If OP can see the future why not use it for the greater good rather than worry about basketball?

Calipari, Beard, Pearl, Barnes, Oats, and Golden are all better coaches than Williams.

You could argue that Pope and Byington are also.

Unless we out talent ( which is highly unlikely) the first six coaches, we're always going to be mid level SEC with Buzz.

So I think it's pretty easy to make the case that this year, if not the apex, is very close to Buzz's ceiling.

Unless Buzz starts recruiting more pure scorers and develops a real offense we're always going to die an early, ugly death in the tournament if we manage to get there.

Offense wasn't why we lost Saturday. They scored 91 points. Same with Houston last year

Hopefully 3 years from now the starting 5 will be an upgrade over these guys. With the exception of Garcia I can believe them next guy up could be an upgrade

bobinator said:

---

It's wild, on one hand Wade is overrated, Manny sucks, Hefner should have been banned from basketball, Coleman has the hands of a premature newborn, Wilcher doesn't know what the word defense means, Phelps is a turnover machine and Garcia is a decent role player but also at the same time this is obviously and without question the best team we're ever going to have.

---

Well it's true because:

A) Those the only types of guys Buzz can recruit/get
B) He won't get another 4 years to develop another crop of those types of guys before he's fired.

So yes, this probably was the apex

bobinator said:

---

It's wild, on one hand Wade is overrated, Manny sucks, Hefner should have been banned from basketball, Coleman has the hands of a premature newborn, Wilcher doesn't know what the word defense means, Phelps is a turnover machine and Garcia is a decent role player but also at the same time this is obviously and without question the best team we're ever going to have.

---

Ok, let's do this...

*Wade- I would agree he has some rough games this year... I don't want to say overrated- because he is special..
*Manny- Does not suck. Used wrong by coaching staff (he's not a pg!)
*Coleman- A good player. Michigan was a horrible matchup for him. Confused how we used him in the Michigan game (would have liked to see him in the high post)
*Phelps- Good player- really struggled towards end.
*Garcia- Good player and tremendous heart on the floor.
*Hef- Is not a high level D1 caliber player imo. He should have been shipped off years ago or the very least moved to the end of the bench. That was a big blunder by Buzz.. And you could see - when the chips were down at the end- Buzz knew this too and he didn't get back in...
*Carter- Once he forgot how to shoot, same scenario as Hef, unless he could re-figure it out.
*Wilcher- Should have played more minutes all year to try to figure out the defensive scheme. Imo Buzz should have more often tried adjusting the defensive plan when he is out there (maybe we don't have to switch everything). The kid can shoot- we desperately needed that for spacing..
*Payne- Under-utilized most of the year. Hope he comes back!
*Washington- Hope he grows his offensive game this off-season. Felt like his role this year was appropriate.

all things considered; teams should be playing their best at the end of the season. We were not. You saw the decline. That is the end not a beginning. Just like our football team. No improvement, even if we are losing, you should see improvement as the season goes on.

• In 5 of our losses, we held double-digit second half leads - choking like that once or twice during the year is one thing...but FIVE TIMES??? Geez...
• You can't lose to Vanderbilt at home. You just can't.
• While Carter and Heffner may be two of the nicest, kindest guys you'll ever meet, they were getting way too many minutes for the team to be successful. If those guys were indeed our best options, then either our roster wasn't great or our Buzz committed coaching malpractice.
• You can't lose 2 of 3 to Texas in a year they should not have made the tournament and their coach got fired. You just can't.
• And don't get me started on the UCF loss. I don't care that we weren't at full strength, UCF was a bad team this year. Championship caliber teams don't lose games like that...especially when they have one of those aforementioned big second half leads.

Excellent analysis. Sad but all too true.

I appreciate the truth.

Yeah what I was getting at is of this group really only Wade seems exceedingly hard to replace, and even he had his limits as a player because of his size and athleticism.

I don't think we can replace Wade with one player, but I don't think it's absurd to think that we could bring in five players that, together, are better than Taylor, Phelps, Obaseki, Carter, Wilcher and Hefner.

We also have absolutely no idea how good any of the guys on the bench are or could be next year. We don't know if they were light years behind the rotation guys or just slightly behind them.

As I've stated many times I was all for this hire, but I'm ready for it to be over, If he stays most likely he will have a yr 7 BK year. We pay this guy top dollar and he isn't delivering for what he's paid.
Iowa just got a homerun hire in McCollum. I pleaded for McCasland he's a great one, Why not go ask some of the best coaches and see if they'll want in the best conf and school. Before BCG basketball sucked he made it fun again and I'm sorry his teams were the most exciting and most fun to watch,
That 2006 loss still hurts as much as Aggie loss in any sport.

Never let facts get in the way of a good crisis

I don't think it's the apex at all. We will likely regress some next year but that's alright. It's expected. We built a great defense and were excellent on the offensive glass. Buzz can do that again. And I agree with Bobinator. We can put together a team that's more talented than this one was, especially on the offensive side of the ball. Buzz's system definitely seems like more of a slow cooker than a microwave.

Yeah, I think the biggest myth on this board is where we've actually been at in recruiting.

Question why isnt our NIL good?
Is it because bmas dont care about basketball?

I don't think it's as bad as people like to pretend like it is in the first place.

gambochaman said:

---

Question why isnt our NIL good?
Is it because bmas dont care about basketball?

---

Found this from Aug. 11, 2024... https://www.si.com/fannation/name-image-likeness/nil-news/texas-a-m-aggies-announce-eye-popping-nil-earnings-for-athletes

Quote:

---

Wade Taylor, a senior on the men's basketball team, is the only player among the six with a known valuation that isn't on the football team. He is earning $543,000, which is the third highest at the school.

---

Also... https://myaggienation.com/article_9d0e2f86-8441-5283-83be-7ec30f4e09f1.html

Quote:

---

The Aggies are one of eight teams that will be a part of the first Players Era Festival held at the MGM Grand Garden Arena. Each participating team will receive a minimum of $1 million in name, image and likeness money and will compete for up to an additional $9 million for engaging in activities away from the court.

---

PatAg said:

---

Luke The Drifter said:

---

I think people believe it was the apex because it is unlikely we will ever be able to put together a better roster than we had this season. There are lots of reasons for believe that ... we don't have the NIL dollars the other schools have, we're not a traditional basketball power, our fan base (as a whole) cares nothing about basketball, we will always be a football-first school (no matter how mediocre we continue to be), we care more about baseball ... and so on.

I don't know if this will end up being Buzz's best season at A&M or not. But there are indeed a lot of reasons fans believe it was "this year or bust" for Buzz...and it may turn out those reasons are not wrong. Time will tell.

---

do we actually care more about baseball, or do you?
I dont care at all about baseball, same as most people. Dont think attendance backs you up either

---

I say we care more about baseball because of the commitment we've made to improving facilities in 2012 and again with the $70MM we're about to invest over the next few years. I don't see A&M making that type of commitment for basketball.

Basketball attendance this season was 161,521 in total for our 16 home games...10,095 average

2024 baseball attendance was 257,258 in total over 40 home games...6,431 average

I guess you can spin the statistics however you want, but in our best ever baseball season, nearly 100,000 more people came to baseball games compared to one of our best basketball seasons ever.

Problem is that the administration doesn't care about basketball. Neither do major donors, which is why our NIL is in the sphere that it is in.

Ergo, you get a coach like buzz. Recruits average to good players; may get a diamond in the rough every now and then. Makes the tournament most of the years they are here, but do not have the talent or seemingly the coaching ability to get past the second round.

When is somebody like Billy Gillespie, who gets the most out of their players.

You're ignoring the fact that baseball had double the games. Of course overall attendance was higher.

I clearly listed the per-game average.

At some point, Buzz has to decide if he is serious about winning it all or doing it his way. We went through this with Jimbo. Buzz needs an all out lethal scorer whether that kid plays great defense or not. He needs to figure out a more creative offense or get 2-3 guys that can shoot 40% from 3pt.

bobinator said:

---

Quote:

---

When is somebody like Billy Gillespie, who gets the most out of their players.

---

Yeah he absolutely killed it with the good players at Kentucky and Texas Tech.

---

Gillispie was absolutely the savior of Aggie basketball, but his total career isn't amazing. 0.554 in 13 seasons, 4 NCAA tournament appearances, one S16

If Kevin Sumlin was made by JFF and Mike Evans, one might wonder about Gillispie with Acie and Joseph Jones

bobinator said:

---

Quote:

---

Unless we out talent ( which is highly unlikely) the first six coaches, we're always going to be mid level SEC with Buzz.

---

Literally two years ago we finished 15-3, in second place in the league, three games ahead of the team in third and only one game behind the team that won it.

---

How did that team finish? I get they went 15-3 but that's not really the measure.

jja79 said:

---

bobinator said:

---

Quote:

---

Unless we out talent ( which is highly unlikely) the first six coaches, we're always going to be mid level SEC with Buzz.

---

Literally two years ago we finished 15-3, in second place in the league, three games ahead of the team in third and only one game behind the team that won it.

---

How did that team finish? I get they went 15-3 but that's not really the measure.

---

A contribution to that year's finish was being seeded 7 due to some really bad pre-conference losses vs. Colorado, Wofford and Murray St. It was oddly enough one of the only Buzz years that didn't have a massive February conference losing streak.

No doubt that should have been a Sweet Sixteen run based on how the team was clicking. It's like a weird thing that Buzz's teams can't put together a complete season. There are periods of gross inconsistency.

bobinator said:

---

Yeah, I think the biggest myth on this board is where we've actually been at in recruiting.

---

Funny, I think the biggest myth is everyone here believes they know the answer and could make it happen if they were the coach. It is so easy and Buzz is just that bad that he doesn't see or execute. Sure, be concerned because you don't have all the answers for next year, but that doesn't mean we have hit our apex.

I'd suggest part of BCG 's winning % was because he took control of programs that were in the dumpster and he took it on the chin for a yr at multiple stops. Kentucky was a whole different beast tho… he was a misfit for them from jump street culturally.

I mean it was the measure for that point. If you want to change what we're measuring and only care about postseason results or seeds, that's a different conversation. But to say "we're always going to be mid-level SEC with Buzz" is just objectively false.

Buzz is kind of the diametric opposite of Jimbo in terms of recruiting philosophy tho.

Jmo, Buzz needs something of a reset on offensive theory . I don't think it's so much the players as it is the lack of ball movement leads to too many highly contested shots. Is some of that a product of the guys on the roster … maybe? … that's about all I can say. It's great that we lead the nation in offensive boards but you'd probably prefer a few less boards and a higher fg%. Likewise I wonder if this is part of the reason Buzz teams historically get a lot of shots blocked . Is it personnel or is it the nature of the shots they take? Probably some of each.

The blocked shots thing I'm fairly certain of the answer. The data probably shows that the offensive team gets the ball back a significant majority of the time on blocks. I don't know how you'd pull this data to know for sure but it makes logical sense considering how many blocks go directly out of bounds. The offensive team is basically going to get all of those back and if we assume the rest are about 50/50 that's a pretty big majority and 50/50 is probably being conservative.

But if you don't shoot it, and try to pass it from down there or dribble through the lane or something you're way more likely to turn it over.

So I'm all but certain that our guys are taught that when they get the ball down there, don't try to pass it or dribble it back out, just put a shot up. Even if that shot gets blocked, we're going to get the ball back again.

Maybe true but that extra pass vs getting a shot blocked sometimes gets you a cleaner shot. Apparently not often enough in Buzz's analysis. I'd think an extra pass when it's there gets you better looks vs the randomness of recovering the block and taking a shot .

On a normal team maybe but this team sucks at passing anyway. But I'm also only talking about being down low around the basket. Not in the midrange or somewhere where there's more space.

Fair enough. I guess what I'm suggesting is that the team this yr (except Garcia) and last yr are indicators of something missing in the general offensive approach that needs to be addressed . I suggest that better passing and more assists will lead to better fg%.