The elephant in the room

I haven't written on this topic at all, because I'm not interested in this being the kind of blog where some guy behind a keyboard relentlessly hounds some other guy who hasn't done anything to anybody except have less success than we would have hoped and when the person who feels that way most strongly is the houndee.

It is very difficult to avoid.  I have been tweeted about it and it was all anyone was talking about on the way out of the Stroh Center last night.  Coach Orr was asked about it after the game.

Will Coach Orr be back?

People asking that question ask it because the preliminary question--should he be back--is already answered in their mind.

He has one year left on his contract and I believe that the odds are he will finish that contract.  Events may prove me wrong but I expect to see him on the bench next year.

I think buying Coach Brandon out gave fans a different sense of where we are as a school.  We are not the "buying out" type.  The Brandon thing was externally funded but Gary Blackney reached the end of his deal and so did Dan Dakich...and Dakich was under this athletic director.

Furthermore, there were huge problems with the program under Brandon, as we can clearly see now.  Those problems were beyond performance.  There were APR issues.  The program was in shambles.

Our men's basketball program is not having the success anyone wants.  I have used the word "languishing" and I use it again.  But, the program is not collapsing from all sides, like Brandon's football program was.  In fact, everyone respects Coach Orr's integrity and demeanor.

Buying out costs money, and I don't expect us to spend it on this.

Again, maybe I will be proven wrong.

Here's the problem.  Being on a one year deal is a tough way to go.  It certainly did not go well for Coach Dakich...or Blackney, for that matter.

It will be made even more difficult by the fact that this team was 13-19 this year with 2 non D1 wins and it is hard to imagine us being better next year.  We are losing 55% of our scoring (Chauncey Orr will be our leading returning scorer), 61% of our assists and 37% of our rebounds--from a poor team.

I know people are excited about the freshman, but they are only freshman and we have had freshman with big HS pedigrees come in before (a couple of them were on the floor last night) and they aren't good until they're good.

I'm not going to call guys out, but let's say that we are very unproven at the point for next year and it is hard to imagine where the scoring (especially at guard) is going to come from, and the names you say will fill those roles...my response is that those guys have not really shown too much in the chances they have had, certainly not on a consistent basis.

And, we have rarely seen players take big leaps in the Orr era...players may improve incrementally or they may not, but I don't think we have seen anyone who was markedly better one year from the next.

My only point is that Coach Orr will be entering the last year of his deal and honestly, I think we will be hard pressed to be as good as this year's team was.  And that leaves you with what is pretty much a very long year leading to a conclusion that by then will not surprise anyone.

And that's a pretty depressing thought.

Do I think Coach Orr can turn this program around and bring it back to a winning position?  Or, do I think Coach Orr can take the program and get it into the conference's elite, where people talk about Akron, OU and BG?

I have seen nothing that suggests he can.  He has had one winning season.  Yes, to his credit, that team won the regular season title.  But he has now graduated six seniors from the program in the last two years--players he brought in--and the team is getting worse.

If he is brought back, I will be rooting for him.

But I don't see anything that suggests things are going to get better.

And they haven't been awful...which is why I use the word languishing.  It is just that from a fan's perspective, there have been only two winning seasons since the WVU debacle...it is as long a drought as this program has ever had.  You can't blame Anderson Arena anymore (and I don't believe you ever could).

The team was 13-19 in Dakich's last season, BTW, very similar to this year's record.

Ultimately the decision rests with the man who is paid to make those decisions.  We will watch and wait.