Building a new roster

[tsull]

Every player but one guy on the Western Oregon roster is gone. The Wolves graduated two guys and thankfully the other guys transferred out as we were not very good the last couple years, to be honest we were really, really bad. The most disappointing thing as I've noted here it was the entitlement of these guys, who are pretty impressed with themselves but never played hard. I've seen losing teams at Western Oregon and other places still play hard and not be so impressed with their pregame warm-ups. These guys weren't like that.

How would you build a roster? We are way, way down right now, the lowest point in decades. I really hope it's not 10 portal guys. We need an identity and I think that identity starts with players from Oregon. We've also had some good Washington players over the years. Our ventures into California the past few years have been a colossal failure. We are in Oregon state school, funded by Oregon taxpayers. Can we start there?

I'm willing to give the new coach a few years to build it, heck I gave Pifer 4 years before I really started getting angry with the program. I would hope they'd start with some high school guys, since Portland State University UP, Oregon, and Oregon State, hardly recruit in state anymore. There's players out there to get.

There's three guys in the Salem area I would take, who I saw play this year and I believe they all can play division 2. Fom Sprague High School, their point guard is one of the best passing point guards I've seen at the high school level. He's also 6'3. His teammate is 6'4 and jumping jack shooting guard/wing extremely talented, he's probably more of a D1 guy but I like to see Western Oregon go on him. There's a smaller school guy who averaged 28 this year and I think 25 last year, 6'3 guy who can really shoot it. I'd also go on him. Some of our most successful teams in the last 10 years had some great in-state high school players.

I'm not saying ignore the junior college ranks or transfers. Certainly Central Washington had some tremendous transfer players this year and won the league. So you can't ignore that. I just like to see a foundation of Oregon high school players, followed by Washington High School players, then transfers.

[CWU Wildcat Nation]

Like Central did last season and Western this season, you definitely need to have a good core of freshmen to build around. Find some of those good Oregon high school players that you were wanting and build around them. Maybe the team won't be competitive for another season or two, but when they get to that point then they will be great to follow again. Then adds transfers to compliment them and have that more immediate experience to carry the team in the meantime.

[tsull]

Like Central did last season and Western this season, you definitely need to have a good core of freshmen to build around. Find some of those good Oregon high school players that you were wanting and build around them. Maybe the team won't be competitive for another season or two, but when they get to that point then they will be great to follow again. Then adds transfers to compliment them and have that more immediate experience to carry the team in the meantime.

Great post, thanks. I'd rather build a PROGRAM than a portal. We need a foundation and we need a community. I always harken back to when St. Martin's showed up with three Salem players on their team a couple years ago. Each one had huge games for the Saints, they won by 20 or more, AND they brought at least 100 fans with them. WOU fans aren't just going to show up because we turned on the lights and tipped-off the ball. You have to be competitive and you need an identity. We have neither.

We're attracting some talented applicants, but the school said the search won't be done until mid- to late-April. Yikes, kind of WOUesque, however. We erred big time in not hiring one of Shaw's assistants, he had two great ones, both are now D1 assistant coaches.

[D2Rover]

WWU women have had great success recently bringing in transfers originally from Washington that initially went out-of-state to play D1. A lot of those players when they enter the portal can be convinced to come back closer to home. Not sure why that isn't something I see more across D2, can't think of anywhere else that I've noticed it. Maybe Washington is just producing more of those types.

[tsull]

WWU women have had great success recently bringing in transfers originally from Washington that initially went out-of-state to play D1. A lot of those players when they enter the portal can be convinced to come back closer to home. Not sure why that isn't something I see more across D2, can't think of anywhere else that I've noticed it. Maybe Washington is just producing more of those types.

A few years ago this was part of Jim Shaw's formula when he had two 31-win seasons in 4 years in Monmouth. Except his players were mostly D2 transfers from other schools like the big post from McMinnville Oregon, who was at Point Loma; the really great defensive point guard from Humboldt State, who was from Eugene, and a few others.

He had a D1 transfer from Army in Tanner Omlid, who was a D2 All American and from Monmouth. Coach Brady Bergeson also signed some excellent high chool guys from in-state, including a guy from the smallest division in Jordan Wiley, who started every game of his collegiate career. He was from Blue River. Wes Pifer refused to take Oregon kids, it got around the state pretty quickly. He wouldn't have taken Omlid because he was from Oregon, or he would not have taken Avgi, the other All-American because he was from a small town in Oregon. That's how close-minded he was. Nice guy but he and his staffs were extremely arrogant in recruiting locally.

This attitude needs to end now.

* The current women's coaches also don't believe in recruiting the state, which is one of their many problems.