This was a strange basketball season. Started kinda flat, had a great January that had me thinking championship banners, and finally fizzled-out in February. I thought we'd have a winning season.....didn't expect 20 losses. This year was marred by off-court issues.
I was particularly interested in Laing's post-game comments after the tournament quarterfinal (and season-ending 8th straight) loss. Laing referred to:
1. He and his staff would no longer have to sell Carter Gym to potential recruits. The new arena will be a help in recruiting, instead of an obstacle like Carter was.
2. Returning to a faster style of play again.
3. The three recruits thusfar had great senior HS seasons. Amir Celestine was the Fla. 6A Playoffs MVP, Chris Reynolds' team went to the Georgia semis and P.J. Meyers' team got as far as the Ga. quarterfinals. Sounds like a pretty good class so far. A few more recruits will be added.
A brand new era of CU hoops now begins with the new arena and the recruits it helps attract.
I think the arena will help out dramatically, it really will for you guys. I really thought Campbell would be better than you were, but again I believe you guys, like us, were victimized by the divisional format. Had we played a round robin schedule, where you get the Stetson's, FGCU's, KSU's and UNF's twice, CU is a 15-18 win team. Gardner Webb, us and Belmont would have been in the top three. Good luck, spend money, get better in everything else too.
I'm sorry but Campbell is a bad basketball team, Lover. They were 2-4 against the South. Only beating UNF and KSU. There was no way to get them anywhere near 15 wins. Andone might be on to something asking for a change. Mercer hasn't improved with the new arena and now we're taking steps to get somewhere. Don't let the coach hide behind promises of the new arena helping.
I hope to see Campbell and Mercer improve over the next few years, we've definitely been slacking.
I disagree about being a bad basketball team.
Who is the conference champion and how many teams beat them.
We handled them better than anybody this year. Most everyone else got blown off the court.
We played three good games against Belmont. We had some offcourt issues that hurt us pretty badly this year.
We were not all that good and we could have done a whole lot better but we were not a bad basketball team.
Kennesaw beat Belmont this year - what doest that make us? Sometimes you style of play matches up well against an opponent - that is what you have with Campbell. The fact that CU was 2-4 against the South doesn't bode well for BucLover's comments. Campbell whooped up on Kennesaw at Campbell, which means you got us, but we didn't exactly have a banner year either. I think Campbell is a solid ASun team that will get better, but to act as though playing in the South would have somehow gotten Campbell 5-8 more wins, is ridonkulous. Campbell is still pretty much a one man show...need to fill with some supporting staff.
Campbell will get/is getting there. I agree on the gym comments. I wasn't here before the Curb was built, but I've seen some pretty bad pictures of the place. It's like going to see a new movie: the place where your shoes stick to the floor and the picture quality sucks or the place where they have DLP screens, Dolby Digital surround and clean floors?
camelfan-- I'm not saying Campbell is a bad basketball team to be mean, it's the truth. So is Mercer right now. I want you guys to improve too.. but you're not going to improve if you hide from the truth. Start demanding better seasons. A win against Belmont does not counter 20 losses. A win against Southern Cal does not counter 19 losses. And I think Southern Cal is a little better than Belmont.
I really hope your coach can turn it around, or else you'll need to start listening to andone.
Reynolds is a baller...I did not follow CU closely this year, but I did really like Hartley at pg. He played great defense and was a physical guard.
Its frustrating because it always seems that CU gets to this plateau where you say, "You know another year they can be something" but the next year they come out and lose close games, lose focus.
With all that said, we had a ton of off court problems. I like Hartley, hopefully he can fill the shoes of Ledell. I'd like to see us go back to the fast pace, shot in the first 10 seconds offense.
New stadium, hopefully new focus.
They are a bad basketball team. They are not renewing Dapo's scholly (no surprise) and Cami is leaving. They have no inside game and Laing is unfairly placing the load on J-Rod. The areana will help some but is not the end all to the problems with the team. Belmont was a good win for sure however this year CU had the weakest non conference schedule since Laing has been there and they failed big time. Laing may not be cut out to be a D1 head coach and that's okay since he has been an assistant at various levels of D1 for 20 plus years before his current gig.
Surprised that Dapo isn't getting renewed..he really seemed to have some potential before he got hurt. Seems like it always takes a year of playing before one gets back into the swing of things after a bad knee injury.
Campbell will be Campbell - a tough team to beat at their place, but probably not a threat for the conference title. Laing seems like a decent coach, but he isn't that far removed from one of the worst seasons in all of college basketball....he probably doesn't have a real long leash at this point.
Dapo is a disappointment. The kid just doesn't seem to have the heart.
I hope Robbie focuses on recruiting players that work hard rather than players that are more athletically gifted.
.....I wish we kept Anthony around for all 4 years. At least he got a DII championship.