I haven't engaged with anyone about Ron Hunter or the basketball team in a long time because most fans have already made their decision about him and nothing I say will change anyone's mind.
There's no defending what happened last year, when an unwanted trip to China over the summer to represent the U.S. in the World University Games ended up hurting more than helping because no one appeared to enjoy the experience other than Sion James and the team was worn out from that venture by the time the season started. Jaylon Forbes and Kevin Cross, the latter of which played well for the season, did not want to be in college anymore, and the entire team vibe was bad, a problem Hunter never came close to solving. It was bad. Really bad.
BUT, and there's always a but when it comes to Hunter in my view, there have been far too many misconceptions and falsehoods about him as a coach during his Tulane tenure. Let's start with the universally accepted idea his matchup zone is a failure that cannot work at this level and should be abandoned. Hmm. Tulane's defense has been off-the-charts good this year. It's amazing how much of a difference it makes when you have athletic defenders who compete every night. Temple won for years with its matchup zone under John Chaney. Tulane's problem was having poor defenders rather than the system.
The other is Hunter's record itself. His teams in 2021-22 and 2022-23 were Tulane's best this century if you consider 1999-2000 as part of the last century. Tulane finished fifth and third in the AAC before Houston and Cincinnati left, advancing to the AAC tourney semis both years. Heck, even last year's embarrassing 5-13 group played better than all of Finney's, Dickerson's, Conroy's and Dunleavy's teams, which never, ever beat anyone good or were even competitive with the top teams in their leagues. This group beat Memphis for its first win against a top-25 opponent since 1999 and was a fluke shot away from beating tourney-bound FAU.
Hunter can coach. He was demonstrably more successful as his previous two stops than his predecessors and successors, and although the bar was set incredibly low, he has been better than his four most recent predecessors at Tulane. Where he has fallen short is talent evaluation--running off Jordan Walker, thinking Oton Jankovic could be a difference-maker and misfiring on several transfers he thought would be better than they were to supplement the core guys who were successful--and recruiting guys who wanted to and were capable of playing defense, until this year.
I don't know what will happen in the rest of the season, but if Tulane wins at Temple Sunday, I would not put winning the conference out of play. This team has to prove it can take its act on the road, but good defense usually travels and the schedule in the weak AAC is watered down even more by the fact Tulane was not considered a contender by the schedule-makers, so it faces Memphis and North Texas only once. South Florida took advantage of its easy schedule a year ago to win the league's regular-season championship going away. If you consider that a pipe dream, a top four seed in the conference tournament definitely is possible, which would guarantee a double bye into the quarterfinals,
Even winning the regular-season title, though, would not put Tulane anywhere close to an NCAA bid after its abysmal non-conference performance against a very soft schedule. The only path there is winning the league tourney. But after two blowout wins of awful Charlotte and bad UTSA, I could tell this team was different even considering the lack of quality of the opponent. This team competes for rebounds, plays excellent defense, has a willing go-to scorer in Kaleb Banks, a real point guard in Rowan Brumbaugh, a talented freshman with a pure shot in Kam Williams and a very versatile post player in Gregg Glenn. They play hard, too. Asher Woods is not the most talented guy in the world, but he does not let guards get by him and plays with confidence on offense even though he has a limited game.
It is hard to win at Tulane in basketball because of Devlin Fieldhouse and the negative reaction it produces with recruits. I'd love to say this Tulane team is built to win big next year regardless of what happens this season, but who the heck knows which players will stay or transfer in the era of buy-a-player? All I can say is this team will be fun to watch the rest of the year, which has only been the case twice since I moved back to New Orleans in January of 2008. Both of those times came under Hunter.
Maybe, just maybe, I will start getting as many replies to my tweets when Tulane is winning as I do when Tulane is losing. At the moment it's not even close.
There's no defending what happened last year, when an unwanted trip to China over the summer to represent the U.S. in the World University Games ended up hurting more than helping because no one appeared to enjoy the experience other than Sion James and the team was worn out from that venture by the time the season started. Jaylon Forbes and Kevin Cross, the latter of which played well for the season, did not want to be in college anymore, and the entire team vibe was bad, a problem Hunter never came close to solving. It was bad. Really bad.
BUT, and there's always a but when it comes to Hunter in my view, there have been far too many misconceptions and falsehoods about him as a coach during his Tulane tenure. Let's start with the universally accepted idea his matchup zone is a failure that cannot work at this level and should be abandoned. Hmm. Tulane's defense has been off-the-charts good this year. It's amazing how much of a difference it makes when you have athletic defenders who compete every night. Temple won for years with its matchup zone under John Chaney. Tulane's problem was having poor defenders rather than the system.
The other is Hunter's record itself. His teams in 2021-22 and 2022-23 were Tulane's best this century if you consider 1999-2000 as part of the last century. Tulane finished fifth and third in the AAC before Houston and Cincinnati left, advancing to the AAC tourney semis both years. Heck, even last year's embarrassing 5-13 group played better than all of Finney's, Dickerson's, Conroy's and Dunleavy's teams, which never, ever beat anyone good or were even competitive with the top teams in their leagues. This group beat Memphis for its first win against a top-25 opponent since 1999 and was a fluke shot away from beating tourney-bound FAU.
Hunter can coach. He was demonstrably more successful as his previous two stops than his predecessors and successors, and although the bar was set incredibly low, he has been better than his four most recent predecessors at Tulane. Where he has fallen short is talent evaluation--running off Jordan Walker, thinking Oton Jankovic could be a difference-maker and misfiring on several transfers he thought would be better than they were to supplement the core guys who were successful--and recruiting guys who wanted to and were capable of playing defense, until this year.
I don't know what will happen in the rest of the season, but if Tulane wins at Temple Sunday, I would not put winning the conference out of play. This team has to prove it can take its act on the road, but good defense usually travels and the schedule in the weak AAC is watered down even more by the fact Tulane was not considered a contender by the schedule-makers, so it faces Memphis and North Texas only once. South Florida took advantage of its easy schedule a year ago to win the league's regular-season championship going away. If you consider that a pipe dream, a top four seed in the conference tournament definitely is possible, which would guarantee a double bye into the quarterfinals,
Even winning the regular-season title, though, would not put Tulane anywhere close to an NCAA bid after its abysmal non-conference performance against a very soft schedule. The only path there is winning the league tourney. But after two blowout wins of awful Charlotte and bad UTSA, I could tell this team was different even considering the lack of quality of the opponent. This team competes for rebounds, plays excellent defense, has a willing go-to scorer in Kaleb Banks, a real point guard in Rowan Brumbaugh, a talented freshman with a pure shot in Kam Williams and a very versatile post player in Gregg Glenn. They play hard, too. Asher Woods is not the most talented guy in the world, but he does not let guards get by him and plays with confidence on offense even though he has a limited game.
It is hard to win at Tulane in basketball because of Devlin Fieldhouse and the negative reaction it produces with recruits. I'd love to say this Tulane team is built to win big next year regardless of what happens this season, but who the heck knows which players will stay or transfer in the era of buy-a-player? All I can say is this team will be fun to watch the rest of the year, which has only been the case twice since I moved back to New Orleans in January of 2008. Both of those times came under Hunter.
Maybe, just maybe, I will start getting as many replies to my tweets when Tulane is winning as I do when Tulane is losing. At the moment it's not even close.
