Wichita St Coach Babbling Thread Topic

3 straight conference losses against the 3 good teams in the MVC (northern Iowa, Creighton and Indiana State) and we are 4-8 in the conference, 6-16 on the year. I had zero shot of winning them, so I started 5 freshman (up my usual 4) all 3 games hoping to gain some more improvement for them.

Pete, Mount & Macy are all up more than 60 points, and I am feeling good that they will make a solid core group next year.
5/7/2009 9:32 AM
Well, its finally the end of my first season. 7-9 in conference and 9-18 overall. My first losing season in HD.

Now I have to get ready for recruiting. I think I am going from a D+ to a D, and I have 4 scholarships to fill. One for a JuCo and 3 freshman I think. I do feel good in that I had 5 freshman play a lot of minutes this year. So much so that:

53% of my teams minutes were played by freshman, and they took 65% of the shots, got 63% of the rebounds, had 37% of the assists, 52% of the steals, 58% of the blocks and scored 65% of the points.

So there are many reasons for optimism. Pete, Mount and Macy all gained 80 or more points, and Pierce picked up 70. Last season began with only one player rated above 650, and this year I will begin with 4 sophomores above 650. So if I can have another decent recruiting session, I should be well on my way. But my prestige will be down, so I don't think I will be winning many battles.

I do have more $/open spot since I got to save some of my money from last year, and I only scouted really close by with FSS....my bordering states and TX.
5/15/2009 12:01 PM
When I took this job I took it for 3 reasons. One was that the MVC looked like a conference that was up and coming with a couple other hyper types like me (mizzou that's you). Second was that Wichita State is in a geographically great location to pickup B12 overs and within 350 miles of Dallas, and can reach to the rest of TX and AR, away from the talent drought of the upper midwest.

And third, and most important, I was going to recruit 10 players in 2 seasons if I built a winner after that, I would KNOW that I did it without riding another coaches coat-tails. At LV in D3, I took over a NT capable team and turned them into a Dynasty, but Travs had them doing pretty well (2 PT and a NT) in the 3 years before I got there.

At D2, soupman had West Georgia making the NT and I just got them a round farther. I had never turned a losing team into a winner. And I still haven't. But this year Wichita State will be better, provided I don't botch recruiting too bad. I graduated a PG, SG, PF and C, and really need to get everything except a PG where I have a Junior and a RS Freshman fighting for minutes. I have $70,000 and no fear of a single Walkon to help balance my classes, so lets try not to settle.
5/22/2009 8:09 PM
turning a loser into a winner is the only way to play HD for me
5/26/2009 7:09 AM
Well, time to start looking forward to next season. We are going to be better, and the conference has 7 humans now, up from 6 last season, so that is a good sign. Plus we have a couple D2 coaches interested that just can't qualify yet.

Anyway, my average ratings for my starters this year vs. last year (Starting Hummel, Pete, Macy, Crowe and Pierce) with the changes.



Ath 55(+5), Spd 67 (+8), Reb 56 (+12), Def 71 (+3), Blk 44 (+7), LP 51 (+4), PER 41 (+2), BH 43 (+1), Pass 58(+4), WE 40 (-2), STM 74 (+3), DUR 57 (+2)

So our starters are up by an average of 47! points this season, with big gains in Ath, Spd, Reb & Blk. One things for sure, our defense will be better. And instead of starting with D level IQ's, we start with C+/B- level IQs, which are not great, but a TON better than last year. Hard team practice in the exhibitions will help too.

The big guns on offense are going to be William Pierce my center, with 54 ATH, 95 Reb, 90 Blk, 93 LP and William H. Macy at SF. Macy had a good offseason and is up to 71/74 for speed and Ath, with 55/54 for LP/PER, so I am hoping he can do ok.

SG Phillip Pete is my long range threat, with only a 71 PER, but 65 Ath and 84 Speed, so I expect to see more minus defenses than plus. But that is ok, underdogs need to shoot 3s to win. Been going through the recruiting listings, and its going to be tougher this year.

Humans have taken over Oral Robers (Tulsa) and Missouri @ Kansas City, to add lower competition locally for me. Plus you always have to worry about the Big 12.
5/27/2009 9:58 AM
Recruiting Silence has ended :) Landed 3 of 4 in the first signing cycle and things are looking good. Look for a full review of the new Shockers soon. So far so good. I will say that D1 recruiting with a D prestige is much harder than with a D+ prestige.
5/30/2009 10:29 PM
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6/1/2009 10:48 AM
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6/1/2009 10:49 AM
Well, one exhibition win vs. a lousy Sim team, and I can already tell we're better. Overall team ratings are better too with gains of 5 in Athleticism and 8 in Speed. The only area we didn't improve in was Ball Handling which is down 2 points, work ethic which is down 2 as well, and durability which is down 6. But everything else is up 2-4 points as a team.

Almost as important, our average offensive IQ "GPA" has gone from 1.5 to 2.0 and defensively we have improved from a 1.5 to a 2.0 as well. This is very nice, and if I weighted the IQ by minutes played, it would look even more dramatic than a small 1/2 grade.

While my team got better, I scheduled 9 of 10 vs. humans this time, and my noncon schedule is better too. Last year our opponents averaged 636 points overall and we went 2-8. This year they are 661 overall, including 3 seemingly unwinnable games vs. Oral Roberts (688), at Mount St. Mary's (692) and vs. Michigan (698).

I predict 3-7 or 4-6 in noncon, but a much better conference performance than the 7-9 I got last year. I figure we lost to Creighton & Indiana State & Southern Illinois from the North and lose 2 to Northern Iowa and one to Western Kentucky and that puts us at 10-6. So going 13-13 seems doable. So the goal for the season is not to have a losing record. after last year's 10-18 campaign, that would be good, directional improvement, especially for a team with no seniors and only 2 juniors.
6/2/2009 2:43 PM
Well, we have started 3-0 and already have more noncon wins than last year when we managed 2. William H. Macy is really turning out to be a nice player, and great steal from the WCC. He is up to 72 ATH / 74 SPD and still improving in both, along with 55 LP/PER and improving there as well.

I think he will hit 80 in both of the first and 65 in the second two. Tough cover for people and can go inside or out, unlike his replacement/backup SG Jonson, who is going to be a perimeter player.

I have 3 more home games against teams that are slightly better than me, 1 road game vs. a weak sim, and 3 games against teams that are more than 50 points overall better than me, so if we can go 3-4, and 6-4 overall, that would be awesome. Even 5-5 noncon would have been better than what I thought I would do a week ago.
6/6/2009 2:02 PM
Nice 3-1 start, reinsel! My DIII team's off to a 4-0 start, though I'm nervous about seeing our RPI, which will likely damn us to obscurity no matter what our eventual record may be ;)

And William Macy's parents must really have liked Fargo ...
6/7/2009 3:19 AM
You need to play a harder schedule than that, jdawg.
6/7/2009 8:06 PM
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