Let's get this out of the way from the jump. I'm not selling any Chris Beard stock. I'm extremely excited about the future of hoops on the 40 under his guidance, but the reality is the road this season was one that ended up being filled with more potholes then likely many of us thought it would. Yes, we all know that cobbling together a whole new roster and develop some cohesion was going to take time. However, just not sure we ever even got to the point of having consistent cohesion.
I'm not one who simply disregards a 30+ game regular season as "doesn't matter" and grades a season solely on the crap shoot that is March Madness. The reality is what you do in the regular season tends to have a big influence on how you can do in March Madness. The way we generally stubbed our toe a bit too much in conference play led to a rather "meh" 6-seed. Am I glad we won a game in the tournament? Of course. Was it maybe at least one less W than I was hoping for to start the season? For sure. If we're grading both the regular season and post season, I would say B- at best for the regular season and B for post season. Keep in mind that ugly a** loss to TCU dings the post season grade a bit. No matter if it was in the conference tournament. That was simply an ugly loss and very likely cost us one slot in seed.
Looking forward it will be interesting to see who returns. The reality is, of the 9 guys currently on the roster who played double digits, only Febres is out of eligibility. I don't expect the other 8 to return but I do think we'll see a few at least. Just a quick guess as to who does and doesn't.
1. Allen - back
2. Carr - gone
3. AJ1 - back
4. Ramey - gone
5. Bishop - back
6. Disu - back
7. Brock - back
8. Askew - back
That's 6 of 8 I project back. That's likely going to end up being one or two too many when all is said and done but like I said, it's a guess. As for those I have coming back, I would be most excited about the trio of Allen, Bishop and Disu. I'm hopeful a full season of rehab helps Disu get back at least close to the level he was at Vandy because this season he didn't really have the luxury. The guy I have projected back that does the least for me is Askew. I've been consistent all season in saying I'm not sure what Beard sees/saw that had him so effusive in his praise for Askew coming into the season and I'm still scratching my head. My eyes see a horribly tentative offensive player who lacks any real consistent ability to beat somebody off the dribble. Not terribly explosive nor athletic. But we'll see.
Incoming we have a dang talented trio. Arterio Morris and Dillon Mitchell are consensus top 20 guys. Brumbaugh is top 75. It goes w/o saying Beard isn't done in adding new faces for next season either via the portal or Class of '22 guys. Hell, maybe both. For sure, regardless of who returns next season, Beard needs to add some people in the frontcourt. It's one thing to be undersized but it's another to be undersized AND not terribly athletic. I don't have any names to watch for but if you've followed CBB for years, you know the transfer market gets deep quick with guys leaving other programs.
The one gnawing concern about Beard is how he can/will handle elite players coming in. I think one's whistling past the graveyard to not see some possible red flags for that going back to Tech, but we'll see. IMO, it's important that guys like Morris and Mitchell have really good experiences next season. I don't know if Mitchell is necessarily a one and done type but Morris for sure has that potential. Mitchell needs more work on his skill set to go with this awesome athleticism but Morris comes in with an aligned skill set generally speaking. But still, Beard's top recruits at both Tech and Texas left and left QUICK in their respective first seasons. Beard's "ties" to Bobby Knight are well known, but I hope like hell he's much more flexible than Knight was with regards to personnel. Truth is, for all of Knight's coaching acumen, he was a fish out of water as the CBB landscape changed with the proliferation of the one and done generation. Clearly Coach K is/was a "Knight guy" but he was much more in tune with whatever the landscape was throughout his 40 years at Duke and evolved easily as time went on. I hope Beard is able to do so also. Adapt or die. We'll see on that point with Beard.
Buckle up because it the offseason roster maneuvering will be vintage Beard. Look forward to that and next season.
I'm not one who simply disregards a 30+ game regular season as "doesn't matter" and grades a season solely on the crap shoot that is March Madness. The reality is what you do in the regular season tends to have a big influence on how you can do in March Madness. The way we generally stubbed our toe a bit too much in conference play led to a rather "meh" 6-seed. Am I glad we won a game in the tournament? Of course. Was it maybe at least one less W than I was hoping for to start the season? For sure. If we're grading both the regular season and post season, I would say B- at best for the regular season and B for post season. Keep in mind that ugly a** loss to TCU dings the post season grade a bit. No matter if it was in the conference tournament. That was simply an ugly loss and very likely cost us one slot in seed.
Looking forward it will be interesting to see who returns. The reality is, of the 9 guys currently on the roster who played double digits, only Febres is out of eligibility. I don't expect the other 8 to return but I do think we'll see a few at least. Just a quick guess as to who does and doesn't.
1. Allen - back
2. Carr - gone
3. AJ1 - back
4. Ramey - gone
5. Bishop - back
6. Disu - back
7. Brock - back
8. Askew - back
That's 6 of 8 I project back. That's likely going to end up being one or two too many when all is said and done but like I said, it's a guess. As for those I have coming back, I would be most excited about the trio of Allen, Bishop and Disu. I'm hopeful a full season of rehab helps Disu get back at least close to the level he was at Vandy because this season he didn't really have the luxury. The guy I have projected back that does the least for me is Askew. I've been consistent all season in saying I'm not sure what Beard sees/saw that had him so effusive in his praise for Askew coming into the season and I'm still scratching my head. My eyes see a horribly tentative offensive player who lacks any real consistent ability to beat somebody off the dribble. Not terribly explosive nor athletic. But we'll see.
Incoming we have a dang talented trio. Arterio Morris and Dillon Mitchell are consensus top 20 guys. Brumbaugh is top 75. It goes w/o saying Beard isn't done in adding new faces for next season either via the portal or Class of '22 guys. Hell, maybe both. For sure, regardless of who returns next season, Beard needs to add some people in the frontcourt. It's one thing to be undersized but it's another to be undersized AND not terribly athletic. I don't have any names to watch for but if you've followed CBB for years, you know the transfer market gets deep quick with guys leaving other programs.
The one gnawing concern about Beard is how he can/will handle elite players coming in. I think one's whistling past the graveyard to not see some possible red flags for that going back to Tech, but we'll see. IMO, it's important that guys like Morris and Mitchell have really good experiences next season. I don't know if Mitchell is necessarily a one and done type but Morris for sure has that potential. Mitchell needs more work on his skill set to go with this awesome athleticism but Morris comes in with an aligned skill set generally speaking. But still, Beard's top recruits at both Tech and Texas left and left QUICK in their respective first seasons. Beard's "ties" to Bobby Knight are well known, but I hope like hell he's much more flexible than Knight was with regards to personnel. Truth is, for all of Knight's coaching acumen, he was a fish out of water as the CBB landscape changed with the proliferation of the one and done generation. Clearly Coach K is/was a "Knight guy" but he was much more in tune with whatever the landscape was throughout his 40 years at Duke and evolved easily as time went on. I hope Beard is able to do so also. Adapt or die. We'll see on that point with Beard.
Buckle up because it the offseason roster maneuvering will be vintage Beard. Look forward to that and next season.
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