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What has occurred over the last six seasons for LB MBB has left me despondent regarding the program's future. The majority of the causes were inflicted internally and others by the overall changes in the college sports environment. I don't see a way out of the bottom dweller status. I say invest in the other successful sports. 
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What has lead to this?
We have had a perfect storm of institutional lack of direction during the most transformational time in athletics history, with a coaching change that left the cupboard bare, and a new coach who missed on bringing together the last minute replacements. For years we had mediocre teams, so fan engagement was down, and the emphasis of retelling the LB history being told by Brotman pushed donors away. Plus, Jane's AD hire did very little (even if he probably had little power to do much), and new guy basically has pushed all long standing coaches who had attachments to donors out the door. The cupboard was and is bare on all fronts.
Then basketball wise, We were 350th out of 364 teams in minutes returning last year. Eastern Washington was 340. This year is going to be similar. Not really anything to look forward to besides my love of LB. And for now I'll keep wishing for the best. Need some early wins.
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Ended last season STRONG, but they lost some key players from last year's stretch run. Predicting they finish 3rd is a massive stretch. Previous Message
I agree. Anyone with good stats in the BW last year transferred to a bigger payday school, so for our conference, it's going to be a new roster every year, especially for the bottom dwellers in the BW, which we were last season. Fourteen new players at the Beach this year are way too many in my opinion. Previous Message
My only silver lining is that most teams have to deal with significant turnover. Previous Message
If we finish last when the staff had a whole year to attract BW level talent I may not keep donating to NIL. I don't think it's out of line to expect better when we have the advantages we should have in recruiting. Previous Message
MMM Big West Preseason Poll:
1. UC Irvine
2. UCSB
3. Cal Poly
4. UCSD
5. CSUN
6. UC Davis
7. Cal State Fullerton
8. Hawai’i
9. Cal State Bakersfield
10. UC Riverside
11. Long Beach State
League shouldn’t be as strong as last season but new faces all around, players and staff.
League is apparently down though overall. It can't be easy trying to prognosticate with all the annual movement.
We lost 15 in a row the end the season, and have only one returning player...is that good or bad on paper? Mix of both.
We have no 'go to guy' like we did last year with Askew. But we sucked last year because he was too ball dominant and it fractionalized the team. I've never seen a Beach team give up like they did in the gold mine v Fullerton. Total disarray.
Acker was brutal last year, guys didn't end up in the dog house they ended up in the morgue. He had a bad look, a bad year, and massive turnover. Again, probably a good thing.
If Acker focused on higher IQ (than we normally get) team first know your role type of guys, who thrive under a junkyard dog type of coach, and we go 10 deep and can play aggressively on defense, we may have something and last place may not happen.
Until I see something positive, I think our offense will be anemic so the defense to offense transition and offensive ball movement are going to be key. It will be interesting to watch if a guy or two elevate their offense and can be counted on in the last seconds.
What is DMX capable of? 15 pts 8 rebounds 2-3 blocks? He has to be one of our go to guys and I'd think they are focusing on developing his inside/outside game. His biggest problems are foul trouble, bad 3 pt%, and a lack of smooth go-to moves. His positives seem to be higher level athleticism, block timing, decent foul shooting for a DI big (70%), active rebounder, decent defender.
I can't make a case for any other ranking, last seems totally reasonable but it probably is reasonable for other teams as well.
Hope the squad gets riled up by this and works harder to overcome it.
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on 7/29/2025, 12:11 pm, in reply to "