Some people will never realize, we don't need All-Americans at every position, but we do need good role players at 2 or 3 positions and both of these guys could have been excellent role players on a good team!!!!

JP told Jack that he would be the starting center on the team and get major minutes. Jack chose to leave because he didn't feel anyone on the coaching staff was as good at "developing the big man" as he could get at Illinois with Self. That's not rumor, btw ... it was Jack who told me that.

I believe Keita went to Drake, not Northern Iowa. When he arrived here, he had only played a total of two years of high school basketball and did not have the instincts, although he most certainly had the body. Alou could see he wasn't developing here and chose to leave to rejoin his high school coach, who had taken the Drake job in the interim.

On Ingram, it's fair to fault JP on his choice of assistants. On Keita, it's unfair to blame JP

it's fair to fault JP on his choice of assistants

Catbird, what do you mean? :rolleyes:

Essentially, that if Jack left because the coaching staff was ill-equipped to "develop the big man", and several other big men left the program and others failed to perform at the levels we had hoped ... that the choice of assistants may not have been correct.

Thanks. I have wondered about that myself but didn't think of it just now. I would like to have back Cardwell. :)

seniorlovestu Wrote:Thanks. I have wondered about that myself but didn't think of it just now. I would like to have back Cardwell. :)

I don't think you really do.

How about this unlikely senario. A guard signs with Tulsa, changes his mind and goes to Texas Tech, then goes to Gonzaga where he has to sit on the bench with a torn ACL and wach the Zags lose to Tech. Impossible.
It was too bad about the injury. I hope he will be all right for next year.

CB, I never mentioned JP or any coach because I was talking about the fans view of players that leave our program. I understood Jack wasn't too happy and wanted to follow Self to Illinois, I don't think any coach can do much about that. I stand corrected on AK but he did have some good games playing in the Valley this year, which was probably better than the WAC. Overall when you have back to back 9-20 seasons, I don't think we should be knocking too many players who left our program including Meir(?) like they weren't good enough to play at Tulsa. I never saw Meir do anything at Tulsa but play hard, REBOUND, and have a pretty good stroke, three things that Tulsa could haved used this year!!!!!! I was only talking about what fans post, not anything about any coaches!!