GigEm81 said:

---

There will never be an era like the BCG era because no A&M coach will ever inherit a team with that awful legacy.

But, we should all enjoy the 1st year of BuckyBall!

---

Being winless in conference play and the bad drinking games we played listening to the games on the radio are memories none of the current students will thankfully have.

I mean we lost 17 games in a row. 17!

We didn't beat a single power 4 team all year and lost to UofH, Oakland, and A&M Corpus Christi in a 5 game stretch. Unimaginable right now.

Southlake said:

---

Couldn't keep Turg either.

Time to throw some money at this young aggressive coach. Definitely has the chops.

---

that was a completely different era for our AD, we where in the Big XII and money was an issue, esp since we would have had to pay more than what we currently was paying our football coach.

salary won't be an issue, apparently Trev had enough support to offer Beard 9 million or something like that.

My favorite Aggie basketball video ever…all from the BCG era:

sincereag said:

---

It was a crushing blow when we lost Gillispie to Kentucky. I remember the total feelings of despair when he bolted to Lexington.

---

I created my Texags account due to this. Was a huge deal in A&M athletics at the time.

sincereag said:

---

It was a crushing blow when we lost Gillispie to Kentucky. I remember the total feelings of despair when he bolted to Lexington.

---

I work remotely and watched the press conference in Lexington and Gillespie walked out wearing a Kentucky blue tie. "F*#% that guy!" I all I felt and said.

Melvin Watkins did the insanely hard feat of winning zero conference games, but was also the best dressed coach in the Big-12. BCG came in and make basketball fun!

GigEm81 said:

---

There will never be an era like the BCG era because no A&M coach will ever inherit a team with that awful legacy.

But, we should all enjoy the 1st year of BuckyBall!

---

You are wrong, because Bucky inherited absolutely nothing but one previous walk-on player, a last minute hiring and a closing portal window. He has been fantastic.

GigEm81 said:

---

There will never be an era like the BCG era because no A&M coach will ever inherit a team with that awful legacy.

But, we should all enjoy the 1st year of BuckyBall!

---

This. Going to the NIT felt like we were in the NCAA Tournament when he got us there. Every win was exciting. Then we got expectations, and Turgeon cried anytime our fanbase felt let down by a loss haha

GigEm81 said:

---

There will never be an era like the BCG era because no A&M coach will ever inherit a team with that awful legacy.

But, we should all enjoy the 1st year of BuckyBall!

---

I dunno. Bucky inherited a roster of 1 and has done some pretty good things with it so far. A&M was basically left for dead when our entire roster left/graduated and our coached bolted.

Different era, I know. BCG couldn't just portal a team together the way Bucky could. Still, for the eras they coached in, both did/have done impressive things in a short time. I don't even dislike Turgeon. Sure, he complained and left for Maryland, but he had us in the tournament every year he was here and won a game all but like 1 year.

EDIT: Didn't see the posts on page 2 that already addressed this. Apologies!

halfastros81 said:

---

If our leadership is any good ….and remember they are the ones who hired Bucky , then they are working on what it's going to take to make it very difficult for him to leave . Hopefully they understand it's more than just financial compensation .

---

Bucky seems to like taking over programs where football is everything/basketball is an afterthought, making basketball a fun-to-watch alternative, and getting players to come play due to fan support and excitement. It's what he did at Mountain Brook and Samford. So far, I think he's doing it here.

I don't know that he'd leave for a basketball blue blood, but who knows?

the results are encouraging, but im content just watching a product that is entertaining. That last guy just sucked all the joy out of watching the game.

Football is/was everything at Samford? I dunno about that one. Can't speak to Mountain Brook. I think Samford hired him because he was well known and liked and very successful at Mountain Brook and he didn't even have to move houses . Had nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Alabama fits your description tho and that concerns me given he is a crimson tide fan , both parents Bama grads, and he has lived his whole life up until this year in Northern Alabama. I don't think Bama would fire Oats but he might leave on his own .

Well that explains the obvious disdain he had for Auburn. I knew there was something brewing umderneqth over and above frustration at the refs.

Sad to hear it only because in general, Bama is the "t.u." of Alabama and Auburn the A&M, and i'm nit talking sports-wise.

There are practically no young Ags on Texags.com. Maybe a handful.

Pretty much everyone on the website would have been students during the Melvin Watkins tenure, or earlier coaches.

I was a Melvin -> BCG -> Turge student (took a couple victory laps.)

There's definitely some a little younger than me on here but not much past that.

Sorry for getting off the subject. Your comment about most TexAgs posters being older caused me to reflect back on watching basketball at G. Rollie. The brawl involving Billy Bob Barnett at the 1969 Baylor game came to mind. I see this was discussed in a 2023 TexAgs thread. The game's date was wrong in the thread's title but Law Hall 69-72 eventually got the story right. I suppose the connection to our thread here is that was also an exciting time for Aggie basketball (at least to me). I can vividly remember lying in my dorm bed reliving game moments in my mind as I went to sleep.
https://texags.com/forums/7/topics/1106166/2

I've been an A&M hoops fan since 7th grade in Ms Metcalf's class and she asked Rudy Woods to visit. Generally, it's been a tough row. Billy's first two years and this one absolutely stand out. Billy's for the reasons given and this year for the offense. It's just so remarkable to me. I just can't get over an Aggie team that shoots this well.

bobinator said:

---

He's saying that nobody will ever again inherit the idea that A&M could never be good at basketball (in the modern era anyway.)

What BCG did here can never be matched because now everyone at least knows it's possible.

---

The first final four team A&M puts together is going to get a short documentary from our athletic program. The doc better start with BCG.

bobinator said:

---

I was a Melvin -> BCG -> Turge student (took a couple victory laps.)

There's definitely some a little younger than me on here but not much past that.

---

I am an almost exact contemporary with bobinator, and there are a few others like PatAg that were students at the same time.

I will say that I have positive nostalgia for the BCG years for what he showed was possible here. And also because Acie is probably my favorite Aggie player ever.

But, in retrospect we dodged a huge bullet when he bailed on us. If we would have gone down with the BCG ship, (drinking issues and poor treatment of those around him) who knows how long it would have been before we could get another decent coach to Aggieland. Turgeon was a bit of a whiny guy but he was a solid coach and he continued the legacy of putting us in the tournament.

I dunno, that team was going to be really good in 2008. It ended up being pretty good anyway but took them a while to come together under Turgeon so they were seeded lower than how good they ultimately were and had to catch UCLA in the second round.

Say BCG makes back to back sweet 16s before flaming out, that's going to be an attractive job. Fun to live in an alternate reality where we're making a hire in 2008, 2009, or 2010 instead of 2007.

If it's 2008 I wonder if we try to convince Buzz to come here before he takes the Marquette job after Crean leaves for Indiana.

In 2009 do we try to hire Josh Pastner instead of him going to Memphis after Calipari leaves for Kentucky?

It's also like the third time where we might have dodged a bullet by a last second coaching decision. BCG was supposedly very close to staying, we almost hired Gregg Marshall instead of Billy Kennedy, and we'll see on how Chris Beard works out.

i think pre SEC we didn't have the funds to complete on salary with anyone. I know people hate on Byrne, but we where not going to pay a MBB coach anything close to what our football coach was making.

Also it didn't' help that Fran and Sherm didn't win. Also old Kyle Field was not a rev generator like it was now.

If we really want to keep Bucky, we need Elko to keep making the playoffs. If our donors are happy with football, that will open the wallets for everything else.

Well yeah that's why I was looking at coaches who ultimately took mid-major jobs.

We probably don't get Buzz because he was an assistant at Marquette anyway, but gotta think we'd have tried and see what it would cost.

Pastner was an assistant at Memphis so he probably takes that job too, but since he grew up around Houston it would make sense at the time.

Right though in that the Byrne mold was definitely sitting head coaches. Should probably be looking at who the coaches are that lower level schools hired.

or just think we could have a Avery Johnson or Jeff Van Gundy era

I think we all thought the 2008 team would be great, but it was also a very inexperienced group. BCGs rotations didn't leave much time to develop the next generation. Sloan, Roland, Davis and Jordan (incoming freshman) sounded good on paper heading into their sophomore years as 4 star recruits to put around Jones, Carter and Kirk, but each of those guys had to find their role and comfort zones with Acie gone. I'm no lover of Turgeon, but I think the 08 team would have struggled with consistency under BCG as well.

Sloan averaged 5 ppg in 17 minutes as a freshman
Davis averaged 2 ppg in 5 minutes as a freshman
Roland averaged 1 ppg in 5 minutes as a freshman


And as we found out, DeAndre was super raw lacking the ability to do much more than rebound and dunk.

But who knows, all in the realm of the imaginary at this point.

I don't think they'd be way better but still think they'd be a little ahead of the Turgeon team. And it's not like we'd have needed to be that much better to get off the 8/9 line

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't we win the pre-season NIT Turgeon's first year?

When BCG left I couldn't help but feel bad for all the 18-20 yr old single moms he left behind will illegitimate little baby billys.

The team started out looking great (highest ranking was 9th during the season shortly after winning the preseason NIT) and then endured long stretches of mediocrity during conference play finishing 8-8.

I'll agree with bobinator that even breaking in the new guys being on the 5 or 6 line would have felt more appropriate. My argument was just that the 08 team was definitely a step back from the 07 team no matter who was coaching and it seems like we're in agreement on that as well.

Maximus_Meridius said:

---

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't we win the pre-season NIT Turgeon's first year?

---

yes, we won that, beat the sips and fired Fran on the same night.

It was maybe the greatest day in Aggie sports history

Yeah I don't think the '08 team gets a 3 seed or anything, but they win enough games to not draw a 1 seed and maybe not a 2 seed in the second round.

And we did win the preseason NIT but it turned out that neither Washington nor Ohio State were really any good.

Probably could also argue that modern seeding would have had that team much higher also. Retrospective KenPom of 21 and Torvik of 19 but we were a 9 seed.