BOL Round Table

I think the BBall team can win more games if a couple of the older players were pulling in the right direction. However, I also think that if we were playing a little more aggressively on offense that more players would be playing harder.

I think the young players have a tough time standing up to the old players with bad attitudes cause they themselves aren't fully committed to our run out the clock offense. My guess is Grant recruited several of these players by telling them about how we are going to push the ball and play with aggression. Instead we walk the ball on in bounds, pull up and set the offense on turnovers, and then wait till the shock clock hits 10 seconds before scrambling for a bad shot. Not too many players are going to buy in to that.

At the end of the day if you want guys to play hard on defense you have to make playing offense enjoyable. Right now that is not the case. In one of Wimp's interviews in Birmingham he eluded to the fact that in order to get his guy's to play hard on defense he had to let them loose on offense.

I agree with you on the concept but also Saban had a proven system that had won championships for players to buy in to. Buy in alone won't get us to reach our potential.

Coach Grant does not deserve blame for the way some on our team are playing. I believe he has done his best to get
through to them, but they have been ______'s about that. CAG is the man for us. He will take our program way up, but
this season ain't gonna be the greatest and we had just swallow hard and look to better days yet to come. CAG will get
it done, but it will take time, folks. Be patient and RTR!

If JG and TM would just play along with coach and act as team leaders, our bb team would be insanely good. It is what it is. Sometimes they do act as leaders, and sometimes they act as spoiled brats. Unfortunately, in basketball, there isn't a 105 roster to weed (*snicker*) out the DJ Halls.

yeah, I hear you, but to me the big difference is that with Shula we had a guy with no previous record and enough time in the saddle to see that it wasn't going to work. I don't think there was any counterargument on that point. With Grant, he has a prior track record, both as a recruiter and as a HC. Just as some on this board argue persuasively that he isn't going to get the job done, one can argue that he will and that there is precedent that he will. So this is a different situation than we faced with Shula.

The interesting thing to me is the parallells to CNS's situation when he came in. CAG came in behind a coach that had let team discipline evaporate, just as did CNS. CNS's problem players were seniors and CAG's problem players were sophmores. CNS flushed his problems out quickly and recruited well right off the bat. He turned the attitude very quickly. CAG seems to have recruited well so far, although the jury is still out, but he hasn't flushed the bad attitudes. Maybe we're a little spoiled by how quickly CNS turned the program around, but to get back to my original point, he has said it would not have happenned that fast without Rolando McClain being 100% on board. That's where the biggest difference lies in his turnaround and the slower turnaround in hoops.

In addition, I think in football, it is easier to sit 1 or 2 guys to make a point than it is in basketball. If CAG sat Greene and Mitchell, we would lose every game and there would be an uproar from the fanbase. I think he has to do more of a balancing act than did CNS. BTW, I'm not saying he is doing it as well as he could - I just don't know - but I am saying I for one would vote for giving him a little more time. I'm also not saying he should get infinite time, maybe its a year, maybe its two. Hopefully TM will decide to go pro early and house will be cleaned this spring. Then we'll see how good a coach we have.