(10-29-2020 08:23 AM)jedclampett Wrote:  

(10-29-2020 07:53 AM)Stickboy46 Wrote:  WSU is now going to collapse not only itself but the ENTIRE FREAKING CONFERENCE?? Where's that damn WSU 2nd team at ...

Keeping Marshall will be bad press no doubt. Let's be real though, he's still going to win. Last year he had a team that apparently hated him ... to the point half the team transferred and then tried to burn the place down on the way out. WSU finished 4th in the league and was a likely tournament team.

The year all these the really bad things happened (2015-2016)? Yea .. they won 2 games in the tourney that year.

How about Temple, Tulsa, USF, ECU, Tulane find a way to be consistently good and make the tournament consistently?

Maybe Marshall stays and leads a completely rebuilt Shockers team to the Final Four in 2020-21, but that would certainly be a wildly optimistic scenario. It seems just as likely that there will be dissension and/or morale issues, and that now that the whole team knows about Marshall's excesses, half of them are planning to transfer out. In that event, the program would be in a tough recruiting situation.

Think of it for a second - - how would you or anyone else feel about the prospects of playing for a Head Coach who has been nationally shamed and credibly accused of verbally abusing and committing assault and battery against some of his players and staff?

It's probably going to become a huge distraction to Marshall himself, and to his players and coaching staff. Viewership might suffer. The conference is already suffering from the after-effects of other scandals (Ollie at UConn, Penny's recruiting sanction last season, SMU's Coach Brown), and will continue to be tainted as long as Marshall remains at WSU. This won't boost viewership of AAC basketball games, to put it mildly.

You can't pretend that this is all something that happened a long time ago (2015-16) and is no longer relevant. It is more relevant now than ever. They lost most of their team after last season, and Marshall is in danger of losing his job and possibly his career. In addition, there is a videotape circulating around the internet showing him completely losing his temper and going after referees, pushing and shoving his own players and staff members in an attempt to physically intimidate the refs.

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You asked "How about Temple, Tulsa, USF, ECU, Tulane...?"

I'm a long-time, dyed-in-the-wool Temple fan, and there's not much reason to expect Temple to be back in the NCAA tournament any time soon - - perhaps in 3 or 4 years, at best.

UCF and USF have some positives going for them, but they're not expected to be tournament teams this year. At best, they appear to be middle-tier programs at this point.

ECU and Tulane? The world continues to wait to see if they can develop into high D1 quality programs. It appears that they will continue to wait for some time to come.

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Nope. The conference is in a bad situation now. Maybe we get back to sending 3 teams to the NCAA tournament within the next 2-3 years, but there is reason to be concerned that it may take longer than that to re-establish the AAC as a "Major 7" basketball conference.

Unless....

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Unless Commissioner Aresco and the AAC Presidents suddenly grow a spine and take decisive action to replace UConn with a NCAA tournament-quality program from a nearby conference such as the A-10 or MVC.

Half the team that DID go through all of this stuff also stayed .. so apparently it's not THAT bad. You basically went from point A to point ZZ using only guesses to get there.

I hate to break it to you, but half of pretty much every team will be transferring if they pass the 1 time transfer rule this year. Good players will be trying to "transfer up" and bad players will be transferring to get playing time.

The conference is fine. WSU will be fine with or without Marshall.