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All of these points are fine, but I think the main issue is running an offensive & defensive system that fits your roster. Hypothetically speaking, you don't run out a bunch of big/slow guys and try to full-court press. Or, you don't have a bunch of athletic slashers and put them in an offense that is based on creating perimeter jump shots. It seems to me that the coach had a system he wanted to play but didn't have the personnel to do it. As a coach you have to realize what your players strengths are and adjust your "system" accordingly.

If you watched the games at the field, I think you would notice the fielding. They aren't usually scored an error, but plays that could be made. Of course, we were very spoiled last year!!

What strikes me as odd; and my apologies as I'm just an old guy that is an outsider looking in, but if the reason for our poor performance last season wasn't talent or coaching but as you state chemistry, and your prior posts imply we are better without Bedford, Smith & Cam, it appears you're saying they hurt our chemistry? Why wasn't that addressed? Suspend one or all of them, bench Bedford, boot one or all of them off the team. IMHO a coach/leader has to build chemistry not just hope it develops somehow, but even more importantly has to remove any obstacles to it. A coach isn't a spectator and cannot allow a disgruntled player to ruin a season, the player(s) need to get on board or get down the road! On the bright side, HCRS has the opportunity for a lot of improvement going into his 2nd season!

Luke seems like a great guy and good pickup, but we may need to pump the brakes on even mentioning his name in the same sentence with an ORU legend like Caleb. I’m excited to have him at ORU(welcome Luke if you see this!!) but let’s give him the chance to create his own path and name.

Man Luke looks like a college senior! Seems like a great fit for us. Looking forward to news on a couple of really good point guards and shooting guards. While we are at it how about a skilled 7 footer, Am I asking for too much?!

Despite the o-fer, it was still a beautiful weekend for baseball. Friday night was particularly perfect weather. Hot dogs taste even better when they're only a dollar on Friday nights. Baseball beats the pants off basketball for the opportunity to chew the fat with ol' Titans and younger Golden Eagles alike. Still the best popcorn around, for baseball and basketball both. Saw Issac McBride sitting front and center Friday night, with some classmates in general and a pretty girl in particular. Make of that what you will...

Fixed ^^^^^

Scott Drew turns down Kentucky today. I cannot say I blame him because if you don't go to a Final Four right away, the Wildcat fanbase has you for lunch. Yes you can make a ton of money but is the pressure really worth it at Kentucky. A coach would have to have a mega personality and tough skin to handle all that hate from their fans. It is one of those jobs where, unless you win a title, no matter what you do it is never good enough.

To me, this post does not put HCRS in a good light! If our problem last season wasn't talent, it must have been coaching. If Bedford was some sort of problem, why was he starting? The only reason to start him after the point the season was essentially over was to try and get him to return, if you wanted him to leave for whatever reason or change his behavior- bench him. What's the coaching point starting a (now that he's leaving) problem player, doesn't make any sense to me. To this simple non-insider, it sounds more like CYA excuses for the number of departures.

ORU Shocks the Shockers in Wichita, 8-3! Looks like we are headed to Omaha afterall!

To clarify: my comparison to Caleb was based on Luke's physical maturity, his rebounding prowess, and the hopes that he might become a transformational acquisition along the lines of Caleb so many years ago. I don't have any idea if he is a back-to-the-basket or face-up player at this level. I would just be happy if he can grab some rebounds on both ends, make some stick-backs around the basket, and defend bigger opponents without getting into foul trouble.

The one thing we will all need to see is how he fits into HCRS's system or will coach change his system. OT is very high on Luke and the comparison he has used is Caleb Green who was a post player, is coach going to start using a post-up player in his offense or play Luke out at the 3-point line? The question has been asked several times previously- change the system to fit the skills of your players or make the players fit into the coach's system.

We can't hit. That is the problem. Better hitting would cover most of the fielding and pitching problems (which are also material). These games are brutal to watch, but the weather and conversation makes it tolerable.

Smith does have some connections at USD.

My gut tells me that this situation isn’t super complicated. Danny Hurley was interviewed after beating Purdue for the National Title and was asked how do you keep winning at such a high level. His response was simple yet profound. He said I recruit players ,some who will play in the NBA but when they come here it’s not about them. Think of all of the top tier schools that underachieved this year in spite of paying a huge NIL bill. To HCRS defense he didn’t have a full year to recruit and perhaps didn’t get what he ideally wanted. With this said he does have a full year to recruit and his talent and team camaraderie should be on the rise. If 1 year from now we are in the same boat our conversation will be different. Many coaches will buy good and great players but the intangible aspect of working together and being selfless is something that can’t be bought.

Having watched nearly every home game in person, I never noticed sulking or bad attitudes either on the bench or on the court. I am a little suspicious of throwing the players under the bus in the way that some of these non-specific insinuations do.

It looks like an excellent class of young ladies. Looking forward to seeing how these ladies mesh together and pull on the rope in the same direction.

Congratulations to Francis! This news deserves it own thread once the Paris Olympics grow closer...

I'll say this about young Mr. Gray: he's literally a poster child for this season's promotional materials. Clean cut, good-looking, built like a Greek statue, no body ink - he even has a grown-up haircut. I'll bet he even somehow manages to keep his jersey tucked in!

Major props to TU athletic media relations director Don Tomkalski, who is retiring in May after 40 years at 11th & Harvard. To put that into perspective: "DonTom" started at TU the same year (1984) that I graduated from ORU. He's a good dude; I just wonder what he's going to do now with his Saturday's during the school year...

Wow!!....this young man seems like a real GET for a mid major like ORU......looking forward to seeming him in BLUE and WHITE!!

Chase Martin's dad, Clay was the high school basketball coach at Jenks for a long time. Then he started being a referee for the NFL. It was getting too hard to do both, so he just does the NFL now. I don't know much about Chase's basketball skills, but I think he's probably a great young man.

Looks like a beautiful weekend for baseball in Tulsa .....Good Guys need Jakob Hall to throw his best and also must have some timely hitting....trusting it will be a boistrous crowd at JLJ....this is a MUST WIN Series....GO BLUE!!!

Sometimes with errors it is less about the number and more about the timing. There have been some brutal innings where the opponent hung a crooked number on us with one or fewer hits. The combination of BB, HBP and E have pushed a lot of runs across the plate for our opponents. Sometimes the numbers don't tell the whole story.

Once Scott Drew said no, they were going to bring in a former player. No way they were going to keep getting embarrassed by coaches turning down what they consider the top job in college Basketball(Their thoughts not mine.) Pope shouldn't have even been in the top 5 of their choices. Now they are literally going to give him everything he needs to build a team $$ wise but a whole of lot pressure on him. Pretty darn tough job as far as expectations.

I’m already loving this guy. He seems all in on ORU.

I truly think the Kentucky boosters were convinced they could back up the Brinks truck and get Hurley or Drew. They don't realize what a miserable job they have created for their head coach. Sure Cal has had some disappointing exits but so had Matt Painter before getting to the championship game and so had Tony Bennett before winning it all. The problem in Lexington is any season that doesn't end in a national championship is a disappointment as @Bogus Smith so elegantly pointed out. It would appear that even the next tier of coaches such as Nate Oates weren't interested in getting involved in that mess. So they pull pull in a former player who has a modest amount of success and hope for the best. Boosters can really make it hard to sustain success. I've been told the first thing Nick Saban did when he got to Alabama was tick off all the boosters by telling them they were no longer in charge and setting serious boundaries on what they could do.

The Honor Code clearly states: No stealing. (Unless it's an ORU baseball player committing the act.)

I think there’s a balance for a coach that feels responsibility to develop a disgruntled player and know when to cut ties. Probably part of the learning curve of a first year head coach of finding that balance of wanting to help the individual but doing what’s best for the team. Always going to be a tricky line to walk of finding and knowing the balance.

Amen!! we agree GEF, if players don't want to get with the program, HCRS should discipline them or even part ways. The only slight disagreement remaining seems to be on timing. As you intentionally left out the important part of the sentence you referenced (you may have a career at CNN as an editor in your future)" A coach isn't a spectator and cannot allow a disgruntled player to ruin a season, the player(s) need to get on board or get down the road." I don't want to argue, but my point is let's address these problems before we lose 19 games and finish dead last in the conference not after the season is over!!

Well said, 82....at this point everything you have stated is right on!....if nothing changes starting this weekend then it may be the ultimate embarrassment that we go from CWS contenders to not even making the Summit Tournament which we host......how the mighty have fallen......this is hard to fathom in just 9 months......sad but true..... TheEagleman is just confounded......watching ORU basketball last season was bad enough....now this?.....YIKES!!!

I think there are a lot of pieces to the puzzle that go into having a great team. Talent is one piece. Coaching is one piece. Chemistry is one piece. I think the majority of people on this board have been a part of teams, (sports or business world) where the chemistry and connection the teammates have can absolutely overcome bad coaching or weaker talent. But the lack of chemistry and connection a team has can absolutely kill a team with superior talent or coaching. The world of college basketball and the transfer portal era has forced coaches to cram what once was a 8-24 month recruitment period for high school players into a 4-6 WEEK recruitment period for transfer portal players. The relationships between coaches and HS recruits was much deeper during the recruitment of a high school player. Often covering multiple seasons, visits, contacts, conversations, etc before the actual decision to commit to the school or decision to offer a recruit a scholarship takes place. Contrast that with recruiting today, the portal window officially opened 1 month ago (early March) and decisions and commitments are being made daily across the country. Much of the rosters will be finalized by the middle of May. That is essentially a 2-month window of time that coaches have to really get to know a player and what he is truly about. A lot can be missed when it comes to trying to understand a player’s buy-in, his intrinsic motivations, is he a fit, is he a winner, does he gel with teammates, how he handles adversity, is he coachable? Etc etc. A lot of those questions can be answered during an 12-month recruitment versus a 4-week recruitment. Just the reality of what college athletics has turned into. Wish Bedford good luck going forward. My guess is he ends up in the Mountain West which is a level up from Summit League but a level below Power 5. The kid is talented. But there are a lot of talented kids that don’t win.

Chase started 22 games for Wofford and averaged 18 minutes per game, so he must add some intangibles as he doesn't exactly light up a stat sheet. Perhaps he is a plus defender or a "glue" guy. I can't imagine him transferring to ORU without some expectation of significant playing time. He is also an All-Conference Academic Honor Roll recipient, so has a good head on his shoulders. It will be nice to have a 6-5, 205 guard.

https://woffordterriers.com/sports/mens-basketball/roster/chase-martin/8173

That's 10 NCAA hockey titles for Denver....TEN......forget basketball and baseball.....maybe ORU should turn Mabee Center into a rink and we take up hockey.....that might be very interesting....eh?!?!?!? PS...When TheEagleman lived in Tulsa we used to love to drive into town to the old Civic Center and watch the Tulsa Ice Oilers play....I was there with several buddies including two ORU basketball players the night the Oilers won the Central League title over the Dallas Black Hawks probably 1974 or 1975....really good memories!!

Thanks! This is a helpful reminder as sometimes if they’re not making bank, these young people just want to get some playing time and play somewhere they feel comfortable.

Yes, every time someone says we are talking in circles or that we discussed this X pages ago, it's my signal to keep on point.

For starters, every position player except the third baseman left. Then we moved our DH to first base. Lost our closer and another reliever that we relied heavily on. One of our weekend starters is pitching in Canada. I may be missing something else. I'm not making excuses I promise you. No one is more disappointed, or had higher expectations, than me. That having been said, there's a lot of talent from last year's team that is currently playing at the next level in some form or another. I also hope that we turn things around.....and soon.

I said this three or four pages ago on this thread.

Sorry if I offend some here but barring nothing short of a miracle this team will go down as one of the worst if not the worst baseball team ORU has ever fielded. Forget the whole "it will take time for them to jell" argument, what I have seen watching from afar is a complete lack of being able to even master the basics of the game such as pitching, catching, fielding and hitting. Not to be Debbie Downer but at this point I do not see this team even making the SL Tourney. Granted that the top four teams get the invite in a league which only has 5 teams so that bar is extremely low, still I do not have a lot of confidence. I hope I am wrong.

How is it "curious"? In the new age of NIL and free transfers, this seems to be the new normal. Open your recruitment every year to the highest bidder. If he goes to WSU and kills it, he'll likely look for a beter deal the next year at a Big12 or SEC team.

Dude honestly seems like a stud. Those are very impressive numbers and hopefully we can close the deal!

...and what does that mean???...lack of effort?? Attitude issues???....coaching??? let's talk about this.....

The problems with ORU last season was not a talent issue. The feedback I got once Bedford, Smith and Amboree put their names in the portal was “ORU got much better today”.

I don’t expect any players besides McBride to even have the option to return.

https://www.instagram.com/p/C5mSaOOLw9g/?igsh=MXV0dngxZzNvamQxbQ== I was really hoping to get Cam back from the portal, but I do wish him the best at Southern!