Chris Datres

Maybe this is the impetus we finally need to change the offense and get away from that plodding throw it to the post, back em down game. Nah, who am I kidding. That ain't changing.

Luke Murray would be a really good get for any school with an opening. Hurley calls him the offensive coordinator of those efficient sets and he had the scout for the Purdue game.

So clockball isn't only for the basketball team?

And now we're getting sloppy.

I just hope you're not sitting near the speaker with the goal horn, Mat.

I love that we have all this offense now. We had a number of lean years in the last few in that department.

Treating Hofstra like a baby treats a diaper.

I was looking forward to him in a Louisville uniform.

So if the conference season is spring training, do we call the non-con season the Hot Stove League?

Having the NIL all-stars won’t mean anything if they’re not developed correctly or toss up dud efforts. Supposed ‘meh’ players can be turned into all-conference players with the right development. We’ve failed with that.

That's the sign you're a great mid-major program -- have a guy get you to the promised land and then they get hired by a basketball desert and they flame out in 3 years while you reload with another young up-and-comer and do it again a couple years later. Not many successful mid-majors outside of Gonzaga keep their coaches around longer than 1-2 years after they go to the Tournament since everyone likes to snap up the hot name. Few realized what he had in Spokane and wasn't swayed by crap programs in major conferences throwing big money figures at him. You can't blame these guys from a bank account perspective but some of the decisions from a basketball perspective didn't pan out.

The best parallel example to Skerry is Tod Kowalczyk at Toledo. I outlined this a couple weeks ago -- He's been there as long as Skerry has been here and Toledo has been the 1 seed in each of the last 4 MAC Tournaments. They've lost every time. Their tournament drought is longer than ours. And I read today that Kowalczyk is being talked about for the job at Utah State.

Citing James Jones in that list might be pushing it a little bit because it's the Ivy League. They'll fire a scientist for not producing a Nobel winner faster than they'll fire a basketball coach. Here's the last time each Ivy League school fired their basketball coach for on-court performance: Penn -- 2009 (Jerome Allen had some shady stuff going on and ended up getting a 15-year show cause from the NCAA) Princeton -- at least 1945 Columbia -- 2003 Cornell -- 2016 (contract not renewed) Yale -- at least 1947 Harvard -- 2007 Brown -- 2012 Dartmouth -- 2016

1991 was their last time too. Here's their roster -- https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/schools/louisiana-tech/men/1991.html

That would be correct. Columbia & Dartmouth have only had 8 years of Ivy League Tournaments in order to get to the championship round. All the others have had plenty of time.

Here's the list. The ones in bold have also not been to a conference championship game since the last time we were in one. The ones with asterisks are those who are D1 veterans and never been or have droughts longer than us: Army** Bethune Cookman** Bowling Green** Brown** Cal Baptist Central Arkansas Chicago State** Citadel** Columbia** Dartmouth** Denver Elon Fort Wayne High Point Houston Christian Idaho** Idaho State** Incarnate Word Jacksonville** Kansas City** LA Tech** LeMoyne Lindenwood Loyola Marymount** Maine** Marist** Merrimack NJ Tech New Hampshire** North Alabama Omaha Presbyterian Queens Quinnipiac Rice** Sac State Sacred Heart Seattle** SIU-Ed South Dakota Southern Indiana St. Thomas Stonehill Tarleton State Tennessee Tech** Texas A&M Commerce Toledo** UMASS-Lowell UC Riverside VMI** USC Upstate UMES** UC San Diego UT Martin UTRGV Utah Valley Western Illinois** William & Mary** Youngstown State**

Hold that thought. I'll fire off that list in a bit.

Congrats to Stetson, Grambling, and Duquesne for punching their tickets to the Dance. For the Hatters and Tigers, it's their first time. For the Dukes, first time since 1977. That now leaves 59 D1 teams who either have never been to the Tournament or have a longer drought than we do.

He prefers to focus on the losses so it gives him a reason to complain and call for firings.

Ladies on to the semis doing something the men couldn't do -- beat a higher-seeded Charleston team. Next up are those dopey Dragons.

Shockingly, braindead basketball sends Norfolk packing. Betrand will have to petition for another year and maybe go to a 5th school to get a Tourney trip.

Watching Howard-Norfolk State for financial reasons and I catch the name Allen Betrand after a basket. Yep, same one. On his 4th school. Maybe he'll get to the Tourney via this route.

If you want a Towson equivalent elsewhere in the country, head to the home of Corporal Klinger. Toledo has had Tod Kowalczyk since 2010 and they've had 8 20-win seasons in his tenure there. But in the MAC Tournament, that's where the terror happens. They've at least made 3 conference championship games but they've gone into the last *4* conference tournaments as the 1 seed. Today, as the 1 seed, they got whacked by Kent State, a team they had beaten by 14 & 15 in the regular season. They extend their Tournament-less streak to 44 years (one of 61 schools who have not been there since we were last there, though almost half those have barely been in D1).

They lost so many years of progress after the attempted purge that they weren't able to build on their CAA Title win (where have we heard this before in this athletic department?). What recruit of any significance in the subsequent 5 years was going to come to us with all of that financial mayhem going on? You wanna talk about tearing it down to the studs, I think we tore this program down to the concrete pourings.

They have and that's because their coach is able to cultivate that talent and assimilate it within the team he has. We bring in a POY and an All-American in consecutive years and their play here makes you wonder how in the world they earned those awards.