To all the people that don't truly understand what is going with the basketball team, I will put in terms you will understand.
Think of basketball as football
You put in your offensive and defensive schemes in the off-season and spring workouts with your starting quarterback(Jamel White) and back up quarter back (J C Clarke). Both those players get all the reps at the quarterback position-the most important position on the field. Your third string and walk-on quarterback (J.Loe) barely gets any reps because you feel you have two quarterbacks who will take the share of duties. Your best player is your returning wide reciever (Kyle Gibson) and he's looking great at that position, the starting quarterback and him have developed great chemistry, they have great timing on the routes and throws. You also have a new set of wide receivers (Olu, Jamel Guyton, Magnum), tight end (David Jackson) and running back (Kenny Cooper) and offensive line (Oliverson, B.Gibson, A.Rogers).
The team is looking great in preseason workout, everyone knows their roles and you are getting ready for the season. As you are getting your starting quarterback to exihibit leadership skills and handing him the reins to the team, your starting and back up quarterbacks (J C Clarke and Jamel White) get into a situation where you as a coach have to make a statement on how your team will perform on and off the field. You suspend both your starting and back up quarter back just weeks before the first game. Now your all star wide receiver who has never played quarterback competitively now has to play quarterback, your walk on quarter back is now thrust into playing when your plans for were to hold the clipboard and give the quarter back signs from the sideline. You have to make a decision, do you now install a whole new offensive and defensive system with only weeks left before the first game or do you stay with your old system and hope everyone can adapt to new roles. Because now you are not going to be throwing the ball as much because your quarterback is not capable of throwing pinpoint passes, so the wide receivers have to run the ball out of the backfield more often than you planned and you have to settle for short distance passes. The exchange between your center and new quarterback/wide receiver (K.Gibson) is not good and results in a lot of mis-snaps. The handoffs between your quarterback and running backs are resulting in fumbles. One of your offensive line-men has to play some running back position which also results in some fumbles. Your wide recievers are dropping badly thrown and times passes. Your offensive line is not in sync with your quarterback which results in a lot of penalties for offsides calls. You try to help the situation by bringing in a high school quarterback who has been out of school a year because other schools passed on him, its gonna take him a while to get used to the college game and a longer time to learn your system. Most of your big name players haven't played in a year and the chemistry they develop in practice the year before is out of the door because the quarterback that they practiced with for the past year is gone from the program which makes their transition a lot worse, even worse, one of your most highly touted recruit and wide recievers is making the transition from the high school game to the college game and if that's not enough, he was mostly a blocking tight end in high school and must now make the transition to a pass catching wide reciever (Olu).
You inherited a program that has been down in the dumps for a while, not just on the athletic front, but on the administration front, the culture of the team was terrible, the attitude was a losing attitiude, and some of the kids you inherited did not belong in a institution like Louisiana Tech University. You are doing your best to re-invent the image of team and it culture. Your team is going through some early bumps and bruises because of this quarterback situation, but you have faith that your program and team will be better at the end of the year than the beginning of the year. I mean, your team is not the New England Patriots, but the Patriots are not the same without Tom Brady and you don't even have Matt Cassell, you have Ryan Leaf. You are practicing patience, but can the alums and so called supporters practice the same????
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Originally Posted by dascoop
While I'm not a big MBB fan I do support the 'Dawgs & I think that it's just gonna take some time before Coach Rupp can get the quality of players into his program & system.
) from the administration as well. We're going through the same thing on the Techster forum except that Long's had 3 ( into his 4th ) seasons to turn things around & all we hear ( also ) is "just wait until next year!" The Ladies are almost identical in that they have the talent to beat several of the teams they play yet still manage to lose to Memphis!! 
Re: Not An Excuse, Just The Truth
