I think it's the coaching. I do believe the ladies have the talent. I watched several of them in AAU and was quite impressed. They seem to get worse each game though. Gardner Webb even beat Mercer quite soundly and that's where ex-WBB Coach Reeves went. They should be beating these teams like Mercer and Elon, and we should have dominated Jackson State. We beat Mississippi State but they are waaaaay down this year. We were beaten by South Alabama worse this year than we were last year. We're going to really struggle during conference play, and C-USA is down in WBB already losing Louisville, Marquette, and Depaul to the Big East. Let's face it, JLM was a bad choice for this program, and several from Memphis said she was on her way out. Isn't she a good friend of SFT and didn't she live on his farm or something like that for a while? I heard NCAA been watchin WBB for possible coaching violations too. It'd be interesting to find out more about that situation which has something to do with using the players for too many hours a week. I think there's a limit. I also find it odd that so many veteran players have left the program. At this rate we'll never have any upperclassmen.

The men's team is pretty bad too and seems to be going in the same direction. Big deal-they beat William Carey (0-8), an NAIA team that is horrible. I guess it's better than losing to them though. I'm not sure Eustachy is the answer for our Eagles either.

I hope the situation gets more optimistic with both programs, but my gut feeling is that it won't with these coaches.

Coaching problems wrote:

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I think it's the coaching. I do believe the ladies have the talent. I watched several of them in AAU and was quite impressed. They seem to get worse each game though. Gardner Webb even beat Mercer quite soundly and that's where ex-WBB Coach Reeves went. They should be beating these teams like Mercer and Elon, and we should have dominated Jackson State. We beat Mississippi State but they are waaaaay down this year. We were beaten by South Alabama worse this year than we were last year. We're going to really struggle during conference play, and C-USA is down in WBB already losing Louisville, Marquette, and Depaul to the Big East. Let's face it, JLM was a bad choice for this program, and several from Memphis said she was on her way out. Isn't she a good friend of SFT and didn't she live on his farm or something like that for a while? I heard NCAA been watchin WBB for possible coaching violations too. It'd be interesting to find out more about that situation which has something to do with using the players for too many hours a week. I think there's a limit. I also find it odd that so many veteran players have left the program. At this rate we'll never have any upperclassmen.

The men's team is pretty bad too and seems to be going in the same direction. Big deal-they beat William Carey (0-8), an NAIA team that is horrible. I guess it's better than losing to them though. I'm not sure Eustachy is the answer for our Eagles either.

I hope the situation gets more optimistic with both programs, but my gut feeling is that it won't with these coaches.

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The Lady Eagles are without their first and fourth leading scorers from last year because of injury (Stueber with the concusion, Foley with the elbow injury). Liz Biland, Kelsy Gurganus and Hallie Prest are the only Lady Eagles with any experience and Prest didn't have much playing time last year. Granted, something may have happened to Liz that I am unaware of, but she's pretty much the only one with significant playing time behind her, followed by Gurganus. The starting lineup for the Lady's are now all freshman, even if Carter had stayed, she'd still be surrounded by girls who have the talent to suceed, but lack the experience to understand the college game (high school and college level games are vastly different from each other as I now know from my experiences in Florida). Most of the players who left last year had the experience, but lacked the talent. Jones and Carter are the biggest losses, and even Jones initially said she was dismissed for good reason.
Even if Jones and Carter remained, without Stueber and Foley, they'd be no better off than they were last year. Last year, it was Jones and Carter, surrounded by a bunch of inexperienced freshmen, some of whom (most notably Stueber, Biland and Foley) had real talent. Remember, Stueber was the 13th best in the conference last year in scoring.
Trust me when I say the team would be doing much better if Shannon and Emer were healthy. JLM was not left with much depth and, like I said, only two of the depaprtures (out of 9 total departures) would have given the team any more depth this year. That's not the fault of JLM, that's Rick Reeves' fault for leaving the cubbard barren when he left.
BTW, Reeves went 9-18 in his first year at Gardner-Webb, he's 2-6 this year.

Award Winner wrote:

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While you tend to dismiss the departures, even one additional player gives a team a boost. The NBA recognizes this and gives a "6th Man" award. None of those departures may have turned out to be a true "6th man," but it seems JLM now needs a true 4th and 5th "man."

Now, why were there so many departures? We may not know for sure, but I suspect that contributing players who left had some good reason to give up playing time for sure at USM for an unknown situation at another school.

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Just how much better was the team last year when it was Carter and Jones, surrounded by a bunch of inexperienced freshman? What makes you think this year would be different? Having Carter and Jones this year would help, but only if you had other experienced players around them.