(03-27-2023 10:26 PM)Seventyniner Wrote:  

(03-20-2023 12:57 AM)Intellectual_Brutality Wrote:  

(12-07-2021 04:22 PM)Orange County Owl Wrote:  

(12-07-2021 02:45 PM)Jacknife Wrote:  

(12-07-2021 01:06 PM)Orange County Owl Wrote:  I've always thought the Harris/McKreith teams should have made at least one tournament - particularly when you throw Almond in towards the end.

Ditto that - those were some really fun teams.

I'm forced to dig really deep into the memory bank here, but I seem to remember that we were a hair away from upsetting a Top 5 Stanford team in 2003... like one of those games where we were a few missed free throws away

Yep. We were up at the 8 at the half and ended up losing by 4 ... while going 13-25 from the line (including some front ends of 1-and-1s). Stanford started that year 26-0.

We also lost by single digits at home that same season to eventual national champions UConn.

I was at that game. To be fair Stanford was missing it's all American star for that game, forget his name

Some of us in the BOB trolled Matt Haryasz mercilessly that game due to his name. Nothing he had never heard before, I'm sure, and it was admittedly rather juvenile of us.

One might label such behavior "sophomoric".

Formerly? Not in my experience...

(03-20-2023 09:33 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  I may have made the phone call that put into motion the decision to hire Willis when Scott Thompson left. Willis is a friend, and a wonderful person as well as a damn good basketball coach.

I had two frustrations with his tenure at Rice.
1. Scott Thompson made a huge effort to get student involvement, and turned the Jungle Gym into a huge home court advantage. As an alum, I had very high hopes that Willis would see the value and keep that going. For whatever reason, it didn't happen.
2. From insiders, I got the impression that Willis had pushed Scott to play more run-and-gun basketball, and from a sportscaster friend I have gotten pretty good information that Tom Penders was really scared of trying to run with Rice (and if the Runnin' Horns didn't want to run with you, NOBODY else did). I pushed him because I really felt that Rice was better playing up tempo. Every year during preseason we would hear about how this year Rice was going to play at a faster place. Then Rice would go out and play a bunch of 56-52 games.

So two of my biggest reasons for supporting Willis up front did not come to fruition. Nevertheless, I thought he was an excellent recruiter and coach, and did a very good and very underappreciated job.

As far as the Tudor conversion, I consider both Chris Del Conte and Bobby Tudor friends, and hope neither is offended by my saying this, but Tudor is putting earrings on a pig. The place is still a dump.

It wasn't just Scott Thomopson. He had a key person taking care of that that Willis never had, and never seemed to know he had to replace. It wasn't Thompson's or any of the staff's or BOB's idea to play "Welcome to the Jungle" at games and create the Cameron-like atmosphere in the first place...but you knew that, or did you?

(03-28-2023 09:41 AM)GoodOwl Wrote:  It wasn't just Scott Thompson. He had a key person taking care of that that Willis never had, and never seemed to know he had to replace. It wasn't Thompson's or any of the staff's or BOB's idea to play "Welcome to the Jungle" at games and create the Cameron-like atmosphere in the first place...but you knew that, or did you?

But Thompson knew that he needed that, and Willis just didn't seem to give it the same attention.

I do know that Willis got whacked at the knees by the athletic administration early on in at least a couple of situations. And I never understood why.

(03-28-2023 03:52 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(03-28-2023 09:41 AM)GoodOwl Wrote:  It wasn't just Scott Thompson. He had a key person taking care of that that Willis never had, and never seemed to know he had to replace. It wasn't Thompson's or any of the staff's or BOB's idea to play "Welcome to the Jungle" at games and create the Cameron-like atmosphere in the first place...but you knew that, or did you?

But Thompson knew that he needed that, and Willis just didn't seem to give it the same attention.

I do know that Willis got whacked at the knees by the athletic administration early on in at least a couple of situations. And I never understood why.

He actually didn't quite know; it was gifted to him but was taken for granted. That's why Wilson didn't know/or suspect he needed it, either. He was a decent coach and a decent man, but he couldn't do all the extras himself, and without help, he eventually stagnated (plateaued) and suffered his fate. They thought it was all them when it most assuredly was not. I think it's part and parcel of the attitude of almost anyone who takes that job, so I don't really blame them specifically. Sometimes people just take gifts for granted. After the teams finally got going, it became easier, but they didn't start the snowball, it was rollin long before. The Admin and AD have no clue, which is why those that care, they are confused why their approach still doesn't really work. They just don't know where to look.