re: It's official. I can't stand this team.

Haith chose to bring in transfers to bridge the gap between Anderson and himself. It was a bold strategy and for a different coach at a different program, it could have been more successful.

Nonetheless, Alden hired Haith because Haith had a plan to build longterm success at Mizzou. Part of that plan was evening out the class sizes and using transfers in the early years. I will happily give another year or 2 to a coach who is bold and aggressive, willing to implement a plan that if executed perfectly would have kept Mizzou at the top of Division 1 basketball even when he is rebuilding. It didn't work perfectly, but it gave us better results than starting from scratch would have.

quote:

---

It didn't work perfectly, but it gave us better results than starting from scratch would have

---

You don't know that. And in fact it is more than likely we will tank out next year with our top 3 probably leaving. Using your argument he would have been better served to start from scratch and build immediately for the long term.

But none of that matters, he was average at the U and he has been average here. 0 NCAA Tourney wins by my count.

quote:

---

You don't know that

---

Check out the 3 year records of other teams that went through a comparable coaching change. Haith outperformed them all by an impressive margin. Haith is a victim of his own success. He immediately came in and turned Mike Anderson's team into a better team. Then, when he should have been rebuilding, he took the team to another NCAA tourney bid. In his third year, he's still on the edge of a 20 win season when he should still be rebuilding.

He attempted to prevent a rebuilding period at all by using transfers. It's an aggressive plan, and it came pretty close to working.

quote:

---

You seem to be under the impression that Haith could just walk right into the program and add whatever players he wanted from whatever programs he wanted.

---

What I expect of Haith is to bring in players that can and will play within a system that leads to winning basketball, whether they are transfers, JUCO players or high school kids.

quote:

---

Check out the 3 year records of other teams that went through a comparable coaching change. Haith outperformed them all by an impressive margin. Haith is a victim of his own success. He immediately came in and turned Mike Anderson's team into a better team. Then, when he should have been rebuilding, he took the team to another NCAA tourney bid. In his third year, he's still on the edge of a 20 win season when he should still be rebuilding.

He attempted to prevent a rebuilding period at all by using transfers. It's an aggressive plan, and it came pretty close to working.

---

First, I get. He used transfers not because he's bold, but because he had no choice. MA left the classes completely unbalanced and the only way to balance it is to add transfers and/or JUCO players or don't use all your scholarships as you save them for the later, unbalanced classes. So I get why he initially did what he did.

I do look at it differently though. I see it as the team has done worse as Haith puts more of a footprint on the program.

Year 1: All MA players. English/Denmon/Moore/Ratliffe/M. Pressey were all seniors and led that team. They won because of their makeup and not so much because of what Haith did with them.

Year 2: Haith's first real freshman class includes Bull/NWC/Jankovic/Rosburg. I don't think I have to say anything about his first class. MA carry overs Pressey/Bowers so still a bit of a MA presence on the team, but more of a Haith imprint and the team does worse.

Year 3: All Haith, all the time. Team sucks. That is what I see. The excuses would have worked in year 1 or year 2. This is year 3. The year one should start to see improvement. This team is going the opposite direction.

quote:

---

I see it as the team has done worse as Haith puts more of a footprint on the program

---

Yes, we have regressed since Haith's first season. The question you have to answer is: "Is the style of team-building that Haith has used so far what we should expect going forward?" Obviously, the transfer method of team-building has caused a lot of the regression we have seen. However, I've made it clear that I think Haith used that method in the short term out of necessity. I absolutely do not expect transfers to be the cornerstone of this team going forward. For that reason, I judge this team and the last year as an experiment. The team Haith builds going forward, with high school recruiting classes, is what I'm going to judge him by. I'll give him a mulligan for the transfer experiment because it almost worked. On top of it, it was part of the long term plan to rebuild the program. In terms of long term rebuilding, I like what I've seen from Haith in the last 2 recruiting classes. And when another transfer is needed, I know Haith will be able to win a big time transfer.

Haith's first recruiting class was garbage. His last 2 have been much better. The first garbage class was one reason we had to rely on transfers longer than you'd like.

I don't know why Haith's first class was so garbage. I don't know why he targeted the recruits he did, but there's nothing that can be done about it now. From all the evidence I've seen, his recruiting classes improved quickly after that first one.

Fuller on radio now in STL. Blames it on youth. Being young. Without saying it, blaming it on nature of transfers. Even though some older guys, really these guys haven't played many games together. They're just still gelling. Even a guy like Criswell or Brown, they just haven't played a lot together. A guy like Clark is just adjusting to playing at a high major level.

Quickly paraphrased his words.

quote:

---

Blames it on youth.

---

Well, even though I'm not sure I agree, at least it sounds like they know there's a problem. That gives me some hope.

quote:

---

I disagree

---

That's your choice. I think Clark, JW3, Gant, and Wright all have higher ceilings than NWC and Jank, and I think it's fairly obvious, but you don't have to agree with me.