CyberBull

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.

The guard play has been disappointing but they are sooooo young. The only disappointment in my eyes has been Jesus, who has yet to buy into the team concept. That needs to change regardless of the coach. IMO, I think he is trying to hard....

I usually type a million miles per hour w/ no proofreading.....so I can see where you took what I wrote wrong. Simply we need more players like KG. Regarding "can't miss players" I just mean that while Curry and company are good players they are unproven and worry about people over-hyping the poor kids as freshmen. If we follow the typical pattern some people will be bad mouthing them by the end of their sophomore years. I realize we are on a different page regarding CRM, but I have NEVER said anything personal about our players. I cheer like crazy for them when they are playing....

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.

It didn't used to be that way. The SunDome was never regularly sold out but we used to get decent crowds that even at 60% capacity made the SunDome a very tough place to play.

Yet there are people who say there is nothing wrong with our program. If I had the time and energy I would go back and pull out all the posts from last year saying "next year will be different". Geez.....

Amen. If people would step back from the emotional attachment to CRM they would realize that a new direction is what the program desperately needs. It's not personal, just business.

Where did I say anything about rankings or eligibility? Instead I wrote that we need more players that are playing like KG who will be in the program 4 or 5 years. We need more players like KG who are big, athletic and productive. Furthermore, KG seems to have a great head on his shoulders. Good grief... >

Curry, Jones, and Holmes are unproven, but they came to us with lots of talent.  Curry was tearing up the practices until his injury, we shall see what happens but no one is putting 'unreal' expectations on them just come in and do what they are capable of doing and they will be fine.  All three were very good outside shooters with the ability to dribble penetrate.  Holmes was ranked higher than Altron coming out of HS, so the expectations are already there whether you like it or not. Jesus definitely needs to learn to play within this team, and that's his problem right now he's not getting into the flow of this offense and not being assertive enough when the time comes.  CRM has sat him for that very reason.  Put the defense aside because he hasn't been that bad at defense it's the offensive side that we need more from him.  He has scored 20pts for us twice when he first started, but has tappered off considerably as the team slowly molded into the CRM style offense, an offense he needs to get more comfortable playing within. We all heard all of this before. Aris Williams and Zeus looked great in practice yet for one reason or another it hasn't clicked. The only transfer player that is playing well is KG. That is the caliber of player we need to recruit to play for USF for FOUR years. BTW....while Holmes, Curry and Jones are talented they have never been considered "can't miss players". I think we need to be watchful and moderate how much of a difference they are going to make next year....regardless of who is the coach. USF needs to camp out in front of Scott's door over thenext couple of weeks and hope we can still get him to sign with USF. We also need to find somebody to replace Buckley. While buckley is not great....we have nobody on the roster who replace him. That is the biggest worry. Cyber do you chase me around now to get into it? Verdejo dropped in 24 in his debute as a Bull, now because he's struggled he sucks?  He's young give him time to develop in this offense. Zeus has a lot to improve, but don't be so **** demanding for a turnaround just because you want the coach gone.  Zeus is a sophomore, playing in his second program in two years, he's shown some great flashes for USF- 14 points against those supposedly tough Quette guards.  What is the kid suppose to do drop in 25ppg before he's considered a good player?  Heck Buckley's been great this year dropping in almost 17ppg this year and averaging 6rpg and still no respect on this board.  I think the fact Zeus has signed, and even played at Arizona as a freshman proves that he's can play, but systems, confidence, comfort that all plays a part in a player's success.  Of course, if some of you think your smarter then Lute Olsen... Remember in Mac's system the guard play is different, and this is why Kentrell Gransberry thrives in this offense because it is not a transition offense, it's the Lon Kruger style, half-court inside out game.  Gransberry will thrive because he is the focal point of the offense, it's not that he's the only 'great' recruit we have, it's because outside of the PG, Kentrell gets the most touches on the ball, i.e. the more you touch the ball with a greenlight to shoot the more productive you will be.  Remember Kruger's offense at UF, Declerq, and Demtri Hill, it's all about the center in this game.  And some of you need to realize that players can be great with different facets of the game, Howard isn't a pure outside shooter but his distribution skills, he's actually a pretty good dribble penetrator watch Quette game, and ND again, but he picks his spots and is a little tenative with it now because of the knee.  If you all enjoy hoops then appreciate guys for their skill sets and what they bring to the table.  I seem to recall six years ago Uconn having El-Amen as a PG, kid couldn't hit the broad side of a barn door, but they won the NC with him (and he wasn't a great dribble penetrator), why- simple because he was a floor general, and got the ball to the right players at the right times- that is a skill in and of itself.  Granted Howard needs more options like El-Amen had, but some help is on the way. Curry, Holmes, and Jones will be a welcome cyber because they give us more shooting options outside.  I, unlike some of you, am not looking for them to be a savior just provide more shooting strokes outside to give us more scoring options from more spots on the court.  Particularly when others go to the bench.  No one will be a 'savior' in Mac's offense because that's not how the offense works, it's not about a guard dropping in 28pts, you're more apt to see the center, or PF as a leading scorer then a guard, unless that guard goes white hot from the outside.  His offense relies, or is more successful with good perimeter shooters.  Adding Curry, Holmes, and Jones gives us MORE perimeter shooters and cyber the last I checked more shooters is a good thing- at least on your team.  Verdejo isn't a pure perimeter shooter like those three, he's a transition guy, a dribble penetrator, and therefore he's been struggling in this offense pure and simple.  You can be annoying as a UCF fan sometimes.... In case you haven't figured it out....all these threads are open for discussion. this isn't your forum. Bottom line: you are famous for building up players abilities only for them not perform on the field. The best part of that strategy is that when the players produce you like like the genius you think you are, and when they don't pan out....you simply forget. Remember you were the one who was poor mouthing Matt Grothe and saying how PJ was better. You were also the one who said that we would be better off with high character kids like Jimmy "quitter" Baxter than talented kids like BB and Tron. Jabs aside....I want all of young guards to succeed. I just want people to not build them up to something they are not and then rip them next year when they can't measure up to unrealistic expectations. Everyone thought Jesus was going to be the man....yet here are people personally ripping the kid b/c he is struggling. IMO he has been a disappointment but I've ripped him personally....I have questioned his manhood. Learn to differentiate between constructive criticism vs personal attacks on players. Sometimes I think we are rooting for different programs b/c our views are so polarized. We are all Bulls fans....so please show some respect.

Curry, Jones, and Holmes are unproven, but they came to us with lots of talent.  Curry was tearing up the practices until his injury, we shall see what happens but no one is putting 'unreal' expectations on them just come in and do what they are capable of doing and they will be fine.  All three were very good outside shooters with the ability to dribble penetrate.  Holmes was ranked higher than Altron coming out of HS, so the expectations are already there whether you like it or not. Jesus definitely needs to learn to play within this team, and that's his problem right now he's not getting into the flow of this offense and not being assertive enough when the time comes.  CRM has sat him for that very reason.  Put the defense aside because he hasn't been that bad at defense it's the offensive side that we need more from him.  He has scored 20pts for us twice when he first started, but has tappered off considerably as the team slowly molded into the CRM style offense, an offense he needs to get more comfortable playing within. We all heard all of this before. Aris Williams and Zeus looked great in practice yet for one reason or another it hasn't clicked. The only transfer player that is playing well is KG. That is the caliber of player we need to recruit to play for USF for FOUR years. BTW....while Holmes, Curry and Jones are talented they have never been considered "can't miss players". I think we need to be watchful and moderate how much of a difference they are going to make next year....regardless of who is the coach. USF needs to camp out in front of Scott's door over thenext couple of weeks and hope we can still get him to sign with USF. We also need to find somebody to replace Buckley. While buckley is not great....we have nobody on the roster who replace him. That is the biggest worry.

Let's try an objective opinion: Curry, Jones and Holmes are unproven, so let's not create out of this world expectations for these kids.....it's not fair. People did that with Tron and BB. They were talented and productive but people never truly appreciated their abillty b/c of some unreal expectations. They never got better after their sophomore years b/c they never got coached. That wasn't their fault. Jesus has bought into the team concept. That was his problem at Arizona. I don't blame Mac at all for his lack of development. Pound for pound he probably has the most talent on the team, but it's meaningless if you can't translate it to helping his team win. I would call him a severe dissappointment who could be lost in the shuffle if the young guards show anything.

Let's keep in perspective, support for womens sports is low at most schools, not just USF. IMO, we need to see his team deep in the tourney before the average Tampa area fan may be curious enough to attend a few games. He has a wonderful shot of doing that this year.

I think Jose gets a new contract after this season, regardless whether he gets into the mix for the UF job. BTW....Foley took a chance with Billy Donovan 10 years ago. Jose has a lot similarities in terms of recruiting abilities and coaching style. I hope USF finds a way to keep him but it's not something we can even begin to compete against Florida.

Just got flashbacks of that good Alabama style BBQ.....mmmmmmm

SEVEN GAMES OR BUST!

Smazzzzza Theme Song If Only Had a Brain

....and USF would still kick UCiF's asss despite our super-weakened strength.

Huge impact, but we need to recruit the next Gransberry this year.

some of you guys are being hypocritical... just as it was unfair to talk about sacking CRM in the middle of the year, it is unfair and much too early to talk about giving CRM an extension. Let's see how he finishes the year before committing another 4 years to a coach that has yet to do anything in conference play. I am sure that Woolard will be make a fair and just decision and I'll support the administration. However, one win doesn't wipe out 4 years of losing. He needs to finish strong AND find a couple bigmen ready to contribute next year.

The CyberBulls drew straws and wound up going to the ladies game today. Kids had a blast and watched a team that is essentially a NCAA lock.

West Virginia just bought the mall and is moving it to Morgantown.

IF CRM would have recruited a full roster then his loss wouldn't be as devasting. March 5, 2007

I hope we have higher expectations than just qualifying for our conference tourney. We also need to see some activity in recruiting. Kentrell Gransbery is great player but CRM needs to sign a player like him this year if the kid is going to be ready to take over after KG leaves next year. I could care about the wins and losses and at this point it's almost useless to say that CRM needs win 'x' of games b/c the schedule from here on out is brutal. IMO the only way he deserves another year is if he can turn it around in recruiting, which may be even harder than asking him to go undefeated for the rest of our remaining schedule.

Oh btw...I am sure these post will be flushed as well. But considering smazza can post with impunity when trashing our coaches, players and even our deceased players....whats the worse that can happen to me

Well....it was on topic. The reason we are winning is b/c of Jose Fernandez. I was praising Jose Fernandez for doing what many people thought would be impossible to do at USF. My post would have never have been deleted if I compared Jose' performance to any other coach except CRM.