[olldflame]

I'll take your word for it, although when I google SDSU all the top links are to San Diego State. South Dakota generally uses SD State.

The players name is Ian Thiesen and yes, he is going to South Dakota State. It also so happens he was Dembley's HS teammate.

And it remains true that every player ranked AHEAD of Dembley in MN who has signed is going to a highly regarded program

[Purple Haize]

I'll take your word for it, although when I google SDSU all the top links are to San Diego State. South Dakota generally uses SD State.

The players name is Ian Thiesen and yes, he is going to South Dakota State. It also so happens he was Dembley's HS teammate.

And it remains true that every player ranked AHEAD of Dembley in MN who has signed is going to a highly regarded program

#1 to Duke
#2 to Stanford
#3 to Xavier. They are good but not THAT good
#4 to ? I think we are better than ?
#5 to Richmond. Really? We should be better than Richmond
#6 (Tie) Citadel
#8 to North Dakota State
#9 to ? Hey they have 2 of the Top 10 recruits (according to this article) in Minnesota
#10 to South Dakota State.

This tells me 2 things. 1 it reinforces my belief that Minnesota, with all apologies to Kevin McHale, is not a basketball hot bed. And 2. Minnesota has some really smart basketball players!

[olldflame]

I will concede Purple, that MN is not a hotbed for basketball talent. For the sake of argument however, let's look at another state. A state you have argued vociferously we need to recruit more. Here are the schools the top 10 prospects signed with:

1. Florida
2. Virginia
3. Maryland
4. Indiana

Pretty impressive! But wait.

5. NC Greensboro
6. ???
7. ???
8. George Washington
9. William & Mary
10. William & Mary

check out the list of offers for #6:
Minnesota(kinda ironic)
Niagra
Quinnipiac
Radford

https://rivals.yahoo.com/virginiapreps/ ... /rank-2903

Can you guess the state? I knew that you could!!

Edit: I saw the date on the list and did some checking to update where needed.
#7 has now signed with UC Riverside and #6 has verballed to NC A&T. Whether that is an upgrade over ??? is open to debate.

[bluejacket]

How about this? We need better players, wherever we can get them.

#5 to Richmond. Really? We should be better than Richmond

We should be better than Richmond, but that would take a complete makeover of the program and that isn't happening any time soon.

[Chippy]

How about this? We need better players, wherever we can get them.

#5 to Richmond. Really? We should be better than Richmond

We should be better than Richmond, but that would take a complete makeover of the program and that isn't happening any time soon.

It would be nice to get to where Richmond is. 6 conference championships and 9 NCAA tournament appearances with a number of big wins in the NCAAs. They have a great coach, former Princeton player who uses a modified "Princeton offense". They left the Colonial a few years ago and have had moderate success in the A10 (VCU, Butler, Dayton etc.) We got a long way to get to their level of consistent success. The better players go to the better conferences, plain and simple.

[olldflame]

Define soon bluejacket. It has become pretty much standard practice to either extend or fire going into the last year of a coaches contract. Layer is in the first year of a 2 year extension, which would make that time fall after this season. I'm as big a DL supporter as there is, but IMHO we need to see real progress this year. If not, it's time for a change. I don't see JB and JLFJR having any problem eating that last year if we don't see significantly better results starting this November.

[BJWilliams]

Define real progress though. 15 wins...is that real progress? is 19 wins? is 20 wins? First place in their division? top 2? top 3? quarterfinals of the tournament? Semifinals? finals but lose? win the championship?

[jcmanson]

Define real progress though.

Why don't we start with not losing 20 games.

[TheGovernor]

Define real progress though.

Why don't we start with not losing 20 games.

Especially when you have three D3 games, probably an NAIA game, the worst (or close) conference in College Basketball, and lucky if you play 1 team from the ACC, SEC, BIG10, and BIG12 combined.

[Chris Lang]

Three non-DIs are on the schedule again. Outside of the VT game in the Cancun tourney, no games against power-conference teams scheduled at this point. Then again, I thought last year's schedule was manageable and LU couldn't beat teams like Furman and Austin Peay.

Schedule is fairly close to being done, I've heard. Maybe one non-conference game still to add. Still waiting on the Big South, I think, to release the league portion.

[bluejacket]

Define soon bluejacket. It has become pretty much standard practice to either extend or fire going into the last year of a coaches contract. Layer is in the first year of a 2 year extension, which would make that time fall after this season. I'm as big a DL supporter as there is, but IMHO we need to see real progress this year. If not, it's time for a change. I don't see JB and JLFJR having any problem eating that last year if we don't see significantly better results starting this November.

Elevating the basketball program requires far more than getting rid of Layer. Throwing money at the problem won't solve it. It will require completely revamping of our basketball culture, some of which is in our control and some which is not.

Richmond is basketball, first and foremost, and they are committed to maintaining a strong program; Mooney makes over $700,000 annually. We are football focused, first and foremost, and will be for the foreseeable future. (Whether the emphasis on football is right or not, is a different debate).

Even with our commitments to football, we can match their spending in basketball. Nevertheless, you don't get to be Richmond, Butler, VCU, or Gonzaga without being in a competitive conference which is committed to playing quality basketball. The Buc Dome, Templeton Center, Willett Hall, and others are jokes compared to the Big East, A-10, CAA, WCC, MVC, Southern, and other true mid-major conferences.

We can lead the BSC in spending and may be even dominate the conference, year in and year out. However, you won't pass Richmond without being in a strong conference and building a pedigree through a complimentary annual OOC.

[bluejacket]

Define real progress though.

Why don't we start with not losing 20 games.

Especially when you have three D3 games, probably an NAIA game, the worst (or close) conference in College Basketball, and lucky if you play 1 team from the ACC, SEC, BIG10, and BIG12 combined.

Real progress: we win 20 games this year to stabilize the program and then fire Layer. Coach is a great man, but he needs to go.

[BJWilliams]

Thank you bluejacket for being the only one to attempt to answer my question

[olldflame]

I agree that being in the BSC makes it extremely difficult to elevate our program to where even a middle of the pack A-10 team like Richmond is. The right coach can make a huge difference though. Ask our friends down in Rock Hill. Under Marshall, Winthrop had a team that not only dominated the BSC annually, but played the big boys tough and sometimes won in the regular season (although they never had the success in the NCAA tournament the Spiders have had.) Their program was respected nationally, and they did it with resources that were a fraction of what we spend now.

[bluejacket]

Marshall was a diamond in the rough that programs like Winthrop take risks on. They have basketball savvy people in their department who work with what they have, but our salaries start much higher than their's do. Winthrop's peak offer for Marshall was $400,000/10 years before he left for Wichita State. We start around $300,000 for base salaries; Layer makes $308,682 right now.

We need to make an investment in a $350,000-$400,000+ head coach's salary and get a good, young, hungry assistant. Figures like that will get us within range of most of the top assistants in the nation. No more retreads. We already spend too much money for the crap that we put up with. It would have been nice to blow it up and start over this season with some flexibility, but I guess that we'll have to do it next season.

[Purple Haize]

Marshall was a diamond in the rough that programs like Winthrop take risks on. They have basketball savvy people in their department who work with what they have, but our salaries start much higher than their's do. Winthrop's peak offer for Marshall was $400,000/10 years before he left for Wichita State. We start around $300,000 for base salaries; Layer makes $308,682 right now.

We need to make an investment in a $350,000-$400,000+ head coach's salary and get a good, young, hungry assistant. Figures like that will get us within range of most of the top assistants in the nation. No more retreads. We already spend too much money for the crap that we put up with. It would have been nice to blow it up and start over this season with some flexibility, but I guess that we'll have to do it next season.

Personally, I'd go a different route. I've always been an advocate of bringing a guy in who has worked for years as a HC at a powerhouse NAIA/D2 level. DL came closest to that but he had stops in between. You want hungry and grateful, get someone with success at that level with those limited resources and having to deal with LU type rules, you can go a long way.

[VAGolf]

Marshall was a diamond in the rough that programs like Winthrop take risks on. They have basketball savvy people in their department who work with what they have, but our salaries start much higher than their's do. Winthrop's peak offer for Marshall was $400,000/10 years before he left for Wichita State. We start around $300,000 for base salaries; Layer makes $308,682 right now.

We need to make an investment in a $350,000-$400,000+ head coach's salary and get a good, young, hungry assistant. Figures like that will get us within range of most of the top assistants in the nation. No more retreads. We already spend too much money for the crap that we put up with. It would have been nice to blow it up and start over this season with some flexibility, but I guess that we'll have to do it next season.

Personally, I'd go a different route. I've always been an advocate of bringing a guy in who has worked for years as a HC at a powerhouse NAIA/D2 level. DL came closest to that but he had stops in between. You want hungry and grateful, get someone with success at that level with those limited resources and having to deal with LU type rules, you can go a long way.

+1.

We don't need guys who are at big programs, and hiring assistants doesn't seem to be working for us. We need to hire head coaches from the lower divisions of college basketball. Guys who have experience winning with less resources. The big name assistants game doesn't work. Go and find a head coach, at a small school, who has incredible aspirations and can win right away.

[R i]

Our current head coach fits that bill. Our top assistant has 20+ successful years at the juco level.

[jcmanson]

Our top assistant has 20+ successful years at the juco level.

Did we hire someone new this year?

[olldflame]

RI "padded" Brian Joyces resume just a bit. He has a total of 9 years as at the JUCO level, 6 of them as HC at Westerm NE CC, going 58-13 in his last 2 years before joining Layer's staff at Colorado State. Perhaps more relevant to the topic, he was apparently the man primarily responsible for getting us Dembley, as well as Peter Moller. I'm not sure about some of the other signees, but based on geography I suspect he was involved in recruiting Talbert as well.

[VAGolf]

Our current head coach fits that bill.

He was an assistant at Marquette before he came here. He also was the head coach at Colorado State for 7 years before that. Not sure how he "fits that bill."

[olldflame]

Our current head coach fits that bill.

He was an assistant at Marquette before he came here. He also was the head coach at Colorado State for 7 years before that. Not sure how he "fits that bill."

He was head coach at D2 Queens College for 9 years very early in his career, but I agree he has been either a HC or assistant at the D1 level since 1998

[VAGolf]

Our current head coach fits that bill.

He was an assistant at Marquette before he came here. He also was the head coach at Colorado State for 7 years before that. Not sure how he "fits that bill."

He was head coach at D2 Queens College for 9 years very early in his career, but I agree he has been either a HC or assistant at the D1 level since 1998

I want someone who is in D2 or NAIA, now. Not someone who has experience at the level. I want someone who hasn't had the resources at a big school.

[bluejacket]

The big name assistants game doesn't work.

I did not say a big name assistant. They are where many entitlement problems start.

[R i]

RI "padded" Brian Joyces resume just a bit. He has a total of 9 years as at the JUCO level, 6 of them as HC at Westerm NE CC, going 58-13 in his last 2 years before joining Layer's staff at Colorado State. Perhaps more relevant to the topic, he was apparently the man primarily responsible for getting us Dembley, as well as Peter Moller. I'm not sure about some of the other signees, but based on geography I suspect he was involved in recruiting Talbert as well.

Thank you. I mis spoke.

2009-Present (Fifth year) – Liberty – Assistant Coach
2007-2009 (2 years) – Western Nebraska Community College – Head Coach
2006-2007 (1 years) – Colorado Sate – Assistant Coach
2002-2006 (4 years) – Northeastern Junior College – Head Coach/Associate Athletic Director
2001-2002 (1 year) – Northeastern Junior College-Associate Head Coach
1999-2001 (2 years) – Northeastern Junior College-Assistant Coach
1997-1999 (2 years) – Colby Community College – Assistant Coach and Sports Information Director
1996-1997 – (1 year) – Central Oklahoma – Assistant Coach