At the end of every season, I like to take a look at what the Flyers did right and what the Flyers did wrong. I also like to take that information and try to figure out exactly what needs to happen the following season to see us playing deeper into March. This year, before I started putting all of this information together, I thought that I would take a look at what I had said about what might happen in the 2001-2002 season. So not to bore you with all of the gritty details, here are the last two paragraphs:

This team can be successful, but things will need to improve in a number of areas for that to happen. Another non-NCAA year will find the faithful becoming impatient. Oliver Purnell is an intelligent man and he knows what he needs to do to be successful. He will have to be a better coach next year to get us to the NCAA Tournament.

I tend to be a rather optimistic individual when it comes to the Flyers. Even in the lean years, I felt there was a chance that we could catch lightening in a bottle and somehow make the big dance. I’m not so optimistic about next year. Unless OP can pull a rabbit or two out of his recruiting hat, they will return to the NIT in 2002.

Geez, I hate to be right sometimes. When I pulled up this old document, I really didn’t know what to expect. Little did I know that I would be more accurate with my April prediction than I was with my November prediction. As I stated above, I do tend to be optimistic and I predicted that we would make it back to the NCAA Tournament when I put our season down on paper in November. But I made some poor assumptions that I will try to amend when I talk about next year.

More so than any other year in the time he has been in charge of the Flyers, Oliver Purnell needs to get every bit of production out of the team that he has hand picked to get us to the promised land of the NCAA top 64. This is not to say that he didn’t really want other, better players. The fact of the matter is that these are the ones that he thought were good enough to give $30,000+ scholarships to. These are the horses that he will either ride to the winner’s circle or into the sunset.

I say next year is pivotal because getting into the Big Dance with a large group of seniors can be done by less than skilled coaches (see Jim O’Brien). But getting there before they are seniors takes a much better coach. The fact that three juniors will start next year all but assures that they will start as seniors which will leave the cupboard potentially bare the following year (see Jim O’Brien). Purnell has been at UD long enough to make this team win next year.

In watching the Tournament games during the first four days of the extravaganza, a casual outside observer could only watch slack-jawed as talented 6′ 8″ players sped from defensive position to defensive position. You could see 6′ 4″ guards virtually jump out of the gym. Nearly every team had at least one go-to guy that could get off a makeable shot when it was needed. Open threes not only were made, but also were made when the game was on the line.

As a Flyer fan, you can talk yourself into a lot of things, but believing that we have great athletes on this team should not be one of them. It almost appears that they play the game in slow motion compared to some of these teams. I am not referring to an up and down game, I’m talking about how the Flyers move on the court when they play defense. Time after time, UD is burned by the three or burned by the lay-up when a player just can’t get to a defensive position in time.

This is not to say that the level of athlete has not been upgraded over the last eight years, because they have. The problem is that we are still light years behind the teams that make it to the Sweet 16. We have five players signed to national letters of intent, and a verba from Alex Carmona, yet there is little joy in Mudville because of the high likelihood that the two best players will be left out in the cold because of grades.

Purnell has been on the recruiting trail since the day that the season ended. There is some concern in-house about the lack of a pure point guard and a stud power forward in the current recruiting class. There are some potential solutions in the person of Logan White and James Cripe. Both, however, do not satisfy the immediate need. White is more of a combo guard as is Marques Bennett, while Cripe is probably a year away from really contributing. He could be used in an emergency, but a year of red shirting is almost a necessity due to his newness to the game and the need to add some muscle.

The name of Warren Williams has been brought up by several as a possible answer to our needs at point guard. This is a name that only recently surfaced but is one that could be very important to the future of this program. He brings the ability to distribute the ball with the ability to score from the outside. Although Mark Jones showed flashes of brilliance, he is not cast in stone as the starting point guard for 2002-2003.

The jury is still out on the potential contributions that the four signed and qualified players will bring. Bennett has been the highest scoring of the trio. He was named player of the year in his region and that is nothing to sneeze at, but some observers also state that he does not give it 100% when he plays and that his outside shot lacks consistency. Cripe has a huge upside, but more than likely he needs to red-shirt and improve his inside skills. White is a scorer that likes to play the point. These are three, good, serviceable players. On the surface, however, they do not appear to be the type of players that will force their ways into the starting lineup.

Alex Carmona and Doug Scott are two names to remember. They may be names to remember because they may never wear the UD uniform. Neither has gotten the required grades and UD has a terrible history when it comes to letting that type of student into the school. If there is one hand that is tied behind Purnell’s back, it is that one. We need to change the way we look at partial and non-qualifiers if we want to play with the big boys. Until we bring in some of the student athletes that have struggles either in school or on their SAT, we can forget moving to that “next level.”

With all of this in mind, our success next year will revolve around what we get from the wings and point guard. College basketball has been a game of guards since the three-point field goal was recognized for its potential. With that in mind, I think our inside game will be improved as long as we stay out of foul trouble, which is a big concern. Both Green and Finn are foul machines and the thought of only having three big men is scary to say the least.

Mark Jones fooled me during the preseason scrimmages. The reason that I thought that we could go to the Dance was because of what he showed. I really felt that he was a diamond in the rough and would eventually run Morris out of the starting position. I was wrong. Morris turned into an assist machine and Jones looked like a freshman. The thing that Morris lacked, and that was the ability to score, eventually killed us. There are not too many teams that can afford to play somebody 30+ minutes a game that shoots 25% from the field.

I didn’t have a whole lot going on last night so I watched the UD/UK game from two years ago. It was amazing the difference that I saw in Morris. He went from being a one speed, poor judgment type of player to one that you just knew would never make a turnover and was more than capable of breaking down the press and making a great pass. We can only hope that the same type of makeover happens to Jones. If not, options exist.

I am not too crazy about having a freshman run the point on a team that hopes to be dancing. White, Bennett, and possibly even Williams could potentially fill that roll. I would feel more comfortable with Marshall running the point and one of the other wings playing the two-guard position. I like Marshall at the point because it opens up so many other things. I can live with a Bennett or White playing the two for a year and then moving over if they have the ability.

Amazingly, I have written over 1,500 words and have not mentioned Brooks Hall’s name. Probably the most talked about player with significant over-expectations that we have had in decades. Here is a kid that was supposed to lead us to that mysterious “next level.” The differences in the high school and the college game have exposed Brooks’ holes. He will never be the savior that we all expected. He had unbelievable expectations laid on him and it didn’t help that his recruitment got us on the NCAA naughty list.

Despite all of this, Hall is one of the best all-around players we have had since Jim Paxson, Jr. He can shoot, defend, rebound, and pass. His biggest problem is that he cannot do any of those to an extreme. Because of that, he will never be good enough to most fans. But he will be the player that can get us into the NCAA Tournament next year. He will have to be THE leader next year. He will have to be the player that says, “Give me the ball, I want to win this game.” If he does, there is enough talent surrounding him to get us into the second weekend of NCAA play. If he doesn’t become that type of player, I could be one of 6,000 or so fans watching us play Toledo in an opening round NIT game at the Arena in March.