I kinda feel like basketball could be on a similar trajectory as football. Hear me out...
Drink came in the first year (December 2019) and made waves in his first season in 2020 being better than we thought he'd be with that team, even with a COVID season, but everyone had to deal with that. Gates came in and did similarly, had a much better season in 2023 than we thought he would have and overachieved with that roster.
Then Drink fell off in 2021 and had a 6-7 season (3-5 in conference) and obviously so did Gates in a similar fashion. However, what i think about is how Drink got time to build things out and has some solid recruiting classes and ended up breaking through. I think Gates can do the same. He's got a top 5 recruiting class coming in and a good start to the '25 class as well with Rowe.
I think we can see some of that improvement when there's time to build and develop combined with good transfer portal shopping by Gates (as Drink did) as well as good HS classes to go with it.
I'll also say, I know football and basketball are obviously two different animals but I think it just goes to the time factor along with good recruiting which Drink has shown can work and Dennis I think is a similar style guy in terms of hard nosed recruiting so I hope we can see similar things in basketball as we saw in football leading to a break out season. I think its probably easier to do faster in basketball too given the size of the roster, etc. Hopefully the new AD can give Dennis the time Drink got (and most coaches should get). Just my two cents.
Drink came in the first year (December 2019) and made waves in his first season in 2020 being better than we thought he'd be with that team, even with a COVID season, but everyone had to deal with that. Gates came in and did similarly, had a much better season in 2023 than we thought he would have and overachieved with that roster.
Then Drink fell off in 2021 and had a 6-7 season (3-5 in conference) and obviously so did Gates in a similar fashion. However, what i think about is how Drink got time to build things out and has some solid recruiting classes and ended up breaking through. I think Gates can do the same. He's got a top 5 recruiting class coming in and a good start to the '25 class as well with Rowe.
I think we can see some of that improvement when there's time to build and develop combined with good transfer portal shopping by Gates (as Drink did) as well as good HS classes to go with it.
I'll also say, I know football and basketball are obviously two different animals but I think it just goes to the time factor along with good recruiting which Drink has shown can work and Dennis I think is a similar style guy in terms of hard nosed recruiting so I hope we can see similar things in basketball as we saw in football leading to a break out season. I think its probably easier to do faster in basketball too given the size of the roster, etc. Hopefully the new AD can give Dennis the time Drink got (and most coaches should get). Just my two cents.
