BuzzFan24 said:

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Aggie Dad 26 said:

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I grade coaches on conference championships, national championships, and tournament wins. That would probably hold 80% of my grade

Buzz gets a C-

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So basically 97% of coaches have a poor grade for you. I'd hate to have you as a professor.

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Pay me in the top 20 for 6 years of coaching and you can grade me any way you want while I read my books

BuzzFan24 said:

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BQ_90 said:

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he beefed up the schedule one time. I bet next year it's back to cupcakes

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Let's hope so. No one wants to see us get smacked before conference.

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plus it pads his W/L record since many of you don't care about anything else but regular season record

BuzzFan24 said:

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Aggie Dad 26 said:

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I grade coaches on conference championships, national championships, and tournament wins. That would probably hold 80% of my grade

Buzz gets a C-

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So basically 97% of coaches have a poor grade for you. I'd hate to have you as a professor.

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Exactly ^^^

FYI... there are only six active Division I men's college basketball coaches who have guided their team to a national championship.

Is there REALLY a big difference in losing in the round of 32 vs. round of 16?

I'll go B. Would've said B+ with a sweet 16 or better this year.

rlb28 said:

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BuzzFan24 said:

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Aggie Dad 26 said:

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I grade coaches on conference championships, national championships, and tournament wins. That would probably hold 80% of my grade

Buzz gets a C-

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So basically 97% of coaches have a poor grade for you. I'd hate to have you as a professor.

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Exactly ^^^

FYI... there are only six active Division I men's college basketball coaches who have guided their team to a national championship.

Is there REALLY a big difference in losing in the round of 32 vs. round of 16?

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There's a big difference in winning a S16 vs losing in the round of 32.

It was good last year too and we already know we're in the Players Era Festival again and theoretically still have a game with Tech on the books and we definitely have the SEC/ACC challenge which will likely be a road game. After what happened in 2022 I don't see why you'd ever go back to playing a schedule that bad again, even if we play one not quite as good as this year's was.

It doesn't necessarily have to be a top 40 OOC like this year's was but playing one in the 200s or 300s is inexcusable.

Even if you smacked around it's better to get smacked around by good teams than it is to barely beat really bad ones (or potentially lose to them like we did in 21-22.)

rlb28 said:

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BuzzFan24 said:

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Aggie Dad 26 said:

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I grade coaches on conference championships, national championships, and tournament wins. That would probably hold 80% of my grade

Buzz gets a C-

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So basically 97% of coaches have a poor grade for you. I'd hate to have you as a professor.

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Exactly ^^^

FYI... there are only six active Division I men's college basketball coaches who have guided their team to a national championship.

Is there REALLY a big difference in losing in the round of 32 vs. round of 16?

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In a vacuum and single season, no. Not getting to the sweet 16 three years in a row though with a capable roster…yeah, massive difference

Would say it's a solid B+.

Did a great job building a core of players from 2022 on. The freshmen/transfers from that season laid the foundation for the last 4 seasons. Wade, Boots, Coleman, and Manny all played huge parts in bringing the program back to respectable levels.

He then did a fantastic job in the portal in 2023 with Andy, Dennis, and Marble (off court issues aside), and then this year with Phelps and Payne.

2026 will be very interesting as that core group that's been a staple of the program for the last 3-4 years is gone.

If we have a similar 20+ win season with a tournament birth next year I'll feel good about Buzz's ability to maintain the program going forward.

Unless he changes how our offense operates though I believe we have a ceiling. Would hope the entire roster turning over helps facilitate that change.

BQ_90 said:

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he beefed up the schedule one time. I bet next year it's back to cupcakes

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UNC just proved you can get into the tournament by playing a really good OOC schedule without winning any of the games. I'd be surprised if we went back to a poor OOC schedule and frankly it would be dumb of us. I think Buzz learned that lesson.

rlb28 said:

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Can you compare basketball to the old football bowl game model? Was the football season a failure if you went 9-2 and lost in the bowl game?

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Basketball = Football
Elite 8=BCS game
Make tournament = 2nd tier bowl game
NIT = Poulan weed-eater WGAF bowl game
Anything less = .500 or less record

B
Buzz has brought stability to the program after the Kennedy year's. IMO he was a high floor/low ceiling hire and he has mostly delivered. My baseline measure for success is consistently make the tournament (2/3 year).

I think most of us thought S16 was the goal this year, so falling short of that drives down the grade. Also going 1-2 against your rival was a missed opportunity on building fanbase with the casuals.

To state the obvious, next year is crucial. Can he rebuild the roster? Will he adopt a "prettier" offense that isn't reliant on offensive rebounds.

Right but we also were a 3 seed and we're the SEC regular season champs that year so even prior to the tournament that was one of our best seasons ever.

AggieDub04 said:

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rlb28 said:

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BuzzFan24 said:

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Aggie Dad 26 said:

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I grade coaches on conference championships, national championships, and tournament wins. That would probably hold 80% of my grade

Buzz gets a C-

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So basically 97% of coaches have a poor grade for you. I'd hate to have you as a professor.

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Exactly ^^^

FYI... there are only six active Division I men's college basketball coaches who have guided their team to a national championship.

Is there REALLY a big difference in losing in the round of 32 vs. round of 16?

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In the five years Buzz has been at A&M 45 different schools have made it to the sweet 16. In the 12 years before Buzz A&M made the sweet 16 3 times. Buzz is the #17 paid college basketball coach. Surely the expectation would be to make the sweet 16 once every 4-5 years right? If that's the case then we did not meet expectations and thus a C.

Professors also tend to grade on a curve. A&M came into the year with an extremely experienced team who missed the sweet 16 last year by a loss in OT to a #1 seed. By this metric A&M should still be playing and thus did not meet expectations.

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Yes, way too many people overlook that. We could and should have won that UH game, even though they were so almighty and fearsome. You lose boots, but gain Phelps, Wilcher and Payne…so a big net gain there. We did have a better OOC performance and a slightly better conference record, in a much tougher SEC. We also stayed ranked all season, so big improvement there. All of that is quickly forgotten as we didn't take a step forward in the tourney though.

In hindsight, the travesty of that Penn St loss 2 seasons ago after going 15-3 in conference play and making the SECT, only to be run out of the gym by a very average PSU team caps my grade at a B. It was just so bad.

Scotts Tot said:

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JJxvi said:

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The 2016 season is our best season since 2007 over this season. Quality wise we were very similar, but winning a championship, advancing a round further in the NCAA means it was a better year.

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I have a hard time judging the success of the 2016 season by the way that UNI game ended. That was 40 seconds of sheer chaos, resulting in one of the most improbable comebacks/collapses in the history of the tournament. It was a lot of fun, but the reality is we were soundly beaten by an entirely outmatched 11 seed until some really wild shenanigans went down.

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It's why judging an entire year on a crapshoot single elimination tournament is not a good way to run or evaluate a program. 2016 was objectively a very good season and one of our best ever. The end result was the same as 2018, which was a very frustrating and not very fun season outside of two games in March. If you only pay attention for two weeks a year, those seasons were the same, but if you're assessing the seasons as a whole, they really weren't close.

This year's team won't be remembered as fondly because of their shortcomings in the tournament, and that is fair. The season was a very good year overall though.

I'd probably give Buzz a B for his time here. We're back to being consistently good year over year, which I expected when he was hired. At the same time we have yet to hit the peaks I was hoping for. There are certainly some things he does that bug me, but the number of people who want him fired tells me he's raised the expectations of the program to a point we haven't seen in over a decade. We are about to learn a lot over the next year with the roster reset. This will be an interesting thread to revisit come next March.

bobinator said:

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Yeah it's strange because I've never even considered the possibility that he's going to be here truly long-term, but if he can somehow get next year's team even close to the tournament then I'll be convinced that he's set a really high floor here, which is definitely not nothing.

I think we're kind of dancing around a question here which is, at what point would Buzz have Rob Childress'd himself to where we think taking the next step is impossible and we just have to move on.

I think we'd have to be bounced in the first weekend for like... I dunno... 7 years in a row before I'd be like "okay, this isn't gonna happen, let's roll the dice."

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fair take. I personally bought into the retirement rumors and it seemed to line up given some of the awkward exchanges between him and media this season. Just seemed like it had kind of run its course and I didn't peg him for a guy at this point who wanted a 90% plus rebuild. I hope he stays now, out of curiosity alone.

I still think he needs to have us on the bubble or better next year, rebuild or not. I'd be fine with a first round exit, as long as we're dancing. I was shocked to hear Looch say we needed to see the 2nd weekend next season on the Monday show of TA Live. That's a real stretch IMO, unless some BMA just gets a wild hair and drops a bigger NIL bag to force the issue.

Which is basically what Barnes was from 2009-2022 other than the one S16 in 2019. He had prior skins on the wall, but wasn't really getting it done at a super high level anymore. Buzz would be similar, with prior but obviously fewer and less impressive skins on the wall, and no longer able to break through. Again, not comparing Buzz as a coach to Barnes, he's just a good example in my opinion.

I do think that is a scenario where I'd start getting really antsy, but that decision would hinge a lot on there being a clear person for the job with potentially high upside rather than say a gamble on a mid-major flavor of the month coach.

zgolfz85 said:

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fair take. I personally bought into the retirement rumors and it seemed to line up given some of the awkward exchanges between him and media this season. Just seemed like it had kind of run its course and I didn't peg him for a guy at this point who wanted a 90% plus rebuild. I hope he stays now, out of curiosity alone.

I still think he needs to have us on the bubble or better next year, rebuild or not. I'd be fine with a first round exit, as long as we're dancing. I was shocked to hear Looch say we needed to see the 2nd weekend next season on the Monday show of TA Live. That's a real stretch IMO, unless some BMA just gets a wild hair and drops a bigger NIL bag to force the issue.

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I still won't totally put the retirement rumors aside until we get into next season and he's the coach. I don't think he'd pull a Tony Bennet because of how important his relationships with his players are to him, but I also wouldn't put it past him as a move to have his assistants get a big paycheck for one more year.

This is definitely where I'm at where I'm going to be half expecting for something to happen until next season tips off.

bobinator said:

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This is definitely where I'm at where I'm going to be half expecting for something to happen until next season tips off.

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yep....and if he pulls that, he'll be so hated overnight. It's one thing to retire and pull the band-aid off cleanly...it's another to string it out and leave the program in limbo. Coach Bennett had a natty, so was hard for the UVA folks to be too annoyed with him.

Topher17 said:

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zgolfz85 said:

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fair take. I personally bought into the retirement rumors and it seemed to line up given some of the awkward exchanges between him and media this season. Just seemed like it had kind of run its course and I didn't peg him for a guy at this point who wanted a 90% plus rebuild. I hope he stays now, out of curiosity alone.

I still think he needs to have us on the bubble or better next year, rebuild or not. I'd be fine with a first round exit, as long as we're dancing. I was shocked to hear Looch say we needed to see the 2nd weekend next season on the Monday show of TA Live. That's a real stretch IMO, unless some BMA just gets a wild hair and drops a bigger NIL bag to force the issue.

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I still won't totally put the retirement rumors aside until we get into next season and he's the coach. I don't think he'd pull a Tony Bennet because of how important his relationships with his players are to him, but I also wouldn't put it past him as a move to have his assistants get a big paycheck for one more year.

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I could see it, but he's way too young to retire. He still has the fire for it.

Topher17 said:

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BQ_90 said:

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he beefed up the schedule one time. I bet next year it's back to cupcakes

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UNC just proved you can get into the tournament by playing a really good OOC schedule without winning any of the games. I'd be surprised if we went back to a poor OOC schedule and frankly it would be dumb of us. I think Buzz learned that lesson.

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Hilarious that it is the exact opposite in football.

I always argued that I'd rather make the tourney every year than go far in the tourney every couple of years. I guess we have to see who he reloads with. Overall, he's been very good over the last few years but I find the style of basketball to be very difficulty to watch. B

Method Man said:

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I always argued that I'd rather make the tourney every year than go far in the tourney every couple of years. I guess we have to see who he reloads with. Overall, he's been very good over the last few years but I find the style of basketball to be very difficulty to watch. B

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Yeah would make for an interesting poll. Make tourney every year or sweet 16 or better once every 3-4. Tough choice, but I'd probably lean every year (assuming you could somehow know end results beforehand)

The problem with that question is that "make the tourney every year" comes with the assumption that by virtue of your consistency and a little luck, youre gonna win in it sometimes. Its a very different proposition if its "make the tourney but never go far"

JJxvi said:

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The problem with that question is that "make the tourney every year" comes with the assumption that by virtue of your consistency and a little luck, youre gonna win in it sometimes. Its a very different proposition if its "make the tourney but never go far"

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But that is the question I think is interesting. Would you rather make the tourney every year and consistently get bounced out in round of 64 or 32, or make the sweet 16 or better every 3-4 years (but not as far as final 4)

Once we make a sweet 16, the cry will be final four or bust. "Can't win the big one". Seen this story too many times.

I would base my grading on performance versus compensation.
We are paying top tier compensation and getting substantively less than what we are paying for.
That applies to basketball, football and baseball.
Our university's leadership is dismal in the administration and the athletic department.

Pay well but not chasing with mega-dollars.
Then add huge performance bonuses.
Let's get what we pay for; I don't have a problem paying big bucks for big performance.
I have a serious issue paying big bucks and then having to pay stupid money to escape our own incompetence.
It's the antithesis of how logical compensation works.

Any coach that isn't up to that doesn't believe in himself to produce and that, by definition, is NOT your guy.


Maybe Buzz should read some basketball coaching books, especially the chapters on offense and time clock management.

BuzzFan24 said:

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Seen this story too many times.

No you haven't because there aren't but a very few examples of that story to be told in any fashion here.

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BuzzFan24 said:

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Once we make a sweet 16, the cry will be final four or bust. "Can't win the big one". Seen this story too many times.

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That's the dumbest thing I've read today

You've must've not ventured over to the transfer portal thread where guys are saying we should go after a 0-Star from a 17th placed Boston College team all while comparing the player who doesn't even break 10 ppg to the greats of Acie Law and Bernard King.

BuzzFan24 said:

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You've must've not ventured over to the transfer portal thread where guys are saying we should go after a 0-Star from a 17th placed Boston College team all while comparing the player who doesn't even break 10 ppg to the greats of Acie Law and Bernard King.

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The BC player would be a great addition. Haven't ventured to that thread, but if you'd done even basic research, you'd know he's a damn good player that we could benefit from immensely.

Did you say "I don't like this guys style of play" or "I don't think he's a good fit for the athleticism of the SEC."

No, you said you don't want a player from a last place ACC team, so people pointed out, using Acie Law and Antoine Wright as examples, that last place teams often have good players on them.