So, it appears Hernandez is gone. Yikes, that makes how many point guards that have bailed in the Woj era? Is that 4? James, Hill, Jackson and Hernandez? Yes, there is turnover everywhere, but not like this. You dont lose your future PG a few games into the season, recruit a HS kid to replace him and a JUCO to come start in his place and have BOTH his replacements leave at the end of the first semester. That is NOT normal. Most defections are in the off season. I dont care if you bleed blue and gold, this has to concern you. Forget just the guards, between 11th hour recruiting misses and kids flat out leaving we are up to what, 10 kids that have bailed in 3.5 years? That is no way to rebuild.
Speaking of rebuilding... TU is a guard school, it always has been and for us to be successful, it needs to stay that way. There are tons of great guards out there, especially the 2-3 position. Outside Uzoh, our guards are not good. I am sure they are terrific kids but these guys are, at this point, back-ups on JP's teams. I saw a post from II talking about how much better we would be if we had Chris Wallace and Kyle Blankenship. Maybe, Wallace had no left hand and Blankenship wasnt very athletic but it is hard to argue, they could feed the post and they actually RAN offense. PROVE ME WRONG FELLAS! We all want these guys to be good, we are CHEERING for them but right now they are square pegs (great show from the 80s) to our round holes.
We need to focus on guards in our recruiting. I mean, if you cant take care of the ball, you cant get your big men shots. How can a big man get an easy shot if there is nobody to feed it to him?
I dont think Woj is a bad recruiter but he has a lot to learn about the kind of kids he needs to get to have success at Tulsa (sorry CBI is not the kind of success we thrive on in these parts). Seals, Parker, Collier, Pooh Williamson, Steve Harris, Heard, Coley, Swanson, Reed, Harrington, Rod Thompson, etc. are the guys who have paved the road for our most recent success and those guys are still out there for the taking. Sprinkle in a Kurtz, Ruffin or a KJ and wham, you got a sweet 16 team. Idlet, Jordan and Uzoh are all solid players but that's it, the other guys just arent close. Woj has to be very careful, a couple recruiting slip ups can snowball. For JP, it was passing on Caleb Green when Pooh convinced him he wasnt athletic enough to play at the D1 level, it spiraled out of control from there. A couple busted JUCOs, some transfers and a tough schedule spelled the end pretty quick.
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"Speaking of rebuilding... TU is a guard school, it always has been and for us to be successful, it needs to stay that way."
ReplyDeleteI agree that recruiting at the guard position needs to improve, but this idea that there's only way for Tulsa to win because that's how we've won in the past is just goofy. Just like there's no blueprint that works every time for hiring a new coach, there's more than one way to win at Tulsa. If we had a decent set of ball-handling and shooting guards to go with Jordan, Uzoh, and Idlet then we could win just as easily. There are a number of problems with the program and its leadership right now, but style of play and the longing for undersized big men and 5'9" guards is just misplaced nostalgia at this point.
I see your point and they should not be mutually exclusive but we only know what has worked and TU's success has been almost exclusively attributed to great guard play. Look at Davidson, Gonzaga, etc. they have been successful almost exclusively on great guard play. When Gonzaga HAS landed a top big man to go with their great guard play they have gone from a top 25 team to a top 10 team. Bottom line, big men cannot be successful without competent guards around them, the reverse, is not true, see Maldonado, Rollo, etc.
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