Originally Posted by
miamicajun32
If Jesse Evans had stayed the 20+ win seasons would have continued.... As long as Lee is here, the 20+ loss seasons will happen. There is talent on the team now, certainly enough to win a few sunbelt games and avoid 40 point blow outs to the likes of Stephen F. Austin, but this is what is happening.
It was Lee that tried to bring in the transfers last year en masse, but then realized that he would actually have to figure out a way to mold those very talented but somewhat troubled young men into good students and players. Evans did this year after year and Lee thought he could too, as head coach, just as he helped Evans do while he was an assistant.
Lee proclaimed last year's team to be sweet 16 material going into the season. Then, during the season he proclaimed that Marques Cooke would be the best player in the sunbelt the moment he stepped on the floor for the first time. Lee was just as excited about transfers as Evans ever was, if not more so.... Then Lee's transfer project failed miserably, then Lee cancelled the scholarships of those guys, then he decided to recruit 4 year players.
The team is arguably the worst in Cajun basketball history, and worst team in sunbelt today, even though the talent level is better than average in sunbelt and better than the the few other Cajuns teams that had a losing record since joining D1 35 or so years ago.
Do you honestly believe that Lee will turn a 3 to 5 win team, in the lowly sunbelt, into a sunbelt championship team (what Evans already provided or came close to providing year in and year out) simply with a couple of years maturation process of the young guys now? These freshmen and the other more experienced players on the team are already good enough to compete in the sunbelt but it is not happening because of poor coaching. The team was good enough to compete with Tennessee, Nevada and Cal State Fullerton at the very beginning of the season (at a time when coaching is not as important as raw talent) but now could not possibly come within 30 points of those teams and cannot possibly get out of the cellar in the sunbelt. So why all the optimism about this team and program next year or the year after? Will the talent level be so high then that the team can continue to underperform and yet still win games and make NCAA tourney run?
Ironicaly, the best player by far on this current team is a transfer, Dees. Even more ironically is that if Cooke had stayed in school, the best two players would be transfers. So much for the 4 year plan.
Please note that the 35 years of consistent winning teams is being run into the ground now by the current program. This is happening almost overnight. This year's team is arguably the worst team in 35 years and arguably the worst team in a very weak conference. The young team is showing so much progress that after losing to CSF by a few points they turn around a month or so later and lose by 40. After being competitve against a few teams that would run all over the sunbelt, the Cajuns can't win a sunbelt game and it is no surprise when they lose to teams like SFA and Monroe by 20 to 40 points.
Cajuns may be the worst team in D1 today. So the future is bright?
Evans had 20+ win seasons year after year and that was terrible?
Whoever gave Lee the 5 year guaranteed contract should be fired on the spot. imho, Lee was not a bad hire, given the circumstances at the time, and he deserved a shot at the time. However, why give 5 year guaranteed deal when Lee had no other head coaching jobs coming to him and there was no great demand for him? It was an experiment, he was getting a shot that he deserved, but why not make it a two or three year deal? Why 5? That was flirting with dissaster, and was a negligent decision, especially for a program that apparently cannot afford to buy out contracts.
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