Christen Cunningham transferring

[sudog03]

Good for him. Good basketball job.

[77SU]

@coachingchangesAssistant coaching scoop

Jake Headrick to Missouri State

It’s now official http://missouristatebears.com/news/2018/4/6/mens-basketball-ford-finalizes-msu-coaching-staff.aspx

[Cujo]

Edited quote from the article: "Jake Headrick [was incarcerated] the last six seasons as an assistant coach at Samford University after {being sentenced to] the staff there in April of 2012. [He escaped during the Second Great Exodus with a number of players.]"

Just kidding. It is all in fun. It is either laugh or cry.

p.s. Please, nobody come on here and say that posters should not post negative comments because recruits read the board. First, that's just silly. Second, with specific application here, with two great exoduses in roughly 5 years, posts on a sports' forum isn't what the program needs to be worrying about. Third, Samford as done well in recruiting despite this board (at least with Jake on the staff it did). The issue isn't recruiting, it is keeping.

[AP]

That seems pretty negative there, Cooj.

[sudog03]

That's a really good mid major staff there.

[sudog03]

We are gonna be so bad.

Just really depends on the level of buy-in our coaches can get from the players. Other Socon teams around us in the standings are in similar circumstances. Citadel had their fourth transfer yesterday. UTC has had multiple transfers. WCU has a new coach and VMI is VMI. I believe we will have some talent. With an easier schedule and IF we can get our kids bought in I could easily see a team in the 15 win range and flirting with a .500 league record.

[Smurf]

We are gonna be so bad.

Just really depends on the level of buy-in our coaches can get from the players. Other Socon teams around us in the standings are in similar circumstances. Citadel had their fourth transfer yesterday. UTC has had multiple transfers. WCU has a new coach and VMI is VMI. I believe we will have some talent. With an easier schedule and IF we can get our kids bought in I could easily see a team in the 15 win range and flirting with a .500 league record.

This is also predicated on how equipped our head coach is to either rework his defensive approach or implementing a new and improved defensive philosophy. It is also predicated on how well he can adapt the basketball culture so that we do not continue to have another round of departures. It is probably dependent on how well he understands the culture here and the fact that it is different than a University of Kentucky or other similar schools. Based on what has transpired on and off the court in the last month, I have serious doubts as to whether Padgett is capable of making the necessary adjustments for us to be successful. We shouldn't be forced into rebuilding because of mass departures in year five of the Padgett regime. The mere fact that we suffered a major round of voluntary player departures should give loyal followers serious pause in considering whether Padgett is the right man for this particular job.

[sudog03]

That's kinda what I meant by buy-in. You have to have kids bought in to play defense and to prevent the transfers. Defense and rebounding require buy-in and effort more than anything else. I certainly understand the skepticism. I guess my point was, the roster is not going to be devoid of talent.

Also, back to the using RS as a strategy discussion. 3 of our 4 transfers to date were left with eligibility after getting their degrees at Samford due to being RS. I think if you use RS kids as part of your strategy at a low major like Samford, you run a huge risk of losing all-conference type players who are left with eligibility after graduation. It certainly wasn't intended with CC and Walker, but you run a high risk of it with the transfers brought in and also if you were to implement it more on HS recruits as mentioned previously, really regardless of the culture in the program.

[AP]

Just really depends on the level of buy-in our coaches can get from the players.

I mean, there's a great track record to show that's going to happen, right? Seems like the staff has really had their finger on the pulse of the team for a long while.

Other Socon teams around us in the standings are in similar circumstances. . . . UTC has had multiple transfers.

We lost almost every bit of production from a team that went 1-2 against utC last season. Let's say we hold serve against utC this season and split, then we suck a lot less than Cid/VMI. That gets us a total of 5 league wins. Unless the coaches and AD schedule multiple non-D1 teams and play only SWAC/MEAC bottom-feeders in the non-conference, we're not going to get within sniffing distance of 15 wins.

Right now, this is your crunch-time five: Sharkey, Nolan, Austin, Lakic, and Guererro. It's also you're starting five and your bench. Those five combined to average 21.8 ppg over their last complete season of competition. Combined. If you extrapolate that out and give them their PP40, you get a total of 54.9. There is, at this point, zero experience, depth, or (more importantly) experienced depth on the roster. Fletcher Magee and 4 dudes from the rec center would beat those five by 30. And *literally* every scholarship player who would come off the bench for the Bulldogs next season isn't on campus right now. One SoCon FR basketball player averaged double digit PPG last season (Bubba Parham, VMI). Ahhhh, you'll say, but think of all the Samford FR who have put up big numbers since THE BEGINNING (TM). The siren's song of Tim Williams, Isaiah Williams, Wyatt Walker, etc. What have we to show for it? Zip. Zilch. Nada. And you don't win the SoCon with hot-stuff freshmen. You win with a core of JR and SR guys, one of which is going to get a paycheck for playing basketball somewhere in the world for at least five years.

We have no evidence the returning players can defend or shoot the three. More than half of the top 40 players in the SoCon (by PER) are returning and none of them are on our roster. Half of the teams in the league are bringing back their best player and some are bringing back their top 4 (like Furman). Our "veteran leadership" consists of one dude who is a rising JR and some bros who got to campus less than 18 months ago. There is zero chance this roster can compete against the top third of the league. There is *at this moment* less basketball talent on the roster and coming via signees than we've had at any point I can remember, and that includes the 2011 roster which had talented youth and outclassed experience.

[sudog03]

I didn't say we'd win the Socon or compete with the top third of the league. I also said it was a big IF to get the buy-in, which IMO, is much more important than what production/experience we have coming back or any other team in our league has coming back. If we defend and rebound like we did last season, it wouldn't matter if we had zero transfers and everyone stayed healthy. If you win 5-6 out of UTC, Cid and VMI, your would need to find 1-3 other league wins to "sniff" .500 in league play. Say, 7-11, 8-10. I think that is possible, not likely, but possible IF we can defend and rebound. While there is certain and significant shortcomings, Padgett has proven an ability to figure out a way for us to score. We've been in the top 3 in the league is FG% and scoring offense each of the last 3 seasons, using league games only. I'm sure 3 point shooting will be an issue next season, but Lakic did shoot 39% last season.