Lamar basketball

[TxHoops]

14 hours ago, 5GallonBucket said:

For Harrison to leave something must be unpleasant……givin that he wanted to stay local when he was coming out of high school.

I think it’s more of a positional thing.  Lamar had plenty of sub 6 foot 2-guards this year.  Doesn’t work real well at that level.  Brooks likes his PGs distributing the ball.  He needs to go find some.  To be honest this year, Adams was light years ahead of ALL the other guards at doing this.  And he is actually a 2 who has the size to play and defend the position. 

[snakehead26]

Thanks @TxHoopsfor all your input on Lamar and also other topics as well.  I am willing to excuse this year with all the covid and injuries.

 

I just can't understand why we never can have a decent basketball team.

[snakehead26]

A close loss on the road tonight 57 to 49.

 

Next week the final two games of the season at home against two of the weaker teams in the conference. We haven't beat a Division I team this season.

[bullets13]

On 2/22/2022 at 7:08 AM, 5GallonBucket said:

For Harrison to leave something must be unpleasant……givin that he wanted to stay local when he was coming out of high school.

2-25 is about as unpleasant as it gets.  I hope that the Cards turn it around next year.  They have a long way to go.  I get that they've been hit hard by covid and injuries, but that's a valid excuse for most teams at this point.  Getting Adams to come back next  year is a good start.

[5GallonBucket]

1 hour ago, bullets13 said:

2-25 is about as unpleasant as it gets.  I hope that the Cards turn it around next year.  They have a long way to go.  I get that they've been hit hard by covid and injuries, but that's a valid excuse for most teams at this point.  Getting Adams to come back next  year is a good start.

I don’t think the record had much influence in his departure.

And yes adams staying is huge for Cards and Coach Brooks.

Next year will definitely be better but in another 2-3 years Brooks will have his team competing for the top of conference.  

 

[no-look]

I’m sure Brooks can get it going. I was Price fan and thought he was doing a good job 

[Bulldogs92]

On 3/1/2022 at 5:49 PM, no-look said:

I’m sure Brooks can get it going. I was Price fan and thought he was doing a good job 

Judging by what you guys were saying in the preseason, LU had players that could compete at that level before injuries and Covid blew it up. I'm confident that Brooks can get more talent on the roster going forward and that they'll be in good position to be in the upper half of the WAC consistently. People will disagree, but he'll figure it out. 

[no-look]

On 3/14/2022 at 4:55 PM, Bulldogs92 said:

Judging by what you guys were saying in the preseason, LU had players that could compete at that level before injuries and Covid blew it up. I'm confident that Brooks can get more talent on the roster going forward and that they'll be in good position to be in the upper half of the WAC consistently. People will disagree, but he'll figure it out. 

The perfect storm hit Lamar with covid and injuries. Look for a much better season next year. 

[spidersal]

Too many excuses about injuries and covid. Face it they were horrible. Hopefully Brooks can recruit well and turn it around 

[BEARCPA]

1 hour ago, spidersal said:

Too many excuses about injuries and covid. Face it they were horrible. Hopefully Brooks can recruit well and turn it around 

Do you like Lamar? Like even a little bit?

[AggiesAreWe]

See where several more has entered the transfer portal.

Exactly how many is left on the roster? Can't be more than 6 players left.

[spidersal]

3 hours ago, BEARCPA said:

Do you like Lamar? Like even a little bit?

It’s not that I don’t like Lamar, I am totally frustrated by their lousy performance in all major sports. If you look at D1 rankings, they are almost dead last in every major sport and there are almost 400 D1 colleges mentioned. Football did not win a game because the NCAA called the only win a scrimmage, the mens basketball team did not beat one D1 school, the softball team is 8-60 the last year in a quarter, Franklin has a losing record in womens basketball as well as Davis in baseball

Yes I am certainly frustrated and highly disappointed with an athletic program this poor

[snakehead26]

56 minutes ago, spidersal said:

It’s not that I don’t like Lamar, I am totally frustrated by their lousy performance in all major sports. If you look at D1 rankings, they are almost dead last in every major sport and there are almost 400 D1 colleges mentioned. Football did not win a game because the NCAA called the only win a scrimmage, the mens basketball team did not beat one D1 school, the softball team is 8-60 the last year in a quarter, Franklin has a losing record in womens basketball as well as Davis in baseball

Yes I am certainly frustrated and highly disappointed with an athletic program this poor

I don't even know where to start with all this.  In the other topic on the AD search there was a link to an interview with former baseball coach Jim Gilligan.  He, of course will be diplomatic but even he said all the programs are down now.

 

As far as basketball, under Tubbs and Foster we had 7 consecutive 20 win seasons with 4 NCAA tournament appearance and 3 NIT appearances. Since then we have had 3 seasons with 20 wins in the last 37 years.

 

I will ramble on some more in another post but my question is why?  Is it athletic directors, coaches, recruiting? Do recruits not like this area or campus? Is it too hard to recruit when you always have a losing program? We have tons of great talent even in our own area and a lot of them don't go the top name  programs.  Why can't we keep any of them around here?

[BEARCPA]

11 hours ago, spidersal said:

It’s not that I don’t like Lamar, I am totally frustrated by their lousy performance in all major sports. If you look at D1 rankings, they are almost dead last in every major sport and there are almost 400 D1 colleges mentioned. Football did not win a game because the NCAA called the only win a scrimmage, the mens basketball team did not beat one D1 school, the softball team is 8-60 the last year in a quarter, Franklin has a losing record in womens basketball as well as Davis in baseball

Yes I am certainly frustrated and highly disappointed with an athletic program this poor

Yes its true that most of the athletic programs stink right now, but that should have been expected, especially with the move to the WAC. If you look solely at Lamar athletic programs' recent success (or lack thereof) before the move, Lamar had no business moving to a bigger/better conference. Sure, the move to the WAC will benefit Lamar in the long run, but there are going to be major growing pains when an already-struggling athletic program moves up to a new weight class.

My next question to you is why are your expectations so high with Lamar athletics? I'm about to be 32, and Lamar athletics have been overall mediocre at best my whole life. Lamar baseball has made six NCAA tourney appearances in my lifetime, with only one of those appearances coming since 2005. Lamar basketball has two whole NCAA tourney appearances in my lifetime. I will always support Lamar athletics, but I will also always be realistic about it. You will rarely be let down if you temper your expectations. 

[spidersal]

A very good post by you and you are very correct on the all time state of Lamar athletics I simply think they should be able to compete with the ACU, SHS, SFA, Tarketon State programs but they don’t. Why?  And again I agree with you always mediocre, so for me their expectations are too low

[Bobcat1]

11 hours ago, spidersal said:

A very good post by you and you are very correct on the all time state of Lamar athletics I simply think they should be able to compete with the ACU, SHS, SFA, Tarketon State programs but they don’t. Why?  And again I agree with you always mediocre, so for me their expectations are too low

I agree - That's like me being ok with my employees NOT producing because well they've never done it before....That's the real issue - behaviors need to change and new blood needs to come in with a solid plan to fix it.  I'm not saying they need to be National Champs, but they cannot be "ok with being ok" because that's how it's always been... 

[BEARCPA]

11 hours ago, spidersal said:

A very good post by you and you are very correct on the all time state of Lamar athletics I simply think they should be able to compete with the ACU, SHS, SFA, Tarketon State programs but they don’t. Why?  And again I agree with you always mediocre, so for me their expectations are too low

I promise we all want them to be competitive with those programs, but they haven't been able to do it consistently due to a combination of lackluster recruiting and coaching. Why doesn't Lamar get the same quality of athletes and coaches as those other programs? Money. Every one of those schools you mentioned has at least 5% more of an athletic budget to work with compared to Lamar. ACU's financials aren't posted online because its a private school. 

Lamar athletic budget: $13.6 mil.

Tarleton athletic budget: $14.2 mil. (5% more than LU)

SFA athletic budget: $15.7 mil. (16% more than LU)

SHSU athletic budget: $16.8 mil (24% more than LU)

So until Lamar is able to spend on a similar level with these other schools I, along with most other rational Lamar fans, will keep my expectations grounded. Money absolutely matters in college athletics, and the new AD needs to really push administration for more leeway to spend on par with their peers. 

[spidersal]

Another excellent post

Thanks for your work on this

[BEARCPA]

12 minutes ago, spidersal said:

Another excellent post

Thanks for your work on this

You bet. I just want to enlighten folks so they can direct their frustrations mostly towards the Board and other decision-makers at Lamar; instead of the coaches and players who are hamstrung by those parties.

[TxHoops]

On 3/16/2022 at 7:53 PM, AggiesAreWe said:

See where several more has entered the transfer portal.

Exactly how many is left on the roster? Can't be more than 6 players left.

I think there was a core of 4-6 players that were really wanted back (I don’t think this includes walk ons, and walk ons certainly got more minutes than expected this year).  For the most part, I expect the team to look a lot different next year, with some juco transfers contributing heavily from the outset. 

[Bulldogs92]

Those old LU teams made me want to be a Cardinal when most of the kids I grew up with were dreaming of SFA, McNeese or SHSU (if not bigger schools). It never happened because I left the state, but I've always loved the program. I don't know what the solution is. Where's the revenue and fundraising that will add to the budget? How do they keep the local kids home? It just seems so far uphill...especially when times are so tough. 

[BEARCPA]

1 hour ago, Bulldogs92 said:

Those old LU teams made me want to be a Cardinal when most of the kids I grew up with were dreaming of SFA, McNeese or SHSU (if not bigger schools). It never happened because I left the state, but I've always loved the program. I don't know what the solution is. Where's the revenue and fundraising that will add to the budget? How do they keep the local kids home? It just seems so far uphill...especially when times are so tough. 

Those are all great questions, but times don’t appear to be as tough as they seem for Lamar. They reported $21.2 mil. in net income on their financials for fiscal year 2021, so they had plenty of breathing room to open up the checkbook for more athletic funding. 

[Bulldogs92]

1 hour ago, BEARCPA said:

Those are all great questions, but times don’t appear to be as tough as they seem for Lamar. They reported $21.2 mil. in net income on their financials for fiscal year 2021, so they had plenty of breathing room to open up the checkbook for more athletic funding. 

Is that net income across all departments at LU or does the athletic department post its own financials that feed into the university's? I'm not familiar with collegiate accounting practices.

[BEARCPA]

24 minutes ago, Bulldogs92 said:

Is that net income across all departments at LU or does the athletic department post its own financials that feed into the university's? I'm not familiar with collegiate accounting practices.

Yeah it’s the net income for the college as a whole, which come from the annual financial statements they post on their website. They only break down the financials into a few different segments, and Lamar classifies their athletic department in the “auxiliary” segment, which is probably lumped in with a lot of other departments.

[Bulldogs92]

12 minutes ago, BEARCPA said:

Yeah it’s the net income for the college as a whole, which cThey ome from the annual financial statements they post on their website. They only break down the financials into a few different segments, and Lamar classifies their athletic department in the “auxiliary” segment, which is probably lumped in with a lot of other departments.

The could definitely do enough to be on par with a few of the other schools mentioned here, but how smart are they with that money? That's why the decision on the next AD is so important.