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Post by phoenixphan87 on Feb 23, 2016 11:05:49 GMT -6
This team is 10-6 in the Horizon League right now. A weekend sweep of UIC/Valpo and i believe he has to win the award. Everyone knew what Valpo brought back, Oakland as well. Milwaukee and Detroit have disappointed. NKU surprised for their first year in the league but not nearly enough wins. It has to be down to Donlan(WSU) and Linc. Donlan's team was projected higher and finally became healthy right around the start of the conference season. A split this weekend and i think its a coin flip.
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Post by FSCMocFan on Feb 24, 2016 23:09:38 GMT -6
This team is 10-6 in the Horizon League right now. A weekend sweep of UIC/Valpo and i believe he has to win the award. Everyone knew what Valpo brought back, Oakland as well. Milwaukee and Detroit have disappointed. NKU surprised for their first year in the league but not nearly enough wins. It has to be down to Donlan(WSU) and Linc. Donlan's team was projected higher and finally became healthy right around the start of the conference season. A split this weekend and i think its a coin flip. I pretty much agree with this.
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Post by shooting the J on Feb 25, 2016 6:14:09 GMT -6
Green Bay is super athletic. They should win. Returned lots of minutes played, and a great core of defenders. 11-7 shouldn't win coach of the year in a terrible conference. The conference is the worst it's ever been.
Now, if they pull the big upset against Valpo, then we might have something.
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Post by GBPhoenix1 on Feb 25, 2016 8:41:10 GMT -6
If things hold to form this weekend, GB will finish 11-7 in league play. That will be 2-6 against the four other teams in the top five and 9-1 against the bottom five teams in the league. No matter what the expectation is that doesn't seem like a COY candidate to me. Especially with how badly they lost to Oakland and YSU.
I think Bryce Drew is the COY. Sure they were expected to be the best but he did deliver on that. He recruited the players, developed the players, took everyone's best shot in 18 league games and still came out on top by a wide margin. I think the COY is about the whole package and not just exceeding the expectation of the preseason prediction which all of the coaches think is meaningless.
With that said, my bold prediction for Linc Darner is that GB is shopping for a new head coach in April. Central Florida is 6 years into the Donnie Jones era, and is getting worse. In 3 years in the American Conference they have been bad. UCF has a new athletic director that was just hired in December. They have pretty solid financial backing. Just looking that situation over I would guess they move on from Jones. Darner won a D2 title 75 miles down the road from UCF and will likely have a 20 win season under his belt in his first D1 season. That has to look tempting to UCF when and if they make a move.
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Post by Heartbroken Phoenix Fan on Feb 25, 2016 9:52:47 GMT -6
Green Bay is super athletic. They should win. Returned lots of minutes played, and a great core of defenders. 11-7 shouldn't win coach of the year in a terrible conference. The conference is the worst it's ever been. Now, if they pull the big upset against Valpo, then we might have something. Disagree completely. It is top heavy but if Oakland or Valpo make the big dance they are talented enough to make sweet 16. Uwm beat Wisconsin and Minnesota on the road. That isn't a terrible team by any stretch. Green Bay competed with Stanford and Wisconsin Detroit is an average team but would be the best team in many of the smaller conferences or very least top two Wright st swept Valpo. That says a lot Uic Cleveland at are awful and northern Kentucky has competed very well in their first year. Even Youngstown beat Oakland and Green Bay this year. Last year conference was a lot worse. More parity this year as the talent pool grows in the horizon. I don't think he should win coach of year but neither should Byrce drew. They did what thet would supposed to do and still haven't looked unbeatable like they should. Oaklands coach should win it with darner taking second or third.
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Post by phoenixphan87 on Feb 25, 2016 10:37:40 GMT -6
The league is down this year. As of right now there are only three top 150 RPI teams. The bottom four teams are 250+. I will say I believe that 12-6 Darner should trump 15-3 Drew if GB sweeps this weekend. What Donlan has done with WSU given the way their NC season went (injuries, close losses) is remarkable. He also swept Valpo. They have two winnable games this weekend and could be 13-5. Winning the league title alone shouldn't automatically make you COY.
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Post by shooting the J on Feb 25, 2016 17:32:07 GMT -6
Green Bay is super athletic. They should win. Returned lots of minutes played, and a great core of defenders. 11-7 shouldn't win coach of the year in a terrible conference. The conference is the worst it's ever been. Now, if they pull the big upset against Valpo, then we might have something. Disagree completely. It is top heavy but if Oakland or Valpo make the big dance they are talented enough to make sweet 16. Uwm beat Wisconsin and Minnesota on the road. That isn't a terrible team by any stretch. Green Bay competed with Stanford and Wisconsin Detroit is an average team but would be the best team in many of the smaller conferences or very least top two Wright st swept Valpo. That says a lot Uic Cleveland at are awful and northern Kentucky has competed very well in their first year. Even Youngstown beat Oakland and Green Bay this year. Last year conference was a lot worse. More parity this year as the talent pool grows in the horizon. I don't think he should win coach of year but neither should Byrce drew. They did what thet would supposed to do and still haven't looked unbeatable like they should. Oaklands coach should win it with darner taking second or third. The conference is currently ranked 18th in RPI, easily the worst its ever been. Valpo is outstanding, but it ends there. Oakland has its moments, but is wildly inconsistent because they don't defend. They're very similar to Green Bay, just a little further advanced because of experience in approach.
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Post by FSCMocFan on Feb 25, 2016 21:39:34 GMT -6
Oakland has its moments, but is wildly inconsistent because they don't defend. They're very similar to Green Bay, just a little further advanced because of experience in approach. This is very, very true.
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Post by fightphoe93 on Feb 25, 2016 21:59:21 GMT -6
It's been a good year for Darner, not a great one, but a good one. The thing that's been the biggest surprise is just how quickly he changed the style of play and yet has had pretty good results. I think he did inherit a couple of very good players in Fouse and Love, but to his credit, he's helped them take a step in development.
There is a lot to like about this season, but there certainly has been a drop off in quality of half court defense that does temper the optimism just a tad.
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Post by FSCMocFan on Feb 25, 2016 22:05:30 GMT -6
With that said, my bold prediction for Linc Darner is that GB is shopping for a new head coach in April. Central Florida is 6 years into the Donnie Jones era, and is getting worse. In 3 years in the American Conference they have been bad. UCF has a new athletic director that was just hired in December. They have pretty solid financial backing. Just looking that situation over I would guess they move on from Jones. Darner won a D2 title 75 miles down the road from UCF and will likely have a 20 win season under his belt in his first D1 season. That has to look tempting to UCF when and if they make a move. I don't foresee this happening at all. On the other hand he hasn't sold his home in Lakeland.
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Post by fansincebuss on Feb 26, 2016 10:39:46 GMT -6
This team is 10-6 in the Horizon League right now. A weekend sweep of UIC/Valpo and i believe he has to win the award. Everyone knew what Valpo brought back, Oakland as well. Milwaukee and Detroit have disappointed. NKU surprised for their first year in the league but not nearly enough wins. It has to be down to Donlan(WSU) and Linc. Donlan's team was projected higher and finally became healthy right around the start of the conference season. A split this weekend and i think its a coin flip. By no means do I think it is a given but I do think it should be between Donlan and Darner. If Green Bay beats UIC and Valpo, I say Darner is the leading candidate, if not probably Donlan.
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Post by fansincebuss on Feb 26, 2016 10:47:35 GMT -6
With that said, my bold prediction for Linc Darner is that GB is shopping for a new head coach in April. Central Florida is 6 years into the Donnie Jones era, and is getting worse. In 3 years in the American Conference they have been bad. UCF has a new athletic director that was just hired in December. They have pretty solid financial backing. Just looking that situation over I would guess they move on from Jones. Darner won a D2 title 75 miles down the road from UCF and will likely have a 20 win season under his belt in his first D1 season. That has to look tempting to UCF when and if they make a move. I hope you are wrong, I like Darner and would love to see what he could do with 5 or 6 years on the job. Having said that, I do think he is already an attractive candidate for coaching jobs and it must be difficult moving a family from Florida to Wisconsin.
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Post by FSCMocFan on Feb 26, 2016 11:30:38 GMT -6
Linc's contract with GB is five years. It would be extraordinarily un-"Linc-like" to bail after one. Character counts, Linc has character, and he demands it of his players. Someday he will move on from GB. I doubt he will be at GB as long as he was at FSC (9 years), but not after one year. I also think when it happens it will be for better than The American and UCF/USF. That is as long as he doesn't fall flat on his face at GB - also unlikely.
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Post by fightphoe93 on Feb 26, 2016 21:11:12 GMT -6
One thing that I think we can say is a blessing in disguise with the coaching change from Wardle to Darner was the addition of those 2 Junior College guys in Cooper and Hurdle. Now, we lost Francis and that was a big loss, but the more I watch Cooper, I think he might be a better player overall than Francis was but Francis was pretty darn good and I don't want to shortchange him too much. Plus Francis still would have had 2 more years where we lose Cooper after next season.
Hurdle though is really emerging as a nice player off the bench. I'm not convinced that any of the 3 recruits that were lined up (Pittman, Okafor, Torres) would have measured up to the level of play Hurdle is bringing and will likely bring next season.
Who knows, maybe Pittman, Okafor, and Torres may turn out to be really good some day, but so far they have a long ways to go to show it. It may turn out that maybe those guys weren't going to bring the same level of success we got used to in 2013-2015.
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Post by thetulsawarrior on Feb 26, 2016 21:49:22 GMT -6
I wrote about this in early summer when Darner and Company had filled the open recruiting slots. They really achieved something bringing in two quality JUCOs late and the Brown twins. Not knocking the players who bailed on their LOI's but the Darner recruits have been able to have more of an immediate impact than P, O, and T would have.
It should be interesting to see what Jones and Jesperson will be able to give the team next season. All of this patchwork has given the staff time to recruit a foundation 2017 class.
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