In Game: at St. Joe's

[Acorn]

Lee’s departure was a surprise to me, but so was the fact that he had to complete military service by a certain age—a fact that definitely shouldn’t have been a surprise to our coaches.

Jones’s departure was very predictable. As was Brajkovic’s. Lanier didn’t play much and I hadn’t heard of any hopes pinned on his contributions. I guess Mennenga’s departure was a surprise. The sense I got of the coaches’ feelings about the departures of each of Thrastarson, Ford, Kristensen, and Watson was somewhere between a shrug and “don’t let the door hit you on the way out.” None of those guys left for NIL reasons.

The transfer portal gave us Loyer, Skogman, Kochera, Brizzi, and Moss. COVID gave us an extra year with Loyer and Kochera. That seems like we benefited on net.

We don’t have grad programs, so that’s a disadvantage.

Did we lose out on Parker Friedrichsen because of NIL? Ok. But when have we ever beaten Notre Dame for a recruit? Tom Droney? And I don’t think we pursued him when he reopened his recruiting. But we never beat Wake either. Do we really think we’re at a huge NIL disadvantage compared to St. Bonaventure and Loyala and Richmond?

Princeton has only three losses and a team full of HS recruits who are first- and second-year players. No transfers, no grad students, no NIL, no scholarships. I wonder if Mitch Henderson would have been interested in the Davidson job. We’ll never know.

[seamac77]

Hope..

https://www.instagram.com/p/CSkJsjcHjX8/

Decent hops. Not like Jordy or anything, but decent. He was still pretty young then. Maybe he can help us.

Decent hops is always on our shopping list.

[WildCock]

But he built the roster! I don’t understand why people keep offering that as a defense.

He built it. Free transfers, NIL, and the Covid year destroyed it. The decline of the A10 didn't help. We never had players leave with eligibility remaining. It's an every year event now. And it it'll stay that way in all probability. Bob didn't mean to leave the cupboard as poorly stocked as he left it, but it happened. Does anyone think we'd be better off with Bob still coaching? Even Bob in his prime wouldn't do better with this roster. [Emphasis added]

Bob in his prime was National Coach of the Year caliber. With absolutely no disrespect to Matt intended, the idea that he, in his second year as head coach, is the equal of his father in his prime is absurd.

[wildforthecats]

At some point we are going to have to address the fact that the nepotism hire was a terrible and avoidable mistake. My hope is that will happen sooner rather than later.

Come on David, you are better than this, repent and you are forgiven.
Reminder that Bob was 14-43 after his first two seasons at the helm, 25-60 after three years.

[raptorcat]

We hashed out the nepotism question two years ago on this board when Matt was hired. Time to move on from trying to bring it up again.

In my view, the biggest threat to our storied men's basketball program is the NIL phenomenon. It seemingly sprang up out of nowhere on the college sports landscape and is morphing and mutating at a dizzying rate. I don't pretend to fully understand how it works, but what worries me is my complete lack of knowledge about what the Davidson administration and the athletic department are doing about it. If there is any institutional inertia at work here and nothing of consequence has been done, we are headed down the road to irrelevance in D1 basketball. On the other hand, if the powers that be are actively working to raise an NIL war chest, the process seems so secretive that I am left to worry that we aren't doing enough. The NIL problem may bite us very soon this spring, as soon as the transfer portal opens and other teams try to tempt our best payers with filthy lucre.

Can someone enlighten me and ease my fears? Or tell me that I realistically have something to worry about?

[i77cat]

But he built the roster! I don’t understand why people keep offering that as a defense.

He built it. Free transfers, NIL, and the Covid year destroyed it. The decline of the A10 didn't help. We never had players leave with eligibility remaining. It's an every year event now. And it it'll stay that way in all probability. Bob didn't mean to leave the cupboard as poorly stocked as he left it, but it happened. Does anyone think we'd be better off with Bob still coaching? Even Bob in his prime wouldn't do better with this roster. [Emphasis added]

Bob in his prime was National Coach of the Year caliber. With absolutely no disrespect to Matt intended, the idea that he, in his second year as head coach, is the equal of his father in his prime is absurd.

I'll stick with it. I don't think Bob would have done better than Matt with this year's roster.

[stevelee]

Things will get worse before they get better, and they might not get better.

A problem with Davidson’s approach to NIL is that we will most likely play by both the spirit and the letter of the rules. I’m skeptical that that will be the norm.

[i77cat]

We hashed out the nepotism question two years ago on this board when Matt was hired. Time to move on from trying to bring it up again.

In my view, the biggest threat to our storied men's basketball program is the NIL phenomenon. It seemingly sprang up out of nowhere on the college sports landscape and is morphing and mutating at a dizzying rate. I don't pretend to fully understand how it works, but what worries me is my complete lack of knowledge about what the Davidson administration and the athletic department are doing about it. If there is any institutional inertia at work here and nothing of consequence has been done, we are headed down the road to irrelevance in D1 basketball. On the other hand, if the powers that be are actively working to raise an NIL war chest, the process seems so secretive that I am left to worry that we aren't doing enough. The NIL problem may bite us very soon this spring, as soon as the transfer portal opens and other teams try to tempt our best payers with filthy lucre.

Can someone enlighten me and ease my fears? Or tell me that I realistically have something to worry about?

We have plenty to worry about. The earth under our solid foundation has turned to quicksand and Davidson is very slow to adapt to even small changes.

[raptorcat]

Things will get worse before they get better, and they might not get better.

A problem with Davidson’s approach to NIL is that we will most likely play by both the spirit and the letter of the rules. I’m skeptical that that will be the norm.

I wish I knew what the rules are; they seem to change from week to week or at least month to month. I suspect that with our institutional inertia, we will always be a step behind if we try to follow rules that shift with every court decision that has emasculated the NCAA. That organization is now a paper tiger.

[stevelee]

Things will get worse before they get better, and they might not get better.

A problem with Davidson’s approach to NIL is that we will most likely play by both the spirit and the letter of the rules. I’m skeptical that that will be the norm.

I wish I knew what the rules are; they seem to change from week to week or at least month to month. I suspect that with our institutional inertia, we will always be a step behind if we try to follow rules that shift with every court decision that has emasculated the NCAA. That organization is now a paper tiger.

And yet I don’t hear cheering from the NCAA’s long-term vocal critics.

[bostoncat]

We hashed out the nepotism question two years ago on this board when Matt was hired. Time to move on from trying to bring it up again.

In my view, the biggest threat to our storied men's basketball program is the NIL phenomenon. It seemingly sprang up out of nowhere on the college sports landscape and is morphing and mutating at a dizzying rate. I don't pretend to fully understand how it works, but what worries me is my complete lack of knowledge about what the Davidson administration and the athletic department are doing about it. If there is any institutional inertia at work here and nothing of consequence has been done, we are headed down the road to irrelevance in D1 basketball. On the other hand, if the powers that be are actively working to raise an NIL war chest, the process seems so secretive that I am left to worry that we aren't doing enough. The NIL problem may bite us very soon this spring, as soon as the transfer portal opens and other teams try to tempt our best payers with filthy lucre.

Can someone enlighten me and ease my fears? Or tell me that I realistically have something to worry about?

We can’t get a large number of our small but mighty army of longtime season ticket holders to buy into the current ticket pricing regime (myself included) while we have a hard time giving tickets away most games…curious who’s writing big checks to fund an NIL war chest.

[raptorcat]

NIL is cloaked in darkness across the college sports spectrum. No one knows who's giving what, where, or how much. It's such an ominous portent that I cannot recall when I have felt this discouraged about Davidson athletics.

[ScootCat]

Maybe someone here with the appropriate gravitas can ask the AD what is happening with NIL. I think fans and season ticket holders have a right to know such info, at least in terms of how much money is involved. As I've mentioned before, Steph could solve our NIL funding problems in one fell swoop.

[Acorn]

I don’t see “the coaches genuinely but wrongly believed both that the players had improved their shooting and that the team was deep” as a very strong defense of coaching ability.

I don’t think it’s fair to Bob to argue for an analogy to his first few years. Davidson was in a totally different (and much worse) place. Matt got a team that was returning two of its top players (including its leading scorer and PG) from an A10 champ that came within a wildcat’s whisker of beating Michigan State in the NCAA Tournament.

NIL allows players to receive compensation for their name, image, and likeness. When the court decision required players be able to earn those dollars, it was not supposed to open up “pay for play.” But various booster groups set up school-based “collectives” that effectively achieved pay for play. The NCAA has been very slow to enforce its rules on pay for play, but a recent ruling in Tennessee has put a stop to any and all enforcement for the time being. The schools themselves don’t operate these collectives and/or pay NIL money to players. But there’s strong evidence of some pretty close collusion.

Two Davidson-oriented collectives have been announced in recent years, including one whose very small staff includes the father and brother of a member of the coaching staff.

I like Matt. I think he’s a good coach. I think he’s a good recruiter (which is a huge part of being a good coach). I do wish there had been a search (even if it had ended up with Matt). I don’t think he should be fired. But I think we should be clear eyed and honest about how well he is or isn’t doing. And I am really worried that some of the lame excuses I’m reading on here are coming from the staff, who need to be owning the last two seasons and not whining about the world they live/work in or—especially—throwing their players under the bus.

[raptorcat]

I am really worried that some of the lame excuses I’m reading on here are coming from the staff, who need to be owning the last two seasons and not whining about the world they live/work in or—especially—throwing their players under the bus.

I worry about my memory as old age approaches (or has already arrived). But I believe I was unaware of (or forgot) that the staff has been whiny or that they've been throwing their players under the bus. In fact, I find it hard to believe. Examples?