Post of the thread.
There is no doubt that we have recruited great athletes, but I don't think anyone knows what our identity is supposed to be. (Including our players. )
We are undersized and have all these athletic young pgs and yet we rarely press? Why? If we are playing with 3 or 4 PGs on the court, we need to be pressing on defense. If we are not going to play press defense, recruit some bigs to block the lane.
I just want to know who we are supposed to be.
I agree with y’all 100 percent about the identity thing. I also have no problem with varying styles of play; my favorite game of this year’s NCAA tourney so far is the Syracuse/Michigan State game with both teams scoring in the 50’s. I absolutely love Syracuse’s Identity of being the best at playing a zone defense.
However, I have come to agree with others that we are not in an area that has a lot of true basketball fans. I think the identity of a pressing uptempo game is probably required to appease and grow a fanbase in Ruston. Mike White had the base growing with that type of passionate play. Konkol promised to continue that tradition. 3 years in and a consistent press is a thing of the past.
I doubt White would have come anywhere near the turnouts that his teams drew with a plodding, passionless game, even with the same level of success. There is a definite trend line in the fan turnout in the Konkol era. Maybe these things aren’t correlated... if I am off base please tell me why.
I have no problem with Konkol pressing less than White. After all the success we had with it, we still never got to the NCAA tourney because we didn't have any post players who could rebound, defend, or score. What skilldawg is saying is probably true about building a fan base in this area but ticket prices have not helped, neither has every game being on web. Bottom line though is if we win, fans will come and part of that is a credit to White and what he and administration have done in past. I expect we will win next year based off what I have seen in Konkol's first three seasons-he is willing to adapt, been successful, and kept this year's team together in spite of horrendous luck and circumstance. I am looking forward to seeing who we sign and next year.
Having a great hoops' team is fun. White did a great job of bringing excitement back to the program, and we enjoyed success under him. Those road wins over UGA, aTm, and Florida State in the NIT were quality wins. That team was oh-so-close to sheer greatness!
Heck, I even give some credit to Keith Richard for his NIT run, which included demolishing ULL and Vandy in home games. That dunk by Tiger Meeking ranks in the Top 10 all-time greatest dunks ever by a Dawg. Wow! The TAC was rocking....as was the whole basketball goal itself!
Games like those are fun!
Dusty May has been named HC at FAU...
I guess he was willing to interview for the job there, or it may have been just handed to him without any interview like he expected the Tech job to be given to him -
''Don't be a bad dagh..."
Eric Konkol @CoachKonkol tweet link
Can't say thank you enough to the #TechFamily for supporting #Team91 all season. Attendance at the TAC increased 17% and we appreciate your passion greatly! It's a great time to be at @LATech!
This is pathetic. Everyone knows Tommy fabricated those attendance numbers. Actual attendance was down considerably this season. This is worse than our SID touting our SOS right before we play SWAC schools when the stat doesn't include our multiple games against non-DIs or the SWAC teams we were about to play. Let's stick to touting real feats instead of trying to mislead us like we are stupid.