while players are blamed for lack of performance on the floor. Throw KT and Moore under the bus for not performing, but not Bone, what? Well the defense is always, 1st yr coach needs to get his players, instill his techniques, etc. I don’t get it. Coach Price, prime example. He goes 8-4 in his 1st season at UTEP for a team that had won 5-6 games the previous 3 years combined. Why did he have success?
If this was the NBA, and a coach had 3 players in the top 30 of the league and finished last the coach is getting tossed under the bus or at least being scrutinized.
Again, I am not hating on Bone, but after reviewing the performance of all teams and viewing the talent we had, he wasn’t successful year nor even avg. Again, I find it truly amazing for a lot of people to attack KT because he is shooting 30% from the floor and had a low offensive efficiency rating yet everytime Bone was asked about it, he said he wanted KT to shoot more!!!! Obviously the system this yr was horrendous. We lacked scorers to execute and yet we continued to be KT focused instead of re-working the offense so it wasn’t. I would have loved for KT to basically say, hey I am not shooting at all today. “People think I suck, I must suck, and therefore, I won’t be shooting.” Bone made KT inexpendable and when KT couldn’t do it, he failed to properly adjust.
I am rooting for Bone, but c’mon. The play on the floor was bad a large portion of the time. It starts at the top. Please come defend Bone while throwing Moore and KT under the bus in the process. Moore and KT are talented. Bone failed to maximize them, but KT and Moore are at fault for failing to put forth the effort to be maximized.
Simply put, this year the team (players and coaches) performed about 40% (50% being avg) and they had the ability to be avg or slightly above avg (60%). Thus, the season was not a success, but in no way I am saying anyone should be fired or cut over it and any fan calling for that is foolish.
My analysis no different than a 1st year staff member. Sure they get the excuses of being new, transitioning, learning curve with co-workers, etc., but at the end of the year, you have to evaluate did they end up performing at the level they are capable of or not.
But again, my pt is that you read articles by Howie, etc, that defend Bone, yet don’t ask the question whether the coach was able to get out of the players their full potential. I don’t think Bone did this overall and a good amount of blame goes to him, and not just his players.
Hey, if your in a horse race with a mule, you can expect last place results and once that occurs you say hey you performed at the level expected. I just don’t think we performed at a level that we should have looking at the talent we have, the level of the competition, etc. Final Season Grade: C-

against the weakest Pac-10 ever, to Tony’s record against the ACC?

But his claim that people were having trouble forking over their money to watch 50-52 contests during the Bennet era is a good example. Really Mr. Stalwick, please introduce me to these folks, cause Im sure there aren’t many of them. Of course, the Cougs probably won that 50-52 game. Oh and don’t even bother with the inconveinant truth that 4 of our last 5 games we scored 51, 51, 52 and 55 points. Dynamic indeed. Nobody is calling for Bone’s head here, but the season he just had merits nothing but criticism.

As far as our offense, i think its totally fair to say that an offense predicated on two young players creating their own shots is just setting those guys up for failure. Of course they are our primary scoring threats, but a truly dynamic offense would create opportunities for them, within a larger offensive scheme, and yes, it would also get a lot more out of the role players.

Whether this is exactly the weakest Pac-10 ever or not is beside the point, when comparing to the ACC. But I will say this… in almost 30 years of attending Pac-10 games I can tell you, I have never seen a season where we literally had a chance to win every game because of the quality of the competition. And in any seasons that were close to this level of mediocrity… we never finished last.

Hee Hee Hee