(03-13-2019 07:58 PM)TribePride91 Wrote:  Lots of sadness over at our Board. Would have been a really fun journey next year. I have lots of respect for you guys and your program. But, to put things in perspective, you guys have won 6 CAA Championships, ODU has won 8. When I was a student, we were a total doormat. So bad that it looked like it would last forever. Between 1987 and 2003 the Tribe won 2 total CAA tourney games(that includes play in rounds). Tony built the program into a consistent, year in year out competitive CAA team. It took time, the first few years were very lean. The leap we took from consistent play in round loser to finalist(3 wins including beating top seeded VCU) in 2008 was amazing. It continued in 2010, but ODU was in the way in the finals. Then, in the last 6 years the Tribe lost in 2014 and 2015 in the finals with Marcus Thornton leading the team. It was a near miss, probably one FT miss with the lead and a minute to go. Not really any different than last season's Northeastern loss in the finals to Charleston except that they had a 2015 title(sigh). Even in 2017, the Tribe beat your eventual champions in the regular season(as your first loss) and was very competitive against you guys in the semis. Your 2017 was likely still the best CAA team of the last 5+ years. So, the Tribe was never the best team in any one year, but was among the best every year. I just think a 2020 or bust opportunity was the better call, if this was going to occur at all. If any of our top players leave due to this decision, then it absolutely was the wrong one(short-term). And 2020 is a favorable tourney venue for the Tribe, much more so than Charleston was. I expect Coach Shaver will get hired quickly and will be successful. Today, I am sad, shocked, and struggling to see what hire will work better with the core we had coming back including our entire starting 5 plus LJ Owens, Cameron Brown and Andy Van Vliet(a 7 foot transfer from Wisconsin). Coach Shaver represented all things W&M very well and with class. BTW, 5 schools have no CAA title since Coach Shaver arrived(Towson, Drexel, Hofstra, Elon). JMU has one(but has been really, really bad for the rest of the time). Delaware also has one(but has been terrible nearly every other year as well). So, ultimate success has eluded a lot of programs. Maybe it is as simple as we could not deal with losing to Delaware again. I don't think anything the Tribe could have done would have led to beating the Huskies this year.

Good lord, please you paragraphs. You are a Bill & Mary fan, you should know better.