We will be having our TEAMSTAG (members only) meet up with Coach Johnson before the Canisius game at 12.00pm sharp on Saturday February 1, 2014 in the Stags Club at Webster Bank Arena. We are thrilled to provide those fans that have supported the team via TEAMSTAG an opportunity to get some time with Sydney in a more personal setting.
Post by nashvillestag on Feb 2, 2014 9:51:47 GMT -5
Ghost, I was there, along with about 4-5 other people. Obviously this was a tough spot for Sydney to be in, but I do have to give him credit in that he was on time, humble, and very graceful and straight forward in answering the few questions that we had the chance to ask in the limited time available. Look obviously whatever he said was not going to go over tremendously well with our group based on the dismal results so far, but to summarize a general theme of his thoughts, he definitely thinks that if we as fans stay positive with this team we will ultimately be rewarded with success. Not very convincing to me regarding THIS YEAR, but he did try to make the comparison to his original Princeton squad which he said was in worse shape then the Stags are now with its current group of young players, but when the sophomores become juniors, the freshmen become sophomores, things should improve dramatically. And he did mention the possibilities of his new freshmen class coming in next year by stating that they will be talented (as a group), but because his base group of players with a year of experience will be better, that will help the new guys perform to a higher level because there will be less pressure to carry as much responsibiliy as he has asked his youthful group to do this season. Now he also tried to make the point that the team was not that far off from winning some games based on how close they had been in many of those recent tough, heartbreaking losses, with him stating it's the end of games where the sophs and freshmen still show their inexperience rather than during the main course of the action. Of course what happened in the 2-3 hours after the meeting in the Canisius loss certainly proves that talk is cheap, and yes there is a lot of heavy lifting to be done. Look I know a lot of people don't care any more what he says and basically don't trust that anything will ever get better. But please don't blame me. Afterall, I am only the messenger, right?
Sidney said that this team would be better in the second half of the season and would compete for the MAAC championship in March. Any takers? Next year's team will have 3 freshmen who won't play minus Mo Barrow. I'm thinking that next year's team will not be any better than this year's team. We've got some tough sledding ahead.
