So the Utep Basketball Team is rounding out with the new pick up of JC transfer Emmanuel White. I wonder if the JC and D1 pick ups and addition of Kennedy being eligible is better than what we lost? I like that 3 of our transfers all played High School together which should help them getting on the same page. I think Terry did an admirable job getting transfers when alot on this board lost complete faith in him. We won't know until they do something on the court of course, but I give Terry props for his recruiting in a tough year with the Pandemic and loss of players.
Good question ( and I apologize for the long answer). There was a lot of debate about this after Terry's 1st year. Some thought year 2 and some year 3. There's been some over recruiting. A lot of player changes have happened, but for me the most important issue is not the players, but the coach.
I think Terry has some good players, and he will again. Last year it was enough to win as proven early on. Aside from inconsistent play and poor 3-point shooting in year 2, there was a lack of creative play calling, in-game adjustments, weird player rotations and player favorites. There was an inability to acknowledge coaching mistakes and player volatility. We never knew about injuries. We never really new Terry's gameplan. We heard that players were young and then later in the season players were indirectly thrown under the bus. Responses to the media were sarcastic and twisted back onto the back of those "young" players.
Why did we win early and then lose and then save a tiny bit of face in the end? Was it because Terry's coaching and player antics kicked in midseason? I don't know.
What we did see quickly was that we had a good team. BW was a beast and Edwards could shoot. Lathon was a Swiss army knife. Later we saw that Boum was inconsistent, but he was a killer at the line and could play a hard 40 minutes. We saw that Vila couldn't shoot and couldn't defend. We saw that Efe couldn't jump, but brings some offense. We saw our other big center transfer to the Big 12. We saw that Tarke was out of the equation. We saw that BW was our best player AND he could shoot 3s and freethrows. We saw that Stroud brought excitement and could score quickly. We saw Tydus was raw but could defend and offensive rebound. We saw Lathon's mind wasn't right and that Hawkins was not happy. Finally we saw that Archie was nothing that we expected. All this happened by Christmas.
With an at large bid out the window, Terry should have looked towards improving and peaking during the tournament. He had the whole conference to do this. He also should have known who wanted to stay, who wanted to leave and who should be playing.
Prototypical team is a play maker, a shooter, a finisher, a rim defender and a glue guy. Then there is a 6th man and role players. Everybody defends and everybody rebounds. Then the coach gameplans and makes adjustments with players and in game. Never happened totally, but i think Terry did have the right lineup in the end. He just never made in game adjustments nor did he adjust to the players strengths to get them over the top. He also didn't get deserving players their time.
The last game against Marshall really exposed Terry's inability to adjust (specifically on defense), but it showed we had the right lineup.
This year Terry needs to find his lineup quickly and stick with it. Everybody needs to understand their role. He needs to gameplan towards his team's strengths and attack his opponent's weaknesses. If we get waivers we will be better just because of Bienemy alone. Other than that I will say this years team will be better. Less player drama and more experience, but they will only go as far as Terry will take them.