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Post by chitownace on Jan 14, 2024 21:03:23 GMT -6
Well, we are sitting 10-7. And, as Bill Parcels says "you are what your record says you are."
First, the positives: More wins than last season. While the last few games might not have illustrated it, I think most would agree we have clearly upgraded the talent on the roster. We have seen an uptick in recruiting (both identifying players and landing those players), and hopefully that will continue. Improved attendance. A lot of this can be, and should, directly credited to Logan Belz and the athletic department for marketing efforts. Having said that, we know that winning puts people in the seats. As has been consistently demonstrated, UE has a fan base that is eager and willing to come out and support competitive teams.
While the 10-2 start certainly was helped by the schedule, it was evident the Aces have made strides and hopefully gain confidence knowing they can win. Many factors have contributed to the 1-5 start in the conference, but it is also clear we still have a long way to go.
On the "needs improvement" side: Well, it is clear through 6 games in the MVC that we still have to continue to upgrade the level of talent on the court. We need guys who can consistently shoot, create shots on offense, and be willing and capable defenders. (I am not in the business of calling out individual players. Those guys chose to come to UE and play for the Aces and I assume all of them are putting in the work to be the best they can on the court while being positive representatives of the team and the university off the court.)
I think one of the biggest, and obvious, areas of improvement is overall team strength and physicality. Basketball is a tough and physical sport. We need more guys who are strong and enough and skilled enough to create shots and get to the basket. We need more guys who are capable of defending at the level necessary to win in our league.
Recruiting - While recruiting has seen an uptick, we need to continue to be willing to battle for and get quality players. While the landscape of college sports has changed with regards to the transfer portal, NIL, etc.....there are still more than plenty of guys who can play and win at this level who are looking for that opportunity. There are guys who might look for a NIL deal or look for a path to a P5 - but there are plenty of guys playing JUCO, prep school, high school, and everywhere in between who are looking for a chance to play and have an impact at a D1 school like UE and would do great here.
Coaching adjustments - as I have stated in the past, there were legitimate concerns when Ragland was hired and there still are. There is going to be a learning curve. Yes - there is a process, but Ragland needs to find a sense of urgency on this. Whether it is lineups, matchups, in-game decisions, we seem to have stagnated a bit. Much like last season, the win and loss record isn't as important as seeing noticeable improvements this last half of the season - in both the team and the coaching. We should not be getting 30-pieced on a regular basis. That is not acceptable and shouldn't be to anyone. Every coach has their own philosophy and personality, but sometimes it seems our staff are a little too accepting of things on the court.
When it comes to wins and losses, it would be great if we can get to 15 wins this season. I think that is realistic. Again, ultimately it comes down seeing noticeable and significant progress from here on out.
I know almost all of this has been stated in prior posts and threads, but wanted to add my 2 cents to the conversation.
The reality is we had a long way to go when Ragland was hired. We are closer, but still have a ways to go. But, I am optimistic we can get there.
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Post by 65pointgame on Jan 14, 2024 23:18:48 GMT -6
(I am not in the business of calling out individual players. Those guys chose to come to UE and play for the Aces and I assume all of them are putting in the work to be the best they can on the court while being positive representatives of the team and the university off the court.) Nice comments Chitown -- the part I highlighted is good advice.
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Post by ATP on Jan 14, 2024 23:31:00 GMT -6
What seems to me is that there are some who think the poor results lately are maybe caused by players not working hard enough. I haven't seen any evidence of that. This is a talented team and maybe just needs that B-Hum glue to bring it together. It's happened to other teams. Until they get him back, the system is not running on all cylinders.
Staying the course, trusting the program to mature ... I'm OK with that. They have also played a few teams that are playing out their a** lately.
No, not gonna win the Valley this year and that's not a big shocker. I'd rather be 5-1 than 1-5. Pffft.
This team isn't broken and the system is working. They just need to play better. It's the best I've seen since 2016.
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Post by austinace on Jan 15, 2024 7:58:53 GMT -6
…This is a talented team and maybe just needs that B-Hum glue to bring it together. It's happened to other teams. Until they get him back, the system is not running on all cylinders…. All great points, ATP. Bradley is a good example of this. They were hitting on all cylinders to start the season. Then they lost Connor Hickman and they lost several games till he got back. I would argue that Ben is even more important to our team as he literally does everything and is a very smart, efficient player. With that said I expect him to be a little rusty his first couple of games back. And he will elevate his teammates play as everyone settles back into their normal roles. With that said, the MVC schedule is much tougher than our non-conference schedule. Sometimes that gets overlooked as well.
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Post by Incognito on Jan 15, 2024 8:48:13 GMT -6
I haven't thrown in the towel yet. Injuries happen. Losing Ben was more consequential than losing any other. According to reliable sources, he's been seen eating lunch so he appears to be tending to his nutritional needs while he heals. He's day-to-day so I expect that he will return in 16 day-to-days from now, making a 15 win season quite possible.
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Post by acescott on Jan 15, 2024 9:19:05 GMT -6
The combination of losing our best player, MVC play against mainly upper tier teams has been tough. You have to play hard AND well to beat any of these squads. If one considers that besides us, the 3 weakest teams are ISUr, UIC and the Guiding Lights, we haven't played any of them yet. 6 of our last 14 against them. Opportunities for some Ws. Gee, those are our next 3 home games. If halftime at Cincinnati was high point of season, here's hoping that right now is the low point. One final point, tired of the best start since 1964 talk. Kudos to who first noticed that, but to use that over and over in marketing to drum up excitement can only lead to a letdown. Casual sports fans translate that to claiming to be best team since '64. Let's get a W on Wed.
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Post by purpleorange on Jan 15, 2024 14:05:05 GMT -6
Where are we.....
We are in Year 1 of a multi year process to bring the program back to the standards that anyone over 40 years old expects. The fact is since Christmas 2019 we've been one of the worst programs in college basketball. A lot has happened since then to contribute to that but I say we are in year 1 vs year 2 due to the timing of hiring Coach Ragland which in my opinion really limited his options to bring his guys in while honoring the commitments of the freshman who have since moved on, which was the right thing to do. Those kids didn't ask for a coaching change and then be tossed aside late in the process with nowhere to go.
In year 1 the talent has been upgraded but the Humrichous injury shows how important depth is. We won all the winnable non-conference games and on that front, we've made nice progress. Some of that is scheduling and the next step is being able to play 40 minutes against tournament teams, which I believe BYU and Cincinnati will be come March. Conference play is tougher...teams are better and teams have a bigger collection of video on our guys. The baseline spin hasn't been there nearly as often for Cuff as an example. Right now we are forced to play guys more minutes than I believe the staff would like to compensate for Humrichous being out.
The rest of the way we need to be tough at home against the upper tier (Indiana State, Drake, Bradley) and find ways to win the rest of the home games, starting with Valpo on Wednesday. To me that's step one, making Ford Center a tough place for anyone to get a victory. Once that happens you can start to take down teams on the road.
The 1999 team was honored the other night and it's wild that it's been 25 years since we've won a conference championship and gone to the NCAA Tournament. Transport back to April 1999.....reigning MVC Regular Season Champs coming off an at-large bid and over the past 12 seasons we saw 2 NIT births (88,94) and 4 NCAA bids (89, 92, 93, 99). For better or worse those D-I golden years are the standard many of us hold the program to. The MVC is a tough league but the winner goes into March Madness well rested and battle tested night after night and is a threat to do damage. Drake had Miami on the ropes last year and didn't close the last few minutes....Miami got to the Final Four. That's the heights we aspire the program to get to and it's not going to happen overnight.
It's been a difficult last 25 years since that 99 team but this group has taken a significant jump this season from where we were as a program last year. Keeping that momentum trending up looking to the future is who we need to be and the staff deserves the support and time to rebuild from the ground up if they are going to be the ones to hang a MVC Champions banner.
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Post by ibleedpurple on Jan 15, 2024 14:26:57 GMT -6
Where are we..... We are in Year 1 of a multi year process to bring the program back to the standards that anyone over 40 years old expects. The fact is since Christmas 2019 we've been one of the worst programs in college basketball. A lot has happened since then to contribute to that but I say we are in year 1 vs year 2 due to the timing of hiring Coach Ragland which in my opinion really limited his options to bring his guys in while honoring the commitments of the freshman who have since moved on, which was the right thing to do. Those kids didn't ask for a coaching change and then be tossed aside late in the process with nowhere to go. In year 1 the talent has been upgraded but the Humrichous injury shows how important depth is. We won all the winnable non-conference games and on that front, we've made nice progress. Some of that is scheduling and the next step is being able to play 40 minutes against tournament teams, which I believe BYU and Cincinnati will be come March. Conference play is tougher...teams are better and teams have a bigger collection of video on our guys. The baseline spin hasn't been there nearly as often for Cuff as an example. Right now we are forced to play guys more minutes than I believe the staff would like to compensate for Humrichous being out. The rest of the way we need to be tough at home against the upper tier (Indiana State, Drake, Bradley) and find ways to win the rest of the home games, starting with Valpo on Wednesday. To me that's step one, making Ford Center a tough place for anyone to get a victory. Once that happens you can start to take down teams on the road. The 1999 team was honored the other night and it's wild that it's been 25 years since we've won a conference championship and gone to the NCAA Tournament. Transport back to April 1999.....reigning MVC Regular Season Champs coming off an at-large bid and over the past 12 seasons we saw 2 NIT births (88,94) and 4 NCAA bids (89, 92, 93, 99). For better or worse those D-I golden years are the standard many of us hold the program to. The MVC is a tough league but the winner goes into March Madness well rested and battle tested night after night and is a threat to do damage. Drake had Miami on the ropes last year and didn't close the last few minutes....Miami got to the Final Four. That's the heights we aspire the program to get to and it's not going to happen overnight. It's been a difficult last 25 years since that 99 team but this group has taken a significant jump this season from where we were as a program last year. Keeping that momentum trending up looking to the future is who we need to be and the staff deserves the support and time to rebuild from the ground up if they are going to be the ones to hang a MVC Champions banner. Great post as well as the chitownace post previously..both hit the nail on the head. We have a few more thousand fans ready to hit The Ford as we continue the climb. Glad things are on the rise and I feel they will continue to be. Go Aces !
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Post by austinace on Jan 15, 2024 14:39:16 GMT -6
Where are we..... We are in Year 1 of a multi year process to bring the program back to the standards that anyone over 40 years old expects...In year 1 the talent has been upgraded but the Humrichous injury shows how important depth is... Well put PurpleOrange. The University of Texas football team (with all of their resources) went through something similar after reaching the National Championship game in January 2010. In the next 12 years they had five losing seasons (something unthinkable down here again with all of their resources and talent). Just in the last two years have they really seemed close to competing at the highest level again. But just the year before (this past year) in 2022 they were essentially "competing" again with the big boys, but the main difference was their depth was not on par with the other "big boys" and they would run out of gas in the fourth quarter. That seems to have been addressed now. All that to say that I agree with what PurpleOrange is saying: It takes time to get there, and Rags, in one recruiting offseason, has made significant upgrades to the roster. Unfortunately, an injury to our most important player has exposed a glaring weakness in our depth when he is out. I do think, that earlier in the year, when we were healthy, that we showed that we can compete against most teams in the country (outside the top 25 or so) - that in and of itself is a big improvement. Unfortunately, with our key guy out, we look more like the teams of the last couple of years with 30-point beat downs. Keep the faith as we are moving in the right direction. Hopefully this off-season will address our depth and help with having D1 caliber players (talent-wise) from top to bottom where we don't have the major drop off that we have seen recently where we can't compete against decent mid-major D1 teams.
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Post by 6thman on Jan 15, 2024 16:25:35 GMT -6
The OOC was rank in the lower 250. Aces are now playing teams from the 9th strongest conference. Not to mention that the aces injury list contains the teammate that makes things happen and contribute greatly. Other than that the refs haven't seen the Aces in the same light as the recent teams that they have played. Both games at MSU were onesided and it wasn't for the good guys.
Just my .02...
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