re: McMahon took a step in the right direction

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that we took a step forward this year?

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I mean there was nowhere to go but up from last year

What is this even supposed to mean really? Sure, going 9-9 in conference play was nice, but we were nowhere near making the tournament either despite teams right around us in the conference, or worse making the tournament. Why? Well, we lost to a team like Nicholls and got blown out A BUNCH of times this season which doesnt help in the NET. So yeah, we made some nice surprises in conference play winning games we frankly shouldn't have, but on the flip side we got pummeled in a ton of games and lost to a team if we played 10 times we should beat 10 times. This is the discouraging part of the season for most people. It's reasons like that why there is a huge lack of fan support still.

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Did anyone really think we were making the tournament this year?

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It wasn't an expectation, but there's also been decreased expectations for McMahon since he got here pretty much. Even disregarding there's new coaches everywhere taking over terrible programs or terrible teams and turning them around rather quickly. We're seeing things like "well last year was really year 0 for McMahon". "He probably wont get fired even if we dont make the tournament next year as long as we're still decent". Or things like "well we improved a lot from last year" just like your OP as if we're supposed to feel good about losing on our home floor in the NIT to a team we previously beat on a neutral floor earlier this season and now going to lose half our team and McMahon has to play the portal hard once again to see if he can get guys in here to win games. People are tired of hearing the excuses and just want to see results. No results, little fan support, bottom line.

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Can we get a real discussion on what the outlook of next years squad could look like?

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We have no idea what the personnel looks like right now because as previously said he will have to get anywhere between 4-6 players from the portal still and that will determine next season. McMahon has not recruited the high school ranks well enough to build anything there so we're still stuck going into year 3 hitting the portal hard to try and build a winning team. Which is absolutely fine if you can recruit the portal well enough to build a winning team there, but McMahon simply hasnt done that his first 2 years here, so this year will have to be different.

Either way, the expectation next season has to be NCAAT or bust regardless of what he does in the portal. If he cant make the NCAAT after 3 seasons here, what are we waiting on? Basketball is literally the easiest sport to turn things around and very quickly. Look what Wade just did in year 1 at a completely hapless McNeese St program. He blew that roster up, started from scratch and in less than a year has a NCAAT team with 30 wins. If McMahon is only going to take like 2 kids a year from high school and isnt getting it done in the portal for a third straight year we can simply get better results from someone else because we cant sit here and say "Well we're young and he's developing guys he's recruiting from high school" because that simply hasnt been the case. It's easier to have empathy if he recruited like 9-10 kids from high school in the 2022, 2023 and 2024 classes and needs to get them experience and build them up, but that's simply not the case. We're having to half blow up our roster going into year 3 and roll the dice in the portal once again.

There's a difference in how this season went and if we just were closer to being a bubble team and maybe even if we're still in the NIT looking good for a couple games there at least, not looking terrible on our home floor and just barely avoiding a double digit loss in the end...with frankly most of the supposed "Returning" players the ones not looking good while the players leaving seem to be the only ones doing anything in said game tonight.