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Topic: Groce Ball 65 Saul Ball 53

Topic: Groce Ball 65 Saul Ball 53

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FearLeon
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Member Since: 3/12/2005
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Groce Ball 65 Saul Ball 53

Posted: 2/2/2019 5:28:03 PM

Actual things I've read about John Groce through the years on this site.

"John Groce is overrated."
"John Groce owes his career to Armon Bassett."
"John Groce just got lucky in March...that's all."
"John Groce got a great draw facing Michigan and South Florida in the NCAA Tournament."
"I'd rather have a coach that wins regular season MAC Championships than a coach who hung a Sweet 16 banner."
"The bottom line is he is a coach who, in 10 completed conference seasons as a head coach has won double digit conference games ONE TIME, finished above .500 just two times, and never finished better than .500 in the Big Ten. That's a whole lot of losses, a whole lot of inconsistency, a whole lot of mediocrity."

However, I do remember a few on here who supported what I've always said about Groce. This quote stuck out from Buck.Cat

"People still do not realize how good we had it with Groce."

Thanks Buck...we were reminded of just that on a day when we celebrated 50 years of basketball at The Convo.

February 2, 2019
-----------------

Year 2 of Groce Akron Era 65
Year 5 of Saul Ohio Era 53
(And if you watched the game...you know Akron could have won this by 30 if it wanted too)

I guess it's only fitting that on the most anticipated day of the home hoops schedule this season that Groce drops the hammer on Saul. Dear lord almighty I have never, ever been more embarrassed to be an Ohio Bobcats basketball fan. That was atrocious today. March 17th can't get here soon enough.

Last Edited: 2/2/2019 5:53:38 PM by FearLeon

#BleedGreen #TrentIsGOAT

Bobcat1998
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RE: Groce Ball 65 Saul Ball 53

Posted: 2/2/2019 6:03:40 PM

FearLeon wrote:

And JC has been rumored to be out at BC, after destroying what JG left for him at OU. What would you think of this: bring Groce back to Athens?!!!!

SBH
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RE: Groce Ball 65 Saul Ball 53

Posted: 2/2/2019 6:16:08 PM

Akron is mediocre at best. Hadn't won on the road until today. So let's hold off on the crowning of JC as the next John Wooden.

Every MAC team, including WMU, would have spanked us today.

Mark Lembright '85
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Location: Highland Heights, OH
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RE: Groce Ball 65 Saul Ball 53

Posted: 2/2/2019 6:26:55 PM

SBH wrote:

Akron is mediocre at best. Hadn't won on the road until today. So let's hold off on the crowning of JC as the next John Wooden.

Every MAC team, including WMU, would have spanked us today.

One team�s won 4 of their last 5 games and is starting to turn it up as the MAC Tourney draws near.
The other team�s lost 2 in a row and 4 of their last 6 games. If history holds true to form, I�d rather be the team that just won their last 4th out of 5 games.

Jerry86
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RE: Groce Ball 65 Saul Ball 53

Posted: 2/2/2019 6:38:48 PM

Bobcat1998 wrote:

FearLeon wrote:

And JC has been rumored to be out at BC, after destroying what JG left for him at OU. What would you think of this: bring Groce back to Athens?!!!!

Hahahaha. Christian "destroyed" what Groce left? Christian won 74% of MAC games here; Groce 53%. We all acknowledge Groce had one good year here. Heck, after 3 years in Athens he was 23- 25 in MAC games (7-9, 7-9, 9-7). His 4 years here were 6th, 5th, 3rd and 3rd in conference play; Christian was 1st and 3rd. Christian followed Groce's 9-7 year with 14-2. That is destroying things? And you want to bring him back? Based on what? His 36% winning percentage in MAC games at Akron? Would he bring thugs who get into fights also?

Last Edited: 2/2/2019 6:39:39 PM by Jerry86

SBH
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RE: Groce Ball 65 Saul Ball 53

Posted: 2/2/2019 6:42:46 PM

Wait, are you allowed to call a 21-year-old kid a thug?

Mark Lembright '85
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Location: Highland Heights, OH
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RE: Groce Ball 65 Saul Ball 53

Posted: 2/2/2019 6:45:20 PM

Interesting. In the football threads, it�s all about winning the MACC. And this in a sport where it is literally impossible for Ohio to win a national championship.

Yet, in hoops for whatever reason we care what Ohio�s record is in the regular season and downgrade what happens in the MAC Tourney. In a sport where Ohio actually can win a national championship, we denigrate a coach who took us within 2 games of the Final 4 and a legit shot at winning it all. If Solich did that in football the guy would have a statue built on the College Green by now.

Last Edited: 2/4/2019 3:33:56 PM by Mark Lembright '85

FearLeon
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RE: Groce Ball 65 Saul Ball 53

Posted: 2/2/2019 6:51:40 PM

Mark Lembright '85 wrote:

All of this ^^^^^^^ I'll never understand it either Mark.

#BleedGreen #TrentIsGOAT

FearLeon
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RE: Groce Ball 65 Saul Ball 53

Posted: 2/2/2019 6:54:35 PM

Jerry86 wrote:

Bobcat1998 wrote:

FearLeon wrote:

And JC has been rumored to be out at BC, after destroying what JG left for him at OU. What would you think of this: bring Groce back to Athens?!!!!

Wait a minute Jerry....we aren't allowed to discuss an Ohio player shooting 27% from the field in nine MAC games. A player that his own coach referenced in a post-game interview following a terrible team performance, but you just called some 19-21 year old Akron players...thugs. Alrighty then.

Last Edited: 2/2/2019 6:54:59 PM by FearLeon

#BleedGreen #TrentIsGOAT

GraffZ06
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Location: Dayton, OH
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RE: Groce Ball 65 Saul Ball 53

Posted: 2/2/2019 7:08:11 PM

Jerry86 wrote:

$5 and winning 74% of your MAC regular season games gets you a Starbucks cafe-mocha-halfa-cowalatachino. Repeat after me - nobody cares about the regular season. Regular season champs might as well get a participation ribbon.

MAC Tourney gets you into the NCAA. You know - the one big tournament that everybody in America actually watches and cares about. The one where you make your conference $$ and get tremendous exposure via nationwide TV views. The one where you actually have a shot to keep winning and become national champions. THAT matters.

This season stinks, again. But all that goes away if we pull off a miracle in Cleveland. Why? Because that's the only thing that matters. But boy - this team sure isn't playing well. Isn't a lot of fun to watch/follow and by any type of measure - statistical, eyeball or otherwise - doesn't seem to show signs of having any type of shot come Cleveland. In fact, they very distinctly might not even make it there.

Buckeye to Bobcat
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RE: Groce Ball 65 Saul Ball 53

Posted: 2/2/2019 7:17:43 PM

Jerry86 wrote:

Bobcat1998 wrote:

FearLeon wrote:

And JC has been rumored to be out at BC, after destroying what JG left for him at OU. What would you think of this: bring Groce back to Athens?!!!!

Not apologizing for Saul. As I have said many times on here, JC had a mutiny happening and you better believe that Maurice N'Dour would have been an Iowa State Cyclone had he stayed for year 3. Christian did destroy anything of a house built at OU. The only good recruits he brought in in two years were Campbell, Mo, and Setty. He had his shares of duds and you better believe Bean had an arrest warrant against his rear end too like his buddy Wingfield. Funny how we forget that era that happened.

Nonetheless, not looking good for the current staff though.

Buck.Cat
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RE: Groce Ball 65 Saul Ball 53

Posted: 2/2/2019 11:34:07 PM

FearLeon wrote:

However, I do remember a few on here who supported what I've always said about Groce. This quote stuck out from Buck.Cat

"People still do not realize how good we had it with Groce."

Thanks Buck...we were reminded of just that on a day when we celebrated 50 years of basketball at The Convo.

::takes a bow::

Jerry86 wrote:

Would he bring thugs who get into fights also?

I wish we would finally get to the point where people would use the actual word that they intend instead of hiding behind the t-word.

Bobcat Love's Sense of Shame
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RE: Groce Ball 65 Saul Ball 53

Posted: 2/3/2019 7:37:09 AM

Buckeye to Bobcat wrote:

Jerry86 wrote:

Bobcat1998 wrote:

FearLeon wrote:

And JC has been rumored to be out at BC, after destroying what JG left for him at OU. What would you think of this: bring Groce back to Athens?!!!!

In two years JC only managed to find our only player to get a cup of coffee in the NBA in 15 years and a MAC player of the year.

That seems good to me.

Buckeye to Bobcat
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RE: Groce Ball 65 Saul Ball 53

Posted: 2/3/2019 9:45:15 AM

Bobcat Love's Sense of Shame wrote:

Buckeye to Bobcat wrote:

Jerry86 wrote:

Bobcat1998 wrote:

FearLeon wrote:

And JC has been rumored to be out at BC, after destroying what JG left for him at OU. What would you think of this: bring Groce back to Athens?!!!!

In two years JC only managed to find our only player to get a cup of coffee in the NBA in 15 years and a MAC player of the year.

That seems good to me.

Glad the ends justify the means.....

BillyTheCat
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RE: Groce Ball 65 Saul Ball 53

Posted: 2/3/2019 7:07:53 PM

SBH wrote:

Wait, are you allowed to call a 21-year-old kid a thug?

GMan is about to tell you his life history and how he doesn�t need a college degree, and oh, don�t be critical.

100%Cat
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RE: Groce Ball 65 Saul Ball 53

Posted: 2/4/2019 8:39:40 AM

Congratulations to John Woode...I mean Groce on his first MAC road win of the year and second in the last two years...

Buckeye to Bobcat
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RE: Groce Ball 65 Saul Ball 53

Posted: 2/4/2019 8:48:27 AM

Bobcat Love's Sense of Shame wrote:

Buckeye to Bobcat wrote:

Jerry86 wrote:

Bobcat1998 wrote:

FearLeon wrote:

And JC has been rumored to be out at BC, after destroying what JG left for him at OU. What would you think of this: bring Groce back to Athens?!!!!

In two years JC only managed to find our only player to get a cup of coffee in the NBA in 15 years and a MAC player of the year.

That seems good to me.

Then by this logic I guess that is going to make Cooper at Fiami a successful coach when it's all said and done because he brought in Weathers who will be in the NBA, or for that matter Dan Dakich a great coach because he had Keith McCloud.....the building blocks that Christian left were made of quick sand and had no foundation for the next coach.

Bobcat Love's Sense of Shame
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RE: Groce Ball 65 Saul Ball 53

Posted: 2/4/2019 10:16:36 AM

Buckeye to Bobcat wrote:

Bobcat Love's Sense of Shame wrote:

Buckeye to Bobcat wrote:

Jerry86 wrote:

Bobcat1998 wrote:

FearLeon wrote:

And JC has been rumored to be out at BC, after destroying what JG left for him at OU. What would you think of this: bring Groce back to Athens?!!!!

In two years JC only managed to find our only player to get a cup of coffee in the NBA in 15 years and a MAC player of the year.

That seems good to me.

Huh?

Nothing you said logically follows what I said. Which is true of 80% of your posts here. You have a strong opinion you want to shout about repeatedly, and you assume everybody else is addressing the single point you make ad nauseam, when in actuality, the people around you are trying to have a nuanced conversation about many different things at once.

I know this is super complicated, but it's possible to say positive things about players that Jim Christian recruited without it defining Jim Christian's tenure here. Maurice N'Dour and Tony Campbell were very good players. I don't think we can really attack Christian's recruiting given those successes in such a short period of time.

Does that make Christian's tenure here a success? Nope. Does it mean other critiques of him are warrantless? Nope. Does it have anything at all to do with Dan Dakich? Not even a little bit.

On the other hand, are you completely incapable of rational discussion when it comes to OU coaches who succeeded John Groce? Yep.

catfan28
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RE: Groce Ball 65 Saul Ball 53

Posted: 2/4/2019 11:42:12 AM

Bobcat Love's Sense of Shame wrote:

Landing a couple good players (Ndour, Campbell) doesn't make you a good recruiter. A good recruiter is able to bring in athletes that comprise a TEAM that will play well together and win games. I could care less about the individual talent of 1-2 guys. Was Jim Christian successful in building such a team? Not even close. Things were crumbling as he left. And he was only here 2 years!

By any objective measure, both of Schaus' hires after Groce have been failures. They may have been good hires "on paper", but Schaus gets paid the big bucks to make hires that will work - not just those that look good to folks like us. IMO, he ignored the most important thing with any hire: fit.

He clearly misread Christian's intentions. Rather than "coming home" to the MAC, he was looking to escape a bad spot at TCU (as they moved up to the Big 12) and use our existing talent to parlay into a big-money P5 job. Kudos to JC for making it work.

As for Saul, Schaus picked him because of one win in the NCAA Tournament. If NDSU doesn't upset Oklahoma, no way Saul is lured in our direction. Saul inherited a solid program at NDSU, and was able to keep things going at a high level. I think Saul is more of a "maintainer" than a "builder". And, while many on the outside didn't see it, our program needed a "build" after the JC departure and the tinder box of personalities he left behind.

Schaus overplayed his hand twice. Once Groce left, he wanted a "splash" hire of a guy with tons of HC experience who had won in the MAC. He got it, but didn't think about the long-term consequences. Going to the other end of the spectrum, Saul's hire was made primarily with longevity in mind. He wanted someone who would stay a while and didn't have the "itch" to jump to the next job. Mission accomplished - but he got a rather average coach who is better left to maintain, not build.

Where do we go from here? Who knows. I expect Schaus will go back to more of the Christian mold - hiring a proven winner, maybe a guy fired or on the downside from a bigger program. The issue this time around will be the lack of support from Cutler Hall, and relatively lack of funding too.

Andrew Ruck
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RE: Groce Ball 65 Saul Ball 53

Posted: 2/4/2019 12:22:04 PM

One of the things I hate about message boards is how people take select voices from a group and contrast that with other voices from the group and wrap it all up in a completely unfair and asinine analysis of the group.

First off...The point comparing to Solich/Football and championship success makes absolutely zero sense. You MUST have a great MAC record to obtain a football championship. If Basketball were like football, Groce never would have even had a chance to play for a conference title, let alone play in the NCAA tourney. So you kind of used your own argument to make your point look even more dumb than it is.

I can't decide which post is stupider, this one or the one you made after Akron won a play-in round game last March gushing about Groce, then retreating into the woods after a quarterfinal loss a couple days later.

Basically no one tore down Groce for the sake of tearing him down. Basically everyone who said anything was in response to your 7 year hard-on for him. Basically everyone appreciates John Groce and his time at Ohio. All we did was point out how fragile those 2 runs were and how many moments could have derailed them...and how stripping that away absolutely undeniably leaves a very underwhelming resume. Or that he has had very poor success in his 7 seasons elsewhere. None of this is untrue. Quit acting like we said "Groce sucks Saul rocks!" for no reason. We're just sick of you constantly acting like he is a God who can do no wrong. John Groce himself would question your accuracy on the why you frame this stuff. He's gone. Let it go.

Andrew Ruck
B.B.A. 2003

Bobcat Love's Sense of Shame
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RE: Groce Ball 65 Saul Ball 53

Posted: 2/4/2019 12:52:06 PM

catfan28 wrote:

His teams at Ohio won 24 and 25 games respectively while incorporating a new style of play and blending players recruited by the Groce regime with players he recruited. We never saw what he would have done with a team comprised of all of his guys, or how that would have impacted his ability to build a team. Switching horses mid-stream's a challenge for all programs. Hard for me to conclude he was a failure in this regard given the complexity of the task.

catfan28 wrote:

By any objective measure, both of Schaus' hires after Groce have been failures. They may have been good hires "on paper", but Schaus gets paid the big bucks to make hires that will work - not just those that look good to folks like us. IMO, he ignored the most important thing with any hire: fit.

I'm not sure you're being all that objective. The best we can expect of Schaus is to make the best decision possible with the information he had available at the time. In retrospect, it's easy to say both hires have been failures. But assuming ill intention on Christian's part isn't being truly objective. Jim Christian may well have had every intention of staying here long term and been completely caught off guard by the BC offer. We don't know. Being objective involves acknowledging what we don't know, not assuming you know JC's intentions and blaming the outcome on Schaus.

catfan28 wrote:

As for Saul, Schaus picked him because of one win in the NCAA Tournament. If NDSU doesn't upset Oklahoma, no way Saul is lured in our direction. Saul inherited a solid program at NDSU, and was able to keep things going at a high level. I think Saul is more of a "maintainer" than a "builder". And, while many on the outside didn't see it, our program needed a "build" after the JC departure and the tinder box of personalities he left behind.

This feels right to me, but also something that's really easy to see in retrospect. The Saul hire hasn't worked. I haven't seen anybody here arguing otherwise.

catfan28 wrote:

Schaus overplayed his hand twice. Once Groce left, he wanted a "splash" hire of a guy with tons of HC experience who had won in the MAC. He got it, but didn't think about the long-term consequences.

Again, this is a huge over simplification based on a giant assumption. You don't get to call for objectivity and assume details that support your case.

catfan28 wrote:

Going to the other end of the spectrum, Saul's hire was made primarily with longevity in mind. He wanted someone who would stay a while and didn't have the "itch" to jump to the next job. Mission accomplished - but he got a rather average coach who is better left to maintain, not build.

I think what you're describing is the core challenge that faces OU athletics in general. Successful coaches will leave, mediocre ones wont. And as a result, when a program's had some success, our AD will have to make a lot of hiring decisions, and hiring decisions are hard.

giacomo
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RE: Groce Ball 65 Saul Ball 53

Posted: 2/4/2019 1:27:57 PM

We had gotten back into the game until they made a run while hitting several threes in a row. We lack a consistent outside shooter right now and Carter needs some help with the scoring load. It would also help if Taylor would look at the basket more when he has the ball down low and could get some put backs and power move points.

SBH
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RE: Groce Ball 65 Saul Ball 53

Posted: 2/4/2019 1:59:05 PM

Jim Christian was involved in a fistfight with one of his assistants during a practice, in front of players.

Maurice N'Dour claimed Christian and/or said assistant offered him $50k to come to Athens.

His two team leaders - DJ and Walt Offutt - quit on him in important games.

Clearly that hire was a failure.

Last Edited: 2/4/2019 4:04:35 PM by SBH

GoCats105
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RE: Groce Ball 65 Saul Ball 53

Posted: 2/4/2019 2:26:08 PM

catfan28 wrote:

Bobcat Love's Sense of Shame wrote:

This is a good take.

OhioCatFan
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Location: Athens, OH
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RE: Groce Ball 65 Saul Ball 53

Posted: 2/4/2019 3:14:08 PM

Andrew Ruck wrote:

. . . So you kind of used your own argument to make your point look even more dumb than it is. . . .

If I had a $100 for every time I've seen this debate tactic used on BA, I'd be a rich man and could endow our basketball program and end all our financial woes! ;-)

The only BLSS Certified Hypocrite on BA

"It is better to be an optimist and be proven a fool than to be a pessimist and be proven right."

Note: My avatar is the national colors of the 78th Ohio Veteran Volunteer Infantry, which are now preserved in a climate controlled vault at the Ohio History Connection. Learn more about the old 78th at: http://www.78ohio.org

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