First, please understand that I am not in any way trying to insult you or start a flame war. Until very recently I would have certainly belonged to any group labeled "Tim Floyd's die hard supporters." Floyd's tenure as our head coach, however, has not come close to living up to the expectations that I had when he was hired. After six full seasons of this, I have given up hope. I am curious as to what he has done with UTEP's program that has you still clinging to the belief that he will create the program that most of us expected.
Perhaps the answer is that not everyone's expectations were as high as my own. A case can be made that Floyd has won over 20 games in four of his six years here, and hence he has done a good job. If this is your standard, then there is no question that he has done well. My expectations were higher: I expected us to compete for a conference title most years, win more that our fair share of them, and make the NCAA Tournament a fair number of times. Instead, the best we have finished in CUSA is tied for second, in Floyd's first year using Barbee's players, and that is also the only time we came close to making an NCAA appearance. This past season, in his sixth year, he finished sixth in conference.
In his press conference the other day, he claimed that the reason that the process has gone so slowly is that he is building a program, and doing it the right way, with freshmen rather than JC and Div 1 transfers. I have multiple problems with this statement. The first is that I've seen before what building a program looks like, and this isn't it. It did seem to start that way, however: there were seven freshmen on the roster in 2011-12, oh, and by the way, there was also a JC (Malcolm Moore) and Div 1 (Jacques Streeter) transfer as well. Unfortunately, only three of those freshmen completed their collegiate careers as Miners.
It has been stated several times on this board what has happened during Floyd's tenure, with both names and numbers specified: a large number of the players that he has signed have not shown up; of those that have shown up, a large number of them never completed their careers as Miners. No amount of shouting at Steve Kaplowitz, and no amount of trying to use some hand picked statistics is going to change that. Unless you have a program like Calipari's Kentucky Wildcats, where you can bring in classes chock full of McDonalds All Americans every year, continual turnover like what we've seen under his leadership is not the proper way to build a program.
Please understand that I am not saying that every single transfer from the school can be blamed on Floyd and his staff, and Floyd is not wrong when he says that player transfers seem to be on the rise throughout the entire country. There is no doubt that any basketball coach that we hire will have to deal with problem of losing some players. The issue here is that there have been way more than a few players that have never arrived or that have moved on early under Floyd's tenure. I just can't bring myself to attribute all of that turnover to "bad luck."
The above said, here are my questions for you:
What are your expectations for the basketball program? Have Floyd's teams met these expectations?
If Floyd's teams have not met your expectations, how long do you give him to do so?
Are you concerned with the fact that a minority of the players we have signed under Floyd have completed their collegiate careers as Miners?
To what do attribute the player turnover?
Let's assume that a Doc Sadler or Tony Barbee had experienced the same issues over a six year period. Would you be this patient with that coach?
Is there anything that he has done as coach of the Miners to justify your faith in him? If not, is your faith in him based on the fact that he was Haskins' assistant or on his resume?
My thanks in advance for your answers.
Perhaps the answer is that not everyone's expectations were as high as my own. A case can be made that Floyd has won over 20 games in four of his six years here, and hence he has done a good job. If this is your standard, then there is no question that he has done well. My expectations were higher: I expected us to compete for a conference title most years, win more that our fair share of them, and make the NCAA Tournament a fair number of times. Instead, the best we have finished in CUSA is tied for second, in Floyd's first year using Barbee's players, and that is also the only time we came close to making an NCAA appearance. This past season, in his sixth year, he finished sixth in conference.
In his press conference the other day, he claimed that the reason that the process has gone so slowly is that he is building a program, and doing it the right way, with freshmen rather than JC and Div 1 transfers. I have multiple problems with this statement. The first is that I've seen before what building a program looks like, and this isn't it. It did seem to start that way, however: there were seven freshmen on the roster in 2011-12, oh, and by the way, there was also a JC (Malcolm Moore) and Div 1 (Jacques Streeter) transfer as well. Unfortunately, only three of those freshmen completed their collegiate careers as Miners.
It has been stated several times on this board what has happened during Floyd's tenure, with both names and numbers specified: a large number of the players that he has signed have not shown up; of those that have shown up, a large number of them never completed their careers as Miners. No amount of shouting at Steve Kaplowitz, and no amount of trying to use some hand picked statistics is going to change that. Unless you have a program like Calipari's Kentucky Wildcats, where you can bring in classes chock full of McDonalds All Americans every year, continual turnover like what we've seen under his leadership is not the proper way to build a program.
Please understand that I am not saying that every single transfer from the school can be blamed on Floyd and his staff, and Floyd is not wrong when he says that player transfers seem to be on the rise throughout the entire country. There is no doubt that any basketball coach that we hire will have to deal with problem of losing some players. The issue here is that there have been way more than a few players that have never arrived or that have moved on early under Floyd's tenure. I just can't bring myself to attribute all of that turnover to "bad luck."
The above said, here are my questions for you:
What are your expectations for the basketball program? Have Floyd's teams met these expectations?
If Floyd's teams have not met your expectations, how long do you give him to do so?
Are you concerned with the fact that a minority of the players we have signed under Floyd have completed their collegiate careers as Miners?
To what do attribute the player turnover?
Let's assume that a Doc Sadler or Tony Barbee had experienced the same issues over a six year period. Would you be this patient with that coach?
Is there anything that he has done as coach of the Miners to justify your faith in him? If not, is your faith in him based on the fact that he was Haskins' assistant or on his resume?
My thanks in advance for your answers.
