UMassHoops.com

Buck's a bit off on his assertion that UMass and BC should be in the tournament every year, but he's right that both schools really should be a lot better.

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I think he is absolutely right. The year the Minutemen don't make it should be the occasional down year. UMass should compete for an A10 title every year and that would - at worst- put them on the bubble.

Not a single UMass player on any all conference team.

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Does that surprise you?

Unless they name an "All Underachiever Team" nobody from Umass should be on any A10 teams this year.

Nope, not surprised at all.

University Of Massachusetts Minutemen Basketball - top 30 recruiting class IN THE COUNTRY:


Atlantic 10 - All Rookie team announced - NO REPRESENTATIVES FROM UMASS!!!!!!!!


While the announcement in and of itself is not a shocker postmortem.... the fact that it did actually happen speaks volumes.

JoleonLescottsHair wrote:
I think he is absolutely right. The year the Minutemen don't make it should be the occasional down year. UMass should compete for an A10 title every year and that would - at worst- put them on the bubble.

The hope is to be there, sure. The expectation shouldn't be. There is no historical basis for either team that would suggest that the teams should be making it every single year, as Buck suggests.

Could things change where that becomes the norm? I sure as hell hope so. But right now... hell, even in 1998... it was a stupid bar to set.

Here's the link to the A10 awards. The fact that we don't have even 1 player on the all rookie team says it all.
http://www.atlantic10.com/pdf9/5294363.pdf

UMass and LaSalle are the only two schools with no representatives on any of the all conference teams...

Crank wrote:UMass and LaSalle are the only two schools with no representatives on any of the all conference teams...

Wow Crank, it is not like you to pour gas on a fire.........

#realdamage

InnervisionsUMASS wrote: There is no historical basis for either team that would suggest that the teams should be making it every single year, as Buck suggests.

History helps us learn and understand, but no program needs to be a slave to its history. Prior to 1994, Gonzaga had no historical basis for its run. VCU had a 5 year stretch in the early 80s then went silent for two decades before Capel arrived. Winthrop's first NCAA was in 1999 and they have been to 9 since. Like UMass, Butler appeared in the 1962 tournament and not again until 1997. They have been back a dozen times since. Southern Illinois was D2 until 1968 and made their first NCAA appearance in 1977. They wouldn't make it back until 1993 and now they have enjoyed 9 more. By definition program building starts somewhere and history is but one aspect. Within our own program, Jack Leaman would have made the Dance more often in a field of 64 and Calipari busted any restrictive historical frame and made it each of his last 5 years. Conditions change. Trends come and go. Resources change. Commitments change. Saying there is no historical basis obscures the fact that people make history. Like good old Karl Marx said, "philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it." Same goes for good coaches and athletic directors.

umassfan.com wrote:#realdamage

The players are still getting individual skill development. The bigger problem is that they're not being put in positions to maximize their effectiveness. Those are two very different things.

^^

I don't disagree, as I stated. I want to see it, but I'm also not going to blindly make a statement like Buck did only to continue to be disappointed when it doesn't occur every single year.

Your examples are great, and do show that trends change, but none of them make the tournament every single year, as blanketly stated by Buck.

It's an insult to those kids for DK to use the "Freshman hit the wall" excuse. They won 4 conference games, what they hit the wall after 13 games?

How about the "once we hit the conference schedule I faced coaches that knew my game plan inside and out and could come up with one that could take us out of what we were trying to do and they knew I would have no answer" excuse?