All the names change except one

[billiken_roy]

ace said,

"You and the other kool aid crew assured me that we had enough talent to make the Tourney this year with what we had. I kept an open mind and hoped you were right."

had you told me we would get the 2006-2007 version of ian instead of the 2005-2006 version and told me that kevin lisch would suffer through those 4 injuries, i would have told you we will be lucky to match last year.

as to spoon's claggett and highmark years:

claggett and highmark's freshmen year 5-23

sophomore year (spoon;s first) 12-17

junior year added h 26-6

senior year 23-8

the next two seasons after h, clagg and highmark gone - 16-14, 11-18

lisch and liddell's freshmen year 16-13

sophomore years 20-13

looks to me that lisch and liddell are far ahead of the pace that claggett and highmark were on at that point in their careers.

[Schasz]

You raise a good question Ace. Frankly, if he does not succeed in recruiting this spring and next fall, then I think Coach Soderberg is toast.

[Schasz]

Frosh year for Claggs and Highmark was Grawer, and Spoon did not have H until their JR years when things started cooking just fine in the win column. Spoon was not an ace recruiter, but I would NEVER want to take back those exciting NCAA years...so I would take Spoon any day of the week over Coach Soderberg.

[ACE]

Roy "had you told me we would get the 2006-2007 version of ian instead of the 2005-2006 version and told me that kevin lisch would suffer through those 4 injuries, i would have told you we will be lucky to match last year."

Come on Roy. Injuries happen to a lot of teams. All the more reason, why you should always be adding to your depth and talent base. Another good illustration why what I warned about last year during the recruiting period, came back to haunt Soderberg. He didn't add one player who contributed this past season.

[billiken_roy]

while spoon had the 3 excellent seasons, he also had 3 under 500 seasons and one that was 16-14.

i agree spoon was a superior floor coach. and indeed i loved those three special seasons.

the question is do we want to accept a program that has those 3 horrible years every 6 years as well?

i am not blaming spoon. same as i dont blame romar and soderberg.

hell it amazes me that folks cant see the romar thing. to say he was unsuccessful here because of his west coast roots thing is laughable. anyone that ever talked to coach romar at length would know in a second if anyone woulda been the ice water to eskimos guy it was coach romar. and he couldnt do it. yet he was successful at every other stage of his coaching career getting kids to come. as brian says, look at the turnover in 20 years. 4 head coaches and 4 athletic directors and we are arguing the same things. maybe it aint the coaches and athletic directors?

the point is that i think folks are looking for the solution in the wrong place. it isnt the coach that will forever hold this program back and in fact switching programs again and starting over will only quiet the fandom and nothing else changes.

i am not saying soderberg is the answer. i am saying we need to fix the infrastructure first. if after putting an actual complete and experienced athletic dept support staff in place, upgrading all facilities, not just the arena, but athletic housing as well, raise the budgets to match the typical top 25 budgets, give the assistants all the tools and freedom to get the players and recruiting pipelines in place, if after all that, the team is still a 500 team, by all means let's change coaches.

but if all you do is switch coaches, nothing is going to change. same roller coaster with a new carnival barker.

[billiken_roy]

injuries do happen to a lot of teams and most suffer team setbacks accordingly. it is the rare top 10 team that can play through their best player being injured the entire season and not miss a beat.

[courtside]

You continue to compare a coach that was around 3 years to one who has been around twice as long. It isn't apples to apples.

[ACE]

It's also rare when a team has a recruiting class, where not one player contributes anything in their first year. My criticism of Brad last spring was right on the money, unfortunately. Soderberg's thin roster left him no margin for error. He didn't put himself in the best position to succeed.

[kevinfootes]

I'd throw in Heinrich as a good Spoon recruit as well. Of course you also have to look at Sekue and the like. My problem with Charlie is that he failed to cash in on the Highmark/Clagget/Waldman success, and could have been really good if he would have brought in a center for that group.

Brad has TL, KL, and IV. Also some good role players. Overall I don't think he's succeeded at filling in the gaps.

[kevinfootes]

He jockeyed to get his son the head coaching spot, but I don't think he left them in a shambles.

As has been covered on here many times, Spoon was a great game coach who probably could have taken the success he had and really built something big. His highs were the best the program has had in decades, but he had his share of lows ans wasn't really able to sustain it. He also walked away from the program and then later took another job (BTW, Spoon also looked into the UNLV job when Massimino was hired).

I don't consider myself anti-Spoon, I'm just not ready to canonize him just yet. SLU could sure use a coach with that kind of charisma, but they're pretty hard to find.

[slu72]

Well, it sure ain't no roller coaster with UB. Just the same boring old merry go around of mediocrity.