CyberBull

The bigDance is perfectly flawed. Don't mess with a good thing. Do we want the sport to become like the NHL or NBA where everyone makes the playoffs and essentially renders the long 80 game plus regular season meaningless?

I think we should hire smazza as our new coach.....but that is just me.

IF CRM is going to be retained, then he needs to have the next two seasons. I doubt we see much improvement on the court next year b/c of all the young guards coming on board and to date lack of an impact recruit for this year's class.

Great news! USF has to have the deepest LB crew in the BigEast. First Team Robinson -- Moffitt -- McKenzie Second Team Spires -- Mompremier -- Glover Third Team McQueen -- Peoples -- Joesph

Good question Jim. Eric -- any chance you could give us a heads up next year. I could be crazy.....but I don't remember receiving any information on BE Tourney tickets. Do all season ticket holders get a chance to try and obtain tickets or is it reserved the larger donors? Thanks in advance.

Many people also said that USF would never be able to pay Jim Leavitt a million dollars per year.... While money is a legitimate excuse, it doesn't guarantee that USF can't spend a modest amount of money and win. There are countless examples of low paid coaches who can recruit and win games AND keep their programs under control. USF will always be behind the 8-ball for money, so it has to make sure it can maximize their coaching dollars by having the right guy in charge.

Seriously, that brought an honest-to-God tear to my eye.... A-Freakin-MEN

That's about right. It will be disappointing if USF doesn't compete for the conference championship but this team is still a year away from hitting it's prime. If we finish 10-2 and get ranked and into a decent bowl game it will be a very successful season and sets up the 2009 to be a grand season.

It's all relative. If he were at Florida he would probably attract better players. While we may giddy at signing some pretty good recruiting classes they are still not of the caliber of UCONN, Tenn etc. Similarly, if he were at Florida he could afford to hire and retain a great coaching staff to get the most out of his kids. The last three years has seen a revolving door at the assistant coaching positions. Finally, CJF is still a very young coach. In most big conference situations Jose would just start getting considered for a head coaching position. Remember when the women's program was smoldering in ashes, he was essentially given the keys to program and told "okay kid go see what you can do..."

;D Thanks for the laugh. In all seriousness, what about a guy like Matt Doherty? He has experience coaching in the Big East and he did quite well while he was at ND. A few have advocated Speraw for USF...but he isn't the splash USF needs to get the ENTIRE fanbase united and reenergize. However the man is VERY GOOD coach. He has charisma, has implemented a defense first mentality and makes the most of his resources in decent mid-major conference like the new CUSA. The question with Speraw is if he can make the transition to a major conference situation. Many like CRM have tried and failed. UCF would be stupid to lose him. I

How far ahead of our announcement of joining the BE was Mac hired? Maybe LRS already had a good indication that we would be joining and knew the monumental task ahead.... Perhaps....but how many 6 year contracts do you see doled out? Not many, and you usually see them given to proven coaches on a big stage.

Doug Woolard will make a good decision when it comes time to hire our next coach. I also doubt he will give him a 6-year contract like our previous AD. That was LRS's lone mistake while at the helm of USF athletics. BTW...I think Bobby Lutz would be a good coach for USF. He wouldn't cost a fortune, has a solid history of recruiting players and has a reputation as solid floor coach. In addition, he is aware of USF's history b/c of all those years UNCC and USF were conference foes. UNCC is severly misplaced in the A-10 and he may be looking for another challenge. His program is currently in rebuilding mode so I wouldn't judge him on his current record. Instead I would look at all those recent NCAAs trips he took out of C-USA. Back in the day CUSA was a heck of hoops conference and the 49ers always competed every year. Lutz may not take us to the promiseland, but he would certainly stablize the department.

Some CRM supporters might not like Woolard's opinion in two weeks. You have to give Woolard credit, he has the patience of Job and nobody has a real read on what he is planning on doing. If ADDW makes his decision based on on the court performance.....cRM is done. If ADDW makes his decison based on on recruiting results......cRM is done. If ADDW makes his decision based on state of the program and fan support....cRM is done. Ordinarily, such a report card would make a coaching change the worst kept secret in town. However, to his credit ADDW is giving CRM every bit of the season to make his case. ADDW has been a great hire for USF and I believe he will make the right decision based on results and available evidence. I'm not sure how many "supporters" there are out there. There are "realists" who think'll be back for another year because of financial reasons, etc. and there are people who are sick of Ari and the darksiders hijacking or starting 20 threads a day about it. But I dont think there are too many people who are thrilled with the direction of the program or think he deserves a 5 year extension as smazza will have you believe "we" think. Fair post. However, in defense of the "darksiders" and the brutually frustrated college hoops fans like the majority of us we are tired of the few CRM-apologists insulting our intelligence when they keep telling us that : i. "there is nothing wrong with the program" ii. "wins and losses don't mean a thing" iii. "we don't understand basketball" iv. sentiments basically saying, "we are only USF and this is the best we can ever hope to achieve" v. violating the basic tenets of the Church of the Holy Bull by mouthing heresy such as "those old USF NCAAs teams weren't really that good".

IMO if the fans are showing up to games and talking about the team, it beats the alternative of the large number of fans who have just stopped caring. USF used to average a REAL 5K/game. None of this new age, touchy feely attendance augmentation counting method that is all the rage in Tampa and Orlando. At least half of those fans are gone and we have to bribe our students to show up to games. So in other words, desillusioned fans that still care are a million times better than fans are spending their disposable incomes and time somewhere else.

Amazing what a coaching change can do to rejuvenate a program.....

Some CRM supporters might not like Woolard's opinion in two weeks. You have to give Woolard credit, he has the patience of Job and nobody has a real read on what he is planning on doing. If ADDW makes his decision based on on the court performance.....cRM is done. If ADDW makes his decison based on on recruiting results......cRM is done. If ADDW makes his decision based on state of the program and fan support....cRM is done. Ordinarily, such a report card would make a coaching change the worst kept secret in town. However, to his credit ADDW is giving CRM every bit of the season to make his case. ADDW has been a great hire for USF and I believe he will make the right decision based on results and available evidence.

Hey now.... this is supposed to be a family friendly board!

Finally accepting reality? I agree Mac will be back and I am hoping that he can put something together next year b/c he will ahve his best team next year. and Randy has been saying Mac will be back for a while, he just does not agree with it. How will he have his best team? He is losing his best rebounder, defensive player and scorer. There is no recruiting help on the way that will not only replace Buckley and Mattis, but improve the program. That is afterall the goal....right? Finally, if we thought our guard play frustrated us this year, how are we going to fare with Curry, Holmes and Jones getting significant minutes next year? None of these kids have played a lick of college basketball....so despite that fact that they are not a sure thing, they will certainly make a ton of freshmen mistakes. Also keep in mind that this was CRM's best year to make a run, b/c the BE as a whole is down. When teams like UCONN, CUSE etc are all middle tier teams it speaks to the quality of the league top to bottom. The BigEast is very young and next year is going to be a bear regardless who is coaching USF.

Like I said before, don't offer a contract unless you are willing to accept all possibilities, including losses.  Or, unless you have enough funds set aside to buy it out. When did we rejoin C-DOA? Admission to the BigEast brought us increased competition, notoriety and revenues for football and basketball. From the sounds of it would seem like USF is on the verge of being bankrupt. That is not reality. USF chooses not to spend money, which is completely different from not being able to afford a coaching change. CRM hasn't been fired b/c Woolard is a man of extraordinary patience and considering all the 'bad luck' CRM has faced he obviously thought that he deserved another year to improve his recruiting and on the court results. To date we haven't seen evidence of either of these be delivered.

How do you know? You guess is just as wild and irresponsible as the those who are saying he is going to be fired.

I'm willing to bet that Woolard is using a different report card for McCullum... But I can tell you that people on here will go ballistic when the season ends and McCullum is not immediately fired.  The longer it takes, the more irate people will be... then, when Woolard announces that CRM is coming back - per his contract - the world will come to an end for some people. CRM was quoted in the begining of the year that there needed to be marked improvement in the PROGRAM for him to keep his job. Can anyone argue that we have seen any improvement, other than two more conference wins? Recruiting has not improved. Roster management is still a problem. So much that a team that looked good on paper was completely rundown by the end of the year and continually keeps losing games b/c they run out of gas. Perhaps if fielding a full roster became a priority we would have won a few more games and CRM could have saved his job without having to rely on the mercy and patience of Doug Woolard. BTW...let's say that name again: Doug Woolard. At some point he is going to be held accountable for the embarrassing losses and losing money in what should a revenue generating sport. Do you think he is going to put his neck on the line for a coach he had no role in hiring? Let's put it this way, the way the season has closed has been a regression. The window to make an unexpected run to an NIT or even MSG has closed. There are no hot shot recruits waiting to sign with USF in April. It's just time to make a change. I think the lack of support from the Woolard's office speak volumes. If Woolard thought that he had seen enough improvement already....independent of the win-loss record....then he would have announced that he is coming back next year. That would help with recruiting.....and trust me we need the help.

I would tend to agree with this sentiment. There is a theory, that sometimes you have to tear down to build up.  RMC came in, cleaned house... then had some injury issues that really were beyond his control.  Since 2006-07 was better than 2005-06, you HAVE to say that we are building up. Hypocritical to take shots at Greenburg's program yet overlook the problems the football team has been dealing with over the last two years. Sports reflect society so I'm not sure why people are so surprised that some college kids smoke. Injuries are part of the game. Thus  while he has no control over injuries he did have control over the management of his roster and should have at least had a live bodies instead of only having 6 scholarship players all too often. It's worth exactly "four wins". That in itself is a problem. The point is not to beat ranked teams. Instead the goal is win games consistently. That is why it so maddening to see the ups and downs of this program. Either that or the those victories should be considered flukes. BTW....those wins should help with recruiting.....to date that hasn't been realized, and why his job is in jeopardy. Are you kidding? Then why even keep score? Why not compete in the Patriot League instead? Why do you propose that we make winning games AND having good STUDENT-ATHLETES mutually exclusive possibilities?  I've heard a lot of excuses why CRM's job shouldn't be in jeopardy, but that is the funniest and most imcomprehensible I have seen to date.

USF fans should show some class, since unless Woolard is using a different report card to judge CRM, that we will be in the market for a new coach this Spring. I'm not exactly CRM's biggest fan, but I really have a hard time celebrating a man losing his job. Don't get me wrong, I think we need a change, but let's focus on supporting the players in our remaining games and talking about the future of the program. Nobody wanted to be successful more than CRM so let's not rub salt in the wound. My $0.02

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. How can BB and 'Tron be middle of the road CUSA players yet be all over the record books? They were very great basketball players that through their own indifference and lack of coaching didn't fully take advantage of their talents. Greenie is better recruiter, so there is no doubt that he would have taken advantage of the BigEast calling card if he would have remained at USF Facilities: the renovations planned at USF will make the SunDome on par if not better than Florida's. Based on the information released by USF the renovated SunDome is going to be a place to be proud of for USF fans. Regarding VPI treating their players like royalty......come on....we are not talking UNC or UCLA. It's Virginia Tech. I have no doubt that they have more resources, but USF doesn't exactly play in the TAAC. We receive a considerably more revenues than we did in CDOA. USF has chosen not to spend money. Its all about choices. That is why I laugh at the Tinmen who said USF cant afford facilities.....USF can afford to go into debt just as much as UCF or VPI for that matter. I just think we have a very fiscally conservative administration that has obviously placed higher priority in becoming a Top50 Public REsearch Institution than being a Top Athletic PRogram. Hard to argue with that...

Not in Tampa. True but whose fault is that?