On basketball improvement...

[engie]

I wouldn't be mad if we hired a new coach this year. I'm nowhere near sold ray can get us where we need to be. I just don't think there's any way we fire Ray, so I'm trying to keep an open mind and hope for the best

Exactly. The upside of firing him immediately is the probability of(at least short term) renewed fan support, assuming we got off our asses and got someone that everyone could be excited about.

I still think 3 years is too quick of trigger in basketball for a school in our position to get and retain a desirable coach unless we overpay bigtime -- especially with the moderate improvement that has been shown, which was really the worst case scenario IMO as far as the fanbase goes. Especially when one year was a definite throw away and you could argue that 2 were at least partial throw aways. So, he's really had 1.5 years here, and Stricklin is prettymuch calling it one year.

I agree with D61 -- our seniors-to-be "are what they are" which is talented(but not well rounded) athletes without alot of basketball savvy that are prone to mental lapses and have not shown any semblance of consistent mental toughness. I don't know if what we see from them is what Ray teaches or not -- I do know that he comes off as basketball intelligent when he speaks about stuff at length. He notices the same issues we do. It could be argued that he should have fixed them quicker or done a better job evaluating and recruiting, and I'd tentatively agree. Tentatively because it seems we were very toxic on the recruiting trail for his first couple of years and it took Ray awhile to figure out and build his newtork here. Let's not forget -- his predecessor didn't find immediate success here, and he'd built his network at MSU for 9 years prior to getting the job.

Ray's fate still lies with Malik to an extent. I realize everyone is saying we don't have a chance -- but I won't buy in to all of that until he's signed elsewhere. That's the quickest way to win back the fanbase and get extended here. That opens the door to Kegler at least to an extent. Get one of those two -- and your back to recruiting on peak Stansbury levels here. Malik takes our mid 40s 2015 class and turns it into a top 25 2015 class.