Professional and College Basketball Forums banner

Maine fans: a plea for sanity

17K views 120 replies 26 participants last post by  basketball_Maine 
#1 ·
Hi, my name is ccd494 and I like to discuss Maine basketball. I think there are numerous topics that are interesting and worthy of discussion, including the pace and space style of play Walsh has adopted and whether that was an indication of his intent to continue to play that way moving forward or a response to the personnel on the roster; the large number of guards on the roster and whether that is an intentional decision or just a product of taking the best player available; whether the team's continued inability to defend is something to be concerned about in the future, and many other topics.

However, I have a problem, and that problem is that any discussion of University of Maine basketball occurs on the Maine high school basketball website. I CANNOT visit that site. I think that most of the posters here would agree I am fairly reasonable. I can get grouchy at times, but I can generally converse at an adult level. Visiting the MBR forum makes me want to destroy my computer/tablet/iphone/whatever device I am using at the time.

My issues are numerous. First, it delves into high school sports at an incredibly creepy level. I don't need to know what is going on behind the scenes at a certain high school. I don't need a parent rant about why his kid's coach is a moron. I don't need to, in any way, hear about the inner politics of Maine AAU basketball.

Second, the amount of old white dudes convinced (CONVINCED) that if they were in their primes right now they would walk on the court and beat the University of Maine in a game of five on five is ridiculous. Nevermind that they never shot a jumper and instead were putting up two hand set shots. Never mind that there was no three point line when they played (an innovation they despise). Never mind that the most athletic player on the court could barely elevate and touch the peach basket they were playing with. But because Stearns High in 1952 was able to go down and compete with Boston Latin, that means that Stearns High of 2016 could run top New England prep schools off the court if they just had some fundamentals.

Third, and god, the fundamentals vs. athleticism discussion. These old guys who rant and rave about basketball today will not stop telling you how bad "athletes" are at basketball. Now, mind you, by athlete they mean black people. Their ideal point guard for UMaine is a 5'5" kid named Dustin Cole, who (rightfully) did not get a scholarship offer. But, he's a Mainer, he's white, he can't dunk, he's the platonic ideal of a basketball player.

Which leads me to point four, perhaps the biggest reason I feel ostracized from the UMaine basketball fan community. I WAKE UP EVERY DAY HOPING TO READ BOB CIMBOLLEK'S OBITUARY. This post is already longer than is reasonable to expect anyone to read, so I won't go into the 75 points that lead to my hatred of Maine's most overrated basketball coach, player and official. But his command and control of the UMaine message board to post his official reasons why things would be better if he were in charge is the world's largest exercise in delusion this side of Marco Rubio's presidential campaign. And even worse, he somehow has a blog on the Bangor Daily News website. His ubiquity is matched only by his idiocy.

So, please, reasonable Maine basketball fans, I beg you. Start posting here. Get off that high school board. I need recruiting updates! I need to know if Garret Beal is alive! I need someone to argue about the merits of playing an 85 possession basketball game with! My blood pressure needs to not skyrocket whenever I give in and check MBR, and the only way to avoid that is not to need to check MBR!
 
See less See more
#2 ·
Hi. I'm right there with you. At least there a few that try to keep him in check over there but my god, it seems he creates at least 15 different threads a day and they basically all say the same thing. I do find the not-so-subtle racial undertones to be a little disturbing, not only in their presence but also the fact that it is allowed to continually be posted by him.
 
#6 ·
Can you explain to me how the complaint that certain threads stray off-topic (when there is often no relation to the topic) is akin to wanting insular discussion?

Certainly this board is great in allowing fan bases of all conference teams to share opinions. Still, if posters want to shift primary Maine basketball discussions here they should be prepared to also discuss players on opposing teams and the fact that UVM probably could have recruited said players if it weren't for a better player already committing. In. Every. Thread.

The other issue we would run into when using this board for primary discussion is that there are a few posters here who are even less self aware than Bob Cimbollek. Please refer to post #5 in this topic
 
#8 ·
Unless those opinions aren't what someone wants to read of course- then it's a problem. See: your posts.

It was a discussion on UNH and Fairfield- UNH' opponent in the game, and the comment was on a Fairfield player with a tie to UVM- pretty benign, but again if that upsets your sensibilities then this board really isn't for you.

Every thread on this board eventually veers off-topic the longer it runs, some get re-routed back on course, some don't etc.
 
#7 ·
Their ideal point guard for UMaine is a 5'5" kid named Dustin Cole, who (rightfully) did not get a scholarship offer. But, he's a Mainer, he's white, he can't dunk, he's the platonic ideal of a basketball player.
Lol'd hard at this, I looked him up to see if he was real or just a comic creation. He plays at Franklin Pierce and averaged 3 ppg this season.

I'm still pretty high on that Bob fella you got coaching up there. I've seen him at RIC before and plus... well Maine coaches named "Walsh" just seem to be a good bet :)
 
#14 ·
Is that what you are referring to Zonid? Lol...
 
  • Like
Reactions: SB patriot
#20 ·
With Danny Evans signing his LOI this week, I count 11 scholarships in use next year, plus Majstorovic sitting out the year. I don't know if Melmed/Bernstein/Ashley are using scholarships or not:

SR: Reid-Knight, Beal, Pirovic
JR: Myers, Calixte, Little (Melmed walkon?)
SO: Eke, Stoj.., Eze (Majstorovic sitting, transfer) (Bernstein/Ashley walkon)
FR: Evans, Fleming
 
This post has been deleted
This post has been deleted
#24 ·
The dude who owns that site is not worth arguing with.

The only interesting thing on there was the guy who invented the rating system (now at mainebasketballrankings.com) and the owner ran him off. Now the only discussions on his site are about how basketball was better in the 1950's and high school basketball refereeing. He can have it.
 
#28 ·
Reminds me of a co-worker years ago when the UVM women had that long multi season unbeaten streak. He insisted that the women would beat the UVM men's team. Now the men were mediocre then, but they had a several players over 6'8", and were around .500 in league. I tried to convince this guy that not only would the men absolutely crush the women, the women would have trouble beating most Vermont boys high school teams. Sheer physicality. But this guy would not be swayed. He would fit right in on that MBR board.
 
#35 ·
There were so many injuries to key players on that team, I don't know how you could possibly judge whether Walsh is the answer. That combined with the fact that Maine isn't going to pay him to go away made it an easy decision. If Walsh manages to keep a mostly intact roster next year but still struggles to win 10 games than all bet's are off.
 
#36 ·
Maine has definitely had some unfortunate stuff happen- transfers of key talent, incredible number of injuries that's somewhat bizarre given the volume and frequency, the lock room fiasco this year- but at some point, someone has to be held accountable for that and it's the head coach.

The reality is that Maine isn't any better today then they were when Walsh took over- so I'm really not sure what the AD is going to base his decision off next season.
 
#39 ·
People don't like my argument of how it takes 6 years best case scenario to turn a program around and compete for a championship. I think UNH has proven my point quite well. A good recruiting class did not have them competing for a championship but brought them to a respectable program. They now need to continue the success but I'm not sure I've seen Herrion building on this turn around yet.
 
#40 ·
Sure, but even when UNH had those really bad years, they at least defended. Maine's defensive specialty is to not defend apparently. I respected how bad UNH teams played more than I can possibly respect how Maine plays on the defensive end of the court.

Also, a big reason, and I eluded to it earlier, but Herrion and company found the angle that fits and works for UNH to get successful. Maybe it took too long for them but they found it. They started recruiting Texas. They weren't going to win battles in the NE prep scene because kids around here knew it wasn't a successful program, so it was hard to even get in the front door. So, they convinced enough kids from there who wanted an opportunity to play to trek all the way up to New England, and probably didn't care so much for UNH's rep as much as they wanted to play. They got an all-conference player out of that, and have won 20 games in back-to-back seasons, and now, they can get in the door perhaps in New England, and show that you can in fact compete there.

Walsh probably had some grand vision that he'd find this talent and be on his way in year 3, but he didn't account for that talent leaving/not liking Orono/knowing they have the option to get out, and seemingly didn't take a larger picture approach, which is to say see what worked for Maine before (JUCOs/transfers/international), and find a way to make it work for you.

Nothing wrong with Maine giving the guy a longer leash because of the lack of success, but, Ted Woodward put together a double digit win seasons. It's completely reasonable to feel that next year if Walsh doesn't do that, he's not the man for the job.
 
This post has been deleted
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top