Onward and upward

[CatchEmAll]

Re: Onward and upward

You're gonna get negative rep points for your last two posts. I'm afraid to post discussions I have with some pretty well known alums, some former players, with regards to the program currently and the direction we're headed. I have come to the conclusion that others here share the same concerns but the feeling is that this is not an appropriate place to air them. Thats okay with me. The issues rabbitails touches on and CatchEm subtley pokes are being discussed by a lot of people, just not on this forum. Again, I'm okay with that.

Negative rep points? I didn't know that was possible. Is that because I poked a little fun at the topic? If so, relax.

It appears from the rest of your post that rabbitail has touched on a topic that has some validity, yet no one wants to touch. Oh well. Give it a few more years to correct itself, if not then we can re-address the coaching topic.

[filbert]

Re: Onward and upward

I think there would be common agreement that last-place finishes in the Summit League are simply unacceptable at SDSU. The fan base shouldn't accept it, and I don't get the impression that most of us do accept it.

The discussion revolves around what to do about it.

#1 - If you think that SDSU has the talent but not the coaching, make a coaching change (which might actually have the same coach changing how he does things)

#2 - If you think that SDSU doesn't have the talent but it's in the pipeline, you stay the course.

#3 - If you think that SDSU doesn't have the talent and doesn't have it in the pipeline, then I guess you get rid of the coach and hope that you can run off some players too and bring some jucos in for a quick fix.

I personally think we're somewhere between #1 and #2 right now.

Nagy is a proven good D-II coach. He is not, yet, a proven good D-I coach. From the wins and losses, a reasonable person could conclude that he isn't a very good D-I coach. The decision is how long you can let things bounce along with 20-loss seasons before you decide he doesn't have what it takes.

I think we have as good a talent level as most teams in the league except Oral Roberts and maybe Oakland. I am not convinced that our coaching staff is up to the level it needs to be to compete. Maybe all it will take is another assistant coach, but I think Nagy needs to change his coaching approach as well. If he can't do that, then we need to look elsewhere for a Division I basketball coach.

It's a hard thing to run off the winningest coach in school history. I don't know if, speaking personally, I'm quite there yet.

[joeboo22]

Re: Onward and upward

I think there would be common agreement that last-place finishes in the Summit League are simply unacceptable at SDSU. The fan base shouldn't accept it, and I don't get the impression that most of us do accept it.

The discussion revolves around what to do about it.

#1 - If you think that SDSU has the talent but not the coaching, make a coaching change (which might actually have the same coach changing how he does things)

#2 - If you think that SDSU doesn't have the talent but it's in the pipeline, you stay the course.

#3 - If you think that SDSU doesn't have the talent and doesn't have it in the pipeline, then I guess you get rid of the coach and hope that you can run off some players too and bring some jucos in for a quick fix.

I personally think we're somewhere between #1 and #2 right now.

Nagy is a proven good D-II coach. He is not, yet, a proven good D-I coach. From the wins and losses, a reasonable person could conclude that he isn't a very good D-I coach. The decision is how long you can let things bounce along with 20-loss seasons before you decide he doesn't have what it takes.

I think we have as good a talent level as most teams in the league except Oral Roberts and maybe Oakland. I am not convinced that our coaching staff is up to the level it needs to be to compete. Maybe all it will take is another assistant coach, but I think Nagy needs to change his coaching approach as well. If he can't do that, then we need to look elsewhere for a Division I basketball coach.

It's a hard thing to run off the winningest coach in school history. I don't know if, speaking personally, I'm quite there yet.

I think Nagy has understood that he needs to make changes, and I think we started to see that this year, he called a lot more timeouts, something Nagy hates to do.... He called timeouts in what most people would think were odd times, I thought they were brilliant, like after going on a run or when it looked like the game might be changing rather then waiting for a team to take a run...... but for the most part I don't think Nagy needs to make too many changes, he can't stop the frosh mistakes, the turnovers, the quick shots, the aired pass into 1st row, the missed layups that cost the Jacks 6-10 games this year.....

[Jacked_Up]

Re: Onward and upward

Keep in mind that Nagy has been shortchanged in resources. SDSU just added a second, full-time assistant this season and, as I recall, the Jacks are still a full-time assistant behind the Summit League standard. (NDSU is already there.) Also, attracting good recruits from urban areas to a nice but small, cold college town cannot be easy. The clock on Nagy should not start ticking until the next school year begins and this ugly transition period has ended.

[filbert]

Re: Onward and upward

Keep in mind that Nagy has been shortchanged in resources. SDSU just added a second, full-time assistant this season and, as I recall, the Jacks are still a full-time assistant behind the Summit League standard. (NDSU is already there.) Also, attracting good recruits from urban areas to a nice but small, cold college town cannot be easy. The clock on Nagy should not start ticking until the next school year begins and this ugly transition period has ended.

Part of why I'm personally not quite ready to pull the plug on Nagy just yet.

[jackmd]

Re: Onward and upward

Keep in mind that Nagy has been shortchanged in resources. SDSU just added a second, full-time assistant this season and, as I recall, the Jacks are still a full-time assistant behind the Summit League standard. (NDSU is already there.) Also, attracting good recruits from urban areas to a nice but small, cold college town cannot be easy. The clock on Nagy should not start ticking until the next school year begins and this ugly transition period has ended.

I agree and I've stated that before. Most discussions I've had regarding what options we have end with support for Nagy and with generally a good feeling about the potential this team has. If that can be realized we'll all quickly forget about the recent struggles. If it can't, change is probably inevitable.

[rabbitstail]

Re: Onward and upward

Well I didn't know that Nagy only had 2 full time assistants. No disrespect to any of the other sports but I believe men's basketball should be the marquee program of the athletic department. I am not comparing us to Memphis but the reason Memphis is having or Gonzaga, Butler, etc is having success from non-bcs conferences are because their athletic department understands the importance of having a successful men's basketball team. Men's basketball gets the most national attention and at SDSU we have a legitament shot of having a succesful national program. They need to invest in the program and give Nagy or whoever the coach is the necessary resources to succeed. We will get behind the program once there is success, the state of SD will get behind the program if their is success. Off the subject, but I also believe they should do whatever is possible to get a local TV deal similar to what many D I colleges have in their respective markets. When I was a kid I was a Gopher fan, why? Because they were on TV in our market. Kelo, Ksfy, somebody needs to pick up the games locally. We need to market the program and make the program part of something South Dakotans can be proud of. Think of the national exposure there will be if SDSU can win a Summit League tournament? And this should be a real possiblity, we should be able to compete in a very weak conference. We have great facilites and we have great support compared to everyone else in the league.

Whoever the coach is they have has to be a little creative with their recruiting, maybe a few jucos, a few international kids, a local kid or 2, a big time transfer from a bcs school, and maybe recruit a 4 year kid from an urban area. But the coaches have to be creative and look outside the box with their recruiting. Sorry, but there is just not enough big time D I talent in the area to win with all local kids, And we are trying to do something special and unique here. Not just be middle of the pack or lower half of the league. We should also see if we can get a big time bcs opponent to play us in the Arena in Sioux Falls to expand the marketing of the program. Many ideas, but if anyone is to have success they need the proper resources to have success. When we have 2 assistants and everyone else has 3, we will never have the success we want.

[joeboo22]

Re: Onward and upward

Well I didn't know that Nagy only had 2 full time assistants. No disrespect to any of the other sports but I believe men's basketball should be the marquee program of the athletic department. I am not comparing us to Memphis but the reason Memphis is having or Gonzaga, Butler, etc is having success from non-bcs conferences are because their athletic department understands the importance of having a successful men's basketball team. Men's basketball gets the most national attention and at SDSU we have a legitament shot of having a succesful national program. They need to invest in the program and give Nagy or whoever the coach is the necessary resources to succeed. We will get behind the program once there is success, the state of SD will get behind the program if their is success. Off the subject, but I also believe they should do whatever is possible to get a local TV deal similar to what many D I colleges have in their respective markets. When I was a kid I was a Gopher fan, why? Because they were on TV in our market. Kelo, Ksfy, somebody needs to pick up the games locally. We need to market the program and make the program part of something South Dakotans can be proud of. Think of the national exposure there will be if SDSU can win a Summit League tournament? And this should be a real possiblity, we should be able to compete in a very weak conference. We have great facilites and we have great support compared to everyone else in the league.

Whoever the coach is they have has to be a little creative with their recruiting, maybe a few jucos, a few international kids, a local kid or 2, a big time transfer from a bcs school, and maybe recruit a 4 year kid from an urban area. But the coaches have to be creative and look outside the box with their recruiting. Sorry, but there is just not enough big time D I talent in the area to win with all local kids, And we are trying to do something special and unique here. Not just be middle of the pack or lower half of the league. We should also see if we can get a big time bcs opponent to play us in the Arena in Sioux Falls to expand the marketing of the program. Many ideas, but if anyone is to have success they need the proper resources to have success. When we have 2 assistants and everyone else has 3, we will never have the success we want.

I'm going to agree with most of this post actually........ I don't think SDSU should play games in the Arena though.... Frost is better then the Arena and if we play a legit BCS team at Frost the people from Sioux Falls will make the trip up..... I like your idea of foreign recruits, my friends from Wyoming say you can tell how good the UW mens and womens team will be on how many recruits they have from Australia..... I don't know how you recruit other countries but I will agree with you that I do think we need to recruit out of the box..... As far as not recruiting urban areas and only recruiting the midwest I have to disagree..... Kai is from Canada, Palarca is from LA, Cordova grew up in LA, Cassady is from the Denver burbs, we recruit the cities.... Junior College players are risky i think the main reason that Nagy hasn't recruited them much is because he has been bit in the behind on them lately, he had the one quit and last year the one failed to make grades, also have to note that there isn't any JuCo's in South Dakota and most of the JuCo's in the neighboring states are lower class JuCo's, so it puts SDSU at a disadvantage there..... I also think it is key to actively recruit locally. By recruiting locally you benefit yourself in many ways, I'm not saying recruit D-II players and NAIA guys just because they are local talent but recruit the Chad Whites, the Dale Moss's because they are legit D-I talent and it just gets more interest throughout the region by doing that.....

[NorCalJack]

Re: Onward and upward

When we have 2 assistants and everyone else has 3, we will never have the success we want.

This is one of the reason's that I don't think you can truly evaluate Nagy's performance at this time. The other reason is that we don't have any D-1 recruits that are upper classmen. Next year we will have some, but until we have a full stable of D-1 players in all classes and we have 3 assistance, then and only then can you start to evaluate Nagy and the programs performance. Right now Nagy and the program are at a distinct disadvantage when compared to the rest of the Summit League.

Go State!!!
Go Jacls!!!

[SDSUJack3031]

Re: Onward and upward

If he ends next year at the bottom of the Summit, then he most likely will be fired.

He needs to make, at minimum, the middle of the pack for Kai's senior year to keep his job. By then, he'll have enough of his own recruits in to keep his job.

[JimmyJack]

Re: Onward and upward

Keep in mind that Nagy has been shortchanged in resources. SDSU just added a second, full-time assistant this season and, as I recall, the Jacks are still a full-time assistant behind the Summit League standard. (NDSU is already there.) Also, attracting good recruits from urban areas to a nice but small, cold college town cannot be easy. The clock on Nagy should not start ticking until the next school year begins and this ugly transition period has ended.

Not to mention practice facilities. Frost remains (until the Wellness Center is done) a multi-purpose facility. Augie has a 24-hour, keypad access, two court practice facility just for men's and women's basketball, for heaven's sakes. It's a fairly standard feature at most D1 programs. Don't discount that as a lure for good players and as a feature that improves your team.

[WestSideRabbit]

Re: Onward and upward

[QUOTE=rabbitstail;79520]Well I didn't know that Nagy only had 2 full time assistants. No disrespect to any of the other sports but I believe men's basketball should be the marquee program of the athletic department. I am not comparing us to Memphis but the reason Memphis is having or Gonzaga, Butler, etc is having success from non-bcs conferences are because their athletic department understands the importance of having a successful men's basketball team. Men's basketball gets the most national attention and at SDSU we have a legitament shot of having a succesful national program. They need to invest in the program and give Nagy or whoever the coach is the necessary resources to succeed. We will get behind the program once there is success, the state of SD will get behind the program if their is success.

What are u smoking??? Do u honestlythink South Dakota State University has a serious chance at becoming a power in D1 Basketball??? Seriously??? wow... We ARE a mid-major and unless something DRASTICALLY changes (donation of aHUGE sum of money, MANY diamon-in-the-rough recruits, our hoop to be made wider) we have no chance of becoming a power in D1 basketball within the next 20 years...sorry but your post just sounds crazy....... I disagree with you that Basketball should be the markee sporting event. I seem to remember close to 20,000 people cramming themselves into CAS last fall to watch a game. If I remember right that was a pretty cool for everyone involved. Give the basketball team any money possible but lets not forget the rest of the sports that are thriving here at SDSU. We have been VERY successful in nearly every sport during our transition. Lets just not go bonkers over a basketball program that has made 0 progress in the last couple of years... I take that back we have made some progress (none of our Top players are leaving).

[rabidrabbit]

Re: Onward and upward

From Jooboo22's post....

I don't think SDSU should play games in the Arena though

I'll disagree with this for the next two years. The Arena is the hosting arena for the next 2 Summit League championships. I would like to get a couple of out of conference games, preferably to get decent crowds to the game. This way Jacks are converting this "neutral" arena into a home court advantage.

ORU does this, as does UMKC. When NDSU makes an expanded arena with Fargo, and plays most games at BSA, they will be in a similar boat.

[bballfan54]

Re: Onward and upward

I have been asked to set the record straight on this board as to the question is Kai leaving SDSU as far as I know Kai is not leaving SDSU.

[Jack4Life]

Re: Onward and upward

I have been asked to set the record straight on this board as to the question is Kai leaving SDSU as far as I know Kai is not leaving SDSU.

I'm likin' that news. I did not think he would, but it is good to hear that from Mom...