Time for Fish to go!

Discuss anything and everything relating to Bobcat Basketball here.

Moderators: rtb, kmax, SonomaCat

Post Reply
IHATEHIPPIES
BobcatNation Redshirt
Posts: 96
Joined: Sat Sep 25, 2010 11:18 am

Time for Fish to go!

Post by IHATEHIPPIES » Mon Feb 26, 2018 1:46 am

This has been a disaster of a regular season for the Bobcat men, we are taking huge strides in the wrong direction. Fish has had his chance and it did not work out. I like fish but it’s time to move on. Both Cat griz games this year were an embarrassment. We need somebody that can make Bobcat basketball relevent again! Danny Sprinkle???



User avatar
Cledus
Golden Bobcat
Posts: 5468
Joined: Sun Sep 03, 2006 3:18 pm
Location: Billings Heights

Re: Time for Fish to go!

Post by Cledus » Mon Feb 26, 2018 8:53 am

I wonder if this guy would be interested.
https://twitter.com/mslacat/status/967871428019109888


UM is the university equivalent of Axe Body Spray and essential oils.

User avatar
Cledus
Golden Bobcat
Posts: 5468
Joined: Sun Sep 03, 2006 3:18 pm
Location: Billings Heights

Re: Time for Fish to go!

Post by Cledus » Mon Feb 26, 2018 9:00 am

Actually, I don't understand how this is even possible.

I'm always told it takes several years to turn around and build a program even though there are always a few coaches every year who buck that conventional wisdom because nobody told them it's not possible. Or, they were told it's not possible but chose not to believe it. :-k


UM is the university equivalent of Axe Body Spray and essential oils.

phantom
BobcatNation Letterman
Posts: 267
Joined: Mon Mar 31, 2014 8:58 pm

Re: Time for Fish to go!

Post by phantom » Mon Feb 26, 2018 9:04 am

Cledus wrote:Actually, I don't understand how this is even possible.

I'm always told it takes several years to turn around and build a program even though there are always a few coaches every year who buck that conventional wisdom because nobody told them it's not possible. Or, they were told it's not possible but chose not to believe it. :-k
In Dirden's case, it was possible because Brad Franz had taken over the program and had it pointing in the right direction. When Franz took over as AD, Dirden came in and kept it going in a good direction.



mslacat
Golden Bobcat
Posts: 6069
Joined: Mon Mar 29, 2004 11:12 am
Contact:

Re: Time for Fish to go!

Post by mslacat » Mon Feb 26, 2018 10:11 am

phantom wrote:
Cledus wrote:Actually, I don't understand how this is even possible.

I'm always told it takes several years to turn around and build a program even though there are always a few coaches every year who buck that conventional wisdom because nobody told them it's not possible. Or, they were told it's not possible but chose not to believe it. :-k
In Dirden's case, it was possible because Brad Franz had taken over the program and had it pointing in the right direction. When Franz took over as AD, Dirden came in and kept it going in a good direction.
At least Dirden took what was given to him added to it and in his second season had a 21 (and counting) season!

As to whether Dirden would be ready... I like Dirden a lot (in case you had not figured that out by now!) but would really need to be reassured that he has enough "seasoning" to move up right now to D-1. I think though eventually he is going to make some D-1 team very happy.



phantom
BobcatNation Letterman
Posts: 267
Joined: Mon Mar 31, 2014 8:58 pm

Re: Time for Fish to go!

Post by phantom » Mon Feb 26, 2018 10:18 am

mslacat wrote:
phantom wrote:
Cledus wrote:Actually, I don't understand how this is even possible.

I'm always told it takes several years to turn around and build a program even though there are always a few coaches every year who buck that conventional wisdom because nobody told them it's not possible. Or, they were told it's not possible but chose not to believe it. :-k
In Dirden's case, it was possible because Brad Franz had taken over the program and had it pointing in the right direction. When Franz took over as AD, Dirden came in and kept it going in a good direction.
At least Dirden took what was given to him added to it and in his second season had a 21 (and counting) season!

As to whether Dirden would be ready... I like Dirden a lot (in case you had not figured that out by now!) but would really need to be reassured that he has enough "seasoning" to move up right now to D-1. I think though eventually he is going to make some D-1 team very happy.
My comment wasn't against Dirden. I don't know the man, just know the situation he walked into.



mslacat
Golden Bobcat
Posts: 6069
Joined: Mon Mar 29, 2004 11:12 am
Contact:

Re: Time for Fish to go!

Post by mslacat » Mon Feb 26, 2018 12:41 pm

And my point is, in my experiance, just because you have good players or situations, it does not guarentee wins. You still have to go out and coach them properly to get the wins!



User avatar
catpound
BobcatNation Team Captain
Posts: 408
Joined: Thu Jan 15, 2009 1:58 pm

Re: Time for Fish to go!

Post by catpound » Mon Feb 26, 2018 2:09 pm

Sprinkle!! It's time we bring him home to lead his alma mater, plus he's got a great recruiting connection on the West Coast.



Catlady
BobcatNation Letterman
Posts: 305
Joined: Sun Nov 13, 2016 8:47 am

Re: Time for Fish to go!

Post by Catlady » Mon Feb 26, 2018 3:35 pm

catpound wrote:Sprinkle!! It's time we bring him home to lead his alma mater, plus he's got a great recruiting connection on the West Coast.
There are great coaches out there that are looking to lead a program like MSU. Have to be able to recruit. I’m not sure if West Coast is as important as winning recruiting in Montana, Colorado, Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois. Easier to sell a kid on Montana State from those states versus the West Coast. I love our players, but don’t feel we need to go to Europe to find them. Dirden seems to be doing well and does have contacts throughout the Midwest.

I like to look two years out and have to admit, I don’t see the foundation for a turnaround.



User avatar
catpound
BobcatNation Team Captain
Posts: 408
Joined: Thu Jan 15, 2009 1:58 pm

Re: Time for Fish to go!

Post by catpound » Mon Feb 26, 2018 6:18 pm

Catlady wrote:
catpound wrote:Sprinkle!! It's time we bring him home to lead his alma mater, plus he's got a great recruiting connection on the West Coast.
There are great coaches out there that are looking to lead a program like MSU. Have to be able to recruit. I’m not sure if West Coast is as important as winning recruiting in Montana, Colorado, Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois. Easier to sell a kid on Montana State from those states versus the West Coast. I love our players, but don’t feel we need to go to Europe to find them. Dirden seems to be doing well and does have contacts throughout the Midwest.

I like to look two years out and have to admit, I don’t see the foundation for a turnaround.
West Coast is much more important than MT, CO, MN, IA and IL. I agree it would be nice to win MT, but really there is maybe 1 Div I player a year from MT, if that. I am curious where you get a West Coast is tough to sell coming to MT, look at the Griz bball roster- mostly WA, OR and CA (9 from those states), plus look at our football roster full of WA, CA, OR players.



John K
Golden Bobcat
Posts: 8620
Joined: Mon Jun 11, 2007 11:04 am
Location: Great Falls MT

Re: Time for Fish to go!

Post by John K » Mon Feb 26, 2018 7:11 pm

Catlady wrote:
catpound wrote:Sprinkle!! It's time we bring him home to lead his alma mater, plus he's got a great recruiting connection on the West Coast.
There are great coaches out there that are looking to lead a program like MSU. Have to be able to recruit. I’m not sure if West Coast is as important as winning recruiting in Montana, Colorado, Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois. Easier to sell a kid on Montana State from those states versus the West Coast. I love our players, but don’t feel we need to go to Europe to find them. Dirden seems to be doing well and does have contacts throughout the Midwest.

I like to look two years out and have to admit, I don’t see the foundation for a turnaround.
I don't care what area(s) we choose to emphasize in recruiting, Europe (Gonzaga has certainly had lots of success recruiting foreign players), midwest, west coast, wherever. Ash and Gaines had great success in recruiting football talent from Texas, which is an area that was completely off our radar previously. There is talent to be found everywhere...it's just a matter of selling them on MSU. I'm not naive enough to think that it's an easy task, but if EWU, UI, UM, and WSU can get top notch talent to come to places like Cheney WA, Moscow ID, Missoula MT, and Ogden UT, there is no reason that we shouldn't be able to get equally talented players to come to Bozeman MT. It's funny how some people seem to believe that we are plenty talented, and that the lack of success is primarily due to poor coaching, while others say that it's mostly an issue of inadequate talent (which of course also falls on the coaching staff). I don't even pretend to be enough of an expert to offer an opinion on that...I just know that the results are sorely lacking, and frankly that's all that really matters. UM is a much better team than us...they're clearly the best team in the BSC this season, so I certainly didn't expect us to beat them in Missoula, but I expected to at least compete better than we did last Saturday. It was really discouraging to see what appeared to be a lack of effort on our part during most of the 2nd half, once we fell behind by 15-20 early in the 2nd half. There is no excuse for that, and that is on the coaching staff. I'd give Fish one more year, but if we aren't at least .500 in conference next season, then I'd say it's time to make a change.

For whatever it's worth, I felt like the women displayed a similar lack of effort, once the game started getting away from them in the 3rd quarter. After losing Ferris and Nordgaard, I didn't necessarily expect MSU to win the BSC again, but I certainly expected them to be better than sitting in 8th place with only a .500 record (8-8, but only 1-5 in the last 6 games). We beat UM by 17 a month ago, and lost by 24 on Saturday. A 41 point differential in a month...how do you explain that? I mean there has to be more to it than simply that one game was in Bozeman and the other was in Missoula.

The cumulative margin in the two games on Saturday was 51 points. That has to be a record. For the first time since these two (men's) teams first set foot on a basketball court together, UM now leads the all time series. That is certainly a dubious little historical footnote to add to the humiliation that MSU suffered on Saturday. We held the lead in the series for more than 100 years...but not any longer, and we probably will never lead it again. Obviously that's not all on Fish, but it does say a lot about the disparity between the 2 programs in recent years. Well...not even all that recent. They've consistently had the upper hand for as long as I can remember, which is about 40 years.



mslacat
Golden Bobcat
Posts: 6069
Joined: Mon Mar 29, 2004 11:12 am
Contact:

Re: Time for Fish to go!

Post by mslacat » Mon Feb 26, 2018 10:02 pm

John K wrote:
Catlady wrote:
catpound wrote:Sprinkle!! It's time we bring him home to lead his alma mater, plus he's got a great recruiting connection on the West Coast.
There are great coaches out there that are looking to lead a program like MSU. Have to be able to recruit. I’m not sure if West Coast is as important as winning recruiting in Montana, Colorado, Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois. Easier to sell a kid on Montana State from those states versus the West Coast. I love our players, but don’t feel we need to go to Europe to find them. Dirden seems to be doing well and does have contacts throughout the Midwest.

I like to look two years out and have to admit, I don’t see the foundation for a turnaround.
I don't care what area(s) we choose to emphasize in recruiting, Europe (Gonzaga has certainly had lots of success recruiting foreign players), midwest, west coast, wherever. Ash and Gaines had great success in recruiting football talent from Texas, which is an area that was completely off our radar previously. There is talent to be found everywhere...it's just a matter of selling them on MSU. I'm not naive enough to think that it's an easy task, but if EWU, UI, UM, and WSU can get top notch talent to come to places like Cheney WA, Moscow ID, Missoula MT, and Ogden UT, there is no reason that we shouldn't be able to get equally talented players to come to Bozeman MT. It's funny how some people seem to believe that we are plenty talented, and that the lack of success is primarily due to poor coaching, while others say that it's mostly an issue of inadequate talent (which of course also falls on the coaching staff). I don't even pretend to be enough of an expert to offer an opinion on that...I just know that the results are sorely lacking, and frankly that's all that really matters. UM is a much better team than us...they're clearly the best team in the BSC this season, so I certainly didn't expect us to beat them in Missoula, but I expected to at least compete better than we did last Saturday. It was really discouraging to see what appeared to be a lack of effort on our part during most of the 2nd half, once we fell behind by 15-20 early in the 2nd half. There is no excuse for that, and that is on the coaching staff. I'd give Fish one more year, but if we aren't at least .500 in conference next season, then I'd say it's time to make a change.

For whatever it's worth, I felt like the women displayed a similar lack of effort, once the game started getting away from them in the 3rd quarter. After losing Ferris and Nordgaard, I didn't necessarily expect MSU to win the BSC again, but I certainly expected them to be better than sitting in 8th place with only a .500 record (8-8, but only 1-5 in the last 6 games). We beat UM by 17 a month ago, and lost by 24 on Saturday. A 41 point differential in a month...how do you explain that? I mean there has to be more to it than simply that one game was in Bozeman and the other was in Missoula.

The cumulative margin in the two games on Saturday was 51 points. That has to be a record. For the first time since these two (men's) teams first set foot on a basketball court together, UM now leads the all time series. That is certainly a dubious little historical footnote to add to the humiliation that MSU suffered on Saturday. We held the lead in the series for more than 100 years...but not any longer, and we probably will never lead it again. Obviously that's not all on Fish, but it does say a lot about the disparity between the 2 programs in recent years. Well...not even all that recent. They've consistently had the upper hand for as long as I can remember, which is about 40 years.
What do you see in the program, that gives you ANY optimism that next year team can be significantly better than this years team! I see a rebuild even if Tyler comes back! Fish has painted himself into a corner, I could see some optimism when the incoming freshman next year get a year or two under their belt. That though will be too late he has only one more year on his contract, that means next year or the road! The way I see it, Fish will struggle with the scholarships he has left just to make up for what he loses in seniors this spring!



John K
Golden Bobcat
Posts: 8620
Joined: Mon Jun 11, 2007 11:04 am
Location: Great Falls MT

Re: Time for Fish to go!

Post by John K » Tue Feb 27, 2018 6:45 am

mslacat wrote:
John K wrote:
Catlady wrote:
catpound wrote:Sprinkle!! It's time we bring him home to lead his alma mater, plus he's got a great recruiting connection on the West Coast.
There are great coaches out there that are looking to lead a program like MSU. Have to be able to recruit. I’m not sure if West Coast is as important as winning recruiting in Montana, Colorado, Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois. Easier to sell a kid on Montana State from those states versus the West Coast. I love our players, but don’t feel we need to go to Europe to find them. Dirden seems to be doing well and does have contacts throughout the Midwest.

I like to look two years out and have to admit, I don’t see the foundation for a turnaround.
I don't care what area(s) we choose to emphasize in recruiting, Europe (Gonzaga has certainly had lots of success recruiting foreign players), midwest, west coast, wherever. Ash and Gaines had great success in recruiting football talent from Texas, which is an area that was completely off our radar previously. There is talent to be found everywhere...it's just a matter of selling them on MSU. I'm not naive enough to think that it's an easy task, but if EWU, UI, UM, and WSU can get top notch talent to come to places like Cheney WA, Moscow ID, Missoula MT, and Ogden UT, there is no reason that we shouldn't be able to get equally talented players to come to Bozeman MT. It's funny how some people seem to believe that we are plenty talented, and that the lack of success is primarily due to poor coaching, while others say that it's mostly an issue of inadequate talent (which of course also falls on the coaching staff). I don't even pretend to be enough of an expert to offer an opinion on that...I just know that the results are sorely lacking, and frankly that's all that really matters. UM is a much better team than us...they're clearly the best team in the BSC this season, so I certainly didn't expect us to beat them in Missoula, but I expected to at least compete better than we did last Saturday. It was really discouraging to see what appeared to be a lack of effort on our part during most of the 2nd half, once we fell behind by 15-20 early in the 2nd half. There is no excuse for that, and that is on the coaching staff. I'd give Fish one more year, but if we aren't at least .500 in conference next season, then I'd say it's time to make a change.

For whatever it's worth, I felt like the women displayed a similar lack of effort, once the game started getting away from them in the 3rd quarter. After losing Ferris and Nordgaard, I didn't necessarily expect MSU to win the BSC again, but I certainly expected them to be better than sitting in 8th place with only a .500 record (8-8, but only 1-5 in the last 6 games). We beat UM by 17 a month ago, and lost by 24 on Saturday. A 41 point differential in a month...how do you explain that? I mean there has to be more to it than simply that one game was in Bozeman and the other was in Missoula.

The cumulative margin in the two games on Saturday was 51 points. That has to be a record. For the first time since these two (men's) teams first set foot on a basketball court together, UM now leads the all time series. That is certainly a dubious little historical footnote to add to the humiliation that MSU suffered on Saturday. We held the lead in the series for more than 100 years...but not any longer, and we probably will never lead it again. Obviously that's not all on Fish, but it does say a lot about the disparity between the 2 programs in recent years. Well...not even all that recent. They've consistently had the upper hand for as long as I can remember, which is about 40 years.
What do you see in the program, that gives you ANY optimism that next year team can be significantly better than this years team! I see a rebuild even if Tyler comes back! Fish has painted himself into a corner, I could see some optimism when the incoming freshman next year get a year or two under their belt. That though will be too late he has only one more year on his contract, that means next year or the road! The way I see it, Fish will struggle with the scholarships he has left just to make up for what he loses in seniors this spring!
One issue I've had with the program over the past 15-20 years is the reliance on transfers, which predates Fish. I believe the trend began during the latter part of Durham's tenure, and has continued through the Huse and Fish regimes. I just don't think that's a recipe for long term success. I know that you might need to add 1 or 2 transfers some years, but I really believe we've gone to that well far too often lately. It seems to me that Starner's best teams in the mid to late 80's, and Durham's best teams in the mid to late 90's didn't have nearly as many transfers as we've had in recent years. I know that when a coach is under pressure to win sooner rather than later, that it's very tempting to go for the short term fix, but I just think that 4-5 year players need to be the foundation of a program (for schools competing at our level anyway) if it's going to have sustained success over the long haul. Between relying on so many transfers, and the seemingly never ending stream of player defections (that's also not unique to the Fish era), there is no continuity in the program. How many players on the roster this season have been, or likely will be 4-5 year players? My guess is that it's probably less than half, considering that pretty much every year we seem to lose 1 or 2 players off the team during the off season (other than those who completed their eligibility). That means that of the 4-5 year players currently on the roster, several of them won't actually end up playing 4-5 years for MSU. Obviously this isn't the only problem, but I do believe it's been a factor in the decline of the program over the last 20 years or so.

And to answer your question at the beginning of your post, I have very little confidence that we'll be significantly better next season.



phantom
BobcatNation Letterman
Posts: 267
Joined: Mon Mar 31, 2014 8:58 pm

Re: Time for Fish to go!

Post by phantom » Tue Feb 27, 2018 7:02 am

John K wrote:
One issue I've had with the program over the past 15-20 years is the reliance on transfers, which predates Fish. I believe the trend began during the latter part of Durham's tenure, and has continued through the Huse and Fish regimes. I just don't think that's a recipe for long term success. I know that you might need to add 1 or 2 transfers some years, but I really believe we've gone to that well far too often lately. It seems to me that Starner's best teams in the mid to late 80's, and Durham's best teams in the mid to late 90's didn't have nearly as many transfers as we've had in recent years. I know that when a coach is under pressure to win sooner rather than later, that it's very tempting to go for the short term fix, but I just think that 4-5 year players need to be the foundation of a program, if it's going to have sustained success over the long haul. Between relying on so many transfers, and the seemingly never ending stream of player defections (that's also not unique to the Fish era), there is no continuity in the program. How many players on the roster this season have been, or likely will be 4-5 year players? My guess is that it's probably less than half, considering that pretty much every year we seem to lose 1 or 2 players off the team during the off season (other than those who completed their eligibility). That means that of the 4-5 year players currently on the roster, several of them won't actually end up playing 4-5 years for MSU. Obviously this isn't the only problem, but I do believe it's been a factor in the decline of the program over the last 20 years or so.

And to answer your question at the beginning of your post, I have very little confidence that we'll be significantly better next season.
The trend of transfers NCAA wide has picked up significantly in the last 15-20 years. The graduate transfer rule just accentuated that. In large, kids are going to go into a program and if they don't like it right away or aren't playing as much as they would like, they're much more likely to transfer than the were 30 years ago. Personally, I don't like the trend, but it's the way of the NCAA world these days.
As far as if the Bobcats will be significantly better, you still have the same top two players back. Blevins looks like he can be a keeper at the 4 spot. From that point, you figure you need to round out an 8 man rotation. I think Sam can be a rotation piece. After that, there will either be upgrades and improvement or a coaching change.



Mr Lisle
1st Team All-BobcatNation
Posts: 1735
Joined: Tue Jan 01, 2013 11:45 am

Re: Time for Fish to go!

Post by Mr Lisle » Tue Feb 27, 2018 10:37 am

John K wrote:
mslacat wrote:
John K wrote:
Catlady wrote:
catpound wrote:Sprinkle!! It's time we bring him home to lead his alma mater, plus he's got a great recruiting connection on the West Coast.
There are great coaches out there that are looking to lead a program like MSU. Have to be able to recruit. I’m not sure if West Coast is as important as winning recruiting in Montana, Colorado, Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois. Easier to sell a kid on Montana State from those states versus the West Coast. I love our players, but don’t feel we need to go to Europe to find them. Dirden seems to be doing well and does have contacts throughout the Midwest.

I like to look two years out and have to admit, I don’t see the foundation for a turnaround.
I don't care what area(s) we choose to emphasize in recruiting, Europe (Gonzaga has certainly had lots of success recruiting foreign players), midwest, west coast, wherever. Ash and Gaines had great success in recruiting football talent from Texas, which is an area that was completely off our radar previously. There is talent to be found everywhere...it's just a matter of selling them on MSU. I'm not naive enough to think that it's an easy task, but if EWU, UI, UM, and WSU can get top notch talent to come to places like Cheney WA, Moscow ID, Missoula MT, and Ogden UT, there is no reason that we shouldn't be able to get equally talented players to come to Bozeman MT. It's funny how some people seem to believe that we are plenty talented, and that the lack of success is primarily due to poor coaching, while others say that it's mostly an issue of inadequate talent (which of course also falls on the coaching staff). I don't even pretend to be enough of an expert to offer an opinion on that...I just know that the results are sorely lacking, and frankly that's all that really matters. UM is a much better team than us...they're clearly the best team in the BSC this season, so I certainly didn't expect us to beat them in Missoula, but I expected to at least compete better than we did last Saturday. It was really discouraging to see what appeared to be a lack of effort on our part during most of the 2nd half, once we fell behind by 15-20 early in the 2nd half. There is no excuse for that, and that is on the coaching staff. I'd give Fish one more year, but if we aren't at least .500 in conference next season, then I'd say it's time to make a change.

For whatever it's worth, I felt like the women displayed a similar lack of effort, once the game started getting away from them in the 3rd quarter. After losing Ferris and Nordgaard, I didn't necessarily expect MSU to win the BSC again, but I certainly expected them to be better than sitting in 8th place with only a .500 record (8-8, but only 1-5 in the last 6 games). We beat UM by 17 a month ago, and lost by 24 on Saturday. A 41 point differential in a month...how do you explain that? I mean there has to be more to it than simply that one game was in Bozeman and the other was in Missoula.

The cumulative margin in the two games on Saturday was 51 points. That has to be a record. For the first time since these two (men's) teams first set foot on a basketball court together, UM now leads the all time series. That is certainly a dubious little historical footnote to add to the humiliation that MSU suffered on Saturday. We held the lead in the series for more than 100 years...but not any longer, and we probably will never lead it again. Obviously that's not all on Fish, but it does say a lot about the disparity between the 2 programs in recent years. Well...not even all that recent. They've consistently had the upper hand for as long as I can remember, which is about 40 years.
What do you see in the program, that gives you ANY optimism that next year team can be significantly better than this years team! I see a rebuild even if Tyler comes back! Fish has painted himself into a corner, I could see some optimism when the incoming freshman next year get a year or two under their belt. That though will be too late he has only one more year on his contract, that means next year or the road! The way I see it, Fish will struggle with the scholarships he has left just to make up for what he loses in seniors this spring!
One issue I've had with the program over the past 15-20 years is the reliance on transfers, which predates Fish. I believe the trend began during the latter part of Durham's tenure, and has continued through the Huse and Fish regimes. I just don't think that's a recipe for long term success. I know that you might need to add 1 or 2 transfers some years, but I really believe we've gone to that well far too often lately. It seems to me that Starner's best teams in the mid to late 80's, and Durham's best teams in the mid to late 90's didn't have nearly as many transfers as we've had in recent years. I know that when a coach is under pressure to win sooner rather than later, that it's very tempting to go for the short term fix, but I just think that 4-5 year players need to be the foundation of a program (for schools competing at our level anyway) if it's going to have sustained success over the long haul. Between relying on so many transfers, and the seemingly never ending stream of player defections (that's also not unique to the Fish era), there is no continuity in the program. How many players on the roster this season have been, or likely will be 4-5 year players? My guess is that it's probably less than half, considering that pretty much every year we seem to lose 1 or 2 players off the team during the off season (other than those who completed their eligibility). That means that of the 4-5 year players currently on the roster, several of them won't actually end up playing 4-5 years for MSU. Obviously this isn't the only problem, but I do believe it's been a factor in the decline of the program over the last 20 years or so.

And to answer your question at the beginning of your post, I have very little confidence that we'll be significantly better next season.
Speaking of Durham...what he has done at Alaska-Fairbanks is nothing short of astounding!



User avatar
PapaG
Golden Bobcat
Posts: 8549
Joined: Mon Mar 29, 2004 11:44 am
Location: The Magic City, MT

Re: Time for Fish to go!

Post by PapaG » Tue Feb 27, 2018 10:47 am

Durham's best team by far was the 1996 NCAA Tournament team, and the two best players on that team were transfers. Quad Lollis was a JC transfer, and Nico Harrison was a Naval Academy transfer.

Look at the Griz a few years ago with the UDub transfer Bruenig and the success he lead them to in Missoula. The correct transfers are a welcome addition to any program.


Seattle to Billings to Missoula to Bozeman to Portland to Billings

What a ride

msu_agfan
Honorable Mention All-BobcatNation
Posts: 986
Joined: Mon Jun 16, 2014 3:49 pm
Location: Central Montana

Re: Time for Fish to go!

Post by msu_agfan » Tue Feb 27, 2018 12:05 pm

[/quote]


What do you see in the program, that gives you ANY optimism that next year team can be significantly better than this years team! [/quote]


Looking at the depth chart, next year we will not lose an incredible amount of talent, (that wont be replaced). The big question will be the next year. We still have one more year for Blevins, Hall, Klines, and our Center Neumann. Lose that class and we are very sparse, so this incoming class had better be able to fill in some big holes in two years or we will be bottom of the conference for sure then. I'm optimistic as always, we get a decent JC big man and the 3 highschoolers that come in next year will bring in 1 solid starter. We gotta hope right?


Animal Science/ Ag Business '96

imacat
1st Team All-BobcatNation
Posts: 1691
Joined: Sat Jun 11, 2011 11:23 am

Re: Time for Fish to go!

Post by imacat » Tue Feb 27, 2018 3:02 pm

I am disappointed in how this year is going as I expected an improvement over last season. At the same time I believe Fish is a good basketball coach who will win and win big here. I admit I could be wrong and I know the danger of sticking with a coach too long (Huse) but I believe it is too soon to throw the towel in on Coach Fish.

He inherited a team (program) on life support. The program made significant improvements in year 2. I am willing to give him an opportunity to continue building.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk



User avatar
Cledus
Golden Bobcat
Posts: 5468
Joined: Sun Sep 03, 2006 3:18 pm
Location: Billings Heights

Re: Time for Fish to go!

Post by Cledus » Tue Feb 27, 2018 3:42 pm

Who here, knowing what you know RIGHT NOW about Fish, would hire him if he were to apply as a head coach at a university where you are the athletic director?


UM is the university equivalent of Axe Body Spray and essential oils.

John K
Golden Bobcat
Posts: 8620
Joined: Mon Jun 11, 2007 11:04 am
Location: Great Falls MT

Re: Time for Fish to go!

Post by John K » Tue Feb 27, 2018 4:00 pm

imacat wrote:I am disappointed in how this year is going as I expected an improvement over last season. At the same time I believe Fish is a good basketball coach who will win and win big here. I admit I could be wrong and I know the danger of sticking with a coach too long (Huse) but I believe it is too soon to throw the towel in on Coach Fish.

He inherited a team (program) on life support. The program made significant improvements in year 2. I am willing to give him an opportunity to continue building.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Actually we improved significantly from year 1 to year 2 and and again from year 2 to year 3. We went from 4-14 in conference, to 9-9, to 11-7. I think that's exactly what makes this season so disappointing. We had established an upward trajectory the past two seasons, and correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't we return almost all of our key players from last year's team? We should have improved again this season, at least incrementally, or at the bare minimum we shouldn't have regressed. I think most of us felt that a top 4 finish in the BSC was not an unreasonable goal, but we've obviously fallen well short of that. We've taken a big step backward this year, with no obvious explanation. I still believe he deserves one more year, and since he's under contract for another year, it's sort of a moot point whether or not he's deserving of it. If next year is similar to this year though, then I think it's probably time for a change.



Post Reply