The amount of transfers has tripled ever since the Grandmother rule was instituted, so all schools numbers have been going up. So no surprise that are numbers are higher. Its also no surprise that when a new coach comes in, there is more turnover. And since we have made mistakes in our recruiting, the obvious solution is to not Renew the scholarship. That is better than hanging on to the player, if he is not going to play.
Both the School and the Player have the right to upgrade their situation. The good news is that most of the players were not going to get the minutes and turned out to be Division II or backup players. Except maybe Mathews, who left for personal family issues. He probably could have gone to another Division I school, but he opted to stay closer to home.
I would be more worried if our Better players were leaving, which they are not.
This offseason is just getting started so using last offseason as an example--- our better players did not leave, our coach has proven in the past that he can win the big games (according to JoeStag among others) and we went from losing our PIG game in overtime to losing our PIG game by 30 points while scoring only 7 points in the first half. Thank God our better players did not leave or we might have gotten beaten decisively in our PIG game this year.
It will be hard to get existing assistants to come to Fairfield. Maybe HS Coach and former AAU guru in CT like Billy Lovett. He certainly had Fairfield connections. And he and Luke Murray were the CT/NY AAU gurus. But it is an opportunity for AAU and HS coaches that want to make that move.
From Twitter and Facebook. Billy Lovett has won Coach of the Year for 2 straight years at East Orange. Would like to see him back in CT as a Stags assistant. He also has a player, Denzel Banks, who was 1st team group 4.
Billy Lovett @blovetthoops It's an honor to be recognized as Coach of the Year anytime but 2 years in a row is pretty special. I thank my... fb.me/3wK4t77pT
I was also pointing in the first portion of my statement to how Sid handled the press conference. Instead of saying they sucked as leaders, he could have said he loved his boys as well and that he didn't do his job as a coach.... I guess that statement isn't relevant though either? Only for coaches who make the sweet 16 I guess...
If you been following Sydney's post game comments all year, he has comment on the leadership issue all year. In many of the cases, his praise for them (even in losses) was there.... he pointed how the leadership was developing. He has been pointing out that growing team leaders was an important facet of the growth of this team. However, the last game was as horrific as the press conference was. While Sydney did not name names, if was clear that he referred to Marcus as letting us down. Probably the Wrong Way to handle it, but certainly not the way Sydney was handling it all year.
Matter of Fact, Sydney has been "Overly " respectful all year to our opponents, and "overly" praising the players on our team searching for positives. The press Conference was bad, but in some respects, Sydney's change in tune, maybe is what is needed to help things sink in. I thought Marcus handled it well.
For the record, Sydney did call Marcus out at the Press Conference and indeed did name names. Specifically, he said: "Marcus has had much better games." And Marcus saw fit to defend himself by saying: "It wasn't so much of me..."