To be critical of Maggard on this issue is fair game. He extended the contract of a coach nobody was stealing. Being critical of how the Big Fish manages to not have an offense, and poor overall defense is fair game. This is a fans board with numerous views.
If you back UL coaches as long as they’re not cheating just say that instead of blaming people who see the futility of retaining this coach. No doubt Big Fish will get to the UL HOF just for longevity. Good chance to the state HOF without having accomplished diddle.
I think it’s funny you say that as others have stated there isn’t a D1 player on the bench of this team (which is ludicrous by the way).
I can’t say I agree with the talent to make the finals in the situation they were in, especially without Smith. To be forced to go on the road and win twice, then win in the semifinals all against teams that are completely fresh coming off of byes is a very tall task.
Not making an excuse just stating a fact, injuries/suspensions played a part in being the 8th seed. Just looking at the guys healthy last night, in conference play alone you had Wesley out 9 games, Hardy 6, Wilson 4, Smith 4 (regular season), Russell 1, and Gueye 1. Spenkuch and Temple both missed chunks down the stretch as well when they could have given minutes here and there. If just the in season injuries are toned down your probably hosting last night if not a bye into the quarter finals to host. This isn’t even counting the guys out for the season before conference play started.
By the way this is not a Marlin defense, I did not like the way things were handled down the stretch last night as I mentioned earlier in the thread. I just hate when it is said that bringing up the injuries this year is an excuse, it’s not as it clearly had an effect. I want to give the guys who played their hearts out to the end some credit, I enjoyed watching all of them this season.
There is no question that the players gave it their all this season in spite of injuries. If there is one thing that I will take from this team, it's the fact that they never quit in the face of adversity.
Now with that being said, we can't just pick and choose when we want to point to injuries for every time the team came up short. The injury bug was used last season and the season before as a catalyst for a free pass. After awhile, it's like crying wolf. This year was obviously the exception. But I can also name 4 losses off the top of my head where injuries had nothing to do with losing (First Little Rock matchup, Georgia Southern in the Cajundome, ULM on the road, Georgia Southern last night). The Little Rock game and Georgia Southern game last night were two losses where we blew 14+ point second half leads. Obviously, we weren't injured enough to jump to those leads. But yet, people still use that as a reason why we lost those games. Sorry, but I'm not buying that. The Georgia Southern loss in the Cajundome came at the expense of Marlin getting ejected early on for a bad call that shouldn't have caused that much of an overreaction. Granted, he later apologized so it is what it is. As for the ULM game, we had no big man down the stretch to counter their big. And this was after we lead for a good portion of the game. Why is that? Why didn't we have a big man?
So, the point is that yes. Injuries were a burden this year. But we still lost games that could've been won for other reasons other than injuries. What we need to be working on next season is a bench.
First Little Rock game Hardy didn’t play, GA Southern at home Wesley was still out. I firmly believe we win at ULM and last night with Smith as both of those games we gave up a lot of easy buckets inside. I still think this team is a 4 or 5 seed at worst even with the big season ending injuries if all of the other injuries and of course the suspension don’t occur.
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