Full disclosure, I didn't watch much rhis year but did keep up with it in stretches.
My overall grade would be a 'C'. That's mainly because I don't believe this team would have been on anyone's radar if we knew preseason that neither Lowe nor JQ would play as little as they ended up playing. Fault Pope 100% for basing the success this year on not one, but two players with huge injury question marks. If both of those two had played the vast majority of the season, though, I would definitely rate this a 'D'.
Biggest disappointment would have to be the lack of consistent offense when, allegedly, Pope is a great offensive mind. Far too many games had at least one extended stretch of time where we didn't score due to horrible shot selection, bad ball handling, bad decisions, too much standing around, etc. No excuse to have 5+ minutes of chaotic, bad basketball game after game. Second on my list would be Pope's substitution patterns and personnel decisions. Garrison is NOT a point forward no matter what Pope believes. Too many games when our scorers were on the bench together while we floundered on the court. I never was comfortable with his sub decisions.
We won one game in the NCAA tourney. With this roster, that may have been the ceiling, tbh. They didn't have a nearly good enough roster without Lowe and JQ, imo.
Hoping for an outstanding offseason/rebuild and good year next year. Pope definitely needs a deeper run to stay employed.
My overall grade would be a 'C'. That's mainly because I don't believe this team would have been on anyone's radar if we knew preseason that neither Lowe nor JQ would play as little as they ended up playing. Fault Pope 100% for basing the success this year on not one, but two players with huge injury question marks. If both of those two had played the vast majority of the season, though, I would definitely rate this a 'D'.
Biggest disappointment would have to be the lack of consistent offense when, allegedly, Pope is a great offensive mind. Far too many games had at least one extended stretch of time where we didn't score due to horrible shot selection, bad ball handling, bad decisions, too much standing around, etc. No excuse to have 5+ minutes of chaotic, bad basketball game after game. Second on my list would be Pope's substitution patterns and personnel decisions. Garrison is NOT a point forward no matter what Pope believes. Too many games when our scorers were on the bench together while we floundered on the court. I never was comfortable with his sub decisions.
We won one game in the NCAA tourney. With this roster, that may have been the ceiling, tbh. They didn't have a nearly good enough roster without Lowe and JQ, imo.
Hoping for an outstanding offseason/rebuild and good year next year. Pope definitely needs a deeper run to stay employed.
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