Bull94

Mac isn't a good recruiter anyway, and with poor results what's the difference? The next coach is gonna get handed a certain quality of product either way. At the rate we're going, bringing in some JUCO kids isn't going to make a difference in the long run. Many coaches go this route in the first couple years of building a program. By putting a winning product out on the floor. Jose Fernandez was a no-name coach when he got here, the difference in the men's and women's programs is huge. If McCullum was having similar success as Fernandez you would see big attendance and the donors would surely follow. Comparing men's and women's basketball is completely ridiculous. Where is the huge attendance jump for Jose? How about the big donors for him? If they were the same then why hasn't he attracted either? Doesn't RMC have one of the top Florida recruits coming in next year? We all salavated over him when he chose FSU. Everybody said Mac needed to land him or else. Now that he is transfering in nobody gives him credit.

94, you make some good points but are you telling me there isnt a guy ot there who is up for the challenge?  Or would love to be given the opportunity to coach in the big east and maybe be successful and boosting his career?  Why cant we do what VCU did with Jeff Capel, why cant that happen with us?  Now he is at Oklahoma getting top recruits.  There are guys out there dying to get in and get their names known.  Thats why we need a guy that when you interview him you can tell he has charisma and swagger.  Ask Jim Leyland about swagger, guy coached and loved guys like Barry Bonds and now gettin Gary Sheffield because of swagger.  he claims it is the most underrated quality in sports and coaching (especially recruiting).  I agree 100% with him there.  and i didnt say a no-name coach, we have one of those now, I said a well known ex player or a successful mid major coach.  believe me i want the big name hire, but i hear so much how we cant afford it.  So lets find the diamond in the rough.  And trip you highlighted two of my sentences and say they are wrong, but yet they are right.  then you say they dont pertain to our situation.  it would pertain to any teams situation.  Is USF different than anyone else?  Recruits dont want to play for a coach they dont know will be there the next year.  how does that not pertain to our situation???? Sometimes you respond just to respond. Why? PS 94, we arent 16th in the Big East (place-wise) I believe we are like 14, give us some credit  There may be some guys out there up for the challenge but the smart ones will stay away. VCU was able to do what they did with Capel and now Grant because those guys saw how VCU will spend the money in order to compete in their conference. The young guys also realize that if they are able to be successful there then it will lead to bigger and better things(i.e OU). I believe ???VCU's coach gets paid about as much as we pay with the potential for a huge payday if successful. Don't you think it would be much easier to go in and compete in the colonial athletic conference against teams with similar budgets then it would be to come into the BE and compete against national powers that have budgets 2 and 3 times as large for the same pay? Unfortunately USF would be considered a dead end job where VCU is a stepping stone.

this is exactly why I do not think he should be around next year.  no recruit is going to play for a coach who is in the last year of his contract, with a poor track record, and no talks of a contract extension.  Mac hasnt improved the team "enough" to even serve his last year of his contract, let alone talk about contract extensions.  And no recruit is going to say yes to a coach who very likely will not be there next year.  We should try and find a well known young ex-player who is motivated and getting into coaching, or a successful mid major coach (like mac was, which didnt work out) who both, we can steal for a low price.  If our AD lives up to his hype I have all the confidence in his hiring decisions to find that next good coach for a cheap price.  hopefully the new coach can improve us and bring in a new excitement.  Which will fill seats, get donors and students interested, and eventually have the money to give him the extension he may deserve, in the future. how will a no-name coach fill more seats and bring in more donors? USF is not a career building job. any decent up and coming coach can see that we don't have the money to support a winning program in the BE just yet (i.e. Grant). We pay mid major salaries yet we expect them to compete against the best. Would you take a job that pays the same but you would be expected to compete against much better competition? How will they compete with schools that have budgets multiple times ours? Would you expect them to hit the ground running as far as recruiting goes? In the end we would be in the same situation regardless of who you bring in. The name may change but the situation remains the same. 16th highest paid coach in the BE + 16th largest budget in the BE + 16th best facilities in the BE = 16th place in the BE.

Joe, That was Coach K's big complaint when the ACC brought in Miami, VTech, and BC. He knows that football is the money maker and he knows that it will make it all the more difficult for basketball schools to compete with the kind of money the football programs are bringing in. The ACC (traditionally a basketball conference) realized this too. If we're smart, we will build our football program to it's fullest potential before anything else.

Build our football program first. That's where we make our mark. $4M dining hall and $6M practice facilities & softball upgrades should be priorities. Fund basketball further when we get to our first BCS game. Mac is doing as well as expected with his limited funds.

cyber, Tron disappeared in big games, BB was a head case from the start. They may be in some record books but I think you'll find many more are held by guys from UofL, Cincy, Marquette, etc. The much needed ongoing renovations will be great when they are finished but it's tough to tell a recruit to pick us over teams that have far superior facilities now. Not just arenas but practice facilities, work out facilities, dorms, dining halls, etc. UF spends $3M more on basketball per year then we do. We give Mac a car and a gas card while Donovan flies around ona private jet to recruit. Our resources are greater now in the BE but so are our expenses. Remember this is only our 2nd year. Did you see what our payouts were after the bowl games? not very impressive. We would have been better off financially playing a 1-AA home game then we were getting a $300,000 payout for the PJBowl after all was said and done. Yes I'm sure we could go into debt like some of the others but where will that get us in the long run. Fortunately those in charge know that football is the way to invest our money for the greatest return in the future. Once we feel that we have grown that program enough to start syphoning from it to fund other areas of our athletics, then I think you will see some great things. We definitely have the potential. Everybody just expects everything now. New softball stadium, new baseball field, new dining halls, new practice fields, etc. VTech is at that point where football is self sustaining and they are now able to invest in other programs. I put football first and foremost. That is where USF will make ourselves known. If we start sucking money from the football program in order to invest in basketball right now then I think you should expect our football team to top out right where we are. We have a long way to go in football in order to compete with the big boys. remember a new basketball coach that earns $500k more per year will expect more money for recruiting, assistant coaches, etc. etc.

Dining Hall. keep growing football. that's our money maker. keep winning. more season tickets. better facilities. better recruits. it's a virtuos circle.

we're a football school now. just like FSU and Miami. get used to it. hopefully one day we can afford to fund a bball program properly. until then don't expect much. Not really, there are still a lot of USF basketball fans. Many have just been turned off over the last 5-6 years. Get the right coach and system at USF and this could be a nice program which can grow and be ready to flourish with a little money added to mix. This is not a complete reclamation project. There is some talent on the team next year and USF has solid facilities, and best of play in the nation's best basketball conference. I doubt USf will ever be UNC or Duke anytime soon, but it can be a solid basketball school that can regularly make  the NCAAs & give its fans hope. solid facalities? did you know the city of  Louisville is building a $400M arena for basketball? occasionally make the tourny maybe. just like Miami and FSU. we would need a lot of money added to the mix. imagine if you and 15 neighbors all decided to build new houses. You all took bids and you settled on the lowest bid. would you expect your house to be better than any of you neighbors? especially a guy who is paying 5 times as much?? guess what. we have the lowest basketball budget in the BE. we get what we pay for regardless of who the coach is. look at what our former coach is doing. was he a terrible coach  because he didn't get us into the NCAA's or past the first round of CUSA? not neccessarily. he just didn't have much to work with here. Yes we have solid facilities that are going to get much better when USF finishes their planned renovations. USF has their own practice court right now but that too will get better based on the SunDome renovation project. Let's put it this way the Gators have the exact same arena and I don't see them looking to build a new building. USF can hire a good young coach for under $800K. If he has success USF then needs to decide what to do, but in the interim a new coach can stablize the program. It surely can't get any worse. Regarding Greenberg, Greenie has been quoted on his OWN website that the USF job helped him grow as a coach. Remember USF was his first "bigtime" job. Prior to USF Greenberg had only coached in small mid-major conferences so moving to the BigEast was a big step up. IMO, Greenberg is a better coach. Sure he has access to more resources at VPI, but a lot of the failures he experienced at USF were direct result of him not getting the most of his players on and off the court. That has NOTHING to do with money. I laugh everytime they say that he had nothing to work with in CUSA b/c he had players such BB, 'Tron, Reggie, Cedric, Scott Johnson, etc...who are all sprinkled all over the CUSA record books. Other than Ced and Reggie none of those players significantly improved after their sophomore year.  IMO, if you give CRM those players we would have likely been in the tournament a couple times, instead of the fat goose egg Greenie posted with all that talent. That is why I keep harping on recruiting in regards to CRM. If he could just get players into his system and keep them engaged I think USF would be at least competitive. Unforutnately, that has been his downfall. no offense cyber but the Gators have no where near the same facilities we do. The O-dome may be similar but their practice facilities, dining halls, study rooms, lounge areas etc blow ours away. I don't think our bball team even has their own workout facilities?? we can't afford to spend another $550k a year on a bbal coach right now. we are having a hard time paying assistant coaches, facility upgrades etc for the fball team. that is where we need to invest right now. besides bring ina guy for that kind of money and he will demand a higher recruiting budget, better facalities, more money for assistants etc. I believe the guys Mac has brought in the time he has been here are superior to the ones Greenie brought in the 7 years he was here. Mac has a guy in the NBA. we have been able to beat top 25 teams several times and we now play in a dominant conference where we can't pad the win totals against the bottom half of the conference like greenie did. those guys Greenie brought in that you say were so great were middle of the road CUSA players. none made the NBA and none would hold records in the BE. I love the fact they played for USF and respect what they did while they were here but they couldn't compete in the BE either. The fact of the matter is that money has everything to do with long term success. VTech made a committment to their hoops program. they have a well established football program so they can do that now. Mac had to ask for laptops so players could study on the road last year. do you think they have to do that at these major programs?? They recruit on private jets, have the best facilities and treat their players like royalty.

we're a football school now. just like FSU and Miami. get used to it. hopefully one day we can afford to fund a bball program properly. until then don't expect much. Not really, there are still a lot of USF basketball fans. Many have just been turned off over the last 5-6 years. Get the right coach and system at USF and this could be a nice program which can grow and be ready to flourish with a little money added to mix. This is not a complete reclamation project. There is some talent on the team next year and USF has solid facilities, and best of play in the nation's best basketball conference. I doubt USf will ever be UNC or Duke anytime soon, but it can be a solid basketball school that can regularly make  the NCAAs & give its fans hope. solid facalities? did you know the city of Louisville is building a $400M arena for basketball? occasionally make the tourny maybe. just like Miami and FSU. we would need a lot of money added to the mix. imagine if you and 15 neighbors all decided to build new houses. You all took bids and you settled on the lowest bid. would you expect your house to be better than any of you neighbors? especially a guy who is paying 5 times as much?? guess what. we have the lowest basketball budget in the BE. we get what we pay for regardless of who the coach is. look at what our former coach is doing. was he a terrible coach because he didn't get us into the NCAA's or past the first round of CUSA? not neccessarily. he just didn't have much to work with here.

I didn't miss the point. I actually agreed with you. I don't think we need a "name" either. The fact remains, we need money to revamp this program regardless of the age or experience of the coach.

we're a football school now. just like FSU and Miami. get used to it. hopefully one day we can afford to fund a bball program properly. until then don't expect much.

I like the idea of a young coach coming in and growing with the program. the problem is UF had much more to offer a young guy. Football was well established. They didn't need to invest in their football program like USF needs to in order to grow. They got to the point where they could afford to funnel all kinds of money into other athletic programs including bball. Donovan knew that the program would be well funded from the start. Someone like Grant saw that USF was not going to have the money to grow bball like UF did. I bet he would have taken our job if he knew we would give him raises every year and eventually upgrade facalities and have a booster jet to recruit with. He saw where the money was going to go and that is to football. Maybe someday we will get to a point where our football program is well enough established to siphon money from it instead of reinvesting everything into it. Donovan is a great coach and recruiter but he couldn't have achieved the same success here. The money available to him had a lot to do with his success.

I agree dabull. what a lot of people on here don't understand is that we are a football first school as we should be. we have a much greater chance of building a powerhouse program in football then we ever will with basketball. all of our resources should be directed there until we get to the next level. we were the only football program out of 64 bowl teams that is younger than 40 years old. pretty impressive since we are only 10 years old. unfortunately this comes at the expense of a lot of our other programs including basketball. the young up and coming coaches wouldn't even keep their names in consideration for the last hire (i.e. Grant) because they know this. we have the 16th highest paid bball coach with the 16th largest budget in the BE. where should we expect to finish regardless of the coaches name? If they are unhappy with this then they need to buck up.Until that is able to change we shouldn't expect much else. Mac is actually exceeding expectations if we finish any higher than 16th. Just ask the experts who pick us to finish dead last every year.

I don't think it was TO's. we only had 3 more than them. We were definitely gassed though and their zone in the 2nd half was suffocating. They also shot 60% in the 2nd half. That being said, we hung with them for 30 minutes. I still believe Mattis picking up a phantom 4th at the 9 minute mark was the turning point in the game. If it had gone on their big man, which replays clearly show it should have, he would have been on the bench instead of Mattis. they ate us alive in the paint late.

Ever get the thought that we might be being outcoached a bit? When one half, or the other, is so crushing (e.g. 20+ point margins) you have to believe that a) if the first half is a rout, the better coaching staff gameplanned better before the game and the other team never adjusted on the fly, having to wait until halftime to regroup or if the second half is a rout, the better coaching staff adjusted better at halftime to the first half trends, OR c) if the second half is a rout, the losing team is either out of shape or thinly benched (e.g. poor recruiting, poor roster management or injury). Bring it on, Apologists, this was a bad loss... yeah who would think a guy that has coached at his school for 31 years, won a N.C., been to 25 NCAA tourneys, has national top recruits begging to go there and gets paid multiple times as much as the lowest paid coach in his conference to be a better game planner?? you're a bright one. If you think this all falls on the coach then you are a bit naive. Tell that to the guy who left and now has a vtech team ranked in the top 25. I believe he was the one that said kids don't dream of being a Bull. Maybe it's the program that is terrible and not necessarily the coach?

they may not have determined the outcome of the game but the phantom 4th foul on Mattis ( he didn't even touch the guy) when we were down by 4 with 9 minutes left definitely shifted the momentum of the game. If it was called properly (Cann took the charge but drew a no call on their big man right before they called Mattis' 4th) things may have been different. Down 4 with the ball and their big man on the bench instead of down 6 +1 with our best defender on the bench.We need things to go our way in order to win games like these.

Welcome to BE basketball. You have to beat teams you're supposed to beat on a fairly consistent basis if you want to keep your job. St Johns was winnable but not a gimme up there. [highlight]Wins over Wake, Cincy, Rutgers and Notre Dame have proved we have a different team now. I really am surprised you keep bringing that up[/highlight]. Just yesterday you were trying to convince me this is a "different" team than earlier in the year.  How are we supposed to buy that line with a loos to a bad SJU team? No spin, please. the same SJU team that beat ND at home??? or the one that beat SU at home?? maybe the one that beat DePaul at home?? when did the #9 team in the BE start being considered "bad"??? When expectations are raised because of certain fans saying how much improvement we've made, and how McCullum deserves to come back, etc. You can't say a win vs. Notre Dame means he should come back, and then ignore a loss against a team pretty much everybody admits you should have beaten. You guys are victims of your own foolish words. who is everybody? las vegas didn't seem to think so. possible yes. not probable. I think you need to temper your expectations. we have the lowest funded program with the lowest paid coach and the worst fan base in the conference and nobody to blame but ourselves(the fans). I believe RMC will have exceeded expectations if he can get this abysmal program to finish any higher than 16th. Obviously all of the experts would agree considering they picked us to finish 16th again. That being said, I think he has us headed in the right direction. I still believe we can reach MSG and the NIT this year. I'm hopeful for the future as well. I like who we have coming in and the core guys coming back. Anybody who thinks we should be lighting the world on fire with our BBall team has no idea where we have come from and how we got here.

critical game as in USC losing to UCLA for the right to play for a national title?? that kind of critical game?? hardly

Welcome to BE basketball. You have to beat teams you're supposed to beat on a fairly consistent basis if you want to keep your job. St Johns was winnable but not a gimme up there. [highlight]Wins over Wake, Cincy, Rutgers and Notre Dame have proved we have a different team now. I really am surprised you keep bringing that up[/highlight]. Just yesterday you were trying to convince me this is a "different" team than earlier in the year.  How are we supposed to buy that line with a loos to a bad SJU team? No spin, please. the same SJU team that beat ND at home??? or the one that beat SU at home?? maybe the one that beat DePaul at home?? when did the #9 team in the BE start being considered "bad"???

how about giving him 1/2 of a year? Have you ever blown out a knee? were you back to full speed in 6 months? the kid is LEADING the BE in assits per game as a freshman who blew out a knee 2 years in a row and you are criticizing him?? we rely on him to play the point because he was recruited too. Rusty or not he still leads the BE in APG. cut the kid some slack.

Buckley is 3rd overall in 3 pointers in the BE. I'd say that constitutes an outside scoring threat. Howard leads the conference in assits per game as a freshman. He wasn't able to pad those stats early on either. Do you think he might be a little slow because of his  knee injuries? I've heard it takes at least a year before you can expect to be up to full speed. The guy wasn't even supposed to play this year. When did he hurt his knee for the 2nd time?? I expected Jesus to be a more prolific scorer. I'm disappointed in him. I agree we do need more scoring. Bring in Holmes next year and I think we'll have a pretty solid team. Why are you always living in the past? Can't you see the light at the end of the tunnel? We were a middle of the road team in CUSA. Never any better then that. Did you expect us to make the move to the BE and dominate in our 2nd year?

Lutz coaches at his alma mater. Probably gets paid a boat load more than our coach. again why would he come here?

He already turned the job down once. doesn't anybody remember him taking his name off of our consideration list the last time we were hiring? That was when he was an assistant none-the-less. he knows this is a job to nowhere. terrible pay, terrible facilities and an impossible conference to compete in. He gets paid more at his current job. Why in the world would he want to come here???

The sole basis of the 5th game was to allow a non-auto (all conferences are BCS now) team into the picture without losing a at large spot for any of the big 6 conferences. These plans were announced on the heels of Congress and Tulane threating an antitrust investigation/suit. With only 8 spots in the playoffs, again, your going to have a REALLY hard time explaining to Wisconsin or LSU that they aren't in the playoff (making 15M+) because Boise State, who either team would streamroll through their schedule, deserved a shot. The BCS and any playoff is about money. Boise State is a great story, but the teams that get the ratings and draw the fans are the Wisconsins and LSUs of football. The difference between th 66th team complaining in Basketball and the 9th team complaining in football would be about 6-7 Million dollars. The NCAA basketball tournament makes at times less than 1/10th of what the BCS makes for teams. There will never be a NCAA sanctioned playoff in the "Bowl Division" as a result, money will ALWAYS be the factor blocking a major playoff. Now as far as a plus one game. You may see it one day. In fact if Florida wasn't in the BCS Championship game you might see it as soon as 2009. That being said Florida's president Bernie Machen is still pushing for a playoff amongst presidents http://www.palmbeachpost.com/sports/content/sports/epaper/2007/01/04/a3c_uffoot_0104.html Who knows maybe he can get this going. Wisconsin didn't even get a BCS bowl let alone a shot at the NC game. They lost out on millions. LSU had 2 losses and they still played in a BCS game. How was it fair that Wisconsin was left out?? Shouldn't they have the same complaint now? Won't they have the same complaint when they get left out of the playoffs??They were left out of the BCS and LSU wasn't. There is no guarantee a non-BCS team would get in every year. They would have to be ranked so high just as they do now to get into a BCS game. When they do go to + one they are well on their way to going to an 8 team playoff. What happens when there are 4 bowl winners left who can say that they deserve to play for the title? Simple. They add another round. Read the article ET posted. The guy who runs the Big 10 and therefore the BCS says himself that there are no real arguements over going with a playoff. He wants his conference to be the power conference and the Rose Bowl to be the power bowl. So far he has positioned them to do this. They did a study that says adding a +1 game adds 10's of millions to the bowl system. You think adding 2 more games is going to hurt that? It will only make the pot growbigger.

The current antitrust issues were cleared by adding that 5th game, you're suggesting that we get rid of it. Yes but if you allow one team in that hasn't won their conference you cannot leave another one out without hearing them *****. For example if you worked this years, how could you tell Wiconsin (who is now 12-1; lone loss to Michigan with the 80th ranked schedule) or LSU (whose 2 losses are to Florida and #10 Auburn with a the 11th ranked schedule) that one is worthy and the other isn't. Of course they are going to say that, it's a good argument as to why Michigan shouldn't have been in the title game and I cannot think of one other school that WOULDN'T have made that argument if it came down to them as a conference champ or another 1 loss team that wasn't a conference champ. Agreed here. Somebody is always going to *****. There are teams that ***** about getting left out of the top 65 hoops teams. Many can make an arguement for being in before some small conference champ but the fact is if they want in without a doubt then they need to win their conference. Can't get around that but instead of leaving an undefeated SEC Champ (Auburn) out of the NC picture you're leaving a 2 loss team that didn't even play in their conference championship game out. If Wisconsin or LSU wanted to assure themselves of a shot then they needed to win their conference. Plain and simple. I'm not sure adding the 5th game did anything for the antitrust suit. Allowing non-BCS teams the ability to qualify for them did. So would allowing them to qualify for the playoffs if they were able by the same guidelines. BSU probably earned the right to make the playoffs this year by being undefeated and ranked in the top 12. Unfortunately there is no perfect system. This way 8 teams have a legit shot at it. The BCS way screws teams 3-8.