Or are going about it the wrong way
Not a chance. Maybe next year, but not until the end of it.
Does a "high" rating necessarily mean you should/will be putting up good numbers as an 18 year old, playing against the whole range of older players in college?
"Elite" Purdue has played 2 games against the top 1/2 of the conference and 5 games against the bottom 3. They got a good draw and only play Illinois, WI, Mich, Rutgers, and Iowa once each. Purdue has 3 wins in conference by 3 or fewer points.
Boilers have been lucky......
Translated:
+1
Thats the Tony we know and love.
For a coach to succeed here he has to bring in at least average B1G talent and coach them up into the upper tier. Pitino did the former but couldn't do that later. Ben has brought in below average talent to date. That may get upgraded to average next year, but we haven't see any signs he will coach it up to another level. Perhaps the opposite.
I think the results we've seen are what happens when you don't have a PG. Gophs have trouble getting in any offensive sets and the offense just isn't generating easy shots. Evan's isn't going to change that and I don't see anything in the pipeline that will.
You guys are building this poor kid up so much that he can almost certainly do nothing but fall short. He's not Lew Alcindor and he's not going to single-handedly turn a dumpster fire into an NCAA team as a freshman.
Ben's far less of a blowhard and a decent guy. But as a coach...yeah.
Ben seems to have John Elway syndrome. He can identify talent in the other positions he played against, but can't identify it at all in the position he played himself.
I'm not convinced the ship has sailed on Craig Smith, but it will cost more $$ now. Age is a factor with Dutcher. Medved is very much an option.
Purdue played in 3rd gear all night. Whether that was "load management" or just Painter having mercy on us, I don't take much solace in it. Even though the margin between the first and second Purdue games was only 5 points different, it was night and day on the eye test IMO.
You stayed home?
Next year is show time for Ben. I can't think of many players that ended up being really good that weren't good ones by the time they were sophomores. That's the big jump year. It was for Murphy, Mason, Oturu, Coffey, both Hollins, Devoe Joseph, Al Nolen. They were all pretty good as sophs.
Yep, every coach in his second season has a a FR class, a SO class, and recruits in waiting. That's just math.
I think he got suckered into using a combo guard at the point by Payton Willis who had a really solid year last year but is not a true PG. It looks like he thought he could do it again with Cooper and he figured he would have nice size to go with it. It hasn't panned out.
I would say the talent is average, its not elite but its not like completely void of true ability. I will say he has done an AWFUL job of roster mgmt. We have 9 guys who should be a PF/C, 2 slow/limited PG and 2 FR SG who look like they should be playing against Totino Grace on a nightly basis. And if you are going to have that, you need to find both an offensive and defensive scheme to maximize that, CBJ has zero idea how to do that.
I don't think Cooper is really a combo guard. I think he's just a slow PG. He is much better with the ball in his hand than he is off the ball.
accepting money isn't cheating any more...the only cheating is academic and recruiting during quiet periods.