BearsTruth Board

Ashley,

I admire your optimism, but you KNOW the can of worms the "what if" game opens. So I won't derail your good, hopeful thread about "what it". I'll start a different one that can be ignored if the board wants to.

With all due respect, even if you could design whatever top 7-8 rotation you could from current to incoming players, . . . we're going to see the same KIND of basketball we've seen the last 4-5 years no matter who's on the court. We've had more than enough talent on the bench to be among the nation's best-and not just projected to be the best in pre-season, I mean among the best consistently in late March and early April, and certainly consistently a top 25 team in mid March going into the Tourney.

Your unflagging loyalty to Scott is admirable. Scott deserves his ardent defenders. He also deserves his constructive critics.

After all of the messes of games we've seen this year and last, and late season swoons when this team and other years' teams were neither ready to play nor got any help from Drew in managing late minutes in games when we were ready to play, or having any number of respected tv broadcasters be as kind as they could but just keep asking "we don't understand why ... . " questions about the product they see on the court, we;re not going to see anything different than we've seen until we see a different Scott Drew than we've seen.

The TV commentators in the first half yesterday absolutely ripped us (and we deserved it) as graciously as they could, and Drew needs to take his share of that ripping. It applies to a significant part of this and other seasons when we woefully underachieved. And the fact that Jackson had a career second half and almost pulled it out yesterday doesn't change that need.

Until Scott Drew takes an honest look in the mirror and admits he needs some help, no line up will get us there. It's obvious it's no longer an issue of us just being a year away or a recruit away or one more year out of someone we thought might be one and done but who stays for another year.

We are a coaching staff away from anything different. We are an approach to the game away.

We've seen the best Scott and his staff has to offer--and some of it is very, very good. But as a package, as a staff of coaches with Scott at the head, our best is not good enough. Every now and then, yes. Consistently to be the Program year in/out that we dream of, no.

So, unless the "what it" game includes a reworking of the coaching staff and their approach to all facets of the game starting with Scott, then playing the game with just a different lineup of players is going to give us the same kind of basketball we've seen.

No professional at Baylor, from the President down, is above criticism that leads to improvement. It's time for Scott to man up and make some changes in himself, in his approach to the game, and in his staff, and "if" THAT can happen, then Baylor basketball will be better off in the long run. And then we'll all have a lot more fun playing the "what if" kinds of games about players, recruits, and starting 5s. And hopefully we won't have to look around or through or past the mess of basketball incompetence we saw the first half yesterday and for much of the past several years.

My only post on the topic; I would love to see Scott a successful coach at Baylor for a long time. I would like to see him grow in the ways he's going to have to to be so.