I’m not missing the point, you are. So are all the others screaming about mediocre.
Fact:
Since MA was hired we’ve won the third most games.
We’ve been to the NCAAT three times, one of only five teams in the SEC to do so.
Of those five we rank third.
Add the NIT and we fall to fourth, still by YOUR definition “good”.
We’ve beat teams with “elite” PG’s, but that something said to prove we are mediocre.
No matter what any of you say, all it does is prove you don’t know what you’re talking about. Even elmo’s Response above is an out and out lie. MA’s record since he’s been here is better than all but KY and FL.
Now, to the second part of your ignorant comment (Elmo), your firing a coach who has got us back to consistent tournaments, won more games than All but two schools, beat teams we weren’t supposed to beat, but that’s not good enough. Get rid of him and start over, because he isn’t consistently making the Sweet 16. Do you really think any coach is willing to come here knowing he has to at least make the Sweet 16 every year or is fired? The answer will be NO.
Look man, you’re out of line… don’t call me a liar. Tell me what I lied about.
All I pointed out were facts. Stop getting your feelings hurt. MA may have won games, but tell me this - How many times have we been ranked in the top 25 and then stayed ranked? Cause as soon as we got ranked this year, we got blown out.
Recruiting is getting better, but kids don’t want to come and play for MA because of the system. We can’t even keep the best players from going out of state most of the time.
Stop beating your chest about getting to the NCAA’s. It’s about what happens when you get there. And we normally lose, and go home. Why? Because we cant play half court, and our guards don’t play well.
That’s all coaching, folks.
I know plenty of what I’m talking about. And if you think that what happened on Friday, and a week before that is ok, well The only one that is lying is you. To yourself.
I respectfully disagree with you about recruiting. Mike has consistently improved his recruiting since he’s been here and we have more talent coming in next year. Khalil was an upgrade as well. Mike has done a good job of recruiting big men too. It’s just hurt the team that they’ve left early. If he goes with guys that aren’t potential early draftees then he gets crucified that he’s not getting the talent.
Macon, Barford, and Beard weren’t overly quick players. Macon had a quick release as did Barford but they didn’t have a quick first step. I don’t think Beard was quick with anything. They do need to do a better job recruiting at the 4. I think that is valid criticism.
Dear friend: you have said your piece, and I have expressed mine. Now it’s time to let go and let the events beyond our control to determine the outcome.
You’re crazy, man. Get a grip. We’ve sucked since 2002, and Mike has taken to the tourney in 3 of the last 4 years and you think this was his belk bowl. He’s not making tv shows, he’s recruiting his tail off with two phenomenal classes coming in.
Mike has gone to the NCAA tourney and won about as much as Heath did in 5 years. I will need to check on that to be sure but I am sure someone else has time to look that up.
Come on guys this is getting silly. Mike isn’t getting the job done and all most of us ask is that he improve and stay. You guys are swinging hay makers at anyone that doesn’t bow down to Mike. I think a lot of this would calm down if you guys would stop trying to convince everyone that Mike is beyond reproach, we should be happy to have him for as long as HE wants to be here, that he is to be worshiped above the Hogs program, and that we should not expect ANYthing better. As long as you guys keep being dramatic about this then I think plenty of us will continue to take our stand as well. Most of us are level headed and want mike to improve but you guys are not being level headed at all.
It is absolutely crazy that Mike fans take everything to such a personal level. I just want my alma mater to win and be respected like it was in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s. We had 30 years of respectability and prestige but don’t tell us we have no right to expect a return to what we did over those 3 decades.
Why are you and Treat talking? Neither of you have been right about anything.
I know let’s fire Mike and hire your boy from K State. He’s been at ‘ St for 6 years and won 124 games. That’s pretty good, let’s see during that same 6 years Mike has won 133. Oops, guess he’s not better, try again.
Here are facts, none of you screaming “Fire Mike” or “Mike isn’t getting it done” have posted anything to prove that.
However, I’ve posted facts that have disproved both of you and you still argue. Can’t argue facts.
If I had my way we’d have never hired MA. But everyone was in love with the idea of NR 2.0… We should have paid whatever it took and got Mark Few from Gonzaga. I only used Bruce Weber as an example.
I’ve supported the hire until this past season. IMO, MA has reached his limit of what he can do, and where he can take this program as a head coach.
Not that it matters now, but Bill Self wanted to be the Razorback coach when Nolan quit, got fired or who the hell knows what happened.
Mike Anderson was chosen to be the U of A coach 7 years ago. There was no question that the Hog basketball was in a total mess. He left a skilled veteran team at Missouri to come to Fayetteville and try to restore the Razorbacks as a top flite basketball program. This has not happened. Mike has improved the program, but we are at best a second level SEC team. The big question is Anderson the coach that elevates the program back to being a national power. In the Sutton and Richardson years, Arkansas was a nationally recognized and respected team that went to 4 Final Fours and was a high seed in most years. In the era of extreme cheating and shady player agents, it may not be possible to reach that level again.
What do we expect from Razorback basketball? Is a top 25 ranking and a 90% NCAA bid enough? Or do we expect a top 10 ranking and 2-3 Final Fours each decade?
I think that Mike Anderson can get us to the tournament most years with a few years that we are ranked in the top 25. I think that it is possible that he might make a run to the Elite Eight and maybe even a Final Four. I do not think that he will have the success of Richardson or even Sutton. But he might if the state of Arkansas has talent of the Tripletts or Corliss to lead a team to the highest level of college basketball.
I personally think that Anderson is a good coach and a better man. I wish that he would not run the press trapping defense unless he has the talent and depth to do so. I don’t have a clue about the opponent’s opening runs (21-2) and a handful of others this year. But I am not a coach, just a fan and all I want is a team that can compete with the best and whip the rest.
The thing I don’t think a lot of people realize is it takes a lot of things (that coaches can’t necessarily control) to go right for your team for them to make a deep run in the NCAA tournament.
For example, lets look at the 15-16 season. The staff had us set up perfectly to have a veteran, highly skilled team, that was built for a deep run in the tournament. All the rumors after the 14-15 tournament was Portis and Qualls were both coming back, TJ Cleveland even said on an interview with Bo (I believe maybe last year) that they strongly believed both of those guys would be back at the time. We went from possibly being a top 10 team with them and the recruiting class we had coming in, to losing both of those guys early to the draft and our biggest recruit (Ted Kapita) not being eligible, then later getting eligible to play for NC State, then us having to kick JaCorey Williams off the team (who ended up being C-USA POY). Just those 3 things not going our way was difference from us possibly having one of the better seasons in recent history to not even making a post season tournament. All 3 of those situations could have easily went the other way in our favor.
Then even look at last year. At one time a lot of people believed Malik Monk was going to be a Hog. I remember after his official visit, all the rumblings were he was going to be a Hog. You look at what out team did last year, and how close we were to beating UNC, a player of Monk’s caliber would have been the difference in that game. Had his decision gone our way, we’re probably reflecting on last year’s season much differently. I’ve never seen the staff recruit a kid so hard. They put in a lot of time to come up shorthanded and Cal pull his shady crap to steal him away.
Now look at this season/off-season. We were suppose to have Khalil Garland be a major contributor, and he misses the entire season. And we were suppose to be having Reggie Perry coming in be the prize of this 2018 class. I’m sure the staff was looking at Perry and Gafford possibly being the best front court duo in Razorback history. Now, with the whole shady thing that went on with his recruitment, Khalil’s situation, and Gafford just absolutely blowing up, we’re now looking at a situation where we may enter next year without 3 guys that were prized recruits for us.
My whole point to all that is, some fans have counted Anderson out and says he’s maxed out at Arkansas. I’m not ready to say that, because outside of 13-14 off-season we’ve yet to have an off-season go 100% in our favor and we’ve had everyone our staff thought we would have. I really would like to see what happens, when everything finally works out in our favor and I think it will. People asked how it happend at Mizzou and UAB and not Arkansas yet, it’s because they had those off-seasons that everything worked out. Sometimes that’s all it takes.
Over the last 14 season Mike has made it past the NCAAT round of 32 only ONCE while winning two games in seven years here. We lost BIG to UNC, Houston, LSU, TN, KY, AU, etc just like we did to Butler. The apologists want to convince us that the program is in good shape with Mike after getting blown out by Butler in the first round on the NCAAT which speaks volumes about the apologists. Our new AD knows basketball because he was a college player. I would think he is going to analyze the basketball program without emotional ties to Nolan or Mike. He can look at Mike’s 7 years of Conference rank with no tourney championships: Tied for 4th this year, 3rd last year, Tied for 8th, 2nd, 5th, 7th, and 8th in his first year.
We keep hearing how Mike is one of four 15+ season D-1 coaches without a losing season. Of those 4 coaches, Mike also has the fewest NCAAT wins in comparison. I just want Mike to adapt and take us to the next level. The problem is that I don’t think he will adapt and he could be gone in 1-2 years. I keep reading the excuse to keep him is concern about who is going to replace him? The same apologists tell us that Mike has the program in the top 3 of the SEC….but… The Apologists always respond with Heath and Pelphrey as good as we can expect to hire.
That doesn’t fly now. White and Broyles botched it then Nolan’s tanks in the streets exit was a nightmare that put us in a position to have to hire Heath. The experiment with Heath was not a success so we hired Altman who saw the personnel and APR issues and bolted after a cup of coffee on the hill. The knee jerk response was to hire Pelfrey and that failed miserably. Mike has repaired the program to a point that we can hire a good coach IF he doesn’t adapt and take us to the next level.
This sums up my position on MA. I have been accused of being anti MA at times, and maybe I have done a poor job of expressing myself (you did a great job). I don’t know enough basketball to say MA’s system is good, bad or otherwise. Therefore I don’t complain about trapping too much, too little, etc. It is wins and losses. I know I like a defense that is feared by other teams, I used to love the comments from commentators back in the Eddie and Nolan days about how you could see the fear in the other teams eyes when we started pressing. The details of different types of presses? No clue. I just like being the one feared, not the one doing the fearing (like we saw in the last two coaches before MA). I think MA’s defense is much closer to that than the last two coaches, but it doesn’t seem to be what it was. Is that rule changes or just MA being different? I don’t know or claim to know.
I agree 100% that (1) MA is a VERY good man and (2) our program is in much better shape now than when he got here. I do worry that this year and last year are kind of a “top end” for MA. That said (1) that might not be true (2) considering our record in the last two coaches before MA, that maybe just fine.
Now is not the time to even consider changing coaches. It will probably be another 2 to 4 years before we can really know if what we have now is the top end, or can MA get us to the next level. If he can’t? We cross that bridge then. Make a change and hope we don’t get another Pel or stick will being what are now, which is not a bad team, just not a great team.
You want to get a real wow, go visit Hogville. That place is everything they said it would be and more. I was arguing with a guy over on this board and he mentioned Hogville and I got curious to see what people were saying over there. I just went and read some of the stuff over there earlier today and actually made me appreciate the negative people we have over here, they are no match for some of those guys. Those guys on Hogville have packed Mike’s bags and he’s gone according to some of them. Some are even passing rumors that there’s a chance he’ll be gone this year before April and according to them he most definitely won’t be here after next year, they’ve already got threads picking out the new coach. They just make-up information and say that they heard it from reliable sources and Mike Irwin is arguing with them as well. It’s pretty funny.