[SuperJon]

I missed a few hours of this. I'm out of this thread from now on.

[JDUB]

the problem is that we are having to rely on freshmen every year. a good coach could keep the players and develop some strong leadership

[pbow]

west virginia lost 6 of their top 7 scorers from last year's sweet sixteen team...i was expecting them to have a bad year this year, but John Beilein is such a good coach their already back in the top 25 mix...I say all of that to say a good coach can make things worth with the players that he has year in and year out.

[jack_sparrow81]

I'm not sure why Rocco's name keeps coming up of turning a program around. Don't get me wrong I have nothing against him or Karcher for that matter and I support him 100%, but we didn't beat anyone that Karcher wouldn't have beat. We really didn't have a big win this year. They played close against teams but there still losses. Karcher had close games against App and YSU but there still losses. WIth the talent on that team this past year, there shouldn't have been anything but first in the Big South. (I'm still a Rocco supporter)

As for the road losses, did yall honestly expect us to win any of those games: Seton Hall, Oral Roberts, Florida, BYU, Buffalo (beat a top 5 team this year) and we beat a conference usa school. Give the guy a grace period. Its only been 3 years since he won the championship. I feel like i'm on a FSU or Miami football board

[A.G.]

Give the guy a grace period. Its only been 3 years since he won the championship. I feel like i'm on a FSU or Miami football board

Not to mention, that it's only been five years since (if my memory serves me correctly) that he promised a top notch program in five years. Oops. Missed that one.

[jmdickens]

As for the road losses, did yall honestly expect us to win any of those games: Seton Hall, Oral Roberts, Florida, BYU, Buffalo (beat a top 5 team this year) and we beat a conference usa school. Give the guy a grace period. Its only been 3 years since he won the championship. I feel like i'm on a FSU or Miami football board

I am confused about what that is supposed to say......

ECU was bad when we played them.....10 new guys on their roster

[TDDance234]

jack_sparrow81 wrote:
As for the road losses, did yall honestly expect us to win any of those games: Seton Hall, Oral Roberts, Florida, BYU, Buffalo (beat a top 5 team this year) and we beat a conference usa school. Give the guy a grace period. Its only been 3 years since he won the championship. I feel like i'm on a FSU or Miami football board



I am confused about what that is supposed to say......

Agreed. Not so sure what that means, Buffalo played #2 Pittsburgh but lost.

[A.G.]

ECU was bad when we played them.....10 new guys on their roster

ECU will be a great team by the end of the season. Just give the new mix a chance to jell.

[Chris Lang]

This is just for informational purposes more than anything, but just by looking at the RPI, it appears absolutely nothing has changed from last season.

Liberty is No. 317 (was 316 last year).
In reality, the Flames have just three wins, coming against ...
No. 332 (of 337) St. Francis
No. 323 East Carolina
No. 279 Longwood

[A.G.]

[Hold My Own]

This is just for informational purposes more than anything, but just by looking at the RPI, it appears absolutely nothing has changed from last season.

Liberty is No. 317 (was 316 last year).
In reality, the Flames have just three wins, coming against ...
No. 332 (of 337) St. Francis
No. 323 East Carolina
No. 279 Longwood

Is this something you've put in print or just something you're taking to message boards?

[Chris Lang]

Haven't put it in print, not yet at least ... it just dawned on me this morning while looking at the Mid-Majority's RPI numbers to get an idea of where LU compares this year to last year. Radford's also a sub-300 RPI team, so a win tonight wouldn't give those numbers much of a bump. Winthrop sits at No. 50.

No idea why it ended up on a making the case for Dunton thread ... I suppose that's where the discussion went when talking about this year's strength of schedule.

To be clear, I will not be making a case for or against Dunton. Not my place to.

[jcmanson]

Well, that's obviously dissapointing.

[LUconn]

does the N&A have any kind of sports opinion writer? Or do you do that on occasion, jut not this occasion?

[A.G.]

To be clear, I will not be making a case for or against Dunton. Not my place to.

Nor should any of us expect you to. You have done a great job in remaining nuetral in all things controversial.

[Chris Lang]

does the N&A have any kind of sports opinion writer? Or do you do that on occasion, jut not this occasion?

No, and it's not the sports editor's decision, either. It goes higher than that. That's all I can really say about it.

JC -- my job is to report the news and give information so readers can form their own opinions. If I give any hard-line opinions, it would affect my relationships with sources, therefore compromising my ability to do my job and deliver news when it happens. That's the difference between a columnist and a beat writer. That's why Michael Wilbon at the Post can write that Joe Gibbs needs to go (not that he has, just using an example), but Jason La Canfora or Howard Bryant can't. The columnist isn't responsible for producing news on the beat, the beat writers are.

I enjoy conversing with you guys here, but I have to be careful of what I say for those reasons.

[Libertine]

We're 38 spots worse than LONGWOOD?!

[jcmanson]

Chris, I was just referring to those facts being disapointing. Not about anything else that you said. Just that we had only 3 real wins, and how low our rpi is.

[Chris Lang]

OK, never mind then.

[paradox]

does the N&A have any kind of sports opinion writer? Or do you do that on occasion, jut not this occasion?

No, and it's not the sports editor's decision, either. It goes higher than that. That's all I can really say about it.

JC -- my job is to report the news and give information so readers can form their own opinions. If I give any hard-line opinions, it would affect my relationships with sources, therefore compromising my ability to do my job and deliver news when it happens. That's the difference between a columnist and a beat writer. That's why Michael Wilbon at the Post can write that Joe Gibbs needs to go (not that he has, just using an example), but Jason La Canfora or Howard Bryant can't. The columnist isn't responsible for producing news on the beat, the beat writers are.

I enjoy conversing with you guys here, but I have to be careful of what I say for those reasons.

Providing only the information that supports the fire the coach crowd sounds awfully subjective to me. Whether you realize it or not, Chris, your opinion on the matter is coming through, loud and clear.

I'm even getting the hint and I'm sure every star trek nerd on this sight will bite on if we happen to win tonight and remain undefeated in the Vines: It's just 300 RPI Radford, not a legit conference win against a hated local rival. Perfect record at home: Look at the RPI's of who we beat. Just go and ask the objective newspaper man: Chris Lang.

I am not making the case that this team has accomplished anything substantial at this stage, but to imply they are the same as last year would be the same as ignoring the information that supports that this team is already on the road to improvement.

I'd say that it's a little early to lock-on exclusively to the RPI as the end-all-be-all, unless, of course, you feel that it makes the case against Dunton and that is what you wish to convey.

Three consecutive and very dominating home wins is something that hasn't been seen here at LU for years. RPI or not, a dominating win tonight adds to that and is something to build on.

The fact that we were blown out by Buffalo at home last year and went up there and played a tight game with them after they nearly knocked-off Pitt would be a clear improvement from last year's very embarassing home blow-out losses put on us by Buffalo and Marist. In addition, playing Seton Hall to the wire on a neutral site is an improvement, even over the last time we played them on a neutral site and lost by 20--by the way we won the Big South that year.

Oh, and you forgot to mention that the last time Dunton truly rebuilt this team and brought in four or more key new guys, we started off 3-10, with only two D-1 wins, a much worse showing on the road, and our signature win at this stage of that season was a home win against a very ECU-like Chatannoga club. We finished that year out on a 15-4 roll, enroute to the Big South title.

Will the '06-07 version come together and get hot when it matters most? Who knows? I'm just being a little subjective here, but I support this team and really hope we get it done!

[grm]

Me too.

[Purple Haize]

WWWOOOOOWWWWWWW You need to back off Chris Lang. Period. To call him biased is a completely uninformed opinion on your part. He provided HARD FACTS that he was curious about. To speak for him, it sounded like he was just curious, not trying to dig dirt. IF you are going to come here and bad mouth someone who has facts, you best have some of your own. We know where you stand on the issue and that is fine. But bring facts to the table before you start throwiing mud. After all, fact filled mud sticks MUCH better.

The only facts you give are comparisons of games played. LOTs of things influence those things. That is why you have a 'numberical' arbiter called the PRI, if you knew how it was compiled you would see that it is nothing BUT objective. I will agree you can't base an entire season on it and wouldn't use it to hire or fire anyone, it is a nice ball park barometer
As for dominating wins, weren't YOU the one so down on NAIA and those types of schools? Seems those were the schools we dominated.

[jcmanson]

We are not undefeated at home paradox. We lost our last game at home to lipscomb.

[mrich]

Chris was just making an interesting observation. The fact is, right now we are one of the worst in the nation, and have only beaten teams that are playing as desperately horrible as we are. And a good coach shouldn't have to rebuild three years in a row. Just my opinion.

[mrich]

Actually, now that I think about it, he has been rebuilding all 5 years.