Lusk making push to win back fan base

[BEARZ77]

While there's not a lot of enthusiastic support for Coach Paul Lusk at MSU heading into this season, and prospects for the 2015-2016 season remain guarded at best, he appears to making a push to gain back some support and to be perhaps moving beyond his comfort zone in addressing needed change. Reality is he probably has this year and next to salvage his job. While as noted this year looks limited in potential, this year's squad might surprise a bit and set the tone for a bigger leap next year.

Things started to change when Lusk went outside his norm and replaced two assistants with coaches outside his past relationships with Matt Sligh from Motlow State, and Corey Gibson from Austin Peay.The two have brought a lot of energy and now are starting to impact recruiting. In the past few weeks the Bears have added 3 verbals for 2016, and they represent what probably is Lusk's best class to date if he can get all three here [something that has been a challenge with Lusk recruits especially jucos]. All three are long lanky athletes in the 6'5-6'7 range who are versatile position wise at this point.

ALZIE JOHNSON 6'6 , Frank Phillips Juco in Texas [originally from Philadelphia]
JARRID RHODES 6'7, Northern Oklahoma College, [Fla. 7A player of the year as a senior in HS]

And today a really good get;

GREG WILLIAMS 6'6 PG, Genesis Academy [ offers from Southern Cal, Georgia, Auburn, Texas A&M, Virginia Tech, among others.

Still hoping that Lusk[ who seems to be a quality guy, just hasn't been a very good coach] is maturing and that this marks the start of some good things in the MBB program after a really tough stretch.

[Wufan]

While there's not a lot of enthusiastic support for Coach Paul Lusk at MSU heading into this season, and prospects for the 2015-2016 season remain guarded at best, he appears to making a push to gain back some support and to be perhaps moving beyond his comfort zone in addressing needed change. Reality is he probably has this year and next to salvage his job. While as noted this year looks limited in potential, this year's squad might surprise a bit and set the tone for a bigger leap next year.

Things started to change when Lusk went outside his norm and replaced two assistants with coaches outside his past relationships with Matt Sligh from Motlow State, and Corey Gibson from Austin Peay.The two have brought a lot of energy and now are starting to impact recruiting. In the past few weeks the Bears have added 3 verbals for 2016, and they represent what probably is Lusk's best class to date if he can get all three here [something that has been a challenge with Lusk recruits especially jucos]. All three are long lanky athletes in the 6'5-6'7 range who are versatile position wise at this point.

ALZIE JOHNSON 6'6 , Frank Phillips Juco in Texas [originally from Philadelphia]
JARRID RHODES 6'7, Northern Oklahoma College, [Fla. 7A player of the year as a senior in HS]

And today a really good get;

GREG WILLIAMS 6'6 PG, Genesis Academy [ offers from Southern Cal, Georgia, Auburn, Texas A&M, Virginia Tech, among others.

Still hoping that Lusk[ who seems to be a quality guy, just hasn't been a very good coach] is maturing and that this marks the start of some good things in the MBB program after a really tough stretch.

Good news for the Bears!

[heartless]

Good news for the Bears!

Good news for the Valley... If, and only if, Lusk is prepared to use the strengths of these kids and coach up their weaknesses.

I am not a fan of Lusk, but I will back him if he too, can learn from his mistakes.

[Championz]

Anymore 4 year predictions on this crop of players? Any bets on how they will pan out?

[pafan]

After Ron Mvouika and Darien Williams ended up at Saint John's, I'll be interested to see who has a better season.

The early leader in the clubhouse is Missouri State after St. John's rather embarrassing loss in exhibition tonight.

[BEARZ77]

Dorrian Williams is still at MSU; Mvouika was a tough decision because of his chronic back issue. Wanted to come back to MSU but no scholy was offered. Bears will have scoring issues in 2015/16, but may still surprise. Surprise meaning challenging for say 5th, not surprise in like contending for a title. Couple frosh to watch in supporting roles are Church and Dixon. Church has little offense but is ultra athletic and Dixon is 6'2 and rangy. His game grows on ya as he does a lot of little things well.

[mvcfan]

Dorrian Williams is still at MSU; Mvouika was a tough decision because of his chronic back issue. Wanted to come back to MSU but no scholy was offered. Bears will have scoring issues in 2015/16, but may still surprise. Surprise meaning challenging for say 5th, not surprise in like contending for a title. Couple frosh to watch in supporting roles are Church and Dixon. Church has little offense but is ultra athletic and Dixon is 6'2 and rangy. His game grows on ya as he does a lot of little things well.

I hope Bearz is right this time with his prediction. We need a competitive Bear team. Hopefully this prediction isn't an equally Fail one like his last one on here regarding Thurman, etc. ,etc. That one was embarrassing.

[Wufan]

Dorrian Williams is still at MSU; Mvouika was a tough decision because of his chronic back issue. Wanted to come back to MSU but no scholy was offered. Bears will have scoring issues in 2015/16, but may still surprise. Surprise meaning challenging for say 5th, not surprise in like contending for a title. Couple frosh to watch in supporting roles are Church and Dixon. Church has little offense but is ultra athletic and Dixon is 6'2 and rangy. His game grows on ya as he does a lot of little things well.

I hope Bearz is right this time with his prediction. We need a competitive Bear team. Hopefully this prediction isn't an equally Fail one like his last one on here regarding Thurman, etc. ,etc. That one was embarrassing.

As much fun as it is to bring up such an ultimate fail as that, I will come to his defense in that Marshall was an excellent scorer that had the potential to be All-Conference. He just didn't work out for MSU. He was wrong on Thurman, but we are all often times incorrect on freshman.

OTOH, Aargh made an incredible prediction about a RS walk-on and a highly hyped freshman that was likely beyond his intent. It's really Aargh's incredible prognostication that makes Bearz' prediction seem so bad in hind sight.

[BEARZ77]

Thanks Wufan, but I just laugh when the same people beat that horse every time I post. Again many have forgot that post happened early in the freshman year at a time Marshall and Thurman both had early season success . Baker was a rs walkon who was starting and VanVleet was backing up a senior. Not many of the people who take great pleasure in referencing that prediction currently, stepped up and argued the point at the time; I think most thought it would be a good battle. It proved a monumental miss on my part, but as with most things its so much easier to be an after the fact critic than a sage. And you're right while VanVleet was highly regarded, Baker unless you had seen him, was someone no one would have predicted this level of success for, so kudos to Aargh.

The other issue has been just how bad Lusk has been at developing the talent he has had, while Marshall obviously has proven to be rare in both identifying and developing talent for the Shox. We have a guy now in Kendrix who is very gitted athletically & who would probably excel under Marshall over 4 years, and we're all fearful will be another Lusk failure.

But as noted at the start of this thread, perhaps Lusk is maturing and finding his way; the talent will be there over the next 2-3 years for the Bears to succeed , so we can only hope.

[Aargh]

Lusk needs to win back his team before he tries to win back the fans.

Did Lusk replace his assistants, or did they bail, seeing the obvious lack of any future in basketball if they stuck with Lusk?