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Sonic98 writes:

in response to bartlett79:


I think Pastner has done a very good job. You indicated several players who missed portions of the year but two were role players (Carmouche and Hall), one was addition by subtraction (Kendrick) and one played in almost all the marquee non-league games (Thomas). Depending on the recruiting service you use, Memphis had six players (Jackson, Thomas, Black, Crawford, Barton, Simpson) that were top 50 players coming out of HS/JC. With that talent, I think it's still a fair point that Pastner has to prove it against elite competition. As bad as UT was last year, they beat 4 teams that were ranked/had significantly more talent than them. I think you do raise a valid point about Pastner becoming more valuable as some of the older coaches retire. Good luck this season.

1. Name one coach who hasn't had a class or a couple players that looked a lot better on paper than in real life. OMG did you really say Simpson? Come on anyone being truly objective knows that not every player we brought here was as good as a top 3 class would leave us to believe they are. So, you think Cal "coached up" Rose, CDR, Evans, Irvin, and Davis. All his best players basically came in and left out being the players they were going to be anyway. He doesn't do many players that are a project or need to be developed. That's probably why he limited his Memphis recruiting.

2. Everyone wants to talk about UT and some of the Cinderella tournament teams. When you have no pressure on you, it's easier to pull off an upset. I don't think STL would have beaten us if they were heavy favorites. They went into the game playing like they had nothing to lose. The same can be said for UT and VCU. Plus, UT is very familiar with those 4 teams they beat and I think two of those wins were at home. UT is tough to beat at home even when they totally $uck. And we beat that team that beat 4 teams that supposedly were so much better than them(and I have no idea how much veteran experience their team had), not once but twice last season, not to mention a sweet 16 team with some flat out shooters. Even some of the teams we lost to had decent tournaments. Trying to compare 2 or 3 coaches in completely different situations really can't tell you a whole lot.
