As far as portal transfers in my opinion Mullins was behind a little when Domask and Jones waited to announce their decision so the staff couldn't have anyone commit until they had an answer I hope going forward those decisions on who leaves come much faster to fill spots sooner
The key upcoming game is the away game at Belmont. You assume losses to Drake and INSU along with a win against Ill St. Then there are two more "if" games on the schedule, Murray St and UNI at home. I'm assuming a W vs Evansville and another L vs Bradley. We could finish anywhere from 4th (unlikely) to 9th (unlikely). My biggest positive from this season is that despite being overmatched talent wise, as well as outcoached, in many games this team does not give up. That does count for something.
Wait... despite being at a talent deficit and winning would point to coaching being the reason... despite a coaching deficit and winning would point to talent being the reason we have had success... You can't argue both. Then we are just winning cause of random luck. This is what always happens here. He can't recruit! but we win so wouldn't that mean he can coach?? HE CANT COACH!! But we win so wouldn't that mean he can recruit???? You can't have it both ways.
Like come on guys... If you can't recruit AND you can't coach you are not consistently finishing top half of the Valley. That is dumb. You can probably get away with being really good at one or the other but you can't be bad at both. Sorry.
Like come on guys... If you can't recruit AND you can't coach you are not consistently finishing top half of the Valley. That is dumb. You can probably get away with being really good at one or the other but you can't be bad at both. Sorry.
Mullins has never seriously competed in the Valley. They’re always good enough to beat the bottom tier teams but not good enough to beat the contenders. You can argue they were a Mast 3 away last year but Drake and Bradley got off to bad starts and by the end of the season when the games mattered, they were the clear two best teams in the conference.
SIU barely beat Missouri State in the ugliest game I’ve ever seen to get to Saturday for the first time under Mullins. This was a team with two Big Ten starters that are currently dominating in that conference.
The key upcoming game is the away game at Belmont. You assume losses to Drake and INSU along with a win against Ill St. Then there are two more "if" games on the schedule, Murray St and UNI at home. I'm assuming a W vs Evansville and another L vs Bradley. We could finish anywhere from 4th (unlikely) to 9th (unlikely). My biggest positive from this season is that despite being overmatched talent wise, as well as outcoached, in many games this team does not give up. That does count for something.
Wait... despite being at a talent deficit and winning would point to coaching being the reason... despite a coaching deficit and winning would point to talent being the reason we have had success... You can't argue both. Then we are just winning cause of random luck. This is what always happens here. He can't recruit! but we win so wouldn't that mean he can coach?? HE CANT COACH!! But we win so wouldn't that mean he can recruit???? You can't have it both ways.
I didn't say he couldn't coach, did I? I said he has been outcoached in many games (although I should have said key games).
I didn't say he couldn't recruit, I said we have been overmatched talent wise in many games.
Mullins CAN both coach AND recruit, but in 5 years he's only been able to do that at slightly above a .500 pace (45-41 in conference record).
I have been on record, in this very thread, that I do NOT want to get rid of Mullins solely for a change........ I would, however, welcome a new coach if it meant stepping up from mediocrity. I'm tired of not even sniffing the post-season. I do, however, remain at least hopeful (unlike so many) that Howard may surprise us this offseason and land some difference making players in the portal. That being said, I believe that if we do not, and end up having another mediocre season next year, then SIU basketball could continue as it has the last 15+ years.
Like come on guys... If you can't recruit AND you can't coach you are not consistently finishing top half of the Valley. That is dumb. You can probably get away with being really good at one or the other but you can't be bad at both. Sorry.
Mullins has never seriously competed in the Valley. They’re always good enough to beat the bottom tier teams but not good enough to beat the contenders. You can argue they were a Mast 3 away last year but Drake and Bradley got off to bad starts and by the end of the season when the games mattered, they were the clear two best teams in the conference.
SIU barely beat Missouri State in the ugliest game I’ve ever seen to get to Saturday for the first time under Mullins. This was a team with two Big Ten starters that are currently dominating in that conference.
So he can recruit, that is what has made his teams as successful as they have been.
Like come on guys... If you can't recruit AND you can't coach you are not consistently finishing top half of the Valley. That is dumb. You can probably get away with being really good at one or the other but you can't be bad at both. Sorry.
Mullins has never seriously competed in the Valley. They’re always good enough to beat the bottom tier teams but not good enough to beat the contenders. You can argue they were a Mast 3 away last year but Drake and Bradley got off to bad starts and by the end of the season when the games mattered, they were the clear two best teams in the conference.
SIU barely beat Missouri State in the ugliest game I’ve ever seen to get to Saturday for the first time under Mullins. This was a team with two Big Ten starters that are currently dominating in that conference.
So he can recruit, that is what has made his teams as successful as they have been.
I think he can recruit quality but he hasn’t been able to recruit quantity. The good Valley teams that contend have 4 or 5 guys on the court that you fear. Most of the time through Mullins’ tenure there’s 3 guys at most on the court that you fear.
They have big hits like Benson, Domask, X, and Davis/Hornecker (based on recruiting rankings) but you need more hits to contend in the Valley.
What they did with the portal this offseason was horrific. They had 2 Big Ten starters to replace and they ended up with 4 guys that can barely get on the court. Had they nailed even half of those, who knows what this team’s ceiling could have been this year with the way X is playing. I don’t know if they didn’t want to recruit over Brown/D’Amico or something but that would be embarrassing if so.
Like come on guys... If you can't recruit AND you can't coach you are not consistently finishing top half of the Valley. That is dumb. You can probably get away with being really good at one or the other but you can't be bad at both. Sorry.
Mullins has never seriously competed in the Valley. They’re always good enough to beat the bottom tier teams but not good enough to beat the contenders. You can argue they were a Mast 3 away last year but Drake and Bradley got off to bad starts and by the end of the season when the games mattered, they were the clear two best teams in the conference.
SIU barely beat Missouri State in the ugliest game I’ve ever seen to get to Saturday for the first time under Mullins. This was a team with two Big Ten starters that are currently dominating in that conference.
Here is an alarming trend in Bryan's first 5 years at SIU.
Since Bryan first year as SIU's coach we were 4-25 against the top 4 seeds of the Valley tournament with 0 road wins. 11-31 against the top 6 seeds of the tournament with 2 road wins. Currently we are 1-5 this year against the top 6 of the current league standings. With road games at Bradley, at Drake a home date with Indiana State hoping for the best but it is not looking good to improve that record. I know everyone thinks we have overachieved this year, but we have exactly one win over a team with a winning record 12-11 Belmont, and according to Warren Nolan we played the worst non-conference schedule in the Valley and lost to 8-13 Wichita State and 237 net Austin Peay at home. Out of our 7 conference wins 6 are against the bottom four of the current league standings. I really like Bryan and think he is a class act and want nothing more than for him to be successful (everybody does) but IF he who shall not be named was still the coach or IF someone else not named Bryan Mullins was the coach this board and Saluki nation would be going nuts. I maybe delusional but I for one was hoping when Bryan was hired, we would do better than that. Okay I am sure I will be ridiculed for this by some but I feel like we should be doing better than this.
@saluki-4-life You keep breaking it down to CAN he recruit and CAN he coach. That's a pretty linear way of looking at things. So far, he has proven to be mediocre at both. I hope that improves in a hurry. Otherwise, he's gone. Alumnus or not.
Like come on guys... If you can't recruit AND you can't coach you are not consistently finishing top half of the Valley. That is dumb. You can probably get away with being really good at one or the other but you can't be bad at both. Sorry.
You're making it black and white when it isn't. You can coach OK and recruit OK and your team will just be OK. Mullins can coach D, although our guys don't always execute it well. He's recruited "some" talent" - XJ, Ferguson, Hornecker, but not nearly enough to compete with the better MVC teams. Anybody who reads the recruiting news sees that we have a lot of misses on promising players. His offense is somewhat better than last year, but I think the improvement in XJ, TB, CR, and SE are mostly responsible for that.
I still see guys standing around late in games hoping XJ will save them and the coach doesn't stop that stagnation. I still see poor inbounds plays, lack of screening, silly lineups, etc.
I say look at Dale Lennon. He recruited some great talent but not enough. His teams weren't terrible - they had their moments, but after Kill's recruits were gone, we never sniffed the playoffs.
A coach can have some success and if you (the school) are satisfied with that, fine, but with the money we spend on athletics, I think the goal is to excel, not just be OK, and I for one agree with that goal.
Watching that InSU-Drake game, the incredible engagement of the students and fans was impressive, and it does nothing but good things for InSU. Watch a Big 10 game. Amazing school spirit.
I'd love to see that again in Salukiville! We don't need another 5 years of so-so in our basketball program.
I actually think Mullins has earned a short extension with the product they’ve put out there the last 2 years but my big hang up is you can’t afford to go another 2 years without contending and then fire Mullins and reset everything again and I think we’re headed for that. It’s been way too long since SIU competed for a postseason tournament and as constructed, I think next year’s team is gonna be another step back based on the departing talent and the players coming back right now.
If this season was being used as a reset year and you had a bunch of young players thriving and had 1 or 2 exciting commits coming into the program, I think I would have a different opinion. In reality though, we’d have to hope Wardle, DeVries, and Schertz get poached from bigger programs to even have a chance at contending next year.
How different does everyone feel if Reink Mast's 3 from a step off the sideline last year doesn't go in and we win the Valley... That is as close as we have been since 2009. I just think you keep building it, keep finishing in the top half and near the top and your time is coming. Barry was totally different, his teams were all over the place and his last year was all in and still failed and even that team wasn't as close to competing for anything as Mullins. I just think within a few years we are going to see Mullins break through, I truly believe that.
To his credit, Mullins isn't a slick, self-promoter/huckster like his predecessor was. That said ... it might be in his best interest to pay a little more attention to the PR front at this seemingly delicate time of his tenure.
Mullins tends to talk in coachspeak platitudes, consistently project high levels of optimism even when it doesn't appear to be warranted and, honestly, not say a whole lot of substance in many of his interviews. Maybe now (or soon) would be the time to change it up a bit and acknowledge that, while the results have been plenty respectable, the program hasn't gotten to the championship level he often talks about, take some accountability for falling short so far, and communicate what his plan/vision is for taking the next step to the top of the league/legit postseason contention.
As has been stated often here, almost everyone wants Bryan to succeed. Badly. I think he could win over many who might be on the fence with some real-talk and stating his case for why he still thinks he can get it done. Say it with feeling. I don't know if the decision-makers have their minds made up one way or the other yet, but seems like it might be worthwhile to, reluctantly, take a page from Hinson's book and understand the value of politics/PR at a time like this.
Aside from having a slightly better winning percentage and avoiding a 20-loss season, Mullins' bottom-line production and results are roughly the same as his predecessor's, with no NCAAs or NITs. But Sauceman -- a BS artist with no ties to SIU or the Southern Illinois region who was unpopular with the fan base -- got seven years (probably two more years than he deserved, but it was what it was). With Mullins' SIU pedigree and high character, I'd be fine with cutting him the slack that Hinson didn't deserve and signing him to extension through his seventh season. If he keeps a core of four or five key guys from this year's team, if he knocks it out of the park in the portal this spring and manages to bring in a quality high school recruit or two, and if he realizes his coaching philosophy needs some tweaking, he has a puncher's chance of leading us into the postseason. But that's a lot of ifs. It's also possible that he gets such an extension, sees Ferguson, Ebube, Davis and others leave, fails to recruit impact players, produces Gottfried-ish results (something like 8-24) next season, and SIU has to eat the final year of his contract because it's clearly not working. In that case, it'll be up to the school to find a dynamic candidate capable of a quick turnaround and, because Mullins would have to be paid, willing to work cheap.
siu probably wins the valley that year if we beat Indiana state at home when Avilia was scoring 2 ft from the basket over a small gaurd. That was a sad game. Really wish we had that game back.How different does everyone feel if Reink Mast's 3 from a step off the sideline last year doesn't go in and we win the Valley... That is as close as we have been since 2009. I just think you keep building it, keep finishing in the top half and near the top and your time is coming. Barry was totally different, his teams were all over the place and his last year was all in and still failed and even that team wasn't as close to competing for anything as Mullins. I just think within a few years we are going to see Mullins break through, I truly believe that.
