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7-34 in 41 games…to this

OrangeBowlMagic

OrangeBowlMagic

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Most of us probably know this and it likely didn’t need an entire thread but last I checked this was America so here goes.

Jai Lucas came to a program that was 7-34 in its last 41 games. A 17% winning percentage in the last season and a half. He had ZERO players on his roster.

And he is now 21-5 as the head coach here. He’s won 81% of his games, taking over a program that had won 17% in the last 1.5 years with literally zero players.

Easily the best turnaround of any program in America, and barring an 0-5 collapse to end the year, we’re almost a lock to go dancing.

Crazy perspective to realize. 7-34 is some tough, tough ****. To start from absolute scratch and win 21 games by mid-February is almost impossible. I came into the year thinking if we could win 7-8 games in the league it’d be a massive leap forward and really set us up well for the near future. Dude took a **** blowtorch to that expectation and we’re gonna watch this team dance in March.

Respect to the highest order.
 
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OrangeBowlMagic said:
Most of us probably know this and it likely didn’t need an entire thread but last I checked this was America so here goes.

Jai Lucas came to a program that was 7-34 in its last 41 games. A 17% winning percentage in the last season and a half. He had ZERO players on his roster.

And he is now 21-5 as the head coach here. He’s won 81% of his games, taking over a program that had won 17% in the last 1.5 years with literally zero players.

Easily the best turnaround of any program in America, and barring an 0-5 collapse to end the year, we’re almost a lock to go dancing.

Crazy perspective to realize. 7-34 is some tough, tough ****. To start from absolute scratch and win 21 games by mid-February is almost impossible. I came into the year thinking if we could win 7-8 games in the league it’d be a massive leap forward and really set us up well for the near future. Dude took a **** blowtorch to that expectation and we’re gonna watch this team dance in March.

Respect to the highest order.
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If we can’t appreciate and celebrate when the coaches of the teams we love do a great job, then what’s the point of being a fan.
Jai Lucas is doing unbelievable things not only in his first year at UM, but his first head coaching job ever. And as you pointed out, it’s’ not like he was John Scheyer and starting at third base. H*ll, UM was not even at first base when Lucas came here. We had not even left the dugout.

I don’t give a da*n about what the ACC does, this is the best coaching job in the conference and arguably the best in the country.
 
Win at UVA and we're ranked for sure, and we're solidly in line for the double-bye for the ACCT.

If you had told me preseason that the above sentence would be true at this juncture of the season, I'd have called you a liar.

My bar for this year was to be mid-ACC and maybe threaten for a tourney bid but be like First Four Out or something. This coaching job by Jai *and the whole staff really* has been astounding. Credit to the guys like Donaldson/Reneau/Udeh for putting in work to be our key guys, and also to Henderson and Dante Allen for being key players/starters as true Freshmen.

The crazy part is, we've had this little run with Washington being in and out of the lineup, and of course - we've been without Marcus Allen all year due to his illness, and he was supposed to be a rotation guy to play a needed role - but we've somehow cobbled together enough Malovec/Altuntas/Dovrat minutes to fill in that gap...it's impressive.

We have weaknesses (3pt shooting) and our rotation is small. We might go out first round in the tourney, and we might not make much noise in the ACCT. *That being said* - impressive season so far compared to where we came from. Can't take that away from these guys. I want to see Jai and his staff cash in on the success, keep the momentum, and keep on building this program back up.
 
OrangeBowlMagic said:
Most of us probably know this and it likely didn’t need an entire thread but last I checked this was America so here goes.

Jai Lucas came to a program that was 7-34 in its last 41 games. A 17% winning percentage in the last season and a half. He had ZERO players on his roster.

And he is now 21-5 as the head coach here. He’s won 81% of his games, taking over a program that had won 17% in the last 1.5 years with literally zero players.

Easily the best turnaround of any program in America, and barring an 0-5 collapse to end the year, we’re almost a lock to go dancing.

Crazy perspective to realize. 7-34 is some tough, tough ****. To start from absolute scratch and win 21 games by mid-February is almost impossible. I came into the year thinking if we could win 7-8 games in the league it’d be a massive leap forward and really set us up well for the near future. Dude took a **** blowtorch to that expectation and we’re gonna watch this team dance in March.

Respect to the highest order.
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I realize some of our shortcomings including 3 point lack of shooting, but I hope Lucas can get these guys to just be a little better at FT shooting. this is going to kill us come tourney time. At least our guards should be better FT shooters. No excuse there. Other than that, Jai Lucas done a great job all things considered. Hopefully it continues or our team at least gets better as time moves on. We need to work on being a little less sloppy at times too which hurts us. But our 3 point shooting and FT shooting is going to likely be tough to overcome when we get to the dance.
 
CANEFAN83 said:
I realize some of our shortcomings including 3 point lack of shooting, but I hope Lucas can get these guys to just be a little better at FT shooting. this is going to kill us come tourney time. At least our guards should be better FT shooters. No excuse there. Other than that, Jai Lucas done a great job all things considered. Hopefully it continues or our team at least gets better as time moves on. We need to work on being a little less sloppy at times too which hurts us. But our 3 point shooting and FT shooting is going to likely be tough to overcome when we get to the dance.
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Agreed. Tournament games are often within 2-3 points, which greatly favors the teams that make FT’s. Teams that shoot 54% won’t win 3-4 games in a row.
How does Washington make 3 FT’s to win it against VT, and then misses 2-3 last night. Donaldson makes the front end of the 1 and 1, and then misses the easier 2nd FT. Henderson swishes the 1st and then catches the side of the rim on the 2nd.
 
AtlAtty said:
Agreed. Tournament games are often within 2-3 points, which greatly favors the teams that make FT’s. Teams that shoot 54% won’t win 3-4 games in a row.
How does Washington make 3 FT’s to win it against VT, and then misses 2-3 last night. Donaldson makes the front end of the 1 and 1, and then misses the easier 2nd FT. Henderson swishes the 1st and then catches the side of the rim on the 2nd.
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Lucas needs to get these guys to practice more at shooting FTs. That is the only solution. Practice shooting more FTs.
 
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BWCD said:
Win at UVA and we're ranked for sure, and we're solidly in line for the double-bye for the ACCT.
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Do we really care about a double bye in the ACCT or would it be better to win a couple of games in the ACCT and add that to our W-L record for the big dance seeding...?
 
AtlAtty said:
Agreed. Tournament games are often within 2-3 points, which greatly favors the teams that make FT’s. Teams that shoot 54% won’t win 3-4 games in a row.
How does Washington make 3 FT’s to win it against VT, and then misses 2-3 last night. Donaldson makes the front end of the 1 and 1, and then misses the easier 2nd FT. Henderson swishes the 1st and then catches the side of the rim on the 2nd.
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As long as we continue to dominate on the offensive boards and get paint points at such a high rate we will be fine. Just painful at minutes. 67% as a team isn't great, but I think some of it is due to fatigue. We play hard and we play physical and our starters play a lot of minutes. Our conditioning is top shelf. Allen, Henderson and Udeh are awful on the line. I'm kind of digging our old school play.
 
caneworld said:
Do we really care about a double bye in the ACCT or would it be better to win a couple of games in the ACCT and add that to our W-L record for the big dance seeding...?
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we need the bye for rest and for proof we got more wins earlier to own it - beating a lower tier acc team in that round is not going to help our seeding.
 
Impressive results with having to turn over the entire roster. The team has some shortcomings, but they are tough and resilient.

f you mapped out what year one would be, Lucas is way ahead of schedule with the team competing for a top four seed in ACC tourney. I wish we got a little more respect rankings wise, but it's like everyone discounts the results because we play so many close games.
 
AtlAtty said:
Won’t happen, but they know who they are. So many people thought we had no shot at the big dance after the losses to UF and BYU, both of which are really good teams.
Beat FSU and we should expect to be ranked.
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How many were ****ed that Lucas got the job? Pedigree is pedigree. I was all in. In his recent interview with D$ and Pete, he said he loves the city and the community. Dade County is not everybody's cup of tea. Might keep him around. The university's commitment to athletics is really becoming impressive. Give this guy what he needs. Kids really appear to love the guy, and his staff looks to be first rate.
 
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AtlAtty said:
Won’t happen, but they know who they are. So many people thought we had no shot at the big dance after the losses to UF and BYU, both of which are really good teams.
Beat FSU and we should expect to be ranked.
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We play UVA first, on the road. This Saturday. Then the new rankings come out, and we play FSU on Tuesday.

I guarantee you if we beat UVA on Saturday we will be ranked.
 
Ispyin said:
we need the bye for rest and for proof we got more wins earlier to own it - beating a lower tier acc team in that round is not going to help our seeding.
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Exactly. A win or two over any of the lower tier of the league adds to the number, yes, but doesn't add to the *quality* of our record.

You definitely want the double bye for the rest and to play what is hopefully a higher quality opponent in the ACC Tourney.

The question boils down to would you prefer a win or two over a Wake/Syracuse/Stanford/ND having to play extra games *just to get to* a team like Louisville/UNC/Clemson/NC State? Or play a Louisville/UNC/Clemson/NC State off the bat after the double bye to give us 1 more quality win and keep dancing with less games and minutes to beat our guys up with going into the rest of the ACCT and NCAAT?

Let's play that out - what happens if we play say, Clemson in the first round of the ACC Tourney, and we beat them somehow. Next game against Duke, but we get shellacked. That's a better resume than beating Wake, then say VT, then Clemson, then getting beat by Duke. Yes - more wins in the 2nd scenario, but we'll have played less minutes and still gotten the same ultimate result in our conference tourney. The committee isn't going to ding us for not playing Wake/VT, but if we didn't have the double bye and we lost to one of them...bet your buttocks we'd get dinged hard for that.
 
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