I wanted to provide some support to my contention that the present issues with the WBB team has more to do with youth than talent.

If I crunched the numbers right, on this year's team, underclassmen are getting 65% of the minutes. That's the highest percentage in the records I have dating back to 1998-99. It has only been over 50% three other times:

61% 2004-05, record 14-15
60% 2008-09. record 18-13 (Cullop's 1st season)
52% 2014-15, record 19-14

So, far this team is 12-6, so that's pretty good so far, in comparison to those other seasons. Of course, there are a lot of games to play yet, so the final record remains to be seen.

Eh, aren't the foreign born older? Some places, have an extra year of secondary school before college.

Oh, one other thing. I watched a good percentage of the CMU UB game over the weekend. Buffalo's defense (which is giving up on average 59 points per game this season) completely befuddled a very high scoring CMU offense, holding them to 56 points (20 below their season average). UB held Presley Hudson, who has scored over 30 on 4 separate occasions MAC games, to just 8 points.

UT scored 73 against UB, without Janice in uniform.

So, clearly the team is capable of producing good offensive performances. So, I'm as perplexed as anyone at how many poor offensive showings they have put together in recent games. I'm hopeful that it is just the inconsistency of youth.

(01-23-2017 09:11 PM)eastisbest Wrote:  Eh, aren't the foreign born older? Some places, have an extra year of secondary school before college.

And that would still make the freshmen of sophomore age - so? More importantly, still the same amount of experience playing the American style of ball that they don't play in Europe. And the same amount of inexperience playing with this group of players as a team.

If a coach starts talking about how young their team is, consider that it got that way because of a number of recruiting mistakes that thinned out the upper classes.

BTW, Cullop said today that freshman F Tanaya Beacham will redshirt. No word on why there has been no info on her for quite a while.