Claxton Finalist for Joe B Hall Award

[triplec2195]

https://gohofstra.com/news/2022/3/22/me ... award.aspx An award for first year coaching. Clearly he did a good job with a lot on his plate in his first year but had experienced coaches around him that deserve some of the credit as well.

[HUSID80]

I think he did a good job as a first year coach in building a roster almost from scratch, putting together a good staff, developing a good OOC schedule and winning 21 games...not a bad start!

[triplec2195]

Absolutely and most people would agree here but some would cast aspersions on the loss to Charleston but when you look at the body of work the near miss at Houston the win at Arkansas the close game at Maryland. He tried to meld a cohesive group that hadn't played together with very good players but players that had different needs and wants in their games. The undoing might have partially been the reconciliation of Ray and Cooks game. Both players were the stars of their schools and leading scorers Ray at least for last year after everyone graduated and Cooks for three years playing at NJIT. These guys needed to coexist and that was part of the problem but I think Cooks was a different player after he came back from the ankle injury. He seemingly was playing much better before the injury. Speedy was learning on the fly but he will be a better coach from the experience. Just need the right players here.

[joeg1]

Congrats to Speedy. It's tough to win without a good center, and he did what he could.

[triplec2195]

Congrats to Speedy. It's tough to win without a good center, and he did what he could.

Don't really think this was our issue here. Between Simmons and Iyiola we got got 11.3 points a game and 11 rebounds certainly adequate and that doesn't take into acct. Cramer's numbers when he played the 5. Forgot to mention the 44 blocks between the three. There r plenty of other issues that kept us from winning this league.

[Wags]

Congrats to Speedy. It's tough to win without a good center, and he did what he could.

It's different today as far the center position. Miami is in the Sweet 16, with a great chance to reach the Elite 8, playing basically positionless basketball, keyed by a bunch of guards and one key big who is a forward rather than a center.